Hall on Beddome's preaching

In a book of biographical memoirs of Robert Hall, his preface to Beddome's Hymns is given with this anecdote:

 

At another time, in conversation with a friend, he made the following remarks on Mr Beddome's Sermons, after having read through a volume during a restless night, and being asked his opinion of them. "They are very evangelical, he said, and there is a good choice of subjects; there is bone and sinew and marrow in them, which shows a great mind. I like them because they are so full of thought; they furnish matter for the mind to dwell upon. It is true they are very short; but it must be remembered that they are posthumous, and were never intended for publication; they are little more than skeletons. I like them the better for their compactness." Being told that they had not had a very extensive circulation, he replied, "It shows the taste of the age, sir: they would have been more approved, had they been long and verbose and showy. They supply materials for thinking; but some persons do not like to think, sir. In short I do not know any sermons of the kind equal to them in the English language. I believe they are destined to be much more extensively read and appreciated."