be implicitly adopted by careless readers, as of the fame ftandard excellence with the reft of the performance. We can with the utmoft fincerity fay, that we have read few works on this fubject with fo much fatisfaction as the prefent; and we are happy to find, that the Author announces a feries of treatifes on political œconomy, which we hope he will find leifure and inclination to profecute. The few blemishes we have had occafion to take notice of, feem, in general, to proceed from youth and inexperience, which the Author's own good fenfe, as he advances in years, will enable him to avoid in future. The following animadverfions on our prefent Premier may poffibly by fome be referred to the fame fource, though it is introduced with an obfervation of very great political importance, that deferves to be feriously weighed by the Minifter himself, and all thofe who have any concern in the legislation of this country.

Taxes on manufactures,' he obferves, appear to be the great fource on which Mr. Pitt propofes to rely for his future fupplies, and the general cry of clear-fighted men against them has not been able to open his eyes with regard to the confequences of fuch a pernicious fyftem. Novice, ftill, in political economy, because the principles of that fcience are not innate in man, and that he has not had time to acquire them, either by meditation or experience, he has not been able to fee, in the patriotic citizens who have condemned his mea fures, the faithful interpreters of its principles, and he has perfuaded himself that their cry was nothing elfe than the voice of faction and felf interelt.

But for me,' continues Mr. H. whom he cannot fufpect either of a factious fpirit or of perfonal intereft, I dare to use the fame language, and to fay to him (with the firmnefs and courage which the good of my fellow mortals infpires, in whatever country i find them, because every where they are my brethren), that of all the means of ruining the manufactures, the agriculture, the commerce, and the profperity of a nation, none are more fpeedy and infallible than the fyftem which he has begun to practife; efpecially when a fyftem fo fatal is applied to a nation whofe fituation demands the moft cautious circumfpection.

Enlightened and refpectable nation (proceeds he, with warmth), you English, who are acknowledged to have gloriously maintained the dignity of human nature, which is generally vilified in all other parts of the globe; you who have been, to the nations of Europe, the fchool of found principles of political economy, how have you bewildered yourselves in your ideas of that fcience? How have you mifled yourselves with an opinion of, and confidence in, a young man, and flattered yourselves that he was capable to free you from the ills which unfortunate events have brought upon you? He has fhewn a talent for eloquence in an uncommon degree, and you have thought you faw in him, in the fame degree, the love of his country; but are the talent of eloquence and the love of one's country the fcience of palitical economy; and that fcience, the most difficult of all others, is it the infeparable appendage of a great orator and a good citizen?

• Would

Would the gift of fpeech, and the love of men,' proceeds he, have appeared to you fufficient qualifications in a young phyfician without theory and without practice? Would it have induced you to confide exclufively in him even for the fate of the patients in an hofpital? The gift of words, and the love of men, would they have appeared fufficient qualifications in a young pilot, without theory and without practice, to truft exclufively with him the fate of paffengers in a difficult navigation? No, certainly; and no one among you would have thus chofen his physician in a dangerous disease, nor his pilot on a perilous fea; nevertheless it is thus you have inclined to chufe the arbiter of your defliny, of the public fafety, of your own profperity, and of that of your children.

But this is not all,' he adds; you have done ftill worfe! Inftead of the young man who has obtained your wishes and acclamations, you have impofed on yourfelves for minifters men whom you never intended for uch; men whom you, perhaps, would have rejected with abhorrence if they had been propofed to you. For as the want of knowledge in him who was the object of your choice, has put him under the inevitable neceflity of having recourfe to the lights of others, you have expofed him to the rifque of being directed in his conduct with regard to you by men perhaps ftill lefs enlightened than himfelf; by men, who, enveloped in obfcurity, cannot be rendered accountable for the confidence placed in them, nor be made to blush at the indirect abufes which they make of it; and, perhaps, by men fo depraved as to have in view nothing elfe than their own intereft, not yours. At least, these are the unfortunate confequences which have too often been seen to refult among other nations from the choice of minifters who were them felves deftitute of knowledge; and it would be difficult to perfuade one's felf things fhould be otherwife with you.'

In the fame ftrain our Author proceeds ftill farther, with no fmall degree of enthufiaftic ardour: but we, who have seen so many changes of minifters with fo few effential changes of fyftem, have come at last to view these things with a degree of apathy that few young men can conceive. The hopes that are excited by the partizans of new minifters are fo feldom realised, that we quietly fuffer the noify acclamations to pass unnoticed, and we have often obferved that if the principles of freedom are not impaired, there is, in human fociety, fuch an innate principle of vigour, as makes it quickly recover from all the other wounds or diforders inflicted with fuch liberal hands by every order of political quacks who fucceffively feize the helm ; fo that neither our hopes nor our fears keep pace with those of many writers who come under our infpection.

We had lately occafion to mention an Author who confiders the national debt as a great national bleffing; fo does not the Author now before us. Like moft men of a common degree of understanding, he views it as an evil that ought to be diminished, and congratulates himfelf on having difcovered an easy and effectual method of doing it. As this will perhaps be the most

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interefting part of the work to many readers, and as he has chofen to announce it in fuch a way as might fuffer by any abridgment, we had felected that article as a fpecimen of the Author's ftyle and manner of writing: but as the extract would be too long for our Journal, we must refer to the work at large. Our readers will find the paffage which we here recommend to their particular notice, by turning to p. 230, and proceeding to p. 244. An

ART. II. SYLVA, or the Wood; being a Collection of Anecdotes, Differtations, Characters, Apophthegms, original Letters, Bons Mots, and other little Things. By a Society of the Learned. 8vo. 5s. Boards. Payne. 1786.

THE

HE contents of this volume are various both as to fubject and execution. We fometimes meet with trite remarks and infignificant anecdotes; and once or twice we were difgufted with a coarse joke and an indelicate ftory; on the whole, however, this is a collection of confiderable merit. The Author (for he is more than a compiler, though he deals much in *extracts and quotations) is evidently a man of acute difcernment and found morals. He appears to have had much experience of the world; and, in general, hath formed a just estimate of men and manners, principles and times. He writes with candour and liberality; and he is a friend to public order and decorum; but he loudly exclaims against those who set up for reformers of abuses in church and ftate, giving them little credit either for integrity or wifdom, and placing their pretenfions to the fcore of pride, difappointment, ignorance, or impofture.But here, furely, a proper difcrimination is neceffary.

As a fpecimen of the entertainment that the reader may expect from this mifcellany, we will prefent him with a few extracts, taken at adventure.

Of making a Figure. I have read of a fquib which was reprefented burfting, with this motto under it, peream dum luceam" let me " perish, if I do but fhine." The fame motto will do for all, who diffipate their fubftance by fbining or figuring with fhew and equipage.

When a husbandman claimed kinship with Robert Grofthead, Bishop of Lincoln, and thereupon requefted from him an office, "Coufin," faid the bishop, " if your cart be broken, I'll mend it; "if your plow be old, I'll give you a new one, and even feed to "fow your land: but a husbandman I found you, and a husband"man I'll leave you." The bishop thought it kinder (as fhould feem) to ferve him in his way, than to take him out of it; and perhaps Stephen Duck, the thresher, had been better provided for, if,

* Some very judicious papers in this collection are taken from the IRENARCH of Dr. Heathcote; the third edition of which was published in 1781.

Rev. Feb. 1787.

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inftead of being first penfioned and then ordained, he had been endowed with ten acres of land, and fuffered to thresh on. By turning the laborious thresher into an inactive parfon, they brought lunacy firft, and then fuicide, upon a man who might otherwife have enjoyed himself with two cows and a pig, and ended his days in ferenity and ease.'

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Marriage of old Men. Were I advised to take another wife, under the mean and unmanly prospect of being coddled now I am old, my reple would be in fome fuch terms as thefe:-"My dear Sir, I am "greatly obliged by your attention to my happinefs, but (with your leave) I will referve the little ftrength and spirits I have remaining for the better fupport of my old age. Secondly, though "I am not fo old as Alceftes (who lately married a fecond wife at "the age of 70), yet I am old enough to have contracted many ways and humours, which, being by habit become natural, can"not now be contradicted without making me unhappy but they "would be contradicted by new connections, or any new fyftem "of living. Thirdly, if a man has any decent pride remaining, hé "will difdain to be estimated merely as a convenience: but an old "fellow cannot be accepted in marriage from any other motive. "Laftly, I have lived long enough to have but one general object; "and that is, to bear the growing infirmities of old age, and to "wait my diffolution with a spirit and temper as peaceful and refigned, as contented and ferene as may be. I am therefore de"termined to continue as I am."

Meanwhile, and to return once more to the fubject, if an old man will fo far forget himself as to marry, he fhould, above all things, avoid a young wife; left, as Bayle expreffes it," he expofe his fore

head to a fhameful and very uneafy difgrace." A young man is not exempt from this misfortune; how fhould an old? If these things happen where the wood is green, what can be expected where it is dry? Befides, if he escape the thing, he may be haunted with the idea; that is, he may fufpect himself to be a cuckold, though he really be not; which, perhaps, is a greater evil than to be one without fufpecting it.'

No one can object to the juftness, as well as the vivacity of these remarks; but the allufion to a proverb, which is become facred from the facred occafion on which it was uttered, is, in our idea, very improper; and the wit which applies it in the prefent inftance cannot recompenfe, with ferious readers, for its profaneness. Yet we exculpate the Author from any purpose to ridicule what is facred. He is, we are perfuaded, a man of better principles, and writes with a real defire to ferve the interests of virtue and religion. But when fome perfons hit on a lucky thought, they are unwilling to lofe it; and it is fuffered to take its chance, without confidering the ill ufe that may be made of it by fome, and the offence that it will give to others.

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Of reprefentation in Parliament. A reprefentative in parliament is a perfon deputed by individuals to execute their portion of the public bufinefs in the national council or affembly, and vefted by them with complete powers in order thereunto. In this fituation, he is to use his best judgment towards knowing and afcertaining, and

his beft endeavours in promoting, what fhall be moft for the national good; and this without any retrospective view upon his conftituents, or any regard to their fenfe of affairs: for it may be, either that the fense of those conflituents cannot be conveyed to him, or that they have no fenfe to convey. And that this independency of the reprefentative is fuppofed by the conftitution, appears plainly from hence, viz. that the powers with which he is invested are not revocable at pleasure, or before the expiration of the term for which they were given; even though they fhould be employed, not only against the Jenfe of the conftituents, but even against the national weal itself. How far fuch an ordainment of things is eligible, I fay not: but I fay, that if a reprefentative be nothing more than a perfon who fits in the House of Commons to speak the sense of a certain number of people, as he receives it by the poft out of the country, he is no better than a tube, an organ pipe, a kind of wind inftrument which fends forth found mechanically.' This, however, feems to be too nice and too important a question to be thus confidently decided in this fummary way.

Liberty of the Prefs. I fhall not defcant whether abuses ought or ought not to abolish its ufe; but I am fincerely perfuaded, that if our prefent manners hold, they moft affuredly will. When the prefs ridicules openly and barefacedly the most revered and fundamental doctrines of religion: when the prefs, in political matters, attacks perfons without any regard to things, or perhaps attacks things for the fake of abufing perfons: when the prefs not only wantonly affaults the first characters in church and ftate, but even facrifices the peace and quiet of private families to the fport and entertainment of an ill-natured public: (and is it not notorious that all this is done daily?)-then, I fay, this reasonable, noble, and manly liberty is degenerated into a bafe, unwarrantable, cruel licentioufnefs; and this licentioufnefs-determine as logically, and contend as loudly, as you please-will, by an unavoidable confequence flowing from the nature and conftitution of things, fooner or later bring about its deftruction. Things are fo formed, that extremes must ever beget, and prepare the way for, extremes. Abufes of every thing must destroy the ufe of every thing: and if the people grow licentious and ungovernable, it is as natural, perhaps as neceffary, for their rulers to encrease their restraint, and abridge their liberty, as for the breakers of horfes to tighten the reins in proportion as their steeds shall shew an impatience: be managed.'

To confider the people as horfes' [mere beasts of burden], and men in power as their riders, feems to be a favourite idea with all thofe writers who unnaturally employ themselves in forging their own fetters, and who would madly give up a nation's liberty, merely becaule, like every other good, it is liable to be abufed by a few individuals; offenders who may be, and often are, reftrained and punished by the laws of the land. On the fame principle we might relinquish every bleffing which God hath bestowed on us!

Duelling Another good inftance to fhow the prevalence of manners over laws. The law," fays Mr. Hawkins, "fo far abhors "duelling,

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