all his one hundred and sixty-eight
volumes. He seems to have relished, however, the wit of others,
especially when directed against what he looked upon as error. Marvell's
inimitable reply to the High-Church pretensions of Parker fairly overcame
his habitual gravity, and he several times alludes to it with marked
satisfaction; but, for himself, he had no heart for pleasentry. His
writings, like his sermons, were the earnest expostulations of a dying
man with dying men. He tells us of no other amusement or relaxation than
the singing of psalms. "Harmony and melody," said he, "are the pleasure
and elevation of my soul. It was not the least comfort that I had in the
converse of my late dear wife, that our first act in the morning and last
in bed at night was a psalm of praise."

It has been fashionable to speak of Baxter as a champion of civil and
religious freedom. He has little claim to such a reputation. He was the
stanch advocate of monarchy, and of the right and duty of the State to
enforce conformity to what he regarded as the essentials of religious
belief and practice. No one regards the prelates who went to the Tower,
under James II., on the ground of conscientious scruples against reading
the King's declaration of toleration to Dissenters, as martyrs in the
cause of universal religious freedom. Nor can Baxter, although he wrote
much against the coercion and silencing of godly ministers, and suffered
imprisonment himself for the sake of a good conscience, be looked upon in
the light of an intelligent and consistent confessor of liberty. He did
not deny the abstract right of ecclesiastical coercion, but complained of
its exercise upon himself and his friends as unwarranted and unjust.

One of the warmest admirers and ablest commentators of Baxter designates
the leading and peculiar trait of his character as unearthliness. In our
view, this was its radical defect. He had too little of humanity, he
felt too little of the attraction of this world, and lived too
exclusively in the spiritual and the unearthly, for a full and healthful
development of his nature as a man, or of the graces, charities, and
loves of the Christian. He undervalued the common blessings and joys of
life, and closed his eyes and ears against the beauty and harmony of
outward nature. Humanity, in itself considered, seemed of small moment
to him; "passing away" was written alike on its wrongs and its rights,
its pleasures and its p