Thrice blest who at an inn unbends In volumes sable, Mirth and good-humor round him sees, was overset. 6 a ture of infidelity,' Taylor says, 'it strengthens the vigor and enlarges the dominon of intellect, bestows frankness and moral courage; and, as if to exemplify in his own person the justice of this praise, he does not blush to add, 'it unlocks the chambers of pleasure, and banishes the fear of death.' While the family were hunting about for a This passage produced a controversy; and rural retirement, a third blow reached them in the course thereof Taylor says, with the -the bankruptcy of a London stockbroker same lofty complacency-The literature of who had neglected to invest in the proper infidelity is unfit for the married and feminine manner, if at all, some thousands entrusted classes of society. Every thing in its place, to his care and William Taylor's manhood but a place for every thing.' (Ibid., vol. ii. p. It is grievous to find him con- 118.) In the same Life he is pleased to say, fessing that he seriously contemplated 'seek-Fransham hated, as Porson says of Gibbon, ing refuge in a voluntary grave; and, though our religion cordially.' Was this frankness, his purpose was arrested, and he by and bye or contemptuous irony? expresses thankfulness in having escaped In February, 1812 (about a year after his rash and unhallowed act,' no reader of his 'unhallowed' temptation), there is some talk works can suppose that by the epithet un- of his enlisting among the Edinburgh Rehallowed,' he alluded to any thing else than viewers.* Southey's opinion is: Your the forgetfulness of filial piety which its per-political opinions square sufficiently with the petration would in his case have manifested. Edinburghers: your heresies would be inadThe biographer very naturally hastens over missible there, for their esoteric atheism is this sad part of the story. The parents were perfectly orthodox in its professions.' old when these calamities overtook them— the father paralytic, and the mother blind. But William Taylor's nerves too had been Whence you infer my esoteric atheism, I unmanned by his long course of free living, and his free thinking had ended in a settled know not; it is an incorrect definition of my opinion. Probably you had read in Herbert blindness of dreamy indifference. His bio-Marsh that pantheism is but another name for grapher speaks of him as having always ad- atheism; but Herbert Marsh blundered. There hered' to the Unitarian system but he can mean no more than that he never formally renounced his hereditary connection with the 'Octagon.' His filial piety kept him to that -his dear old blind mother had no arm but his to lead and support her to her accustomed meeting-house, and a more affectionately dutiful son than hers, notwithstanding a momentary madness of aberration, there never was upon this earth: but unless Norwich Unitarianism be even a much more miserable thing than we have supposed it, he had long been separated from its creed by a wider gulf than divides it from modern Mahometan-vol. ii. pp. 373, 374. ism, or from the philosophical deism of ancient Greece and Rome. the last page of his 'Sarves hey, the very last pare, w ever prepared for the press, Open tendency of the German webu items po testas K Taking no notice of what did not concern himself, Mr. Taylor in his reply says: are three forms of pantheism:-(1.) The pan- The Monthly Review,' for which Taylor In one of his 'Enquirers,' in the Month-labored most assiduously, was then, and during ly Magazine' for 1811 (p. 106), Taylor has about fifty years, conducted by R. Griffiths, on whom some American university conferred the dethese placid sentences: gree of Doctor of Laws. He was first a watch 'As Socinianism is peculiarly the reverse of a mystical sect, it must be favorable to the evolution of the rational faculty, and is therefore perhaps suicidal. In Holland and elsewhere it died out less from refutation or persecution than from internal causes.' In one of the most remarkable of his tracts —the Life of John Fransham, the Norwich Polytheist,' (Monthly Mag., 1811, vol. i. p. 343)-among other eulogies of the litera 1 es to the Christ in * exfered at last to give shelter sprehensive anti supernatura, 234 pp. 453 454. freed of a Norwich unitarian Paese than the deliberate avowi system which, discarding an gence external to man and Stads equally all belief in mora azaridual obligation, responsi terbation! Whether Taylor scerely was a believer in the es which he avowed, ferent question; but if he maker, then a bookseller, published Cleland's in- 1 Tava truly without God in the see that his creed, whatever it cam and comprehen And again, in the last page of his 'Survey of German Poetry,' the very last page, we believe, that he ever prepared for the press, Mr. Taylor takes leave of the favorite studies of his youth, his manhood, and his age, in the following words : gave him neither comfort nor support in the hour of trial; but even the pantheist of modern days may derive from sources which he disparages thoughts, feelings, sentiments from which Christians cannot withhold sympathy and respect. Friends of various classes and "The general tendency of the German school persuasions rallied round William Taylor as is to teach French opinions in English forms. soon as his situation was made known. The They have indeed religious poets, such as Klop- Southeys were ready with most generous stock, Stolberg, and Körner: but, with the single offers; a wealthy kinsman, Mr. Dyson, of exception of Klopstock, the religious writers owe Diss, placed a good country-house at his diswhat they retain of popularity to their love of lib-posal, and urged him to accept as a donaerty, not to their love of Christ. Voss, Schiller, tion a sum of money which had already been Kotzebue, are deists; Lessing, Wieland, Goethe, set apart for him as a legacy. A comparapantheists; but these shades of dissimilarity have not prevented their becoming the national tive stranger, a young gentleman of whose favorites. Through their instrumentality, a very name we never heard before, addressed to liberal and tolerant philosophy has deeply pene him this letter :trated into the German mind; so that their 'London, May 22, 1811. poetry is in unison with the learned literature which surrounds it. Gradually it is overflowing day, for the first time, that you were about to re'My dear and honored Sir,-I heard last Suninto the Slavonian nations, and will found in move your family from Norwich. The increasnew languages and climates those latest infer-ed ences of a corrupt but instructed refinement, which are likely to rebuild the morality of the ancients on the ruins of Christian puritanism. German poetry is written for men, not, like English poetry, for women, and their representatives the priests. The effeminacy of the English school of taste may favor domestic propriety; but it does not tend to form a nation of heroes. The Germans have indeed uttered no works so obscene as Voltaire's Pucelle, or so profane as Parney's Guerre des Dieur; but even the more cautious writings of Wieland and Goethe cannot be Englished without Mr. Sotheby's castrating the Oberon, without Lord F. Gower's castrating the Faustus. Be this an evil or a good, it is still a characteristic fact. . . . Born in Valhalla, refined and christianized in the age of chivalry, the German Muse has finally thrown herself into the arms of philosophy, in this, obeying the spirit of the times, and the tide of event. In like manner many cathedrals of the country, which were built for the worship of Woden, Thor, and Frey, then consecrated under catholic conquerors to the Christian Trinity, have been suffered at last to give shelter to a calm and comprehensive anti-supernaturalism.-Survey, vol. iii. pp. 453, 454. venue. expense of living there was the cause assigned. I will make no apology for what I am going to propose. Your discernment and my own habitual openness render nice development of my feelings unnecessary. You will guess them. I contemplate the value of an accustomed home to your blind mother. I consider her sweet and venerable character and that she is the nearest, I believe the dearest, relation you have. Notwithstanding the bad times, my annual income exceeds my expenditure by at least a hundred pounds. I do not choose to acquire habits of greater expense, and I have every reason to expect a gradual increase of recomfortably at Norwich? If it will, pray take Will this sum enable you to remain it annually during your mother's life-at least and while my means remain as good as they while I am single (I am not even in love yet) gaining on your mother's account. The evil are. Every year's delay I should think is worth can but come at last, and will be no greater, well see how in justice to your mother you can perhaps even less, hereafter than now. I do not refuse this offer, which, after abundant deliberation, I make in the most hearty manner. In the thing about it, except my gentle sister Harriet, common course of things nobody shall know any the confidante of all my projects, and who entirely approves of this. I shall be very sorry if any obstacle arises from the want of that circuity with which these matters are commonly proposed, and if I am wrong in deeming the direct way most honorable to both of us. 'Respectfully and affectionately yours, Is this the creed of a Norwich unitarian? Is it any thing else than the deliberate avowal of that fearful system which, discarding an omnipotent intelligence external to man and the world, discards equally all belief in moral sanction, in individual obligation, responsi--vol. ii. pp. 357-359. bility, and retribution? Whether Taylor really and sincerely was a believer in the monstrous absurdities which he avowed, is indeed a very different question; but if he was that, he was truly without God in the world.' We have seen that his creed, whatever it was, however calm and comprehensive,' But Taylor could not submit to incur obligations so serious; nor indeed, when his affairs were accurately examined, did it turn out that he required assistance of that nature. It proved sufficient that the family should part with their large house and handsome establishment, removing into a humbler tenement in their native town, and thence- 'During the latter years of William Taylor's thirty years, and that hope which I shall ever wonder less, as knowing how ignorant dis-OH! HOW SHALL WE OUR JOY EXPRESS? senters are of things the most familiar to all others, when we see Taylor gravely writing that the Archbishop of Canterbury is the Primate, but the Bishop of London is the Metropolitan of England.' But we have not room for dwelling on these trifles. The little volume was reviewed in this Journal thirteen years ago; and we are glad to learn that a new edition, now in the press, is to exhibit many corrections and additions from Mr. Taylor's MSS. It is to be hoped he had done enough to make it supplant in the market the audacious compilation of Mr. George Crabb.* If ever we have such a dictionary as the English language deserves, its author will be found to have owed much to the fragments of William Taylor. Mr. Robberds hurries over the closing years of his friend: but intimates that by September, 1833, he was fully sensible of the decay of his own mental powers-and seems to rejoice in adding that he lingered on till his death, in March, 1836, Anno Ætat. 71, 'undarkened by regrets for the past, or apprehensions for the future.' He was buried beside his parents in the cemetery of the Octagon Chapel at Norwich.' The 'Synonyms Discriminated,' and the friendship of Southey, will prove his lasting monument. BY MRS. EDWARD THOMAS. From the Metropolitan. OH! how shall we our joy express Where Bliss doth never shed a tear? I weep that Love doth thee restore- How sweet the thought to be for ever With thee! Oh! ecstacy supreme! Tears are for earth!-they tell our love- BAPHICAL DISCOVERY. Is shown by tears-by ONLY tears: From the Colonial Gazette. NTO THE INTERIOR TAFELA. er and Mr Ban, kâû Gralan's val Lave a north-easterly cur- the appearance of a ke So are sale to reside bere. One f The mme of the often be water abounds. Mr. Bai. at a traffic between them Hulle was ascertained to be Samoa given of the Bab GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY. From the Colonial Gazette. JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR OF AFRICA. Valley, near Mosiga. Here there is abundance of large timber trees. Wild fruit grows also in great quantity, and the stunted wild olive here grows to a large tree. Water is likewise plentiful. Game is plentiful, and a different description of birds to any previously noticed to the southward, was observed. There are copper and iron mines in this valley. The natives, who smelt the iron ore, and to manufacture assagais, are the smiths of that part of Africa, contrive to hoes, &c., and natives from a considerable distance come as customers. Some specimens of these ores have been procured by Mr. Bain. The natives erect a small conical furnace with clay, into which the ore is cast and a rude bellows is applied to the fuel. By these means the ore is melted and the metal reduced. A singular custom prevails amongst these people in refer We have been much interested in hearing from Mr. A. H. Bain, some account of a journey undertaken by him into the interior of our continent, from which he has just returned. The exploring party, consisting of Mr. Steel of the Coldstream Guards, Mr. Pringle of the Company's service, and Mr. Bain, left Graham's Town about six months ago, and proceeded about as far as the 24th degree of south latitude -receiving every possible kindness from the various missionaries whose stations they visited, ence to this branch of manufacture. A married and attention and hospitality from the native man is not allowed to enter the enclosure where tribes through whose territories they passed. the people are smelting the ore, because it is They reached a spot about 15 days' journey supposed he would bewitch the iron: and before from the reported great lake; and, from the in- a native is allowed to perform this work he must formation received from the natives in that neigh-not have lived with his wife for six weeks, nor borhood, Mr. Bain is inclined to believe that the must he live with her during the period in which reputed lake is nothing more than a part of the he is employed in the operations. river Zimbisi or Quillimaine, near its source. This river is said to have a north-easterly current, which would corroborate this supposition, as the Zimbisi runs into the Mozambique Channel. This lake or river is said to overflow its banks annually, in which case, as the country around is marshy and covered with reeds, the water would assume the appearance of a lake. Two tribes are said to reside here. One of them, known by the name of Makuba, consists entirely of boatmen. The name of the other tribe is Matlumna. They are reported to have firearms in their possession, and are also said to kill great numbers of sea-cows, with which the neighborhood of the water abounds. Mr. Bain has brought with him a piece of Portuguese cloth, which was obtained from the natives, who reside within 14 days of the lake, and who said they had obtained it from the people who dwelt there, thus showing that a traffic between them and the Portuguese settlement at Delagoa Bay exists. An assagai, evidently manufactured in Europe, was also procured. The natives who dwelt between the spot reached by Mr. Bain and the lake, were stated to be in the habit of bartering ivory and other articles with the inhabitants of the lake or river. The party visited a bushman cave between Kuruman and Cramer's Fontein. Here they saw the figures of elephants and other animals rudely painted upon the walls in red and white chalk. We might mention that the Wanketze chief was anxious that some of his subjects should accompany our travellers to the colony to see the wonders they described, more particularly the warriors of the white men, their arms, &c. Two of them did accompany the party a considerable distance towards the colony, and would willingly have remained with them, but they were sent back to their chief. These enterprising travellers have brought with them a large quantity or native curiosities. They have also brought with them the spoils of a number of wild animals which they have shot. They have succeeded also in killing the gemsbock, the roan antelope, and many other varieties of the antelope tribe. All these species are rare, and altogether unknown in this colony. A cameleopard was also shot, which measured 19 feet 6 inches in height. In a former trip, however, Mr. Bain shot one of these animals, which measured 21 feet 6 inches. An eland was shot, which measured 17 hands. It is computed that Mr. Bain and his companions travelled 1,500 miles beyond Graham's Town, making no less a distance in all than 3,000 miles Our travellers visited Sobiqua, chief of the Bawanketze, who resides near the Kurrichean Hills, who is described as an intelligent man, and was a great warrior in his time. Shortly before the arrival of Mr. Bain and his com-with five spans of oxen. panions, he had been attacked by Mahouri, the Bechuana chief, who by his superiority, in having muskets and ammunition, worsted him in the conflict and took from him a number of cattle. The chief Massalikatse was ascertained to be residing at a spot situated about the 25th degree of east longitude, and 22 south latitude. This chief had also recently made an attack upon the Bawanketze, in which he had been successful. A glowing description is given of the Bakhatla We are sorry that neither time nor recollection will allow us to furnish the reader with more copious particulars of the journey of these intelligent and enterprising travellers. We are not, however, without a hope that they will themselves favor the public with some account of what they saw, heard. thought, and felt whilst wending their way amid the solitude of the desert, or holding communion with some of the scattered fragments of the human family, whose origin, character, or perhaps even existence, was before unknown.-Frontier Times. From Fraser's Magazine. REMINISCENCES OF MEN AND THINGS. BY ONE WHO HAS A GOOD MEMORY. THE PRINCE DE METTERNICH. PART I. now the Prussian monarch, the splendor of The minutia had escaped them, as well as the ats caning the time of Henry st of the Saxon emperors essed the country from the wa Hick: and Lễ that, one of the tany, was, from 1599 to Eector of Treves Prince de Metternich is the son z-forge Metternich, the first prince 11, who was born in Coblentz The sect of these reminiscen WHEN first I saw the Prince de Metternich he was in his forty-second year. For he was born on the 15th of May, 1773; and when When the health of the Emperor of Ausfirst I beheld this remarkably handsome and tria was proposed, Prince Metternich rose healthy-looking statesman, it was in the and bowed. There was but little cheering. month of June, 1814. The Emperor of Rus- It was evident that his character was not unsia and the King of Prussia had come over derstood by many of the assembled citizens. to England, to pay their respectful and fra- They connected with his name certain noternal homage to the Prince Regent; but, tions of absolutism, without the philosophy for family and state reasons, it had been and truth which formed part of his real chardeemed expedient for the Emperor of Aus-acter. They very likely remembered the tria to return from Paris to Vienna, instead outline of the congress of Rastadt, but the of visiting the British metropolis. Prince de Metternich had been selected by his august sovereign as his special representative at the court of St. James's on this mem- That banquet was worthy of the occasion orable occasion, and this mark of favor and which led to its celebration, and worthy of preference was highly appreciated by this that city of London, whose loyalty, during distinguished statesman. "Is that the Prince the most trying times of financial difficulty de Metternich?" inquired a member of the and commercial depression, had justly won House of Commons of the old Whig Rump, for it the respect and gratitude of all Europe. as the Prince entered the Guildhall of the The disinterestedness of Great Britain, not City of London, on the 18th of June, 1814, to only during the long conflict of the Revolube present at the civic banquet,-" Can that tionary war, but also after that war had been be the Prince de Metternich ?" "Yes, that terminated, when the spoils were to be dividis the Prince de Metternich," was the reply; ed, and countries or districts to be appropri"but why do you express such astonish- ated by the great powers, was the subject of ment ?" "Because I expected to see so constant reference on the part of the Empedifferent a man to that now before me. I ror of Russia. "His magnanimous and dishad conceived of the prince as a sort of Jes- interested ally, the Prince Regent of Great uit-looking monk, with head bending over his Britain," were words which were continually chest, with sallow complexion, with the air on the lips of the Emperor Alexander; and of a true disciple of Machiaviel and now, the Prince de Metternich, on all occasions, instead of all this, there is a handsome both private and public, expressed similar and healthy-looking man, who stands and opinions in strong terms, and accompanied walks erect, with an open, intellectual, and by glowing eulogies. Not, indeed, that this agreeable countenance, and apparently with- was the first time that the prince had become out formality or stiffness." The conversa- acquainted with the English character, or tion then turned on the true and trite senti- had studied on the spot the English nation, ment of "how wrong it was to judge by ap- since, when a young man, he visited the pearances;" but the old Whig M. P. returned, shores of Great Britain, and investigated our ever and anon, during the dinner and the national habits, partialities, prejudices, and evening, to the very mistaken notions he had institutions. formed of the Austrian minister. The Prince de Metternich, on the occasion in question, was conversing with great animation with Count Mierveldi, the then Austrian ambassador at the court of London, and they were evidently admiring the most magnificent pageant before them. The Prince Regent was explaining to the Emperor Alexander the meaning of the various trophies and ornaments which were collected on that very interesting solemnity, and the King of Prussia was enjoying with the Prince Royal, the same city, and studied, tato preparatory education, at *.Search. He was present, net, it the coronation of the E 1. Clemens Wenzeslaus Nessomuk Lothario, Earl and Prince Metternich, Winneburg, Duke Portella, Earl of Königswart, knight of the Golden Fleece, and grandee of Spain, first class,-possessor of all the highest and most elevated European orders,-his imperial royal majesty's privy councillor, court chamberlain, court chancellor, and cabinet minister,-also, minister of foreign affairs, and prime minister of the empire, taking precedence of all others in dignity and office, is descended from an ancient family, which 1790, at Frankfort-on-theEsger years were sed alousy mesady ofinternational law, and mes of government. These ducted at the university of Is the rear 1792, he was, ke the coronation of the lite Prats II: and he then assisted 71 is administration, and subse several European courts, reNee in England. The dise The Rhenish countries by the times dispossessed his family. In obtained for him a p st at career commenced in 1797. consequence of Aus the coalition between Enz- Kiful and impenetrable |
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