n, as they have appeared in different ages and under
various social conditions, may be considered as the natural history of
the race. Let us, then, for a moment imagine ourselves, as students of
this natural history, "dredging" the first half of the eighteenth century
in search of specimens. About the year 1730 we have hauled up a
remarkable individual of the species _divine_--a surprising name,
considering the nature of the animal before us, but we are used to
unsuitable names in natural history. Let us examine this individual at
our leisure. He is on the verge of fifty, and has recently undergone his
metamorphosis into the clerical form. Rather a paradoxical specimen, if
you observe him narrowly: a sort of cross between a sycophant and a
psalmist; a poet whose imagination is alternately fired by the "Last Day"
and by a creation of peers, who fluctuates between rhapsodic applause of
King George and rhapsodic applause of Jehovah. After spending "a foolish
youth, the sport of peers and poets," after being a hanger-on of the
profligate Duke of Wharton, after aiming in vain at a parliamentary
career, and angling for pensions and preferment with fulsome dedications
and fustian odes, he is a little disgusted with his imperfect success,
and has determined to retire from the general mendicancy business to a
particular branch; in other words, he has determined on that renunciation
of the world implied in "taking orders," with the prospect of a good
living and an advantageous matrimonial connection. And no man can be
better fitted for an Established Church. He personifies completely her
nice balance of temporalities and spiritualities. He is equally
impressed with the momentousness of death and of burial fees; he
languishes at once for immortal life and for "livings;" he has a fervid
attachment to patrons in general, but on the whole prefers the Almighty.
He will teach, with something more than official conviction, the
nothingness of earthly things; and he will feel something more than
private disgust if his meritorious efforts in directing men's attention
to another world are not rewarded by substantial preferment in this. His
secular man believes in cambric bands and silk stockings as
characteristic attire for "an ornament of religion and virtue;" hopes
courtiers will never forget to copy Sir Robert Walpole; and writes
begging letters to the King's mistress. His spiritual man recognizes no
motives more familiar than G