reformers who went to the root radical reformers; whilst all previous political parties they held to be merely masquerading as reformers, or, at least, wanting in the determination to go deep enough. The party name "Radical" was no insult of enemies; it was a cognizance self-adopted by the party which it designates, and worn with pride; and whatever might be the degree of personal weight belonging to Mr. Hunt, no man, who saw into the composition of society amongst ourselves, could doubt that his principles were destined to a most extensive diffusion were sure of a permanent settlement amongst the great party interests and, therefore, sure of disturbing thenceforwards forever the previous equilibrium of forces in our English social system. To mistake the origin or history of a word is nothing; but to mistake it, when that history of a word ran along with the history of a thing destined to change all the aspects of our English present and future, implies a sleep of Epimenides amongst the shocks which are unsettling the realities of earth.

The four original essays, by which Foster was first known to the public, are those by which he is still best known. It cannot be said of them that they have any practical character calculated to serve the uses of life. They terminate in speculations that apply themselves little enough to any business of the world. Whether a man should write memoirs of himself cannot have any personal interest for one reader in a myriad. And two of the essays have even a misleading tendency. That upon "Decision of Character" places a very exaggerated valuation upon one quality of human.

temperament, which is neither rare, nor at all necessa rily allied with the most elevated features of moral grandeur. Coleridge, because he had no business talents himself, admired them preposterously in others or fancied them vast when they existed only in a slight degree. And, upon the same principle, I suspect that Mr. Foster rated so highly the quality of decision in matters of action, chiefly because he wanted it himself. Obstinacy is a gift more extensively sown than Foster was willing to admit. And his scale of appreciation, if it were practically applied to the men of history, would lead to judgments immoderately perverse. Milton would rank far below Luther. In reality, as Mr. Gilfillan justly remarks, "Decision of character is not, strictly, a moral power; and it is extremely dangerous to pay that homage to any intellectual quality, which is sacred to virtue alone." But even this estimate must often tend to exaggeration; for the most inexorable decision is much more closely connected with bodily differences of temperament than with any superiority of mind. It rests too much. upon a physical basis; and, of all qualities whatever, it is the most liable to vicious varieties of degeneration. The worst result from this essay is not merely speculative; it trains the feelings to false admirations; and upon a path which is the more dangerous, as the besetting temptation of our English life lies already towards an estimate much too high of all qualities bearing upon the active and the practical. We need no spur in that direction.

The essay upon the use of technically religious language seems even worse by its tendency, although the necessities of the subject will forever neutralize

Foster's advice. Mr. Gilfillan is, in this instance disposed to defend him: "Foster does not ridicule the use, but the abuse, of technical language, as applied to divine things; and proposes, merely as an experiment, to translate it in accommodation to fastidious tastes." Safely, however, it may be assumed, that, in all such cases, the fastidious taste is but another aspect of hatred to religious themes, a hatred which there is neither justice nor use in attempting to propitiate. Cant words ought certainly to be proscribed, as degrading to the majesty of religion: the word "prayerful," for instance, so commonly used of late years, seems objectionable; and such words as "savory," which is one of those cited by Foster himself, are absolutely abominable, when applied to spiritual or intellectual objects. It is not fastidiousness, but manliness and good feeling, which are outraged by such vulgarities. On the other hand, the word "grace expresses an idea so exclusively belonging to Christianity, and so indispensable to the wholeness of its philosophy, that any attempt to seek for equivalent terms of mere human growth, or amongst the vocabularies of mere worldly usage, must terminate in conscious failure, or else in utter self-delusion. Christianity, having introduced many ideas that are absolutely new, such as faith, charity, holiness, the nature of God, of human frailty, &c., is as much entitled (nay as much obliged and pledged) to a peculiar language and terminology as chemistry. Let a man try if he can find a word in the market-place fitted to be the substitute for the word gas or alkali. The danger, in fact, lies exactly in the opposite direction to that

indicated by Foster. No fear that men of elegant taste should be revolted by the use of what, after all, is scriptural language; for it is plain that he who could be so revolted, wants nothing seriously with religion. But there is great fear that any general disposition to angle for readers of extra refinement, cr to court the effeminately fastidious, by sacrificing the majestic simplicities of scriptural diction, would and must end in a ruinous dilution of religious truths; along with the characteristic language of Christian philosophy, would xhale its characteristic doctrines.

WILLIAM HAZLITT.*

THIS man, who would have drawn in the scales against a select vestry of Fosters, is for the present deeper in the world's oblivion than the man with whom I here connect his name. That seems puzzling. For, if Hazlitt were misanthropic, so was Foster: both as writers were splenetic and more than peevish; but Hazlitt requited his reader for the pain of travelling through so gloomy an atmosphere, by the rich vegetation which his teeming intellect threw up as it moved along. The soil in his brain was of a volcanic fertility ;` whereas, in Foster, as in some tenacious clay, if the life were deep, it was slow and sullen in its throes. The reason for at all speaking of them in connection is, that both were essayists; neither in fact writing anything of note except essays, moral or critical; and both were bred at the feet of Dissenters. But how different were the results from that connection! Foster turned it to a blessing, winning the jewel that is most of all to be coveted, peace and the fallentis semita vita. Hazlitt, on the other hand, sailed wilfully away

*"Gallery of Literary Portraits." By George Gilfillan.