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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE II. These very interesting and valuable sketches of Queen Caroline, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chesterfield, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Pope, and other celebrated characters of the time of George II., several of which have already appeared in the LIVING AGE, reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine, will be issued from this office, in book form, as soon as completed.

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From The Saturday Review, 26 Sept. ENGLAND ON DUTIES OF NEUTRALS.

at once easing our consciences, and establishing a precedent most advantageous to England. On what principle the amount to be paid should be fixed is a very curious question, and would lead the anxious inquirer into many most complicated legal subtleties. But, in the first place, the amount will probably be fixed, as in the verdicts of juries, by a sort of hazard, and in defer

Ir is most satisfactory to find that Mr. Johnson has arrived in England not only with full power, but with every disposition, to settle all outstanding disputes. As he says, it cannot be difficult to do this if both nations honestly wish it. We shall soon, it may be hoped, come to the end of the long-ence to what is called substantial justice, standing Alabama dispute. England is ready to own herself to have been in the wrong, but she thinks that she may claim to have been pardonably in the wrong. We did not know what could be asked from us, what we ought to do, and when and how we ought to do it. International law was silent on a point that had never before arisen. The duties of neutrals towards belligerents constituted an omitted chapter in that most imperfect of codes. We did not at first understand how much it was to our interest to create and enforce these duties; but we were brought to see how much we might suffer if neutrals could favour belligerents with impunity, and we rapidly gave in our adhesion to the new doctrines as to the duties of neutrals which the Federal Government insisted should be received. Under the pressure of circumstances, indeed, we acted on these doctrines before we had made up our minds to adhere to them; and a Commission has only this year advised that Parliament should legalize what the Government of the day did several years ago without regard to its legality. If it was right to stop the rams, it would also, without question, have been right to stop the Alabama. We did wrong in not stopping the Alabama, and we are ready to own it, and to pay for it; and if we pay for it, we shall have the satisfaction of

A FRIEND of mine writing from Interlachen, and driven for amusement one wet day to the Livre des Etrangers, has sent me the following:

Jungfrau looks to me like a lady
Sitting quietly down on her haunches,
And flinging at Goatherds so gaily
Her snowballs, and huge avalanches.
Her form, it is made to perfection,
Her bust white as marble appears;
But then 'tis a horrid reflection,
To think she is made with Glaciers.

And here are more extracts. This from

the book at the Righi-Kulm:

Pour jouir de la belle vue

J'ai monté, un paquet sur le dos,

Lorsque du ciel creve une nue
Qui me transperca jusq'aux os.

Je n'ai jamais vu de ma vie

rather than by any measure of logical fitness;
and, in the next place, the exact amount is
not a matter which gives Englishmen much
thought. We will cheerfully pay whatever
the representatives of both nations agree we
should pay. What we really care about is
that the law as to cruisers from neutral terri-
tory should be laid down so as to protect
the just interests of a great maritime Power
like England, and also that the Americans
should be really and finally satisfied with
what we do, and should think that, in the
long run and on the whole, we have behaved
Mr. Johnson has
honourably to them.
wisely paved the way for the attainment of
a good understanding by publicly stating
beforehand that neither nation ought to win
a triumph over the other, and that he is as
sure England will not submit, as that his
country will not submit, to be humiliated.
With so friendly, so temperate, and so
courteous an antagonist, we can rely on
settling all our differences easily and speed-
ily. Mr. Johnson is very fortunate in hav-
ing the opportunity of beginning his diplo-
matic career so pleasantly; but he not only
has the opportunity, he uses it eagerly and
well, and he has already made his task much
more easy and his success more certain, by
inspiring Englishmen with a confidence in
his personal friendliness and goodwill.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE II.

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE REIGN OF

GEORGE II.

NO. VII. THE REFORMER.

It is difficult, either from the bare facts of history or from disjointed scenes in it, to arrive at any clear idea of the general state of feeling and thought at any special period. It is only, indeed, within recent days, that modern history has troubled itself with any endeavour to realise the spiritual fashion and wont of the age it painted. So many things happened so many battles were fought so many kings reigned, its audience asked no more. The reigns of the first Georges were occupied with a struggle to establish their dynasty; to set the constitutional government of the country on sure foundations; to settle a great many questions on the Continent, with which England had not very much to do. Such is the record; and a very bare record it is, notwithstanding the depths of individual interest that are contained underneath. But, fortunately, the public mind has now taken to a certain curiosity about how things came about; and there are few subjects which could more call for such a preliminary inquiry than the one on which we are about to enter. Such a figure as John Wesley does not arise in a country without urgent need, or without circumstances that account for most of the angles in it. To consider the apparition by itself, without considering these, is to lose half its significance, as well as to judge unjustly, in all probability, of the chief personage of the narrative—a man not rising vaguely out of society, without any call or necessity, but tragically demanded by a world ready to perish, and born out of the very hopelessness of its need.

323 From Blackwood's Magazine. | paternal love of Chesterfield—are all as independent of any religious motive or meaning as if those princely personages had been as heathen in name as they were in reality. The wonderful wifely support and countenance which Caroline steadfastly gave, in spite of all the repugnance of naturę, to her faithless and often contemptible husband, gave at the same time an unto vice. Walpole seemly countenance served his country and the devil together, and laughed at the very idea of goodness. Chesterfield, in devotion to one of the most blessed of natural pieties, did not blush to encourage his son in shameless wickedness. Pope babbled loudly of the vice for which his weak frame incapacitated him, and held his hereditary faith for honour's sake, without the slightest appearance or pretence of any spiritual attachment to it. They had some pagan virtues amid their perpetual flutter of talk and dissipation: one was a good son, another a good father, a third a most loyal and tender wife; and yet, take them either together or apart, it is clear as daylight that thought of God, or even of They were not religion, was not in them. impious except by moments; but they were godless, earthly, worldly, without sciousness of anything more in heaven or earth than was dreamed of in their philosophy. It was one of the moments in which the world had fallen out of thought of God. Other ages may have been as wicked, but we doubt whether any age had learned so entirely to forget its connection with higher things, or the fact that a soul which did not an immortal being akin to other diewas within its clay. The good spheres men were inoperative, the bad men were dauntless; the vast crowd between the two, which forms the bulk of humanity, felt no stimulus towards religion, and drowsed in It was the age when The sketches which have preceded this, comfortable content. though attempting no analysis or even de- the chaplain married my lady's maid, and scription of the period, must have failed al- ate at the second table, and would even together of their end if they have not indi- lend a hand to carry my lord to bed at cated an age singularly devoid not only of night, after he had dropped under the table, religion, but of all spirituality of mind, or and turn a deaf ear to the blasphemy with reference to things unseen. The noble nat- which his speech was adorned. It was the ural qualities of Queen Caroline, and her high age when delicate young women, of the devotion to the view of duty, of which her best blood and best manners in the land, mind was most capable-the patriotism talked with a coarseness which editors of (such as it was) of Walpole the amazing the nineteenth century can represent only

con

by asterisks; and in which the most pol- | bury in 1711. Twenty years later, the faished and dainty verse, Pope's most melo- mous Nonconformist Calamy laments the dious, correctest couplets, were interspersed "real decay of serious religion both in the with lines which would damn forever and Church and out of it." To this country ever any poetaster. Personal satire, poor and time, lying in ignorance, in that sneerinstrument of vengeance which stings with- ing and insolent profanity which is, of all out wounding, had such sway as it has others, the most hateful condition into which never had before in England; but that humanity can fall, John Wesley was born sense of public honour which prevents open - and not a day too soon. outrage upon decency was not in existence. The Reformer, whose influence upon his The public liked the wicked story, and generation was so extraordinary, is not one liked the scourge that came after; and of those who concentrate the spectator's atlaughed, not in its sleeve, but loudly, at tention upon themselves, or move him to blasphemy and indecency and profanity. passionate sympathy, admiration, and love, Even the sentiment of cleanness, purity, blotting out, to some extent, the meaner and honour, was lost to the generation. Its earth. His progress through life is rather soul was good for nothing but to point an that of a moving light which throws gleams oath. The name of God was still used in upon the darkling mass around it. His public documents as giving victories and very cradle illuminates a quaint family picconfounding enemies and suchlike; and in ture, opening up to us one of the still, pious private very freely, as the most round syl- households which broke with their quaint lable to clinch the perpetual curse; but was religiousness and formal order the level of no more spiritual significance than the of reckless living. His father was vicar name of George or James, and not half so of Epworth in Lincolnshire, a good man much external weight. Such was the age: of Nonconformist lineage, but a zealous a period of confused fighting, here for Ma- Churchman; his mother, the daughter of ria Theresa, there for Charles XII., again one of the ejected ministers. Mr. Samuel for the fallen, ever-falling Stuarts; with no Wesley had been driven out of the Dissentprinciple in the strife, and little good com- ing body by the fierce sectarianism of the ing out of it to any man or kingdom, ex- community; his wife, with more remarkacept perhaps in the end the Prussian; and,ble individuality, "had examined the conso far as England was concerned, a gradual weaning of the popular mind from any belief or hope in excellence, or power of contrasting the good with the evil. So long as the Excise-bills were held aloof, and tranquillity preserved, what did it matter whether light or darkness was uppermost? or, indeed, was not darkness the rule, and light, if not painful, at least indifferent, to the eye, not a matter to make any fuss about? One of the most hopeless unexalted | ages that ever benumbed the faculties of

troversy between the Dissenters and the Church of England with conscientious diligence, and satisfied herself that the schismatics were in the wrong." Such a pair at the head of a large family in the little parsonage among the fens developed various quaint features of religious opinionativeness which have worn out of fashion in our day. The husband had gained his benefice by a little book about the Revolution, which he dedicated to Queen Mary. Years after, it struck the good man that at prayers his wife did not say amen to his petition for Dutch William; and he found, on inquiry, that to her the King of the Revolution was still Prince of Orange, an unnatural usurPapists, Lutherans, Cal-per. She had said nothing about her disvinists, and Dissenters; but of them all, sent from his opinions on this subject, being our clergy is much the most remiss in their impressed, as Southey says, by a deep labours in private, and the least severe in sense of the duty and wisdom of obeditheir lives." "A due regard to religious ence." But in this case, as in most others, persons, places, and things has scarce in it is evident that the husband did not see any age been more wanting," says Atter- the beauty of that much commended but

man.

"I have observed the clergy in all the places through which I have travelled," says Bishop Burnet in 1713, not a hard or difficult judge,

66

66

tained in it lies upon you, yet in your absence I
cannot but look upon every soul you leave under
my care as a talent committed to me under a
trust by the great Lord of all the families both
of heaven and earth. . . As these and
other suchlike thoughts made me at first take a
more than ordinary care of the souls of my
children and servants, so, knowing our religion

required a strict observation of the Lord's day,
end of the institution by going to church unless
and not thinking that we fully answered the
we filled up the intermediate spaces of time by
other acts of piety and devotion, I thought it
my duty to spend some part of the day in read-
ing to and instructing my family. And such
time I esteemed spent in a way more acceptable
to God than if I had retired to my own private
devotions. This was the beginning of my pres-
ent practice: other people's coming in and join-
ing with us was merely accidental. Our lad
told his parents: they first desired to be ad-
mitted ;-
- then others that heard of it begged
leave also. So our company increased to about
thirty; and it seldom exceeded forty last winter.

highly unpleasant duty. He went off in a pet, as husbands when " obeyed are too apt to do, and vowed never to see or communicate with the schismatic again till she had changed her mind. This humorous incident is not, however, turned into a moral lesson by any change of mind on the part of Mrs. Susannah. The King died, which answered the purpose just as well, and the husband came back, somewhat sheepishly one cannot but think, leaving the victory in her hands. Another controversy of a less amusing character which arose between them shows that the duty of obedience, after all, was not the first in Mrs. Wesley's mind. Her husband, evidently a self-willed and hot-headed man, though a good and true one, was in the habit of attending the sittings of Convocation, "at an expense of money which he could ill spare from the necessities of so large a family, and at a cost of time which was injurious to his parish." There was no afternoon service at the church at Epworth during his absences; and, with a curious I was, I think, never more affected with anyforeshadowing of what was to come, the thing. I could not forbear spending good part clergyman's wife took in hand a little do- of that evening in praising and adoring the mestic service on the Sunday evenings, divine goodness for inspiring them with such praying and reading with her children and ardent zeal for His glory. At last it came into servants as a mother and mistress may. my mind, though I am not a man nor a minisBut by degrees a few neighbours dropped ter, yet I might do something more than I do. in, and Mrs. Wesley did not think it proper I thought I might pray more for them, and 'that their presence should interrupt the might speak to those with whom I converse with duty of the hour." The thing grew, so more warmth of affection. I resolved to begin that at length thirty or forty people would with my own children, in which I observe the be present at their domestic worship. Mr. following method: I take such a proportion of Wesley, busy with his Convocation squab-time as I can spare each night to discourse with bles, heard and took fright at this unusual each child apart. On Monday I talk with Molly, proceeding. It does not on Tuesday with Hetty, Wednesday with Henry, moved him to the length of coming back Thursday with Jacky, Friday with Patty, Satand looking after his own business; but he urday with Charles, and with Emily and Sukey together on Sunday.

seem to have

made haste to write to her that her conduct

"looked particular "— that, as the wife of a public person, it behooved her to exercise discretion—and that she ought to employ some one else to read for her. To this she answered at length, in a letter which most singularly anticipates many of the views afterwards proclaimed by her

son:

"As I am a woman," writes Mrs. Wesley, "so I am also mistress of a large family; and though the superior charge of the souls con

light on the account of the Danish missionaries.

"But soon after you went to London last, I