blishing any manner of your own, and that blinds your judgment in the necessary difcrimination of what is fit or not fit to be appropriated to your own ufe. Of the inftances I have mentioned the majority are qualifications in themselves of an excellent nature, and which, therefore, every public speaker should endeavour to attain; but the misfortune is, you do not draw them from their proper fource. You are not charmed with the native principle of these things, but you are allured by the manner of the man'; and what is the confequence? You adopt his manner, and inftantly in you it is ridiculous, becaufe nature, the pure fource of all excellence, hath given to every man certain and different powers of modes, which, however by observation and labour he may refine, and improve, will ever retain their original character in spite of every attempt to uproot them; and befides, you become in time the plaything of every man's fancy; the first changes the peculiarity you admired for another, which, from its novelty or fome other caufe, appears still more charming; you inftantly relinquish the former, and feize the latter with equal eagernefs; the second acquires a graver and more folemn mode of speech; you are affected by the dignity of this new mode, and you endeavour to make it your own; and fo of the reft. Thus, by the influence of habit, you are always reftlefs and always ridiculous: instead of seeking to establish a manner of your own, and to enrich it by adopting fo much of what is excellent in others, as may fuit with your own original capacity, you are disordered by a habit of imitation, that, from its folly, produces nothing but weakness and diftraction, even when exercised, as I have fhewn you, upon fubjects that contain in themfelves a clear and decided nature of excellence.' P. 389.

From the extracts given, it may be perceived that these letters are the effufions of no common or fuperficial pen, and that the writer has contemplated his fubject in every poffible view. In fome inftances, indeed, he feems to enforce the demonstration of truths that may be thought self-evident. This, however, is a task which is frequently rendered neceffary by the infirmity of the human mind; for, as the penetrating Bacon has obferved, we think according to reason, and we talk according to rule, but we act according to cuftom.'

Some readers may think that the fubftance of the book would have admitted more compreffion, and that the author is not uniformly happy in his ftyle; but thefe are flight blemishes, in comparison with the intrinfic merit of a production fo well calculated to form the principles of the youthful mind, and to direct its emulation through the honourable but diffi cult paths of the legal science.

An Effay on Defign in Gardening, first published in 1768. Now greatly augmented. Allo, a Revifal of feveral later Publications on the fame Subject. By George Mafon. 8vo. 5s.

White.

THIS effay was first published in 1768, and was noticed in our 25th volume (p. 469) with refpect, though not with unqualified approbation. The fubject was then new, but has been lately expanded rather than improved, decorated with fhowy meretricious ornaments, frittered by fancied novelties and affected refinements. The great improvements, in modern English gardening, were the abolition of the stiff regularity of the Dutch fchool, and the fubftitution of the rural beauties which nature offers, divefted of harthness and groffièreté An object fo fimple, and feemingly of fuch eafy execution, has been variously distorted, and the fubject of endless difquifition. In reality, it combines minute queftions of confiderable difficulty; one is, what objects deferve to be called grofs and harth; a point which claims attention, left, in refining too far, we cut nature by a pattern as precife in another way, as our ancestors adopted in their horticultural ornaments, and leave only the general, indiflinct features, which no longer intereft. Another difficulty is, the adaptation of the kind and degree of ornament to the fituation, fo that, while the rugged features which conftitute the diftinction are preferved, the polifh may be gradually regulated, according to the distance from which the fcenery is viewed. In this cafe, the manfion is confidered as the ftation. These are the great fources of the difputes between profeffional artists, each aiming at picturefque effect, though in different paths.

*

Mr. Mafon, one of the earliest and moft judicious directors. of national tafte, expanded in his more mature age his former ideas, and defended them againft thofe who had impugned his precepts. In the conclufion of this edition, fome of the later. publications are reviewed.

In the former edition, he mentioned that the oriental gardens were called paradifes. Some of the additions to this part we fhall transcribe.

The fullest defcription extant of any ancient paradife is of one faid to be fituate in the island of Panchæa, near the coaft of Ara

Our author and fome others feem at a lofs to define the term picturesque. It accords with the painters' ideas of the circumftances effential to the compofition of a good landfcape, and is to be explained from their rules in Mr. Gilpin's RIY.

manner.

bia. The period of its flourishing state must be referred (according to its latest hiftorian *) to the time of Alexander's immediate fucceffors. Diodorus tells us, that it was adjacent and appertain ing to a temple of Jupiter Tryphylius; that it had fo copious a fpring in it, as to form a navigable river from the fountain-head; that this ftream for the length of near half a mile was enclosed on either fide with artificial margins of stone; but that it branched out into various currents, which ranged over meadows, and watered many a frately and fhady grove upon the banks: that the paradife was enriched with palm trees, and vines, and every kind of delicious fruit, and by a variety of flowery lawns, and by planes and cypreffes of ftupendous magnitude, with thickets of myrtle, and of laurel and bay. This inclofure (as defcribed) must neceflarily have been of very confiderable extent for a garden. What pity is it then, that fo material a piece of evidence, for fuch a place having actually existed of old, should be destitute of credibility! Strabo + after Polybius, and Plutarch in his Ofiris, agree in afferting, that there never was any temple of a Jupiter Triphylius, or any Panchæa. Nor does a fingle ancient geographer mention fuch an ifland. Yet may it not be concluded, that fuch was the ftyle of Perfian paradifes in the reign of Caffander? Near seven centuries later than this period, there was one Afiatic paradife ftill exifting; and it is specified by Milton among thofe, that might poffibly be compared to his garden of Eden

Of Daphne || by Orontes, and th' infpir'd

Caftalian fpring. P. L. B. 4. ver. 272.' P. 12.

The obfervations are not very greatly enlarged; but many of them are improved. Incidental remarks are interfperfed, which fhow an acute observation and a correct tafte: one inftance we fhall felect.

• Convenience.

• Though the principal end of landscape-gardening is to please

*See Diod. Sic. lib. 5. c. 42, 3, 4. But the period of its existence is deduced from a fragment of lib. 6; which also speaks of the paradife's elevated situation.

+ Lib. 2 and 7.

The Greek author whom Diodorus copies (Euhemerus by name) lived under Caffander. His work was tranflated into Latin profe by the poet Ennius: of which tranflation very fcanty fragments remain. Such was the authority of Eunius with the Latin poets, that Lucretius, Virgil, Tibullus, Ovid, Claudian, all fpeak of Panchæa.

This place is rather loosely defcribed in the Antiochichus of the florid Libanius (Opera, vol. ii. p. 380, 1.), but more clofely by Strabo (lib. 16.), who makes the grove in his time nine miles in circumference.

the eye, vet that end can never be perfectly answered by any thing, that manifeftly militates against the comforts of life, or against the facility of performing ordinary functions. It becomes then the bufinefs of a defigner to diftinguifh, where convenience fhould be his leading principle. The road to a mansion (being a necessary thing) certainly falls within the province of this article. The line of fuch road should appear to be regulated by the most simple and obvious rules. Every variation of its direction should be governed by the fwells of the ground, or by the interference of obstacles. When artifts by profeffion, befotted with the notion of a fweep, difregard what they fhould moft attend to, the impropriety of their method will be striking. It may indeed happen, that attending clofely to convenience (even in its own province) may be hurtful to other parts of a defign, where the beautiful ought to prevail. In fuch cafes the main ftudy of the defigner should be to conceal the facrifice of convenience. From no one point of view should the whole line of deviation be visible. I fay the whole, because it is much easier to create a reason for each particular turn, than for a general circuity.

It moft frequently fuits convenience, that the entrance-front of a mansion should not adjoin to a garden. Yet a difpofition confonant to this idea often creates two other inconveniences. If the ground-floor is not fufficiently elevated, there is a difficulty in guarding the windows of this front from cattle, without obftructing the view from within. The fecond inconvenience is how to conceal the garden-fence externally; which fence must come to the angle of the mansion, unless the whole of the building stands in pasture

no eligible circumftance. Hollies are an admirable expedient for conquering this, latter difficulty. The former is a local one, and its cure must be locally fuggefted.' P. 96.

The publications revifed are the Obfervations on Modern Gardening, published in 1770-the elegant poem entitled the English Garden,' in four books, the firft of which appeared in 1772-the Village Memoirs,' an epiftolary novel, containing Strictures on Landfcape Gardening (1775) Mr. Walpole's Treatife on modern Gardening' (1780); and the Effay on the Picturefque,' by Mr. Price. From these we offer no extracts, as the obfervations, are mifcellaneous, and refer to the different works. The appendix on bowers, fhowing them to have been retired chambers or refidences, and not arbours, as Mr. Walpole fuppofes, is a judicious antiquarian effay. We are unwilling to mutilate it; and the whole is too long for our purpofe.

The Treatife of Cicero, de Officiis; or, his Effay on Moral Duty. Tranflated and accompanied with Notes and Obfervations, by William McCartney, Minifier of Old Kilpatrick. 8vo. 5s. Boards. Robinsons. 1798.

THE admirable Treatife de Officiis, which Cicero compofed exprefsly for the ufe of his fon, is fo well known, that it would be fuperfluous to fay any thing here on the fubject. Our attention is due only to the prefent tranflation; and of that we thall permit Mr. M'Cartney to give fome account in his own words.

The following tranflation was undertaken, not because the tranflator had been accustomed either to read or admire the original, more than the other works of the fame author; but, because a translation of it, accommodated to the present state of the Englifh language, feemed to be much wanted.

The notes and obfervations are intended for the young and the unlearned only. They are fhort, as it was deemed neceffary to introduce as little as poffible of what is to be found in books now every where to be met with; and, because the miftakes of our author, on the fubject of moral fcience, though proper to be noticed to the young reader, are yet so very obvious as to need but little difcuffion. Long difquifitions, connected with the various topics which occur in the following work, feemed altogether inconfiftent with our defign. The learned, in this inftance, need neither tranflation nor notes, nor observations. In the present and advanced state of moral knowledge, the Offices of Cicero can be no otherwise regarded, than as an imperfect or rude monument of antiquity, or recommended as an introductory book well worth the perufal of the young beginner.

The tranflation itself was intended to be neither quite literal, nor, like many of the most admired tranflations of the prefent day, a mere paraphrafe. It was proposed to keep as near the original as the English idiom would permit, that the tranflation might be as fair a representation as poffible of the author's fentiments and style, Wherever the original is broken or inelegant, the tranflation will be found to correfpond, in confequence of the principle by which we have been guided.' P. iii.

Where Mr. McCartney has difcovered Cicero to be broken and inelegant,' we know not; but we will venture to predict, that his tranflation will be confidered as useless, and will foon be carried

in vicum vendentem thus, et odores,

Et piper, et quicquid chartis amicitur ineptis.'

The learned reader has no need of it; and the English scholar