RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.
ITO THE EDITOR OF THE sPECTAIfOrt. Ilimiugirmn,17thr December IF3a.
SIR—I request your attention, and that of your readers, to the following statement. In the first edition of the Memoirs of' Sir janas Mackintosh, 1835, p. 468, we meet with these sentences- " On returning home, Inc fell on religious subjects. He said it wan ran:irk:11de that we make a point of faith respeetiog the Trinity, not one word of which was mentioned or hinted at ill rile New Testament."
In the corresponding place in the second edition, 1836, it is- 0 On returning home. he fell on religious s thieets. the said it was remarkable we make a point of faith respecting tire Trinity, when the word was not mentioned its the New Testament."
No preface, Lo advertisement, nothing in the list of errata, atmounces this change, or discloses the ground of it ; though it is the usual practice of authors and editors to notice all such variations.
I do not enterhere into the theological question: I do not ask which of the two declarations was the more likely to, have pt (weeded floor the lips of Sir JAMES AlACKINTOsir ; not what lie probably, bat what be actually said. Was the memory of the reporter treacherous in 1833, or rather in ISA); and has it become faithful in 1836? To whom are we indehted for the record and the communication of the remark? It was made to an intimate friend and near relatiou—one of the family at Cresselly.* When that friend transmitted it for the edition of 1835, had he the slightest distrust of the accuracy of his recollection ? is there any second instance as to which he: entertains doubts concerning it ? can the editor give a satisfactory explanation of these various readings? The good faith which is due to the public from a writer and an editor, and the moral and literary jnstice which he owes to his subject, appear to demand from Mr. INIACKINTOsilt a communicat:on of his reasons for the change that I have discovered. If, in a case so extremely material, and within a few short months, the same reporter of a conversation of Sir Ja IMES MACEJNTOSH's, and the same editor of his -Memoirs, can bring themselves jointly to put forth two differing statements of his thoughts on a given subject and at a given date, who but must suspect that a like incorrectness obtains in other parts of the re • port and of the narrative ? I reuraiu, Sir, your's, &e.
JOHN KENTISH,
• That of ALLEN, to which the late I.ady MA rat:Mr.:II belonged. t Sir JAblEs IslACILINTOsti'S Sea. end editor of the Memoirs.
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