Pulpit Oratory – Chalmers and Irving
THE Scotch at present seem to bear the bell, and to have
“got the start of the majestic world.”(3) They boast of the
greatest novelists, the greatest preachers, the greatest phi-
lanthropists, and the greatest blackguards in the world. Sir
Walter Scott(4) stands at the head of these for Scotch humour,
Dr. Chalmers for Scotch logic, Mr. Owen(5) for Scotch Uto-
pianism, and Mr. Blackwood(6) for Scotch impudence. Un-
rivalled four! Nay, here is Mr. Irving, who threatens to
make a fifth, and stultify all our London orators, from
“kingly Kensington”(7) to Blackwall! Who has not heard of
him? Who does not go to hear him? You can scarcely
move along for the coronet-coaches that besiege the en-
trance to the Caledonian chapel in Hatton-garden; and
when, after a prodigious squeeze, you get in so as to have
standing-room, you see in the same undistinguished crowd
Lord Landsdown and Mr. Coleridge.(10) Mr. Canning and
plause, and Mr. Alderman Wood(13) does the honours of the
Meeting! The lamb lies down with the lion, and the Mil-
lennium seems to be anticipated in the Caledonian chapel,
under the new Scotch preacher. Lords, ladies, sceptics,
fanatics, join in approbation, — some admire the doctrine,
others the sound, some the picturesque appearance of the
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orator, others the grace of action, some the ingenuity of the
argument, others the beauty of the style or the bursts of
passion, some even go so far as to patronize a certain
brackish infusion of the Scottish dialect, and a slight defect
of vision. Lady Bluemount(14) declares it to be only inferior to
“Good, good!” The “Talking Potato”* and Mr. Theodore
Flash(17) have not yet been.
Mr. Irving appears to us the most accomplished barba-
rian, and the least offensive and most dashing clerical
holder-forth we remember to have seen. He puts us in
*Some years ago, a periodical paper was published in London, under the
title of the PIC-NIC.(18) It was got up under the auspices of a Mr. Fulke
Greville,(19) and several writers of that day contributed to it, among whom were
others. On some dispute arising between the proprietor and the gentlemen-
contributors on the subject of an advance in the remuneration for articles,
Mr. Fulke Greville grew heroic, and said, “I have got a young fellow just
come from Ireland, who will undertake to do the whole, verse and prose,
politics and scandal, for two guineas a week, and if you will come and sup
with me to-morrow night, you shall see him, and judge whether I am not
right in closing with him.” Accordingly, they met the next evening, and the
WRITER OF ALL WORK was introduced. He began to make a display of his
native ignorance and impudence on all subjects immediately, and no one
else had occasion to say any thing. When he was gone, Mr. Cumberland
exclaimed, “A talking potato, by God!” The talking potato was Mr.
Croker,(24) of the Admiralty. Our adventurer shortly, however, returned to his
own country, and passing accidentally through a town where they were in
want of a ministerial candidate at an Election, the gentleman of modest
assurance offered himself, and succeeded. “They wanted a Jack-pudding,”
said the father of the hopeful youth, “and so they chose my son.” The
case of the Duke of York and Mrs. Clarke(25) soon after came on, and Mr.
Croker, who is a dabbler in dirt, and an adept in love-letters, rose from the
affair Secretary to the Admiralty, and the very “rose and expectancy of the
mind of the first man, Adam, if Adam had but been a
Scotchman, and had had coal black hair. He seems to stand
up in the integrity of his composition, to begin a new race
of practicing believers, to give new impulse to the
Christian religion, to regenerate the fallen and degenerate
race of man. You would say he had been turned out of the
hands of Nature and the Schools a perfect piece of work-
manship. See him in the street, he has the air, the free-
swing, the bolt upright figure of an Indian savage, or a
northern borderer dressed in canonicals: set him in the
pulpit, and he is armed with all the topics, a master of fence,
the pupil of Dr. Chalmers! In action he has been compared
to Kean;(27) in the union of external and intellectual ad-
vantages, we might start a parallel for him in the admirable
and says, “Look at me!” He crosses Piccadilly, and clears
Bond-street of its beaux! Rob Roy, Macbriar is come again.(30)
We saw him stretched on a bench at the Black Bull(31) in
Edinburgh, — we met him again at a thirteen-penny ordinary
in London, in the same attitude, and said, without knowing
his calling, or his ghostly parts, “That is the man for a fair
saint.” We swear it by
“His foot mercurial; his martial thigh;
Aye, there we stop like Imogen(33) — there is a want of expression
in it. “The iron has not entered his soul.”(34) He has not dared
to feel but in trammels and in dread. He has read Werter(35)
but to criticise him; Rousseau,(36) but to steel himself against
his periods. Pleasure, fancy, humanity, are syrens that he
repels and keeps at arms-length; and hence his features are
hardened, and have a barbaric crust upon them. They are
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not steeped in the expression of Titian or Raphael;(39) but they
would do for Spagnoletti(40) to paint, and his dark profile and
matted locks have something of the grave commanding ap-
pearance of Leonardo da Vinci’s massive portraits.(41)
Dr. Chalmers is not so good-looking a man as Mr. Irving;
he wants the same vigour and spirit. His face is dead and
clammy, cold, pale, bloodless, passionless, and there is a glazed
look of insincerity about the eyes, uninformed, uninspired from
within. His voice is broken, harsh, and creaking, while
Mr. Irving’s is flowing and silvery: his Scotch accent and
pronunciation are a terrible infliction on the uncultivated
ear. His “Whech observation I oorge upon you my frinds
and breethren” desolates and lays waste all the humanities.
He grinds out his sentences between his teeth, and catches
at truth with his fists, as a monkey catches an apple or a
stick thrown at him with his paws. He seems by his action
and his utterance to say to difficulties, “Come, let me
clutch thee,”(42) and having got them in his grasp, tears and
rends them in pieces as a dog tears an old rag to tatters or
mumbles a stone that is flung in his way. Dr. Chalmers
engages attention and secures sympathy solely by the inten-
sity of his own purpose: there is neither eloquence nor
wisdom, neither imagination nor feeling, neither the pomp
of sound nor grace nor solemnity of manner about him, but
he is in earnest, and eager in pursuit of his argument, and
arrests the eye and ear of his congregation by this alone. He
dashes headforemost into the briars and thorns of controversy,
and drags you along with him whether you will or no, and
your only chance is to push on and get out of them as well
as you can, though dreadfully scratched and almost blinded.
He involves you in a labyrinth, and you are anxious to
escape from it: you have to pass through many a dark, sub-
terranean cavern with him in his theological ferry-boat, and
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are glad enough to get out on the other side, with the help
of Scotch logic for oars, and Scotch rhetoric for sails! You
hear no home truths, nothing that touches the heart, or
swells or expands the soul; there is no tide of eloquence
lifting you to Heaven, or wafting you from Indus to the
Pole. — No, you are detained in a canal, with a great number
of locks in it. — You make way by virtue of standing still,
your will is irritated, and impelled forward by stoppages —
you are puzzled into sympathy, pulled into admiration, tired
into patience! The preacher starts a difficulty, of which you
had no notion before, and you stare to see how he will
answer it. He first makes you uneasy, sceptical, sensible of
your helplessness and dependence upon his superior sagacity
and recondite learning, and proportionably thankful for the
relief he affords you in the unpleasant dilemma to which
you have been reduced. It is like proposing a riddle, and
then, after playing with the curiosity and impatience of the
company for some time, giving the solution, which nobody
else has the wit to find out. We never saw fuller atten-
dances or more profound attention than at the Tron Church(43)
in Glasgow — it was like a sea of eyes, a swarm of heads,
gaping for mysteries, and staring for elucidations—it was not
the sublime or beautiful; the secret was that which has been
here explained, a desire to get rid of the difficult, the dis-
agreeable, the dry, and the discordant matter that had been
conjured up in the imagination. Dr. Chalmers, then, suc-
ceeds by the force of sophistry and casuistry, in our humble
judgment. Riddles (of which we spoke just now) are ge-
nerally traditional: those that Dr. Chalmers unfolds from the
pulpit, are of his own invention, or at least promulgation.
He started an objection to the Christian religion (founded on
its supposed inconsistency with the Newtonian philosophy)
which objection had never been noticed in books, on pur-
VOL. II. X
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pose that he might answer it. “Well,” said a Scotchman,
“and if the answer was a good one, was he not right?” “No,
assuredly,” we should answer, “for there is no faith so
firm as that which has never been called in question.”
The answer could only satisfy those who had been unsettled
by the question; and there would be many who would not
be convinced by the Doctor’s reasoning, however he might
plume himself on his success. We suspect that this is look-
ing after a reputation for literary ingenuity and philosophical
depth, rather than the peace of consciences or the salvation
of souls; which, in a Christian minister, is unbecoming, and
savours of the Mammon of unrighteousness. We ourselves
were staggered by the blow (either then or long before) and
still gasp for a reply, notwithstanding Dr. Chalmers’s nos-
trum. Let the reader briefly judge: — The Doctor tells us, it
may be said, that the Christian Dispensation supposes that
the counsels of God turn upon this world as its center; that
there is a heaven above and an earth beneath; and that man
is the lord of the universe, the only creature made in the
divine likeness, and over whom Providence watches, and to
whom revelations are given, and an inheritance everlasting.
This agrees with the cosmogony of Moses,(44) which makes the
earth the center of all things, and the sun, moon, and stars,
little shining spots like silver sixpences, moving round it.
But it does not so well agree with Newton’s Principia(45) (we
state Dr. Chalmers’s objection) which supposes the globe
we inhabit to be but a point in the immensity of the uni-
verse; that ours is but one, and that the most insignificant
(perhaps) among innumerable worlds, filled, probably, with
created intelligences, rational and fallen souls, that share the
eye of God with us, and who require to know that their
Redeemer liveth. We alone (it would appear) cannot pre-
tend to monopolize heaven or hell: there are other contin-
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gent candidates besides us. Jacob’s dream was poetical and
natural, while the earth was supposed to be a flat surface
and the blue sky hung over it, to which angels might ascend
by a ladder, and the face of God be seen at the top, as his
lofty and unchangeable abode; but this beautiful episode
hardly accords with the Antipodes. Sir Isaac turned the
world upon its back, and divided heaven from itself, and
removed it far from every one of us. As we thought the
universe turned round the earth as its pivot, so religion
turned round man as its center, as the sole, important, moral
and accountable agent in existence. But there are other
worlds revolving in infinite space, to which this is a speck.
Are they all desert, worthless? Were they made for us?
Have they no especial dispensations of life and light? Have
we alone a God, a Saviour, revealed to us? Is religion tri-
umphant only here, or is it itinerant through each? It can
hardly seem that we alone have occupied the thoughts or been
the sole objects of the plans of infinite wisdom from eternity —
that our life, resurrection, and judgment to come, are the whole
history of a wide-seeing Providence, or the loftiest events in the
grand drama of the universe, which was got up as a theatre
only for us to perform our petty parts in, and then to be cast,
most of us, into hell fire? Dr. Chalmers’s Astronomical
Discourses indeed may be said to dwarf his mighty subject,
and make mankind a very Lilliputian race of beings, which
this Gulliver(46) in vain dandles in the hard, broad, brawny
hand of school divinity, and tries to lift into their bigotted
self-sufficiency and exclusive importance again. How does
he answer his own objection, and turn the tables on
himself — how reverse this pitiful, diminished perspective,
and aggrandise us in our own estimation once more as un-
doubted heirs of heaven or of hell — the sole favoured or
reprobated sons of God? Why, his answer is this — that the
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microscope has done as much to lift man in the scale of
being, and to enlarge the bounds of this atom the earth, as
the telescope has done to circumscribe and lessen it; that
there are infinite gradations BELOW man, worlds within
worlds, as there are degrees of being above, and stars and
suns blazing round each other; that, for what we know, a
speck, a lucid drop circulating in a flea’s back, may be
another habitable globe like this! — And has that, too, a
revelation of its own, an avenging God, and a Christ cruci-
fied? Does every particle in a flea’s back contain a Mosaic
dispensation, a Popish and a Protestant religion? Has it its
Tron church and its Caledonian chapel, and Dr. Chalmers’s
Discourses and Mr.Irving’s orations in little? This does not
seem to obviate the difficulty, but to increase it a million-fold.
It is his objection and his answer to it, not ours: if blasphemy,
it is his; and, if orthodoxy, he is entitled to all the credit of it.
But his whole scheme shows how impossible it is to reconcile
the faith delivered to the saints with the subtleties and intri-
cacies of metaphysics. It displays more pride of intellect than
simplicity of heart, is an insult equally on the understandings
or prejudices of men, and could only have been hit upon by
that personification and abstraction of cross-purposes, a Scotch
metaphysical divine. In his general preaching, Dr. Chalmers
is a great casuist, and a very indifferent moralist. He states
the pros and cons of every question with extreme pertina-
city, and often “spins the thread of his verbosity finer than
the staple of his argument.”(47) He assigns possible reasons,
not practical motives, for conduct; and vindicates the ways
of God, and his own interpretation of the Scriptures, to the
head, not to the heart. The old school-divines set this
practice afoot; for being accustomed to hear the secrets of
confession, and to salve the tender consciences of the great
and powerful, they had to bandy all sorts of questions about;
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and if they could find out “a loop or peg to hang a doubt
on,”(48) were well rewarded for their trouble; they were con-
stantly reduced to their shifts, and forced to go on the for-
lorn hope of morality by the ticklish cases referred to them
for arbitration: and when they had exhausted the resources
of humanity and natural sentiment, endeavoured to find new
topics within the range of abstract reason and possibility.
Dr. Chalmers’s reasoning is as unlike as possible to a chap-
ter in the Gospels: but he may do very well to comment on
the Apocalypse or an Epistle of St. Paul’s. We do not
approve of this method of carving out excuses or defences of
doctrinal points from the dry parchment of the understand-
ing or the cobwebs of the brain. Whatever sets or leaves
the dogmas of religion at variance with the dictates of the
heart, hardens the last, and lends no advantage to the first.
Mr. Irving is a more amiable moralist, and a more
practical reasoner. He throws a glancing, pleasing light
over the gloomy ground of Calvinism.(49) There is something
humane in his appeals, striking in his apostrophes, graceful
in his action, soothing in the tones of his voice. He is not
affected and theatrical; neither is he deeply impassioned or
overpowering from the simple majesty of his subject. He is
above common-place both in fancy and argument; yet he
can hardly rank as a poet or philosopher. He is a mo-
dernised covenanter, a sceptical fanatic. We do not feel
exactly on sure ground with him — we scarcely know
whether he preaches Christ crucified, or himself. His pul-
pit style has a resemblance to the florid gothic. We are a
little mystified when a man with one hand brings us all the
nice distinctions and air-drawn speculations of modern
unbelievers, and arms the other with “fire hot from Hell,”(50)
— when St. Paul and Jeremy Bentham,(51) the Evangelists and
Caleb Williams and the Political Justice,(54) are mingled
together in the same passage, and quoted in the same
breath, however eloquent that breath may be. We see
Mr. Irving smile with decent scorn at this remark, and
launch one more thunderbolt at the critics. He is quite
welcome, and we should be proud of his notice. In the
discourses he has lately delivered, and which have drawn
crowds to admire them, he has laboured to describe the
Sensual Man, the Intellectual Man, the Moral Man, and the
Spiritual Man; and has sacrificed the three first at the
shrine of the last. He gave certainly a terrific picture of
the death-bed of the Sensual Man — a scene where few
shine — but it is a good subject for oratory, and he made the
most of it. He described the Poet well, walking by the
mountain side, in the eye of nature — yet oppressed, panting
rather than satisfied, with beauty and sublimity. Neither
Fame nor Genius, it is most true, are all-sufficient to the
mind of man! He made a fair hit at the Philosophers; first,
at the Political Economist, who draws a circle round man,
gives him so many feet of earth to stand upon, and there
leaves him to starve in all his nobler parts and faculties:
next, at the Great Jurisconsult, who carves out a mosaic
work of motives for him, cold, hard, and dry, and expects
him to move mechanically in right lines, squares, and
parallelograms, drills him into perfection, and screws him
into utility. He then fell foul of the Moralist and Sen-
timentalist, weighed him in the balance and found him
wanting — deficient in clearness of sight to discern good,
in strength of hand and purpose to seize upon it when
discerned. But Religion comes at last to the aid of the
Spiritual Man, couches the blind sight, and braces the
paralytic limb; the Lord of Hosts is in the field, and the
battle is won, his countenance pours light into our souls,
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and his hand stretched out imparts strength to us, by which
we tower to our native skies! In treating of this subject,
Mr. Irving introduced several powerful images and reflec-
tions, to show how feeble moral and intellectual motives are
to contend with the allurements of sense and the example of
the world. Reason alone, he said, was no more able to
stem the tide of prejudice and fashion, than the swimmer
with his single arm (here he used an appropriate and
spirited gesture, which reminded us of the description of
the heroic action of the swimmer in Sir Philip Sidney’s
Arcadia)(55) is able to oppose the raging torrent, as the voice
of conscience was only heard in the tumultuous scenes of
life like the faint cry of the sea-bird in the wide world of
waters. He drew an animated but mortifying sketch of the
progress of the Patriot and Politician, weaned by degrees
from his attachment to young Liberty to hug old Corrup-
tion; and showed (strikingly enough) that this change from
youthful ardour to a hoary, heartless old age of selfishness
and ridicule (there were several Members of the Honourable
House present) was not owing to increased wisdom or
strength of sight, but to faltering resolution and weakness
of hand, that could no longer hold out against the bribes,
the snares, and gilded chains prepared for it. The romantic
Tyro was right and free, the callous Courtier was a slave and
self-conceited. All this was true; it was honest, down-
right, and well put. There was no cant in it, as far as
regards the unequal odds and the hard battle that reason
has to fight with pleasure, or ambition, or interest, or other
antagonist motives. But does the objection apply to mo-
rality solely, or has not religion its share in it? Man is not
what he ought to be — Granted; but is he not different from
this ideal standard, in spite of religion as well as of
morality? Is not the religious man often a slave to power,
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the victim of pleasure, the thrall of avarice, hard of heart,
a sensual hypocrite, cunning, mercenary, miserable? If it
be said that the really religious man is none of these, neither
is the truly moral man. Real morality, as well as vital
christianity, implies right conduct and consistent principle.
But the question simply at issue is, whether the profession
or the belief of sound moral opinions implies these; and it
certainly does it no more than the profession or belief of
orthodox religious opinions does. The conviction of the
good or ill consequences of our actions in this life does not
absolutely conform the will or the desires to good; neither
does the apprehension of future rewards or punishments
produce this effect completely or necessarily. The candi-
date for Heaven is a back-slider; the dread of eternal
torments makes but a temporary impression on the mind.
This is not a reason, in our judgement, for neglecting or
giving up in despair the motives of religion or morality,
but for strengthening and cultivating both. With Mr.
Irving, it is a triumphant and unanswerable ground for dis-
carding and denouncing morality, and for exalting religion,
as the sovereign cure for all wounds, as the thaumaturgos,
or wonder-worker, in the reform of mankind! We are at a
loss to understand how this exclusive and somewhat in-
tolerant view of the subject is reconcileable with sound
reason or with history. Religion is no new experiment
now first making on mankind; we live in the nineteenth
century of the Christian æra; it is not as if we lived in the
age of apostles, when we might (from novelty and inexpe-
rience of the intended dispensations of Providence) expect
the earth to wear a new face, and darkness suddenly to flee
away before the light of the gospel: nor do we apprehend
that Mr. Irving is one of those who believe with Mr. Croly,(56)
that the millennium actually commenced with the battle of
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Waterloo; that event seems as far off, to all outward appear-
ance, as it was two thousand years ago. What does this
make against the doctrines of christianity? Nothing; if, as
far as they are implanted and take root, they bear fruit
accordingly, notwithstanding the repugnance and thankless-
ness of the soil. Why then is Mr. Irving so hard upon the
labours of philosophers, moralists, and men of letters, be-
cause they do not do all their work at once? Bishop Butler(57)
indeed wrote a most able and learned quarto volume, to
prove that the slow growth and imperfect influence of
christianity was a proof of its divine origin, and that in this
respect we had a right to look for a direct analogy between
the operations of the worlds of grace and nature, both pro-
ceeding as they did from the same Almighty hands! Our
deservedly popular preacher has, however, an answer to
what we have here stated: he says, “the time MUST and
WILL shortly come!” We never contradict prophecies; we
only speak to facts. In addressing himself to this point,
Mr. Irving made a spirited digression to the Missionary
Societies, and the impending propagation of the Gospel at
home and abroad — all obstacles to it would speedily be
surmounted: — “The Negro slave was not so enchained but
that the Gospel would set him free; the Hottentot was not
so benighted but that its light would penetrate to him; the
South Sea Islander was not so indolent and voluptuous but
that he would rouse himself as its call; neither the cunning
of the Italian, nor the superstition of the Spaniard, not the
tameness of the German, nor the levity of the French, nor
the buoyancy of the Irish, nor the indomitable pride of the
English, nor the fiery manhood of the Scotch, would be long
able to withstand its all-pervading influence!” We con-
fess, when our Caledonian pastor launched his canoe from
the South Sea Isles and landed on European terra firma,
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taking measure of the vices of each nation that were op-
posed to the spirit of christianity, we did prick up our ears
to know what fault he would, in due course of argument,
find with his native country — it would go against the grain,
no doubt, but still he had undertaken it, and he must speak
out — When lo! for some sneaking vice or sordid pettifog-
ging disposition, we have our own “best virtue”(58) palmed
upon us as the only failing of the most magnanimous natives
of the North — fiery manhood, quotha! The cold sweat of
rankling malice, hypocrisy, and servility, would be nearer
we meant no offence to you! “Fiery manhood” is the
Anti-Christian vice or virtue of the Scotch that meets true
religion on the borders, and beats her back with suffocating
breath! Is Christianity still then to be planted like oak
timber in Scotland? What will Dr. Chalmers and the other
labourers in the vineyard say to this? — “We pause for a
reply!”(61) The best and most impressive part of Mr. Irving’s
discourse (Sunday, the 22nd June) was that, in which he
gave a very beautiful account of what Christianity had done,
or rather might do, in aid of morality and the regeneration
of the spirit of man. It had made “corruption blossom,”
“annihilated time in the prospect of eternity,” and “chang-
ed all nature, from a veil hiding the face of God, into a
mirror reflecting his power and beneficence.” We do not,
however, see why in the fervour of his enthusiasm he should
affirm “that Jesus Christ had destroyed melody,” nor why,
by any allowed licence of speech, he should talk of “the
mouth of God being muzzled by man.” We might not
perhaps have noticed this last expression, considering it as
a slip of the tongue; but Mr. Irving preaches from written
notes, and his style is, on the whole, polished and ambitious.
We can conceive of a deeper strain of argument, of a more
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powerful and overwhelming flood of eloquence; but alto-
gether we deem him an able and attractive expounder of
Holy Writ; and farther, we believe him to be an honest
man. We suspect there is a radical “taint in him,” and
that Mr. Canning(62) will be advised to withdraw himself from
the congregation. His strokes aimed at iniquity in high
places are bold, unsparing, and repeated. We would how-
ever suggest to him the propriety of containing his indig-
nation at the advancement of the secular priesthood by
“the powers that be;” it is a thing of course, and his im-
patience of their elevation may be invidiously construed into
a jealousy of the spoil. When we compare Mr. Irving with
some other preachers that we have heard, and particularly
with that crawling sycophant Daniel Wilson(63) (who tendered
his gratuitous submission to Nero the other day in the
excess of his loyalty to George IV.(64)) we are sorry that we
have not been able to make our tribute of approbation
unqualified as it is cordial, and to stifle their venal breath
with the applauses bestowed upon him. “Oh! for an
[The following has also lost its way to us. We take it in
as a foundling, but without adopting all its sentiments.]
MR. IRVING, THE QUACK-PREACHER.
WE have always set our faces against cant, quackery, and
imposture, in every shape; but we think, of all places, the
pulpit should be sacred from these. It ought to be the
chosen retreat of simplicity, gravity, and decorum. What
then must be the feelings of every well-wisher to religion
and good order, who witnesses the disgraceful scenes that
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are weekly acting at the Caledonian Chapel — the place
itself resembling a booth at a fair, and the pulpit made into
a stage for a tall, raw-boned, hard-featured, impudent
Scotch quack to play off his ambiguous person and obscene
antics upon? It is difficult to analyze Mr. Irving’s figure.
His hair is black and matted like a mane, his beard blue
and singed; and he verges in his general appearance to the
simious tribe, but of the largest species. To hear this
person, so qualified, bandy Scotch dialects [dialectics], and “sweet
religion make a rhapsody of words,”(66) the great, the learned,
and the fair, leering dowagers, and faded (or fading) blue
stockings, throng twice every Lord’s Day — for what? — to
admire indecency, blasphemy, and sedition, twanged through
the nose, and to be told that he (Mr. Irving) has come up
from the banks of the Esk(67) with huge, hasty strides to
introduce God Almighty in London, and to prop the falling
throne of Heaven with his raised right arm! This is too
much, though Mr. Irving is six feet three inches high, and
a Scotchman. One would think that the Christian and
Protestant religion was of too old a standing to be put into
leading-strings now, and that the fashionable and the fair
will hardly consent to be baptised by this new St. John(68) in
Yet, when one looks at the half-saint, half-savage, it does
seem as if society was to begin again; and all our pre-
established notions were confounded by the cross-fire of his
double vision. A portentous cast in the right eye is one of
the engines with which the orator supports his quackery —
it is not a mote, but a beam—which he levels like a batter-
ing-ram at my Lord Liverpool(71) (proh pudor!) accompanied
with a taunt on his Majesty’s Minister and Government —
which glances off from the gentle skull of Hone the paro-
shaven crown of Mr. B—— M——, who sits on the steps of
the pulpit, with a forlorn attitude and expression, like one
of Cibber’s(73) celebrated figures. What did Mr. Irving mean,
last Sunday, by issuing a Proclamation in the name of the
King of Heaven, appointing himself Crier of the Court,
beginning with a TO WIT, TO WIT, and ending with damna-
tion to all those who do not go to hear him? He ought to
have been hissed like a bad player who leaves his part to
foist in fustian of his own. It would not have been borne
but in the Scotch accent; and the outrage was carried off
by the oddity of the thing. What did he mean by saying,
the Sunday before last, that the God of natural religion was
like the Great Desert — dry, disagreeable, comfortless,
deadly — where no one wished to dwell? No one, we will
be bold to say, would venture upon this gross insult to the
God of Nature (whom we apprehend to be also the God of
Christians) without that strong obliquity of mental vision
that can keep natural religion in one eye and revealed reli-
gion in the other, look grave on the parent and fulsome on
the daughter. Why does Mr. Irving cut and carve and
make minced-meat of the attributes of the Almighty, to
shock the pious and make the ignorant stare? Why did he,
on last Lord’s day assert, by an impudent figure, that the
God of Mercy was like Alsatia,(74) where the scum of mankind
took refuge? Does not this brawny bravo of the Caledonian
Kirk(75) want an asylum for himself? Would it not be thought
indecent and profane in us to retort such a metaphor, and ask
this insane reviler whether, on his theory, the God of Justice
is not the God of Newgate,(76) and he himself a volunteer Jack
Ketch?(77) We say the indecency, the profaneness would not
be in us, but in the original allusion. Mr. Irving will find
before long that he cannot play with religion as with cups
and balls; that he cannot insult the feelings, the prejudices,
[Page 316]
[Page 316]
and common sense of mankind with impunity; and that,
instead of taking implicit faith and established opinions in
pieces, he had better let them remain in their original inte-
grity. With respect to that last figure of his about Alsatia,
we beg to say, that the founder of the Christian religion has
left a parable behind him about the Prodigal Son,(78) but per-
haps this authority may not weigh with the modern Saviour
of the polite world! In a word, this favourite of the frail
votaries of religious theatricals should beware, with his
tricks, his finery, and his goodly proportions, of the fate of
[1] Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), Scottish Presbyterian minister, theologian, and social reformer. He became a prominent leader in the Church of Scotland, advocating for evangelical reforms and social welfare.
[2] Edward Irving (1792-1834), Scottish clergyman and theologian, known for his charismatic leadership and influence on the early Pentecostal movement and for founding the Catholic Apostolic Church. Hazlitt attended one of his sermons at the Caledonian Chapel in Hatton Garden in 1823 and wrote and account in which he listed the names of the notable figures present on the occasion.
[3] See William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar I.ii.137.
[4] Sir Walter Scott, Scottish novelist and poet.
[5] Robert Owen (1771-1858), textile manufacturer, social reformer, and founder of utopian socialism.
[6] William Blackwood (1776-1834), Scottish publisher and founder of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in 1817. The magazine gathered a host of writers and gained notoriety for launching personal attacks on public figures, leading to several lawsuits against it.
[7] Reference to Jonathan Swift’s ballad “Duke Upon Duke”, line 56.
[8] Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832) and Henry Peter Brougham (1778-1868), Whig politicians and rectors of the University of Glasgow.
[9] Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850) and Robert Banks Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (1770-1828), British Tory statesmen. Between 1822 and 1827, Peel was Home Secretary in Liverpool’s government.
[10] Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English poet and literary critic. In his letters, he claims to have attended one of the gatherings and defines Irving “the super-Ciceronian, ultra-Demosthenic pulpiteer of the Scotch Chapel in Cross Street, Hatton Garden” (7 July 1823) and “the greatest orator I even heard” (23 July 1823).
[11] William Hone (1780-1842), English writer and publisher, famous for his satirical works and defiance of government censorship. Hone is known for his trial in 1817, where he successfully defended himself against charges of blasphemy. During one of his trials, Hone relied on the legal principle of precedent, showing the jury that parodies of the Scriptures – when supportive of the government – were not prosecuted. He extensively quoted from other people’s Scripture parodies, which had not faced legal action. He cited, among others, the British Tory statesman George Canning (1770-1827), who had written such parodies without facing prosecution, and concluded that his own parodies should not be treated as exceptions to the general rule.
[12] Robert Waithman (1764-1833), British politician and radical reformer, known for his advocacy of parliamentary reform and workers’ rights.
[13] Sir Matthew Wood (1768-1843), British Whig politician who served as Lord Mayor of London and Member of Parliament. Wood supported the expansion of suffrage and was involved in promoting the rights of the working class.
[14] Misprint for Beaumont. Margaret Beaumont (c. 1766-1829), British socialite, philanthropist, and supporter of the arts.
[15] Possible reference to the poem The Excursion (1814) by William Wordsworth, who was Margaret Beaumont’s close friend.
[16] Nickname possibly referred to the English poet, playwright, and translator William Sotheby (1757-1833). He gained recognition for his attempts at writing dramatic works and his translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. The nickname may be explained by Sotheby’s persistent attempts as a dramatic author.
[17] Possible reference to Theodore Hook (1788-1841), English writer, playwright, and practical joker, known for his sharp wit and satirical works. In his Sunday newspaper John Bull, Hook denounced Irving as a humbug (20 July 1823) as testified by Coleridge; in one of his letters, Coleridge wrote Irving had been “so blackguarded in the ‘John Bull’ of last Sunday” (23 July 1823).
[18] The Pic-Nic (1803) was a short-lived literary periodical established by Lt. Col. Henry Francis Greville, and edited by the British author William Combe (1742-1823).
[19] Henry Francis Greville (1760-1816), British impresario. He is also known for his role in the early stages of The Cabinet and for his involvement in the cultural and political circles of his time.
[20] Horace Smith (1779-1849), English poet and novelist. Together with his brother, he wrote parodies of poets of their time including William Wordsworth, S.T. Coleridge, and Lord Byron, and collected them in Rejected Addresses (1812).
[21] Edward Dubois (1774-1850), English man of letters. He contributed regularly to the Morning Chronicle and was an art critic for The Observer. With Theodore Hook, he became editor of the Monthly Mirror.
[22] Prince Hoare (1755-1834), English painter and playwright. Among his works was the popular farce No Song, No Supper (1790).
[23] Richard Cumberland (1732-1811), English dramatist and editor of the short-lived periodical The London Review (1809).
[24] John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), Anglo-Irish statesman and writer for the Quarterly Review. Croker served as Tory MP and became an influential political figure in early nineteenth-century Britain; he is remembered for his critical role in the development of the Admiralty as well as his contentious literary criticism.
[25] In 1803, Mary Anne Clarke (1776-1852) and Prince Frederick, Duke of York (1763-1827) became entangled in an illicit affair which turned into a political scandal when the press spread the news that she had employed her influence over the duke to obtain army commissions in exchange for financial gain.
[26] See William Shakespeare, Hamlet III.i.166.
[27] Edmund Kean (1787-1833), actor celebrated for his intense and passionate performances of Shakespearean roles. Breaking away from the more formal traditions of the time, he revolutionized acting thanks to his emotional depth and dramatic style.
[28] Misspelling for Crichton. James Crichton (1560-c. 1585), known as The Admirable Crichton, was a Scottish rhetorician. His remarkable talents and mastery of several fields of knowledge – including languages, philosophy, and swordsmanship – earned him widespread admiration across Europe during the Renaissance, especially in Italy.
[29] Reference to the painting The Raising of Lazarus (1821-23) by historical painter Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846)
[30] Reference to Walter Scott’s Waverly novels Old Mortality (1816) and Rob Roy (1817). Robert Roy Macgregor (1671-1734) was a Scottish outlaw who became a Jacobite folk hero. In Scott’s novel, Ephraim Macbriar is a covenanting preacher supposedly based on Hugh Mackail (c. 1640-66), Scottish martyr of the covenant.
[31] Public house and hotel.
[32] See William Shakespeare, Cymbeline IV.ii.383-84.
[33] Imogen, daughter of King Cymbeline in Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline. In his Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817), Hazlitt writes that “of all Shakespear’s women she is perhaps the most tender and the most artless”.
[34] Biblical reference: see Psalms 105.18.
[35] Reference to epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) by German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), a seminal work of the Sturm und Drang movement exploring the intense emotional turmoil of the eponymous young artist.
[36] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, French philosopher and writer.
[37] William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, poet, and actor.
[38] John Milton, English poet.
[39] Tiziano Vecellio, known in English as Titian (1488/90-1576) and Raffaello Sanzio, known in English as Raphael (1483-1520) were Italian Renaissance painters. Titian’s art is characterized by its emotional depth and vibrant colour, while Raphael’s is distinguished by its classical balance and serene beauty.
[40] Jusepe de Ribera, known as Spagnoletto (1591-1652), Spanish painter. Ribera is renowned for his masterful use of tenebrism, a technique emphasizing stark contrasts between light and dark to heighten emotional impact.
[41] Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian scientist, inventor and artist of the Renaissance. His portraits – such as Lady with an Ermine (1489), La Belle Ferronnière (1490-99), and Mona Lisa (1503) – exemplify his mastery of light and shadow, particularly using the sfumato technique, which brought unprecedented life-like quality and emotional depth to his subjects.
[42] See William Shakespeare, Macbeth II.i.45.
[43] The Tron Church is an evangelical Presbyterian church in Glasgow known for its rich tradition of expositional preaching.
[44] Moses is a central figure in the Abrahamic religions, known as the leader who liberated the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Mosaic cosmogony, as presented in the Book of Genesis, emphasizes the orderliness and intentionality of God’s creation.
[45] Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727), English mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists in history. His Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) laid the foundations of modern physics and astronomy.
[46] Reference to Jonathan Swift’s satirical novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726), in which Lemuel Gulliver travels to lands such as Lilliput, where the inhabitants are tiny, and Brobdingnag, in which they are giants.
[47] See William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost V.i.17-18.
[48] See William Shakespeare, Othello III.iii.418-19.
[49] Calvinism is a branch of Protestant theology based on the teachings of John Calvin (1509-64), emphasizing the sovereignty of God, the authority of Scripture, and the doctrine of predestination.
[50] See William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar III.i.297.
[51] Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), English philosopher and social reformer, best known as the founder of utilitarianism. He advocated for legal and social reforms, including the abolition of slavery and animal rights.
[52] Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).
[53] Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, known as Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE), Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and playwright, also known for his writings on ethics.
[54] Reference to the English writer and philosopher William Godwin (1756-1836). His treatise titled An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793) is an influential critique of political institutions and the first work to outline the principles of anarchism; his popular Gothic novel Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) explores the consequences of unchecked authority.
[55] Reference to the prose pastoral romance The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia (1580) by the poet and courtier Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86).
[56] George Croly (1780-1860), Irish writer and Anglican priest. He was a regular contributor to the Literary Gazette and Blackwood’s Magazine.
[57] Joseph Butler (1692-1752), English Anglican bishop and philosopher. Hazlitt’s allusion is to Butler’s treatise The Analogy of Religion (1736), which defends the reasonableness of Christianity by comparing religious doctrines to the natural world.
[58] See William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well IV.iii.272.
[59] Sir Walter Scott, Scottish novelist and poet.
[60] William Blackwood, Scottish publisher.
[61] See William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar III.ii.36.
[62] George Canning, British Tory statesman.
[63] Daniel Wilson (1778-1858), English Bishop of Calcutta. At that time, Wilson was minister at St. John’s Chapel, Bedford Row, Bloomsbury.
[64] George IV (1762-1830), who reigned from 1820 to 1830.
[65] See “Oh, for a curse to kill with” in Thomas Otway, Venice Preserv’d II.ii.
[66] See William Shakespeare, Hamlet III.iv.56-57.
[67] The River Esk flows through Midlothian and East Lothian in Scotland.
[68] John the Baptist.
[69] Saffron Hill is a street and former ward located in Holborn, London, and the location of some of London’s most infamous slums.
[70] The River Fleet is the largest underground river in London. As London expanded, the river was gradually reduced to an open-air sewer and the area around it became known for its poor housing and prisons. See Alexander Pope, The Dunciad II.271-274.
[71] Robert Banks Jenkinson, British Tory statesman.
[72] George Canning, British Tory statesman.
[73] Colley Cibber (1671-1757), English actor-manager and playwright. He served as the poet laureate of England and was a prominent figure in Drury Lane Theatre. He also became involved in literary controversies and is generally remembered as the main target in Alexander Pope’s satirical poem The Dunciad (1728-43).
[74] Historical region located in northeastern France, bordered by Germany and Switzerland.
[75] Scottish for church.
[76] Newgate was a notorious prison in London, originally built in the twelfth century and active until its closure in 1902. It housed many infamous criminals and became synonymous with crime and punishment in London.
[77] John Ketch, known as Jack Ketch (d. 1686), English executioner under King Charles II. In time, the expression Jack Ketch became a proverbial term for death, Satan, and executioners generally owing to Ketch’s botched executions.
[78] Biblical reference: see Luke 15.11-32.
[79] Reference to Metamorphoses by Roman writer Apuleius (c. 125-c. 180), also referred to as The Golden Ass. It tells the story of Lucius who is transformed into a donkey as a result of his insatiable curiositas and desire to practice magic.
Ultimo aggiornamento
30.04.2025