Page:Books Condemned to be Burnt - James Anson Farrer.djvu/175

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Books Condemned to be Burnt.
159

Westminster attested the general delight. At the instance, too, of Sacheverell's friends, certain other books were burnt two days before his own, by order of the House of Commons: so that the High Church party had not altogether the worst of the battle. The books so burnt were the following:—1. The Rights of the Christian Church asserted against the Romish and all other Priests. By M. Tindal. 2. A Defence of the Rights of the Christian Church. 3. A Letter from a Country Attorney to a Country Parson concerning the Rights of the Church. 4. Le Clerc's extract and judgment of the same. 5. John Clendon's Tractatus PhilosophicoTheologicus de Persona: a book that dealt with the subject of the Trinity.

Boyer gives a curious description of Sacheverell: "A man of large and strong make and good symmetry of parts; of a livid complexion and audacious look, without sprightliness; the result and indication of an envious, ill-natured, proud, sullen, and ambitious spirit"—clearly not the portrait of a friend. Lord Campbell thought the St. Paul sermon contemptible, and General Stanhope, in the debate, called it nonsensical and incoherent. It seems to me the very reverse, even if we abstract it from its stupendous effect. Sacheverell, no doubt,