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a copy. Without informing the world how he procured the copy, and without the confent.or knowledge of the refpectable Author, he at once fends forth a French edition, and an English translation.— The work, it must be confeffed, breaths the fame fpirit of freedom, has the fame philofophical caft of thinking, and is written with the fame glow of language, for which the Abbé's Hiftory is fo juftly admired. But though it is in his manner, it is not in his best manner: there are fewer facts, and lefs variety and depth of reflection, than we should have expected from fuch a Writer, on fo fruitful a fubject. Befides, the tranflation is fo inelegant, and obfcure, and throughout fo entirely Gallic, that it would be trefpaffing upon our reader's patience to detain them with any fpecimens of it. We fhall therefore content ourselves with this general notice of the publication, at leaft till the Abbé Raynal shall think fit to give it the protection of his celebrated name.

Art. 15. Obfervations on the Dutch Manifefto.

Addreffed to

the Earl of Shelburne. 8vo. Is. Kearfly. 1781. When nations quarrel, each party afferts the juice of its caufe, and to prove it logically, before they proceed to the ultima ratio, a manifefto is published, wherein the juftice on this fide, and the injustice of that, is fpeciously, if not truly fet forth: what the one advances, the other contradicts,-and the appeal is to the fword; by the length and sharpness of which, the conteft is usually decided. As to the prefent inftance, "Your declaration, Master Bull," fays Mynheer," afferts nothing but falfhoods, to mask your infolence and ambition:"-" And your manifefto, Matter Frog," replies Jack English," is a heap of d-d nonfenfe, evafion, and abfurdity, all meant to cover your falfe friendship, and underhand dealings.". Now, what critic fhall decide in fuch a cafe, and venture to pronounce on the merits of the argument? Not an Englishman, furely, nor a Dutchman.-Let the King of Pruffia, if he pleases, or the Emperor, review this pamphlet.

AMERICAN CONTROVERS Y. Art. 16. The Hiftory of the Civil War in America: Vol. I. Comprehending the Campaigns of 1775, 1776, and 1777. By an Officer of the Army*. 8vo. 5 s. Boards. Sewell. 1780. A judicious and impartial History of the unfortunate American War, written by an able pen, might prove an acceptable and a ufeful prefent to the Public; but an unbiaffed hiftorian is at all times rara avis in terris at this early period, and on this interesting fubject, ftrict impartiality is hardly to be expected. Distant times may perhaps produce fome faithful and exact ac. counts the prefent race of men will probably expire before fuch accounts make their appearance. The publication before us is only part of a work which is to be finished in future volumes, and therefore it is the lefs neceffary for us (while the undertaking is imperfect) to give it a very particular review. To fpeak of it in general terms, it appears to us, rather a vindication of the measures of the Mother-country, and confequently an utter condemnation of the Americans, than a fair and equal reprefentation, Errors there have been, no doubt, on both fides, in the conduct of

Said to be Capt. Hall, of General Howe's regiment.

this melancholy bufinefs; but we can fee no reafon to fuppofe them confined merely to one of the contending parties.-This Writer, in common with many others, confiders the repeal of the Stamp-act as the great fpring of our prefent calamities: at the fame time he acknowledges that act to have been oppreffive; a confideration which furely called for its repeal; but there may be truth and juftice in his obfervation, that had the heavy tax on law-fuits only been taken off, the Americans would have remained fatisfied as to the reft: this is his fuppofition, and appears to be the principal, if not the only conceffion which he offers in their favour; for, as he proceeds, he treats their complaints as founded only on pretended grievances, and their conduct as arifing from a factious, ambitious, and lawless fpirit. On the whole, we apprehend thofe readers who form their judgment merely from this Volume, will run the hazard of being misled, for want of a free and fair inveftigation of the principal arguments that have been urged on both fides of the question.

POETICAL.

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Art. 17. Poems; chiefly compofed from recent Events. By Mr. Nifbet. 8vo. 3 s. 6d. Boards, Edinburgh. Sold by Ri chardson and Urquhart, London. 1780.

Thefe Poems were written, as the Preface informs us, at fixteen. They are bloffoms that time may, poffibly, ripen into fruit. Art. 18. Poems, on various Subjects. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. Boards. Edinburgh. Sold by Richardfon and Urquhart, London. 17:0.

Thefe are a feafon or two forwarder than the bloffoms fpoken of above, but they are not yet come to maturity.

Art. 19. A Poetical Epifle to Monf. Veftris, from Arctineolus. 4to. 1 S. Bew. 1781.

An infipid rhapfody of panegyric or irony; we prefume not to fay which.

Art. 20. The Contest: An English Paftoral, in two Parts. To a Friend in the Country. By George Pafmore. 4to. Stockdale. 1781.

Let Mr. Pafmore criticife his own Verfes himself;

I brought them to my Phillimus with speed, She fmil'd and faid 'twas pretty words indeed!' Art. 21. Satirical Ballads, &c. on the Times.

4to. 2 S.

Printed for

the Benefit of the unhappy Sufferers in the Welt Indies. 8vo. 2d. Afperne.

No one will think this two-penny worth of wit a dear purchase, who confiders the motive of publication. Three guineas, we are told, have been paid in to the truffees fome time ago. We most heartily with it a very rapid fale. Many volumes of five times the bulk, have not a fifth part of its merit.

Art. 22. The Celestial Beds; or a Review of the Votaries of the Temple of Health, Adelphi, and the Temple of Hymen, Pall mall. 4to. zs. Kearfley. 1781.

This Bagatelle is not without humour. The Author rallies Dr. G. and laughs at his fuppofed patients, with a pleasantry neither offenfive to decency nor good manners,- -a merit, confidering the temptation his fubject held out to him, that deferved to be taken notice of. Hh 2

Art.

Art. 23. Poems, by a Lady. 4to. 12 s. fewed. Payne.

1781.

Trifles by no means worthy of publication.

Art. 24. The Afcenfion: a poetical effay. By the Rev. Samuel Hayes, M. A. late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 4to. Is. Dodfley. 1781.

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To all the late candidates for Seaton's reward we may apply the following lines from Mr. Gay:

Forbear, contending louts, give o'er your ftrains;

An oaken staff each merits for his pains.
Your herds for want of water ftand adry,

They're weary of your fongs,-and so am I.'
NOVEL S.

Art. 25. The Adventures of an Hackney Coach. 12mo. 2s. 6d.
Kearly. 1781.

The Author fays, that he has found an old pen belonging to Sterne.' We wish he had found the fpirit which animated it. But that is exhausted, and nought remains here but the dull lifeless reduum!

This affected and frivolous performance confifts of the characters of fome perfons who are fuppofed by the Author to have hired a hackney coach; and it may be confidered as a fort of a fupplement to a very indifferent novel, intitled the "Sedan." There is little real information to be collected from it concerning the private lives of thofe eminent characters that pafs under the Author's infpection. Party holds the pen, and prejudice guides his hand. His language is generally inelegant, and frequently obfcene. But though we might pardon the unknown author, yet we can fearcely forgive the pretended memorialist who puts the following affected, turgid phrafes into the mouth of the elegant, unornamented Goldfmith;-the beautiful fimplicity of whofe ftyle is firongly contrafted by that unmeaning garish language which diftinguishes his fuccefslefs imitator. 'What a motley fcene, fays the genius (2. e. Dr. G.) is even here about this time of the day! Pomp, felf importance, and lounging nobility ambling in the troop of pleasure. Poverty looking up to them for relief; yet fearful of the harfh menace of denial, There fhines the proud enfign of nobility, a star. Here fickens in the eye of fuffering virtue a tear. Yan tattered wretch, perhaps, owes her remnant of poverty, &c. &c.' It is enough reader! This cannot be Goldfmith, any more than the Author himself can be Sterne, or any relation of the Shandy family. He is certainly fome fturdy North Briton, more calculated to hold the whip of the hackney coachman than to ufe the old pen of the inimitable Yorick; but who, having arrived at the post of a driver, aspires with abundant vanity, at the high diftinction of being himself driven. Art. 26. The History of the Honourable Mrs. Rofemont and Sir Henry Cardigan, in a Series of Letters. 2 vols. 8vo. 5 S. fewed. Hookham. 1781.

This is a sprightly entertaining Novel.. Its plot is fomewhat romantic and improbable, and its events are linked by circumftances too artificial and arbitrary to deceive the reader: yet it is on the whole conducted with spirit and addrefs:-the story is well told; and the different characters are properly difcriminated. The fentimental

delicacy

delicacy of Mrs. Rofemont, is well contrafled with the gaiety and wit of the fprightly Lady Lucy. The ftruggles of love between the tender remembrance of a darling object who first excited it, and a new paffion conceived for another, are very happily described in the character of Sir Henry Cardigan. An infamous wretch of the name of Saunders, piqued by Mrs. Rofemont's neglect, plots revenge both against her and her more favoured admirer. It fo far fucceeds as to create confufion and embarrassment. Hence a little bustle on the flage; till the fcene shifts and opens a world of wonders! Mrs. Rofemont who is at the point of marrying Sir Henry, under the prefumption of her husband's having been killed in a duel, is furprized at his return. He recounts his ftrange adventures. Her former paffion is renewed; and the feems to wonder at herself for having entertained a thought of a fecond lover. More bustle and embarraffment enfues! But the wonder of wonders is in the conclufion, where we find the villain Saunders fairly caught in Cupid's net, and at laft converted into fober matrimony by a pretty Nun; who, having been feduced by a French Count, was doomed to take the veil to atone for her indifcretion, and blot out the difhonour of her crime, by peni. tence and tears. Saunders was fo ftruck with the beauty of the lovely Magdalene, as she went through the ceremony in the public church, that he conceived a paffion for her; and as his head was particularly turned for plots (as the reader of this Novel will fee), he contrived a scheme to carry her off from the convent. This he effected, and having brought the fair penitent to England, he marries her.— All the parties in the drama are united, fome by marriage, others by friendship, and Saunders with all of them by conceffions on his part, and forgiveness on theirs.

The fentiments of this Novel are chaste and delicate: the language free and easy. It appears to have been the composition of a Lady well versed in the nicer points and mysteries of love. We fay a Lady, and for two reafons do we attribute it to a female pen:-from the freedom and vivacity with which it is written, and from feveral glaring deficiences even in common grammatical conftruction. This fault we have often obferved in the compofitions of ladies, who, notwithstanding, have acquired all the higher graces of language: and have almost inftinctively caught at elegance without giving themfelves the trouble of purfuing the ftrict forms of grammar.

Art. 27.

Letters moral and entertaining. By Mrs. Cartwright. 8vo. 3 s. fewed. Macgowan.

Thefe Letters are more moral than entertaining; though perhaps they have enough of the latter quality, to recommend them to that clafs of readers for whom they were meant. The ftories interfperfed fhew little fancy or ingenuity. The ladies are betrayed by the ufual methods of feduction and impofition; and the gentlemen are very amiable, or very vicious, without ftriking out a new fault, or aiming at a new virtue; and without giving old faults or old virtues the femblance of novelty. Thele Letters are writs ten in a blamelefs uniformity of ftyle, and without rising into any diftinguished excellence, or finking into any grofs abfurdity; they may be truly faid to keep the noifeless tenor of their Way,"

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Art,

MISCELLANEO U S.

Art. 28. Efays, Letters, and Poems. By Edmund Rack, Secretary to the Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and to the Philofophical Society, lately inftituted at Bath; and Author of Mentor's Letters to Youth *. 8vo. 6s. fewed. Dilly, &c. 1781.

Some of the principal pieces in this Mifcellany have already appeared with credit to their Author, in various periodical publications. A vein of good fenfe is in general difcernible in them, accompanied by a liberality of fentiment that is not always to be met with in more fhining performances. The humorous attempts do not ftand foremost in point of merit.

Art. 29. Eays on various Subjects of Taste and Criticism. 8vo. 23. Dilly. 1780,

The fubjects which are difcuffed in the two firft of these Effays are, the nature, origin, and progrefs of poetical compofition; and patioral poetry. The third, and laft Effay is a critique on the first book of Milton's Paradife loft. When due allowance is made for "the first attempts of a juvenile writer," and for the difficulty of ftriking out any thing new or original on fubjects fo nearly exhausted: candor will not find much to cenfure in thefe critical exercifes, which carry with them evident marks of good fenfe, accompanied by just principles of tafte.

Art. 30. The Swindler detected: or Cautions to the Public : Containing a minute Account of the various Frauds and Impofitions practifed on the honeft industrious Tradesmen of this Metropolis. The Stories related in this Tract are collected from abfoJute Facts that have tranfpired within the last eighteen Months. Addreffed to a certain Alderman. 8vo. I s. 6d. Kearley, &c. 1781.

Thele Cautions and Inftances may have but too much foundation in fact, in a metropolis where fuch numbers live without any general obferver knowing how and where, by the competition for trade in every branch of bufinefs, credit is given with fo much readiness. Art. 31. ΑΡΙΣΤΟΤΕΛΟΥΣ περὶ Παλικής. Ariftotelis de Poetica Liber ex Verfione Theodori Goultoni. Lectionis varietatem e Codd. IV. Bibliothecæ Mediceæ, Verborum Indicem et Obfervationes fuas adjunxit T. Winftanley, A. M. Coll. Hert. Soc. 8vo. 6 s. bound. Oxford printed, and fold by Elmsley in London. 178c.

The Obfervations, with which this accurate and ingenious Editor has enriched his edition of this invaluable treatife of Ariftotle's, bear ample teftimony to his fkill and fagacity as a critic. If they leave us any thing to regret, it is, that the Writer's attention was not equally employed in elucidating the fenfe, as in restoring purity to the text, of this profound and difficult Author. A commentary on the poetics of Ariftotle, would open a noble field for abstract and philofophical criticism,

* For Mentor's Letters, fee Rev. vol. lvii. p. 408.

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