660 
potentialities of the christian gentleman. 
The man had not time to elicit them into 
action. ‘“ If he was not the exact model of 
a christian gentleman,’’—see how prejudice 
can warp even this stern professor—‘ it 
was because his country, with its engrossing 
cares, borrowed too much from the concerns 
of his soul—that time was too strong for 
eternity—action too importunate for reflec- 
tion: but he was every way a great man, 
and chiefly so by the magnanimous dedica- 
tion of himself to the public’—and, we 
suppose it may as pertinently be added, the 
exclusion of others. 
When glancing over the reign of George 
II., he says, of that monarch, “nothing 
was decisive or emphatic in him, but the 
love of money and of Hanover:—his own 
religion, and that of his court, were very 
low—so low, that Lord Bolingbroke, Lord 
Chesterfield, and Horace Walpole, were 
scarcely noticed as infidels or sceptics, 
although three worse men have seldom 
appeared in array against the cause of God 
and the soul.”” Of Addison, he observes, 
‘he had a plausible conception of the 
christian gentleman, as appears by many 
passages in his Spectator, in which chris- 
tianity, according to the view he took of it, 
was a necessary constituent of thorough 
good-breeding ; but in the religion which 
he has brought so graphically before us, we 
see more of colour than consistence, of sen« 
timent than self-denial, of imagination than 
conviction. The christianity of his fine 
gentleman shines only upon the surface of 
his manners.”” The three friends, at 
Wickham, Gilbert West, Lord Lyttleton, 
and Mr. Pitt, are all of them found seri- 
ously wanting. Of the first- he observes, 
“he was a man of great worth, a gentleman 
with many christian graces, and, upon the 
whole, after his work on the Resurrection, 
not too highly appreciated if called a chris- 
tian gentleman : but still in him there was 
a want of spiritual decisiveness—of evange- 
lical seriousness.”? ‘Though commending, 
in much the same terms, Lord Lyttleton’s 
Treatise “on St. Paul’s Conversion, he turns 
over its celebrated pages in vain for the pure 
spirit of evangelical piety, or the charac- 
teristics of a mind under the humbling in- 
fluence of vital faithin the gospel.”” “ Lord 
Chatham was a gentleman and a christian, 
in a modified understanding of these terms ; 
but as his piety breaks out in his letters to 
Lord Camelford, or as it sometimes casts a 
gleam across the path of his political glory, 
it reveals to us no intimate convictions of 
gospel truth—no clear knowledge of the 
saving virtue of the Redeemer’s cross.”” 
This is good, vigorous writing; the 
author is thoroughly in earnest—and his 
object is most important, whatever may be 
thought of particular sentiments. 
Prize Essay on Comets, by. David 
Milne ; 1829.—Every body has heard of 
the Rev. Mr. Fellowes, if for nothing else, 
at least as the eloquent inditer of Queen 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
LJung; 
Caroline’s addresses. Very much, we be« 
lieve, to his own surprise, he succeeded to 
the immense wealth (ignotum pro mag- 
nifico,) of Baron Maseres. Among the 
first uses to which he proposed to apply 
the fruits of this extraordinary wind- 
fall, was the furtherance of science—many 
munificent things have been mentioned, and 
among others a botanical plaything for the 
London University. But whatever may 
have been the projects of himself or his 
friends, one act was the offer of fifty guineas 
to the University of Edinhurgh for an Essay 
on Comets, and twenty-five guineas for the 
second best. This was about two years ago. 
At the first examination of papers, none 
were deemed worthy either of the first or 
second prize; but, on an extension of time 
being given, to Mr. Milne was awarded the 
Jirst—the second was not disposed of. 
But for this stimulus of Mr. Fellowes, 
this very superior performance would never 
have been written; and though something 
better might be accomplished in point of 
matter, and certain speculations omitted with 
arrangement, and especially in the historical 4 
m 
advantage, it is incomparably beyond any 
thing of the kind extant on the subject. 
The-real value of the book is, that it em-= 
braces every thing of any importance, either 
in fact or inference, ascertained or sance 
tioned by men of any authority. The sub- 
ject is distributed by the able author into, 
1. Physical constitution of comets, com- 
prising details on the nucleus, envelope, 
and tail; 2. the movements, or the orbits, 
with the mathematical investigation; 3. the 
influence of comets and planets on each 
other ; 4. the various stages of maturity— 
which is wholly conjectural, proceeding on 
the supposition chiefly that comets are ori- 
ginally exhalations from some quarter or — 
other, gradually condensing, hardening, 
solidifying, perhaps into planets, the chief 
ground for which is, that sometimes comets 
can be seen through ; and 5. general views 
respecting the system, in which some me- 
nacing conclusions are drawn, which do not, 
however, threaten the present generation— 
requiring, indee&, some two hundred mil- 
lions of years to mature them. 
The accuracy of the treasury is proverbial 
—in the midst of millions we find pence 
and farthings carefully recorded. Astro- 
nomers are equally precise; but really, 
after all the boasted pretensions to close ob-. 
servation, and closer calculation, it is a little 
% 
‘a 
remarkable how widely they sometimes a 
differ. Myr. Milne records a few. The 
nucleus of the comet of 1807, according to. 
Herschel, was 538 miles diameter; but. 
Schroter, another German, made it 997. 
The second comet of 1811 Herschel deter-: 
mined to be 2,637, while Schroter could 
make no more than 570 of it. Of course, 
Herschel is the more credible authority—it 
is nothing short of presumption, in the 
smallest degree, in this country, to question 
the decisions of the greater man in any pro- 
fession. 
