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Updated: May 13, 2025
The publication of Hervey's 'Dialogues between Theron and Aspasio, in 1755, with John Wesley's remarks upon them, and Hervey's reply to the remarks, reawakened a temporary interest in the question, but it was not till the year 1771 that the tempest broke out again with more than its former force.
His Theron and Aspasio, which was hardly less successful, was an elaborate defence of evangelical opinions; and though at this time the pupil and one of the warmest admirers of Wesley, he afterward became conspicuous in the Calvinistic section of the party, and wrote with much acerbity against his old master.
The work and others of its author's, such as Theron and Aspasio, may still be met with occasionally on old-fashioned bookshelves, or on the second-hand stalls; and they forcibly remind us of the style of second-rate reflection which, in a different dress, is still dear to the average sober-minded individual.
Ten years after the publication of the first volume of the 'Meditations' Hervey published three volumes of 'Dialogues between Theron and Aspasio, with a view to recommend to 'people of elegant manners and polite accomplishments' the Calvinistic theology, and more especially the doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness stated Calvinistically.
It is as an author that James Hervey is best known to us. The popularity which his writings long enjoyed presents to us a curious phenomenon. Almost to this day old-fashioned libraries of divinity are not complete without the 'Meditations' and 'Theron and Aspasio, though probably they are not often read in this age.
The first is an instance of poetic amplification and abandon; we should contend, for the last, that it expresses poetic tenderness and delicacy. In the one case, passion is diffuse, in the other, concentrated. Which is the more natural, others must judge. "Euthanasy," "Theron and Aspasio," the "Phaedon" of Plato are dialogues, but they are not dramatic.
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