= o\r\ a fc/jrij s l Arrowtmith, Johnnnt'^'t'ourt, fleet Street PUBLISHED BY E. BRAIN. 4, BUTC'HER-HAI.L-LANE, NEWGATE-STREET, MDCCCXXlIf. vi PREFACE. Lit. Chron. And the defence most elo- quent and powerful. Examiner And the squibbery in the re- porting department light and easy. John Bull A bit of foolery methinks, but withal, remarkably smart, and well done. Times Let me add too, as not its least praise ; so free from all malignity. John Bull Liberal egad ! (aside) Shown up to the life, and yet the first to praise. Mr. Chairman Well, gentlemen, you seem all to be pretty much agreed in opinion I presume Mr. Secretary may enter it as the award of the Board Times That it deserves general circulation. Examiner And forms a pleasant and use- ful pasquinade for those who are anxious to have all sides of the question. Star And is the only thing worth reading that has been written on the subject of Mr. Irving. Mr. Chairman Let judgment be entered up accordingly. HIGH COURT OF COMMON SENSE. SPECIAL JURY CASE. TRINITY SESSIONS, 1823. The KING, at the Instance of JACOB OLDSTYLE^ Clerk, v. the REV. EDWARD IRVING, M. A. FROM the extraordinary interest which this case excited, the doors of the Court were no sooner opened than it was filled in every part to excess, by an assemblage of persons of the first rank and distinction in the country. On the bench beside the Chief Justice, sat the Lord Chancellor and his brother Lord Stowell, Earl Liverpool, Earl Grey, Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Erskine, Right Hon. Sir William Grant, Mr. Justice Bayley, Sir James Mackintosh, Mr. Canning, Mr. Peel, Mr. Hus- kisson, Mr. Tierney, Mr. Brougham ; and at the extremities of the bench, but railed off from the others (for in the Court of Common Sense it is not as in other Courts), the Duke of Somerset, Lord Kenyonj Sir Gerard Noel, Sir Harcourt Lees, Mr. Peter Moore, Mr. Parkins, Romeo B v Coates, and Dr. Dinwidclie. Earl Grosvenor was put into a box by himself, and the prayer-book placed out of his reach. The galleries were almost entirely rilled with elegantly dressed ladies, ad- mitted by tickets from the Lady Patronesses at Almack's. All its best blood was there. Among a crowd of persons attending below the bench to give evidence, were most of the active literary characters about town connected with the periodi- cal press ; and for reasons developed in the course of the proceedings, it is necessary that we here enumerate their names, as far as they were known to us. We observed Dr. Stodart and Mr. Barnes side by side ; Mr. Jerdan, Mr. Mudford, Mr. Haz- litt, Mr. Cobbett, Lieut. Col. Torrens, Mr. Soane, Sir Richard Phillips, Pierce Egan, Rev. Ingram Cobbin, Rev. George Redford, Mr. Black, Dr. Dreghorn, Mr. Thomas Campbell, Mr. Byerley, Mr. Gifford, Mr. Haynes, Mr. Wooler, Mr. Coul- ston, Mr. David Booth, Mr. D. W. Harvey, Rev. Mr. Burder, Rev. Mr. Knox, Mr. Theod. Hook, Paul Potter, Dr. Walsh, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Josiah Conder, Mr. William Jones, Mr. Bell, Mr. Wal- lace, Mr. Lamb, Mr. Gale Jones, Mr. R. Hunt, and Mr. Moody (not the Judy.) Mr. Serjeant Bishop appeared for the prosecu- tion, along with whom were Mr. Parsons and Mr. Macvicar. The defendant conducted his" own case, assisted by Mr. Counsellor Phillips. Mr. Irving maintained throughout a very firm and collected demeanour. He seems to be about thirty -five years of age, and nearly six feet high. The general contour of his countenance is intellectual, though somewhat coarse, his complexion very dark, his hair black and bushy, whiskers tremendous. As one of his many critics has observed, " he would undoubt- edly be a very handsome man," only he squints abominably. The list of the special jurors being called over, the following gentlemen answered to their names : ALDERMAN SIR JAMES SHAW, Bart., ALDERMAN BIRCH, ALDERMAN KEY, JAMES MILL, ]sq., DR. ALEXANDER CROMBIE, A. STRAHAN, Esq., A. J. VALPY, Esq., HORACE Twiss, Esq. M. P. The defendant having prayed a tales, the jury was completed by the following names from the common jury list. Mr. THOMAS UNDERWOOD, Mr. RICHARD TAYLOR, Mr. HURCOMBE, Mr. T. C. HANSARD. CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION. Mr. Macvicar opened the case to the jury. The present, he said, was a prosecution instituted at the instance of Mr. Jacob Oldstyle, Clerk, against the Rev. Edward Irving, Minister of the Cale- donian Church or Chapel, in Cross Street, Hatton Garden. The indictment was laid on seven dif- ferent counts. First, For being ugly. Second, For being a merry-andrew. Third, for being a common quack. Fourth, For being a common brawler. Fifth, For being a common swearer. Sixth, For being of very common understanding. And, Seventh, For following divisive courses, subversive of the discipline of the order to which he belongs, and contrary to the principles of Christian fellowship and charity. Mr. Serjeant Bishop, said, that he would not detain the court with any long harangue. He saw so many gentlemen of far higher talents than he could pretend to, so many lights of the age, in waiting, who would be called upon to state to the jury what they knew of the case, that it would be presumption in him to pre-occupy their minds with anything he could offer on the subject. He would state merely in vindication of his client, Mr. Jacob Oldstyle, that he had not instituted this prosecution from any feeling of personal re- sentment towards Mr. Irving, nor from any vain hope of gaining a name to himself, by measuring his strength with the great boar of the forest. He appeared here, not on his own account alone, but in the name and the behalf of the whole gene- ration of the Oldstyles. He did not claim to be the best of the family, and therefore of right their Champion, but being the oldest among them, he had been called upon to stand forward and defend their common interests, from the rude assaults which Mr. Irving, in his ugliness and quackery, and divisive-mindedness, had made upon them. He loved his family, and could not refuse, though 5 bending under a load of years, to make this hum- ble effort, ere he died, to wipe off the stain at- tempted to be fixed on their name and reputation. The Learned Serjeant, said, that he would now proceed to call the witnesses who would prove the different charges, which his learned friend, Mr. Macvicar, had so clearly and explicitly laid before them. [Here some twenty voices from the b&dy of the court cried out Stop ! Stop ! and a portly gentleman with spectacles, pushing forward to the Learned Serjeant, whispered something in his ear.] Mr. Serjeant Bishop. " My Lord, it has been just intimated to me, that it will be an unpleasant circumstance to many gentlemen who are here to give evidence, and may withal be attended with dangerous consequences, if the^ are called by their individual names into the witness box. I need scarcely remind the court of the melancholy fate of Mr. Scott. The gentlemen are all in one way or another connected with different periodical works, and it is their wish, I understand, that each should be called by the name of the work to which he belongs. They have brought Masks with them, which, with the leave of the court, they will put on during examination." Mr. Cobbett. " Not I, my Lord, thank God, I want no mask." Mr. Wookr. " Nor I." Dr. Dreghorn (aside). " Brazen faces need no masks." Chief Justice. " It is a novel application, cer- tainly. At common sense, however, we want no precedents to justify us in doing what seems right and proper. Let it be as the gentlemen please ; each may mask or not, as he likes. It would be a shocking thing were any person to catch harm from his appearance here to-day, in aid of the ends of justice." The Editor of the Times was then called, and examined by Mr. Parsons. You are editor of The Times journal ? Yes. It is the leading journal of Europe, is it not? Undoubtedly. How do you take the lead, Sir ? By guarding the candid and enlightened public against extravagant pretensions, wherever and whenever we meet with them. All sorts of pretensions ? No, Sir. I Would beg leave to say, there is a fashion in every thing in wigs and bon- nets, in poetry and novel writing, and lastly, in actors and preachers. All this is matter of course ; and while things go on in the ordinary way while wigs do not accumulate their curls into per- riwigs nor bonnets swell into coal-scuttles while our popular poets scribble only one poem, and our popular romancers only two novels a year while our actors are content with one new reading in a play of Shakespeare ; and our preach- ers aim at no praises beyond that of the regular frequenters of fashionable chapels j we, I say tee, Sir, are disposed to let things pass, and allow the " candid and enlightened public" to be pleased in their own way. Do you know any thing of the defendant, Mr. Irving ? Have you allowed him to pass ? Oh dear, no ! The case is quite different with Mr. Irving. His popularity, Sir, absolutely fright- ened us, Sir, " from our propriety." When we learnt that statesmen and quack doctors, old ladies and judges, young ladies and students at law, all flocked with equal eagerness to hear this Caledonian orator : we became curious to know what could be the attractions to collect together such an heterogeneous mass. And so you went to hear him preach ? Not only went to hear him preach, Sir, but read all that he had written. , Did you find out, then, what his attractions are ? After a serious consideration, I must profess, that we were utterly unable to discover. We were, in our own minds (for we hate, Sir, to think with the minds of other people) fully convinced that Mr. Irving is a man of very ordinary talents ; that his understanding is weak in its grasp, and limited in its observation ; and that his taste is of the very lowest order of badly-instructed school- boys. You are aware that Mr. Irving was assistant to the celebrated Dr. Chalmers, of Glasgow : did it strike you, that he is of the same school ? Of the same school, Sir ! He is an imitator of the doctor's, indeed ; but no more like the proto- type, than the inflated frog in the fable was like the bull he strove to resemble. For the energy of thought of the original, he gives us nothing but rumbling and distorted common-places ; for the impassioned and expressive diction of his master, we have nothing but antitheses without point, and epithets without distinctness ; while the poor and insignificant idea, wrapt up in a heap of tinsel and clumsy phraseology, looks like " the lady in the lobster," or a mouse under a canopy of state. Give us, pray, a specimen of his quality. " Obey the Scriptures, or you perish. You may despise the honour done you by the Majesty above ; you may spurn the sovereignty of Al- mighty God ; you may revolt from Creation's universal rule, to bow before its creator, and stand in momentary rebellion against its ordi- nances ;" and so forth. " But come at length it will, when revenge shall array herself to go forth, and anguish shall attend her, and from the wheels of their chariot ruin and dismay shall shoot far and wide among the enemies of the king, whose desolation shall not tarry, and whose destruction, as the wings of the whirlwind, shall be swift, hopeless as the conclusion of eternity, and the reversion of doom. Then around the fiery conclave of the wasteful pit the clang of grief shall ring, and the flinty heart, which repelled tender mercy, shall strike its fangs into its proper bosom ;" and so on. All, all shall pass away ! And instead shall come the level lake that burneth, and the solitary dungeon, and the desolate bosom, and the throes and tossings of horror and hope- lessness, and the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched. 'Tis written, 'tis writ- ten, 'tis sealed of heaven, and a few years shall reveal it all. Be assured, it is even so to happen to the despisers of holy writ : with this in arrear, what boots liberty, pleasure, enjoyment all within the hour-glass of time, on the round earth's continent, all the sensibilities of life, all the pow- ers of man, all the attractions of woman ! " And this, you think, is the lady in a lobster ? Yes. I would fearlessly ask, Sir, whether a boy at any public school would not have his exercise flung in his face (a smile from Lord Grosvenor) if he presented such trash to his master. We absolutely felt ashamed, and began to distrust our own judgment, when we found that we had one idea in common with such a turgid and shallow cleclaimer. Surely, surely (said we to ourselves), it cannot be long before this bubble bursts. And all this you stated to the public ? Yes. Did you find that your exposure of the defen- dant's pretensions had the effect of putting an end to the public delusion ? Quite the reverse. The crowds which thronged to the Caledonian chapel, instantly doubled. The scene which Cross-street, Hatton-garden, pre- sented on the following Sunday, beggared all de- scription. It was quite a Vanity Fair. Not one half of the assembled multitude could force their way into the sanctum sanctorum. Even we, our- c 10 selves, were shut out among the' vulgar herd. For the entertainment of the excluded, however, there was Mr. Basil Montague, preaching peace and re- signation from a window ; and the once celebrated Romeo Coates acting the part of trumpeter from the steps of the church, extolling Mr. Irving as the prodigy of prodigies, and abusing the Times for declaring that Mr. Irving was not " the god of their idolatry." We laughed heartily at the fool. From what text did Mr. Romeo discourse ? Proverbs vii. 7- '* And behold, among the simple ones, I discovered a young man void of understanding" (much laughter). Did you on this, make any other attempt to bring back the public to reason ? Yes, we did once more enter our protest in the name of good sense and common sense, against his fustian phraseology, his pigmy ideas, mounted on stilts, and all the other little tricks by which a mean understanding endeavours to acquire the character of depth and dignity of thought. Cross-examined by MR. PHILLIPS. Are you not, Sir, in the practice of inserting articles in your journal as from yourself, when they are, in fact, written by others ? Yes, when cleverly written. Is not Mr. Cobbett in the habit of supplying you with clever articles occasionally ? Mr. Cobbett ! never, Sir : we should take shame 11 to ourselves if we polluted our pages with any thing from the pen of that arch mountebank and impostor. But on your oath, Sir, did not Mr. Cobbett write those articles on the late Queen, which gained your paper so much of the bubble repu- tation ? A lie an odious lie, upon my soul a d d lie. (Accompanied with great violence of gesti- culation.) Keep your temper, Sir. Was it not so reported at least ? Yes. The old ruffian gave it out himself, that, he had written them ; but it was all a base and wicked invention of his own. I must nevertheless ask you whether it was not this very same Mr. Cobbett who wrote the criti- cisms which you have repeated here to-day on Mr. Irving ? No, Sir ; no earthly consideration could ever induce us to insert a syllable from the pen of that rascally grave-stealer, on any subject whatever. Mr. Phillips. But Mr. Cobbett, your are per- haps aware, has done you the honour of agreeing with you in opinion as to the present case ? Honour, Sir ! F know nothing about it j I am no reader of his trash. And yet you quote him at times ? Yes, the blustering blockhead will start across our path now and then, when we like to stir him up with our long pole a little, for the diversion of the public. But he is so nauseous a dog, that when we have any thing to quote from him, we never defile our pens with the task, but toss him to the compositors, that they may print from his own detestable pages. Admirable delicacy, indeed ! Now, Sir, let me ask you, who have so freely condemned Mr. Irving as a mari of mean understanding, whether you have not at the same time condemned Sir Walter Scott as a writer of no imagination ? Yes, I have. And Lord Byron, as destitute of all poetical talent ? Yes. Enough, Sir, you may go down. going down, Sir. The Editor of the Courier examined by MR. MACVICAR. Mr. Macvicar (handing to the witness a copy of the Courier of Thursday, July 17, 1823). Is that a genuine copy of the Courier newspaper for Thursday, the 17th of. July ? It is. It contains, I see, an article on the subject of the controversy about Mr. Irving is that your writing ? It is. Had you heard Mr. Irving when you wrote it? No ; as there observed we had not lieard the gentleman, and until we could do so without fight- ing our way into his church, we were resolved to remain contented with what we could hear of him. You were enabled, however, to express an opi- nion of his merits ? Yes ; from specimens which appeared in the Morning Chronicle (the only paper we read ex- 13 cept our own) of what he had delivered in the pulpit, we were enabled to say, that he was the last preacher to whom we should choose to listen. What he uttered seemed to be a mere mass 'of gaudy, glittering words, without matter or method. What effect the mode of his delivery could have upon the tinsel of his language, we could not know, but we felt satisfied that if he could not reach the minds of his congregation, his influence on their ears and eyes would soon find its proper level. Were these all your objections ? No. We were given to understand that, he made the pulpit a theatre for coarse attacks upon indi- viduals. Now we hold it to be the business of a clergyman simply to expound the word of God, to enforce the precepts of religion, and to animate his fellow Christians in the pursuit of moral duty. He is not to level his rebukes at persons, for what he may consider as an aberration from strict pro- priety of conduct ; such a practice would convert a sacred place of worship into a hot-bed of angry passions and mutual animosities. Still less ought a preacher to fulminate ex cathedrd petulant cen- sures upon literary effusions. What do you particularly allude to ? We had seen in the papers of the day some foolish, illiberal, and greatly misplaced remarks of his upon the " Vision of Judgment," by our friend Southey, and its ribald parody, by Lord Byron. Do people, we asked, and again ask, go to church to hear trash like this ? Q. You concluded, I observe, with a prophecy ? 14 Yes. I said then, and now I repeat, that by acts like these, and by a fustian Ossianic phraseo- logy, Mr. Irving may for a time draw crowds, but I venture to predict, that unless he betakes him- self to a sounder and purer method of pulpit ora- tory, the new church which there is a talk of build- ing for him will not be wanted half so much as he will want a congregation. Cross-examined by MR. PHILLIPS. Look at that paper, Sir, and tell the Jury what it is. It is a copy of the Courier of Monday, July 7- Older by ten days than the Courier you have just been quoting ? Yes. You there give an account of Mr. Irving's preaching at Hatton Garden on the day preced- ing, as if you had been present ? Yes. You say the chapel was crowded to suffocation that the heat was so intolerable that some stout- hearted men were absolutely fainting, and were obliged to be carried out of the crowd j all which things you of course saw ? Yes. You describe Mr. Irving's person his bushy hair his large whiskers his unfortunate squint ? Yes. You say his prayers and his reading are very impressive, and that his sermon was a masterpiece of oratory, and full of sound doctrine ? Yes. And yet ten days after, you say you had not heard the gentleman, and that his sermons are 15 a mere mass of glittering, gaudy words, without matter or method? Yes. I have nothing more to say to you, Sir. Good God ! that by such witnesses as this my noble- minded client should be borne down and reviled ! Re-examined by MR. MACVICAR. You can perhaps explain how this extraordinary discrepancy arises ? Quite easily, Sir. I have occasion to make fre- quent visits to Paris, and it was during one of these that the prior article, which Mr. Phillips rests so much upon, was written by an assistant, who, as my friend of VEtoile, says, has got un tete foible extremement. (Much laughter.) Why, Sir, it was the same gentleman with the weak head, who sounded the famous retreat of the French behind the Ebro, while at the very moment I was at Paris, receiving instructions from the French ministers to do all I could to make the public believe that the game was all up with the Spaniards. He is constantly committing blunders of this sort. Re-examined by MR. PHILLIPS. On your oath, Sir, did not you find, on your return from Paris, a letter lying from your friend Southey, chiding you for praising to the skies in your journal, a man who had called his Vision of Judgment " a most nauseous and unformed abor- 16 tion j vile, unprincipled, and unmeaning ; a bra- zen-faced piece of political cant?" Mr. Mac vicar submitted, that Mr. Phillips was not at liberty to prove a written document by pa- role evidence. Notice should have been given to produce the letter. Mr. Phillips declined pressing the question. Mr. William Cobbett examined by MR. PARSONS. Have you heard the defendant, Mr. Irving, preach ? I never go after fools, Sir. Perhaps, Mr. Cobbett, you " keep a fool of your own," and then think yourself " wise ?" ( A laugh.) Perhaps not, Mr. Jackanapes. Come now, Cobbett, don't be angry ; you are all on our side, you know ; tell us, then, how you came to know all about this Caledonian prodigy ? Why, I will tell you. My friend William Hone, since he took to writing about Apocryphas and Mysteries, has become as pious and dreaming a noodle as any lank-haired fanatic in all England. It was only the other day he told me, that in mak- ing his famous defence on the three trials, which every body knows was a stammer and a halt all through, he verily thought he had the gift of tongues given unto him ! The man is sadly gone. He can speak to you about nothing but the Mac- cabees, and Habbakuk, and Mahaleel, and Jero- 17 boam, and Rehoboam, and goes moreover to church as regularly as my Lord Bexley, or that saintly gentleman, Mr. Butterworth. The God of his idolatry at present is Mr. Irving, on whose mi- nistry, as the poor man calls it, he attends every Sabbath, with all his pretty little chubby children ; and it is from him I have heard more than enough about this " Scotch dealer out of brimstone and fire." Chief Justice. Mr. Cobbett, this is harsh lan- guage to use of a minister of the gospel. Mr. Cobbett. I like, my Lord, to call things by their right names ; a cat, as the old adage goes, is but a cat all the world over. Mr. Parsons. What, then, is the opinion, Mr. Cobbett, that you have formed of Mr. Irving and his preaching ? Every body, Sir, must know that ; for every body reads Cobbett j the very children must have got it by heart. Well, but a good thing, you know, can't be repeated too often once more if you please ? Well, then " The exhibition now going on at Hatton-garden every Sunday, is far more con- temptible than any thing ever seen in the Catholic church. I have heard, indeed, of the women following the preaching and laughing Capuchins of Rome ! but I never heard of any thing else resembling this Hatton-garden show ; at which, it is said, Mr. Canning and other ministers attend. This preacher has been described to me as having 18 a fine voice, being very eloquent, full of the spirit of grace, six feet two inches high, shoulders of breadth in proportion, long black hair, and a beard like a German scrubbing-brush. The church is advertised in the newspapers, almost in direct terms. Tickets are said to be sold for half-a- guinea. To hear this man bawling about ' tlie level lake of JireJ 6 the 'worm that dieth nof,' and l the flame that is not quenched? to hear this stuff* bawled out in a harsh Scotch accent, people run, and push, and squeeze, and strive, as if they were endeavouring to get from a house on fire. They run to \\isjlre with as much eagerness as they would run from another fire. The Morn- ing Chronicle frequently entertains us with stories about the credulity and gullibility of Roman catholics. That which I have just described is now actually going on in London. The audience consists partly of ministers of state, and ,of mem- bers and peers of parliament. This great brim- stone merchant has the most fashionable part of the metropolis for his auditory. Here we have a specimen of the fruit of that light which the Chro- nicle tells us is in the Protestant mind. Can the Chronicle cite any instance in which Roman catholic folly has surpassed this ?" But you are aware, Mr. Cobbett, how much the protestant mind has fallen from its former " high estate" Have you not read how " our soul is smitten with grief and shame" to remark how in this latter day, in this fag end of the thread of human ex- 19 istence, Revealed Wisdom hath fallen, fallen, fal- len, and along with her fallen the great and noble character of men ? All stuff stuff stuff, Sir : the common-place of quacks and impostors. Mr. Irving tells you that nine-tenths of the people of England /mow nothing at all of the truths of Revelation. There is nothing new, however false, in this. There are two hun- dred and eighty preachers already roaming about the country preaching the same sort of nonsense. They speak of the English people as Heathen ; as " destitute persons," destitute of all knowledge of the Lord ! They call the places neglected vil- lages, and they assert that these people : that is to say, a very large part of the people of England, are without the knowledge of God in this world. This Society has its head-quarters at the " Home Missionary Rooms, 18, Aldermanbury, London ;" and it has four Secretaries, whose names are Cob- bin, Dunn, Moore, and Millar. The very exist- ence of such a society, in a country paying tithes to the amount of six or seven millions a year, is a scandal without parallel. Here is a Church, col- lecting its tithes by the aid of soldiers ; and here is a society, putting into print and publishing that they have under their care, two hundred and seventy-four villages, containing a population of ninety-five thousand, three hundred and forty-four souls, who enjoy no means of evangelical instruction. " What then," say they, (and Mr. Irving but imitates their cant,) " must be the general state of 20 the villages in England" The Christian heart shudders at the thought! Sir, either this is true, or these are most impudent vagabonds. If it be true, what a pretty Church we have, after our two hundred years of reformation! If it be false, what a pretty state we are in with two hundred and eighty, (for that is the number that they say they have) of bawling ******** of this one description, going about England to introduce the people to a knowledge of God! Augustine, when he landed in Kent with his forty monks, had, I am sure, too much modesty to speak of the English of that day, as- these impudent vagabonds speak of them now ; and that in print too, and as bold as brass. They have no scruple to declare that the agricultural popu- lation of England is in a perfectly heathenish state. But if they did not do this, Mr. Cobbett, what success would they have ? Oh ! to be sure, money is collected by these heathen converters. Money is always included j for their object is to live without work ; and to do this, they must have money. Accordingly, they plead most pressingly for money. They, in various publications, in pamphlets, in sheets, in half sheets, in quarter sheets, and in single leaves, set forth in grand array, the works of grace and sal- vation, that they are performing. But, then, they are in want of money. If they had but money ^ they would soon extirpate ah 1 the heathenishness 21 of the poor souls who are now perishing. But without money what can they do ! Cross-examined by MR. PHILLIPS. You know the Times newspaper, Mr. Cobbett ? The b y old Times ? Oh yes none better. Do you ever write for it ? I have written all its best articles for a long time past ; I wrote those famous articles about the queen, which raised its circulation from 3,000 to 20,000 in one week. To do it justice, however, I must say, that I don't think the stupid num- sculls who manage it knew they were written by me : if they had, they would rather have been smothered to death (to make use of one of their own favourite similies), under the thousand and one quires they printed daily at that time, than have adopted them. But I have a way of my own, Sir, of managing these things. I can do other people's work for them, and make them say and do what I please, without their knowing or sus- pecting any thing of the matter. Another Brownie o'Brodsbeck, I suppose ? Something of that, i' faith. Well, Brownie, will you tell us one thing more ? Was it not you who wrote that clever article in The Times, about Mr. Irving, beginning " there is a fashion in every thing in wigs and bonnets," and so forth ? Yes every word of it. You swear that? Broil me on a gridiron if it was not. Editor of the LITERARY CHRONICLE, examined by MR. PARSONS. Do you know any thing, Sir, of the Rev. De- fendant, what he is, and whence he came? Mr. Irving, Sir, is a young man, a native of Annan in Scotland, who was for some time an assistant preacher to Dr. Chalmers of Glasgow, until both the Doctor and his colleague having calls, left their flocks to seek other shepherds. Dr. Chalmers was called to a professorship in a northern university. Mr. Irving was called, (and what Scotsman ever refused such a call?) from the bleak mountains of Scotland to the more fertile, vineyards of the south, to that land flowing with milk and honey the British metropolis. Well, Sir, how has he fared since his arrival in this land of milk and honey ? " Some nine moons w r asted," he was seated in the Caledonian chapel in Cross Street, Hatton Garden a place of worship formerly known by the name of the Gaelic Chapel. Gaelic ! Does Mr. Irving preach in Gaelic ? Oh, no, Sir. It was found out by some honest folks, that the Gaelic language, however sono- rous and mellifluous it may be in the long deep glens of the Highlands, is, in the polished streets of the metropolis, one of the most barbarous and intolerable jargons ever known to the tongue of man.* It was therefore resolved that there * Absolutely what was stated at one of the meetings about Mr. Irving's call to the Caledonian chapel. REPORTER. 23 should be no more preaching in Gaelic, but that a call should be given to Mr. Irving to come and proclaim the glad tidings of the gospel in Gallovidian English. Or rather, I fancy, Sir, the resolution to call Mr. Irving was made first, and the reason for it came afterwards ? Not unlikely. And what has become of the poor Gaelic folks in London who don't understand English 7 Have they been turned adrift without a pastor, and left to perish for lack of instruction ? Oh, Sir, nobody but porters and the like speak Gaelic only ; and who cares for their perishing ? Give me, says Mr. Irving, your " imaginative men, and political men, and legal men, and medi- cal men." What indeed would the society of saints be worth, if it were made up only of Scotch caddies, Highland porters, Kentish gipseys, West Country bargemen, Welsh miners, and the like ? Mr. Irving preaches then only to people of high degree, such as your poets and statesmen, and lawyers and physicians ? Yes. But how has he contrived to make these people run after him so ? Why the art is simple enough. Mr. Irving saw that in London preachers are followed not so much for their talents and attainments, as for their apparent zeal and the violence of their denun- ciations ; that the more lustily a minister preaches damnation to his followers, the more eagerly he is followed, and every word he drops caught, as if it were manna from heaven. He saw the higher classes heedless of religion, because their preachers preached nothing but peace, peace : he saw the lower cramming conventicles to the very ceiling, because they heard of nothing there but fire, fire. He reasoned, and reasoned correctly, that as the poor crowded to chapels in proportion as their sins were denounced, the rich would do the same, and that he had only to attack the vices and fol- lies of the fashionable world to become popular : he did so, and has succeeded. Is this then the whole secret of his success ? No ; another secret of his popularity is, that he does not confine himself to attacking the higher classes in the abssract : he singles out individual characters he thus takes advantage of that weak- ness of human nature, the love of scandal, and is the very " John Bull " of the clergy. Has not curiosity also some share in the matter ? Undoubtedly. His chapel is every Sunday a gallery of beauty and fashion ; and while some of the nobility and gentry are prompted by curiosity to see and hear a preacher become popular by the boldness of his denunciations, no inconsiderable portion of his auditors are collected in the hopes of seeing some Royal Duke or Princess, some Minister of State, the famed Lady A. or the beauteous Miss B. But do you mean to say that Mr. Irving is a man of no talents ? Certainly not, he is a man of considerable ta- lents, but they have been sadly overrated. He is 2.5 read well in books, but has not studied men ; his reasoning is superficial j his judgment indiscreet ; his taste bad ; his conceit overwhelming ; his as- surance most unblushing ; he is, in short, nothing but a sounding brass, a tinkling cymbol ; or, to call things by their right names, a mere scold. You say he is well read in books. Do you mean that it should be inferred, that he shines in bor- rowed plumes ? Not so exactly j I have met with little in his volume of what we call plagiarism. Indeed, the only instance worth remarking is, after all, very excusable. " I wish," says Mr. Irving, " that I had a dwelling place in every bosom." Sweet ecstatic idea ! but borrowed, as you will see, Sir, from the following passage of the Don Juan, of that " woe-begone and self- tormented, wretched man," Lord Byron, as Mr. Irving calls him : I love the sex and sometimes would reverse The tyrant's wish " that mank'fid only ha One neck, which he with one fell scroke might pierce." My wish is quite as wide, and not so bad, And much more tender, on the whole, than fierce ; It being (not now, but only while a lad) That womankind had but one rosy mouth, To kiss them all from north to south. (much laughter : fans in requisition in the gallery.) Crass-examined by MR. PHILLIPS. You keep a common establishment, Sir, for giving characters ? E 26 I edit a weekly Review, Sir. Which every body knows is the same thing, Sir. Go down. The EDITOR of the ALBUM examined by Mu. MACVICAR. Were you at the Scottish Church in Hatton Garden, on Sunday, the 6th of July ? I was. What sort of audience did you find collected? I was surrounded on every side by faces well known upon town in every way. For what purpose did they seem assembled ? They were evidently brought there by some strong and peculiar motive ; but the general buzz and hum of different conversations, plainly proved that the motive was not to pray to God. There was none of that staid and decorous aspect and manner which, in those who cannot be called devout, supply an appearance fitted to the place. The company were evidently come to see a show, and they conversed with one another till the show began. When was that? Just at eleven, a sort of motion and movement through the assemblage, told that Mr. Irving was entering. He had some difficulty in making his way to the pulpit, the stairs of which were covered with gaily dressed ladies. The service com- menced by Mr. Irving reading a hymn, which was immediately afterwards sung by the clerk and the children of the Caledonian school. 27 How were you impressed at first with Mr. Irving' s style of officiating ? I was disappointed. His voice seemed to have little modulation or tunefulness. I was still more displeased with the manner in which he read, it being with extreme pompousness of tone and con- tortion of countenance. Did he improve as he went on ? Far from it. When he delivered the prayer, his eyes were forcibly closed ; his mouth was drawn into an expression so pompous as almost to be farcical ; the enunciation was studied and stilted to the last degree ; the gesture was ungrace- ful throughout, and often vehement, and the matter was a succession of scriptural phrases linked together by language, aiming not very happily at the same style. Mr. Irving, I said to myself, means to make his prayer impressive by this manner : it is a pity he does not know that it is impossible to be impressive and unnatural at the same time. The prayer was concluded by the Lord's prayer, and the way in which he gave this was perfectly sufficient, I thought, to decide his taste and manner. How was that ? It was mouthed, I might almost say, ranted, in the manner in which we are accustomed to hear the mock invocation in the Critic spouted upon the stage the face was more than usually contorted the voice was more than usually violent and un- equal arid the gesture ! Oh ! heavens ! such ges- ture ! During the preceding prayer, Mr. I. had 28 stood chiefly with the arms slightly protruded from the body, and crossed by the right hand clasping the left arm about half way between the wrist and the elbow : but this curious, and some- what awkward posture, was changed when he commenced the Lord's Prayer, into one still more curious, and far more awkward. The arms were placed close by the sides, but raised perpendicu- larly from the elbow, with the hands erect. Now, Sir, if you please, for the sermon What did you think of that ? I am no divine, Sir, and can say nothing of the matter of doctrine that it involved. You can tell us, however, what you think of him as an orator, if not as a theologian ? I had heard, Sir, a good deal of the peculiarity of diction, which Mr. Irving has adopted after the model of Jeremy Taylor, and the other old writers of our Church. It was, as it had been represented to me, and its effect was also what I had antici- pated it would be. The diction which he employs is not now in use ; and it consequently appears affected, unnatural, and therefore unimpressive. He uses the third person singular of the verb, ac- cording to the old form, for instance, he says, " it hath" "it doth' 5 "it cometh" " it goeth" &c., and he employs a consonant obsoleteness of diction. But of what sort was the substance of his ser- mon ? The discourse, Sir, was one flood of inappropriate and bombastic language j extravagant without be- 29 ing in thejeast degree poetical ; furious, without even for a moment being forcible. I could recog- nize no deep thought no fine images nothing pathetic nothing impressive : his style was over- charged with metaphor to the utmost degree ; but his metaphors are nearly always false and broken. During the whole sermon, which lasted an hour and five-and-twenty minutes, there was sca'rcely any image which was perfect, and positively, not one which remained impressed upon the mind by its beauty, terseness, and truth. How did he deliver the sermon ? The manner of delivery, Sir, displeased me as much as the composition. The Lord's Prayer had prepared me for a good deal, but I had no conception that it was possible any thing like the violence of enunciation and gesture which Mr. Irving displayed could have been used in the pul- pit ; or, indeed, anywhere else. Mr. Irving' s solem- nity, is vehemence ; Mr. Irving's passion, is fury ; and he is not guided in these bursts of convulsive fienzy by the matter which he is delivering. He throws himself into all the variations of attitude, which are consistent with every one of them being ungraceful his hands are clenched the sweat starts from his brow his whole frame shakes and his voice comes forth with a quivering sound from the extremity of his agitation ; and all this, at a passage where manly earnestness was all that was needed, or indeed, admissible. Can you give us an example ? When speaking of the Omnipotence of God, 30 that the whole universe was in His person, as he pronounced the word universe he absolutely waved his arm round and round above his head, in a manner which is usual only when the hand contains a hat, and the mouth is uttering huzza ! huzza ! My friend Cruikshank, who w r as with me, was constantly whispering into my ear, " What a subject ! capital ! admirable !" His mischievous pencil was at work the whole time, catching the oddities and contortions of the preacher. Perhaps you could shew the court some of these sketches. Here are some. [Witness produced several of these sketches done on the back of small address cards. They were handed about the Court, and kept it for several minutes in a general roar of laughter. The editor of the Album has been kind enough to permit us to have them engraved for this report. The preacher is exhibited in five different attitudes : 1st. The Glance Penetrat- ing. 2d. The Knock it into them. 3. The So- lemn Invocation. 4. Solemn Invocation after another manner. 5. The Crown All.] Have you any thing farther, Sir, to add to your evidence ? I ought to observe that Mr. Irving's obliquity of vision, of which so much is said, is worse than that which is called a squint, and varies according to the direction in which he looks. I came away, upon the whole, lost in wonder, not at the noto- riety which Mr. Irving has gained, for his style is very much ad captandum, but at the report which 31 I had heard (but which I must say I now doubt), that some of our most really eloquent men have spoken of him in high praise. The PRINTER of the LIBERAL examined by MR. PARSONS. Have you, among the contributors to your " Verse and Prose from the South," any " well- wishers to religion and good order?" We have one queer fellow who calls himself so ; but I do not know what to make of him. He is, for all that, constantly in the company of and and . Is he not in the practice of haunting churches and chapels a good deal ? He has been hearing Mr. Irving several times of late : and yet is constantly abusing him. The Caledonian Chapel, he says, resembles a booth at a fair ; and the pulpit, a stage, for a tall, raw- boned, hard-featured, impudent Scotch quack, to twang through the nose indecently, blasphemy and sedition. The things, probably, which take him there so often. Did he give you any instance of Mr. Irving's indecency ? None. Of his sedition ? None. Of his blasphemy ? Yes, of something like it, at least. He men- tioned that he had heard Mr. Irving, at one time, describe the God of natural religion as like the great desert dry, disagreeable, comfortless, deadly where no one wished to dwell ! No one, 32 he insisted, could venture upon this gross insult to the God of nature (whom he apprehended to be also the God of Christians), without that strong obliquity of mental vision, that can keep natural religion in one eye and revealed religion in the other : look grave on the parent, and fulsome on the daughter. Mr. Irving had at another time, he said, asserted, by an impudent figure of speech, that the God of Mercy was like .Alsatia, 'where the scum of mankind took refuge ! ! But all this does not prove Mr. Irving to be what he called him, " an impudent Scotch quack ?" No 5 but he mentioned another thing which does. He heard Mr. Irving issue a proclamation in the name of the King of Heaven, appointing himself crier of the court, beginning with a To WIT, TO WIT ; and ending with damnation to all those who do not go to hear him. The EDITOR of the BRITISH PRESS examined. Are you " a member of the established church ?" Yes. Have you inquired into the merits of Mr. Irving ? Yes, most particularly What is your opinion of him ? I think him quite over-rated. Every page of his orations bears the stamp of a mind perfectly bewildered : we have a jargon of words with an utter barrenness of ideas ; there is go coming at his meaning, for he addresses himself neither to 33 the head nor to the heart, and contributes nothing either to enlighten the one, or improve the other. He delivers himself in a dialect so studiously quaint and affected, as to be for the most part wholly unintelligible. He rolls his sentences one over another, with an utter disregard to any thing like logical order or consecutive arrangement. If the reader passes over them rapidly, it is so far well ; but if he pauses over any one of them, to discover its tendency, or examine its truth, he will find that it is either so indefinite as to lead to nothing, or that when understood it leads to con- clusions which no sound mind can admit. He delights not merely in rhetorical exaggeration of matters of fact ; his discourses are full of idiotic trash, that any man of decent understanding would be ashamed of. He appears as if he sat down to write (to use a proverbial phrase of his country) with a bee in his bonnet. What man, for example, unless the faculties of his mind were disturbed, could run on in such a strain as the following : " Masterful men, or the masterful current of opi- nion, hath ploughed with the word of God, and the fruit has been to inveigle the mind into the ex- clusive admiration of some few truths, which being planted in the belief, and sacrificed to in all reli- gious expositions and discourses, have become po- pular idols, which frown heresy and excommunica- tion upon all who dare stand for the unadulterated, uncurtailed testimony. Such Shibboleths every age hath been trained to mouth ; and it is as much as one's religious character is worth, to think that p 34 the doctrinal Shibboleths of the present day may not include the whole contents and capacity of the written word. But, truly, there are higher fears than the fear even of the religious world ; and greater loss than the loss of religious fame. Therefore, craving indulgence of you to hear us to an end, and asking the credit of good intention upon what you have already heard, we summon your whole unconstrained man to the engagement of reading the word ; not to authenticate a meagre outline of opinions elsewhere derived, but to prove and purify all the sentiments which bind the confederations of life ; to prove and purify all the feelings which instigate the actions of life ; many to annihilate ; many to implant ; all to re- gulate and reform : to bridle the tongue till its words come forth in unison with the word of God, and to people the whole soul with the population of new thoughts, which that word reveals of God and man of the present and the future." Voila un chef-d'oeuvre digne de notre siecle ! And this is the orator of Hatton Garden, who can only be heard with admission tickets ? Yes ; Mr. Irving professes to address himself to a blind and senseless generation, but he seems to have caught the distemper he came to cure. Fools that we are, like Israel's sons of yore, The calf ourselves have fashion' d, we adore ; But let true Reason once resume her reign, This idol will become a calf again. , 35 Editor of the PULPIT examined by MR. MACVICAR. I understand, Sir, you have lately established a censorship over the pulpits of the metropolis ? Yes. Your attention must, of course, have been par- ticularly drawn to the exhibitions of Mr. Irving, in Hatton Garden ? It has. Tell us, pray, how Mr. Irving ranks as a preacher ? Mr. Irving himself, Sir, claims to be like no other living preacher on this side of the -Tweed at least ; he has come to set " an example" to the whole body of the English clergy, of all denomi- nations ; for so exceedingly deficient have they all been in the performance of their sacred functions, that, according to him, there are nine-tenths of every class who know nothing at all about the truths of revelation. Our popular leaders, he tells us, " finding no necessity for strenuous endea- vours and high science in the ways of God, but having a gathering host to follow them, deviate from the ways of deep and penetrating thought refuse the contest with the literary and accom- plished enemies of the faith bring a contempt upon the cause in which mighty men did fomerly gird themselves to the combat and so cast the stumbling-block of a mistaken paltryness between enlightened men and the cross of Christ !" Do you deem the pulpit a place for such re- flections as these ? 36 By no means, Sir ; I take it to be a gross pros- titution of the privilege which the pulpit gives to preachers of saying what they please, and having all the saying to themselves , to reflect in this manner on one's fellow labourers in the ministry. Mr. Irving is besides but a young labourer, and as yet, almost a stranger in this country ; and it ill be- comes one of such few years and limited experi- ence, thus to stalk forth, dispensing his censures on all around him, and holding himself up as the only model for universal imitation. But may not the clergy, Sir, stand really in need of some such example being held up to them ? No, Sir ; it is sheer ignorance which makes Mr. Irving vaunt so. Were he at all acquainted with the state of religion in the community where his lot is now cast, with what has been done and is doing in it, to promote the cause of Christ ; had he heard one out of ten of all the clergymen whom he calumniates in the mass without hearing them, he would never have spoken so falsely as he has done. It would seem then, that Mr. Irving has erred merely from want of information ? Not so entirely. Mr. Irving is ignorant, not so much for want of opportunities of knowing better, but from a vanity and self-sufficiency which have prevented him from availing himself of those op- portunities he has had. He thinks he has nothing to learn, and that nobody knows more j he goes on expatiating, when his first step should be to inquire. The attitude which he assumes is that 37 of the Pharisee, " Stand by thyself touch me not I am more holy than thou." You can tell us, perhaps, what the scriptures say of this sort of professors ? When our Redeemer commanded one of his * disciples to follow him, the latter asked what his fellow disciple should do ? Most just and striking was the reproof contained in our Lord's answer " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to t/iee ? FOLLOW THOU ME." So I would say to Mr. Irving : Even admitting all you say to be true of your fellow disciples, " what is that to thee ?" What is it to the great truths you have undertaken to enforce, that others do not enforce them after your fashion, or to your taste ? Do you expound them as you think they ought to be ex- pounded j do you take care to do justice to the " gathering host" that follows you ? be contented to lay up for yourself a crown of glory that fadeth not ; and snatch not with a rude and invidious hand the wreath from the brow of your fellow dis- ciple. " If I will that he tarry till I come, wJiat is tJiat to thee ? FOLLOW THOU ME." But has not Mr. Irving actually " set the example of two new methods of handling religious truth ?" I allude to his Orations and Argument. The titles are new, Sir, and that is all. The ora- tions and arguments themselves are like any other discourses from the pulpit, except only that they are not so formally divided and subdivided as ser- mons commonly, though by no means invariably, are. All that Mr. Irving says about the one me- 38 thod being " after the manner of the ancient oration," and the other, " after the manner of the ancient apologies," I look upon to be exceed- ingly after the manner of the Fudge Family. Mr. Irving has a modest aversion to be thought in the least like any body else of his order j he won't be called a writer of sermons, because all other clergymen are writers of sermons ; and this, Sir, is the real secret of the matter. You have said, that were Mr. Irving acquainted with the state of society in this country, he would not talk so falsely as he has done. Do you mean then to deny that the oracles of divine wisdom " have fallen into a household commonness, and her visits into a cheap familiarity,*' that, there is an " abeyance of^ntellect, a dwarfish reduction of the natural powers of men ;" that, in short, nearly all the Christian world have " drifted away from that noble, manly, and independent course which, under steerage of the word of God, they might have safely pursued ?" All a rhapsody of abuse, Sir. I would merely oppose to it the truth the known and undeniable truth. I assert with perfect confidence (and I am no offended gownsman, but an unpretend- ing layman, who would wish the very worst to have their due) that in no period in the history of this country, was revealed wisdom studied and expounded in a purer spirit, and with a happier effect on the lives of men, than it is at the pre- sent moment. With Mr. Irving there is nothing 39 like the *' olden time ;" but I know of no olden time when the great body of the people ranked higher in the scale of morals and intelligence than they do now. I have read of times when they ate more bacon and pudding, and drank more ale, and were better clothed than they have lately been ; but at no time that I ever read or heard of, was the bulk of our community more orderly and well-behaved, more morally and religiously in- clined, more given to rational pursuits, more be- ings of mind than they are now. But Mr. Irving gives you facts. He tells you " their holidays are days of dissipation, their cups crowned with licentious and blasphemous talk, their raptures intoxication and brutal excess, our fairs scenes of iniquity scandalous to be looked upon, our intemperance proverbial over the world, our prize fights a cruel game else- where never played at, our forgeries, our thefts, our murders, not surpassed if equalled in the mo-st barbarous lands." " The innocent sports of our villages for which weary labour was wont to relax himself, the cheer and contentment which blessed the interior of our cottages, and the plenty and beauty which beamed around their walls, the home-bred comfort and cleanliness, with all the Arcadian features of old English life, live," he assures us, " no longer, save in the tales of ancestry j" and much he bewaileth that " hard and well-earnt labour, broken with fierce gleams of jollity and debauch, poor-house de- pendence and poor-house discontent, nocturnal 40 adventures of the poacher and the smuggler, and the depredator ; Sabbath-breakings, Sabbath sports, and Sabbath dissipations, are now become the characteristics of our city and our rustic people." But specks at best, Sir, on the face of so- ciety. It is absurd and fallacious to convert them into a general picture. Mr. Irving talks of facts Sir ! I too would appeal to facts, and to some of the most recent which have come under public observation, with respect to the character and con- duct of the lower orders. Will Mr. Irving shew us in all his " olden time," any example of such temperate behaviour on the part of thousands of men in the humblest walks of life, assembled to oppose a measure which they conceived was about to deprive them and their wives and children of bread, as has just been exhibited by the weavers of Spitalfields ? Or will he show us, in all his " olden time," the whole workmen of a town, turning out for a rise of wages, as is now the case at Knaresborough, assembling daily in immense multitudes, yet committing no violence nor out- rage, and closing their meetings at night-fall, with the singing of psalms to that God who delivereth the poor and needy, and riddeth them out of the hand of the wicked ? Does not Mr. Irving elsewhere in his " argu- ment," admit the constantly increasing improve- ment which the Christian spirit is producing in society ? Yes, explicitly enough. For example : " In 4.1 this land, saith he, Christians " have disarmed the thigh of its weapon, and procured revenge to be taken out of the hands of the injured into the hands of the upright judge ; they have made reformation to be acknowledged as the only ob- ject of punishment ; they have abolished the divine right of kings to have their will out of sub- jects ; they have almost got adultery to be ac- knowledged as the only righteous cause of di- vorce; they have made the accommodation of others to be sanctioned as the basis of polite- ness ; the spirit of government they have forced, by sundry desperate efforts, to become equitable, open, and disclosed, instead of being, as in the Italian and other continental states, crooked and intriguing. From all which it is manifest, that in the force of heaven-directed will, there is a staunchness, an intrepidity, and a long-suffering, which brings out equity triumphant against in- justice, and liberty against wilfulness, forming a wall of shields around whatever is good in human laws, smiting, as with a constant battering ram against every thing which is evil" How is it that Mr. Irving is betrayed into such gross contradictions and inconsistencies ? It all arises, Sir, from his egregious vanity. The truth seems to have escaped from him in spite of himself; for recollecting very shortly after, that were it to pass as an admitted fact, that the doc- trines of Christianity, as they have been hitherto preached in this country, have been " smiting us with a constant battering ram, against every tJdng that is evil" there must of course be less call than he imagines for the aid of the minister of the Caledonian church, and his new methods ; anxious to guard against any such dangerous ad- mission in the way of business, he falls again into the lamenting strain. " Oh," says he, " that the spirit of the ancients would rise again and shame these modern men who go dreaming," &c. All this affected lamentation, Sir, -is made for no other purpose than to furnish one opportunity more of telling the world what a different sort of example Mr. Irving means to exhibit. " Moved by their lethargy and indifference, I do challenge them", &c. I shall " try another method," I " shall strike a note to thrill the drowsy chambers of the soul, and awaken it from its fatal slumbers." Alas, proud boaster! he thinks he has got the world on his shoulders ! The men he talks of shaming, the nun he charges with lethargy and indifference, are the men of the battering ram, who, as he hath himself before confessed, have in their might brought out " equity triumphant against injustice, and liberty against wilfulness, forming a wall of shields around whatever is good in human laws." Mr. Irving's censures are not, I believe, con- fined to the clergy. Does he not blame alike our poets, our men of science, our politicians ? * Yes, his shafts fly thick. In poetry he tells us there is none who " inditeth a song unto his God." In philosophy, the palace of the soul, men see in the rough and flinty faces of the cloud- , 43 capt rocks, more delectable images to adore, than in the revealed countenance of God j" and in politics, there are men to whom the Liberal, or John Bull, (afar from me be such indeco- rous associations) " are more moving than the secrets of the Eternal." All these assertions, Sir, are the offspring either of downright ignorance, or of wilful misrepresentation. Mr. Irving talks as if he knew nothing of the people he was ar- raigning. We have, thank God, many pious poets, many pious philosophers, many pious politi- cians. There is nobody who sees and feels as Mr. Irving describes. His mode here as elsewhere, is to blow the bubble first, and then, at the slightest puncture of his lance, it falls to nothing. After all, Sir, is there any thing strange or new in this chapter of lamentations ? Nothing, I confess. It savours all of the rank- est common place such common place as a man of Mr. 'Irving' s pretensions to originality should have disdained. The goodness of the good old times, is the common cant of your self-righteous people, your ranters, and your jumpers. There is a lady of the name of Priscilla Hunt, who journeys about talking the same sort of extrava- gance. The chief difference between her and Mr. Irving, in this respect, is, that she does not ascribe, the "fallen" state of men to precisely the same cause. In a report of one of this pious dam- sel's recent exhibitions which I have lately seen, her first complaint is, " of the lamentable state into which things had fallen, io- consequence of 44 the hissing of the serpent, the whispering of the back-biter, and the lashing of the lying tongue" I would say with this same Priscilla : " But it is of verity, my friends, that if people were truly concerned for the well-being of the human family and the good of their own souls ; all these customs (namely of hissing and whispering, and backbiting and lashing with the lying tongue,) would necessarily vanish, and instead thereof boundless love would prevail, universal harmony would predominate" Your chief objection, Sir, to Mr. Irving, seems to.be to his vain boasting. Have you told us the worst you know of it ? I fear not, Sir. The egotism of Mr. Irving is unhappily not li- mited to a supreme disdain of other men's powers and attainments ; it dares even to ascend beyond this mortal sphere. He thinks so much of himself as to be to all appearance habitually divested of every thing like true Christian humility. When he speaks of the Almighty, the familiarity and levity of the language he employs is at times shudderingly revolting. In one place we are told that "God might be ^pattern to all lawgivers;" in another, that the laws of God, of Him who is the source of all things, differ from all others in the originality of their principles ; further on, that God is all perfect " like the Apollo Belvi- dere ! ! !" (a thrill of horror through the court). In short, such is Mr. Irving's high opinion of his Maker, that he does "not doubt of the AL- MIGHTY'S force of character to carry any thing 45 into effect." Then we have every now and then such expressions as " Oh, Heavens !" " Oh, my God !" " In the holy name of Christ, and the three times holy name of God !" " God send repentance, or else blast the powers they have abused so terribly." You do not mean, surely, to impute to Mr. Irving intentional impiety in the use of these ex- pressions ? Certainly not. Few men have described more forcibly than Mr. Irving has done elsewhere, the majesty of heaven, and the immeasurable distance between man and his Creator ; but it is to be ga- thered from the fact of his frequent forgetfulness of the reverence which is due to the Most High, that his descriptions have not been the result of a sufficiently heartfelt or abiding sense of man's in- significance, but have been produced very much like any other task or exercise which might be proposed to the imagination. Were Mr. Irving called upon to describe the Paradise of Mahomet, he would do it, I dare say, in language nearly as vivid as any in this book concerning the mansions of God. To exemplify to you that play of the imagination to which I allude, I may refer you to Mr. Irving's offer to create a new hell for men. You shudder, I perceive, at the impiety of the proposition, nor do I wonder at it. No man, who felt a becoming awe for the Omnipotent Creator, could even in imagination, thus dare to place him- self on a level with God, in the creation of des- 46 tinies for mankind. The words of the proposal Sir, are these : ** Bring me all the classes of men upon ihe earth, and LET ME have the sorting and the placing of them upon this earth, and I shall make hells for each one of them without further ado. I would send the poets to bear burthens, and the porters to indite tuneful songs. The musicians I would appoint over the kennels, aad the roving libertines I would station over the watch and ward of streets. I would banish the sentimentalists to the fens, and send the labourers of the fens to seek their food among the mountains ; each wily politician I would transplant into a colony of honest men, and your stupid clown I would set at the helm of state. But lest it may be thought I sport with a subject which I strive to make plain, I shall stop short, and give no further proof of this wicked ingenuity ; for sure I am, I could set society into such a hot warfare and confusion , a* should, in one day, make half the world slay themselves, or slay each other ', and the other half run up and down in wild dis- traction." And this is what Mr. Irving calls preaching the Gospel ? Yes. The opinion you entertain of him on the whole, is not, I presume, very favourable ? It is not. No man who hears him, or who reads his works, can remain without a conviction that he is a man of more than ordinary talents ; but for my own part, I am not disposed to rate those talents half so highly as the author does himself. The self-sufficiency which Mr. Irving displays, is, of itself, an evidence of a mind not wonderfully elevated above the common level. He overrates himself as much from narrowness of intellect as 47 from ignorance. He is not at all deeply read either in men or books j yet, for a person of his years, and with the opportunities he has had, he ought to know more than he does. His novelties are, for the most part, common places ; his pro- jects, revivals of things which have never ceased. He has imagination, but little judgment Jacob's dream, without the ladder. He is all sail, without ballast. His views want depth, steadiness, uni- formity, consistency. He is an imaginer of pre- mises, and jumper to conclusions. He is one of those who flatter themselves that they have such an intuitive knowledge of things, that they may spare themselves all the vulgar fatigue of inquiry ; a single glance serves their purpose, and it is on single facts accordingly that all their reasoning turns. He would be a meteor in literature ; for there is nothing, he tells you, like books, but places his chief dependence for attracting the gaze of the multitude, not on writing better in the style of the age in which he lives, but on strutting in the antiquated robes of his great grandfather. We have read of a Bishop in the olden time, who played at shuttlecock in the pulpit in order to fix all eyes upon him : Mr. Irving would do the same if there were no other way of bringing a " gather- ing host " around him. Do you think that it is for Christ's sake alone that he affects so much ? I am afraid not. His censoriousness, his osten- tation, his boastings, his denunciations, breathe all of something very different from the pure Christian spirit. It is not strong writing occa- sionally in favour of the tenets of the Gospel, that will mark the sincere believer ; the greatest infidel that lives may do the same. The faith of a man must be evidenced by all his habitual modes of ex- pression, and habitual modes of acting ; and more especially by meekness, by charity, by loving- kindness, before I, for one, can believe for one moment, that its home is seated in the heart. Cross-examined by MR. PHILLIPS. You have imputed to Mr. Irving narrowness of intellect? You have said that he is not at all deeply read either in men or books ; and that his views want depth, steadiness, uniformity, consist- ency. Now, Sir, will you have the goodness to look at this [handing to the witness No. I. of the publication called the * Pulpit '] and read to the Jury the passage which I have marked there on page 5. Witness (reading) " Mr. Irving is an ex- pounder ofthejirst ordei (expressions of surprise throughout the Court) whose knowledge of human nature, and imaginative insight into the ways of Providence, are such as enable him, with singular success, to vindicate the reasonableness and justice of these opposite destinies which the book of God unfolds to his erring creatures." Mr. P. Well, Sir, out of thine own mouth I have refuted thee. Witness. Allow me, Sir, to explain. When we 49 ventured on the opinion I have last read, we had only occasionally heard Mr. Irving preach ; we had not read his sermons, for they were not then published : we had heard him too in one of his wiser and happier moods. He was expounding the principles on which the distinction is to be drawn between the righteous and the wicked, as laid down in Matt. ch. xxv. v. 31. It was a vigour- ous, straight-forward, and uncompromising expo- sition of the divine law on the subject, and dis- tinguished by comparatively but few ebullitions of conceit or spleen. It won him that esteem and admiration which we expressed so warmly at the time, and which it has given us pain to be obliged to retract. We little anticipated that it would make its appearance in print, in such ex- ceptionable company as it does. We did not ex- pect to see the sincere Christian pastor affiliating with the braggarts and mountebanks of this selfish world ; affecting exclusive gifts and inspirations j seeking to build a name to himself, by casting down every high and venerated name around him. We fondly hoped that he would have ad- hered to the straight line of pastoral duty, and made it his great and single ambition to gather the flock entrusted to his care, unto the bosom of their Redeemer. He has not done so : and there- fore alone have we condemned him. Editor of the New Evangelical Magazine examined by MR. PARSONS. Have you heard Mr. Irving preach ? Yes. H 50 Will you favour the Court with your opinion of his style of oratory ? It is one of the most finished specimens of bur- lesque on the art of oratory that ever fell under my notice. When Demosthenes was asked what was the first point in oratory Oh ! we know all about that. Have you re- viewed his book ? No. Do you mean to review it ? No. Why not ? Because I could say nothing good of it. Editor of the John Bull examined by Mr. SERJEANT BISHOP. [The call for this witness produced a general buzz and move- ment throughout the assembly. Every one was on tiptoe to got a sight of him. " How provoking!" whispered Lady , so loud as to be heard by all the Court. " Here we have him now but that confounded mask there is still no telling who he is. I declare if I were down there I could tear it from his face/' " He does not look old, Sir." " Nor so very young, Ma'am." " Nor so very frightful, my dear." " He is not tall,"