The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-08 00:00:00

GUNPOWDER JACK.

Messrs Burton and White were charged With having as-
saulted one John Whitmore---a poor old man, Who, having
been blown u.p into the air some half-dozen times as an
operative gunpowder maker, is at last settled down to a
sweeper of a crossing in the Strand, and a grower of brown
terrier puppies. The defendants are heavers of coal—a
pair of fine, brawny, woolly-headed, fantailed, shallow-
topped, beer-swallowing blusterer. ; and old John Whit--
more—or Gunpowder Jack, as his friends call him.--
complained that, as he was carrying; a basket of hisbriwp
terrier puppies, one of the defendants held him by its
collar, whilst the other bit off the ends of his puppies' tails.
The brutes contented themselves with giving a laughing
denial to the fact, and the Magistrate held them to bail for
their pains.

BIBLE GEMS.
By the Rev. Join; STEwAß,T.—London, 1827.

This scriptural little volume, though highly to be
commended for its earnestness and good intentions,
has been conceived, we fear, in a mistaken spirit of
piety. Its professed object, as the author assures
us in an ably written preface—is " to cause the
Bible no longer to be taken up with reluctance, read
with indifference, and laid down again without re-
gret ;" in furtherance of which object, he has made
the earlier periods of the Bible, from the Fall of
Man to the sacrifice of Isaac, the vehicles of a col-
lection of stories, wreathed with the flowers of ro-
mance, interspersed with superfluous remarks, and
encumbered :with pretty puerilities. It is of this
transformation we complain. Sacred history needs
little or no change, its language concentrates
in itself every variety of excellence, and (ac-
cording as its subjects demand the display of
such beauties) is stern, majestic, tender, elo-
quent, imaginative, sublime, and throughout
in every alternation of style, breathed over by
the glowing spirit of the divinity. To adopt, in
place of these various excellencies, a series of mere
erring human lucubrations, devout, but redundant
and puerile in style, and far indeed, removed from the
transcendant majesty of the original; to pass off
such lucubrations to the world as " Bible Gems,"
when, in fact, the gems are false brilliants, set in
paste : and then, by way of a wind-up, to take credit
for having thereby rendered the "Bible" more at-
tractive, is a proof of an ill-judging, though, we
doubt not, sincere and well-intentioned mind.—
Even Milton himself, whenever he alluded to, or
paraphrased the language of Holy Writ, did it.with a
reverential consciousness of his own inferiority; like
Moses, he took off his shoes, for he felt that he was
treading on holyground, and drooped weak and flagging
under the overwhelming grandeur of his subject. Shall
Mr. Stewart presume to soar where Milton scarcely
dared to creep ? Shall the author of " Bible
Gems" flatter himself with the idea of having ren-
dered a service to Christianity, where the author of
" Paradise Lost" confessed his deficiencies. In-
deed—indeed we hope not, if only for the sake of
that lowly and respectful diffidence which we should
always wish to associate with the character and
vocation of a clergyman. Mr. Stewart's good in-
tentions are, as we observed before, more to be com-
mended than his discretion : if he must paraphrase,
let him take Milton—or pick up Porteua for a sacri-
fice—but when he enters within the sacred precincts
of Zion, let him at bast cast aside the robes of vain-
gloriousness, slid clothe himself instead in the
white garment of humility."