Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/387

 IRVING but continued to discharge liis scholastic duties for other three years. As a teacher he acquired the reputation of being a severe disciplinarian, apparently rather from the stern gravity with which he regarded every kind of delinquency than from excessive severity in the actual administration of chastisement ; out of doors he identified himself with the recreations of his pupils in a degree rare even at the present time, mingling instruction and amuse ment so as to win their enthusiastic respect. During the latter period of his stay at Kirkcaldy Irving renewed an acquaintanceship with Thomas Carlyle, which ripened into lifelong friendship. While waiting with some impa tience for a permanent opportunity to exercise his gifts in the ministry, he devoted his leisure, not only to mathe matical and physical science, but to a course of reading in English literature, his bias towards the antique in sentiment and style being strengthened by a perusal of the older classics, among whom Richard Hooker, denominated by him &quot; the venerable companion of my early days,&quot; was his favourite author. At the same time his love of the mar vellous found gratification in the wonders of the Arabian Nights, and it is further characteristically related of him that he used to carry continually in his waistcoat pocket a miniature copy of Ossian, passages from which he fre quently recited with &quot;sonorous elocution and vehement gesticulation.&quot; The impression which Irving s early appearances as a preacher produced upon his hearers seems to have been more of a perplexing and bewildering than an edifying character ; but he himself never seems to have been troubled with doubts as to whether preaching was his &quot;vocation.&quot; In the summer of 1818 he resigned his mastership, and, in order to increase the probability of obtaining a permanent appointment in the church, took up his residence in Edinburgh, where he now resolved to write according to a new system specially adapted to the wants of the age. Yet, although his exceptional method of address seems to have gained him the qualified approval of certain dignitaries of the church, the prospect of his obtaining a settled charge seemed as remote as ever, and he was meditating a missionary tour in Persia when his departure was arrested by steps taken by Dr Chalmers, which after considerable delay resulted, in October 1819, in Irving being appointed his assistant and missionary in Sfc John s Parish, Glasgow. Except in the case of a select few, Irving s preaching awakened little interest among the congregation of Chalmers, Chalmers himself, with no partiality for its bravuras and flourishes, com paring it to &quot; Italian music appreciated only by con noisseurs&quot;; but as a missionary among the poorer classes he wielded an influence that was altogether unique. The benediction &quot;Peace be to this house,&quot; with which, in accordance with apostolic usage, he greeted every dwell ing he entered, was not inappropriate to his figure and aspect, and it is said &quot;took the people s attention won derfully,&quot; the more especially after the magic of his per sonality found opportunity to reveal itself in close and homely intercourse. This half-success in a subordinate sphere was, however, so far from coinciding with his aspi rations that he had again, in the winter of 1821, begun to turn his attention towards missionary labour in the East, when the possibility of fulfilling the dream of his life was suddenly revealed to him by an invitation from the Cale donian church, Hatton Garden, London, to &quot;make trial and proof &quot; of his gifts before the &quot; remnant of the conj gregation which held together.&quot; Over that charge he was ordained in July 1822. Some years previously he had expressed his conviction that &quot; one of the chief needs of the age was to make inroad after the alien, to bring in the votaries of fashion, of literature, of sentiment, of policy, and of rank, who are content in their several idolatries to do without piety to God and love to Him whom He hath sent;&quot; and, with an abruptness which must have produced on him at first an effect almost astounding, he now had the satisfaction of beholding these various votaries thronging to hear from his lips the words of wisdom which would deliver them from their several idolatries and remodel their lives according to the fashion of apostolic times. This sudden leap into popularity seems to have been occasioned in connexion with a veiled allusion to Irving s striking eloquence made in the House of Commons by Canning, who had been induced to attend his church from admiration of an expression in one of his prayers, quoted to him by Sir James Mackintosh. As far as the mere manner of Irving s eloquence was concerned, it was improbable that any eulogy could err on the side of warmth and enthusiasm, for perhaps there never was any one more highly gifted with what may be called the personal qualifications of an orator. His commanding stature, the admirable symmetry of his form, the dark and melancholy beauty of his coun tenance, rather rendered piquant than impaired by an obliquity of vision, produced an imposing impression even before his deep and powerful voice had given utterance to its melodious thunders ; and harsh and superficial half- truths enunciated with surpassing ease and grace of gesture, and not only with an air of absolute conviction but with the authority of a prophetic messenger in tones whose magical fascination was inspired by an earnestness beyond all imitation of art, acquired a plausibility and importance which, at least while the orator spoke, made his audience entirely forgetful of their preconceived objections against them. The subject-matter of his orations, and his peculiar treatment of his themes, no doubt also at least at first constituted a considerable part of his attractive influence. He had specially prepared himself, as lie thought, for &quot;teaching imaginative men, and political men, and legal men, and scientific men who bear the world in hand&quot;; and he did not attempt to win their attention to abstract and worn-out theological arguments, but discussed the opinions, the poetry, the politics, the manners and customs of the time, and this not with philosophical comprehensiveness, not in terms of warm eulogy or measured blame, but of severe satire varied by fierce denunciation, and with a specific minuteness which was concerned primarily with individuals. Indeed it was the titillation produced by his picturesque unconventionality rather than any contagious emanation from his intense moral energy that formed the principal basis of connexion between him and his audience, with the majority of whom he was so deeply out of sympathy. The pungency of the titillation was sufficiently evidenced by the fire of criticism from pamphlets, newspapers, and reviews which opened on his volume of Orations, published in 1 823 ; but the excitement produced was merely superficial and essentially evanescent. Though cherishing a strong antipathy to the received ecclesiastical formulas, Irving s great aim was to revive the antique style of thought and sentiment which had hardened into these formulas, and by this means to supplant the new influences, the accidental and temporary moral shortcomings of which he detected with instinctive certainty, but whose profound and real tendencies were utterly beyond the reach of his conjecture. Being thus radically at variance with the main current of the thought of his time, the failure of the commission he had undertaken was sooner or later inevitable ; and shortly after the opening of his new church in Regent Square in 1827, he found that &quot;fashion had taken its de parture,&quot; and the church, &quot;though always well filled,&quot; was &quot;no longer crowded.&quot; By this desertion his self-esteem, one of his strongest passions, though curiously united with singular sincerity and humility, was doubtless hurt