em, many a curious,
glittering, useless little thing, somewhat resembling the decayed
shells and phosphoric jellies that attach themselves to the bottom of
the deep-sea lead. Here we found the tale of a peroration, set as if
on joints, that clattered husky and dry like the rattles of a snake;
there an argument sprouting into green declamation, like a damaged ear
of corn in a wet harvest; yonder a piece of delightful egotism, set full
in sentiment like a miniature of Mr. Clark in a tinsel frame. What
seemed most remarkable, however, in at least his earlier productions,
was their ceaseless glitter of surface, if we may so speak. We found
them literally sprinkled over with little bits of broken figures, as
if the reverend gentleman had pounded his metaphors and comparisons
in a mortar, and then dusted them over his style. It is thus, thought
we, that our manufacturers of fancy wax deal by their mica. In his
_Rights of Members_, for instance, we found in one page that 'the gross
errors of Romanism had risen _in successive tides_, until the _light of
truth suffered a fearful eclipse_ during a long period of darkness;'
and we had scarce sufficiently admired the sublime height of tides that
occasion eclipses, when we were further informed, in the page
immediately following, that the god of this world was mustering his
_multifarious hosts for the battle_, hoping, _amidst the waves_ of
popular commotion, 'to _blot out the name_ of God from the British
Constitution.' Assuredly, thought we, we have the elements of no
commonplace engagement here. 'Multifarious hosts,' fairly mustered,
and 'battling' amid 'waves' in 'commotion' to 'blot out a name,'
would be a sight worth looking at, even though, like the old shepherd
in the _Winter's Tale_, their zeal should lack footing amid the
waters. But though detained in the course of our search by the
happinesses of the reverend gentleman, we felt that it was not with
the genius of Mr. Clark that we had specially to do, but with his
consistency.

For eleven of the fourteen years over which our materials extended, we
found the Rev. Mr. Clark one of the most consistent of men. From his
appearance on the platform at Aberdeen in 1829, when he besought his
audience not to deem it obtrusive in a stranger that he ventured to
address them, and then elicited their loud applauses by soliciting
their prayers for 'one minister labouring in northern parts,' who
'aspired to no higher distinction on earth