he been alive, would have pronounced it the greatest buff he had ever heard in his life."

In a foot note to the above passage, the editor says, "Returning from this interview, Dr. Chalmers remarked to Mr. Irving upon the obscurity of Mr. Coleridge's utterances, and said, that for his part, he liked to see all sides of an idea before taking up with it."

"Ha!" said Mr. Irving in reply, "you Scotchmen would handle an idea as a butcher handles an OX. For my part, I love to see an idea looming through the mist." (Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, part iii. pp. 126, 127.)

Thus much for Mr. Irving's taste. It is much to be regretted that a man so clever and so eloquent, upon the whole, ever cultivated such a taste. It appears to me that this love of the mystical, which rendered him prodigiously popular for a while, especially with such admirers as Mrs. Gloomy, was the very thing that undermined his usefulness, led him into all the vagaries of reviving the gift of tongues, diminished his ministerial reputation, and established for him a posthumous fame, which, if I mistake not, might be designated questionable, odd, undefinable, a blending of piety with dark profundity. While he was delivering his lectures on prophecy, in Edinburgh, and drawing prodigious crowds (as every eloquent oddity is certain of doing); Dr. Chalmers heard him, and in his journal says, "For the first time I heard Mr. Irving in the evening. I have no

hesitation in saying that it is quite woful. There is power and richness, and gleams of exquisite beauty, but with all a mysticism and an extreme allegorization, which I am sure must be pernicious to the general cause. This is the impression of every clergyman I have met with, and some think of making a friendly remonstrance with him on the subject."

In a letter to his sister, Mrs. Morton, the doctor says, "I perfectly agree with the soundness and good sense of your observations on the subject of Mr. Irving, whose extravagance and obscurity have placed him far out of my sympathy and sight. I heard him once; but I must just be honest enough and humble enough to acknowledge that I scarcely understood a word, nor do I comprehend the ground on which he goes in his violent allegorization, chiefly of the Old Testament." (Memoirs of Dr. Chalmers, part iii., pages 173 and 174.)

And yet this prodigy of a genius was tremendously popular. I blush for the multitude of Addlepated hearers to be found in Great Britain, admiring orations, and sermons, and lectures, not because they can, but because they can not understand them. These prodigies may sparkle and dazzle, and bewilder the social circle (as they do their congregations); but their conversation seldom, if ever, enlightens it. But while some men in conversation dazzle, confound and bewilder us, there are others, and men of amiable qualities, too, who, either from want of ability or

inclination, or both, scarcely enlighten us at all. I once travelled with a minister of extensive popularity from five in the morning till seven in the evening. I did all I could in a respectful and deferential way to get our time improved by talking. I spoke of standard books, and started numerous topics, but to no purpose. He was, indeed, good tempered and agreeable, but in no way instructive. I could not admire this taciturnity. I did not "bore" him, as the phrase is, but let out occasional hints with as much gentleness and politeness as I could command; but I had no success. It might be, that belonging to the working clergy and not a fine gentleman, I was not up to his mark. An esteemed professor of a college afterwards told me that I should have felt no surprise at the gentleman's silence, as it was a question with him and many others, whether he had read a book for the last twenty years! meaning, as I supposed, no book of considerable size and excellency.

At another time, while I was in Scotland, this same gentleman was specially invited with me to breakfast with a noble band of University men. I knew right well how beautifully he would come out in his sermons when he saw distinguished men in his congregations; and could not but anticipate some interesting demonstration in the parlour, while he had men of learning and "choice spirits" before him. The University men suggested numerous topics; the whole forenoon was before us. They spoke of the

Hebrew language and the controversy about the "points." The Greek, and its dialects and contractions; thence went on to the merit of translations; then to philosophy, moral and natural; then to the works of Shakspeare, Milton, Young, Cowper, Steele, Addison, Goldsmith, Johnson, Pope, Bacon, Locke; thence to histories, the Belles Lettres, but I cannot mention all. Now here were subjects sufficiently numerous to allure or provoke a man to talk. Well, he did talk, but so sparingly, cautiously and prudently, and withal, so courteously, that we had politeness as a substitute for mental power. We learned nothing but what we knew before, viz., that he was a good man, and a good preacher. Whatever might have been his capacities, he did not vouchsafe to give us the benefit of them.

To be communicative, is a social Christian duty. If popular public speakers neglect or evade this duty, they will resemble the water-coloured scenery in a large theatre, look mightily beautiful and imposing at a distance, and with the resplendent light of gas lamps and chandeliers, but dull daubs when closely inspected by the light of day. I do not mean that the social conversation of every public speaker should be a performance, or that he should be the oracle of the company, or the lion of the party; but I do mean that the same capability should be evinced on a small scale in the parlour, as was manifested in more ample proportions on the platform.

Some people say it is unfashionable to introduce science, literature or divinity, or anything learned into fire-side conversation. Alter the fashion then, or say at once it is unfashionable to improve the time, unfashionable to be rational and intelligent, any where but in a public building playing the orator. We don't want people to be stiff and formal, but we want great and good subjects, handled with that easy familiarity which will give them all the charm of entertainment, if not diversion.

Public men should not need to be goaded with hints and efforts to draw them out in conversation. We are not pleased to have the learning of Doctor Deepthought, ensconced under the cover of awful silence and a dreadful long face. We do not award to him the great arm-chair, the throne of the apartment, that he may look unutterable things. Still less do we wish him in his deep unuttered cogitations to consider himself a giant among pigmies. There is something deliciously comfortable in our modern cushioned arm-chairs. The luxuriantly recumbent back; the soft seat; the indulgent rests for the arms. To occupy these chairs aright, you must look majestically, and cannot look otherwise. Now when a public speaker is selected by a kind host or hostess, to fill one of these most happy and most honourable of all seats in the room, he should preserve the dignity of the chair, not by napping, or staring at the ceiling, or knitting his brows as if solving a problem, or doing some queer and eccentric thing, but by good