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lower grounds were equally pleafing, though not fo grand as from the higher. Indeed no part of this magnificent fcenery would be a difgrace to the wildest and most picturefque country.

The fall of the river, which brought us hither, and which is the leaft confiderable part of the fcenery (for we had heard nothing of thefe noble views), is a mere garden-fcene. The fteep woody hill, whofe fhaggy fides we had defcended, forms at the bottom, in one of its envelopes, a fort of little woody theatre; rather indeed too lofty when compared with its breadth, if nature had been as exact as art would have been, in obferving proportion. Down the central part of it, which is lined with fmooth rock, the river falls. This rocky cheek is narrow at the top, but it widens as it defcends, taking probably the form of the ftream, when it is. full. At the time we faw it, it was rather a fpout than a cascade; for though it flides down a hundred and eighty feet, it does not meet one obftruction in its whole courfe, except a little check in the middle. When the fprings are low, and the water has not quantity enough to push itself forward in one current, I have been told, it fometimes falls in various little ftreams against the irregularities of the rock, and is dafhed into a kind of vapoury rain, which has a good effect.

This cafcade, it feems, is not formed by the waters of the Lid, as we had fuppofed from its name; but by a little ftream, which runs into that river, rifing in the higher grounds, at the distance of about two miles from the cascade.' P. 184.

Though much is faid of Plymouth and the dock-yards, the accounts are not always precife or ftrictly applicable. The operation of careening leads to a difquifition on the grand picturefque effects of flame in a conflagration; and we rife, in the climax, till we arrive at Gibraltar, and become, as it were, fpectators of the tremendous event of burning the battering-fhips of Spain. Captain Drinkwater and fir William Hamilton are great auxiliaries on this occafion, and bring a contribution of feveral pages. Mr. Smeaton's work, on the conftruction of light-houses, has been still more unreasonably taxed.

The following remarks, on the scenery of the Tamer, are juft; and we shall add our author's glance at the Mississippi.

The scenery itself, on- the banks of the Tamer, is `certainly good; but had it even been better, the form of the river could not have fhewn it to much picturefque advantage. The reaches are commonly too long, and admit little winding. We rarely trace the course of the river by the perfpective of one skreen behind another; which in river views is often a beautiful circumftance: and yet, if one of the banks be lofty, broken into large parts, and falling away in good perfpective, the length of the reach.

may poffibly be an advantage. In fome parts of the Tamer we had this grand lengthened view; but in other parts we wished to have had its continued reaches more contracted.

• These remarks, however, it must be observed, affect a river only in navigating it. When we are thus on a level with its furface, we have rarely more than a fore-ground; at most we have only a first distance. But when we take a higher stand, and view a remote river, lofty banks become then an incumbrance; and inftead of difcovering, they hide its winding course. When the distance becomes ftill more remote, the valley through which the river winds fhould be open, and the country flat, to produce the moft pleafing effect.

In the immense rivers that traverse continents, thefe ideas are all loft. As you fail up fuch a vaft furface of water, as the Miffiffippi, for inftance, the firft ftriking obfervation is, that perspective views are entirely out of the question. If you wish to examine either of its fhores, you must defert the main channel; and, knowing that you are in a river, make to one fide or the other.

'As you approach within half a league of one of the fides, you will perhaps fee ftretches of fand-banks, or iflands covered with wood, extending along the fhore, beyond the reach of the eye, which have been formed by depredations made on the coaft by the river; for when the winds rage, this vaft furface of water is agitated like a fea; and has the fanie power over its fhores. As the trees of thefe regions are in as grand a style as the rivers themselves, you fometimes fee vaft excavations, where the water has undermined the banks, in which immense roots are laid bare, and, being washed clean from the foil, appear twisted into various forms, like the gates of a cathedral,

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Though the banks of the Miffiffippi, we are told, are generally flat, you frequently fee beautiful fcenery upon them. Among the vaft woods which adorn them, are many groves of cypresses; to which a creeping plant, called the liane, is often attached. What kind of flower it bears, I have not heard; but if it be not too profufe, it must be very ornamental: hanging from tree to tree, and connecting a whole cyprefs-grove together with rich feftoons.

These woods are interspersed also with lawns, where you fee the wild deer of the country feeding in herds. As they efpy the veffel gliding past, they all raise their heads at once, and standing a moment, with pricked ears, in amazement, they turn fuddenly round, and darting across the plain, hide themselves in the woods.

From fcenes of this kind, as you coaft the river, you come perhaps to low marthy grounds; where swamps, overgrown with reeds and rufhes, but of enormous growth, extend through endless tracts, which a day's failing cannot leave behind. In these marshes

the alligator is often feen bafking near the edge of the river, inte which he inftantly plunges on the leaft alarm; or perhaps you defery his hideous form creeping along the fedges, fometimes hid, and fometimes difcovered, as he moves through a closer, or more open path.' P. 237.

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Little of importance occurs in the defcription of Cornwall, or in the account of the route pursued by our author in his return through Exeter and Honiton, and of that which he fays he ought to have taken viz. by the fea-coaft, which he defcribes on the authority of another perfon. The obfervations on theep, as picturefque objects, and on the downs of Dorfetfhire, though pleafing, are not new or cu rious; and the defcription of the country between Dorchefter and Lymington' difplays no marks of refined tafte.

The lle of Wight is examined on the large fcale from the commanding heights; but Mr. Gilpin finds little in it to commend. The hufbandman has furrowed the fields in ftraight lines, and divided them by inclofures. The rocky fcenes near the fea are grand from their altitude, seldom picturefque: their extent renders them magnificent, but their form and their colour prevent them from being beautiful. This remark is too faftidious. It is not the character of rocks to be picturefque. The outlines are either maffy, when uninjured, or are too much broken into cavities by waves. If they ever affume a beautiful form, they lofe their character as rocks, and fall into the fcale of undulating hills. The. hue is unpleafing; for, except in Alum-bay, they are uniformly white.

The plates are of the kind first introduced to the public in Mr. Gilpin's works, conveying the effect of the fcene in modest, and sometimes appropriate, colouring. Thofe, however, which decorate the prefent volume, are very unequal to fome others, and, in thofe places which we well know, give a very imperfect, and fometimes fallacious, idea of the profpect. A bold headland, a calm fea, maffy hills, and ruins, are almost the only objects which they feem capable of reprefenting.

On the whole, we have been little entertained or interested by this work. The defcriptions are cold, concife, and often inappropriate. Recollection indeed fades at a diftant period; and ideas, lofing that pointed difcrimination which a recent examination gives, become general and indiftinct. It was after a long interval, that Mr. Gilpin, as appears from incidental crrcumftances, engaged in his prefent taik. This affords rather an excufe for the defects, than a fatisfactory apology for the attempt.

Confiderations on the Doctrines of a Future State, and the Refurrection, as revealed, or fuppofed to be fo, in the Scriptures: on the Infpiration and Authority of Scripture itself: an fome Peculiarities in St. Paul's Epifiles: on the Prophecies of Daniel and St. John, &c. to which are added, fome Strictures on the Prophecies of Ifaiah. By Richard Amner. 8vo. 5s. Boards. Johnson. 1797.

SOME of the most difficult and interefting parts of fcripture are here difcuffed in a manner which does equal credit to the writer's candour and judgment. His views are directed folely by the love of truth; and, if we cannot at all times receive his interpretations, we find many useful hints tending to illuftrate the fubject of confideration. With regard to the refurrection, after an examination of the chief points which have ufually been fuppofed to prove the familiarity of the ancients with this topic, he takes the negative, and fupports his opinion with ftrong arguments and juft fcriptural comparifons. On the infpiration of fcripture, he takes what fome will call very low ground. In many cafes, he does not attribute inspiration either to the matter or the manner of the apoftolical writers; but, after several free remarks, he concludes,

that the books now making up the volume, or canon, as it is. fometimes called, of the Old and New Teftament, and which is confeffedly the best and most curious single book in the world, are not however all of them, nor any one of them perhaps, in all its parts, of the fame equal and unvaried excellence, and of the fame uniform and high authority, however this notion of them may in general have prevailed; but may be reafonably read with fomething more `of discrimination and tafte, than the teachers and paftors of most churches have in general allowed; and would perhaps be more. profitably read, and with greater cordiality and acceptance, if read under the influence of a lefs fuperftitious fpirit, and with more at tention paid to what we feel them to be in the reading, than to any fuch external characters and denominations of them, as may indeed filence, but do not always fatisfy the reader,

And to this notion I acknowledge myfelf to be the more inclined, by the confideration of the manner in which the holy book, ufually called the, Canon, is fuppofed by divines to have been first put or brought together. Which was not, it feems, all at once, nor under the fanction or feal of any perfon or perfons profefling to have authority from above for this purpofe; but only gradually, as it should seem, and occafionally, and by the force very much of each part; (through intrinfic worth and excellence of character, in, connection with fome other and more adventitious circumftances ;). making its way; until at length the whole, as we now have it,

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was in general received, though not in every place at the fame time, nor with the fame high deference paid to every part equally: which is fuch an account of the matter, conformable, I think, to the reprefentations more ufually made upon the subject, as seems to me to be very favourable to fuch a difcurfive, free, and unfuperftitious ufe of it, as is above pleaded for, and yet, I truft, not impious: leaving abundant room to the Chriftian preacher and philofopher to make the utmost poffible use of what he fees and feels to be excellent, with liberty of lefs attending to what he cannot fee and feel to be fo; and fuppofing both of the Jewish and Christian revelations fomething to have been true and fupernatural in the first inftance, however fomething more infirm, and merely human, may have fince intermingled.' P. 166.

The Calvinistical interpreters of St. Paul's epiftles will do well to confider with attention the few obfervations on the manner and doctrine of this apoftle. The author's opinion of juftification is fummed up in the following words.

That in the ideas of St. Paul, faith, meaning faith in Christ, or in God, who raised him from the dead, which is here fuppofed to be the fame thing, as it also is in divers other places, is fuppofed to be under the gofpel the only juftifying righteoufnefs:

That it is therefore, fecondly, fpoken of as an imputed righteousness, or a righteoufnefs fo taken, or fet down to our account, and reckoned to us in the room and ftead of a literal and ftri&t righteousness, with the utmost propriety; in order to denote this conftructive nature of it, and to distinguish it from that which is fo literally, and in the primary sense.

From whence it feems to follow, thirdly, that they do greatly err upon this fubject, and from the precision and exactnefs of St. Paul's ideas refpecting it, who fpeak of the imputed righteousness of Chrift, and who affert, that it is his righteousness that is imputed to us for juftification; whereas, according to St. Paul, it is not that, but our faith in him, which is fo reckoned or imputed. Neither again does it feem very proper to fay, that in this matter of justifi. cation the finner's faith has the righteousness of Chrift for its more immediate object; fome of the paffages quoted above, though not. excluding this, as Rom. iii. 25. yet fpeaking with full as much emphasis and propriety of fome other objects of it, as Rom. x. 9. 1. Pet. i. 21, &c.

From these same premifes it may be clearly feen, fourthly, why this imputed or conftructive righteoufnefs only, is fo oftent called by St. Paul, as it is in chap. x. 3. and in chap. iii. 21, &c. God's righteoufnefs, and the righteousness of God; viz. because of his merciful providing and gracious acceptance of it in this view; this very faith itfelf, as well as the salvation promised to it, being no provision or dictate of mere nature, or of law, but a divine

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