ties in £100 each. As already mentioned, he went to America, and returned in 1819. He brought with him the bones of Tom Paine, author of the "Rights of Man." Two separate attempts made to enter Parliament in 1820 and in 1826 both failed. In 1831 he was again tried for libel, when he acquitted himself with a memorable speech, and the jury being equally divided on the case, he was discharged. In 1833 he entered Parliament as member for Oldham, but found the late hours and stifling atmosphere of parliamentary life unsuited to his simple tastes. His life, which had been one of unceasing literary industry, was brought to a close by an attack of disease of the throat, from which he never recovered; he died 17th June 1835. His writings which deal with rural life have been commended as having been widely and practically useful. Besides his political writings, including twenty volumes of "Parlia 66 mentary Debates," etc., Cobbett wrote his "Cottage Economy," "English Grammar," "History of the Protestant Reformation," and "Rural Rides," etc. His language is uniformly forcible and vigorous, and, as he himself says, 'his popularity" was owing to his "giving truth in clear language." The announcement of the death of Cobbett's eldest daughter appeared in the Times of October 26, 1877. She was born in Philadelphia in 1795, where her father was residing. She died at Brompton Crescent, London, in her eightysecond year. In 1810-12, while her father was imprisoned in Newgate for libel, she kept him company, acting as his amanuensis and the custodian of his papers, and writing at his dictation leading articles for his weekly publication. Some of Cobbett's most stirring articles are said to have been sent to press in the handwriting of Miss Cobbett.] merit, of fault, and of simple deficiency. [THE Rev. Robert Hall was the son of a Baptist | to be his real characteristics, both in point of minister, and was born at Arnsby, near Leicester, May 2, 1764. He studied at a Baptist academy, Bristol, and in 1780 was admitted preacher. In 1781 he attended Aberdeen University, where he met Sir James Mackintosh, when a close friendship sprang up between them. He became assistant in a Baptist chapel, Bristol, and shortly afterwards removed to Cambridge. He became celebrated as a writer, and an eloquent and spirit-stirring speaker. His chief works were published between 1791 and 1804, when his intellect became deranged. On his recovery he became pastor of a church at Leicester, where he resided for twenty years. removed to Bristol in 1826, where he officiated in a Baptist congregation there till shortly before his death, which took place on February 21, 1831. His eloquence has been described as weighty, impressive, and entrancing, and his published sermons have been looked upon as among the most valuable contributions to theological literature.] He Robert Hall is a name we, in common with all Christians of this century, of all denominations, deeply venerate and admire. We are not, however, to be classed among his idolaters; and this paper is meant as a calm and comprehensive view of what appear to us, after many needful deductions from the over-estimates of the past, We labour, like all critics who have never seen their author, under considerable disadvantages. "Knowledge is power." Still more-craving Lord Bacon's pardon-"vision is power." Cæsar said a similar thing when he wrote Vidi, vici. To see is to conquer, if you happen to have the faculty of clear, full, conclusive sight. In other cases, the sight of a man whom you misappreciate, and, though you have eyes, cannot see, is a curse to your conception of his character. You look at him through a mist of prejudice, which discolours his visage, and, even when it exaggerates, distorts his stature. Far otherwise with the prepared, yet unprepossessed look of intelligent love. Love hears a voice others cannot hear, and sees a hand others cannot see. In every man of genius, besides what he says, and the direct exhibition he gives of the stores of his mind, there is a certain indescribable something—a preponderance of personal influence— a mesmeric affection-a magical charm. You feel that a great spirit is beside you, even though he be talking mere commonplace, or toying with children. Just as when you are walking through a wood at the foot of a mountain, you do not see the mountain, you see only glimpses of it, but you know it is there; in the fine old word, you are "aware" of its presence; and, having once seen (as one who has newly lost his burden con Cicero or Demosthenes the greater orator? Was Burke the author of 'Junius?' Whether is Bentham or Wilberforce the leading spirit of the age?" etc. How Hall kept his gravity or his temper, under such a fire of queries, not to speak of the smoke of the half-putrid incense amid which it came forth, we cannot tell. He tinues for a little to imagine it on his shoulders still), you fancy you are still seeing it. This pressure of personal interest and power always dwindles works in the presence of their authors, suggests their possible ideal of performance, and starts the question, What folio or library of folios can enclose that soul? The soul itself of the great man often responds to this feeling-was, however, although a vehement and irritakes up all its past doings as a little thing-table, a very polite man; and, like Dr Johnson, "paws" like the war-horse in Job after higher he "loved to fold his legs, and have his talk achievements-and, like Byron, pants for a light-out." Many of his visitors, too, were really ning-language, a quicker, fierier cipher, "that it may wreak its thought upon expression;" but is forced, like him, to exclaim: "But, as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword." distinguished men, and were sure, when they returned home, to circulate his repartees, and spread abroad his fame. Hence, even in the forenoons, he sometimes said brilliant things, many of which have been diligently collected by the late excellent Dr Balmer and others, and are to be found in his memoirs. Judging by these specimens, our impression of his conversational powers is distinct and decided. His talk was always rapid, ready, clear, and pointed-often brilliant, not unfrequently wild and daring. He said more good and memor Those who met and conversed with Robert Hall seem all to have felt this singular personal charm-this stream of "virtue going out of him"-this necessary preponderance over his company. Nor was this entirely the effect of the pomp and loftiness of his manner and bear-able things in the course of an evening than pering, although both were loftier than perhaps beseemed his Christian character. We have known, indeed, men of mediocre, and less than mediocre talents, exerting an uneasy and crushing influence over far superior persons, through the sheer power of a certain stiff and silent pomp, added to an imposing personal appearance. We know, too, some men of real genius, whose overbearing haughtiness and determination to take the lead in conversation render them exceedingly disagreeable to many, disgusting to some, and yet command attention, if not terror, from all. But Robert Hall belonged to neither of these classes. He might rather be ranked with those odd characters, whose mingled genius and eccentricity compel men to listen to them, and whose pomp, and pride, and overbearing temper, and extravagant bursts, are pardoned, as theirs, and because they are counterbalanced by the qualities of their better nature. We have met with some of those who have seen and heard him talk and preach, and their accounts have coincided in this-that he was more powerful in the parlour than in the pulpit. He was more at ease in the former. He had his pipe in his mouth, his tea-pot beside him, eager ears listening to catch his every whisper-bright eyes raining influence on him; and, under these varied excitements, he was sure to shine. His spirits rose, his wit flashed, his keen and pointed sentences thickened, and his auditors began to imagine him a Baptist Burke, or a Johnson Redivivus, and to wish that Boswell were to undergo a resurrection too. In these evening parties he appeared, we suspect, to greater advantage than in the mornings, when ministers from all quarters called to see the lion of Leicester, and tried to tempt him to roar by such questions as, "Whether do you think, Mr Hall, haps any talker of his day. To the power of his talk it contributed that his state of body required constant stimulus. Owing to a pain in his spine, he was obliged to swallow daily great quantities of ether and laudanum, not to speak of his favourite potion, tea. This had the effect of keeping him strung up always to the highest pitch; and, while never intoxicated, he was everlastingly excited. Had he been a feebler man in body and mind, the regimen would have totally unnerved him. As it was, it added greatly to the natural brilliance of his conversational powers, although sometimes it appears to have irritated his temper, and to have provoked ebullitions of passion and hasty, unguarded statement. It was in such moods that he used to abuse Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Pollok, and Edward Irving. He often, too, talked for effect; and his judgments were sometimes exceedingly capricious and self-contradictory. Society was essential to him. It relieved that "permanent shade of gloom" which the acute eye of Foster saw lying on his soul. He rushed to it as into his native air; and, once there, he sometimes talked for victory and display, and often on subjects with which he was very imperfectly acquainted. We cannot wonder that, when he met on one occasion with Coleridge, they did not take to each other. Both had been accustomed to lead in conversation; and, like two suns in one sky, they began to "fight in their courses," and made the atmosphere too hot to hold them. Coleridge, although not so ready, rapid, and sharp, was far profounder, wider, and more suggestive in his conversation. Hall's talk, like his style, consisted of rather short, pointed, and balanced periods. Coleridge talked, as he wrote, in long, linked, melodious, and flowing, but somewhat rambling and obscure paragraphs. The one talked; the other lectured. The one was a lively, sparkling stream; the other a great, slow, broad, and lipful river. A gentleman in Bradford described to us a day he once spent there with Hall. It was a day of much enjoyment and excitement. At the close of it Hall felt exceedingly exhausted; and, ere retiring to rest, asked the landlady for a wine-glass half full of brandy. "Now," he says, "I am about to take as much laudanum as would kill all this company; for if I don't, I won't sleep one moment." He filled the glass with strong laudanum, went to bed, enjoyed a refreshing rest, and came down to breakfast the next morning "the most majestic-looking man' our informant ever saw; his brow calm and grand, his eye bright, his air serene, and his step and port like those of a superior being, condescending to touch this gross planet. He described his conversation as worthy of his presence the richest and most sparkling essence he ever imbibed withal. Yet his face was far from being a handsome one. But the amplitude of his forehead, the brilliance of his eye, and the strength and breadth of his chest, marked him out always from the roll of common men, and added greatly to the momentum both of his conversation and his preaching. His preaching has been frequently described, but generally by those who heard him in the decline of his powers. It came to a climax in Cambridge, and was never so powerful after his derangement. To have heard him in Cambridge must have been a treat almost unrivalled in the history of pulpit oratory. In the prime of youth and youthful strength, "hope still rising before him, like a fiery column, the dark side not yet turned;" his fancy exuberant; his language less select, perhaps, but more energetic and abundant than in later days; full of faith without fanaticism, and of ardour without excess of enthusiasm; with an eye like a coal of fire; a figure strong, erect, and not yet encumbered with corpulence; a voice not loud, but sweet, and which ever and anon "trembled" below his glorious sentences and images, and an utterance rapid as a mountain torrent-did this young apostle stand up, and, to an audience as refined and intellectual as could then be assembled in England, "preach Christ and Him crucified." Sentence followed sentence, each more brilliant than its forerunner, like Venus succeeding Jupiter in the sky, and Luna drowning Venus; shiver after shiver of delight followed each other through the souls of the hearers, till they wondered "whereunto this thing should grow," and whether they were in the body or out of the body they could hardly tell. To use the fine words of John Scott, "he unveiled the mighty foundations of the Rock of Ages, and made their hearts vibrate with a strange joy, which they shall recognise in loftier stages of their existence." What a pity that, with the exception of his sermon on 66 Modern Infidelity," all these Cambridge discourses have irrecoverably perished. This, however, like Chalmers' similar splendid career in the Tron Church, Glasgow, could not last for ever. Hall became over-excited, perhaps over-elated, and his majestic mind departed from men for a season. When he "came back to us," much of his power and eloquence was gone. His joy of being, too, was lessened. He became a sadder and a wiser man. He no longer rushed exulting to the pulpit, as the horse to the battle. He "spake trembling in Israel." He had, in his derangement, got a glimpse of the dark mysteries of existence, and was humbled in the dust under the recollection of it. He had met, too, with some bitter disappointments. His love to a most accomplished and beautiful woman was not returned. Fierce spasms of agony ran ever and anon through his body. The terrible disease of madness continued to hang over him all his life long, like the sword of Damocles, by a single hair. All this contributed to soften and also somewhat to weaken his spirit. His preaching became the mild sunset of what it had been. The power, richness, and fervour of his ancient style were for ever gone. We have heard his later mode of preaching often described by eye-witnesses. He began in a low tone of voice; as he proceeded his voice rose and his rapidity increased; the two first thirds of his sermon consisted of statement or argument; when he neared the close he commenced a strain of appeal, and then, and not till then, was there any eloquence; then his stature erected itself, his voice swelled to its utmost compass, his rapidity became prodigious, and his practical questions-poured out in thick succession-seemed to sound the very souls of his audience. Next to the impressiveness of the conclusion, what struck a stranger most was the exquisite beauty and balance of his sentences; every one of which seemed quite worthy of, and ready for, the press. Sometimes, indeed, he was the tamest and most commonplace of preachers, and men left the church wondering if this were actually the illustrious man. His sermons, in their printed form, next demand our consideration. Their merits, we think, have been somewhat exaggerated hitherto, and are likely, in the coming age, to be rated too low. It cannot be fairly maintained that they exhibit a great native original mind like Foster's, or that they are full, as a whole, of rich, suggestive thought. The thinking in them is never mere commonplace; but it never rises into rare and creative originality. In general, he aims only at the elegant and the beautiful, and is seldom sublime. He is not the Moses, or the Milton, or the Young-only the Pope, of preachers. Like Pope, his forte is refined sense, expressed in exquisite language. In conversation, he often ventured on daring flights, but seldom in his writings. While reading them, so cool is the strain of thought-so measured the writing-so perfect the self-command-so harmoniously do the various faculties of the writer work together-that you are tempted to ask, How could the author of this ever have been mad? We are far from wishing, by such remarks, to derogate from the merit of these remarkable compositions. For, if not crowded with thought or copious in imagination, and if somewhat stiff, stately, and monotonous in style, they are at once very masculine in thinking, and very elegant in language. If he seldom reaches the sublime, he never condescends to the pretty, or even the neat. He is always graceful, if not often grand. A certain sober dignity distinguishes all his march, and now and then he trembles into touches of pathos or elevated sentiment, which are as felicitous as they are delicate. Some of the fragments he has left behind him discover, we think, more of the strong, bold conception, and the vis vivida of genius, than his more polished and elaborate productions. Such are his two sermons on the divine concealment. But in all his works you see a mind which had ventured too far and had over-strained its energies in early manhood, and which had come back to cower timidly in its native nest. city of keen enjoyment was, as often in other cases, linked to a sensitiveness, and morbid acuteness of feeling, which made him at times very melancholy. He was, like all thinkers, greatly perplexed by the mysteries of existence, and grieved at the spectacles of sin and misery in this dark valley of tears. He was like an angel, who had lost his way from heaven, and his wings with it, and who was looking perpetually upwards with a sigh, and longing to return. We heard, some time ago, one striking story about him. He had been seized with that dire calamity, which had once before laid him aside from public duty, and had been quietly removed to a country house. By some accident his door had been left unlocked, and Hall rushed out from bed into the open air. It was winter, and there was thick snow on the ground. He stumbled amid the snow-and the sudden shock on his half-naked body restored him to consciousness. He knelt down in the snow, and, looking up to heaven, exclaimed, "Lord, what is man?" To the constant fear of this malady, and to deep and melancholy thoughts on man and man's destiny, was added what Foster calls an "apparatus of torture" within him-a sharp calculus in his spine-a thorn in the flesh, or rather in the bone. Yet against all this he manIt were wasting time to dwell on sermons so fully struggled, and his death at last might be well known as those of Hall. We prefer that on called a victory. It took him away from the the death of Dr Ryland, as more characteristic perplexities of this dim dawn of being, where of his distinguishing qualities of dignified senti- the very light is as darkness--from almost perment, graceful pathos, and calm, majestic elo-petual pain, and from the shadow of the grimquence. In his " 'Infidelity," ," and "War," and the "Present Crisis," he grapples with subjects unsuited, on the whole, to his genius, and becomes almost necessarily an imitator, particularly of Burke-whose mind possessed all those qualities of origination, power over the terrible, and boundless fertility in which Hall's was deficient. But in Ryland you have himself; and we fearlessly pronounce that sermon the most classical and beautiful strain of pulpit eloquence in the English language. mest fear that can hang over humanity-and removed him to those regions mild of calm and serene air, of which he loved to discourse, where no cloud stains the eternal azure of the holy soul-where doubt is as impossible as disbelief or darkness-and where God in all the grandeur of His immensity, but in all the softness of His love, is for ever unveiled. There his friends Foster and Chalmers have since joined him; and it is impossible not to form delightful conjectures as to their meeting each other, and holding sweet and solemn fellowship in that blessed region. "Shall we know each other in heaven?" is a question often asked. And yet why should it be doubted for a moment? Do the brutes know each other on earth, and shall not the saints in heaven? Yes! that notion of a re-union which inspired the soul of Cicero, which made poor Burns exult in the prospect of his meeting with his dear lost Highland Mary, and which Hall, in the close of his sermon on Ryland, has covered with the mild glory of his immortal eloquence, is no dream or Hall, as we have intimated, had a lofty mien, delusion. It is one of the "true sayings of and was thought by many, particularly in a first God," and there is none of them more cheering interview, rather arrogant and overbearing. But to the soul of the struggler here below. These this was only the hard outside shell of his three master-spirits have met, and what a meetmanner; beneath there were profound humility, ing it has been! The spirit of Foster has lost warm affections, and childlike piety. He said that sable garment which suspicious conjecture, that he "enjoyed everything." But this capa-prying curiosity, and gloomy temperament had Hall as a thinker never had much power over the age, and that seems entirely departed. Even as a writer he is not now so much admired. The age is getting tired of measured periods, and is preferring a more conversational and varied style. He has founded no school, and left few stings in the hearts of his hearers. Few have learned much from him. Yet as specimens of pure English, expressing evangelical truth in musical cadence, his sermons and essays have their own place, and it is a high one, among the classical writings of the age. woven for it here, and his "raiment doth shine as the light." Chalmers has recovered from the wear and tear of that long battle and life of tempestuous action which was his lot on earth. And Hall's thorn rankles no longer in his side, and all his fears and forebodings have passed away. The long day of eternity is before them all, and words fail us, as we think of the joy with which they anticipate its unbounded pleasures, and prepare for its unwearying occupations. They are above the clouds that encompassed them once, and they hear the thunders that once terrified or scathed them, muttering harmlessly far, far below. Wondrous their insight, deep their joy, sweet their reminiscences, ravishing their prospects. But their hearts are even humbler than when they were on earth; they never weary of saying, "Not unto us, not unto us;" and the song never dies away on their lips, any more than on those of the meanest and humblest of the saved, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, be glory and honour, dominion and power, for ever and ever. Amen." SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. [1765-1832.] BY WILLIAM HAZLITT. tion and elaborate display of grave and useful knowledge. As it is, it may be said that in company he talks well, but too much; that in writing he overlays the original subject and spirit of the composition by an appeal to authorities and by too formal a method; that in public speaking the logician takes place of the orator, and that he fails to give effect to a particular point or to urge an immediate advantage home upon his adversary from the enlarged scope of his mind and the wide career he takes in the field of argument. [SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH was born at Aldourie | have met its proudest reward, in the accumulaHouse, on the banks of Loch Ness, October 24, 1765. He studied at Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and went to London for the study of law. In 1795 he was called to the bar, and in 1803 made a brilliant and famous defence of M. Peltier, a Royalist emigrant from France, who had been indicted for libel by Napoleon. He was next appointed Recorder of Bombay, was knighted, and sailed from England early in 1804. After seven years' service he returned to England, obtained a seat in Parliament, took the side of the Whigs, and received a pension of £1200 for his services in India. In 1827 he was made a Privy Councillor, and in 1830 was appointed Commissioner of Affairs for India. He died on 30th May 1832. Mackintosh was a contributor to the Edinburgh Review and "Encyclopædia Britannica," and was also the author of a popular "History of England" for Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopædia."] is, in fact, master of almost every known topic, whether of a passing or of a more recondite nature. He has lived much in society, and is deeply conversant with books. He is a man of the world and a scholar, but the scholar gives the tone to all his other acquirements and pursuits. Sir James is by education and habit, and we were going to add, by the original turn of his mind, a college man; and perhaps he would have passed his time most happily and respectably had he devoted himself entirely to that kind of life. The strength of his faculties would have been best developed, his ambition would * "Spirit of the Age," 1825. To consider him in the last point of view first. As a political partisan, he is rather the lecturer than the advocate. He is able to instruct and delight an impartial and disinterested audience by the extent of his information, by his acquaintance with general principles, by the clearness and aptitude of his illustrations, by vigour and copiousness of style; but where he has a prejudiced or unfair antagonist to contend with, he is just as likely to put weapons into his enemy's hands as to wrest them from him, and his object seems to be rather to deserve than to obtain success. The characteristics of his mind are retentiveness and comprehension, with facility of production; but he is not equally remarkable for originality of view or warmth of feeling or liveliness of fancy. His eloquence is a little rhetorical, his reasoning chiefly logical; he can bring down the account of knowledge on a vast variety of subjects to the present moment, he can embellish any cause he undertakes by the most approved and graceful ornaments, he can support it by a host of facts and examples, but he cannot advance it a step forward by placing it on a new and triumphant vantage-ground, nor can he overwhelm and break down the artificial fences and bulwarks of sophistry by the |