had formed of humanity, piety, and truth, is obscured and confounded.' Art. 28. Provision for the Poor, by the Union of Hoses of Industry with Country Parishes: a Letter, addressed to a Member of Parliament. By Rowland Hunt, Esq. a Magistrate of the County of Salop. 8vo. PP. 37. Is. Stockdale. JS. The creditable work of a respectable magistrate. One of his reflections appears to deserve particular attention. I have seen the names of many opulent and honorable men to petition against Mr. Pitt's Bill, but is there the mark of one single pauper? Here we may relax on the contemplation of the painter and the lion.' Mr. Hunt would by no means join the general outcry against Mr. Pitt's Bill. He is a good friend to Houses of Industry; he points out the defects in the management of the Poor, which call for amendment, and the means for remedying them: he particularly mentions the Shrewsbury-house, and very justly, as we really believe, commends that institution as an example worthy of the imitation of others. Art. 29. Alternatives compared: or, What shall the Rich do to be safe? By Thomas Beddoes, M. D. 8vo. Is. 6d. Debrett. 1797. The political principles of Dr. B. are well known. He still continues extremely hostile to the present ministry; whose conduct he severely arraigns, and condemns, from the commencement of the war to the time when this publication issued from the press, viz. in May 1797. He seems persuaded that the ruin of France was intended by this ill-star'd measure, instead of which that of Great Britain has been effected-Hear how he laments over the present situation of the latter: : The public condition is, in most cases, a sufficient test of the ability of those who have long managed the public concerns. Compare Great Britain as it is, with Great Britain as it was, requires no labour of research. The distinguishing circumstances are obvious to sight and they are within a narrow field of vision. We had a commerce such as human industry had never before created; we had unbounded credit; a revenue increasing; a public debt decreasing, and capable (under wiser management) of a rapid reduction; specie was driven in to us from all parts of Europe. The repute of the pa per of the Bank of England was not only untarnished by suspicion, but its notes were often preferred to cash. We had attained that prosperity which, to politicians by profession, is the supreme good and which the political philosopher may regret, when it is redeemed by no diffused and popular blessings. In a rapid decline of five years, our great staple manufactories have been reduced almost to suspen sion; the merchant is saddened by the blank prospect of full and undisturbed warehouses; the new orders are insufficient for that half. starved remnant of workmen, whom unwholesome climates and the sword have not yet destroyed. The languid movement of commerce is principally forced by the pernicious stimulus of war; specie is disappearing credit expiring; the circulating capital dwindling; the fixed capital threatened with dilapidation; the apprehension of that H 3 last of all evils to a commercial people, a forced paper currency, gaining ground; the prolongation of the war next to impossible; peace difficult to obtain; and, at this critical moment, our nearest and most remote dependencies are in a state of progressive discontent, threatening civil disturbances. The wish for an asylum has crossed the mind of many a father, anxious for his family; and corps of volunteers are forming at home, avowedly, among other purposes, to protect property and persons against plunder and outrage. That precious inheritance which every Englishman derived from the exalted ⚫reputation of his country, is irretrievably gone. We shall rank no Nice observers of the emotions must often have noticed in the first indeliberate animation of the most loyal emigrant, on the report of republican successes, a sure indication of their effect on national characters. Henceforward, whenever they meet in a country foreign to both, the Frenchman, instead of giving way as formerly, will think himself entitled to elbow our countryman. • We have here no short catalogue of calamities; and they come too near to those, in whose description, when they afflicted France, the minister and his favourers loved to riot. Added to this, we have an adversary lynx-eyed to discern, and swift to seize her advantages: an adversary that has just converted her forced paper into specie, her enemies into allies, her anarchy into order. We have a ministry with whom nothing has been more familiar than declarations of satisfaction, all the time the affairs of the two countries have been in full straight forward speed to the points they have respectively attained.' What is the author's deduction from this melancholy statement? It is as follows: necessary These gross facts will satisfy every sincere inquirer. It is scarce he should be told how often the conductors of our affairs have rejected the invitations of opportunity to maintain or to restore What happened fifteen years ago must immediately happen again. The people will become universally persuaded, that the present men are not the men either for a peace system or a war system. To this persuasion will succeed just astonishment, how individuals, possessing certain talents with means of information, could conceive the ideas on which the authors of this train of misfortunes have proceeded; and how millions of rational beings could tamely behold their dearest interests entrusted to persons capable of such wild conceptions, and enterprizes so insane.' For the question, What shall the Rich (in such circumstances,) do to be safe? we refer to the Doctor's well-written performance at large. RELIGIOUS and POLEMICAL. Art. 30. An Address to both Houses of Parliament, respecting the present State of Public Affairs: In which the true Cause of our National Distresses is pointed out, and proper Means for the Removal of them are recommended; with a particular Address to the Bench of Bishops. 8vo. Is. 6d. R. Edwards. 1797. Goodness Goodness of heart and genuine patriotism appear to have dictated this pious representation of the present state of a world to which the worthy author scarcely seems, from his manner of writing about it, to belong; indeed, according to his estimate of its character, it is not probable that he has very much mingled with its sinful inhabitants. He considers the prevailing depravities of the age (respecting especially this our wicked nation) as the true cause of our public distresses, and of our gloomy prospect of worse to come.-In his detail of our enormous vices and crimes, on account of which, he concludes, we have every reason to dread the vengeance of offended Heaven, he points out the torrent of atheism and infidelity which deluges the nation,' and produces a general corruption of our morals. Among the instances of our national immorality, he enumerates, 1. the cursed vice of gaming; 2. our lewdness and debauchery,' in which he apprehends we rival the excesses of CHARLES THE SECOND'S days; 3. the blood-thirsty crime and brutal passion of duelling;' 4. the spirit of luxury and dissipation, now grown to an alarming height; while nothing, he adds, can be more unfashionable, at polite tables, than to acknowlege the DIVINE HAND that spreads them with dainties,' &c. &c. &c. 6 1 In the black catalogue of our immoralities, however, we must own that we did not expect to meet with so fearful a display of the sin of beresy! The great prevalence of Aranism' [so it is here spelled] in this land, and especially in the established church,' is, in the pious and orthodox writer's apprehension, so truly alarming,' that he calls loudly for the interposition of their lordships the bishops to put a stop to it.' The clergy, in general, he tells us, < are tinctured with this leaven;' and some of them are grown so bold as openly to avow the pernicious tenet; which indicates the arrival of those "perilous times" foretold in the Scriptures, when " men should bring in damnable heresies," &c.-If it be asked in what manner the author wishes the dignitaries of our church to come forwards and exert themselves on this alarming occasion, we must refer the inquiring reader to the pamphlet; only remarking here, to prevent any misconception of the author's zeal for orthodoxy, that, although he would have the civil magistrate' to co-operate with the clergy in the great work of reformation, it does not that he would proappear ceed to re-kindle the fires of Smithfield and Birmingham; nor that he would, on any account, have recourse to such violent methods of convincing men of their errors. On the contrary, we are glad to find that, among other good Christian-like proceedings, he decidedly prefers, as a public step towards reformation, the milder and humbler means of fasting and prayer*, in order to appease the wrath of Heaven; which is already gone forth, and will continue and increase, unless we return unto Him from whom we have deeply revolted.' We have probably said enough to induce well-disposed people to peruse this well-intended pamphlet; though here we may, perhaps, He recommends appointed days of public fasting and prayer, as the best step to begin the work of reformation; and if repeated every six months during the present war,' he says, I apprehend it would facilitate it greatly.' be reminded that " They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."-Happy, indeed, would it be, if a discovery could be made of the art of inducing bad people to read good books! Art. 31. An Attempt to account for the Infidelity of the late Edward Gibbon, Esq. founded on his own Memoirs, published by John Lord Sheffield; with Reflections on the best Means of checking the present alarming Progress of Scepticism and Irreligion: including an Account of the Conversion and Death of the Right Hon. George Lord Lyttelton. By John Evans, A. M. 8vo. pp. 76. Is. 6d. Longman. 1797 It is asserted in Mr. Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion, that "to be a philosophic sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound and believing Christian." If scepticism, in this curious passage, be synonimous with a disposition to fair and patient inquiry, the position will be admitted by all the rational friends of revelation: but, if by a sceptic we understand person who resists evidence, and seems more desirous of wavering from doubt to doubt than of settling the mind into a state of calm conviction, the assertion deviates far from truth, and has rarely, if ever, been confirmed by fact. Mr. Gibbon was a sceptical man of letters: but he was so far from becoming a sound believing Christian, that his infidelity, as he advanced in life, seems to have grown more and more inveterate. The author of the present pamphlet endeavours to account for this fact by an examination of Mr. Gibbon's own memoirs; and it must be confessed that, as the circumstances and concatenations of events, in every man's life, contribute to the formation of his sentiments as well as of his manners, Mr. Evans had some reason for supposing that in Mr. Gibbon's account of himself he could discover the causes which excited and fostered his unbelief. These he conjectures to have been, the neglect of his religious education,-the disgust which he received from the corruptions of Christianity, and the love of EMINENCE by which his mind was heated and inflamed. It is probable that these causes alone may not be thought sufficient to account completely for the effect; yet, with other circumstances, they may have contributed to produce it. Presuming on the strength of his facts, Mr. Evans proceeds, in the sermonic way, to subjoin a few reflections on the best means of checking the progress of scepticism and irreligion. Here he recommends religious education--the cleansing of religion from its corruptions-the preservation of the mind from an undue attachment to the world, and an attcution to the real design of Christianity. In proof that the evidences of Christianity are capable of operating a complete conviction in the mind of the serious inquirer, notwithstanding some previous leaning towards infidelity, he adduces the instance of Lord Lyttelton; and while unbelievers boast of the manner in which Hume and Gibbon met death, he is happy in contrasting with it the closing scene of this nobleman's life, cheared by the brightest, beams of faith and hope. Mr. Mr. Evans writes with a considerable degree of animation, and trusts that this his performance will be of some service to young persons into whose hands Mr. Gibbon's history may happen to fall. POETRY and DRAMATIC. Art. 32. Hope: an Allegorical Sketch, on recovering slowly from Sicknefs. By the Rev. W. L. Bowles, A. M. 4to. pp. 18. 254 Dilly, &c. 1796. We never peruse without pleasure the poetical productions of Mr. Bowles. He possesses many of the requisites of a true poet; pathos, distinct imagery, elegant diction, and melody in his versification. The reader will here find the inimitable ode of Collins on the Passions recalled to his mind in a pleasing manner, and will not be more sur prised at the hardihood of Mr. Bowles, who dared to enter the circle of that proud magician, than delighted by the skill and success with which in this sketch he has employed the powers of his master's wand. The author represents himself in a state of convalescence, walking near the banks of the Southampton river on a May morning. Amid a scenery which is rendered enchanting by its natural beauties, and by the genial breezes of the season, the poet indulges his reveries, and perceives the form of HOPE, thus classically pourtrayed: And lo! a form as of some fairy sprite, That held in her right hand a budding spray, I am HOPE, whom weary hearts confess, The soothest sprite that sings on life's long wilderness.' The allegorical personages, which are drawn towards HOPE by the melody of her song, are youth, fancy, beauty, enterprise, ambition, captivity, melancholy, mania, remorse, and experience. The last human person of the vision (Experience) is introduced as dissolving the spell of Hope raised on mortal foundations; and the poet, in a higher strain, then directs us to the joys of IMMORTAL HOPE. The twentieth stanza, representing Captivity, appeared to us the most new and striking picture; and as such we lay it before our readers. We would wish to persuade Mr. Bowles that his talents, with some diligence, would entitle him to the praise not only of happy imitation, but of original genius. ♦ But see, as one awak'd from deadly trance, Dripping and knotted was her coal-black hair: Save Terror's dismal shape, that no word spoke, With lean and hideous finger pointed evermore.' |