well-digefted treatife; not chufing to fuppofe this Knight of Chrift to militate on the fide of fiction, nor to hold that tenet, of keeping no faith with Heretics, efpecially if rich Heretics: yet, on the other hand, we must prefume this Officer, now, or very lately, at Bareges, to be a Gentleman of probity and honour. He writes like a man of fenfe, and must certainly be full as little interested in depreciating the springs, or the place*, as Dr. Meighan can be in extolling them. In this dilemma, our duty to the public, and our utmost candour to the Author and to the Officer, induce us to lay the whole evidence before our Readers, for their determination, and for the guidance of fuch as might be inclined to experience the properties of these baths. For though we would not willingly contribute to the prefent rage or fashion of travelling into France, whofe inhabitants practife the maxim of not enriching their King's enemies; yet if health in fome accidents, and particularly in the confequences of wounds, is not as readily attainable elsewhere, perfons in adequate circumftances can never hesitate about the purchase of it,

Indeed, this Gentleman obferves, that, abftracted from his wounds, he enjoys very good health there.

K-k-k.

The TIMES, a Poem, By C. Churchill. 4to. 2s. 6d.

W

Coote.

WHEN we confider the amazing rapidity of this Writer's publications; with what facility and expedition he crowds poem upon poem, we can no longer wonder at the general imperfection and lameness of his productions. We are even furprized to find them diftinguifhed by thofe beamings of genius, and forcible powers of expreffion, which one might expect to have been difregarded in the precipitancy of execution, to have been weakened by exertion, or exhausted by use: for, undoubtedly, it is with the mental as with the corporeal faculties; in a ftate of abfolute inactivity they languifh; exercife, if moderate, invigorates, and, if violent, deftroys them. Mr. Churchill's genius, nevertheless, naturally vigorous, feems, hitherto, not to have been debilitated by the excefs of its labours; and THE TIMES, however exceptionable, however enormous, is not without a very confiderable fhare of poetical merit. At first the Author feems to have had his Mafter, Juvenal in his eye; for the poem opens with a close imitation of Credo Pudicitiam, Saturna Rege, moratam

In terris

The Time has been, a boyish, blushing time,
When modefy was fcarcely held a crime,

We

We no fooner enter than we are prefented with the following group of follies and vices, which diftinguish and difgrace the prefent age:

Time was, ere Temperance had fled the realm;
E're Luxury fat guttling at the helm

From meal to meal, without one moment's space
Referv'd for business, or allow'd for
grace;
E're Vanity had fo far conquer'd Senfe,
To make us all wild rivals in expence,
To make one fool ftrive to outvie another,
And ev'ry coxcomb dress against his brother;
E're banish'd Induftry had left our shores,
And Labour was by Pride kick'd out of doors;
E're Idleness prevail'd fole Queen in courts,
Or only yielded to a rage for fports;
E're each weak mind was with externals caught,
And Dilipation held the place of Thought;
E're gambling Lords in vice fo far were gone
cog the die, and bid the Sun look on;
E're a great nation, not lefs just than free,
Was made a beggar by Economy;
E're rugged Honefty was out of vogue,
E're Fahion ftamp'd her fanction on the rogue;
Time was, that men had confcience, that they made
Scruples to owe, what never could be paid.

To

4

The character of FABER follows; and however fevere, is fo odious, that, if it be drawn with juftice, we can hardly blame the Satirift. MEANNESS is marked with striking features, and a masterly force;

More to increase the horrour of our State,
To make her empire lafting as 'tis great,
To make us in full-grown Perfection feel
Curfes which neither art nor time can heal.
All fhame difcarded, all remains of pride,
MEANNESS fits crown'd, and triumphs by her fide,
MEANNESS, who gleans out of the human mind
Thofe few good feeds which Vice had left behind;
Those feeds which might in time to Virtue tend,
And leaves the foul without a pow'r to mend;
MEANNESS, at fight of whom, with brave difdain
The breast of manhood fwells, but fwells in vain,
Before whom Honour makes a forc'd retreat,
And Freedom is compell'd to quit her feat;
MEANNESS which, like that mark by bloody Cain
Borne in his forehead, for a brother flain,

GOD, in his great and all-fubduing rage,

Ordains the standing mark of this vile age.

Vile, in fome refpects, no doubt, this age may be; and many inftances of bafenefs and of villainy in individuals may be ad

5

duced

duced in fupport of the affertion; but that this age is, either generally, or comparatively confidered, a vile age, could only be afferted by a perfon who was either ignorant of former ages, or unacquainted with the prefent.

It is impoffible to accompany the Satirift without all his indignation, when he ftrikes at the base and illiberal traffic which parents make of their children:

Worn out with luft, her day of letchery o'er,
The mother trains the daughter which the bore
In her own paths; the father aids the plan,
And, when the Innocent is ripe for man,
Sells her to fome old Letcher for a wife,
And makes her an Adulterefs for life,
Or in the papers bids his name appear,
And advertises for a L;
Husband and wife (whom Av'rice must applaud)
Agree to fave the charge of Pimp and Bawd;
Thofe parts they play themselves, a frugal pair,
And fhare the infamy, the gain to share,
Well-pleas'd to find, when they the profits tell,

That they have play'd the whore and rogue fo well.

The crimes and follies we borrow from foreign nations, are pursued with the fame vengeance as those which are more peculiarly the product of our own climate. The characters of France, Spain, and Italy, are strongly marked, the laft, in par ticular, is an admirable picture;

France, in return for peace and pow'r reftor'd,
For all those countries, which the Heroe's fword
Unprofitably purchas'd, idly thrown

Into her lap, and made once more her own.
France hath afforded large and rich fupplies
Of vanities full-trimm'd, of polish'd lies,
Of foothing flatteries, which thro' the ears
Steal to, and melt the heart, of flavish fears
Which break the fpirit, and of abject fraud→→→
For which, alas! we need not fend abroad.

Spain gives us pride-which Spain to all the earth,
May largely give, nor fear herfelt a dearth-→→→
Gives us that jealousy, which born of fear
And mean diftruft, grows not by nature here-
Gives us that fuperftition, which pretends
By the worst means to ferve the best of ends-
That cruelty, which, ftranger to the brave,
Dwells only with the coward, and the slave,
That cruelty, which led her Chriftian bands
With more than favage rage o'er favage lands,
Bade her without remorfe whole countries thin,
And hold of nought, but mercy, as a fin.

Italia, nurse of every softer art,

Who, feigning to refine, unmans the heart,
Who lays the realms of Senfe and Virtue wafte,
Who marrs, whilft fhe pretends to mend, our taste;
Italia, to compleat and crown our shame,
Sends us a Fiend, and Legion is his name.
The farce of greatnefs, without being great,
Pride without pow'r, titles without estate,
Souls without vigour, bodies without force,
Hate without caufe, revenge without remorse,
Dark, mean revenge, murder without defence,
Jealoufy without love, found without fenfe,
Mirth without humour, without wit grimace,
Faith without reafon, Gofpel without grace,
Zeal without knowlege, without Nature Art,
Men without manhood, women without heart,
Half-men, who, dry and pithlefs, are debarr'd
From man's best joys-no fooner made than marr'd-
Half-men, whom many a rich and noble dame,
To serve her luft, and yet fecure her fame,
Keeps on high diet, as we capons feed,
To glut our appetites at last decreed,

Women, who dance, in poftures so obscene,
They might awaken fhame in Aretine,

Who, when retir'd from the day's piercing light,
They celebrate the mysteries of night,
Might make the Muses, in a corner plac'd

To view their monftrous lufts, deem Sappho chafte :
These, and a thousand follies rank as these,

A thoufand faults, ten thousand fools, who p'eafe
Our pall'd and fickly tafte, ten thousand knaves,
Who ferve our foes as fpies, and us as flaves,
Who by degrees, and unperceiv'd prepare
Our necks for chains which they already wear,
Madly we entertain, at the expence

Of fame, of virtue, taste, and common sense.

The reft of this poem is employed in expofing the most deteftable of all human crimes-a crime which our laws have hitherto treated with a lenity equally unmerited and unaccountable. On this confideration, indeed, the enormity alluded to, called more immediately for the fcourge of fatire; but, at the fame time, the stroke ought only to have been levelled at the particular mifcreants who practice this horrid vice-To make the charge national, as Mr. C. has moft unfcrupulously done, was at once injurious, and ungrateful to a people from whom this Poet has received the most effential favours! " What muft they think of us abroad?" is the general voice-Every man who reads this fatire, thus exclaims, " Is the whole indifcriminately to fuffer for a few? Is the reputation of a great and glorious nation, a nation distinguished by every liberal vir

6

the

tue, to be stabbed by this mean, this unnatural affaffin, whom fhe has cloathed and fed?" The juftice and propriety of these exclamations, we fhall not enquire into; but as we hope, and believe, there are no real grounds for the generality of this horrid imputation of fy, fo we cannot but condemn the Satirist for making it general. We are fenfible, at the fame time, that the fatire acquired more force and confequence by this means, than if it had been confined to individuals; but we apprehend that this advantage is more than over-balanced by the inconveniencies arifing from that fecurity which guilt ever feels when it finds numbers involved in the fame infamy. The Times, therefore is, upon the whole, equally injudicious and injurious, equally obnoxious to delicacy, to propriety, and to justice.

Yet to leave the Reader as little diffatisfied with it as poffible, we shall close our account of it with the following nervous and elegant compliment to Lady Caroline Hervey:

That fenfe, with more than manly vigour fraught,
That fortitude of foul, that ftretch of thought,
That genius, great beyond the narrow bound
Of earth's low walk, that judgment perfect found,
When wanted molt, that purity of taste,
Which, Critics mention by the name of chafte,
Adorn'd with elegance, that eafy flow
Of ready wit, which never made a foe,
That face, that form, that dignity, that eafe,
Thofe pow'rs of pleafing with that will to please,
By which Lepel, when in her youthful days,
E'en from the currifh Pope extorted praise,
We fee, tranfmitted, in her daughter fhine,
And view a new Lepel in Caroline.

L.

Philofophical Tranfactions, giving fome Account of the present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious, in many confiderable Parts of the World. Vol. LIII. For the Year 1763. 4to. 14s. in Sheets. Davis and Reymers.

WE cannot help thinking it would greatly redound to the

honour of the Royal Society, if, inftead of perfevering in their refolution, "Never to give their opinion, as a body, on any fubject either of nature or art that comes before them," they would alter their conduct, and imitate fome of the foreign: Academies in this particular. If the feveral difcoveries, projects, and inventions, which are inferted in the Philosophical Tranfactions, receive no fanétion from the imprimatur of the

Society,

'