Newton and Thomas Scott had lived. I pointed out to them the house of Cowper, and the house and church of Newton and, in crossing the famous bridge over the Ouse, directed their attention to the distant village of Weston-Underwood, in which Scott had officiated for many years as a curate. And so I got fairly into their good graces, and had my share assigned me in the conversation. They discussed Newton and Scott, and characterized as sound and excellent the "Commentary" of the one and the "Letters" of the other; but the labors of Cowper, whose rarer genius, and intellect of finer texture, seemed removed beyond the legitimate range of their appreciation, they regarded apparently as of less mark and importance. I deemed them no inadequate representatives of a worthy section of the English people, and of an obvious power in the country,—a power always honestly and almost always well directed, but rather in obedience to the instincts of a wise religion than the promptings of a nicely-discriminating intelligence. The more secular-looking traveller of the two, on ascertaining that I had come from Edinburgh, and was a citizen of the place, inquired whether I was not a parishioner of Dr. Chalmers,—the one Scotchman, by the way, with whose name I found every Englishman of any intelligence in some degree acquainted; and next, whether I was not a member of the Free Church. The Disruption both gentlemen regarded as a great and altogether extraordinary event. They knew almost nothing of the controversy which had led to it; but there was no mistaking the simple fact of which it was an embodiment, namely, that from four to five hundred ministers of the Established Church had resigned their livings on a point of principle. To this effect, at least, the iron tongue of rumor had struck with no uncertain sound; and the tones were of a kind suited not to lower the aspirations of the religious sentiment
