tion is, however, of a mixed nature. Too much lengthened out already with matter that is not fo interesting as probably it appeared to the writer, it tends to an extent unknown. While the poet takes a latitude in the use of words which no prior fame can warrant.

How are we to bear domicile, moonshine (a cant term, we believe, for fmuggled fpirits) vill*, wind-mow, mowhay, cobrais'd, turves, a fettle? befides innumerable Cornish words, explained indeed in the margin, but barbarous to all other ears except thofe of Cornwall. It contains, however, many paffages of confiderable merit; of which the following is to us the most pleasing. It is the defcription of the young wife of the Old English Gentleman; in whofe character an interest is preferved throughout.

"But Harriet could appease each troubled thought
With mufic by applauding feraphs brought;
While o'er each village, with a kind concern,
Prompt every tale from forrow's lips to learn,
'Twas hers, her cares, her pity to extend,
The poor man's patronefs, to all a friend.
Off, when along the avenue fhe feem'd

To faunter, where the unfolding landscape beam'd,
And gaze, as if its many-glancing hues
She panted to her tablets to transfufe;
She flop'd her path (yet ftill appear'd to stray)
To the dim woodwalk, ting'd by dancing day;
Tript lightly onward thro' its laurel gloom,
And, heedlefs of the fragrance and the bloom,
Quick, thro' its waving vifta, caught the dale,
And the fweet group of cots afcending pale;
And now, by every ĉurious eye unfeen,
With pleasure op'd the wicket on the green.

There, as her hands the ready purfe unftrung,
She dropp'd delicious accents from her tongue;
And, more than with her purfe (the poor confefs'd)
Cheer'd with that angel voice the burthen'd breaft;
While the fad widow felt a genial glow,
And left, half-told, the ftory of her woe;
While feeble age, its crutch low-bending o'er,
Forgot the pain it just had mourn'd before;
And lifping babes, attracted by her charms,
Stretch'd out, as the approach'd, their little arms.
But chief, with tutelary care to guide
A little cottage-fchool, was Harriet's pride,
Where, on a hillock flope, befide the wood,
By rude oak-props fuftain'd, a ftructure flood,
And with an air grotefque o'erbrow'd the scene,
Its thatch with mofs, its walls with ivy green-

Johnfon quotes Lord Hale for this word, but fays it is little ufed. It deferves to be lefs. Rev.

While fpir'd its fmoke, or roll'd a dusky wreath
O'er the dun hamlet in the dell beneath;
There Harriet vifited a veteran aunt,*

Who taught her imps the horn-book how to chaunt,+
Or how to knit, with azure yarn, the hofe;
High-fpectacled her venerable nofe!

And, lo! as Mifst appear'd, the pigmy crowd
Start from their forms, faluting her aloud ;
When, as their feveral tasks they fing or fay,
No more they tremble at the birchen fpray,
But each, ambitious of a plauding look,
Thumbs with new zeal his not unfullied book;
When the hofe-girls their flippant fingers ply,
To steal approving glances from her eye.

And though the magic of a fmile could bribe
To diligence, the fweet untainted tribe;
Yet, little volumes, gilt, or green or blue,[]
And filver pennies, pleas'd attention drew;
When, at the unhop'd-for holiday high-flufht,
Forth at her nod-their hats in air-they rufh'd,
Spread o'er the green, in various paftime gay,
And baik'd and wanton'd in the funny ray.'

P. 65.

The

"Aunt is applied in Cornwall (as dame or goody in other coun⚫ ties) as a term of refpect to an old woman.

"Whether in the Cornish schools, the children of the common people fing or fay,' is a question not easy to determine.

"Mifs, as applied to a young married lady, is as common in the fouth-west of Cornwall, as uncle or aunt.

"On fuch occafions, vociferation is confidered as a mark of respect. "Confulting my own feelings, when a boy, I was almoft tempted to write

Yet books neat bound in calf, that fmelt fo new'— for though the little volumes that attract the eye to their gilding or gay colours may be more properly introduced into a village-fchool; yet, I confefs, the finell of a new book, bound in calf, was once as delightful to me as the mufk of Hadramut to an Arabian poet. And those authors which I purchafed when a schoolboy, (particularly Milton and Gray) afford me, at this moment, a greater degree of pleasure than the writers with which I became acquainted at a fubfequent period. I often take them from their fhelves by a kind of irresistible impulfe: they are still redolent of joy and youth!"

"Grata fuperveniet quæ non fperabitur hora,' must apply to every schoolboy, when unexpectedly let loofe from fchool. To be furprized with a holiday, affects a child with fenfations of pleasure as keen as he is capable of feeling. Such, I remember, I once felt, when my facetious countryman, Sam. Foote, difmiffed me and my fellows from the school at Truro with his ufual jocularity. I was then about nine years old and I perfectly well recollect his figure, his manner of faluting his old mafter, Mr. Conon, and his affumed air of authority,

:

when,

The other characters appear to us rather coarfely drawn, except that of Sir Humphrey himself. Mifs Prue is particularly offenfive in that refpect; fhe is a demon rather than a girl. Having an high eftimation of this author from many of his productions, we cannot but with that he had submitted the English Gentleman to fome other eye before he fent it forth to the public. Yet nobody will fay that a poem from which fuch an extract as the preceding could be taken, ought to be wholly fuppreffed; befides that the character of a true Old English Country Gentleman well deferves to be recorded both in verfe and profe.

ART. V. Memoirs of the Houfe of Medici, from its Origin to the Death of Francefco the Second, Grand Duke of Tuscany, From the French of Mr. Tenhove. With Notes and Obferua tions, by Sir Richard Clayton, Bart. Two Volumes. 4to, 443 and 525 PP. 21. 2s. Bath, printed. Sold by Robin

fons, London. 1797.

THE name of Tenhove will not be unknown to the many perfons who have perufed Mr. Roscoe's elegant Life of Lorenzo de' Medici. That our readers may, however, be all alike informed upon the fubject, we fhall commence this article with the account given of him in the Preface to the prefent work, and with that part which relates to him in Mr. Rofcoe's Preface.

"Mr. Nicholas Tenhove was a branch of one of the most respect, able families in the United Provinces. His paternal ancestors were all

when, waving his hand, he ordered us all to be gone; and, as we obeyed the fignal, called after us- A holiday without exercife.' The celebrity of Mr. Foote will be admitted, I truft, as a fufficient excufe for dwelling on this trivial circumftance.-This gentleman received his education at Truro School. Perhaps it is not generally known, that he there imbibed his taste for the theatre. There he difcovered a vaft fuperiority over his companions, in acting the plays of Terence, But, on his making his appearance on the ftage, Mr. Conon greatly lamented, that a fchool of morality fhould have been a nursery of low buffoonery;' nor would ever fuffer even the plays of Terence to be acted again in Truro fchool!-Mr. Conon, who had been an usher at Weftminfter fchool, was following the fafhions of that noble feminary; though, from the firft, he fuffered not The Eunuch' to be either read or acted,”

high in office; and by his mother he defcended from the family of Fagel, which had furnished the Dutch Republic with illuftrious mi nifters through feveral generations.

"An eafy fortune, and a previous ftock of claffical and historical knowledge, rendered him capable of deriving fingular advantages from his travels in Italy and Sicily.The Memoirs of the House of Medici were compofed at his eafe-from time to time-and were printed piece-meal as they were compofed.-In the form he left them they have rather the afpect of interefting materials for a great work, than that of a regular edifice.-As he did not live to complete his defign, he committed to the flames all the copies of thefe Memoirs, excepting thofe which he had diftributed to his particular friends, in feparate parts, as they came from the press*.”

In addition to this flender information concerning the an thor, we fhall fubjoin, as we mentioned, the character of his work, as delivered by one who cannot fail to be considered as a competent judge.

Although," fays Mr. Rofcoe," thefe volumes appear to be ra ther the amusement of the leifure hours of a polite fcholar, than the researches of a profeffed hiftorian; yet they difplay an acquaintance with the tranfactions of hiftory, feldom acquired but by a native. To a great proficiency in the literature of that country, Mr. Tenhove united an indifputable tafte in the productions of all the fine arts, and 2 great knowledge of the ftate of manners, and the progress of fcience, in every period of fociety. The fertility of his genius, and the extent of his information, have enabled him to interfperfe his narrative with a variety of interefting digreffions, and brilliant obfervations; and the most engaging work that has perhaps ever appeared, on a fubject of literary history, is written by a native of one country in the language of another, on the affairs of a third."

This work, fo highly commended by Mr. Rofcoe, but of which, confidering the thort interval he purposed to describe, and the late period at which it came into his hands, he could make but little ufe, Sir R. Clayton has been pleased to communicate to the English reader in a free and fpirited tranflation. Another fhort extract from his Preface will convey to the reader an adequate, and, we think, a very just idea of the nature of the performance.

"From one of thofe (few printed) copies, this tranflation took ita rife. It will be easily conceived fuch a defultory work would not,

* The copy Mr. Roscoe obtained, from the liberality of the Marquis of Lanfdown, confifts of three volumes, octavo, entitled Mémoires, Généalogiques de la Maifon de Medici,

from

from its nature, admit of elegance-fome paffages have been tranfplanted from the text into the notes, and others have been wholly omitted, which feemed to carry the reader too far out of his way, and were not connected with what either preceded or followed them. Many of the latter include the Belgicifms and Gallicifms which the author humouroufly acknowledges may be imputed to him; and as in all probability he would have pared them away, if he had finished his work, to fulfil what I have reason to believe was his wifh, has been with me a debt of honour. The twenty-fix books of the original are thrown into thirteen chapters, on the plan of Mr. Rofcoe's valuable Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, called the Magnificent. Mr. Tenhove's fentiments have been given, I flatter myself, in general with fidelity and freedom; yet in a work of fuch a length, errors and mistakes are unavoidable. The ableft scholars are, however, the most candid and indulgent critics, and they best know how to overlook the one, and pardon the other."

After these general obfervations on the work, derived from fuch fources, our readers will no doubt expect fome account of its contents, and fome fpecimens of the manner in which it is executed. We for fome time hefitated whether we fhould not give a fyllabus in a different order from that obferved in the book; but finding that this method would have carried us too far in point of extent, we have confined ourfelves to the order of the chapters, which we truft will be found of fome use, as no table of contents is given in the work itself.

The first chapter commences with the origin of the House of Medici, and brings down the hiftory to the death of Cofmo, the grandfather of the Magnificent Lorenzo. The first diftinction of this illuftrious houfe does not bear date higher than the fifteenth century. After rejecting the feveral fabulous accounts in which the earlier periods of all hiftories are enveloped, the author names Filippo de Medici as the first of whom any account is extant, that may claim fome degree of credit. He is faid to have migrated from Fiorano, at the foot of the Appennines, to Florence, in the year 1250; and to have died in 1258, leaving four fons; from the fecond of whom defcended the lineage which at length arrived at sovereign honours. Of the feveral individuals in this defcent, various accounts are given, according to the degrees of their celebrity; but fome obfcurity prevails throughout this part of the history as to the manner in which they stood related to each other, which would have been removed by a table fimilar to the following. This, as well as two fubfequent tables, we the rather infert, as they will alfo free us from the neceffity of mentioning in the narrative even the names of those who have died away in obfcurity.

2

Filippo