Free and impartial Thoughts on the Dangers to be apprehended from the Increase of Sectarists in this Kingdom, and the Evils arising from the Want of Places of Worship for the Lower Orders of the Community. By a Cordial Approver of the Doctrines, and Well-wishers to the Prosperity of the Church of England. 8vo. pp. 84, Price 2s. 6d. Taylor and Hessey, 1808. The subjects treated of in this pamphlet are confessedly important in the estimation of well-wishers to our established church. We exceedingly regret the apparent truth of the observation, that our clergy manifest too little earnestness in executing the sacred duties of their office. Foreigners have remarked, that though their sermons contain excellent arguments, and are correct and well-digested discourses, yet for want of a proper animation and fervour in the delivery of them, they fall greatly short of their intended effect. This, most certainly, is not the fault of those known by the distinction of gospel-preachers. -This author thinks, that even the extravagance of t their opinions tends to lead captive the ignorant."-We confess, that we have seen instances of John Bull's cullibility in religious matters, that excited our pity; whether the subjects of that pity were wholly answerable for their own ignorance, is a question equally delicate and important. Young persons are left to spend their hours just as they please, go where they will, and associate with whatever characters they hap pen to fall in with on Sundays. Apprentices, from the refined manners, increased opulence and dissipated habits of the age, do not live under the roof of their masters; but are placed in boarding-houses, &c. So far are tion for striplings, from taking any care to the keepers of such places of accommoda. see them in the temple of God, that they generally make it an article in their agree. ment, that they shall have no concern with them on the day dedicated to the worship of the Almighty. I have known persons of good principles surprise me with their ideas on this subject. To causes such as these, and to the general anxiety of the citizens to obtain the refreshment of a little air and exercise, after the fatigues of the week, is ascribed the thin attendance of the churches in the city on a Sunday; where, certainly, no additional places of worship are required. But, observes the writer, the Presbyterians have as good health and spirits as churchinen, and you will not find them absent from their meeting on the Sabbath day." The following picture of one of the western parishes of the metropolis, where the accommodation for public worship cannot fail of making an impression on bears no proportion to the population, the mind of the serious reader. If from the city we direct our attention We have on sundry occasions admitted to the west end of the town, the want of reproofs of that inattention to the accomaccommodation for the poor in our places modation of the poor, which, we had of worship, is most lamentable. To bealmost said, distinguishes this country. and the most numerously inhabited parish gin with the largest, the most opulent, We cannot even in private life behold in the metropolis or its environs, a parish without disgust, that holding of scales to in which, perhaps, there, are nearly three weigh the respective wealth of persons in, thousand interments with a proportionate which a foreign writer says is the occupa- number of births, marriages, &c. every year. tion of every Englishman: but in the The living, the curacy, or whatever it is more immediate presence of the Almighty, called, of Mary-le-bone, is the best piece of where every such notion ought to be auni- preferment in London. What is the church hilated by a sense of inunite inferiority, attached to this monstrous, overgrown parish? the maintenance of it partakes of the nature place more resembling a dove-cot, or a pigeon-house than a church. Yet in this of sacrilege. As Christians and English-church, small, and otherwise incommodious, men we must take the liberty of pressing this on the consideration and consciences. of all who desire the prosperity of their country; which, most surely, is strongly connected with the popularity of true and undissembled religion." The following remarks, relating to what the author justly terms a serious evil, are deserving of attention :- * It was debated by Mr. W, Mr. Hthey should exclude all visitors on a Sunday? C-, and other religious characters, whether The question was determined in the negative, from the consideration, that a number of the sons of distant friends would be left to spend the day as they pleased who, by visiting them, were taken to church and made to pass it in a decorous and profitable manner. as it is, with an aisle in which two persons cannot conveniently meet and pass each other, with a diminutive altar, funerals, christenings, churchings, and marriages, are performed, to the exclusion and defiance of every thing that is venerable, every thing that is decent, every thing that is proper. Within the narrow precincts of this confined puny building, it is not uncommon to see ten or a dozen dead bodies laid across the pews, six or seven women just recovered from a situation which requires the most delicate attention, and when any spectacle that impresses melancholy ideas upon the mind, may be of the greatest injury; the same number of children with their sponsors, gossips, nurses, &c. all huddled together, and presenting a scene of confusion and irreverence, that cannot be expressed; the cries of infants, the tears of relatives mourning for their departed friends, and the joyful countenance of the attendants on the young Christians, as they are called, with these most decorous of all characters undertakers and their men; form such a group, such a motley mixture of those who are just gone out of the world and those who are just come into it, of those who weep and those who rejoice, as description nay even the imagination, cannot reach: the spectacle must be seen, to be conceived. This apology for a church cannot afford the smallest accommodation for the poor, nay it has not even standing room. Take the chapels into the account in this vast parish; they are all intended for the opulent, and very well filled by the higher orders of society. They are all however, renal, all speculations. You must pay and pay handsomely to be seated u them. Many of those chapels have a railing and gate across the middle aisle, to exclude the lower members of society, standing room is the very best which the poor have in any of them. Are not the lower orders of society to go to Heaven as well as the wealthy? but can they, in general, be expected to assemble in the house of God, where they must undergo much corporal fatigue. Take the pitiful building, the parish opprobrium, and the people's inconvenience, called the church; the chapel on Lisson Green, Brunswick, Quebec, Port man, Welbeck, Oxford, Portland, and-Margaret street chapels; what a small proportion of sixty-five thousand persons will they contain? and what a very small proportion of •the inferior ranks of the community. There is not one of these chapels parochial; there is not one of them consecrated, except Quebec: no bishop has episcopal jurisdiction in this immense parish. Consider and deplore the shameful negligence to the instruction of the poor, and wonder, if you can, at their falling off to the methodists, the anabaptists, &c. and to no religion at all. Again: if we consider the provision made for the spiritual wants of the people, as to the praying with the sick, baptizing infants in a dangerous state of health, &c. The minister of Mary-le-bone Sir Richard Kay, is confessedly no longer capable of discharging the functions of the priesthood, to perform all the parochial offices of every kind in this huge district, three clergymen only are appointed. One of them is chiefly engaged in burying the dead, a laborious, ungrateful, and unproductive employment, which puts a man's constitution, health, and strength to the severest test. Pity it is that on any occassion, among clergymen, who have all the same dignity of the priesthood conferred upon them, the gleanings of Ephraim should be better than the grapes of Abiezer. The two other curates have to perform all the duties of the church; marriages, christenings, churchings, homebaptisms, praying with the sick, &c. What two men, with the zeal of St. Paul, the strength of Hercules, and the activity of the most famous of our pedestrian heroes, are equal to going from one end to the other of this increasing parish, as the multiplied occasions of its inhabitants require? They cannot. It is impossible that they should. Various other abuses are mentioned, which call aloud for reform; but we content ourselves with recommending the pamphlet itself to the serious perusal of those, who may possess the means of interfering, with effect, (why not legislative effect?) on subjects of so much importance. A Letter from Mr. Whitbread to Lord Holland on the present Situation of Spain. pp. 15. Price 6d. Ridgway, London, 1808. In the following sentiments we heartily concur: The whole undivided heart of Great Britain and Ireland, nay, of France itself, and of the world, must be with Spain. Would to God the whole undivided strength of the world could be combined at this moment against the armies of her oppressor, in Spain Ministers had declared that no mixed interests should interfere; that all the exertion should be for Spain, and Spain alone'; and I am happy to acknowledge that the part of the King's speech, which relates to Spain, bears out the professions which had been before made. It has my unqualified approbation. The policy is sound, and the expressions could not have been better chosen. Arms, ammunition, money, let thein be poured in with a hand as liberal as can be conceived. All they ask for! and nothing they do not ask for. If an army shall here زه after be required, let no consideration of Public Spirit. 8vo. pp. 104. 3s. Asperne, The London, 1808. rank or favour interfere in the selection of the officer to command it. The stake is too precious to be risked in inadequate hands. WE regard this pamphlet as a truly country has a high opinion of the military patriotic publication. The author does not talents, the gallantry, and the other qualifi-write with the apathy of a neutral and cations of the other now in Ireland, ready uninterested spectator of pohtical events; to embark with a limited force. May the but, while he plainly perceives, censures, appointment of a general for any larger force and condemns, the faults of the opposibe equally judicious, and equally acceptable tion, he is equally awake to the errors to the public. Thus shall we render ourselves worthy of being the supporters of Spaand failings of the ministers. His opinish valour, and Spanish virtue. Thus shall nions appear to be the result of experiwe best add to their chance of success. Thus ence, and observation. The French reshall we render the most effectual service to volution, and the French national characthis empire and the world. This cause is ter, are by him contemplated in their indeed the cause of justice and humanity. If proper light. it prospers,stupendously glorious will be the victory. If it fails, their conqueror will have obtained any thing rather than honour; but the Spaniards of this day will be recorded to the latest posterity as a people deserving of a better fate, and they will have afforded a noble example for the imitation of the inhabitants of these Islands, when their battle, the last battle of the European world, shall be fought. To prevent us, says he, from becoming subservient to the enemy, we ought to bear in view, much more than we do, that his mode of warfare is not confined to strength against strength, nor to strength against the wealth and resources of nations, but that it likewise radically and essentially combines intrigue with cunning directed unweariedly against the human mind. In vain may we brace our I come to the other topic, on which Irity, in military discipline, if we are un bodily frames for action and attain a superio did not touch on Monday for fear of inter- uerved in our councils, or relaxed in any part rup ion, and on which I must explain of our moral system; for there his experience myself. It has been falsely and basely stated, teaches him to obtain his best advantage. that I advised the purchase of peace, by the abandonment of the heroic Spaniards to their fate. God forbid ! A notion so detestable never entered my imagination. Perish the man who could entertain it! Perish this contry, rather than its safety should be owing to a compromise so horribly iniquitous! My feelings, at the time I spoke, ran in a direction totally opposite to any thing so disgusting and abominable. Dover Street, July 5, 1808. Having taken a hasty retrospect of the conduct of Great Britain, and of France, from the period of the French revolution, down to the defeat of the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz, and the lamented death of Mr. Pitt, our author proceeds to notice the three successive ministries, which have since regulated the machine of go vernment in this country. He considers the negociation for peace with France and the declaration of war agaist Prussia, and other measures of former administrations, to have been equally unhappy and impolitic. While praising the present ministers for their vigorous measures, and for their mode of conducting the war abroad, our author censures them with considerable severity, for what he terms their "bad management of affairs at home." Nevertheless, those who suppose that We fear, after what has passed, that more dignity might have been assumed, peace is not to be attained so easily, as and maintained, by government, may Mr. W. flatters himself we wish it were. readily admit, that, in making every prac We beg leave to think that Great Britain ticable concession to the opposition, miin arming and fighting for self defence,nisters certainly rendered themselves less had clearly right on her side, ab initio. obnoxious to the charge of arrogance, and submitted their proceedings more fully to the nation, at large. This patriotic writer stigmatises without reserve the zealous pertinacity of the opposition, in behalf of France; but waiving his reasons for this, we shall present our readers with some of his closing observations, which prove him to be a politician of no mean sagacity. : Then When may we flatter ourselves with the prospect of peace? Never by probable calculations, and without the intervention of of France shall have attained to more mature unforeseen events, until the new government tion, and until the present spirit of her arstability in the growth of her present generanies, shali have been gradually relaxed aud their numbers greatly diminished. may that new government be expected to France, says he, ever continuing her apreconcile itself to the belief of being safe in peal to the world, says, that we are ruining taking the repose of peace, and allowing her ourselves by that war which she is desirous of officers to enjoy their plunder and new titles putting an end to. To so kind a remark from of distinction, and when there will no longer an enemy our answer is, that if ruin is to over-appear to exist tire necessity of continuing an take us, better is it to succumb with honour in amprofitable war against England. Before the noble struggle than to allow our rain to that desirable period shall arrive, some years be tyrannically effected by France to our dismay elapse, in which the exertion of all our honour. We do not fight for the bare ho faculties will yet be required. nour of fighting, but in order to keep by our In this view of things given, as they are bebravery, that existence, and that proud rank reved to exist, there is no acrimonious intenamongst nations, which she is prepared to tion of exciting inalevolent feelings against ake from us, if we should credulously yield France. The system pursued by her has to her. The pains which France uses to in been plainly and without exaggeration, exfuse into us the sentiments most accordant posed, foralie important purpose of animating with her wishes, prove that we are a great the public spirit, and putting the nation on its distance from that desperate situation which guard against her present plans. Peace not being she would inspire us with the dread of, at our call, but in her option, we may thereBut if the government of France could be fore, be obliged for many years yet to come even supposed to wish for peace with England, to wage against her a war of defence. France dares it allow to itself that gratification, ciris ardent, powerful, and enterprising and cumstanced as it is? Dares that new go- we too are bok, strong, and amply provided vernment to withdraw its immense armies with means both of safeguard and annoyance. from foreign countries within the bosom of If we should notwithstanding be subdued, it France? Will it dare to allow England to will not have been by open hostilities; ve have any intercourse with the continent? shall have been ruined by our own faults Unfortunately for us, negative answers must alone, by the corruption and passive weakbe given; for the new government of France, ness of that public spirit, which France never feels by proud experience, that it is daily es- fails to assail in every direction, and which tablishing and acquiring strength by its prefinds itself in the midst of her seductive arts like sent system of war, with which it has reason a bark opposed to an impetuous tide where it to be satisfied; nor is it natural that it should can be effectually preserved by the incessant desire to adopt any change, since by every use of the stemming oars; but in the unchange it must deem itself to incur new risks guarded relaxation of a moment, is preof being overturned. It is in reality dependent cipitated to destruction. for its existence at present upon war. France at the beginning of the revolution, depended upon the success of its armies, now, on the contrary, the armies are dependent upon the earned fame and tried success of the government, which they, for their own sakes, support. The government therefore, possesses in its armies able and zealous defenders. If they were no longer to be fostered as they now are; if they were to suffer neglect in the least degree; if any other interest should be allowed to interfere with them; for instance, the interest of commerce generally, or of England only, would not the armies be jealous and. discontented? Is it likely that their government would expose this to hazard? The new government of France is then obliged to be the secret advocate of that prolongation of war which despondency terms perpetual, and which we cannot at pre-ent avert. Compare Panorama, Vol. IV. pp. 713, 7:4, 927, 928. Itinerarium Cambria seu laboriosæ Baldvini Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi per Walliam Legationis accurata descriptio, auctore Silv. Giraldo Cambrense. Cum aunotationibus Davidis Poweli, S.T.P. Royal Quarto. pp. 237. cum mappa Walliæ col. effigies, et sepulchrum., Sil. Gir. Camb. Typis Gulielmi Bulmer et socii. Prostaut Venales apud Miller. Londini., MDCCCVI. QUINQUAGINTA in majori, et ducena in minori chartâ imprimuntur exeniplaria. GULIELMUS BULMER. For the English translation of this work, Vide Panorama, Vol. 1. p. 13. The History of the Ancient Borough of Pontefract, containing an interesting Account of its Castle, and the three different Sieges it sustained, during the Civil War, with Notes and Pedigrees, of some of the most distinguished Royalists and Parliamentarians, chiefly from Manuscripts never before published. By B. Boothroyd, 8vo. pp. 534. Price 15s. Crosby, London: 1807. : THE term Pontefract it is admitted, imports the broken bridge" but a bridge may be fractus, broken, without being in a ruinous state, and it seems credible, that a new bridge rather than an old one, should give name to a town adjacent. Moreover, as Mr. B. places this bridge over "the Wash, which was frequently heightened by rains," it must have been of considerable length; so that by uniting several small hillocks, it was fractus, in the sense of interrupted-not continuous. Such is our conjecture: but that is plausible enough, which supposes the name to be derived from resemblance to a foreign town, familiar to its founder. The first name of this town, however, was Kirkby, "by the church." In the seventh century lived Oswald, who obtained great celebrity among his people by a victory over Cadwallo, king of the Welsh Britons: he was treacherously slain by Penda, and his people erected here a cross to his memory. Mr. B, almost inclines to think that he was the builder of this church; but he is clear, that it could not be built earlier than the middle of the seventh, nor later than the eighth century," Kirkby, was rather a village, than a burgh. Since that period the town has greatly increased. But the most curious object at Pontefract, is its castle: which is supposed to be" of Saxon origin, as its site is perfectly agreable to their mode of fortificaIt stands on an elevated rock, wholly insulated, its sides steep and craggy. The prerent structure was founded by Tlbert de Lacy, soon after the tenth year of William the Conqueror. It was twelve years in building, and was finished in 1080. It was at once a palace and a fortress: magnificent and martial. What fevolutions has this structure seen!-It saw the failure of the male line of its tion." A 4 founder, and the union of this barony with the family of the Plantagenets, in Thomas Plantagenet Earl of Lancaster ;it saw the house of Lancaster alternately rise and fall, in conflict with its rival the house of York; till the roses were united in Henry VIII.-It saw the king of Eng land sometimes the conqueror of his nobis lity and people, and attempting to rule them both with a rod of iron; sometimes happy in escaping from the fury of those who had vanquished him, in hopes of better fortune another day; or condemned to expiate his transgressions by an untime. ly and cruel fate. Of this, Richard II. is a striking instance, who certainly met his death in Pontefract castle; though the If tradition be correct in the place of manner of it is not without uncertainty. his confinement, within the castle, it could not be as history affirms, by combat with Sir Piers Exton, since the cell is too small for such an event: but it is more likely (as Stowe suppposed) that he was starved to death, and this agrees with the declarations of the Earls of Northumber land and Worcester, and Lord Percy, who resided in the neighbourhood. We can not compliment the members of the Antiquarian Society, who, to ascertain this fact, procured a few years ago an examination of the body in its tomb, in Westminster Abbey, yet did not remove the bandage on the skull, where, if any where, the marks of the fracture might be expected. Other illustrious personages suffered in this castle; as Earl Rivers, and his companions, friends of Edward V. by order of the ambitious Richard duke of Gloucester. This castle was taken in 1536 by the Catholic insurgents, influenced by the religious orders, who could not endure the establishment of the king's supremacy, and the performance of the church service in the English language. This was the famous "Pilgrimage of Grace for the love of God, the preservation of the king's person and issue, the purifying of the nobility, expelling all evil blood and evil counsellors, for no particular profit to theniselves, nor to do any displeasure to any, nor to slay nor murder any for envy; but to put away all fears and to take afore them the cross of Christ, his faith, the restitution of the church and the suppression of heretics and their opinions." Excellent professions! but the manner of executing them |