by applying thefe general principles to explain the caufes of the diverfities of genius, as it is employed on the fciences or on the arts. But befide the merit which this work has in common with all fuccefsful inveftigations of the powers and operations of the human mind, that it opens a curious and interefting train of fpeculation to the philofopher; we apprehend it may have the merit of utility beyond most other publications of this kind. We find from experience, that the principles of affociation are in fome degree under the government of volition; and that it is in a man's power to employ one or other of thefe at pleasure, Since therefore the varieties of genius chiefly depend on the nature of the affociating principle which is predominant, and the manner in which this, and the other fubordinate powers of aflociation are exerted; may it not be poffible for a man, by the judicious direction of the affociating principles, according to the theory established in this work, to produce material variations and improvements in his genius? Though the maxim, Poeta nafcitur, be allowed to be juft, do not thefe fpeculations lead us to question whether it fhould be added, non fit? At leaft the inquiry feems worth pursuing; and if it appear as important to our judicious Author as it does to us, it will probably be pursued with fuccefs. In the fecond edition the Doctor will doubtlefs correct the following errata: 6 Page 104. If a philofopher fould [were to] deduce any phenomenon from a known cause, by a process oppofite to what we have obferved in fimilar cafes, we would [fhould] fufpect, &c. P. 142. Custom has bestowed upon them an indiffoluble connection; and the most ignorant fearce imagine that they have any connection [fcarcely imagine, that they have no connection] except that which custom has bestowed. P. 170. It tends to-caufe the mind run [to run]. P. 256. caufing one [to] bring others. P. 265. a perfon should [would] have no power. P. 398. Without its being in the use of interpofing [accustomed to interpofe] its judgment. We will conclude this article with the following beautiful fimiles, which (with many others interfperfed through the work) fhow that our Author has no inconfiderable command over the affociating principle chiefly employed in the arts, refemblance; as the whole performance proves him to be a great mafter of that which is principally ufed in fcience, the relation of cause and effect. As acuteness of fmell carries a dog along the path of the game for which he fearches, and fecures him againft the danger of quitting it for another fcent; fo regularity of imagination leads leads the man of genius into thofe tracks where the proper ideas lurk, and not only enables him to discover them, but by a kind of inftinctive infallibility prevents him from turning afide to wander in improper roads, or to fpend his time in the contemplation of unappofite ideas. As the bee extracts from fuch flowers as can fupply them, the juices which are proper to be converted into honey, without lofing its labour in fipping those juices which would be pernicious, or in examining those vegetables which are useless; so true genius difcovers at once the ideas which are conducive to its purpose, without at all thinking of fuch as are unneceffary, or would obftruct it.' ART. II. The Administration of the British Colonies. Part the Second. Wherein a Line of Government between the fupreme Jurifdiction of Great Britain and the Rights of the Colonies is drawn, and a Plan of Pacification is fuggefted, &c. By Thomas Pownal, late Governor, &c. of Massachusetts Bay and South-Carolina. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Walter. 1774. UR Author in the first part of this work*, confidered the relations between Great Britain and the Colonies; proceeding, as he obferves, from those principles, by the vigour of which, all free communities are governed within themselves, to the examination and difcuffion of the external relation in which the colonies, as communities of Englishmen in partibus exteris, ftood to the fovereign power of the kingdom of Great Britain.' And pursuing this inquiry by an analysis of the circumstances under which they emigrated, and the principles on which these communities were in fact fettled,' he found them to be de facto de jure counties palatine, established on the precedent of the county palatine of Durham.' And then by an examination of the procedure of the realm of England towards these kind of principalities, he found they were bound to perform towards the empire of England all fervices which arife from the duty of fubordinate parts of it, to maintain the union, fafety, and vitality of the whole: Yet that in the cafe of aids and fubfidies which are of free will, they could not in the strict legal acceptation of their rights, be bound by the gifts and grants of the reprefentatives of the realm not reprefenting them,' and he produced cafes wherein, when they excepted to the being thus bound, they were held excused and free therefrom.' And as government had afterwards admitted these principalities to a representation in parliament, he from this precedent endeavoured to recommend an 'union of all the parts of the British dominions into a one whole, an organized body, animated by a free will extending to all.' And this he recommended as the only means of preventing' an Ame * Şee Review, vol. xxxix. p. 323. rican rican union, diftinct from, and independent of Great Britain." Our Author prefumes, that the people of America would at one time have been pleased with a representation in the British parliament, and in fupport of this opinion, he cites a letter, (printed at large) from Dr. Franklin to the late Governor Shirley, written December 22, 1754, in answer to a propofal made to him on that fubject by the Governor. We are likewife favoured with the following opinion of the late Mr. Grenville, on the fame fubject, in a letter from that ftatefman to Governor Pownal, dated Wotton, July 17, 1768.' "As to the great question of our parliament's granting to America a competent number of reprefentatives to fit in our houfe of commons, you are no ftranger to the declarations I repeatedly made in the house at the time when the repeal of the ftamp-act was agitated; that if fuch an application fhould be properly made by the colonies to parliament, in the fame manmanner as those which were made from Chefter and Durham, and probably from Wales, it would, in my opinion, be intitled to the most ferious and favourable confideration. I continue ftill in the fame fentiments; but I am much afraid that neither the people f Great Britain nor thofe of America are fufficiently apprifed of the danger which threatens both, from the prefent fate of things, to adopt a measure to which both the one and the other feem indifpofed." The fulleft conviction of its neceffity, and the hearty concurrence both of the government and people are indifpenfably necefiary to fet fo great a machine in motion, as that of uniting all the out-lying parts of the British dominions into one fyltein." Our Author fuppofing the people of America to be now as little difpofed to the union in queftion, as thofe of Great Britain, and confequently defpairing of this his otherwife favourite measure, proceeds in this.fecond part of his work, to form a line between the fupremacy of parliament and the rights of the colonies on a different bafis; and this he propofes as a line of pacification. If we are to treat,, fays he, there must be fome line to which our negociations are to have reference: if we are to fight, there must be fome line which fhall bound and be the end even of our victories.' And as the foundation of this part of his work, he maintains that if ftates permitting or promo. ting emigrations, fuffer the emigrants to fettle on lands belonging to other ftates, they fuffer the allegiance of fuch emigrants to be transferred to that ftate.'-' If they fuffer them to fettle in locis vacuis, and to acquire a feparate dominium, they then fuffer them to become a community fui juris,-which was the precife cafe of the Grecian colonies. But if thefe colonists fettle on lands which, in partibus exteris, are (according to the ufage and law of nations) the dominions of that state from whence whence they came forth; then, although these colonists should be permitted to form feparate and diftinct communities, to eftablish governments having fovereign jurifdiction within the limits of their own corporation; yet being fettled on the lands, and within the dominions, although external dominions of the parent state; thefe colonies remain under a certain relation of allegiance to its general and fupreme imperium.' And this latter he gives as a defcription of the ftate and circumstances of the colonies in America, taking it for granted, that the lands on which they are fettled were, prior to fuch fettlement, part of the dominion and property of the realm of England: a propofition which, with regard to the more ancient colonies, we think cannot be proved. For it is univerfally acknowledged that dif covery, the only title that any European ftate could allege to the lands of America, affords no juft claim to any but derelict or uninhabited lands, which thofe of America were not. It had indeed been fuggefted by papal ingenuity, in more fuperftitious ages, that grace was the only juft foundation of dominion; that Chriftians alone had a right to inherit the earth; and that unbelieving nations ought to be regarded as unjuft poffeffors of the countries where their Creator had placed them. And fuch were the pretences on which Pope Eugene the Fourth, in 1440, granted Africa to Alphonfo king of Portugal; and on the fame pretences, Pope Alexander the Sixth, and feveral European princes, afterwards difpofed of the countries of America. But all diftinctions between the temporal rights of chriftian and infidel nations having been long fince exploded, it may, we think, be fafely affirmed, that the ftates of Europe by whom the firft grants of American territory were made, had neither in equity, nor in the laws of nature or of nations, any right to make fuch difpofals. And we have abundant evidence, that the firft Englith emigrants to America, confidered their respective grants from the crown, not as valid titles to the foil of that country, but as inftruments affording a kind of nominal fanction, or as they termed it, a right of pre-emption, under which they might afterwards, without moleftation, proceed to acquire a real title, from the original natives, by purchase, treaty, fettlement, and cultivation. Having thus loofened our Author's foundation, the fuperftructure refting upon it might eafily be overthrown-but being convinced that his work has been undertaken from benevolent motives, we fhall avoid fuch violence, and proceed to review the building itself. Taking it for granted, therefore, that the colonies were fettled on territories belonging to the realm, and confequently that they ought to be fubordinate to its fupreme authority, our Author proceeds to fix the precife limits of this fubordination by by a definition of what he terms colonial government. This, he fays, fo far as it refpects the acts of the colony operating within its own jurisdiction, on its own body, and in matters respecting its own rights only, is internal, and as fuch, and fo far forth, is abfolute and fovereign;' but, on the other hand the fupreme fovereign power of the mother country, hath a right to actuate and exert even up to the very bounds of the line of the jurifdiction of the colonies, provincial or external government;' (by which he understands a government depending on force) to make all regulations whatfoever, and to impofe all fuch duties and cuftoms on the tranfit of goods, paffing the boundaries of its jurifdiction, as the economy and neceffities of the ftate fhall require.' And he afterwards limits the boundaries of colonial jurifdiction, within low water mark in their respective harbours, &c. Whatever paffes this mark he subjects to taxation or confifcation at the pleasure of parliament, and thus deprives the colonifts of the benefits not only of the fea, which has been deemed the common property of mankind, but also of the rivers and harbours belonging to their own peculiar jurifdictions. And yet he has no where given us any fatisfactory reafon or authority for making this precife limitation at the point of low water, or indeed at any other determinate boundary. Narrow however as thefe limitations are, all the freedom and fecurity which our Author at firft beftowed on the colonists within thofe limits, are perfectly annihilated by another part of his fyftem, where he maintains, that in extraordinary cafes, and whenever the colonies exceed the proper limits of obedience, parliament has a right to interpofe and fuperfede their refpective governments, even fo far as to govern them by force, and to transport supposed offenders from America to Great Britain for trial and punishment. On thefe propofitions (parliament alone having a right to judge of the expediency of fuch interpofitions) all thofe acts which are now oppofed as grievous by the colonies, and every other which may be hereafter enacted, will be juftifiable; and therefore we may conclude that our Author's plan of pacification' will not pacify the people of America; at least, not until they fhall have abandoned those principles which fupport their prefent oppofition.-Suppofing then that this plan fhould not be acceptable, no other, according to our Author, remains than either that the colonies be admitted into the parliament of Great Britain by a general British union, or that they have a parliament of their own under an American union. There is (fays he) no other part in the alternative than that they be put either in the fituation of Scotland or in that of Ireland. The reft of our Author's performance confifts chiefly of remarks on the Pennsylvania inftructions, which are cenfured as far |