are open to receive with plaudits the hero who shook the foundations of her eaftern greatnéfs, and levelled her towers with the duft, Armed at the head of the Volfci, Coriolanus might lop the remaining great arm of your empire, and reduce this ifland to its primitive infignificance in the map of the world. But from fuch dangers you are protected by that regard which his whole life has expreffed to his country. The magnanimity that conquered, can forgive, Injured innocence, perfecuted virtue, can appeal to the tribunal of the world and of pofterity. Whatever may be the decifion of this Houfe, history will vindicate the name of HASTINGS. India will remember, with tears of gratitude as well as compaffion, her deliverer and her hero; and though uno damnatus fæculo accufatores damnavit in omnibus.” FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON INDIA AFFAIRS. It is extraordinary that, notwithstanding the zeal with which the minifter joined his forces to thofe of oppofition in the charge against Mr. Haftings, with regard to the Princeffes of Oude, that fixty-eight members of parliament, and those of the highest eftimation for their abilities, integrity, and independence, voted in his favour. It is a fact alfo, which ought to be remembered, that, previous to the divifion, an hundred and forty members left the Houfe, who, though they believed Mr. Haftings in fome refpects culpable, yet by no means deferving to be impeached; fo that the real majority of the Houfe of Commons have declared by their votes or their conduct, that, in the fourth charge, there are NO GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT of Mr. Haftings. 1 In eftimating the character, and judging of the conduct, of men in public offices, we are to confider the fituation in which they are placed. A company of merchants, at the head of an extenfive empire, feparated from them by the diameter of the earth, forms a new fituation in human affairs. We may as well expect the grape or the pine-apple to ripen in the po-. lar regions, as that a genius, equal to the liberal exercise of fovereign power, fhould fpring from the compting-house. The character of merchant will ever predominate over that of fovereign. Mercantile habits draw them, in a natural and infenfible manner, to prefer the tranfitory profit of the monopolift to the permanent revenue of the prince; and in grafping the prefent, to forget the future. Confidered as fovereigns, their intereft is the fame with that of the country which they govern; confidered as merchants, it is fre quently oppofite. But if the genius of fuch a government carries diforders in its effence, that of its adminiftration is ftill more faulty. Power Power is vefted in a council of merchants, a profeffion which, however refpectable, in no country of the world carries along with it the authority which commands the veneration, and fecures the obedience, of the people. Such a council can only imprefs awe by the military force with which it is accompanied; and hence the government neceffarily becomes military and defpotic. From the nature of their fituation, too, the fervants of the Company may be difpofed to fupport their own intereft, both against that of their mafters, and the country which they govern. The real interefts of the mafters, if their minds were fufficiently enlarged to understand it, is the fame with that of the country; but it is not fo with the Company's fervants in India. Motives to rapacity muft frequently arife in that fingular form of government, in which every member of adminiftration wishes to realize a fortune, and to retire, and to whofe intereft, afterwards, it is perfectly indifferent though the whole country were overrun by Tippoo Sultan, or fwallowed up by an earthquake. It is a remarkable circumftance, and redounds highly to the praife of Mr. Haftings, that, while moft perfons in high office in India have been ac cufed of the vices which arofe from the fyftem of government, viz. perfonal rapacity, the auri facra fames, the defire of erecting perfonal emolument on the ruins of that of the Company; these have never been imputed to the governor; and, after all the charges that have been made against him, perhaps the decifion of an impartial public will be, that, though he may have been led into errors, which no perfon: in his fituation could have avoided, he has rendered fervices to his country which no other individual of the could have performed. To CORRESPONDENTS. S. S's favour is not finished enough for publication. age + A. B's ftrictures are pointed and fevere. We are not, however, difpleafed with them; but beg to affure this correfpondent that he is miftaken in afcribing to fear the omiffion he complains of, which is indeed purely owing to accident. Of this we shall endeavour to give A. B. foon ftronger proofs than promifes; as we have an ambition to pleafe readers of his cultivated good fenfe. * *Communications for THE ENGLISH REVIEW are requested to be fent to Mr. MURRAY, No. 32, Fleet-ftreet, London; where Subfcribers for this Monthly Performance are refpectfully defired to give in their Names. THE ENGLISH REVIEW, For MARCH, 1787. ART. I. The History of the Lives of Abeillard and Heliofa: comprifing a Period of Eighty-four Years, from 1079 to 1163. With their genuine Letters, from the Collection of Amboife. By the Rev. Jofeph Berington. 4to. Il. Is. boards. Birmingham printed. Robinfons, London. 1787. THE HE amours and misfortunes of Abelard and Heloife, the most accomplished perfons of the age to which they belonged, have been tranfmitted to pofterity in the page of the hiftorian, and the fong of the poet. The works of Abelard, collected with much care by Francis d'Amboife, and first published in 1616, furnish the materials for all the fubfequent publications on the subject. The Hiftoria Calamitatum, or Memoirs of his own Life, written by Abelard himself, is the genuine repofitory from which the chief circumftances in his hiftory are collected. Andrew du Chefne, under the affected appellation of Quercetanus", wrote explanatory notes to thefe Memoirs, which are fubjoined to Amboife's Collection. Otho Frifingenenfis, Geoffrey, a monk of Clairvaux, Bernard of Citaux, and Peter the Venerable, This affectation of claffical names was common at the revival of letters. Angus Wood, a Scotch author, took the heathen appellation of Eneas Silvius; and George Buchanan, in his History, beftows the name of Sophocardius on Wifhart, one of the apostles, or, as Dr. Johnson expreffes it, one of the ruffians of reformation. ENG, REV. Vol. IX. March 1787. L abbot abbot of Cluni, are the cotemporary authors who principally mention the life or tranfactions of Abelard. Bayle, in his Hiftorical and Critical Dictionary, has related at large the ftory of these unfortunate lovers; but his loofe and prurient imagination faw only the grofs threads in the texture of their loves; and he has interweaved fo many anecdotes of ancient and modern obfcenity, as to difguft modefty, and offend taste. Dom. Gervaife, an abbot of La Trappe, has gone into the other extreme; and, in his Lives of Abelard and Heloife, published in 1720, has delineated them as perfect models of fanctity and virtue. Selecting from thefe materials, the ingenious and enlightened author before us has ftruck the happy medium between panegyric and fatire; drawn a juft portrait of these celebrated lovers and conventuals; and blended their adventures with the tranfactions of the times. The Memoirs of Petrarch, written by De Sade, feem to have fuggefted the model of this publication. The hero and heroine of the Hiftory are no lefs illuftrious than Petrarch and Laura; and the collateral affiftance of the principal perfonages who flourished, and the great events that took place, during the long period of eighty-four years, which meafured the lives of Abelard and Heloife, give it an equal title, with the forementioned work, to the curiofity and attention of the public. After having related the early particulars in the life of Abelard, and the wonderful fuccefs that attended his first appearances, our author gives an account of the ftudies of the age, when the ingenuity of men was exerted and bewildered in the fophifms of perverted logic, and the mazes of abfurd metaphyfics, He then fteps into general hiftory, and relates the public tranfactions of the times. His account of the bold and extravagant, but fyftematic, ambition of Gregory the Seventh, who wished to subject all the nations of Chriftendom to the triple crown, is too favourable to that proud-fpirited pontiff; but his relation of the first crufade contains jutt and political views of hiftory. • After Conftantine, in the fourth century, had given celebrity to the Chriftian religion, and by his care, and that of his mother Helen, Palestine in particular, the native land of our Saviour, had been décorated with many monuments of their piety, and the holy places at Jerufalem had been brought out to more public infpećtion, a certain inftinctive veneration for that diftant and venerable fpot feized on the minds of men. The foil, on which Jefus Chrift had ftood, they deemed bleffed; and, what feems more extraordinary, fays a writer who does not always reason jußlly, even the inftruments which had been been used in the fhedding of his blood. What man, continues he, left to the free impulfe of humanity, would imprint his kiffes on the axe that had let out the life of his dearest friend? The new impreffion was however made; and, in many, it was founded on ideas of the fincereft piety. It may be called new, because it seems to have had no place in the minds of thofe Chriftians who were contemporary to the period when the great tragedy was performed. • Conftantine, às his hiftorians relate, had feen a miraculous appa'rition of the crofs; and under that fign he had conquered. From that time the cross was no longer a mark of infamy; it waved on the banners of his army; and the Roman eagle was taught to stoop before it. Out of compliment to the mafter of the world, had no pious impulfe helped the bias, it was natural that respect should be fhewn to this favoured fign. Pilgrimages to the holy land foon became frequent, and foon they were fashionable. Even after the deftruction of the western empire, the journey was attended with no peculiar difficulties, because the new kingdoms which arofe continued to profefs the Chriftian faith. But in the feventh century the great change took place; when the difciples of Mahomet, a people divided from us by religion, by language, and by manners, rofe, like a dark cloud, in the East, and spread themselves over the furface of many kingdoms. Still were the pilgrims permitted to refort to Jerufalem: the pious travellers came not empty handed; it was befides a fpecies of devotion of which the infidels were themfelves rather fond; and curiofity would be pleased at the fight of fuch a mot ley concourse of strangers from every corner of Europe. Mecca, on its brightest days, could hardly boaft of a fairer fpectacle. Thus, for many years, continued this wonderous practice; when the Saracens, masters of the land, no longer pleased with the idle fcene, or irritated by the misconduct of the pilgrims, or apprehensive, not without reason, that enthusiasm might at laft prompt them to meditate defigns against the ftate, began to fhew them fewer marks of kindnefs, and even oppreffed thofe of the Chriftian name who were fettled amongst them. Of this oppreffion, and of their own ill-treatment, they told a piteous and exaggerated tale on their return to Europe; and dreadful indeed, they faid, it was that the holy places fhould be poffeffed by the declared foes to the religion of Chrift! To attempt their rescue, however, was an act of folemn chivalry which only the lapfe of ages could bring to maturity. • The Grecian emperors, indeed, were ever at war with the Ottoman powers; but it was to defend their own frontiers, which the enemy daily invaded with fuccefs. The blood ran back upon the heart, and the proud towers of Conftantinople trembled for their own fecurity. It was no time to think of foreign conquefts. The Goths, the Lombards, the Francs, and other nations, which now rofe into power in the Weft, were embroiled in domestic quarrels, or occupied with schemes of felfprefervation. Even from the infidels themfelves they had reafon to fear the most ruinous incurfions; already they were in poffeffion of the moft fertile provinces of Spain; and the fate of Spain feemed to hover over the other states of Europe. Common policy fhould have told them that the best fecurity against the inroads of an enemy is, to carry war |