" the hope', which he pleads as an excuse for his temerity, that the publication is calculated to do some good.' Its general tendency we highly approve; it inculcates just principles, without bigotry; zeal, without enthusiasm; and the necessity of religion with the advantages of literature. We must content ourselves with one extract, which will give a favourable impression of the writer's talents. All nature yields him pleasure; for he sees A God in all. At the still evening hour, The throngs which haunt the public promenade; From midnight scenes of riotous display. p. 47. The First Book describes the pastoral character and office; the Second condemns false teachers and antichristian pastors, one of whom is introduced under the name of Eugenio; the Third Book celebrates the labours and reward of the Christian pastor,' under the name of Aspasio. Art. XIII. Letters from an Irish Student in England to his Father in Ireland. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 660. Price 12s. Cradock and Joy. 1809. A READER but moderately acquainted with the tricks of modern book-makers, would soon begin to doubt the genuineness of these Letters', though the name of Sir Richard Phillips is not on the title-page : for it is well known to be one of these tricks, for the real proprietor to borrow the name of a friendly house, on the same principle as he buys that of a popular writer. The preface contains a remark, obviously intended to account for various signs of manufacture which would other wise create suspicion in the mind of ignorance or credulity itself. And in due time we come to passages of the following kind, which determine both the nature and origin of the book to little less than a máthematical certainty. 3 I am indebted to a barrister, a friend of mine, for an introduction, a short time since, to Mr. Sheriff Phillips, (!) one of the sheriffs of this city, and also one of its first booksellers; whose upright zeal in the execution of his office, entitle him to my warmest eulogiums. In consequence of the obliging invitation of the sheriff, Col. B. and I had an opportunity of seeing most of the metropolitan prisons; and to his honour, I may add, in a state of evident improvement.' Vol. I. p. 162, 3. These and many other points were forcibly and very earnestly urged to us by the Sheriff, whilst were passing through these wards, and he seemed to expect that he should succeed in reinoving many of the abuses of which he complained.' p. 177. Since Mr. Sheriff, now Sir Richard Phillips, has left his office, he has detailed these abuses, and stated the means of their removal, in a Letter to his Constituents, the Livery of London, a work, which, it is hoped, will long be received by all sheriffs in Ireland, as well as in Great Britain, as a manual of their duties in this very important office.' p. 178. These ideas are corroborated by a spirited memorial to the Secretary of State, drawn up by Sir Richard Phillips, and printed in his very able work on the Duties of Sheriff. Page 110.' p. 182. Amongst the many humane exertions which Mr. Sheriff Phillips has made on behalf of the miserable wretches confined in this prison,' &c. p. 185. "Sir Richard Phillips has forcibly pointed out the legal and constitutional abuses of this prison,* in a protest, which, as sheriff of Middlesex, he presented to the king's commissioners, recently appointed to inquire and report upon them. Duties of Sheriff, page 48. p. 191. Amongst the most enterprising booksellers of the day, I am informed that Mr. Sheriff Phillips takes the lead! Vol. II. p. 20. I have been assisted in this letter by the article WEAVING, in the British Encyclopedia, as I learn, written from the preface, by the Rev. Joseph Nightingale!! Vol. I. p. 271. If you wish to be informed of the origin and progress of the Methodists, their bickerings, persecutions,' &c. and their intolerant spirit, I refer you to the Rev. Joseph Nightingale's Portraiture of Methodism : a work which, to important information, unites agreeable entertainment, and which, with moderation, unfolds the folly and wickedness of the sect!!? P. 108. The reader will begin to wonder why we should have disgusted him, with such exposures as these; and will perhaps think any further proof needless, of the depravity and ignorance evinced in this incomparable catchpenny. Why need we tell him what the writer says of the missionaries and native Christians in Bengal? The manner in which these missionaries proceed in their attempts at proselytism is by alluring the native, not so much with the superior attractions of the Christian religion, properly developed to them, as by the more seductive offer of four annas, equal to eight pence English, per! day, as the price of becoming a Christian.' p. 39. 1 t Why need we add, that he speaks with admiration of the Mansionhouse, that he is enchanted with the exterior of St. Stephen's, Wallbrook, and the singularity and beauty of its spire!'-that he talks of ⚫ the heaviest visitation with which the Almighty can inflict his creatures,' that he informs us duelling originated in the year 1527!--that he says he has some little pretensions to taste, and an enthusiastic love of it!'-that he cannot but lament, and even to feel no little surprise, that,' &c.-that he criticises Mr. Fuzeli', and declares Canovre, (probably meaning Canova) the greatest statuary now existing,'-that he thinks Mr. Whitbread possesses an uncommon clear and comprehensive mind, which he conveys in bold and nervous language,' and that he believes him to be incorruptable,' &c. &c. Our reason for taking the trouble is plainly this. ;-The Ecleric Review, on certain memorable occasions, has detected fraud, ridiculed dulness, and branded impiety; * Cold-bath Fields. This sentence is quoted faithfully. it is therefore mentioned by the worthy contrivers of the before us, in the following emphatic terms, which we amuse our readers, and justify ourselves. Letters' now quote both to This detestable publication is entirely under the influence of a number of violent, pedantic, hot-brained fanatics, attached to Methodism. Vol. II, p. 26. It may well be imagined the first effect of this retort courteous was a violent fit of laughter; but the next effect, we are sorry to say, is truly distressing. Being made parties, as well as judges, in this cause, it has unhappily become necessary for us not only to express our opinion, but to state some of the facts on which it is founded. We should otherwise have troubled our readers with only a very few words, leaving such as might neglect the warning, to the self-inflicted punish ment of buying and reading the book. We might then have contented ourselves with representing it, as a shameless imposition, of the meanest quality; a collection of that miserable common place on public characters and incidents, on the drama, and the arts W which may be called torn-gossip, and heard in every shop; a farrago of newspaper anecdotes, threadbare jests, and pillage from such books as the Picture of London, and the British Museum Synopsis; with thing oriscarcely any ginal but the impudent puffing, the dirty malice, the glaring falshoods, the rancour against pure morality and sound religion, the indelicate descriptions, and the matchless absurdities committed in retailing the various articles of trash and plunder; in short, a trick worthy of Sir Richard Phillips to contrive, and a job fit for the Rev. Joseph Nightin gale to perform. Art. XIV. A Grammar of Geometry; containing an easy Exhibition of the Practice of that Art; 'serving as an Introduction to Euclid and to the practical Mathematics. By J. Smith, LL. D. 16mo. Pp. viii. 80. Price 3s. 6d. bound. Phillips. 1809. THE first suggestions of curiosity in the human mind, says J. Smith, L.L. D. are, how long? how high? how big? The resolving of such questions is the peculiar province of practical Geometry. Conformably with this notion, we shall lay before the curious the prac tical geometry of the Doctor's book. Its length is six inches and onefifth its height, when placed flat upon our table, sixty-five hundredths of an inch, (we express the dimensions in words rather, than by figures, for the advantage of those practical geometers who have not learnt decimal arithmetic), its breadth three inches and nine-tenths; and its big. ness one hundred and twenty-four pages, including only thirty-six pages of advertisements of books manufactured, published, and sold by Sir, Richard Phillips and well qualified assistants. We are not quite sure whether colour is, in Dr. Smith's opinion, a geometrical quality; if we were, we might gratify the suggestions of curiosity' in that way, by telling that the cover of the book is red. This is the most important information we have to communicate; except we add, that the diagrams are neat, and the book nicely spaced out, so as often to bring, with a little management, from eight to twelve lines into a page. As to the contents of the work, we may say briefly, that there are thirty-eight geometrical problems; eight examples in plane trigonometry, and forty-four questions for exercise. The precepts are very concise, and sometimes erroneous. Some of the examples are far too difficult for an elementary book; and depend upon principles not explained in this Grammar. Indeed, the grand fault of the book is, that it has no luminous explanation of processes, nor a single demonstration. For our own parts, we are modest enough to think, that, when we learn nothing from a book, common readers will not learn much: and we may safely say that all we have learnt from Dr. Smith's Grammar of Geometry is that Sir Isaac Newton wrote his various performances in English, and that they were translated into Latin by Dr. Clarke. For this valuable piece of information, the public will doubtless feel much obliged to the present author; and will expect to be told next, that Lord Bacon's Novum Organum was translated into Latin by Julius Cæsar. Art. XV. Another Guess at Junius, and a Dialogue. 8vo. pp. 106. Price 2s. 6d. Hookham. 1809. IN the preface of this pamphlet, the writer concisely, but satisfactorily. states the evidence on which it appears, that neither Grattan, Ha milton, Lord G. Sackville, Dunning, Adair, Major-General Lee, Boyd, Wilkes, Lord Shelburne, nor any inferior person who has ever been suspected, could be the writer of Junius's letters. His guess' attaches to no less a person than the illustrious Earl of Chatham; and he brings forward a variety of evidence which, to say the least, compels us to regard his conjecture as the most probable. The praise bestowed on the great statesman himself, in these incomparable writings, is an objection of no weight, when we consider the arrogance of his disposition, and his certainty of concealment; it might even be introduced as a blind, for anonymous compliments to a man who deserves them will never be attributed to himself. On a subject of so much literary interest, we must be allowed to state the leading points of evidence.—The first arises from the determination that his secret should die with him. Any man living, except Lord Chatham, might have been proud to confess the authorship of Junius, and desirous to reveal himself, if to no other person, yet at least to the statesman whose politics he had defended, whose talents he had extolled, whose enemies he bad stigmatized. The greatest minister of his time, however, could gain nothing by the reputation of anonymous and ferocious invectives, directed against persons of the highest rank, whose enmity would blight for ever his hopes of returning to power-and insulting even the person of the sovereign, from whose hands he was receiving a pension. The time of publication, the complexion of the politics, the familiarity with the scandal of high life and secret court history, the animosity against the party and country of Lord Bute, the indignant reprobation of his op ponents, but more especially of those who deserted his party the endeavours to keep measures with the king, so long as there remained any hopes of his being recalled to office-the bitterness and acrimony of his censures, even against majesty, when those hopes were vanishedthe instigating the people to petition for a new parliament, as the exist ing House of Commons was so decided for the ministry--the concur rent exertions of the writer and the statesman to gain popularity with the citizens of London-the dislike, approaching to envy, yet assuming the form of contempt, manifested against his competitors, Wilkes and Horre Tooke-but above all, the blasting invective, the fulminating denunciation directed against not a single administration, but every one in which Lord Chatham was not included, point out the imperious and indignant author. Such forcible, impetuous, and inflamed philippics, teeming at once with anger and disdain, breathing the very soul of a writer more than commonly interested in their success, could not have been the work of a vulgar partizan; they bear the stamp of a great and commanding genius, haughty, dogmatic, and overbearing. They are the "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," of a popular orator accustomed to rule; in a word, of the great and overpowering Pitt.' pp. 28, 29. The various incidental avowals-that the writer is not a lawyer, that he is a man of high rank, that he is advanced in life, are all fayourable to this conjecture, and to no other: it is possible they were inserted as clues, by which posterity might trace out the real author, when false pretensions and surmises were eventually disallowed. The author concludes with a negative argument of considerable weight, expressed however in his clumsiest manner. If Lord Chatham was not Junius, "Where is he living, clipt within the sea, "That chides the banks of England, Wales, and Scotland," who could personate him? If the dazzling combination of vigour, skill, talent, and elegance, which are reflected from the lens-like pages of this eloquent satirist, this political Juvenal, does not direct the admiring reader to this "cynosure of neighbouring eyes;" what other luminary had fire, heat, and light, powerful enough to emanate such splendour ?' By lens', we presume he means mirror; and by emanate', emit. What he means by 'fire', as distinguished from heat,' is not so easily imagined. The concluding Dialogue between Lord Chatham and William Pitt, represents the father as on the whole approving the political life of the son. It would not greatly surprise us to find there was ground for the suspicion, that we are indebted for this pamphlet to Mr. Adolphus. Art. XVI. A Sermon, preached at the Baptist Monthly Association, in the Meeting-house, Little Prescot-street, Goodman's Fields, April 20, 1809. By Thomas Thomas. Published at the Request of the Associated Ministers and Brethren. 8vo. pp. 31. Price 1s. Button, Burditt. 1809. WHAT is said of dreaming, is sometimes true of allegorical preaching; the fancy is awake, while the judgement is asleep. We are happy to assure our readers that no such reproach is due to Mr. Thomas, His discourse is not less judicious than ingenious, useful than interesting. The text appointed on this occasion, was Rev. i. 23. The mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand.-The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. The term angels is, with pro priety, exchanged for messengers'; a title, by which, it is sup posed, the ministers of the gospel are designated. The subject is there VOL. V. * Ꮯ |