's morning; and then how beautiful the first quarto
looked as it arrived with its laid sheets and snowy margins! We see him
setting out to spend a week's holiday at St. Albans, or with the
Honorable Mrs. Scawen at Maidwell, and packing the "apparatus criticus"
into the spacious saddle-bags; and we enjoy the prelibation with which
Dr. Clarke and a few cherished friends are favored. We sympathize in his
dismay when word arrives that Dr. Guyse has forestalled his design, and
we are comforted when the doctor's chariot lumbers on, and no longer
stops the way. We are even glad at the appalling accident which set on
fire the manuscript of the concluding volume, charring its edges, and
bathing it all in molten wax: for we know how exulting would be the
thanks for its deliverance. We can even fancy the pious hope dawning in
the writer's mind, that it might prove a blessing to the princess to
whom it was inscribed; and we can excuse him if, with bashful
disallowance, he still believed the fervid praises of Fordyce and
Warburton, or tried to extract an atom of intelligent commendation from
the stately compliments of bishops. But far be it from us to insinuate
that the chief value of the Expositor was the pleasure with which it
supplied the author. If not so minutely erudite as some later works
which have profited by German research, its learning is still sufficient
to shed honor on the writer, and, on a community debarred from colleges;
and there must be original thinking in a book which is by some regarded
as the source of Paley's "Horae Paulinae." But, next to its Practical
Observations, its chief excellence is its Paraphrase. There the sense of
the sacred writers is rescued from the haze of too familiar words, and
is transfused into language not only fresh and expressive, but congenial
and devout; and whilst difficulties are fairly and earnestly dealt with,
instead of a dry grammarian or a one-sided polemic, the reader
constantly feels that he is in the company of a saint and a scholar. And
although we could name interpreters more profound, and analysts more
subtle, we know not any who has proceeded through the whole New
Testament with so much candor, or who has brought to its elucidation
truer taste and holier feeling. He lived to complete the manuscript, and
to see three volumes published. He was cheered to witness its acceptance
with all the churches; and to those who love his memory, it is a welcome
thought to think in how ma