fequently] ought to be;" but continu ally and comfortably to lead a Chriftian and correspondent life. 'Tis hoped that, on fome at leaft, the earnest and affectionate addrefs will make a lafting and indelible impreffion. But lamentable is the impiety of the age we live in! Confirmation, and other facred offices, are too generally made light of, as little things. No judicious perfons flight them, because they duly moit regard the effential things fignified and promoted by the right and folemn ufe of them. Eus. Mr. URBAN, London, May 8. I what your correspondent, p. vances refpecting "the fettlement of the Madawgwys" in America; but only to request to know what degree of credibility is due to the evidence advanced by Mr. Bowles, who, if I miflake not, came down to Pensacola, in West Florida, in 1777 or 1778, in the very humble station of an Indian packhorse-man, or trader, and always fo much affected the manners and drefs of his colleagues, that he never could be induced even to fpeak English, although it was fuppoted at the time that he was an Irithman, of very low birth and manners. There are merchants now in this city, who can, 1 be lieve, fpeak more particularly concerning him. I do not recollect that he was confidered as a Chief, or a perfon of any intelligence, but, as I have mentioned above, occupying a menial ftation. These hints are fimply with a view to your correfpondent's information, that he may not offer to the publick any other evidence than fuch as can be ftamped with refpe&tability and certainty. An Indian Chief of the Creek nation frequently came down, and his name was the Mad Dog Indian.-Perhaps fome ingenious commentator may difcover an affinity between it and Madawg; for, barbarous as they may be fuppofed, and fond as the Chiefs are of titles, no one would imagine that any man would take up one that carries an idea fo vile; and particularly the Chief I fpeak of, whose good-nature was remarkable, L. air and light are two very effential qualities in the growth of all plants. His cuttings which have been fet fome time fince fhould now be removed into pots fingly by themselves, there to remain all the winter, and in the fpring may be removed into larger pots. If he wishes to have flowers early, I would advise him to fet the feed now (as I intend doing myfelf), and keep them in a dry place until about January, then expole them to the weather. If he obferves, he will find all felf-fowed feed produce much better, much stronger, and much earlier plants, than thofe fowed in the fpring; therefore it evidently ap produce much better flowers in Ipring. To all flowers whofe leaves decay away after having blown, the root remaining ftill good under ground, he will find great benefit by throwing a little good loam on the top. A CULTIVATING FLORIST.* Mr. URBAN, B Y inferting the following epitaph, from Burford church, Oxfordshire, and of which fome correfpondent may probably favour me with a translation,) you will oblige, P. W. EDMUNDUS HARMANUS, Armiger, quem Deus, innumeris bencficiis, ab ineunte ætate profecutus cft, hoc Chriftianæ memoriæ monumentum, fibi & AGNETI, unicæ & caltiffimæ conjugi, & 16 Iberis, Deo benedicente, ex illà fufceptis, pofuit, 1560. Nullus eram, &, faciente Deo, fum natus ut ellem; Jam nunc, de proprio femine, rurfus ero: Inque die magna, quæ nunc abfumpta pu tamus Corpora, cernemus furgere tota Deo. Pellite corde metum, mea membra, & credite vofmet [ille, Cum Chrifto redditura Deo; nam vos gerit Et fecum revocat. Morbos ridete minaces; Inflictos cafus contemnite; & atra fepulcra Defpicite: exurgens quò Chriftus provocat, ite; [rona. Chriftus erit cunétis Regnum, Lux, Vita, Co *CANDIDUS fays, " Though fuch flowers as The Cultivating Fhrift mentions may do well in fome town-gardens, I fear moft who plant fuch will have thrown their money away, unless they bring good earth into their garden. In general, about a foot deep in lit tle gardens in town, there is nothing but rubbish; which, I think, is the reafon why fo few things do well in a town-garden.— But, whoever will take the trouble to have their garden free from that, and good earth put in the place of the rubbish, will, I fancy, have reafon not to repent the expence." Mr. I Mr. URBAN, Bath, June 4. HAVE the pleasure to fend for your Magazine a copy of a drawing in my poffeffion of the beautiful village of Clif ton, near Bristol (fee plate 11.), highly extolled for the falubrity of its air, and the delightful rides in its neighbourhood. As the fituation is well known to me, you may depend on its being an exact fetch. Yours, &c. JOHN ELDERTON. Mr. URBAN, Auguft 28. PLEASE to permit a real admirer of your valuable Repofitory to pay a fmall tribute to the memory of a dear departed friend, the late excellent Mr. Mickle. The mention that has been recently made of him as the suspected author of fome pretendedly antient bal lads, in Evans's Collection, fuggefted the idea of giving you this trouble. I perfectly agree with your correfpondent Philarkaios, that Mr. M. was a poet of genius; that he was very intimate with the late Mr. Evans, to whofe pleasantrics he was obliged for many a chearful hour; and that he was a native of Scotland: but from this combination of circumftances it by no means follows, that he muft have committed what your correfpondent calls an unprincipled forgery. The mind of Mr. M. was early imbued with the principles of moral rectitude; and I firmly believe that neither the forms of adverfity, nor the more dangerous foothing gales of profperity, could force him to lofe fight of them in a single inftance. It was my happiness to conciliate his good opinion when we were both young, long before he was known to the world as a man of genius, and we lived for near thirty years in habits of the most strict and unreferved intimacy. In that period I had many op portunities of witneffing inftances that evinced the purity of his fentiments, and the inflexible integrity of his conduct. The finer impulfes of the foul were eminently his; and in the exercite of those charities that alleviate the ills of life, and give the fweeteft zeft to its comforts, he had not, fo far as God allowed him the means, a fuperior on earth. Yet, in his general conversation, he was not a fentimental declaimer; effe, non videri, was his wifh and practice. To know him, it was neceffary to gain admiffion to the inmoft receffes of his heart. I take notice of thefe particulars, not only in juftice to his characGENT. MAG, September, 1791. ter, but to give the greater weight to the folemn declaration he once made to me, that he was not the author of thofe Bal lads. He had, however, all the requi fite ingredients for a fuccefsful impofition of this kind; to the most happy imitation of Spenfer's ftyle, he united the tender pathos, the luxuriant imagery, the boundless fancy, and the penfive temper of that exquifite poet. Whether Scotland has produced more literary impoftors than any other country, I know not; but this I know, that England is not free from fuch; and one of them is a name of fuch refpectability, Mr. URBAN, 66 Auguf 39. Ivan Addrefs to the Publick,' &c. N the review of a piece, intituled, given in your Magazine for June, p. 552, I met with the following passage: Archdeacon Paley's opinion, that, from the time that religion was an nexed to the civil power, corruptions date their origin,' is not founded in fact." Qu. Where has Archdeacon Paley delivered any fuch opinion? A CONSTANT READER. this fubject; but, leaving them to fpeak for themselves, I chufe rather to take notice of what the late Dr. S. Johnson has faid of it, in his "Lives of the English Poets;" who tells us, that "the difficulty of fettling Prior's birth place is great. In the Register of his College he is called, at his admiffion, by the Profident, Matthew Prior, of Winburn, in Middlefex; by himself, next day, Matthew Prior, of Dorfetthire; in which county, not in Middlefex, Winburn, or Wimborne, as it ftands in the Villare, is found. When he flood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlesex" Here then is a manifeft contradiction; which I shall endeavour to reconcile as I go along. You are to understand then, that, by the Statutes of St. John's College, Cambridge (of which fociety Prior was a member), no more than two perfons of any one particular county can be admitted Fellows. It is not unfair then to hazard a conjecture, that, at the time of Prior's admiffion, the two Dorfetthire Fellowships were filled up, and probably no vacancy for that county was likely to happen for fome years to come, which was not the cafe with Middlefex; and that, confequently, Prior's friends, at the time of his entry, forefeeing this difficulty, thought it prudent to regifter him of Middlefex; and that Prior himself (though he had before styled himself of Dorfetfhire, yet), when he came afterwards to fit for a Fellowship, found it unavoidably and abfolutely neceffary to follow their example, and adopt the fame deception; becaufe, otherwife, he very well knew he could not poilibly fucceed in his clection. Having thus endeavoured to account for the feeming contradiction in the terms of Prior's admition into College, and why, when he flood candidate for a Fellowship, he registered himfelf of Middlefex, I shall now go on to acquaint you with fome reafons which ftrongly induce me to believe, that the aution: and refpectable town of Wimborn-Miofter, in Dorfetfhire, has the honour of being the birth-place of this celebrated poet. Mr. Hutchins, in his Hiftory of Dorfetshire, obferves, that "it is highly probable Matthew Prior, an eminent fatefman, and one of the moft famous poets of his age, was born at Wimborne. Tradition days, that he was first educated at the grammar-fchool there. He does not occur in the parith Regifter indeed, his parents being fuppofed to be Diffenters, which he inti mates in his Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd, efq. "So at the barn of loud Non-con, Where with my grannam I have gone.”. Mr. Hutchins goes on with faying, that, "about 1727, one Prior, of Godman. fton, a labouring mån, and living in 1755, declared to a company of gentlemen, where he (Mr. Hutchins) was prefent, that he was Mr. Prior's first coufin, and remembered his going to Wimborne to vifit him, and afterwards heard that he became a great man.The learned Thomas Baker, B D. once Fellow of St. John's College, informed Mr. Browne Willis, that he was born at Wimborne of mean parents.", To this account given by Mr. Hutchins, which appears to me to carry great weight with it, I must have leave to add, that the late Mr. Nicholas Ruffell, a perfon of an inquifitive turn, and gicat veracity, frequently affured me, that he very well remembered an old woman, refident in Wimborne, who was a Dif fenter, and a near relation of Matthew Prior's, but who wrote her name Pris, not Prior, and infifted that the former was the right name of the family, though her confin, for what reafon the knew not, unless it was to hide the meanness of his parentage, had thought fit to al ter it to the latter. Thus much I have thought fit to mention relative to the place of Prior's birth, about which there has been fo much ink thed. If you think I have, in any degree, cleared up the matter, you are at liberty to infert th's letter in your valuable publication; if not, you cannot be at a lofs how to difpofe of it. Yours, &c. J. D. STRICTURES ON THE LAND-TAX. Cambria, Aug. 12. THE HE inveterate enemies of Great Britain have almost driven the inhabitants of that ifland to the long-defired ne plus ultra of taxation; hoping that, whenever they are reduced to that extreme, their wonderful credit muft feel a mortal blow, and that infurrec tions amongst a bankrupt and defperate people muit be the confequerce; who thus will become at length felf fubdued, blinded as they at prefent are, partly by borrowed wealth, partly by the in flux of enormous taxes into the capital. Yet many individuals, who have been |