as in autumn. Flax was cultivated in ancient times, and its cultivation has lately been revived with much fuccefs.

With refpect to manures, we have already stated, that limeftone abounds in various places, and peat well adapted for burning it. Shell-marl is found, in the greatest abundance, in many of the fwamps and lakes; and though not mentioned by our author, fhell-fand, not inferior to lime, occurs in various places. The people, however, are prejudiced against the ufe of this fand, because it is often blown by the wind, and destroys land by its excess. Though not mentioned either by our author, or Mr Jamiefon, claymarl, often of excellent quality, occurs in various places. This, or fwampy earth, fhould be fubftituted in place of the furface-turf, for making compofts; and the most rigorous penalties impofed upon those who pare and demolish the furface of the waite land. Their putrefcent manures are fea-weeds and the dung of cattle.

Our author (p. 367.) expresses a hope that the Crown will concur in adopting the proper arrangements for improving the agriculture of this country. Unfortunately, the Crown lands here, as in other places, are occupied in fuch a way, as not only to render their own improvement impracticable, but alfo to prevent the improvement of other lands with which they are intermix, ed, or to which they are contiguous. The occupants fay they have no power to alter either their mode of occupancy, or of cul

ture.

The only manufactures of any consequence here, are thofe of linen and kelp.

Our author (p. 370.) informs us, that in 1799, about fifty thousand yards of linen were ftamped; and, befides the yarn that was bartered, no fewer than fifty thousand spindles were fold, and as much fent to the thread manufactory."

The kelp manufacture employs more than three thousand people, during two months in fummer. Three thousand tons is the average quantity manufactured, which varies in price from nine to ten pounds, and fometimes brings nearly 30,000l. Sterling in one feafon. This manufacture commenced about feventy years ago; and our author calculates that, during that period, it has brought into the islands about 595,000l. Sterling,

We doubt not but other valuable products, befides alkaline falt, may be extracted from fea-weeds. Some gentlemen have introduced Colonel Fullarton's mode of burning the plants in clofe kilns, which is a great improvement. We conceive it would be ftill better to have thefe kilns conftructed on flat-bottomed boats, paved with bricks or flags to prevent fire, which might

こ

might be moved round fucceffively to the feveral creeks and bays where the weeds abound. This would convert kelp-burning into a diftinct profeflion, to be followed all days of the year; instead of being carried on, as at prefent, by people removed - from agriculture at the most important feafon of the year.

The principal exports from thefe iflands are beef, pork, butter, tallow, hides, calf-fkins, rabbit-fkins, falt, fifh, oil, feathers, linen yarn, and coarfe linen cloth, kelp, and, in years of fertility, corn, meal, and malt, in no fmall quantity. The imports are wood, iron, flax, coal, fugar, fpirits, wines, fnuff and tobacco, flour and bifcuit, foap, leather, hardware, broad-cloth, and printed linens and cottons.' The value of exports exceeds that of imports in various proportions, from one to above five thousand pounds per annum.

The fitheries are in a very languishing ftate, though they feem calculated to prove a very great fource of induftry and wealth. About a hundred boats, with ten men in each, are employed in the lobster Ethery. They are fold at 2d. each to veffels which convey them alive to Londen. A good fither will gain ten pounds during the feafon. Herrings fwarm here at particular periods, but few are caught. The cod and ling fishing are equally neglected; though the farmers in Waas, during their intervals of work, have been known to catch and cure more than forty thoufand excellent cod-fith in one fummer. From twentyfive to thirty fmacks refort to this fiting during winter, and carry them alive to the London market.

To improve the fisherics, our author thinks it should be made a feparate profesion, and the fibers collected into villages, in convenient fituations. That decked reffels thould be used in place of small open boats; and that a great magazine of all the materials ufed in fihing thould be estabibed in these islands. He also thinks this would prore a moft convenient ftation for the whale and feal fishery, and for converting the bubber into oil. Already these islands furnith a considerable number of excellent hands to the Hudson's Bay company, to the Greenland fikery, to the merchant service, and the Royal navy. Our author thinks that were the land and the fineries but tolerably improved, they might, on any emergency, furnith from feven to eight thousand brave and expert seamen to the Royal navy.

On the whole, we have perused this werk with much intereft and much approbation; and we think the reverend author envitied to much credit for the industry, be has played in elucidating the date of a province, which, though remote and obKare, feems well calculated to promote the aggrandizement of

the

the British navy, and the general profperity of the empire. Though we have ventured to differ from him in a few speculative points, his practical conclufions meet our entire acquiefcence. We cannot fay much for the arrangement of the work, or the elegance of its compofition; although the style is, upon the whole, perfpicuous, and without affectation. The work is adorned by a good map of the islands, and views of the most interefting objects, which, fo far as we were enabled to judge, are not only elegant, but correct.

ART. VIII. Memoirs of Richard Cumberland: Written by himSelf. Containing an Account of his Life and Writings, interfperfed with Anecdotes and Characters of feveral of the most diftinguished Perfons of his Time, with whom he had Intercourfe or Connexion. 4to. pp. 533. London, 1806.

WE

E certainly have no wifh for the death of Mr Cumberland; on the contrary, we hope he will live long enough to make a large fupplement to these memoirs: but he has embarrassed us a little by publishing this volume in his lifetime. We are extremely unwilling to fay any thing that may hurt the feelings of a man of distinguished talents, who is drawing to the end of his career, and imagines that he has hitherto been ill used by the world: but he has fhewn, in this publication, fuch an appetite for praise, and fuch a jealousy of cenfure, that we are afraid we cannot do our duty confcientiously, without giving him offence. The truth is, that the book has rather disappointed us. We expected it to be extremely amusing; and it is not. There is too much of the first part of the title in it, and too little of the laft. Of the life and writings of Richard Cumberland, we hear more than enough; but of the diftinguished perfons with whom he lived, we have many fewer characters and anecdotes than we could have wished. We are the more inclined to regret this, both because the general ftyle of Mr Cumberland's compofitions has convinced us, that no one could have exhibited characters and anecdotes in a more engaging manner, and because, from what he has put into this book, we actually fee that he had excellent opportunities for collecting, and ftill better talents for relating them. The anecdotes and characters which we have, are given in a very pleafing and animated manner, and form the chief merit of the publication; but they do not occupy one tenth part of it; and the reft is filled with details that do not often intereft, and obfervations that do not always amufe. Authors,

Authors, we think, fhould not be encouraged to write their own lives. The genius of Rouffeau, his enthufiafm, and the novelty of his plan, have rendered the Confeffions, in fome refpects, the most interesting of books. But a writer, who is in full poffeffion of his fenfes, who has lived in the world like the men and women who compose it, and whofe vanity aims only at the praise of great talents and accomplishments, must not hope to write a book like the Confeffions; and is fcarcely to be trufted with the delineation of his own character, or the narrative of his own adventures. We have no objection, however, to let authors tell their own story, as an apology for telling that of all their acquaintances; and can eafily forgive them for grouping and afforting their anecdotes of their contemporaries, according to the chronology and incidents of their own lives. This is but indulging the painter of a great gallery of worthies with a pannel for his own portrait; and though it will probably be the least like of the whole collection, it would be hard to grudge him this little gratification..

Life has often been compared to a journey; and the fimile feems to hold better in nothing than in the identity of the rules by which those who write their travels, and those who write their lives, fhould be governed. When a man returns from vifiting any celebrated region, we expect to hear much more of the things and perfons he has feen, than of his own perfonal tranfactions; and are naturally disappointed if, after faying that he lived much with illuftrious ftatefmen or heroes, he choofes rather to tell us of his own travelling equipage, or of his cookery and fervants, than to give us any account of the character and converfation of thofe diftinguished perfons. In the fame manner, when, at the clofe of a long life, fpent in circles of literary and political celebrity, an author fits down to give the world an account of his retrofpections, it is reasonable to ftipulate that he fhall talk lefs of himself than of his affociates, and natural to complain, if he tells long ftories of his schoolmasters and grandmothers, while he paffes over fome of the moft illuftrious of his companions, with a bare mention of their names.

Mr Cumberland has offended a little in this way. He has alfo compofed these memoirs, we think, in too diffuse, rambling, and careless a style. There is evidently no felection or method in his narrative; and unweighed remarks, and fatiguing apologies and proteftations are tedioufly interwoven with it in the genuine ftyle of good-natured but irrepreffible loquacity. The whole compofition, indeed, has not only too much the air of converfation; it has fometimes an unfortunate refemblance to the converfation of a

profeffed

'profeffed talker; and we meet with many paffages in which the author appears to work himself up to an artificial vivacity, and to give a certain air of smartness to his expreffion, by the introduc tion of cant phrafes, odd metaphors, and a fort of practifed and theatrical originality. The work, however, is well worth going over, and contains many more amufing paffages than we can af ford to extract on the prefent occafion.

Mr Cumberland was born in 1732; and he has a very natural pride in relating, that his paternal great grandfather was the learned and most exemplary Bishop Cumberland, author of the treatife De Legibus Natura; and that his maternal grandfather was the celebrated Dr Richard Bentley. Of the laft of thefe diftinguished perfons he has given, from the diftinct recollection of his childhood, a much more amiable and engaging reprefentation than has hitherto been made public. Inftead of the haughty and morofe critic and controverfialift, we learn, with pleasure, that he was as remarkable for mildnefs and kind affections in private life, as for profound erudition and fagacity as an author. Mr Cumberland has collected a number of little anecdotes that feem to be quite conclufive upon this head; but we rather infert the following general teftimony.

may

I had a filter fomewhat older than myfelf. Had there been any of that fternnefs in my grandfather, which is fo falfely imputed to him, it well be fuppofed we fhould have been awed into filence in his prefence, to which we were admitted every day. Nothing can be further from the truth; he was the unwearied patron and promoter of all our childish sports and fallies; at all times ready to detach himself from any topic of converfation to take an interest and bear his part in our amuse ments. The eager curiofity natural to our age, and the questions it gave birth to, fo teazing to many parents, he, on the contrary, attended to and encouraged, as the claims of infant reafon never to be evaded or abused; ftrongly recommending, that to all fuch inquiries anfwer fhould be given according to the stricteft truth, and information dealt to us in the cleareft terms, as a facred duty never to be departed from. I have broken in upon him many a time in his hours of study, when he would put his book afide, ring his hand-bell for his fervant, and be led to his shelves to take down a picture-book for my amufement. I do not say that his good-nature always gained its object, as the pictures which his books generally fupplied me with were anatomical drawings of diffected bodies, very little calculated to communicate delight; but he had nothing better to produce; and furely fuch an effort on his part, however unfuccefsful, was no feature of a cynic: a cynic should be made of ferner Auff..

Once, and only once, I recollect his giving me a gentle rebuke for making a moft outrageous noife in the room over his library, and diurbing him in his ftudies; I had no apprehenfion of anger from him,

and