“I did not receive your friendly letter, and the books
which you sent to Murray’s, till
the last week in May, at which time I supposed you would be on your voyage
homeward. Long ere this I trust you
| Ætat. 47. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 89 |
“You have sent me a good specimen of American divinity.
I very much doubt whether we have any contemporary sermons so good. For though
our pulpits are better filled than they were in the last generation, we do not
hear from them such sound reasoning, such clear logic, and such manly and
vigorous composition as in the days of South and Barrow. What
is said in the memoir of Mr. Buckminster
of the unimpassioned character of our printed sermons is certainly true; the
cause of it is to be found in the general character of the congregations for
which they were composed, always regular church-going people, persons of wealth
and rank, the really good part of the community, and the Formalists and the
Pharisees, none of whom would like to be addressed by their parish priest as
miserable sinners standing in need of repentance. Sermons of country growth
seldom find their way to the press; in towns the ruder classes seldom attend
the Church service, in large towns because there is no room for them; and
indeed, in country as well as town, the subjects who are in the worst state of
mind and morals never enter the Church doors. Wesley and Whitfield got
at them by preaching in the open air, and they administered drastics with
prodigious effect. Since their days a more impassioned style has been used in
the pulpit, and with considerable success. But the pith and the sound
philosophy of the elder divines are wanting. Your
Buckminster was taking
| 90 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 47. |
“You have sent me also a good specimen of American politics in the works of Fisher Ames. I perused them with great pleasure, and have seldom met with a more sagacious writer. A great proportion of the words in the American vocabulary are as common in England as in America. But provided a word be good, it is no matter from what mint it comes. Neologisms must always be arising in every living language; and the business of criticism should be not to reprobate them because they are new, but to censure such as are not formed according to analogy, or which are merely superfluous. The authority of an English reviewer passes on your side of the Atlantic for more than it is worth; with us the Review of the last month or the last quarter is as little thought of as the last week’s newspaper. You must have learnt enough of the constitution of such works to know that upon questions of philology they are quite unworthy of being noticed. The manner in which they are referred to in the vocabulary led me to this, and this leads me to the criticisms upon Bristed and Fearon’s books in the Quarterly Review. I know not from whom they came, but they are not in a good spirit.
