Another Critical Review 01

This critical review of A Memoir of the Rev John Elias by the Rev E Morgan, AM, Vicar of Syston, &c. With an Introductory Essay, by the Rev J K Foster, &c. Jones, Liverpool; and Hughes, London is from The Eclectic Review of  1846

Never did reviewer sit down to read a work influenced by kindlier feelings than we did the one now before us. We knew the great man whose life it records, and had heard him preach in the strength and glory of his days. The reminiscence is one of the imperishable treasures left us by the past. The fact of Mr Morgan's having written this book prepossessed us much in his favour. We were sensibly affected by the gracefulness of the act, and the noble candour of the man's spirit, who, being himself a clergyman of the established church, becomes the biographer and eulogist of a celebrated dissenting minister. Besides, we happen to have a profound interest in the subject of this volume - his life, his times, and his ministry. We have from earliest recollection been deeply curious in the ecclesiastical affairs of the Principality, and have studied somewhat carefully the constitution and history of all its sects. The portraiture of a life so intimately connected with these matters, had therefore to us no common attraction. There was another cause of our predilection for the volume before us. We had read some very flattering notices of it in one or two periodicals; in one especially, whose editor we would have willingly trusted in such a case. Thus disposed, we read the book — aye, we actually read it through; and now we make our report. It must be an honest one; and, however much we regret the necessity laid upon us, we must say nothing but the truth. We have, then, put down this volume with feelings of intense mortification. In all the necessary characteristics of such a work, it is a most signal, a most pitiful failure; in its style, or rather its no-style, it is excessively puerile and powerless, with scarcely a tolerably constructed sentence, excepting in some of the quotations from other writers, throughout its two hundred and sixteen pages: and this from a clergyman, and M A of Cambridge! Nothing can be more feeble, more pointless, more jejune than the composition. The book mainly consists of exclamations of wonder, iteration and reiteration of unmeaning and common-place eulogy, interwoven with the baldest and most indiscriminating detail of John Elias's personal, domestic, and public history. We have again and again wondered that Mr Morgan did not catch some of the spirit of his hero, some little of that vivacity and vigour which distinguished the remarkable man commemorated in his pages. On the contrary, he transfers his own dulness to the great subject itself.

The 'Elias' of this book (for, with wretched taste, Mr Morgan calls him 'Elias,' without any prefix whatever) is not the John Elias whom formerly we heard with wonder, with tears, and with joy. Had we not previously the means of forming our own estimate of the great preacher, we are bound in truth to say this production would have been of no real use to us. He was a good man, we might have said, perhaps, he was a great man; for Mr Morgan says so, but he does not give us any materials by which we may ourselves come to that conclusion. Had it not been for some quotations from letters of friends, especially Mr Thomas's graphic and vigorous sketch, the reader would not have, in the whole volume, a single datum upon which to form his opinions of John Elias. Mr Morgan does not in one instance bring before us a concise, or even intelligible account, of one of the sources of his eloquence. Epithets there are enough, but discrimination there is none. In the very first paragraph we find him saying, 'Very few have been so gifted as Elias'. He might have left this unsaid until we had heard something of his personal history. It is just saying nothing, that is, nothing to the purpose, because at no proper time and in no proper place. He quotes largely from John Elias's autobiography, but very much mars the effect of these sketches, by frequently interrupting the narrative to interpose remarks of his own, in which he sometimes repeats, in less forcible language, what the writer has been saying; and in other instances he indulges in pious reflections, the obviousness of which, and their tameness of style, make them superfluous, and sometimes worse than useless. For instance, in page 4:—

'As soon as I was able,' he is quoting from the autobiography, ' to walk with my grandfather to the parish church, I was obliged to go with him that very sabbath. He was a true churchman. There were at that time no Methodists, to the best of my knowledge, in that neighbourhood. There was, however, a small chapel, that belonged to a few people of that denomination, within about two miles of us, in a place called Pentref uchaf. My grandfather used to have family prayer morning and evening. He would read a chapter in the Bible with Mr P Williams's exposition; then he would pray in one of those excellent forms of Mr. G. Jones, of Llanddowror, in a very devout and serious manner. My grandfather endeavoured to teach me to read the Welsh language, when I was about four or five old. I had even read from the beginning of Genesis to the middle of Jeremiah, when I was at the age of seven years.'

Let the reader remember this is a translation by Mr Morgan. At this point he stops for a moment, and gives the following profound and striking reflections :—

We cannot but perceive that there was something remarkable and promising in such a child as this. We are reminded of young Timothy, by his love of the Scriptures and diligence in perusing them. Not many had read the Bible (the italics are our own) so far as he had, even at a more advanced age. We find by the account Elias has given of himself, that his grandfather's pious attention towards him, particularly in training him up in the ways of the Lord, was not in vain,' &c.

Again, in page 6:—

'Once,' he says, 'I heard a lad swearing: it was new to me, for I was not allowed to be in the company of immoral characters. However, I thought the boy was clever and masterly in uttering the words, and I Whs tempted to follow his example: and I went far from all people, even into the middle of a field, to try to utter the oath! Alas! I was so unfortunate as to speak the awful word, upon which I was immediately seized with such fears and terrors, that I apprehended I should be swallowed up instantly alive on the spot into hell.'

Here the biographer interferes, and says — 'How remarkably tender was Elias's conscience, and how carefully he must have been brought up in the fear of God and his holy ways.' To this he adds, in a note at the foot the page, 'Young Elias might be fearful some person should hear him from the hedges, or that some judgment might befall him from thence: he consequently went as far as possible in his apprehension from all danger, on the painful occasion of taking the oath, ' &c. We are, indeed, quite puzzled as to the principle upon which our author arranges his notes. In the above instance the note might have been incorporated in the text, without impairing its continuity or disturbing its coherence. Sometimes he seems to insert a note to fetch up what he appears to feel has not been said in the text; and we are sorry to add, the failure is equally certain at the foot of the page. Again, he puts part of a letter in the text, and the other portion in a note. In one instance, p 209, he inserts a letter in the text, which the writer refers to a former letter to the author; and when you have read the second letter, an asterisk sends you to the first in a note below! The reader may indeed be amused by such introversion; but if he expects by inserting in the text the matter in the notes, to deduce from the whole some intelligible and consistent outline of biographic incident, some definite and marked description of private and public character, his amusement will soon give place to utter disappointment and mortification.