On the

His second publication was in verse. 25th of February, 1800, Mr. Patterson, a respectable tradesman of St. Austell, was drowned at Wadebridge, during an unusually high tide. About a fortnight afterwards, Mr. Drew published an Elegy on his death, of nearly six hundred lines. The circumstances out of which this piece arose gave it .much local popularity; though its publication caused the author some embarrassment. A rumour very generally prevailed, that proper means of resuscitation had not been used; and Mr. Drew, having given currency to this rumour, by some allusion in his verses, was threatened by the medical gentleman who had been summoned at the time of the accident, with an action for libel; but the matter terminated without leading to such an unpleasant result. To his friend Mr. Whitaker he sent a copy. The reply, though laconic, was sufficient to deter him from appearing again before the public as a writer of poetry. From this reply it is obvious that the Elegy was published before the critique on his first pamphlet had appeared.

SIR,,

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"I received your poem on Mr. Patterson's death, and thank you for it. But I like not your poetry so well as I do your prose. Your pamphlet against Paine is reviewed in the Anti-Jacobin for April, and I send you the very Review for your inspection. You will return it to me by the bearer, and believe me to be very much and very warmly,

"Sir,

"Your friend and servant, "JOHN WHITAKER."

The letter which Mr. Drew wrote on returning the review produced the following acknowledgment.

Thursday Evening, May 29, 1800.

"GOOD SIR,

"I have received my Review back safe and sound. I am very glad to find, that you like one article so well. I wrote it in the fullness of my heart, after I had perused your pamphlet..

"As to reprinting this in London, I thought of the plan as I was writing to the manager of the Review, but did not then settle my mind about it. Now you have mentioned it, and propose to make additions, I will endeavour to do the business for you, by offering the pamphlet to the manager, for his bookseller. I shall have occasion to write to him in the course of a few days, and will then make the offer for you. If he accepts, I will stipulate for his sending you half a dozen, or half a score copies. And, in the mean time, I advise you to be correcting and enlarging it. I will give you notice whether he accepts the offer or not. In the present dearness of paper, I am doubtful whether he will accept.

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With my best wishes for your welfare, temporal and eternal,

"I remain, your friend and servant,
"JOHN WHITAKER."

From Mr. Whitaker's reference to a second edition, as then contemplated, the first must have obtained a rapid sale on the ground of its own merits, and antecedent to the critique. For unknown reasons, Mr. Drew, though frequently solicited, did not reprint his Remarks on Paine's Age of Reason until twenty years after their first appearance. They were then published, with additional matter, in a small duodecimo volume.

SECTION XII.

Controversy with Mr. Polwhele and 'A Friend of the Church.'

In July, 1800, Mr. Drew published, in a pamphlet of seventy pages, "Observations on a Pamphlet lately published by the Rev. Richard Polwhele, Vicar of Manaccan, Cornwall, entitled Anecdotes of Methodism.'" The publication against which Mr. Drew's artillery was directed, arose out of Mr. Polwhele's controversy with Dr. Hawker, late Vicar of Charles, Plymouth, on the subject of his occasional itinerancy. With the merits of this question we meddle not; but the Anecdotes of Methodism' were a gratuitous and an unprovoked attack on a religious body with whom Dr. Hawker had no connexion, and who, as Mr. Drew observes, heard the tumult of the distant throng, but fondly thought that they had nothing to fear.'

6

Mr. Polwhele had designated his statements facts, set them forth with all the minutia of circumstance, and deduced from them the conclusion, that Methodism has a tendency to betray its votaries into every irregularity, and plunge them into every vice.' To permit such a publication to circulate uncontradicted, would have been a tacit admission of the truth of his allegations. More than one friend of Methodism stood forward to vindicate its tenets from

S

such foul aspersions; but their publications, being anonymous, were insufficient to counteract the effect of statements formally published to the world by one known as a literary writer, a magistrate, and a clergyman. Mr. Drew, therefore, thought it his duty to interfere, on behalf of himself and associates who had been so wantonly assailed.

Anec

Well knowing that facts could not be set aside by argumentative process, he resolved to sift the matter thoroughly, and, taking Mr. Polwhele's book, went through the whole of his facts in categorical order. He resorted to several parts of the county which Mr. P. had stated to be the scenes of his dotes,' to investigate their truth; and where he could not go, he applied by letter to the highest sources of correct information. The result of these inquiries he sums up thus, at the conclusion of his pamphlet: :-"I have now gone through the facts themselves, and have given a specific answer to every anecdote which is worthy of notice. Out of thirtyfour anecdotes, eight are false, of six I can get no account, nine are misrepresented, five are related with the omission of many material circumstances, and all the remainder are revised and corrected. Perhaps I cannot conclude better than by adopting Mr. P.'s own words, that 'SUCH FACTS ARE LIKELY TO HAVE

MORE WEIGHT THAN ALL THE REASONING IN THE WORLD.'

In this pamphlet, Mr. Drew pays little deference to his opponent's station in society. Anticipating an objection upon this ground, he observes, in his introductory pages, "Whether an occasion can pos

sibly exist, that can justify an asperity of language, is a point on which my readers may be divided; but if an occasion be admitted possible, that occasion now presents itself. It may be asked, why I have not made a more frequent application to scripture? why my language is so severe? with a variety of such questions; to all of which I reply,- Because I address myself to Mr. Polwhele.

"Whatever opinion Mr. P. or any other person may form of these pages, I hope all will have penetration enough to discern, that recrimination forms no part of their contents; it is a point which I have studiously avoided, and founded this pamphlet on a principle of self-defence.

"The clergy, as a body, I respect and venerate; and feel myself attached to many from a principle of gratitude and personal obligation. To commence, therefore, an attack on them, would be as wanton as it would be base; and would be at once to imitate and condemn the conduct of Mr. Polwhele. I am not conscious of having used a single expression which carries with it a shade of disrespect to any man alive, detached from him to whom it is addressed. And sincerely do I hope, that, should any expression occur which may strike the reader differently from what it has struck the writer, it may be attributed to inadvertency, or, in short, to any thing, rather than design."

However severe some parts of this pamphlet may be deemed, the closing sentence, addressed personally to Mr. Polwhele breathes all the spirit of the Christian; and there is reason to believe, that the wish which it