Blush, then, my countrymen! at the fact of your fifter Ireland outstripping you in this neceffary point of radical parliamentary reform. But if, what I am unwilling to fuppofe, deaf to the monitory voice of your affectionate addreffer, you be funk, past rousing, in a torpid political lethargy, I mean not to become an eye-witness of the flavish confequences of your fpirit of drowfinefs, but to endeavour to break the chain which holds me to my native foil, and feek an afylum in that island which juftly glories in thofe truly-patriotic heroes, Meffrs. Grattan, Corry, and Forbes, Leinster's duke, and 'Charlemont's earl, and their worthy colleagues. There at least I may hope that the preceding plan, and other plans which I have in petto for the univerfal benefit of mankind, will meet a cordial welcome and adoption, and their author, with his wife and young family, an hofpitable reception and friendly eftablishment.' If our author has no other reafon for removing, with his family, into Ireland, than that which he has expreffed in the foregoing quotation, there feems to be no prefent occafion for old England to fear the lofs of this zealous defender of her liberties; for we now learn that the Irish penfion-bill was loft in the House of Lords of that kingdom. Art. 22. An Anfwer to the " Country Gentleman's Letters to a Member of Parliament;" with a Review of the Characters of the Dukes of Norfolk, Portland, and Northumberland; the Houses of Devonshire and Ruffel; Lords Thurlow, Camden, Loughborough, Kenyon, and North; to which are added, thofe of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Sheridan; Dukes of Richmond and Leeds, and the Marquis of Buckingham; Lords Chatham, Sydney, and Hawkesbury; Sir George Yonge, and Mr. Dundas. 8vo. pp. 8o. 2s. Kearfley The Letter from a Country Gentleman, &c. was noticed in our Review for February. We thought it a pamphlet of confiderable merit and confequence, and in the fame light it must have appeared to the writer of thefe ftrictures upon it; for otherwife he certainly would not have entered fo feriously into a controverfy with the author. Serious, indeed, and fpirited, is the attack of this opponent to the Country Gentleman; and fkilfully does he handle his weapons. In brief, the mafters are well matched, and "When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war." The anfwerer is no lefs zealous, as the champion of the oppofition party, than was the country letter-writer, as an advocate on the ministerial fide of the question; but he does not exprefs himself with all that appearance of moderation and candour which his antagonist fo well knows how, occafionally, to affume, if he does not actually prefs thofe qualities, fo rarely feen in controverfial writings. The author now before us too frequently finks into a firain of virulence and perfonal acrimony; and even in his Address to the King, which concludes the prefent performance, his freedom feems to carry him rather too near the borders of familiarity, particularly in p. 75, where we obferved an expreffion or two, which, with all due deference, we would advise him to reconfider, in his next edition. Art. Art. 23. A retrospective View of the late political Emergency; with Remarks on the Conduct of the principal Managers, both in and out of Office. In a Letter addreffed to the Right. Hon. C. J. Fox, &c. 8vo. pp. 23. 6d. Bourne. Under the character of a mere Tyro in conflitutional learning, the writer pleasantly rallies Meff. Fox, Burke, Sheridan, &c. He affects to be puzzled by the ambiguity of conduct lately manifefted by fome political chiefs: for, fays he, if Whig and Tory are titles alternately interchangeable, and there is no determinate principle of action to characterize the difference of profeffion, but the one is the other, as occafion requires, how is it poffible to know a real Whig from a real Tory ?'--Anfwer, "By their fruits ye fhall know them." Art. 24. The Royal Interview: a Fragment. By the Author of a Letter from a Country Gentleman to a Member of Parliament. 8vo. 25. pp. 61. Walter, Piccadilly. 1789. In this well-imagined conference, the weight of argument is all thrown into the regal fcale. The King, with great dignity, energy, and propriety of expreflion, expoftulates with the Heir Apparent, on account of his party connections, and his queftionable conduct during his royal father's late dangerous indifpofition: not forgetting fome other indifcretions, with which he has been charged. The replies of his R. H. in defence of himself, are but feeble efforts; and, in fhort, it happens in this, as in moft argumentative dialogues on paper, the victory is pre-determined: a man of ftraw is fet up, merely to be run through and through at pleafure.-But, whatever political bias may be imputed to the author, by thofe who differ from him in their fentiments, on the points here debated, the candid and judicious, of all parties, meft, we think, acknowlege that he has, in this performance, as in his Letter from a Country Gentleman, proved himfelf an able politician, and a good writer. Art. 25. Strictures on the late Removal of Two Noble Perfonages from their respective Employments: with an Appendix, containing a Speech made by John Duke of Argyle, in the feventh Seffion of the first Parliament of George II. in oppofition to a Motion for an Addrefs, praying to know who had advifed the Removals of the Duke of Bolton and the Lord Vifcount Cobham from their refpective Regiments. Svo. pp. 28. IS. Walter, Piccadilly. 1789. A fenfible vindication, if any vindication was neceffary, of the late exercife of the royal prerogative in the removals alluded to a the title-page, and in the following very concife defcription: The one was in an office whole duties would be perfect.y conveyed by giving it the denomination of the place of itate-foo man; the other. was colonel of that regiment, which, from its being particularly employed in the defence of the royal perfon, is emphatically Ityled the regiment of life guards.' Now, continues the author, what man would chufe for his footman or his guard, thofe who, upon his being feized with a temporary derangement of intellect, teemed more See Review for February, p. 175. A a 2 anxious anxious to put his fon in poffeffion of all his property than to provide for the fafety of his perfon, and the restoration, in due time, of his eftate and rights?' This requires no comment. Art. 26. An Anfwer to M. De Lolme's Obfervations on the late National Embarrament. By Neptune. 8vo. pp. 44• Is. 6d. Stockdale. The trident of Neptune, we perceive, is not to be confidered merely as an enfign of authority, but is alfo to be regarded as a weapon, offenfive and defenfive; and a very formidable weapon too, we fuppofe, it will be thought by Mr. de Lolme; who may not, perhaps, foon recover from the confequences of the fevere chaftifement that he has received from it, on account of the part which he unfortunately took in the late difputes concerning the regency: fee Rev. for laft month, Art. 53, of the Catalogue. Art. 27. The author appears to have been extremely folicitous, that his countrymen fhould not, in their congratulations to their fovereign, afford the remoteft idea of their approbation of thofe limitations, which convey fo direct an infinuation on the character of his Royal Highness, or give the flighteft fanction to thofe measures fo injurious to his patriotic inclinations, and which can only be juftified by the unjuft fuppofition of his ever having been deferving of them. REPEAL of the TEST ACT. Art. 28. A Letter to the Bishops, on the Application of the Proteftant This fenfible and manly addrefs to the Right Rev. Bench is written with a truly liberal and catholic fpirit: it is respectful, but not fawning. The author feems really concerned for the honour of the facred college. Speaking of the Corinthians' abuse of the Lord's fupper, he adds, There was not, my Lords, a circumftance cenfurable in their conduct, which hath not its counterpart in this application of the Lord's fupper, as a test. The Corinthians did not diftinguish between the Lord's fupper and a common banquet: the teft law placeth it on a footing with any civil ceremonial, by which men are invested with any fecular office. They, through their misapprehenfions of its nature, converted it into an occafion of disorder and intemperance: the teft law makes it fubfervient to the purposes of avarice and ambition. They, at the feat of love, gave way to fchifms, ftrife, and debate: the test law makes the bond of love the inftrument of partial diftinctions; turning it into a political tool, and an engine of ftate. How fimilar is the guilt! fimilar in nature, but not, I conceive, ind fgree.' The The author's ftrictures on the Bishop of Gloucester's fermon are Art. 29. A Letter to Edward Jefferies, Efq. Chairman of the Another able advocate in this important caufe. This very fenfible epiftle breathes the fpirit of candour, benevolence, and true religion, in every line. The author tells us, it is very far from his intention, that any thing indecent or difrefpectful fhould efcape his pen on this occafion; that he should be forry to give the fmalleft just caufe of offence to any man on earth except the man of fin: and he has no doubt that his Majefty's minifters will on this occafion recollect, that in the multitude of people is the King's honour, that he is the common father of his people; and that while with paternal fondnefs, he dandles one fon upon his right knee, he will condefcend to embrace and fuftain another, who, without envying his brother, leans with filial confidence upon the left. EDUCATION. D. Art. 30. Initia Homerica, five Excerpta ex Iliade Homeri, cum Locorum omnium Græca Metaphraft, ex Codicibus Bodleianis et Novi Collegii MSS. majorem in Partem nunc primum edita. Edidit Thomas Burgess, A. M. Collegii Corporis Chrifti Socius. Elmiley, &c. 1788. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Thefe Excerpta are intended for the use of schools, or the younger fcholars, at the univerfities, to whom they will prove very ferviceable, in teaching them, at an early period, the leading diftinctions between the styles of profe and poetry, in the Greek language. The felection of the paffages has been made with fingular judg ment, as they are fuch as, from their natures, may be understood without reference either to the preceding or fubfequent lines. The first part of the work confifts of fimilies collected from different parts of the Iliad, and the defcription of the field of Achilles, with a Greek profe Metaphrafis on the page oppofite to that which contains the original text, with fhort notes principally from Clarke. Then follows the third book of the Iliad, with a metaphrafis profaica, cum adnotatione Clarkii et Ernefti, printed in the fame manner.-This Metaphrafis had been published before by Villoison. The remaining part of the book is occupied by a paffage from the firft Iliad, accompanied by a paraphrafis, and metaphrafis from MSS. in the Bodleian library, and Platonica ejufdem loci enarratio. To these are added an Excerptum from the allegorical expofition of Tzetzes, verfibus politicis, in which the fame paffage of Homer is illustrated. Thefe Initia conclude with further extracts from the inedited Expofitio of Tzetzes ;-firft, the intire Proemium to the work, then his narrations of the Judgment of Paris, and fome other events previous to the Trojan war, and during its continuance; and, finally, a metaphrafis of the third Iliad, by the fame Author. A a 3 Such 1 Such are the contents of this little volume, which, in our opinion, will prove an excellent affiflant to youthful students of Greek, and imprefs on their minds the true and exact meaning of many of the Particles, and teach them in what the Homeric language differs from that of the latter ages. It will alfo enable them to acquire a ftock of vocables, with much lefs expence of time and labour than they could expect to do, if they were only habituated to render the Greek words by their correfpondent Latin or English words in their tranflations. ASTRONOMY. C.Bu....y. Art. 31. The Preface to a Specimen of a general Aftronomical Catalogue arranged in Zones of North Polar Distance, and adapted to Jan. I, 1790, giving an Account of the Work which is now in the Prefs, and what may be expected in it. By Francis Wollaston, F. R. S. 8vo. 39 Pages. 1s. 6d. Wilkie. 1789. The claffing of the fixed ftars into conftellations was of ancient origin; and the forming catalogues on that claffification followed as natural confequence. This method,, Mr. Wollafton thinks, is liable to great inconvenience, especially in the circumstance of having two ftars, which are next to each other in the heavens, in very diftant parts of the catalogue. The propofed arrangement is to bring every ftar into its refpective zone, according to the feveral degrees of north polar diftance, ranking them in the order of their right afcenfion in each zone. The catalogue is adapted to the mean pofition of the stars on Jan. 1, 1790, and is to comprehend every thing that can reafonably be defired by the practical aftronomer.' Mr. Wollafton's plan is undoubtedly praife-worthy. The claffification of the fixed ftars in conftellations is certainly liable to much objection. We think also that there are objections to Mr. Wollafton's claffification. These are, ift, That the right afcenfion of the stars varies unequally in different ftars; 2d, That the north polar distance varies not only unequally but in contrary directions; for instance, the eye of the conftellation Peacock, marked a in Bayer's Catalogue, increafes near five feconds of time in right afcenfion, annually; while the ftar in the oars of the fhip Argo, marked 2, increases, annually, only three quarters of a fecond; and in Andromeda's Girdle decreafes in north polar diftance 19 feconds of space, while in the Lion's tail increafes 20 feconds annually. Hence the claffification in zones of polar diftance made for any certain epoch will be continually fubjected to change, and require frequent corrections, to adapt it to any future period. The fixed ftars fuffer no change in their latitude, and the change in their longitude is uniformly 50 feconds annually in all. Would it not therefore have been better to have claffed the fixed ftars in zones of latitude which do not vary, ranking them in the order of their longitude, whofe increase is uniform? Perhaps, in Mr. Wollafton's work, which he fays is now in the prefs, and will be published in the courfe of the fummer, these objections will be cbviated. We fhall expect it with a degree of impatience, as, from Mr. Wollafton's known abilities and accuracy, we hope to fee a Catalogue of the fixed stars more perfect, and their places more exactly determined, than hath hitherto been communicated to the public. R......m. MEDICAL. |