e number. He was eafily led into topics; it was not easy to turn n from them; but who would with it? If a man wanted to fhew nself off by getting up and riding upon him, he was fure to run refe and kick him off; you might as fafely have backed Bucephalus, fore Alexander had lunged him. Neither did he always like to be er-fondled; when a certain gentleman out-acted his part in this way, is faid to have demanded of him- What provokes your rifibility, r? Have I faid any thing that you understand?-Then I afk pardon the rest of the companyBut this is Henderfon's anecdote of m, and I won't fwear he did not make it himself. ' p. 263-264.

I have heard Dr Johnson relate with infinite humour the circumance of his rescuing Goldfmith from a ridiculous dilemma, by the purafe-money of his Vicar of Wakefield, which he fold on his behalf to Dodfley, and, as I think, for the fum of ten pounds only. He had in up a debt with his landlady, for board and lodging, of some few ounds, and was at his wit's-end how to wipe off the fcore, and keep a of over his head, except by clofing with a very ftaggering propofal on er part, and taking his creditor to wife, whofe charms were very far om alluring, whilft her demands were extremely urgent. In this crifis f his fate he was found by Johnfon, in the act of meditating on the nelancholy alternative before him. He fhewed Johnson his manucript of the Vicar of Wakefield, but feemed to be without any plan, r even hope, of raifing money upon the difpofal of it; when Johnfon aft his eye upon it, he difcovered fomething that gave him hope, and mmediately took it to Dodfley, who paid down the price above mentioned in ready money, and added an eventual condition upon its future ale. Johnfon defcribed the precautions he took in concealing the amount of the fum he had in hand, which he prudently administered to him by a guinea at a time. In the event he paid off the landlady's fcore, and redeemed the person of his friend from her embraces. P. 273.

These are almost all the literary characters of whom Mr. Cumberland has made any particular mention; and though we are little more than half through the volume, we believe we are not very far from the conclufion of our extracts. The remainder of it is occupied, chiefly, with the personal transactions and family arrangements of the author, in which, it is not reasonable to fuppofe that the public fhould take any great intereft. His father was tranflated to the fee of Kilmore, and died foon after. Our author himself wrote a variety of plays, and fome odes and other poems, which had refpectively their merited fuccefs, and was appointed Secretary to the Colonial Department, through the friendly intereft of Lord George Germain, then at the head of that Board. He was ever afterwards the zealous friend and defender of his patron; and spent much of his time in his fociety. The following anecdote itruck us as curious and important.

It happened to me to be prefent, and fitting next to Admiral Rodney at table, when the thought feemed firft to occur to him of breaking the French line, by paffing through it in the heat of the action. It was at Lord George Germain's houfe at Stoneland, after diuner, when, having afked a number of queftions about the manoeuvring of columns, and the effect of charging with them on a line of infantry, he proceeded to arrange a parcel of cherry-ftones, which he had collected from the table, and forming them as two fleets drawn up in line, and opposed to each other, he at once arrested our attention, which had not been very generally engaged by his preparatory inquiries, by declaring he was determined fo to pierce the enemy's line of battle, (arranging his manœuvre at the fame time on the table) if ever it was his fortune to bring them into action. p. 298.

This statement, at firft fight, appears to be inconsistent with the claim of our ingenious countryman Mr Clerk of Eldin to the brilliant and important difcovery to which it alludes; and to say the truth, we cannot help entertaining fome doubts of Mr Cumberland's accuracy in the detail of a conversation which took place five and twenty years before he committed it to writing; but upon attending to the circumftances of the cafe, it does not appear to us that the anecdote, even if recorded with perfect correctness, affords the flightest ground for calling in queftion the originality or importance of Mr Clerk's admitted difcovery. Even if Admiral Rodney had really conceived this brilliant idea at the very moment commemorated by Mr Cumberland, it is apparent that Mr Clerk had been beforehand with him in the conception; and we thould only have the extraordinary, though not unprecedented, cafe of the fame difcovery having been made fucceffively by two feparate individuals. The converfation recorded by Mr Cumberland appears to have taken place recently before the Admiral's departure for the West Indies in January 1780; but Mr Clerk had brought his plan to maturity, and communicated the particulars of it to feveral perfons, immediately after Keppel's action off Uthant, nearly two years before, and while Admiral Rodney was refident abroad. But this is not all. Mr Clerk has himself ftated, in his preface, that having gone to London in the end of the year 1779, he had a meeting, by appointment, with Mr R. Atkinfon, Admiral Rodney's particular friend, and another with Sir Charles Douglas his Captain, at which he detailed, and fully explained to theie gentlemen, every part of his fyltem, for the expreis purpote of having it communicated to the Admiral before his departure with the fleet which he had been appointed to command. Mr Clerk adds, that he understood that fuch a communication was accordingly made, and that he has it from the beit authority, that the Adiniral expreiled his zealous approbation of she fcheme before he left London, and, after his return, made no

fcruple

fcruple to acknowledge that it was Mr Clerk who had fuggefted the manœuvres by which he had obtained the victory of the April 1782. Thefe facts, we have no doubt, may ftill be established; and it is pleafing to obferve, that they rather ferve to explain, than to contradict, the particulars related by Mr Cumberland. It is not very likely that a scheme of fuch magnitude should fuggeft itself, for the first time, in the gaiety of a conversation at table; but if it had been recently communicated to the noble Admiral, it is abundantly natural that the accidental mention of breaking lines of infantry in land battles, fhould lead him to fpeak of it; and if he did not happen to mention with whom the fuggeftion had originated, it was equally natural for Mr Cumberland to fuppofe that it had that moment prefented itself.

Soon after this, Mr Cumberland was induced to undertake a private miffion to the Court of Spain, of which he has introduced á very long and languishing account; and for the trouble and expences of which, he complains very vehemently that he has received no compenfation on the part of the British Government. Our tribunal is not competent to the determination of fuch causes. Nor would any tribunal, we fuppofe, think it expedient to hazard an opinion upon the statement of one of the parties. There are fome little pieces of good defcription interspersed in the dull diplomacy of the hundred quarto pages to which the Spanish biography is extended; and a curious account of a wonderful gypfeg actress at Madrid, which we regret not being able to extract.

Upon his return, Mr Cumberland had foon to witness the demolition of the Board of Trade, in confequence of Mr Burke's Reform Bill; and was deprived of his fecretaryship, on a compenfation fcarcely amounting to a moiety of what was taken away. Upon this diminished income he retired with his family to Tunbridge Wells, where he has continued ever since to refide, and to amuse himself by writing effays, comedies, novels, and these me

moirs.

There is little in the fubfequent part of the book that seems to require any detail. The author criticizes his own works with confiderable candour and acutenefs, and with little more than a' natural partiality. He affures us, that the Ifraelites never made him any acknowledgment for the exertions he made in their favour; and this strain of ingratitude feems to have gone far to' ruin them in his good opinion. He gives a long account of the retirement and death of Lord Sackville; and runs into a very filly and fplenetic rhapfody on the fame of the Young Rofcius, whofe gains and popularity have evidently afflicted him more than was neceflary. He praifes the poetical labours of Sir James Bland Burges and Mr Hayley; and informs us, that Junius is favage;

Sterne

Sterne, frivolous and pathetic; and Edmund Burke, graceful in his anger, and mufical even in his madnefs. The volume closes with a tribute to the filial piety of his youngest daughter.

We will pronounce no general judgment on the literary merits of Mr Cumberland; but our opinion of them certainly has not been raised by the perufal of these memoirs. There is no depth of thought, nor dignity of fentiment about him ;-he is too frifky for an old man, and too goffiping for an historian. His ftyle is too negligent even for the most familiar compofition; and though he has proved himself, upon other occafions, to be a great mafter of good English, he has admitted a number of phrafes into this work, which, we are inclined to think, would fcarcely pafs comment even in converfation. I declare to truth'—' with the greatest pleasure in life '-' She would lead off in her beft manner,' &c. are expreffions which we fhould not expect to hear in the fociety to which Mr Cumberland belongs;- laid,' for lay, is ftill more infufferable from the antagonist of Lowth, and the defcendant of Bentley; querulential' ftrikes our ear as exotic; locate, location, and locality,' for situation simply, seem also to be bad; and intuition,' for obfervation, founds very pedantic, to say the leaft of it. Upon the whole, however, this volume is not the work of an ordinary writer; and we should probably have been more indulgent to its faults, if the excellence of fome of the author's former productions had not fent us to its perufal with expectations perhaps fomewhat extravagant.

ART. IX. European Commerce, shewing new and fecure Channels of Trade with the Continent of Europe: detailing the Produce, Manufactures, and Commerce, ef Ruffia, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany; as well as the Trade of the Rivers Elbe, Wefer, and Ems: With a General View of the Trade, Navigation, Produce and Manufactures, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and its unexplored and improveable and interior Wealth. By J. Jepion Oddy, Member of the Ruf fia and Turkey or Levant Companies. 4to. pp. 622. London, 1805.

A BOOK containing fuch a mass of commercial information as is here pretented to us, muit be interefting at all times to a country like Great Britain; but, in the prefent itate of our trade, it acquires a new and extraordinary value. The hoftilities which have thut us cut of the ports of the South, have added prodigiously to the importance of thote which are fill open in the North; and

as

as these are now the great inlets through which the tide of our commerce is poured over the continent of Europe, we liften with particular intereft to all those details or obfervations by which we may be enabled to fecure or to enlarge their advantages.

The author has taken great pains with this work; and has laboured, by minute directions and innumerable tables, to make it practically useful. He certainly has not failed altogether in this aim; but it is neceffary, we think, to premife, that his attainments appear to us to be by no means of a high order, and that his judgments feem frequently to be perverted by the doctrines of an exploded system of political economy. The general view which we propose to give of the plan and contents of the book, will enable our readers, however, to judge for themselves of its pretenLions.

The work is divided into seven books, of which the first is appropriated to Ruffia. The progrefs which this great country is deftined to make among the nations, cannot fail to interest the philofophical obferver; and there is something extremely grand in the profpective view of her commercial and political advancement. If Ruffia only attains one third of the population that is commonly poffeffed by countries at all favourably fituated, the will still reckon a hundred and twenty-five millions of inhabitants; and there is reason to think that this multiplication is going on with confiderable rapidity. Mr Tooke estimates the whole population of the empire at thirty-fix millions; but Mr Oddy thinks it may now be carried, without fear of exaggeration, to forty millions. The growing prosperity of this empire is materially affifted by the fyftematic efforts of the Government to facilitate commercial intercourse between all its parts. Canals are made, from time to time, to connect the numerous rivers which fall into the feas upon its extremities. Thus the Berefinfky and Oginiky canals open an easy communication between the ports of the Baltic and those of the Euxine; and the canal of Vifhney Volotofhok connects the Gulf of Finland with the distant harbours of the Cafpian. Some idea of the increasing industry of Ruffia may be formed, by comparing the number of veffels of all kinds that paffed through this famous canal, which joins the Neva, and Wolga, in the years 1787 and 1797. In the former, the number was 2914 barks, 357 half barks, 178 boats, and 1984 floats, paying 24,689 rubles of toll or duty; in the latter, 3958 barks, 382 half barks, 248 boats, and 1676 floats, paying 34,192 rubles.

The articles for exportation confiít chiefly of iron, wood, hemp and flax both raw and manufactured, tallow and grain. The exportation of wood was fome years ago prohibited, on account of the great waste in the forefts; but it has again been permitted, VOL. VIII. NO. 15.

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