The Sun.
London, England, 1835-02-28 00:00:00

..

LITERATURE.

GA UNTLETT'S SERMONS.
T. Seeley and Burnside. London. 1835. •
hese sermons are the productions of the late
.car of Olney, Bucks--a spot memorable as being the
abode of the poet Cowper—and are introduced
a memoir of the author, which is written with much
feeling and propriety. The Sermons themselves need
no recommendation. They are characterized throughout
by a tolerant and-impassioriate spirit of piety, and need
only to be read to be admired. At the close of the
volumes, many curious letters of the poet. Cowper are
introduced' in the form of an appendix, which prove
beyond doubt that the author of the " Task " was, if
not quite mad, at least in a condition,•for upwards 0.1"
thirty years, cle.4 ly bordering on it. Such lettera as;
are here for the first time, we believe,-publishe4 we
never read.. They show not only a'disordered state of
mind, but one amounting to • absolute inribnility, .As
literary curiosities they are unrivalled. Housseani•
ila
his most perverse state of hallucination, neverde‘:e•
loped such a pitiable weakness of intellect as Cowper
here displays. 'lt is impossible, notwithstanding the
admiration we feel for the poet of the " Task," to look
on his emasculated mind with other feelings than those
of contemptuous commiseration. He had none of
the energy of man--none of the meek forbearance a
woman. He had not spirit ("bough to be an enthu-
siast, but was a poor, P7azy, mixture of doubt, dam,_
pair, and I"t°lcvnice. His heart was sound, but his
in'a4-r; perpetually leading him astray. We Sub-
join a few of the most characteristic of Cowper's
epistles. In the first he alludes, it Will be perceived,
to a vision of a wine-glass, which Sheridan would
have interpreted in a more social and inspiriting way
than the Calvinist of Olney :
" DEAR Stn—My time since I wrote last has passed quietly, except
the night before !ant and yesterday. That night vas a night of dis-
tressing experiences, and the day was consequemly a melancholy one.
This morning I tun in rather a more cheerful frame of mind than usual,
haying had two notices of a more 'comfortable cast than the generality
amine. I waked, saying—

I shall perish,
which was immediately answered by a vision of a wineglass, and thee
words—

A whole glass.
In allusion, lib doubt, to the famous story of Mrs. Honeywood.
" Soon after, I heard these—
' I see in this case just occasion of pity.'
" I am sorry that Mr. Killingworth is so painfully indisposed, for I
know that an interruption of his industry can be ill afforded. But you
comfort may be, that the Lord knows it too. Mr. Courtenay spoke to
me the other day about his binding, and was perfectly satisfied with it,
but he thought him long in finishing.

" Our friends leave us on Friday. May the new year be a more pro.
pi!iotis year to us all, than' its predecessor. God grant it! Amen.
" Mrs. Unpin is much as usual, and joins me in hind remembrance..
Nye have received our annual remittance from the secret benefactor to
the indigent —I am yours siixerely,
" Jan. I, 1793.

" AL CO WPE R.`

" DEAR SIR—It is with great unwillingness that I write, knowing
that I can say nothing but what will distress ycu. I despair of every
thing, anti my d:spair is pert', ct, because it is founded oil a persuasion.
that there is no effectual help far me, even in God.

" From four this morning till after seven I lay meditating terror, sue,
terrors as no language can express, and as no heart, I am sure, but mine
ever knew. My very finger ends tingled with it, as indeed they ofte.,
tie. I thea slept and dreamed a long dream, in which I told Mrs. U.,
with many tears, that my salvation is impossible, for the reason given
above. I recapitulated in the most impassioned accent and manner, the
unexampled severity of God's dealings with me in the course of the last
twenty years, especially in the year 73, and again in 81, and concluded
all with observing that I must infallibly perish, and that the Scripture's
which speak of the insufficiency of man to save himself can never be
derstood unless I perish.
" I then made a sudden transition in my dream to one of the public
streets in London, where 1 was met by a dray ; the fure.).„, of the
team carat:full against me, and in vio:ent anger I clatrat'd the draymsti
for it.
" Such are my nocturnal experiences, anal ;CP.; daily ones are little
better. I know that I have muei lever, but 1'
is no cure, and is as much the afflictive ',and of God upon me as any
a fever for which there
other circumstance of my distress.

" I thank you for your two la
• Delay is no denial indeed, but in
extrerniti,s such as mine it
ts
very severe and hard to bear.
' I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely,

'• Feb. 2, 179;3

" WM C."

AND STORIES, BY A CLERGYMAN

DEB7'.

Written during his Confinement in the Debtors' Prisons.
3. Vols. London :A. IL Bailey and Co. 1835.

. -
Most earnestly do we recommend the perusal--the care-
ful perusal—of this work to the members of- the British
Legislature. It is worth 114 volumes of abstract treatises
on the evils of the present laws of debtor and creditors
triumphant refutation of every argument that has ever been
offered in favour of the demoralizing, heart-rending systent
of imprisonment for debt. The scenes are represented with
surprising vigour and faithfulness ; the descriptions vivid,
full of truth, and occasionally powerful ; and the illustra-
tions and episodes, pictures drawn from real incideilts of
real life. Some of the episodes are full of pathos—
more so an .hundred times than any which ha-ve ever been
supplied by a fertile and inventive inwgination. The
history of poor unfortunate Mrs. Ge'rdon—the touching
account of the young clergyman who committed suicide—
and the death of the unhappY south, a scholar of West-
minster, imprisoned for discharging a cracker through a
Jew's window—the author's story, and many others, all posi-
tive facts, are without parallel in the best works of fiction,
All the events, however, are not of ;:his serious description.
Some of the anecdotes related are worthy of Foote, others
would do credit to the genius of Garrick, and Dr. Wolcott
has written verses which would not suffer by a comparison.
with come of the stanzas chorussed in the tape-shops of the
King's Bench.

That this work will become popular we trust—that it
ought to become so we are most firmly persuaded—not
that we agree with the author in every opinion he expresses ;
neither can we approve of the want of taste, and occasionally
of goof). feeling, which has led him to speak disrespectfully
of public men to wboni he is opposed on political grounds.
It has been observed that too much suffering hardens the
heart, and blunts the better feelings of our common nature ;
and certainly there seems a confirmation of it, in the fact,
that a gentleman who, from bitter experience of the demo-
ralizing effects of imprisonment for debt, e:sposes the horrors
of that abominable system, can reconcile it to his conscience
to repudiate the emancipation of the Irish Catholics from
a state of bondage more degrading than even perpetual in-
carceration. Neither do we hold with the author's con-
viction, that the improvement of the laws of debtor and
creditor, and the abolishing altogether of imprisonment for
debt, are all that are required to perfect the- civil and judi-
cial code of this country. But these questions arc not now
under consideration. Our present business is with the
general tenor of a work calculated to render infinite service
to the cause of justice and humanity, and well deserving the
patronage of every enlightened member of the community.
We shall be glad to hear of its extended circulation ; and
we can assure our readers that there is not one of them who
will not be amused, instructed, and affected by its perusal.
We shall frequently have occasion to give extracts from
its pages; we, therefore, in the present crowded state of
our columns, must confine ourselves to the following extract
from the second volume, exposing the system of victimising,
which is constantly being, carried on in London by swindling
attornies and their nefarious agents :
"This, then, was thus described to Motfurd. Supplse a private
individual anxious to disccunt a Lill, which, not being mercantile, he•
could not get cashmt through the medium of a city brok, r. He is re-
commended to a person residing in some city Square—a Methodist par-
son, perhaps (we could adduce a notorious case in point), who wilt do it
for him; or he is, as is still oftener the case, referred to the parson',
agent, who is aPowed so much by hi• employerfor getting the bill, and
so. muds by the gentleman for cashing it. The money is given—say
35/. for a 401 bill—with the understanding that if the geatle•nan should
short' when it becomes due, it can be renewed. This intimation is
invariably given when the party is known to have money, in order to
excite a carelessuess,as to the taking up of the bill, and,, if possible, to,
,prevent its being paid to the moment. Well, the. gentleman departs.
with his money, and the agent flies off to the parson with the bilk The
parson at once hands it over to Jos. ltussel: The well-trained and
wea.traiMog Jos., who may be in prison or not, as he fled; it tosuit his
purpose, has always a gang of desperate rogues, some in, and same out,
of jail, but all connected with the debtors' prisons, in his pay. His first
step, then, on receiving the bill, is to endorse it himself; his next, to-re,
pair to these precious confederates, to whom he pays one or two ab'sl.
hags earls to write their names on the back of the bill, upon the mum
standing that, if at large, they arc to be arrested; if hi jail, to be, a erved
with common writs. In this manner, Jos. procures sixteen oc twenty
endorsements to the bill; the more the merrier for Jos.

" The bill runs its time, and becomes ,te. The gentleman, careless,
as was expected and intended, is not at home when it is presented, and
perhaps calls in a couple of days afterwards to take it up. The method*
parson h• s not got it, indeed it is at his attorney's, but if the gentleman
will call to-morrow, he can take it up; at the same time, he believes
there are two or three pounds casts upon it, which he had better be pro.
pared to pay.
" The gentleman accordingly calls the next day; sheriff's officers ant
in waiting for him, and he is arrested. He is taken to a spunging-house,
and there, for the first time, he is astounded at the use that has tsjeu
rnade of the int, rval of time between the day when the bill became tins,
and the day when the msney was tendered. He finds that it has been
endorsed by some twenty persons, and that; in that interval, the whole-
of the twenty have writs issued against them, at a cost of three pounds
each ; thus leaving his debt at it. original amount of forty wands,- a&
his costs at a trifle more than sixty pounds It is well, tlti*
:ii he.himr