perdition. "It is fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven." Still we much prefer, what Mr. Anderson also often distils upon his hearers, the soft-dropping dew of the Gospel Hermon.

In many points, Anderson bears a resemblance to Edward Irving. His rich scripturality of quotation, his antique cast of phraseology, his long unmeasured sentences, his personal appeals, his sudden short bursts of eloquence, his fearless and sometimes fierce spirit blended with much gentleness, his mixture of cajolerie and real simplicity, his occasional wildness, his sincere and burning enthusiasm, not to speak of his millennial views, render him a striking though smaller similitude of that "Shakspeare of preachers"-that embodied flame of meteoric fire, who, like the wondrous tent or temple of electric light we saw lately suspended in the sky, hung, broadened, fluctuated, shivered, faded, went out in darkness -the pride, wonder, and terror of our ecclesiastical heavens.

One quality Mr. Anderson possesses, the want of which in Irving was pernicious-we mean, strong manly common sense. An old divine was wont to say, that if you wanted learning-if you wanted even the grace of God-if you wanted any thing else, in short, you might get it; but if you want common sense, you will never get it. The most splendid endowments do not compensate for its want; the most extensive and bitter experience does not communicate it. This pocket-map of man Mr. Anderson always carries about with him; and next to the inestimable divine chart, which no man values more, it has been his most valuable directory, and has saved him harmless where many have sunk to ruin, either been inflated and burst by vanity, or stiffened into salt statues of pride, or gone down the steep places of semispiritual semi-sensual destruction. In reading Mr. Anderson's works, and particularly his volume of sermons issued a few years ago, their main characteristic appears to be akin to this-vigorous, independent, yet cautious judgment. The volume contains in it, besides many artistic merits and literary beauties, some highly finished passages, both of reasoning, of fancy, of sarcasm, and of practical appeal. There is, for example, a description of the hypocrite, which might have come from Foster's pen. Passages of similar power has he sprinkled throughout his "Good Works," on the "Duty of

loving God." on the "Evil of Sin." and on the "Reunion of Christian Friends in the Heavenly World" From this last, throughout a piece of fine fancy and feeling, we quote the following touch of real genius:- Many a mother will not find her son in heaven, and yet the Saviour will make her happy; there can be no grief in the Paradise of God, no not even for a perished son. She could not now endure him, and Christ will bring her some other woman's child, who has been seeking for his mother in vain, and He will say, 'Woman behold thy son,' and to him, 'Behold thy mother,' and the wounds of the hearts of both will be healed." Nothing can be a simpler, yet nothing a finer application of our Saviour's dying words.

We think, indeed, that if Mr. Anderson, in his published works, had been less of a controversialist, and more of an utterer of sweet, musical, and poetical thoughts, such as this we have now quoted, his fame as a writer had been greater than it is. How soon polemical writings die! No one seeks to preserve them, after a certain date, any more than to prop up a fallen thistle or thorn; but let a flower or a hedge of roses begin to totter to its fall, every passing beggar will become its patron, and discover that there is in his heart some dim instinct of beauty unknown even to himself. Thus Clark's a priori argument (supposing its credit to fall) would fall amid utter silence, while an attack on the "Romeo and Juliet" of Shakspeare would make thousands eloquent, whose very tongues had been problematical before. Many even of Protestants would mourn less the want of Chillingworth's work than that of some of the sublime hymns of the Catholic Litany, such as the Dies Irae; and so we would cheerfully have wanted some of Mr. Anderson's defences against those who thought him heterodox on the points of the " organ " and the "personal reign," rather than those numerous tender and beautiful passages, which illustrate in an uncommon way points common to all Christians.

Mr. Anderson, as a writer, is noted for nerve, contempt of conventionalities, and daring selection of all the words, thoughts, and images which will serve his purpose, culled be they from whatever quarter-from earth, air, sea, heaven, or that "other place." He knows that a true thought, like a true prism, will reflect light of all kinds and from every

quarter. You occasionally find him recollecting but never imitating other writers. They are in, but not on and over his eye. Strong and startling as he is sometimes in his expressions, he is seldom wrong in his conclusions. We hear of writers

"Ne'er so sure our favor to create,

As when they tread the brink of all we hate." Mr. Anderson is one of this class. He drives his chariot along the brink of a whole chain of precipices, with a success as perfect as the way is perilous. He seems to love that border-land between truth and error. As you are about to call him an Arminian, he turns round and throws a blash of Calvinism in your face; as you are about to charge him with leaning to "universal salvation," he so paints perdition that you seem to hear the roar of its sleepless fires, and the tossing of the victims on the unmade beds of despair. He does not consider himself bound to reconcile apparently opposite truths, though he is bound to believe both. He cannot cast a bridge between Ayr and Arran, but he knows that some god or giant yet may.

Mr. Anderson, as a preacher, has a great variety of styles and manners. He can be, and is, either practical or profound either minute or abstract-either too plain to be pleasant, or too rich and powerful to be plain-either calm or vehement—either commonplace or original. We assisted him lately, and were much interested in the whole services of the day. His congregation is very large, and is almost— thanks to him-the best singing congregation in Scotland. It was thrilling, almost to the sublime, to hear their morning psalm. His prayers were minute, comprehensive, and earnest; his sermon, though not in his highest vein, was interesting and forcible. But the most striking part was his tableservice. During the consecration prayers he holds the elements in his hand. While holding the cup and praying for the coming of Christ-dark, solemn, swarthy as he stoodhe reminded us of the "King's cup-bearer." The large assembly seemed eating and drinking consciously under the shadow of the coming chariot; and if the morning psalm approached the sublime, the evening anthem, sung by the whole congregation standing, exceeded it, and rose to the sublime of dreams, when our vision of the night is heaven.

Mr. Anderson's delivery does not add at all to the impression of his matter. It is rather slow and drawling; his accent and pronunciation are of Kilsyth in the last century; his tone is rather nasal, his gesture ungraceful. When he rises, however, into his true power, all this is forgotten in the animation, the forceful bursts, the impassioned truth of a genuine natural orator. The air of eld, too, which breathes around his style, language, appearance, and address, adds a tart peculiarity to the whole, and you are carried back to the days of Cameron and Renwick. What a hill-preacher would he have made, as the enemy was coming up, or as a thunder-storm was darkening over the heads of the assembly!

As a public and platform man, William Anderson exerts great power in Glasgow. Every one believes him sincere, and every one knows him to be one of the ablest, readiest, and raciest of speakers. Here, too, all his strength, impetuosity, and earnestness, are under the control of discretion and sound judgment. His appearance is singular, if not fine. His features are plain, his face is slightly marked with the small-pox, his complexion is dark, but his eye, from its expression of blended sagacity and benevolence, redeems the whole. In private he is homely, social, kindly, full of matter, especially of anecdote and incident illustrative of life and character-proner to praise than blame-and, with all his sagacity, simple as a child. Music and infancy are the two mild hobbies he loves to ride, and long may he ride them! Like many other men of mark, he has had to fight his way. He was long a wonder unto many. The foolish laughed at, the malignant defamed, the hypercritical underrated him, and from his peers he received little sympathy or support. But, like all the brave, he struggled on, and was rewarded with victory. His popularity, at first excited by the eccentricities, was at last allowed calmly to rest on the excellence of his preaching and character. "Those who came to laugh remained to pray," personal and party prejudice was gradually subdued, his oddities mellowed and softened with time, and we may now as safely as we can conscientiously declare, that the United Presbyterian Church, with all its host of talented men, possesses scarcely one who equals in genius, and very few who surpass in talent, plain, strong, gifted William Anderson.

We may just add that Mr. Anderson, although not distinguished for pastoral visitation, is most exemplary in waiting on the sick-bed. We heard recently a rather amusing anecdote of him. Some person called, complaining that he had been eighteen years a member of his congregation and had never been visited by his minister. "You should be very thankful," replied Mr. Anderson. "How that, sir?" rejoined Mr. B. "I never visit any but those in whose houses God has entered by affliction. It seems you have been eighteen years without affliction in your family; few are so highly privileged. I trust other eighteen years may elapse ere I be in your house, sir. Good morning, Mr. B." So may all querulous Bs or blockheads be treated !*

LEIGH HUNT.

66

THE present state of poetry is a subject on which a great deal of nonsense has been written, and on which a greater deal still of nonsense is every day spoken. "We have no poets now-a-days," is the chatter at many a tea-table-a chatter which a glance at a few of the present names flaming on the forehead" of our literary sky, is enough to confute. Beside such veterans as Wordsworth, Wilson, Croly, Montgomery, and our present subject, Leigh Hunt, who are now rather honorary than active members of the corporation of Apollo, there are numerous aspirants of the laurel, of whom high hopes may be entertained. There is especially a little cluster of earnest poets whom we are at all times delighted to honor, and some of whom we may now briefly characterize, as an introduction not inappropriate to a notice of one who long ago, and in days darker than these, set them a good example, and who then stood almost singular in adding the spirit of the martyr to the accomplishments of the muses'

son.

* Mr. Anderson is just issuing a volume on " we expect to be quite worthy of him.

'Regeneration," which