NOTE TO LETTER XXI.

Note 1, page 337, line 9.

But take thy part with sinners and be still.

In a periodical work for the month of June last, the preceding dialogue is pronounced to be a most abominable caricature, if meant to be applied to Calvinists in general, and greatly distorted, if designed for an individual: now the author in his preface has declared, that he takes not upon him the censure of any sect or society for their opinions; and the lines themselves evidently point to an individual, whose sentiments they very fairly represent, without any distortion whatsoever. In a pamphlet intitled "A Cordial for a Sin-despairing Soul," originally written by a teacher of religion, and lately re-published by another teacher of greater notoriety, the reader is informed that after he had full assurance of his salvation, the Spirit entered particularly into the subject with him; and, among many other matters of like nature, assured him that "his "sins were fully and freely forgiven, as if they had never "been committed; not for any act done by him, whether "believing in Christ, or repenting of sin; nor yet for the "sorrows and miseries he endured, nor for any service he "should be called upon in his militant state, but for his

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own name and for his glory's sake*," &c. And the whole drift and tenour of the book is to the same purpose,

Cordial, &c. page 87.

viz. the uselessness of all religious duties, such as prayer, contrition, fasting, and good works: he shows the evil done by reading such books as the Whole Duty of Man, and the Practice of Piety; and complains heavily of his relation, an Irish bishop, who wanted him to join with the household in family prayer: in fact, the whole work inculcates that sort of quietism which this dialogue alludes to, and that without any recommendation of attendance on the teachers of the Gospel, but rather holding forth encouragement to the supineness of man's nature; by the information that he in vain looks for acceptance by the employment of his talents, and that his hopes of glory are rather extinguished than raised by any application to the means of grace.

Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd
Came to my tent, and every one did threat-

Shakspeare. Richard III.

The times have been,

That when the brains were out, the man would die,

And there an end; but now they rise again,

With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.

Macbeth.

The Father of Peter a Fisherman-Peter's early ConductHis Grief for the old Man-He takes an ApprenticeThe Boy's Suffering and Fate-A second Boy: how he died-Peter acquitted-A third Apprentice-A Voyage by Sea: the Boy does not return-Evil Report on Peter: he is tried and threatened-Lives alone-His Melancholy and incipient Madness-Is observed and visited-He escapes and is taken: is lodged in a Parish-house: Women attend and watch him-He speaks in a Delirium : grows more collected-His Account of his Feelings and visionary Terrors previous to his Death.

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER XXII.

PETER GRIMES.

OLD Peter Grimes made fishing his employ,
His wife he cabin'd with him and his boy,
And seem'd that life laborious to enjoy:
To town came quiet Peter with his fish,
And had of all a civil word and wish.
He left his trade upon the sabbath-day,
And took young Peter in his hand to pray:
But soon the stubborn boy from care broke loose,

At first refused, then added his abuse:

His father's love he scorn'd, his power defied,

But being drunk, wept screly when he died.
Yes! then he wept, and to his mind there came
Much of his conduct, and he felt the shame,-
How he had oft the good old man reviled,
And never paid the duty of a child;
How, when the father in his Bible read,

He in contempt and anger left the shed: