With the conclufion of the first book we take our leave of the author for the prefent month. Our attention to him we fhall willingly renew; but we hope not to excite his difpleafure if we go through what is to fucceed in a more fummary manner. "So fpent they in feftivity the day, Robin, a Tale; An Apology for Kings; and "Pindarum quifquis ftudet æmulari," &c. PINDAR is a clever fellow, and now got on our fide; witnefs his Tale of the Magpie and Robin, which we shall felect in our Poetry, and, for a fhorter fample his character of our Gallic neighbours: And all were cheered; nor was Apollo's harp of his talents and fentiments, give here Silent, nor did the Mufes fpare to add Refponfive melody of vocal fweets. But when the fun's bright orb had now de- "Keel up lies France!-long may the keep clined, Each to his manfion, wherefoever built, When gentle fleep approach'd him, flept ferene, With golden-fceptred Juno at his fide." On which lines we have only to remark, that they are good, and generally faithful. Matchless architect is very incompetent. Homer adds, that the matchiefs Vulcan built thofe manfions; εἰδυίησι πραπίδεσσι — which means, with fkill, which was the refult of deep meditation. In the laft line, goldenfceptred is wrong; the original is, xguodgovos, golden-throned, who fits on a golden throne. (To be continued.) 161. The Hiflory of Sudeley Castle, in Gloucefterfhire. By the Rev. Cooper Willyams, Vicar of Ixning, in Suffolk. folio. WITH pleasure we announce a publication of this fort, as an inducement to other antiquaries to follow Mr. W's plan. He has given a hiftory of this cafle, which Fuller, in his quaint language, calls "of fubjects' caftles the moft handfome habitation, and of "fubjects' habitations the ftrongest "catle," from the time of Harold, before the Conqueft, to the builder of the prefent caftle, who took his title from it, and the Bridges family, in the reign of Mary. It was reduced to its prefent ftate in the civil war, for the loyalty of the laft of this family, who, fettling it on his wife, daughter of John Earl of Rivers, he conveyed it to her fecond husband, George Pitt, Efq. of Strath fay, whofe fon, George, is now Earl of Rivers. To him the Eaft view of the caftle and chapel, annexed to this work, is dedicated. A Weft view, by Buck, has been copied in Rudder's Gloucefterfbire, 1778. 17. 162. The Remonftrance. To which is added, An Ode to my ♫ifs: alfo, The Magpie and that posture! Her knav'ry, folly, on the rocks have toft her; Behold the thousands that furround the wreck ! Her cables parted, rudder gene, Split all her fails, her main-mast down, Choak'd all her pumps, broke-in her deck; Sport for the winds, the billows o'er her roll! Now am I glad of it with all my foul. "FRANCE lifts the bufy fword of blood no more; Loft to its giant grasp the wither'd hand: fay, what kingdom can her fate deplore, The dark disturber of each happy land? "To Britain an infidious damn'd lägo Remember, Englishmen, old Cato's cry, And keep that patriot-model in your eyeHis conftant cry, Delenda eft CARTHAGO. "FRANCE is our Carthage, that fworn foe to truth, Whofe perfidy deferves th' eternal chain! And now the 's down, our British bucks for footh Would lift the ftabbing ftrumpet up again. "Love I the French? - By heav'ns 'tis no fuch matter! Who loves a Frenchman, wars with fimple Nature. What Frenchman loves a Briton?-Nome: Yet by the hand this enemy we take; Yes, blund'ring Britons bofom up the fnake, And feel themfelves, too late indeed, undone. "The converfe chafte of day, and ekeofnight, The kifs-clad moments of fupreme delight, To Love's pure paffion only due; The feraph fmile that foft-ey'd FRIENDSHIP wears, And SoRRow's balm of fympathifing tears, Thofe iron fellows never knew. "For this I hate them.-Art, all varnish'd art! This doth EXPERIENCE ev'ry moment "Mad fools!-And can we deem the French profound, And, pleas'd, their infant politicks embrace, Who drag a noble pyramid to ground, Without one pebble to fupply its place? "Yet are they follow'd, prais'd, admir'd, Be with fuch praife thefe ears no longer bor'd! 163. An Riftorical Difquifition concerning the DR. R. has been led, by the perufal of Major Rennel's Memoir for illuftrating bis Map of Indofian, to examine more fully than he had done in his Hif tory of America into the knowledge He "of unfocial feclufion from the rest of "mankind." The Doctor enlarges no more on the voyage of Scylax, and the expedition of Darius, to which it is faid to have given rite; but expatiates in a new and ftriking manner on the conquefis of Alexander, which firft opened the Eaftern world to Europe. "If an untimely death had not put a period to the reign of the Macedonian hero, India, we have reafon to think, would have been more fully explored by the antients, and the European dominion would have been establifhed there two thousand years fooner. When Alexander invaded India, he had fomething more in view than a tranfient incurfion. It was his object to annex that extenfive and opulent country to his empire; and though the refractory spirit of his army obliged him, at that time, to fufpend the profecution of his plan, he was far from relinquishing it. To exhibit a general view of the measures which he adopted for this purpose, and to point out their propriety and probable fuccefs, is not foreign from the fubject of this Difquifition, and will convey a more juft idea than is ufually entertained of the original genius and extent of political wisdom which distinguished this illuftrious man. "When Alexander became mafter of the Perfian empire, he early perceived, that, with all the power of his hereditary domi nions, reinforced by the troops which the afcendant he had acquired over the various ftates of Greece might enable him to raise there, he could not hope to retain in subjection territories fo extenfive and populous; that to render his authority fecure and permanent, it must be established in the affection of the nations which he had fubdued, and maintained by their arms; and that, in order to acquire this advantage, all diftinctions between the victors and vanquished must be abolished, and his European and Afiatic fubjects must be incorporated, and become one people, by obeying the fame laws, and by adopting the fame manners, inftitutions, and difcipline. which the antients had of India. divides his hiftorical difquifition into four fections. The firft defcribes the intercourfe with India from the earlieft times, until the conqueft of Egypt by the Romans; the fecond deduces the hiftory of the India trade, from the eftablishment of the Roman dominion in Egypt to the conqueft of that kingdom by the Mohammedans; and the third continues the fame fubject to the difcovery of the paffage by the Cape of Good Hope, and the establishment of the Portuguefe dominion in the Eaft. The fourth fection confifts of fuch general obfervations as naturally refult from the preceding narrative. Thefe are followed by notes and illuftrations. He paffes briefly over the connexion between the Eaft Indies and Egypt and Phenicia. The policy of the former forbad all in tercourfe with firangers, and all the efforts of Seforis to render the Egyptians a commercial people ended with him. Every circumftance in the character and fituation of the Phenicians was favouring appellation of Barbarians; and, in conable to the commercial fpirit. An intercourfe with the latter country enabled the Jews, in Solomon's reign, to "make "a tranfient commercial effort; but they "quickly returned to their former flate "Liberal as this plan of policy was, and well adapted to accomplish what he had in view, nothing could be more repugnant to the ideas and prejudices of his countrymen. The Greeks had fuch an high opinion of the pre-eminence to which they were raifed by civilization and science, that they feem hardly to have acknowledged the reft of mankind to be of the fame fpecies with themselves. To every other people they gave the degrad fequence of their own boafted fuperiority, they afferted a right of dominion over them, in the fame manner as the foul has over the body, and man have over irrational animals. Extravagant as this pretenfion may now appear, it found admittios, to the difgrace of antient antient philofophy, into all the fchools. Ariftotle, full of this opinion, in fupport of which he employs arguments more fubtle than folid, advised Alexander to govern the Greeks like fubjects, and the Barbarians as flaves; to confider the former as companions, the latter as creatures of an inferior nature+. But the fentiments of the pupil were more enlarged than thofe of his mafter, and his experience in governing men taught the monarch what the fpeculative fcience of the philofopher did not difcover. Soon after the victory at Arbela, Alexander himself, and, by his perfuafion, many of his officers, affumed the Perfian drefs, and conformed to feveral of their customs. At the fame time be encouraged the Perfian nobles to imitate the manners of the Macedonians, to learn the Greek language, and to acquire a relish for the beauties of the elegant writers in that tongue, which were then univerfally ftudied and admired. In order to render the union more complete, he refolved to marry one of the daughters of Darius, and chofe wives for an hundred of his principal officers in the moft illuftrious Perfian families. Their nuptials were celebrated with great pomp and feftivity, and with high exultation of the conquered people. In imitation of them, above ten thoufand Macedonians of inferior rank married Perfian wonen; to each of whom Alexander gave nuptial prefents, as a teftimony of his approbation to their conduct. "But affiduoufly as Alexander laboured to unite his European and Afiatic fubjects by the most indiffoluble ties, he did not truft entirely to the fuccess of that measure for the fecurity of his new conquests. In every province which he fubdued he made choice of proper stations, where he built and fortified cities, in which he placed garrifons, compofed partly of fuch of the natives as conformed to the Grecian manners and difcipline, and partly of fuch of his European subjects as were worn out with the fatigues of fervice, and wifhed for repofe, and a permanent eftablishment. These cities were numerous, and ferved not only as a chain of posts to keep open the communication between the different provinces of his dominions, but as places of ftrength to over-awe and curb the conquered people. Thirty thousand of his new fubjects, who had been difciplined in thefe cities, and armed after the European fashion, appeared before Alexander in Sufa, and were formed by him into that compact, folid body of infantry known by the name of The Phalanx, which conftituted the ftrength of a Macedonian army. But, in order to fe cure entire authority over this new corps, as well as to render it more effective, he appointed that every officer in it entrusted with command, either fuperior or fubaltern, fhould be European As the ingenuity of mankind naturally has recourse, in fimilar fituations, to the fame expedients, the European powers, who now, in their Indian territo ies, employ numerous bodies of the natives in their fervice, have, in forming the establishment of thefe troops, adopted the fame maxims, and, probably without know, ing it, have modeled their battalions of Sepots upon the fame principles as Alexander did his Phalanx of Perfians. "The farther Alexander pushed his con quefts from the banks of the Euphrates, which may be confidered as the centre of his dominions, he found it necellary to build and fortify a greater number of cities. Several of thefe to the East and South of the Cafpian Sea are mentioned by antient 20thors; and in India itself he founded two de ties on the banks of the Hydafpes, and a third on the Acefines, both nav gable rivers, which, after uniting their ftreams, fall into the Indus. From the choice of fuch fitua tions it is obvious that he intended, by means of thefe cities, to keep open a communication with India, not only by land, but by tea. It was chiefly with a view to he latter of thele objects (as I have already obferved) that he examined the navigation of the Incus with fo much attention. With the fame view, on his return to Sufa, he, in perion, furveyed the courfe of the Euphrates and Tigris, and gave directions to remove the cataracts, or dams, which the antient monarchs of Perfia, induced by a peculiar precept of their rel gion, which enjoined them to guard with the utmost care against defiling any of the ele ments, had conftructed near the mouths of thefe rivers, in order to fhut out their fubjects from any access to the ocean*. By opening the navigation in this manner, le propofed, that the valuable commodities of India fhould be conveyed from the Perfian Gulf into the interior parts of his Afiatic dominions, while, by the Arabian Gulf, they fhould be carried to Alexandria, and distributed to the reft of the world. "Grand and extenfive as these schemes were, the precautions employed, and the ar rangements made for carrying them into execution, were fo various and fo proper, that Alexander had good reafon to entertain fanguine hopes of their proving fuccefsful. At the time when the mutinous fpirit of his foldiers obliged him to relinquish lus operations in India, he was not thirty years of age complete. At this enterprizing period of life, a prince, of a spirit to active, perfevering, and undefatigable, must have foon found means to refume a favourite meafare on * “ Arrian, lib. VI. c. 7. Strab. lib. XVI. p. 1074, &c." which he had been long intent. If he had invaded India a fecond time, he would not, as formerly, have heen, obliged to force his way through hostile and unexplored regions, oprofed at every step by nations and tribes of barbarians, whofe names had never reached Greece. All Afia, from the shores of the Ionian Sea to the banks of the Hyphafis, would then have been fubject to his dominion; and through that immenfe Rtretch of country he had established fuch a chain of cities, or fortified stations, that his armies might have continued their march with fafety, and have found a regular fuccefton of magazines provided for their fubfiftence. Nor would it have been difficult for him to bring into the field forces juicient to have atchieved the conquest of a country fo populous and extenfive as India. Having armed and difciplined his fubjects in the Eaft like Europeans, they would have been ambticus to imitate and to equal their inftructors; and Alexander might have drawn recruits, not from his fcanty domains in Macedonia and Greece, but from the vast regions of Aft, which, in every age, has covered the earth, and aftonifhed mankind with its Burgerous armies. When, at the head of fuch a formidable power, he had reached the confines of India, he might have entered it under circomitances very different from thofe in his firft cxpedition. He had fecured a firm footing there, partly by means of the garrifons which he left in the three cities which he had built and fortified, and partly by his alliance with Taxiles and Porus. Thefe two Indian princes, won by Alexander's Tumanity and beneficence, which, as they were virtues feldom difplayed in the antiest mode of carrying on war, excited, of Courie, an higher degree of admiration and gratitude, had continued teady in their attachment to the Macedonians Reinforced by their troops, and guided by their information, as well as by the experience which he had acquired in his former campaigns, Alexarder must have made rapid progress in a country where every invader, from his time to the prefent age, has proved fuccefsful. "But this, and all his other fplendid fchemes, were terminated at once by his untinely death. In confequence of that, however, events took place, which illuftrate and confirm the juftnefs of the preceding fpeculations and conjectures by evidence the most ftriking and fatisfactory. When that great epire, which the fuperior genius of Alexander had kept united and in fubjection, no longer felt his fuperintending control, it broke into pieces, and its various provinces were feized by his principal officers, and parcelled out among them. From ambition, emulation, and personal animofity, they foon turned their arms against one another; and, as leveral of the leaders were equally eminent for political abilities and for military (kill, the contest was maintained long, and carried on with frequent viciffitudes of fortune. Amidft the various convulfions and revolutions which these occafioned, it was found that the measures of Alexander, for the prefervation of his conquefts, had been concerted with fuch fagacity, that, upon the final restoration of tranquillity, the Macedonian dominion continued to be established in every part of Afia, and not one province had fhaken off the yoke Even India, the most remote of Alexander's conquests, quietly submitted to Pytho, the fon of genor, and afterwards to Seleucus, who fuccettively obtained dominion over that part of Afia. Porus and Taxiles, notwithstanding the death of their benefactor, neither declined fubmiffion to the authority of the Macedonians, nor made any attempt to recover independence." p. 22-29. Of all Alexander's fucceffors Seleucus, to whom the Eastern divifion of the empire was allotted, was the only one who kept up any connexion with India by a treaty with one of its princes. The Syrians feem to have abandoned their poffeffions in India foon after the death of Seleucus. The Bactrian kings, who were alto fucceffors of Alexander, recovered poffeffion of the diftrict near the mouth of the Indus, which he had fubdued, but were foon overpowered by the Tartars, who put an end to the Greek dominion there, and in the more remote parts of the Eaft, about 126 years before the Chriftian æra. From teenth century, no European nation acthis period, until the clofe of the fifquired dominion in any part of India. Daring this long interval, the commerce with the Eaft was not neglected; and "it is remarkable (fays Dr. R.) "how foon and how regularly the trade "with India came to be carried on by "that channel, in which the fagacity of "Alexander defined it to flow." p. 35. It was in Egypt that the feat of this intercourfe was established. Dr. R's account is, from the fcantinefs Of the commerce of the Ptolemies, of his materials, short and imperfect. His defcription of the Roman commerce with the East is more ample and more fatisfactory. Our limits will not permit us to follow him through the annals of thofe empires; much lets to purfue his hiftorical deduct.on of the india trade through the channels of the Moors, Venetians, and Genoels, whofe tranfactions in the Eat have been more fre quently defcribed, and are generally known. The fourth and concluding fection of this valuable Difquifition contains important obfervations concerning the na ture ture and revolutions of commerce; obfervations intimately connected with the preceding narrative, and of fuch weight in themfelves as renders them worthy of being adorned by the pen of Dr. Ro. bertion. Of thefe obfervations we shall felect the two following, because they are connected with two popular and highly interesting topicks, the African lave-trade and the deftru&tion of the Turkish empire: "While America contributed in this manner to facilitate and extend the intercourfe of Europe with Afia, it gave rife to a traffick with Africa, which, from flender beginnings, has become fo confiderable as to form the chief bond of commercial connexion with that continent. Soon after the Portuguese had extended their discoveries on the coaft of Africa beyond the river Senegal, they endeavoured to derive fome benefit from their new fettlements there, by the fale of flaves. Various circumftances combined in favouring the revival of this odious traffick. In every part of America, of which the Spaniards took poffeffion, they found that the natives, from the feebleness of their frame, from their indolence, or from the injudicious manner of treating them, were incapable of the exertions requifite either for working mines, or for cultivating the earth. Eager to find hands mere induftrious and efficient, the Spenards had recourfe to their neighbours the Portu guese, and purchased from them Negroflaves. Experience foon difcovered that they were men of a more hardy race, and to much better fitted for enduring fatigue, that the Labour of one Negro was computed to be equal to that of four Americans *; and from that time the number employed in the New World has gone on increafing with rapid progrefs. In this practice, no lefs repugnant to the feelings of Humanity than to the principles of Religion, the Spaniards have unhappily been imitated by all the nations of Europe, who have acquired territories in the warmer climates of the New World. At prefent the number of Negro-flaves in the fettlements of Great Britain and France, in the West Indies, exceeds a million; and as the establishment of fervitude has been found, both in antient and in modern times, extremely unfavourable to population, it requires an annual importation from Africa of at least 58,000, to keep up the stock †. If it were pollible to afcertain, with equal exactness, the number of flaves in the Spanish dominions, and in North America, the total number of Negro-flaves might be well reck. oned at as many more. "Thus the commercial genius of Europe, which has given it a vifible afcendant over the three other divifions of the earth, by "Hift. of America, vol. 1. p. 320." +"Report of Lords of the Privy Council, A. D. 1788." difcerning their respective wants and refources, and by rendering them reciprocally fubfervient to one another, has established an union among them, from which it has derived an immenfe increase of opulence, of power, and of enjoyments." p. 165–167. The concluding pages of this Dilquifition prove that this celebrated historian is not a partizan of the Turks: "It is to the difcovery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope, and to the vigour and fuccefs with which the Portugueze profecuted their conquests and establifhed there, that Europe has been indebted for its prefervation from the most illiberal and humiliating fervitude that ever oppretted polished nations. For this obfervation I am indebted to an author whofe ingenuity has illuftrated, and whose eloquence has adorned the Hiftory of the Settlements and Commerce of the Modern Nations in the Eaft and Wet Indies; and it appears to me fo well founded as to merit more ample investigation. A few years after the first appearance of the Portugueze in India, the dominion of the Mameluks was overturned by the trefistible power of the Turkish arms, and Egypt and Syria were annexed as provinces to their empire. If, after this event, the commercial intercourfe with India had continued to he carried on in its antient channels, the Turkish fultans, by being mafters of Egypt and Syriz, must have poffeffed the abfolute command of it, whether the productions of the Eit were conveyed by the Red Sea to Alexandria, or were transported by land- carriage from the Perfian Gulf to Conftantinople, and the ports of the Mediterranean. The monarchs who were then at the head of this great empire were neither deftitute of abilities to perceive the pre-eminence to which this would have elevated them, nor of ambition to af pire to it. Selim, the conqueror of the Mameluks, by confirming the antient privileges of the Venetians in Egypt and Syris, and bị his regulations concerning the duties on Indian goods, which I have already mentioned, early discovered his folicitude to fecure sit the advantages of commerce with the Raft to his own dominions. The attention of Solyman the Magnificent, his fucceffor, seems to have been equally directed towards the fame object. More enlightened than any monarch of the Ottoman race, he attended to all the tranfa&tions of the European ftates, and had obferved the power as well as opulence to which the republick of Venice had attained by engroffing the commerce with the Eaft. He now beheld Portugal rifing towards the fame elevation, by the fame means. Eager to imitate and to fupplant them, he formed a fcheme fuitable to his character for pohti. cal wifdom and the appellation of Indirate of Rules, by which the Turkish hiftorians "M. l'Abbé Raynal.” |