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Of all the blunders that blundering critics ever blundered upon, furely this is the greateft. Will it be believed, Mr. Editor, by pofterity, that a writer of the nineteenth century could poffibly mistake a herd for a herdfman? that the could gravely comment upon an apparent incongruity? or that fuch an initance of confummate ftupidity could pass through the prefs without being detected even by the printer's devil?

I really think these two inftances of literary abfurdities cannot be paralleled; they ought to be treafured up in the mind of every one who wishes to be master of genuine rarities. I have met with many inftances of incongruity in writers, but never with fuch a palpable

confufion of ideas as is evident in the preceding inftances.

If you think this notice of them worthy a place in your interefting Miscellany, I shall feel greatly gratified by its infertion; and remain,

Sir, yours, &c.

ARISTARCHUS. Oxford, April 2, 1804.

To the Editor of the Univerfal Mag. SIR,

READING the other day the "Deferted Village" of Goldfimith, I was ftruck with an apparent want of propriety in an epithet that is employed to give force to a very beautiful delineation; and as I

reflected upon it, I became of opinion that this impropriety might have been obviated by a fimple tranfpofition. To be better understood, I will first quote the whole paffage, and then fuggeft my propofed emendation.

In that defcription of the forrows that "gloomed the parting day," when the inhabitants of "Sweet Auburn" were driven forth by "trade's unfeeling train," Dr. Goldfmith thus defcribes the fond wife and husband.

"The good old fire the first prepar'd to go "To new-found worlds, and wept for others' woe;

"But for himfelf, in conscious virtue brave, "He only with'd for worlds beyond the grave:

"His lovely daughter, lovelier in her tears, "The fond companion of his helpless years, "Silent, went next, neglectful of her charms,

"And left a lover's for a father's arms. "With louder plaints the mother spoke

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dear;

"Whilft her fond hufband ftrove to lend relief,

"In all the filent manliness of grief."

I believe nothing, unless it be nonNow, Sir, what is filent manliness? fenfe. Manly filence would be better, only the euphony of the line would fuffer: but by reading it thus, I think the harmony, and I am certain the fenfe, is improved.

"Whilft her fond hufband ftrove to lend relief,

"In all the manliness of filent grief."

If you approve of this correction, Sir, I fhall be happy to fee it fubmitted to the public through the medium of the Univerfal Magazine. I remain, &c.

Liverpool, April 3.

A POET.

A SYSTEM OF COSMOLOGY, INTENDED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GENERAL STUDY OF HISTORY.

[Continued from page 238.] Religion, Laws, Manners, and Cuftoms of the Celtes and Gauls.

AS the Gauls were the defcendants of the Celtes, the fame religion was propagated from the one to the other; whence, it would have been more methodical to have related what can be faid on that fubject while treating of the Celtes, where their religion was but generally touched on; but as the information we are in poffeffion of respecting the Gauls is more extenfive than can be obtained with regard to the Celtes, and fo much blended with their religion and manners, it became more confiftent with the propofed extent of this work to avoid repetitions, by referving it for this place: it will be neceffary only to remember, that whatever notions were prevalent with the Gauls, either refpecting religion or their manners in general, originated with the Celtes. It is very remarkable, that notwithstanding the religion of the Celtes and Gauls foon experienced a lamentable debafement by the admiffion of polytheifm, and the ufe of facrifices, particularly of human victims; after that an intercourfe between them and the Romans had taken place, and also other nations who had long been dupes to fo great a moral depravity, yet that their notions refpecting the Divine Effence were fuch as would not difgrace the moft refined fyftem of theifm. What can more clearly evince their knowledge of thofe attributes of the Deity, ubiquity and omniprefcience, than their efteeming it as derogating from his nature to invoke more particularly his prefence in a temple built with hands? An inftance this, from the experience of hiftory, which is far VOL. I.

from fupporting the fuppofition, that the mind of man in its uncorrupt state is not able to elevate itfelf to the apprehenfion of and fix its attention on the adoration of the Divine Being, which has, however, been much infifted on by thofe, who, being addicted to and prejudiced in favour of a pompous form of worship, maintained that the foul of man, debafed by corporeal affections and ideas, is too much engroffed by material objects to be able to raise itself towards the Deity without an object or image to fix the attention, or without the ufe of the mean and inadequate analogy of human grandeur in dreffes, ceremonies, and buildings, to conceive his perfections; and to draw the neceffary confequence, from the glorious phenomena of his works, that his nature muft ever exceed our comprehenfion, as his attributes excite our wonder, praise, and love.

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The adoration therefore of one Supreme God was carefully kept up by both thefe nations, and he was worshipped under the name of Efus; and notwithstanding the gods of other nations were in time admitted as objects of divine refpect, they were held in esteem only as inferior deities they never erected any temple or idol even to this Efus, or fupreme deity; fo that he feems to have been acknowledged by them much in the fame manner that the Athenians did the upknown god mentioned by St. Paul, which notion, it is to be obferved, was far from being peculiar to them.

The name of Efus was poffibly derived from the Hebrew word Hezus, which fignifies ftrong and mighty, as the old Celtic was without doubt a dialect of the Hebrew.

In all probability they used no temples till long after the conqueft of them by Cæfar, as an author who lived long after him exprefsly tells us, that they had no

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other ftatue of Jupiter than a tall oak, which cannot be fuppofed to have grown in a temple.

With refpect to their moral fyftem in general, it is reasonable to fuppofe, allowing for the difadvantage neceffarily attendant on a ftate of barbarifm, that it cannot but have been in a great degree conformable to fuch true and juft ideas of the first principle of all religion, piety and reverence towards the Divine Being, as they undoubtedly poffeffed; which is farther illuftrated by Tacitus, who informs us, that they admitted none to enter their facred groves, unless he carried a chain in token of his dependence on the fupreme dominion which God has over him; that if through accident he should fall, none were permitted to help him up, but he was obliged either to roll himself or crawl upon his belly out of the place; and obferves, that their religion chiefly confifted in an acknowledgement, that the Deity governs all things, and that all depend on him, and ought to obey him*.

Let us paufe here to make an obfervation which fuggefts itself, and excites the philofopher's tear for the conduct of the immortal Cicero on this fubject. It has ever been the fate of thofe, whofe adoration of the Deity was of a more refined and fpiritual nature, to be branded with the imputation of atheism and irreligion by thofe whofe devotion, confifting principally in operofe ceremonies, was calculated to raise the imagination chiefly through the inftrumentality of the ideas of worldly pomp and grandeur. In complaifance to the priests and established religion of the Romans, Cicero fays, in one of his orations, that the Gauls profeffed no other religion than that of waging war against thofe of all other nations, and against the very

* De Mor. Germ. Orat. pro M. Fonteio.

gods themselves; that they left their native foil, and crofled immenfe tracts of land, merely to attack and plunder the Delphic Apollo, the oracle of the whole world; this, continues he, is that holy nation, which had the boldnefs to befiege our capitol, and even the great Jupiter himself in it; by whom our ancestors fwore, “ab iifdem gentibus fanctis, in teftimonio religiofis, obfeffum capitolium eft, atque ille Jupiter, cujus nomine majores noftri, vinctam teftimoniorum fidem effe voluerunt." Did he really believe the Roman capitol to be the more immediate refidence of the Divine Nature, and that it was therefore in danger of being befieged? Is this confiftent with what we read in his book De Natura Deorum, where he obferves, "fi nihil aliud quære remus, nifi ut Deos piè coleremus, & ut fuperftitione liberaremur, fatis erat dictum ?" We have faid enough to prove that we should worflip the gods with piety, and without fuperftition, if we purfue the fubject no farther. But how feldom do we fee the philofopher ftoop to the part of the clamorous orator, without bartering truth and his real opinion for popularity and a name! Was the religion which Cicero politically profeffed worthy to induce a philofopher to defcend to the delufive arts of oratory, or calculated to obliterate injuries and conciliate friendship in the minds of the Gauls, whofe facred books, the books of the Sibyls, directed a man and a woman of that nation to be immolated as an expiation? which, according to Plutarch, was actually done, on the occafion of a vestal having been detected in an intrigue with a Roman knight, and, though both were put to death, the pontiffs, having firft confulted thofe vile impoùtions, declared that the crime was only effectually to be expiated by burying alive, in the forum bova

rium, or ox market, two men and two women, natives of Greece and Gaul. It will be faid, this was long after the time of Cicero, as it happened under Trajan; but the books from which fuch doctrines were deducible were the antient oracles of Rome, well known to him, and immediately under his care profeffionally the truth is, the Gauls at that time neither regarded the pretended gods of other nations, nor therefore the fanctity of their temples, but held both in contempt and abhorrence; they really had a religion of their own, of which they were fo tenacious, that they defpifed all others in comparison of

it.

With refpect to the introduction of polytheism among them, it is highly probable that it was forced on them by the fuperior power of their tyrants the Romans, who, as they made it their conftant practice to introduce their religion and laws by force when they could not otherwife fucceed, wherever they conquered, the Druids, tenacious of their own fyftem, could not but be extremely averfe to all fuch changes, and ufed their power, which was very great, in opposing them, and prevailing on the people to shake off the yoke; the Romans, therefore, were obliged to find fome plaufible pretence to strip them of their great fway: accordingly, feveral emperors took an effectual method to fupprefs the Druidical power, by iffuing out fevere edicts against the bloody and unnatural cufiom, fo prevalent among them, of offering human facrifices. It appears, therefore, that policy, rather than a better way of thinking on moral fubjects, was the chief caufe of thefe edicts, as the Romans might as well have proceeded in the fame manner against all other nations under their domination, and have began more reafonably, by reforming themselves on this very fubject, as appears from the

above-mentioned instance; but, on the contrary, it is certain that the ufe of human victims was authorifed by the Emperors Severus, Aurelian, and Dioclefian, and that they ftill continued to be offered in the time of Conftantine the Great, and eyen down to that of Gratian, who gave the finishing blow to it.

When their religion was corrupted by the introduction of the mythology of other nations, it is very remarkable that they rather improved thofe fables by means of an elegance, and the force of a lively imagination, fo natural to that nation, by finding out an allufion re-. plete with much more point and meaning than the original poffeffed. The truth of this obfervation is exemplified in the account given us by Lucian of the Gallic Hercules, which, as it contains a beautiful allegory, perhaps will not be unentertaining to the reader, and is therefore here tranflated from the original Greek of Lucian. He tells us, "The Gauls call Hercules, Og"nicus in their language, but re

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gladly and cheerfully follow him. "I was much aftonished at this picture; but a certain Gaul, who "ftood by, faid, I will explain to you, Ŏ ftranger, this enigma.

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"We Gauls make Hercules the befide thofe of the Chevalier Natali and others, contribute to enrich the two palaces of Sans Souci, but efpecially the one about to be defcribed; which, being the King's peculium, was more particularly endowed by him with treafures which at different times he collected from cabinets in every quarter of the world.

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god of Eloquence, contrary to "the Greeks, who give that honour "to Mercury, who is fo far in"ferior to him in ftrength; we reprefent him as an old man, "because wisdom and difcretion << belong to age: the relation which "the ear hath to the tongue juf"tifies the picture of the old man, "who holds fo many people faft "by his tongue." It has been much difputed whether it was Hercules or Mercury that was intended by this picture; but whichever it was, the allufion is elegant and forcible.

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I beheld;-I obferved;-I admired ;-I difliked:-beauty and deformity feemed to do their office of attracting and repelling my fympathy with pretty unerring power; and yet I am no virtuofo, no con. noiffeur. No virtuofo! no connoiffeur! Heavens, what an avowal in the prefent age! and from an Englishman too! Why, at London, you are all virtuofos and connoiffeurs. I fmiled:-my German companion fixed his eyes upon me with an expreffion of as curious incredulity and aftonishment as if I bad juft avowed apoftafy. What think you of that picture? faid I, leading him to the Railing of Lazarus, which took my eye at that moment, and is unquestionably one of the best pictures in the collection; and, what is more, an undoubted original. Schön, schön*, anfwered my companion. faid I, you fee that I am not quite an heathen any more than you: that picture pleafed me, although I am neither a virtuofo nor a connoiffeur, like all my countrymen at London. The truth is, that that undefinable tact which constitutes the fenfe of a connoiffeur, although it feems to be promifcuously poffeffed, or rather affumed, to his coft, by every perfon who has money to fquander upon the art of making himfelf ridiculous in collecting bad bufts and daubed pictures;-that undefinable tact, I fay, of a real connoiffeur, lies too deep in my nerve to allow of my daring fay that I am governed by it. I shall,

* Fine, fine.

Yes,

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