The Sun.
London, England, 1840-03-05 00:00:00

LIT RA T U RE.

SPEECHES ON COPYRIGHT.
Moron, Lonilon, 1840.
Mr. Moxon has done wall to republish Sergeant
Telfourd's Parliamentary speeches on the Law of Copy-
right, for, independently of the in:portanee attached by
literety men to he subject, they are niedeis, in their
‘vay, of teat hest sort of eloquence which coos inees the
understanding, white at the seine time it delights the
fancy, and wins its sure VS' it yto the heart. On all to-
pics that interest his feelings, we consider the Learned
Sec, eant one of the most sterling orators of the day.
If he have not the breadth, vigour, and various histo-
rical lore of Macaulay, the ready smartness of Stanley,
or the tact and plausibility of Peel, he has vet a classic
purity of diction, an elevation of thought and sentiment.
and a salient and abounding fancy, ever obedient to his
summons, which we rarely meet with in the speeches
of these dexterous debaters. But then, in order to he
heard to advantage, it is absolutely indispensable that he
have a their.e which deeply stirs his feelings. He can-
not speak from the mere cold dictates of the under-
standing ; hence he is usually si,ent on the ordinary
business topics of the day, such as call forth the dry
prolixity of a Jackson or a Warburton ; but give him a
subject which he takes to heart—one calculated t o
kindle the generous heal of the scholar, and the
glowing imagination of the poet—and there is not
a speaker in the House of Commons who shall
produce a deeper impression on the more cultiva-
ted portion of this audience. Such a subjt ct the
Learned Sergeant found in the Copyright qaestion, and
the speeches before us are the result. They were
heard with the greatest delight by a full House ; and
even the Utilitarians who objected to their arguments,
and who, it may be supposed, have always logic at
command, seeing that they have nothing else, found it
easier to vote against, than to answer them. It is too
much the fashion of the present day, especially among
common-place people, to consider a speech or an essay
sound and argumentative, simply because it is of a duf,
dry, practical character, like Alderman Thompson's
ledger; and, on the other hand, to take for granted
that it is superficial, merely beeathe it happens to be
bestrewed with the rich lights of fancy and fueling.
Now there cannot be a greater mistake titan this.
Sidney Smith, one of the liveliest, most sparkling, and
—when he pleases—most eloquent of essayists, is also
one of the must severely argumentative ; and if there be
one thing more than another which we admire in Mr.
Talfourd's Copyright speeches, it is the perspicuous
and consecutive character of the reasoning. True,
that reasoning is graced, and enriched, and illustrated
by poetic imagery of the purest order ; but surely it
does not lose in intrinsic quality by such aids, any more
than a diamond ceases to be a diamond because it is
handsomely set in gold I By all lovers of impassioned
yet perfectly unaffected eloquence, this ktle volume
—whose publication is a proof that a relish for the
generous and elevated in literature is not yet extinct
among us—will be received as a welcome boon, second
only to that which the author conferred on the public
by his high-toned drama of lon.

A DEFENCE OF ORTBODUXY, WITH AN
APOLOGY FOR THE NEW TESTA
MEN T. Br t MEMBER oP ring ANGLICAN CA.
riromc CHURCH, Improperly called the Protestant
Church of England. Effingham Wilson, London, 1840.
This is one of the smartest and most complete pieces
of irony that has for a long time fallen under our notice.
The style is as nervous as the irony is bitter ; and we
shrewdly suspect that the Rev. Sidney Smith, who, it
is well known, has no affection for the Church, is the
author. If he be not, he might be. without detracting
any thing from the merit of the author of Peter Plytn-
ley's letters. We are less disposed, however, to com-
ment on the excellent production of the Rev. Gentle-
man, than to make our readers acquainted with its con-
tents by extracts. Here, therefore, is one passage, vin-
dicating the Church from the charge of not being meek
and lowly.
If you trace the history of our rise to our present pre•
ferments during the last thirty years, see us first as domes-
tic tutors, watching every look of our patroness, wash-
ing her spaniel and feeding her parrot, collecting gossip
for her amusement, accompanying her in her drives in the
morning, and playing whist with her at night, hating
whom she hates, admiring whom she admires•—you will
pause before you deny us the merits of lowliness and
meekness. Observe us next inducted to a living in some
fen in Lincolnshire, which, from its solitude and insalu-
brity, is peculiarly adapted to the stout health and slender
fortune of an unfriended or perhaps a " liberal" curate—
consider the risks we run in our visits once a year to re-
ceive the tithes—t 6 g misery of a way-side inn, the chance
of inferior wine, and you will not be surprised that the dis
cernment of our then glorious Administrations rewarded so
much self devotion with a prebend, or a preachership at
Court. Not meek ? Not lowly ?—Spirits of Curs and
Sumners, of Philpottses and Hodgsons, was ever blas-
phemy equal to this? I tell you, Sir, that more lowliness
and meekness are condensed into one half year of the
existence of an expectant divine, bending his back into an
arch, and crouching till his very soul feels humbled and
abashed, than would suffice for the whole life time of an
ordinary man. And if, when this meekness and piety have
raised them from a vicarage at Brighton, or a tutorship at
Geneva, to weelth and influence, they display a proper
appreciation of the goodness of Providence and their
patron, by maintaining the dignity of their office, and ex-
acting the uttermost farthing of their dues, what have
those most inapplicable quotations about meekness and
r lowliness to do with their behaviour ? They are still
meek and lowly on proper occasions—in presence of their
superiors. But, a Bishop to be meek ? a Bishop to be
lowly ? it would appear a manifest contradiction in terms,
were it not for the very unopiscopal and unnatural beha-
viour of certain monsters recently elevated to the bench,
who, as they never possessed the peculiar virtues I have
claimed for my Right Reverend friends, continue the same
humble and spiritless course of lowly-mindedness, meek-
ness, and charity, which they pursued when country rectors
and even stipendiary curates.
But if the Whigs and Radicals had pursued their theo-
logical studies a little farther—better for them if they had
never commenced them at all—they would have seen that,
with regard to those virtues of lowliness and meekness,
there is a promise as well as an injunction. They follow
in this the usual policy of unprincipled and dishonourable
men, and see only one side of the question. They take
especial notice of the command, but wilfully shut their eyes
to the rewards attached to obedience to it.
It is an acknowledged axiom in biblical interpretation
that the fulfilment of a prophecy is the surest proof of
which any disputed matter is capable ; and it is also uni.
versally agreed that it is allowable to conclude, from the
completion of a promise, that the conditions of the promise
have been fulfilled. Bearing this in mind, look round, I
beseech you, in this broad realm of England ; see our
churches rising in every parish, our granaries filled with
corn ; our glebes. our granges, our farms, spreading a ho-
lier beauty over the landscape, wherever you turn your
eyes, and then go to your Bible and see who are the people
to whom the earth is promised. " Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth." Now, when we are
already in possession of such a slice of it, there is no logi-
cian who would be hardy enough to deny that our meek-
ness must have been in proportion to the remuneration.
It is not therefore us you attack, but the New Testament
itself, on which indeed you lay more stress than we do.
I beg to assure you, in full proof of the meekness which you
deny us, that we consider an attack on that volume a very
venial offence, compared to the ignorant enmity you dis-
play against ourselves. You accuse us in the same manner,
of regarding the things of this world—of being partial to
good eating and drinking, and, in short, of being like the
calumniated Dives, in the parable—clothed in fine linen
and faring sumptuously every day. The blow, as usual,
falls not upon us, but on your own favourite book; for it'
you will examine it attentively you will find that, although
those luxuries are strictly forbidden to Dis,enters and
other sinners, they are most distinctly promised to those
who are truly orthodox, in the religious and political faith
in which we have placed our trust. " Seek ye first the
Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things
shall be added unto you "
Well, we have got them all, eating, drinking, and cloth-
ing, and I therefore defy you to doubt we are the sole pos-
sessors, not only of lawn sleeves and French cooks, but
also of righteousness and religion.
Here is another passage, denying that the age of
miracle is past.
Another accusation which is brought against the New
Testament, though professedly against us in this. "If
your bishops are indeed endowed with apostolical authority,
where: is their apostolical power ? The age of miracles is
past." To this I answer, the age of miracles is not past.
What greater miracles can be imagined than are daily to
be seen in our admirable Church ? A Prettyman or a
Sparkea undergoing dinners and other Christian penances
in the hospitable houses of Bath or Cheltenham, and at the
same moment fulfilling his sacred duties, and replenishing
his apostolical scrip as spiritual gu;cle of six or seven
parishes in various parts of England; a Reverend Moles-
worth uniting in himself the qualities both of Balaam and
his ass, and astonishing, like the one, by speaking at all
—like the other, by cursing those whom lie was commis-
sioned to bless anti pray for ;—a Newmanite or Puse vice
protesting against Protestantism, and abjuring the Re-for-
mation and yet eating the bread of our Protestant re-
formed Church, and only regretting that her loaves are
not a little larger I Are these no miracles? Nay, is it
not a miracle exceeding future belief, that these things
have gone on for so long a time without exciting such a
tempest of admiration as to endanger the Establish-
ment itself? Since it has survived this, we may well
laug'u at those who deny that its tenacity of life is super-
human.
We have quoted enough to stimulate the curiosity of
our readers, and wo will not quote more, lest it be
satiated.
We recommend the pamphlet to general p,:rusal.

TOURS IN THE HIMALAYA 310UNTAINS.
2 Vols. Madden, Loudon, 1840.
Sir William Lloyd, a military gentleman, who fur-
nished the materials from which the first of these two
volumes is made up, the substance of the second having
been supplied to the Editor by the late Captain Gerard,
states that he had long felt a desire to explore the snowy
ranges of the Himalayas, and an opportunity having
presented itself of gratifying his curiosity, ho started
from Cawnpoor in the December of 1821, and made
the best of his way to the old city of Dhoolpoor, where
he was hospitably receised by the Rana, or Chief, who,
informed him that generally throughout the district,
" every female child was put to death immediately after
its birth, and that the practice originated from the Eiti-
peror Jeliarngree taking by force to his bed the yc..ang
women of this and other Rahnort tribes.' On quit-
ting this country of incantic:de,‘Our Author hurried on