140 
but suggest (we shudder as we relate 
it!) that “his views on the subject of 
doctrine are not fixed ;” and that “ the 
real amount of his hostility to the papal 
system is far less than he imagines.” 
In page 329, they even accuse him of 
being “ partial” in the censoriousness 
of his “ general representations” of 
the Calvinistic reformers ; and, in page 
330, they go so far as to say,— 
“ The defeet of his book, in this point of 
view, is so great, that in our opinion it 
takes from the character of the publication 
as an historical work, and obliges us to 
regard it, as written merely to support a 
cause.” 
But mark what follows. In p. 331-2, 
they accuse the irrefragable historian 
of the church of being an Antinomian !! 
* Antinomians is the theological name of 
those, who regard the spirit of the gospel 
as opposed to the moral law: and antino- 
mian is the term which, in the present in- 
stance, we should apply to Mr. Southey’s 
sentiments; except, that we are disposed 
to think that he writes loosely, and has not 
been led, in the course of his literary pur- 
suits, into any very profound researches in 
the department of theology.” 
In page 341, he isalso accused of Pela- 
gianism ; and, in answer to his censure 
of St. Augustine, they have the follow- 
ing severe remark :— 
“Tt is unfortunate for Mr. Southey, that 
he should fall into such a mistake, as to 
characterize the man whom our church, in 
its twenty-ninth article, expressly quotes 
and refers to, and who was one of the 
greatest lights of the Christian world, as 
the man who, ‘ of all those ambitious spirits 
who have adulterated the pure doctrines of 
revelation with their own opinions, is per- 
haps the one who has produced the widest 
and the most injurious effects.” And it is 
equally unfortunate for him, that he charac- 
terizes, as ‘the most reasonable of all those 
whom the ancient church has branded with 
the note of heresy,’ that very heresiarch, 
whom our church has selected, in her ninth 
article, to condemn by name.” 
And, in conclusion, they infer a whole- 
sale censure on the elaborate work of 
our divine Laureate, by saying,— 
““ We should hail with pieasure a Book 
of the Church of Christ in'this kingdom, 
written by a person thoroughly imbued 
with its doctrines.’’ 
—Meaning, thereby, too evidently, to 
insinuate that Dr. Southey, Laureate 
and Esquire, and M.R.S.A., &c. &c. &c., 
is not so imbued. 
But it is not alone through the pages 
of periodical reviews, that the philoso- 
phy or anti-philosophy of contemporary 
Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism.—No. XLIL. 
[Mar. 1; 
criticism is now to be pursued. Even 
the pulpit usurps the functions of lite- 
rary censorship; and, inasmuch as it 
does so, brings itself within the sphere 
of our retaliative animadversion. 
The Rey. John Styles, D.D., in “a 
Sermon delivered at Holland Chapel, 
Kennington, July 4, 1824,” (a funeral 
anathema, it might more properly be 
called), has undertaken to be a reviewer 
of Lord Byron; and thus he pronounces 
sentence. See p. 22. 
““ Be assured, my brethren, it is with 
sorrowful reluctance I feel myself catled 
upon, by an imperious sense of public duty, 
to denounce the greatest genius of the age, 
as the greatest enemy of his species.” 
Very consciencious -this, beyond all 
doubt! <A little strong, however, on 
the side of charity; and tolerably deci- 
sive for a preacher of a religion, one of 
whose most authoritative maxims is, 
“Judge not, that ye may not be judged.” 
The greatest enemy of kis species! Words 
and opinions being, of course, more cri- 
minal than deeds! else, what would Dr. 
Styles say of some of those who trample 
on nations, and sacrifice thousands, nay 
millions of their species, to their own 
personal arrogance and ambition ?—of 
those who feed their riot, pamper every 
appetite, and maintain their gorgeous 
ostentation by the pillage and oppres- 
sion of half-starving multitudes? What 
of those who, in the security of their 
divans and cabinets; order rape and 
massacre and desolation to stalk abroad? 
What of the Turk (for we will not talk 
of the Moscovite), who condemns to 
indiscriminate slaughter all the Christian 
Greeks who, in siege or conflict, fall into 
his hands ?—what of those Christians, 
as they call themselves, who kidnap, 
purchase, or retain in remorseless bonds, 
their sable brethren; and scourge, or 
order to be scourged, the poor miserable 
wretches whom they call their property, 
with a barbarity, in many instances, the 
very narrative of which makes the heart, 
that hath one human fibre left in it, 
shudder even to sickness and syncope? 
Does Dr.S. never smell the blood of his 
poor sable brethren, in the fumes of that 
morning and evening beverage which 
owes its savoury sweetness to their 
agonies ?—or never, on such occasion, 
ask himself, whether the inflictors and 
vindicators of these atrocities sin not 
against their species, and against the 
God of Mercy, almost as much as they 
could have done by the most licentious 
line in all the poetry of Lord Byron? 
“Oh! but these people go to chee 
an 
