we think nothing can convey more appropriate panegyrick than that the execution is correspondent to the design. For what purpose was the frontispiece placed upon this publication? To be ornamental,' to be classical,' to be graceful,' to be whimsical, or to convey the design? The object of a frontispiece,' says this editor, has only to do with the four first, the last is a secondary consideration. If this were true, however, let the artist who engraved it, and not the editor, be accountable.

The following sentence contains a specimen of the obscure which we think will perplex our readers, without some commentary. In presuming to lash the vices and follies of the literature and politicks, (and we suppose manners too, at least what the French call the petty morals) of the age with all the whips and scorpions of Juvenal, Churchill, Pope and Junius, the editor has undertaken a task far beyond his powers.' Now whether we consider the assertion in its expression or its meaning, we must admit it to be very remarkable. As to the expression, it would have been only common-place to speak of lashing with a whip, but this writer makes it uncommon, by talking of all the whips; this does not satisfy him, and he adds, all the scorpions,' of Juvenal, Churchill, Pope, and Junius. Does the author here mean by all the whips and all the scorpions, that each of these authors, individually considered, possessed more than one whip or one scorpion? If so, the undertaking would indeed be arduous; for separate from the difficulty of lashing any thing with scorpions, the trouble of holding all the whips, and all the scorpions, of Juvenal, Churchill, Pope and Junius, must be apparent to every one. The meaning it is no less important to illustrate than the expression. We are told that the editor has presumed to undertake a task far above his powers; which we admit to be the case, if he has undertaken to lash the poli iticks and the literature of the age,' with all the whips and scorpions' of all the satirists just named. The editor of the Freeman's Journal, however, says he has; he takes for granted a fact grounded solely upon his interpretation of the frontispiece, but which it will not warrant. What man under heaven could presume, merely from a type-metal frontispiece, that the editor of this work could suppose himself inspired with all the wit of Juvenal, Pope, Junius and Churchill ? No one we believe but the editor of the Freeman's Journal.

"The execution of the work is by no means, equal to its pretentions indicated by its title.' By and by, is easily said,' was Hamlet's reply to Polonius; such an expression as that above, is to be said as easily of this or any other publication. It could be said of the Freeman's Journal, that it contained more foam without spirit, heaviness without strength, labour without cultivation, metaphor without application, zeal without sincerity, and a great many other things without a great many other things, than most papers of its long standing in the Unit

ed States. But who would believe the assertion? particularly if in the only instance of the execution' of that paper to illustrate our idea, should be produced 'something of pith and pungency.' After saying that the Ordeal does not equal the pretentions indicated by its title, the editor of the Freeman's Journal proceeds to illustrate his position by quoting from our review of Mr. Giles's speech in our second number, half a column of what he calls matter of some pith and pungency." Thus all the objection to our work, lies in the frontispiece; and all the proof of its not equalling the pretentions of the title, is found in matter which this editor considers of 'pith and pungency.'

Though we cannot imagine what has induced the editor of the Free'man's Journal to notice us thus unsolicited; yet we cannot but thank so enlightened, so poetical, se accurate a writer, and so excellent a critic, for stooping to our level.

MESSRS. EDITORS,

PHILOLOGY.

AS your work is said to be a Literary as well as Political Journal, I presume that early information of new publications will be acceptable both to you and your readers. I therefore send you the following extracts from a work which will shortly be published, which you are at liberty to insert in the Ordeal, on condition that my real name is to be kept a profound secret; as the publicity of it might subject me to the punishment prepared for the divulgers of inquisitorial secrets.

Andover, Jan. 30.

EXTRACTS

Yours, &c.

PETER.

FROM A NEW THEOLOGICAL DICTIONARY.

ASSURANCE. A blessing, not bestowed on any one for meriting it by works of righteousness, diligence and zeal;' a facility of quoting scripture upon all occasions, and particularly passages, which are not remarkable for a delicacy in expression.

CHARITY. An obsolete word, used only among infidels. Excepting when quoted as a pretence for diffusing Hopkinsian tenets. To this end the profits of the Panoplist are devoted to charitable purposes.

CHURCH GOVERNMENT. That which under the appearance of piety, implies the most impious presumption; because it interferes in a Christian's connection with his Maker.

CONVERSION. The act of signing the creed; a giving up the right of private judgment.

CREED. A confession of faith, in which the person making the confession, solemnly renounces the use of all his reasoning and sensorial faculties, for the term of five years. He must also declare implicit belief, that there are THREE GODs, equal in power; that man is a free agent, utterly incapable of understanding his own thoughts, actions, or feelings; that he is irresistibly impelled to the commission of sin and wickedness, by an omnipotent decree, in order to exalt his Creator's glory and his own happiness; that St. Peter, John Calvin, and Samuel Hopkins, are one and the same person, who lived at different times and places; that the presence of the sun is not the cause of light, nor its absence that of darkness; that he who eats a Medford cracker, does at the same time drink punch and eat beef-steaks and oysters, &c. &c.

DEISM. A belief in one only living and true God, as taught in the scriptures.

DEIST. See UNITARIAN, INFIDEL. They do not deserve a distinction.*

ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCIL. A body of men having divine authority to exercise jurisdiction over the minds and consciences of others.

ELECT. Those persons who before their creation, were doomed to the eternal enjoyment of heaven. The number of the elect is supposed to be ONE among nine hundred and ninety-nine millions of those who have inhabited the earth.

EVANGELICAL PREACHING. A general denunciation of all ministers and churches who refuse to acknowledge the infallibility of the Papal Inquisition at Andover.

Such a one as

his doctrine orthodox

By apostolick blows and knocks.”

One who will stand in his pulpit and declare that if such ministers as B**********, E******, F******, and L***** go to heaven, he had rather be d-d than go there himself.

FAITH. A belief in any thing and every thing which reason shews to be absurd.

GOOD WORKS. Among deists and infidels, this phrase signifies a performance of moral duties and obligations; among the elect, a man of good works is one who buys the Panoplist at ten dollars a hundred to distribute among the poor, whom he oppresses by avarice, usury and extortion.

HELL. Generally supposed to be a lake of liquid fire; but a learned clergyman has lately and elegantly described it as something as much worse than liquid fire, as fire and brimstone are worse than the spicy atmosphere of Arabia, or the enchanting gardens of the Seraglio."

Panoplist. Doctor Mason's Remarks.

HOPEFUL CONVERTS. Children under nine years of age, silly old woman and hypocritical young rakes; who say they are under concern, that their heads are giddy, and their imaginations wandering.

INFALLIBILITY. Exemption from common sense; freedom from the shackles of rationality.

INFIDEL. One who exercises his reason, and refuses to sign the creed of the Theological Institution; any one who doubts that Calvin and Hopkins were inspired from heaven.

INFIDELITY. Human reason.

INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRIT. An irresistible impulse of the mind, by which a convert is compelled to the belief of certain tenets, contrary to nature, reason and revelation. This influence operates in various ways. Its effects are sometimes seen in violent exertions of the fist, strainings of the eye-balls, and various contortions of the countenance: it is sometimes heard in most piteous groans and convulsive sobs. It was remarkably illustrated not long since at a Thursday lecture in Boston, by a reverend Doctor from New-York, in such monkey-like grimaces that the audience supposed him to be exhibiting a burlesque on some poor stage player. It was also wonderfully and powerfully exhibited a short time ago on Boston Common, by an itinerant preacher, who mounted a rock, and harangued the mob in a most delectable lecture, declaring that he was sent by THE SPIRIT to make the road to hell as hard as possible.'*

ORTHODOXY. A belief in scripture, as construed by Calvin and Hopkins, and promulgated to the world in the Panoplist.

PREDESTINATION. A judgment of providence, by which it was determined from all eternity, that the elect should be saved against their own desire; and that for the glory of God, all the rest of mankind should suffer eternal damnation.

RELIGIOUS INTELLIGENCE. Letters, written by the editors of the Panoplist, under the assumed names of various missionaries in distant parts of the world. It is indispensably necessary that these letters should be perfectly unintelligible to common understandings ; that every paragraph should contain at least five quotations from scripture, which quotations must be such as to raise some libidinous ideas in the mind of the reader; and each letter to be decorated with not less than ten words from the court languages of Owhyhee, Caffraria, Tungusian Tartary, and Patagonia; or contain an account of the conver

* We perfectly recollect hearing this expression; but were ignorant at the time whether the learned preacher meant to be understood as intending to render this road difficult to travel, or to make it a turnpike, and thus increase the facility of passing; the expression we thought quite indefinite. The compilers of the Theological Dictionary, by their quoting this authority, undoubtedly understood it in the sense first mentioned.-EDITORS.

sion of some priest of the Grand Lama, Choctaw Chief, or Hottentot Princess. If some information of three year old infants, who expounded the various readings of scripture, in the Hebrew, Chaldean and Sanscrit tongues, can be introduced, it helps much to corroborate the intelligence.

THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. A monument of christian liberality, the situation of which, it is impossible for any friend to evangelical truth in New-England or any where else to be ignorant.

*

THE WORK. A cant phrase to express the behaviour of a collec tion of Hopeful Converts.

UNITARIANS. This name has been assumed by that class of christians, or rather deists, who acknowledge the only living and true GOD, But it is not a correct or appropriate term. Those who believe in a Trinity, or plurality of Gods, are, in the proper sense of the word, Unitarians.t

REVIEW.

OBSERVATIONS

On the "Works of JAMES ELLIOT, citizen of Guilford, Vermont, and late a non-commissioned officer in the Legion of the United States." THE custom of reviewing publications, which have been printed many years, and have 'sparkled, been exhaled and gone to oblivion,* may be of doubtful authority; but we are not without some hopes of affording amusement to our readers, in giving them some account of the volume before us. The author is no other than that celebrated orator and statesman, who has so much distinguished himself in Congress, for the last five or six years; first as a violent, outrageous democrat; then as a temporising republican, and now as a sort of federalist. In giving this account of the author, we wish to bestow an interest on our review, which a mere reading of the title of the work under consideration would inevitably fail of producing. But when it is ascertained that the extracts we are about to give, are from the works of James Elliot, member in the Congress, and not a simple non-commissioned officer in the Legion of the United States, we expect the interest of every reader to be ' tremblingly alive' to the merits of the composition. The works of Mr. Elliot consist of pieces of Poetry and Prose, of a very miscellaneous nature; but many of which, as the author informs us in his preface, had met with no inconsiderable share of publick fa

* See Panoplist, Vol. I. new series, p. 209. + See Panoplist, Vol, I. new series, p. 371.