[87] Many more might be added, such as a good fellow, a good companion, a libertine, a little free, a little loose in talk, wild, gay, jovial, being no man’s enemy but his own, &c. &c. &c. &c; above all, having a good heart.
[88] Gal. v. 19-21. Col. iii. 5-9.
[89] Job, xxviii. 28. Psalm, cxi. 10. Prov. i. 7.—ix. 10.
[90] 2 Peter, iii. 10, 11.
[91] Col. i. 13.
[92] It is almost unnecessary to remark, that the word is to be understood in a large sense, as including the Opera, &c.
[93] Geneva—It is worthy of remark, that the play houses have multiplied extremely in Paris since the revolution; and that last winter there were twenty open every night, and all crowded. It should not be left unobserved, and it is seriously submitted to the consideration of those who regard the stage as a school of morals, that the pieces which were best composed, best acted, and most warmly and generally applauded, were such as abounded in touches of delicate sensibility. The people of Paris have never been imagined to be more susceptible, than the generality of mankind, of these emotions, and this is not the particular period when the Parisians have been commonly conceived most under their influence. Vide Journal d’un Voyageur Neutre. The author of the work expresses himself as astonished by the phænomenon, and as unable to account for it.
[94] The author is almost afraid of using the terms, lest they should convey an impression of party feelings, of which he wishes this book to exhibit no traces; but he here means by Democrats and Jacobins, not persons on whom party violence fastens the epithet, but persons who are really and avowedly such.
[95] Lord Bacon.
[96] If any one would read a description of this process, enlivened and enforced by the powers of the most exquisite poetry, let him peruse the middle and latter part of the fifth Book of Cowper’s Task. My warm attachment to the exquisitely natural compositions of this truly Christian poet may perhaps bias my judgment; but the part of the work to which I refer appears to me scarcely surpassed by any thing in our language. The honourable epithet of Christian may justly be assigned to a poet, whose writings, while they fascinate the reader by their manifestly coming from the heart, breathe throughout the spirit of that character of Christianity, with which she was announced to the world; “Glory to God, peace on earth, good will towards men.”