The doctor's father and mother died when he was young, and through the imprudence of his tutor he loft the patrimony left him by his father; however, his wants were generously fur plied by Dr. Clark, a diffenting minifter of St. Alban's. According to our author, when no more than fourteen years of age, he gave very pregnant indications of his genius, industry, charity, and piety; and even at that time he intended to enter into the ministry. In the year 1718, (when he could be no more than sixteen years of age) the dutchess of Bedford generoufly offered to be at the expence of his education for the miniftry of the church of England at either of the universities, and to provide for him in the church, if she should live till he had taken orders.Young Doddridge declined the offer, because he could not then fatisfy his confcience to comply with the terms of minifterial conformity.—This is a circumftance which we think Mr. Orton ought to have fuppreffed, as it intimates that the young gentleman's education was not unclouded by paffion or prejudice. We can fee no reason for his refusing the difinterested munificence of his noble patronefs. Could a university education have done him any differvite, or did it imply any obligation upon him to a minifterial conformity when he grew up?

The doctor, it feems, narrowly escaped being a lawyer. To ufe our author's words, "he devoted one morning folemnly to feek to God for direction; and while he was actually engaged in this fuitable exercife, the post-man called at the door with a letter from Dr. Clark, in which he told him, that he had heard of his difficulties, and offered to take him under his care, if he chose the ministry on Christian principles,"We cannot help thinking that anecdotes of this kind difgrace a work intended to honour the memory of a perfon of learning and piety.— The doctor purfued the ftudy of divinity, and Mr. Orton tells us, that while he was yet a pupil at an academy, he left under his hand a folemn form of covenant with God.- We fhall make no reflections upon this and many other expreflions that are strongly tinctured with methodifin; and we wish our biographer had been lefs fparing in the ufe he has made of the doctor's private papers. Whatever benefits enthufiafin may find in fuch publications, a rational Chriftian never can be edified by fuch effufions as we meet with in thefe memoirs.

In October 1725, Dr. Doddridge removed his abode to Market-Harborough, where he preached to a diffenting congregation; and in 1729 was chosen affistant to Mr. Some, the diffenting minifter there. The particulars of his private life, and his own, or our author's reflections upon them, are of so little confequence to the public, that we fhall omit them. It is fuf

ficient

ficient to fay, that he entered upon the office of a tutor, and that he fettled at Northampton, where he difcharged the duties of his ministry. Mr. Orton then proceeds to give an account of the doctor's genius, learning, and writings, which he confiders only as fecondary, though we cannot help looking upon them as primary, circumftances. Our reader will scarcely doubt that his biographer has reprefented the doctor as poffeffed of all the virtues and accomplishments under heaven; but we select the following as one of the most agreeable and fober paffages in this performance:

In the younger part of life he took pains to cultivate a tafte for polite literature, which produced a remarkable ease and elegance in his letters; and the marks of it appear in all his writings. And confidering the natural warmth of his imagination, which must have rendered these kind of ftudies peculiarly pleafing to him, it was a great inftance of his refolution and felf-denial, that he did not fuffer them to ingrofs a difproportionate share of his time and attention, but made them fubfervient to the more ferious and important ends he had in view. With regard to the learned languages, though he could not be called a profound linguift, he was fufficiently acquainted with them to read the most valuable pieces of antiquity with taste and pleasure, and to enter into the fpirit of the facred writings. Of this, the world has had a proof in his Paraphrafe and Notes on the New Teftament, in which he has often illuftrated the force and beau y of the original with great judgment and in the true fpirit of criticisin. He had also nearly completed a new translation of the minor prophets, in which he has Thewn his critical knowledge of the Hebrew language. Though he seemed formed by Nature for cultivating the more polite, rather than the abftrufer parts of science, yet he was no ftranger to mathematical and philofophical ftudies. He thought it inconsistent with his principal business to devote any confiderable part of his time to them; yet it appeared from fome effays, which he drew up for the ufe of his pupils, that he could easily have pursued these researches to a much greater length.He was well acquainted with ancient hiftory, both civil and ecclefiaftical; but he did not content himself with ftoring up a number of facts in his memory, but made fuch obfervations and reflections upon them, as tended either to increafe his acquaintance with human nature, to exemplify the interpofitions of Providence, or to explain and illuftrate the facred History.'

Doctor Doddridge, it feems, was a writer in the Critical Review of thofe times, which went under the title of The Prefent State of the Republic of Letters. His firft profeffed publ caVOL. XXI. February, 1766.

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tion was entitled, Free Thoughts on the most probable Means of re-. viving the diffenting Intereft, occafioned by the late Enquiry into the· Caufes of its Decay; addreffed to the Author of that Enquiry, 1730. He was engaged in a controversy with the author of a treatise entitled, Christianity not founded on Argument, to whom he wrote three Letters, which were well received by the public. In 1747, he published, Some remarkable Passages in the Life of Colonel James Gardiner, who was flain by the Rebels at the Battle of PrestonPans, Sept. 21, 1745. It appears that this piece was attacked by a writer at Edinburgh, who charged the author with want of candour and integrity. But this controverfy is foreign to our purpose.The firft practical piece he published was, Sermons on the Education of Children, in 1732. Three years after he publifted Sermons to young People; and his Principles of the Chriftian Religion, in verfe, for the ufe of children and youth; appeared in 1743. Mr. Orton, after this, goes back to the year 1736, when the Doctor published Ten Sermons on the Power and Grace of Chrift, and the Evidence of his glorious Gospel. In 1741 his Practical Difcourfes on Regeneration made their appearance, as did, in 1745, The Rife and Progrefs of Religion in the Soul. Befides thofe, he published several sermons; but his capital work was, The Family Expofitor, containing a Verfion and Paraphrafe of the New Teftament, with critical Notes, and a practical Improvement of each Section, in fix volumes, quarto.

• Since the author's death a volume of his Hymns hath been published, and his Theological Lectures. He intended, had God fpared his life, to have published a new translation of the Minor Prophets, with a commentary on them; a Sermon to Children, some facramental Meditations, and a Differtation on the Jewish Profelytes, défending that opinion concerning them, which he mentions in fome of his notes upon the Acts of the Apoftles. In this last tract he had made confiderable progrefs, but it is too imperfect to appear in the world.

Befides his works above-mentioned, he published a fhort account of the life of Mr. Thomas Steffe, one of his pupils, prefixed to fome of his fermons, which were printed by the earneft defire of the congregation where he was fettled; and a dédication of an Abridgment of Mr. David Brainerd's Journal of his Miffion among the Indians of New Jersey and Penfylvania, to the Honourable Society for promoting Chriftian Knowledge in the Highlands of Scotland and in Popifh and InfidelParts of the World; by which Society Mr. Brainerd was employed in this work, and of which fociety our author was one of the correfponding members. He also published a small piece of Mr. Some's, concerning Inoculation for the Small-pox,. which

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which was written and published principally with a view to remove the common objection from a religious fcruple.'

In 1748 he revised the Expofitory Works and other remains of archbishop Leighton, and tranflated his Latin Prelections; which were printed together in two volumes at Edinburgh.

Mr. Orton next treats of Dr. Doddridge's private character, in which he is very diffuse, and which he reprefents as one o of the most amiable, pious, punctual, and induftrious, that ever existed, and at the fame time the moft public-fpirited. Our biographer particularly tells us, that the doctor had a favourable opinion of fome of those clergymen of the Church of England, who went under the name of Methodists. Mr. Orton then enters into a laboured apology for the doctor's conduct in that respect; but at the fame time informs us, that he always spoke of the established religion of our country with refpect. In 1750 the doctor went to St. Alban's to preach a funeral fermon for his friend and father, Dr. Samuel Clark, and in that journey contracted a cold, which, it feems, stuck to him as long as he lived. He was perfuaded to try the waters of Bristol, but they had no effect in his favour. He was then advised to go to Lisbon, which he was enabled to do by a contribution not only of his diffenting friends, but of many of the established church. When he was at Lisbon he met with many friendly offices from perfons he had never seen before; but he died the 26th of October, 1751. His epitaph was drawn up by his friend Gilbert Weft, Efq; who informs the public, "that he was twenty-one years pastor of the diffenting church at Northampton, director of a flourishing academy, and author of many excellent writings."

Such are the out-lines of this performance, the incidents of which our readers may poffibly think not fufficiently interesting or important to be known to the public. It is evidently calcu lated to fan thofe fires which enthufiafm and methodism have lighted up, and which rational Diffenters are far from approving.

VI. The Hiftory of Chriftina, Queen of Sweden. From the French of M. Lacombe. 12mo. 3. Kearfly.

Pr.

E learn from the editor, that he has been indebted for the materials of this performance to Mr. Arkenholt.

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"I think it proper, likewife, to inform the public (continues he) that an effential difference will be found between Chriftina's ori ginal letters quoted or referred to in the following sheets, and those fictitious ones of M. Lacombe of Avignon, published in 1759: I entreat

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I entreat the reader to distinguish my work from that editors; there being no conformity betwixt them but the refemblance of names.'

From this paffage it appears, that our author is no more than namefake to Mr. Lacombe of Avignon. With respect to the execution of this work, we acknowledge that we have received no finall pleasure in perufing it, though we were acquainted with almost every fact it contains. The narrative part is executed with great fpirit: the author's reflections are free, juft, and manly; but, notwithstanding all the fofrening ftrokes which he throws into the character of his heroine, we cannot cooly confider her in a better light than that of an illuftrious mad-woman. The moft fhining parts of her history are well known to the public, but the following narrative, which comes from authority, is fo very extraordinary, that we fhall make no apology for prefenting it to our readers..

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On the fifteenth of October 1657 Chriftina (fays our author) arrived at Fontainebleau, with an equipage little more fumptuous than her ordinary one, and a very inconfiderable retinue; her dress likewife was much more neglected than at her first appearance. "I met her (fays Mademoiselle de Montpenfier) in a very fhabby coach, attended by the chevalier Sentinelli, her mafter of the horse, and Monaldeschi, her grand equerry fhe was dreffed in an exceeding dirty yellow petticoat, with a jacket worn quite thread-bare, and a cap. I thought her now ugly as she had appeared pretty to me the first time I faw her." There had been a kind of rivalry and competition betwixt the queen's mafter of the horfe and her grand equérry. Monaldeschi had been guilty of fome treasonable measures towards his mistress, and was the fecret contriver of a plot, the odium of which he wanted to fall on the absent officer. It muft undoubtedly be the chevalier Sentinelli, who was then in Italy; but fome letters falling into Chriftina's hands, occafioned her making fuch ftri&t enquiries as left her no room to doubt of the perfidy of her grand equerry: after acquiring all the proofs neceffary to confirm his guilt, and convist him of his crime, fhe diffembled fome time longer; and feated herfelf, in travelling, oppofite to Monaldeschi, without teftifying any marks of fufpicion or diftruft; feeming rather to correfpond with him in fentiments, and to impute the treafon which had raised her indig'nation to the absent officer. Monaldeschi had once the auda city to fay, "Madam, your majefty has been betrayed, and you know the guilty perfon! The queen asked him, "What punishment he thought that perfon de erved ?" "He deferves inftant death, (anfwered he) and I am ready, if called upon, to be his executioner!" "It is you yourfelf (replied the queen)

who