While, confcious ev'ry ftep we tread, Ev'n here, my friend, in nature's plan Mean while, through all the modes of fente, To breathe, becalm'd, my foul away. From From the foregoing abftract of our Author's moral and philofophical principles, we may venture to conclude, that however fingular and miftaken he may be in fome particulars of his credenda, his fyftem, nevertheless, upon the whole, is by no means derogatory from religion and virtue: and he appears to us to have treated metaphysical subjects with a laudable freedom of enquiry; though it must be owned that in fome inftances he has, unwarily perhaps, approached too near the borders of infidelity. We must not omit to inform the Reader, that this work is embellished with head-pieces and tail-pieces elegantly engraved, and representing emblematical figures, which bear ftriking allufions to the subject of the poem. When engravings thus ferve both for entertainment and illuftration, the engraver is not called in vain to the affiftance of the poet. The Vifitations of the Almighty. A Poem. Grace the Duchefs of Queensberry and Dover. 4to. Is. Robinfon, &c. T R--d Infcribed to her HIS anonymous Writer informs us, that the entire Poem, which is now to confift of four parts, had been fo planned originally, as to be published in one; which he intended to have infcribed to the late earl of Drumlanrig. But that young nobleman's decease occafioning a melancholy paufe, fet the Author on reconfidering his work; the confequence of which was a divifion of his fubject, and a more distinct arrangement of it. The particular topics of the prefent publication are, Famine and Peftilence. The fubfequent ones are to pourtray Infurrections, War, Land-Hurricanes, Sea-Storms, Inundations, fiery Eruptions from Volcanos, Earthquakes and Conflagrations; whence our Readers may readily infer the distinct fubjects of each in this dreadful bill of fare, of which the human race have, at different periods, already partaken, and must hereafter partake, until the termination of the scene and subjects of them. Befides the general and manifeft intention of detaching the group of our fhort-lived generations from their extreme if not fole attention to an old and decaying world, to a contemplation of the temporary horrors and phyfical evils inflicted by the Omnipotent, our Author acknowleges, in addreffing his noble patronefs, a particular inclination to divert her from too preying an attention to a private, though most interesting affliction, by tranfporting her imagination To regions where, amidst furrounding woes, Sits TERROR thron'd! where ev'ry private ill Indeed Indeed thefe fubjects do not seem to have been selected by our Poet, without previoufly eftimating his abilities to difplay them. He is generally happy in defcription; his figures and their attitudes are ftriking and juft, and his colours fufficiently glowing. Having obferved, that a famine, (by which he means a general one, a total want of herbage and all provifion) attacks the brute creation firft, he thus delineates, as it were, the famifhing ftate of fome of them. Such melancholy fituations of the moft ufeful animals very naturally induce the not wholly unpleafing emotions of humane concern and fympathy: but in the most extreme inftances of human diftrefs from famine, we think a few of the reprefentations are full ftrong, if not rather horrid, as in the following. He clofes the feene of famine by an irruption of the beafts of prey into cities already depopulated by it, and by their devouring each other at laft, after a confumption of all fuch other food as fhocks the imagination. The impoflibility of this laft inftance, however, occurring among ourselves, affords fome fuch confolation to an English Reader, as Lucretius fuppofes a man on fhore may have, in contemplating the danger of a ship in a violent ftorm-quibus ipfe malis careas quia cernere fuave eft. The inftances of particular mifery from the peftilence are not ill imagined, nor unfeelingly expreffed. That of the father of a family furviving them all, and dying at laft from the force of contagion aggravated by grief, is perhaps the most affecting. Oppreft with woes, Upheaving all for vent, the houshold lord, Their gafping mother; whole impaffion'd eyes Look Look terror, agony, despair, and love! He finks, embraces, thivers, groans and dies. Having thus cited fuch paffages from this poem, as appear to us not the leaft affecting, we fhall fubmit a flight exception or two to the judgment of our readers, and to the ingenious Author's confideration.-In detailing the miferies of famine, he fays, Where preffing crouds with eager fingers feize The fetid fleth of fouleft carcaffes, And ev'ry filth edaciously devour. Here we fuppofe the well known word voraciously avoided as too fynonymous, and, as we may fay, too fymphonous, with devour; and this probably was not amifs: but edaciously, which we conceive this gentleman has firft coin'd, feems to add little or no force to the verb it precedes here, as it was intended to do, which may be partly owing to its entire novelty; fince, like Virgil's fame, it may gather ftrength from a further progrefs. But while it is acknowledged to be neither unpoetical, rough, nor form'd contrary to analogy, perhaps a coarfer found might be more proper and energic in the expreffion of this indelicate image. We are by no means for cenfuring the poetical liberty of the word itfelf, being fufficiently mindful of the liberal conceffions of Horace + on fuch points; befides which, it feems as if the very genius of our language delighted both in deriving and compounding boldly, and, like the speakers of it, exulted in liberty. It is only upon fuch a principle, that the expreffion of liftless limbs, p. 24. can be difpenfed with, as it is not form'd ftrictly according to the plain analogy of our language. The final monofyllable les in compofition is very rarely, if ever, annexed to verbs, but entirely perhaps to fubftantives, which it converts into adjectives, with a negative or privative conftruction, as in Sublimates are the medicines produced from the fubftances which Chemistry, whence this metaphor is taken, fublimes: and though the former may have been inattentively admitted as a verb, by fome decent Writer, yet if it was not originally a meer vulgarifm, it is certa nly more corrupt than elegant. Could analogy fuffer it, it must be as a frequentative of the verb, to fublime. t pictoribus atque poetis Quidhbet audendi femper fuit æqua poteftas. lifeless, lifeless, deathless, motionless, thoughtless, (not moveless nor thinklefs) and a multitude of fuch other words. The following line, p. 24. In ev'ry form diftemper can affume, was probably intended as an elegant conftruction or extenfion of the verb to affume, but it reads a little hard to us, and more exceptionable here with in than invade would have been. The hyfteric difeafe may be faid to affume many forms, but to invade in many. Stagnate occurs twice or thrice as a participle (the common way of forming them beyond the Tweed) for ftagnated or flagnant, one of which we think fhould be preferred, if it were only to diftinguifh it from the verb. Many fuch little. circumstances of our language, which occafion no obscurity among ourselves, produce no small perplexity to foreigners; and the literal fameness of our fpelling different parts of speech, from the fame root, proves a confiderable fund of difficulties to them. Now as a difpofition to learn English feems to increase on the continent, it would be but polite, and cannot be impolitic, to encourage the diffufion of it, as our enemies have done of theirs fome centuries past. We have been the more particular, and perhaps even somewhat minute in these few, and not unfriendly ftrictures, from the Author's having promifed three fubfequent parts to compleat his poem: and as we have no formal academy for the cultivation or standard of our tongue, we think every learned and ingenious writer fhould be rather the more attentive to observe, for his own part, and for the fake of his readers, the elegance, the purity, and the perfpicuity of it. K The Art of Land-measuring explained, In five parts, viz. 1. Taking dimenfions. 2. Finding contents. 2. Finding contents. 3. Laying out ground. 4. Dividing. And 5. Planning. With an Appendix concerning inftruments. By John Gray, teacher of the mathemathics at Greenock, and land-measurer. 8vo. 5s. Glafgow printed, and fold by Wilfon and Durham, London. N' ECESSITY, according to the common proverb, is the mother of invention, and to this the art of furveying, in particular, owed its origin. The annual inundations of the Nile, deftroying the marks which bounded the lands of different perfons, the ancient Egyptians were under a neceffity of meafuring to every perfon his refpective quantity of land every year; but how far they improved the art of furveying cannot now be known. Perhaps, as it owed its origin to neceffity, fo it was never carried by them to any |