Botanical Defcription of the Benjamin Tree of Sumatra. By Jo nas Dryander, M. A. &c. Botanists cannot render a more material service to the healing art, than in determining and defcribing the plants which afford valuable and efficacious medicines. All the writers on the matevia medica have mistaken the tree whence the Benzoin is extracted; and, what is extraordinary, although the drug comes from the Eaft Indies, moft modern authors have thought it to be collected from a fpecies of laurel, a native of Virginia. LINNÉ firft detected the error; but he fubftituted another in its place; the Terminalia Benzoin was mistaken, by that great man, for the Benjamin tree, probably through the fimilarity of its French name, Bienjoint, to the officinal, Benzoin. Mr. Dryander rectifies the mistake, and gives a description of the Benjamin tree, which is evidently a fpecies of the Linnean Styrax. Cloranthus, a new Genus of Plants, defcribed. By Olof Swartz, M.D. The plant here described is a native of China. It has been Jong fince introduced into England, and cultivated in Kew garden. The defcription admits not of abridgment. [The PHILOSOPHICAL Papers in our next.] ART. IX. A Narrative of the official Conduct of Valentine Morris, Efq. late Captain-General, Governor in Chief, &c. &c. of the Ifland of St. Vincent's and its Dependencies. Written by himself. 8vo. 6s. Boards. Hooper, &c. 1787. F ROM the time of its being ceded to Great Britain, in 1763, till 1776, St. Vincent had been an appendage to the Island of Grenada, and the Lieutenant-Governor was under the command of the Governor of Grenada. In 1772 Mr. Morris was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of St. Vincent. His conduct in the discharge of that office having been approved by his Majefty, the island was made a feparate government, and Mr. Morris received a commiffion, dated March 11, 1776, appointing him Captain-General, Commander in Chief, &c. of the Inland of St. Vincent's and its dependencies. During the time of his being Lieutenant-Governor, he had frequently acquainted the Governor of Grenada, of the very defenceless state of his ifland. There appears to have been a fhameful and dangerous deficiency of every article of ammunition; many batteries and forts were without guns; there were not fix gun-carriages. in the ifland fufficient to bear the weight of a gun, much lefs to permit it to be fired; and all the powder and balls, if collected together, not fufficient for a fupply of two hours, in cafe of neceffity. The recruits that had from time to time been fent to the island were unarmed, fo that in pofts confifting of 20 or 30 men, only three firelocks were to be found fit for fervice; and the recruits were the refuse of the gaols and streets of London, moft of them fuperannuated, or difabled from bearing arms, having been discharged from other regiments for fuch difabilities. The fortifications, and other buildings belonging to government, were almost in a state of ruin, and Mr. Morris had orders, from home, to put the ifland into a state of defence. The neceffary expences incurred in repairing the old and erecting new buildings have not yet been paid. Mr. Morris fent his bills to the treasury, and although they were allowed, yet they remain ftill unpaid; and he has been obliged to fell his eftates to fatisfy the demands of the creditors of government. These facts depend not on Mr. Morris's bare affertions; they are confirmed by the original letters which paffed between him and the Secretaries of State and Lords of the Treafury; they evidently fhew the propriety of the Governor's conduct, and the ill treatment which he has received. There is no reading this narrative without indignation. It will make a prudent man extremely cautious how he accepts of employments, which may be fraught with such ruinous confequences to his own interest. As a writer, Mr. Morris thus fpeaks of himself: I make no pretenfions to those brilliant talents and abilities which fometimes elevate their poffeffors to the highest pinnacles of political life; but I will juftify the appointment of my Sovereign, by not only boldly afferting, but, I hope, clearly proving, that I was equal to the fervice in which he was graciously pleafed to employ me; and that my local knowledge of the feat of my duty, the refult of private circumftances, and an inquifitive mind, was known and verified. But although I freely acknowledge a fuperiority of talents in other men-in zealous fidelity, perfevering induftry, vigilant attention, anxious difinterestedness, and, which is fo painful, but oftentimes fo effential to the conduct of public affairs, fubmiffive patience, I will own no fuperior. I ferved my country with the most ardent zeal; and had I been in the leaft fupported, nay, had I not been moft fhamefully neglected, I fhould have ferved it with the best effects. Without any vanity which the candid interpreters of human actions would not approve, I am bold to declare, that had I watched my own interefts with a fhadow of the enthusiasm that I manifefted for those of my country, I fhould now have been elevated by pro-' fperity to the pride of defiance, instead of being debased by adverfity to the humility of juftification.' We are not to confider this work merely as the melancholy ftory of a fuffering individual; but as a collection of historical materials, well worthy of the public attention: as a detail of the caufes,' fays our Author, which loft to my country a very valuable poffeffion;' but by which lofs, it feems, no particular perfon was fo great a fufferer, in any proportion, as the unfor tunate tunate Governor; whose conduct appears to have merited a better fate, and a more worthy recompence. Amidst the many calamitous circumftances attending Mr. M.'s unfortunate government, thousands of our readers will, no doubt, join us in lamenting, with him, the alienation of his delightful and very valuable eftate of Piercefield, fo often celebrated in our Review, and by every traveller of tafte who has taken Chepstow in his tour. Hear how pathetically he deplores this part of his great lofs. I must add another mortifying item to this painful catalogue. My valuable, beautiful, and well known eftate of Piercefield, in Monmouthshire, defcending to me from my father, the child of my fancy, and for many years the fubject of my creative attention, was alfo to be forced from me. This eftate, fituated in a county and neighbourhood, which the most diffident modesty will allow me to fay, I had, in my private capacity as a country gentleman, affiduously ferved, and confiderably benefited;-this place, where I had for many years lived in profperity, refpect, and credit, and where, after a right discharge of the duties of public life, I had fondly hoped to have paffed in tranquillity the years that might remain, and have breathed my laft ;-this place was at length forced to fale for 26,1001. for which, at former periods, the different fums of 46,000l. 47,000l. 48,000l. and once of 52,000l. had been offered. An event which would have been effectually prevented, had I received only an inconfiderable part of what was then, and ftill is, due to me from government.' He concludes, with equal pathos, in the following very affecting terms: My Sovereign and my country are welcome to the faithful fervices I have, in fulfilling the duties of my public ftation, performed; yet may the injuftice I have received, and the fatal confequences of it from the unfeeling, infenfible state of all political, public character, with the official formal delays arifing from temporary neceffities, end with me. I have known prosperity, with the honours and comforts of it; I have fuffered adverfity, with its fad train of neglects and mortifications; I have, however, with becoming fortitude, learned the leffon of refignation, and fhall, while I live, endeavour to practife the duties of it. May furviving friendship fympathize in my misfortunes! May the truths I now publish rescue my character from undeferved obloquy! May my country refpect that conduct ever dictated by the most earnest wish to ferve it! And may my fufferings, and the caufe of them, ferve as beacons to warn others from letting the warmth of their public zeal overheat their judgment, and make them infenfible to the cooler dictates of private prudence! May they thus escape that fatal wreck, not barely of their fortunes, but also of their hope, health, character, and happiness, I have unhappily incurred. Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum, ART ART. X. Sermons, by Charles Symmons, B.D. of Clare Hall, Cambridge. 8vo. 5s. Boards. Williams. 1787. UR language being enriched with fo many excellent difcourfes on every moral and religious topic, fenfible men have given it as their opinion, that our clergy may now be releafed from the labour of compofition, and allowed to deal forth inftruction to their parishioners from the public ftock. But we could never accede to this opinion, because, in the first place, it by no means appears that pulpit eloquence has reached fuch a state of perfection as the exertions of genius can no further improve, and because, in the next, it is a fentiment which tends to encourage idleness, and to juftify ignorance in a body of men, who, on every account, ought to be learned and active. A clergyman fhould be as much diftinguished from the laity, by the learning peculiar to his profeffion, as by his fable paraphernalia, and fhould defpife the idea of fhining in borrowed plumes. Appointed to teach the great truths of religion, it is his duty maturely to weigh them in his own mind, that he may literally bring forth out of his own treasures. And many would be the happy confequences were this generally practifed. Perhaps the diffipated and irregular lives of fome of our young clergy may in part be accounted for, from their having paid no regard to the compofition of their fermons. Strangers to study, their thoughts, like thofe of the multitude, are never carried above the smoke and ftir of this dim fpot *, nor do thofe religious confiderations present themselves to their minds, which powerfully tend to counteract vicious propenfities, and to animate us in the pursuit of virtue. Minifters may often find better fermons than they can make, but those which are the result of their own serious meditations they will deliver with much more fpirit and effect; and what in our opinion is of infinite confequence, they will make a much deeper impreffion on their own minds, and contribute to render them also inftructors by example.-For these reasons we wish to see a fermon-making clergy. But while we would encourage them in theological compofition, we could wish to reftrain that rage for printing fermons which at present prevails. Every preacher who has acquired a little popularity, within, perhaps, a narrow circle, is folicited by his friends to prefent his works to the Public; and the fuccefs which has attended a few modern publications in this line, often gives effect to these folicitations. Hence, volume after volume has been poured forth from the prefs, in fuch rapid fucceffion, that fermons now appear in our bookfellers fhops, "Thick as autumnal leaves that ftrew the brooks "In Vallombrofa". This abundance, added to the peculiar elegance with which the * Vid. page 125; where this allufion occurred to another Reviewer. moft most serious subjects are now treated, makes it difficult for a fermon-writer to engage the attention of the Public. Unless, therefore, his work has fome ftriking excellence, he will acquire but little notice, reputation, or profit. The Sermons of Mr. Symmons will not probably be loft, and lie unnoticed amid the crowd. They are evidently the production of an elegant and improved mind; and though we have not been able to discover in them that novelty of ftructure, which fome friends of the Author apprehended they poffeffed, we have read them with pleafure, and must give them our praise. They are introduced by a fenfible preface (dashed with a little affected modefty, which we wifhed we could have blotted out), in which Mr. S. gives us a few fentiments on the compofition of a fermon, having been obliged, he tells us, to relinquifh his original intention of opening his work with a profeffed and regular Effay on the fubject. Some of his remarks accord with our ideas, but others we cannot allow to be juft. We must heartily join with him in condemning the modern practice of substituting, in the room of fermons, flimly moral essays, of which the text is the only thing that evinces their having any connection with the facred writings; a mode of preaching which does not tend to explain the Scriptures, and which plays round the head, but comes not near the heart. No minifter, who fincerely wishes to do good, will adopt it. A fermon fhould contain an explanation of the text, nor can we see any objection (notwithstanding what Mr. S. advances) to a regular and oftenfible divifion of it. We would by no means recommend the practice of our old divines of fplitting and ramifying a fubject into numerous divifions and fub-divifions; but ftill we would be advocates for the lucidus ordo, for an obvious method. Artfully to conceal the plan of a discourse may serve to perplex, but can be of no real utility. On the other hand, a few judicious divifions tend to give the auditor a clear infight into the fubject proposed for difcuffion; they constitute agreeable paufes, and ferve to roufe the drooping attention. Convinced of this, we cannot but lament when writers and preachers of any eminence, who may be fuppofed to influence the public tafte, endeavour to render the ufe of them unfashionable. The remark which Mr. Symmons offers in favour of a concealed method may found pretty, but is, in truth, nothing to the purpose the fence' (he fays) which is concealed is effectual for the feparating of the grounds, whilst it neither breaks by its interruption nor offends by its formality.' This is an obfervation worthy the notice of a man who is laying out a ferme ornée, but not of one who is making a fermon; for here the fence that is not obfervable, is no fence at all. But though our Author would diffuade from the ufe of oftenJible divifions, he forcibly recommends regularity of arrangement. Το |