138 
Quintilian, speaking of him, says, 1. 10, 
c. ii—“ Sed longe clarius (Aischylo 
subaudito) illustraverunt hoc opus 
Sophocles atque Euripides; quorum, 
in dispari dicendi via, uter sit poeta 
melior, inter plurimos queritur, idque 
ego sane, injudicatum relinquo.”* 
Iam, &c. 
Eimencia Piros. 
4th February 1825. 
ee 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONTEM- 
PORARY CRITICISM. 
NO. XLII. 
The Quarterly and British Reviews, Sir 
Egerton Brydges, and Dr. Styles. 
(Continued from page 16, vol. 59).+ 
— WE know, indeed, that the true 
faith must be the faith of the church of 
England; for how can any Englishman 
expect to be saved out of the pale of 
England’s acknowledged church, as 
by law established? But what, accord- 
ing to the inspired interpretation of 
these reviewers, is the faith of the 
church of England? Nearly one-half 
(the most active half) of its ministers, 
and half their congregations (all who 
are evangelically inclined) are swept 
out of its pale by the very paragraph we 
have quoted :—they are excommuni- 
cated as Esseneans, misled by “ prin- 
ciples that are the sources of evil ;” by 
the delusions of “ deep feelings and high 
imaginations ;” by “ false and exagger- 
ated principles of self-approbation and 
acceptance with God,” which “ divert 
religion from influencing men’s conduct 
in life.” So that, fearing to obey the 
* “ But far superior (Aischylus having 
been spoken of) Sophocles and Euripides 
have ennobled this work: of whom, in 
style though different, should it be asked, 
among the many, which was the better 
poet, I should deem it wise to leave the 
question unjudged.’”’ We leave “ An Old 
Fellow” to answer for himself, if he thinks 
it necessary, for having an opinion of his 
own, where Quintilian heldit wise to doubt. 
Though, perhaps even Quintilian might 
have admitted that Sophocles was the 
noblest, and Euripides the most pathetic, 
and yet have doubted which was the best. 
— Ent. 
+ As, from circumstances connected 
with the convenience of the press, we were 
obliged to break off in the middle of a 
paragraph, the reader is requested to re- 
member that we were soliciting those 
oracles of orthodoxy, the Quarterly Re- 
viewers, explicitly to reveal to us the arti- 
cles of their creed, every syllable of which 
we were determined to believe. 
Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism.—No. XLII. 
[Mar. 1, 
summons of our parish chimes, lest we 
should meet one of these demoralizing 
Essenes there, instead of a genuine 
orthodox guide of the true Church, 
we must again request the infallible 
reviewers to inform us what the true 
doctrines of the Church of England are. 
One part of the true faith of that church 
we indeed know, from p.128 (Tour in 
Germany), must consist in an unquali- 
fied admiration of “the ample endow- 
ment of those noble institutions (the 
two Universities) of our land, which 
continue to shed over England their 
useful light,” as contrasted with “ the 
cheap and unendowed Universities of 
Germany,” where the professors and tu- 
tors are obliged to work for what they 
get, and even to condescend to render 
themselves popular among their pupils. 
But then, unfortunately, one at least of 
these said Universities (Cambridge) 
happens to pour out a great number 
of those deluding and anathematized 
Essenes (or Simeonites as they are 
vulgarly called) “ whose deep feelings 
and high imaginations,” the orthodox re- 
viewer tells us, “ divert religion from 
influencing the conduct of life.’ We 
know also, from the article on New 
Churches and the Progress of Dissent, 
that it is necessary to believe that 
building orthodox churches is a holy 
and disinterested work of our good 
government ; that there cannot be too 
many of them, too much money laid out 
upon them, or bestowed upon the 
clergy who are to minister in them (es- 
pecially as the people, who ultimately 
are to pay those ministers, are to have 
nothing to do with their appointment) ; 
but that building dissenting chapels, on 
the contrary, is a mere juggling com- 
mercial speculation—that “ tabernacle 
bonds (p. 238) are as good bubbles in 
the market as Mexican and Colombian 
scrip :” in short, that men are cajoled 
into dissent by the mere artifices of spe- 
culators, who want to make large in- 
terest on the capital they devote to 
pious uses, and of mock ministers who 
want to pick up good incomes from the 
rent of their seats and pews; while the 
orthodox church is declining through its 
own simple single heartedness; through 
the honest sincerity and independence 
of its professors,—the disinterested- 
ness of government jobbers and con- 
tractors, and the officers, patrons and 
pastors, from the bishops upon the 
bench, to the vicars, rectors, chaplains, 
curates, and tithe-collectors of the re- 
spective parishes and vicinages. 
“ The 
