ss of a noble
Italian picture; and even his distortion of sight only redeems the
otherwise "faultless monster" within the bounds of humanity, and, when
admiration is exhausted and curiosity ceases, excites a new interest by
leading to the idle question whether it is an advantage to the preacher
or not. Farther, give him all his actual and remarkable advantages of
body and mind, let him be as tall, as strait, as dark and clear of skin,
as much at his ease, as silver-tongued, as eloquent and as argumentative
as he is, yet with all these, and without a little charlatanery to set
them off, he had been nothing. He might, keeping within the rigid line
of his duty and professed calling, have preached on for ever; he
might have divided the old-fashioned doctrines of election, grace,
reprobation, predestination, into his sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth heads, and his _lastly_ have been looked for as a
"consummation devoutly to be wished;" he might have defied the devil and
all his works, and by the help of a loud voice and strong-set person--

"A lusty man to ben an Abbot able;"--

have increased his own congregation, and been quoted among the godly as
a powerful preacher of the word; but in addition to this, he went out of
his way to attack Jeremy Bentham, and the town was up in arms. The thing
was new. He thus wiped the stain of musty ignorance and formal bigotry
out of his style. Mr. Irving must have something superior in him, to
look over the shining close-packed heads of his congregation to have a
hit at the _Great Jurisconsult_ in his study. He next, ere the report of
the former blow had subsided, made a lunge at Mr. Brougham, and glanced
an eye at Mr. Canning; _mystified_ Mr. Coleridge, and _stultified_ Lord
Liverpool in his place--in the Gallery. It was rare sport to see him,
"like an eagle in a dovecote, flutter the Volscians in Corioli." He has
found out the secret of attracting by repelling. Those whom he is likely
to attack are curious to hear what he says of them: they go again,
to show that they do not mind it. It is no less interesting to the
by-standers, who like to witness this sort of _onslaught_--like a charge
of cavalry, the shock, and the resistance. Mr. Irving has, in fact,
without leave asked or a licence granted, converted the Caledonian
Chapel into a Westminster Forum or Debating Society, with the sanctity
of religion added to it. Our spirited polemic is not contented to defend
the citadel of o