ing reflections: 'The peaceful
infant, staying only to wash away its native impurity in the layer of
regeneration, bid a speedy adieu to time and terrestrial things. What
did the little hasty sojourner find so forbidding and disgustful in our
upper world to occasion its precipitate exit?' The tomb of a young lady
calls forth the following morbid horrors:--'Instead of the sweet and
winning aspect, that wore perpetually an attractive smile, grins
horribly a naked, ghastly skull. The eye that outshone the diamond's
brilliancy, and glanced its lovely lightning into the most guarded
heart--alas! where is it? Where shall we find the rolling sparkler? How
are all its sprightly beams eclipsed!' The tongue, flesh, &c., are dwelt
upon in the same fashion.

It is hard to believe that this was really considered fine writing by
our ancestors, but the fact is indisputable. The 'Meditations' brought
in a clear gain of 700_l._ Dr. Blair, himself a model of taste in his
day, spoke in high terms of approbation of Hervey's writings. Boswell
records with evident astonishment that Dr. Johnson 'thought slightingly
of this admired book' (the 'Meditations'); 'he treated it with ridicule,
and parodied it in a "Meditation on a Pudding."'[794] Most modern
readers will be surprised that any sensible people could think otherwise
than Dr. Johnson did of such a farrago of highflown sentiment clothed in
the most turgid language.

It is a pity that Hervey could not learn to be less bombastic in his
style and less vapid in his sentiments, for, after all, he had an eye
for the sublime and beautiful both in the world around him and in the
heavens above his head--a faculty very rare in the age in which he
lived, and especially in the school to which he belonged. Occasionally
he condescends to be more simple and natural, and consequently more
readable. Here and there one meets with a passage which almost reminds
one of Addison, but such exceptions are rare.[795]

Ten years after the publication of the first volume of the 'Meditations'
(1745) Hervey published (1755) three volumes of 'Dialogues between
Theron and Aspasio,' with a view to recommend to 'people of elegant
manners and polite accomplishments' the Calvinistic theology, and more
especially the doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness stated
Calvinistically. The style of these 'Dialogues' is not quite so absurd
as that of the 'Meditations,' but still it is inflated enough. The
disputants always