"ephemera from the heated brains of felf-important "poetafters, all ufhered into notice under the appel"lation of SONNET." After this, let us read a legitimate fonnet.

Page 48. Sappho is supposed to speak of Phaon.

"Dang'rous to hear, is that melodious tongue,
And fatal to the sense those murd'rous eyes,
Where in a fapphire fheath, love's arrow lies,
Himself conceal'd the chryftal hearts among!
Oft o'er that form, enamour'd have I hung,
On that smooth cheek to mark the deep'ning dyes,
While from that lip the fragrant breath would rife,
That lip, like Cupid's bow with rubies ftrung!
Still let me gaze upon that polifh'd brow,
O'er which the golden hair, luxuriant plays;
So, on the modeft lily's leaves of fnow,
The proud fun revels in refplendent rays!

Warm as his beams this fenfate heart shall glow,
Till life's last hour, with Phaon's felf decays!"

It may now be proper to inform the reader (and this we fhall do by Mrs. Robinson) that the Grecian Sappho's compofitions, "possessed none of the artificial "decorations of a feigned paffion; they were the "genuine effufions of a fupremely enlightened foul, "labouring to fubdue a fatal enchantment."

ART. VIII. Fortune's Fool; a Comedy, in Five As. As performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. By Frederick Reynolds, Author of Speculation, &i. pp. 74. Longman. 2s. 1796.

CERTAIN would-be ghofts of Shakspeare, have fupplied Mr. R. with the hint of Sir Bamber Blackletter, a perfonage fcarcely lefs heterogeneous than the forgeries of Ireland. Add to Sir Bamber, Ap-Hazard the Welchman, and you have the whole fupport of Fortune's Fool. The dialogue of this play is agreeable; the humour fprightly, though fometimes unnatural; but it has nothing to boaft on the fcore of novelty.

The

The Funeral of Bigotry, addressed to the Members of the Miffionary Society. With a Copy of the Epitaph fung at the Interment: By the Rev. Rowland Hill, A. M. Symonds, price is.

THIS is a very ingenious little pamphlet, and well

calculated to anfwer the purpose for which it was written—the destruction of Bigotry. The attentive and candid reader cannot but approve of its contents. It feems that Mr. Bogue, in a fermon preached on behalf of the Miffionary Society, had declared that Bigotry was dead, and that they met together to celebrate the folemnities of its funeral. But Mr. Jones, who afterwards preached for the fociety on the fame occafion, queftions the truth of bigotry being dead, or at least fays, that if it be dead, its ghost still appears in Wales. This intimation induces the author of this pamphlet to inveftigate the report refpecting the decease of bigotry, and he fhews, from feveral confiderations, that bigotry is not dead, but now living, to the forrow of every true friend of the Chriftian Religion.

We would gladly tranfcribe feveral paragraphs, which would fhew the good fenfe and benevolence of the writer. But we must refer the reader to the pamphlet itself, where he will find considerable instruction and entertainment. The Members of the Miffionary Society, to whom it is addreffed, ought to pay it particular attention; and we truft that it may prevail with them to be ftill more candid and liberal towards their fellow-chriftians. Be this, however, as it may, no good christian, in our humble opinion, can withhold his approbation from the design and execution of this little work; and we join with every true difciple of Jesus Christ, in praying that the period may at length arrive, when no chriftian fhall calumniate his brother, but ALL strive to preferve the unity of the spirit in the bond uf peace.

THE

MONTHLY VISITOR.

FEBRUARY, 1797.

MEMOIRS OF EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ.

contemplatore fatisfaction HE biographer feldom contemplates a character

THE

than the subject of these memoirs; lefs feldom are we enabled to ascertain, with equal precifion, the life of a man fo celebrated in the republic of letters, by the affiftance of pofthumous papers, of which the writer fays, "Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the firft virtue of more serious hiftory, must be the fole recommendation." Indeed, the commotion occafioned by an attack on the religion of Jefus, in the 15th chapter of the Hiftory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, feemed to demand an apology for the life of one who excited, in the defenders of Chriftianity, upwards of airty answers in fupport of its doctrines.

Edward Gibbon derives his origin from an ancient family of that name, in the South Weald of the county of Kent, one of whom, John Gibbon, is difcerned as the refpectable architect to Edward III.; and, in the beginning of the feventeenth century, a younger branch of the Gibbons' of Rolvenden, (from whom he deduces a timeworn genealogy) migrated from the country to the city. He deemed it his chief honour to have lineally defcended, in the eleventh degree, from James Fiens, Baron Say and Seale, Lord High Treasurer of England in the reign of Henry VI. beheaded in an infurrection in VOL. I. Ι

1450.