therefore to be in the fame proportion, and taken collectively it cannot be otherwife. If at any particular age the deaths of the males exceed thofe of the females in a greater proportion than 9 to 8, as, for example, 9 to 7, at another age the deaths of males to females must be lefs than the proportion of 9 to 7. This is evident from the confideration that all muft die, males as well as females; therefore during the whole period of life, the proportion of the deaths of males to females muft equal the proportion of the births of males to females.

Dr. Clark has given an extract from the registry kept at the lying-in hofpital in Dublin from the year 1757 to 1784, by which it appears that 19,455 children were born, viz. 10,305 males and 9,150 females; of these 2,903 died, viz. 1,656 males and 1,247 females; but he has not mentioned at what age these children died, though we fuppofe, from an inference fubjoined, they all died under 16 days. The proportion of births being very nearly as 36 to 32, and of deaths as 36 to 27, excited the Doctor to enquire into the causes of the excess of male deaths above thofe of females.

Anatomy has not been able to discover any internal difference between the animal economy of males and females, which can account for their difference of mortality, more especially in early infancy. The principal caufe of this difference, Dr. C. thinks, depends on the greater fize of males, and the confequent greater difficulty and hardship attending their birth; we doubt whether practice and obfervation can confirm the opinion that male are more difficult than female births. Another cause is fuppofed to be, that males require a greater quantity or fupply of nourishment than females, fince they are naturally of a more robuft frame, and that confequently a deficiency of fupport induces a weakness, which must prove more fatal to male children. Thefe reafonings are rather too fine; they are ingenious, and may be founded in truth, but they want force of conviction. The fubject is rather curious than ufeful; and the reader will in this paper meet with many uncommon observations. [To be concluded in our next. ]

R-m

ART. IV. Ancient Scottish Poems, never before in Print; but now published from the manufcript Collections of Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, Knight, Lord Privy Seal of Scotland, and a Senator of the College of Juftice. Comprizing Pieces written from about 1420 till 1586. With large Notes, and a Gloffary. 2 Vols. Crown 8vo. 6s. Boards. Dilly. 1786.

TH

THE Editor (Mr. Pinkerton) informs us, that the Maitland Collection, from which this work is felected, confifts of two volumes, viz. a folio, begun, it is conjectured, about 1555, and probably finished near the time of Sir Richard Maitland's death,

I

death, 1585. The other volume is in quarto, in the handwriting of Mifs Mary Maitland, third daughter of Sir Richard.

These manufcripts were always preferved in the family of the original collector, till the Duke of Lauderdale presented them to Mr. Pepys, Secretary to the Admiralty, in the reigns of Charles II. and James II.; who, at his death, bequeathed them, with his other curious manufcripts, to Magdalen College, Cambridge.

The Editor's curiofity having been excited by the accounts given of the Maitland Collection by feveral writers, and particularly by Dr. Percy, he went to Cambridge, and obtained permiffion to copy any part of the manufcripts that he judged worthy of publication.

Of the pieces now prefented, for the first time, to the Public, we fhall give a brief account in the Editor's own words.

The first is a long allegorical poem on human life, called King Hart, and written by the celebrated Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld. The poem deferves prefervation as a curiofity, though it will not highly entertain the Reader.'

The next piece is a Tale, by Dunbar. It is in a fingular kind of blank verfe, ufed by the old romancers, and after them by the author of Pierce Plowman's Vifions. It is full of knowledge of life, and rich defcription; and is also much tinctured with immodefty; which Fontaine, indeed, looks upon as effential to this kind of writing:'-and for which, we may add, our Editor fcruples not to ftand forward as an advocate; pleading, for its excufe, that it muft ever delight every mind that is not callous to nature's beft and fineft fenfibilities;' juftifying it by the practice of the Greek and Roman writers, and, above all, by the converfation of the modern French ladies-who, it is faid by Mr. Pinkerton, indulge themselves upon all occafions with every liberty of fpeech." Having confirmed his argument by fuch truly refpectable authorities, he concludes with obferving that it is undoubtedly a falfe idea to look on immodefty as a mark of an unpolished age.'

The other piece in this collection is entitled, The Friars of Berwick, Tale. This is only fuppofed to be written by Dunbar. It is in his manner; and worthy of his immodest Muse. The Editor discovers more wit and beauty in it, than we have the good fortune of finding out. For nature,' says he, it is admirable; but for contrivance, the rareft quality of this fpecies of writing, it is the first that I have ever read; and very few ancient or modern Tales have efcaped my reading.' Perhaps we may, in fome measure, account for the Editor's peculiar tafte and judgment, from the manner in which he hath employed his time.

Such

Such are the larger pieces in this collection. Those which follow are of lefs bulk, of various measures, on a great variety of fubjects, and written by different hands. They are alfo of various merits. A few are very beautiful; and we obferve, here and there, an elegance of fentiment and expreffion, rarely to be met with in writings of that period.

The smaller poems of Dunbar follow the Tales. They begin with his youthful and light pieces, and end with those written in his old age. The fole merit of fome is their curiosity; but others [in the Editor's opinion] have every intrinfic merit.'

The next divifion is of Poems by various Authors; viz. Quintin Schaw, Arbuthnot, Lord Thilftane, James VI. &c. &c.

Then follow Poems by unknown Authors; which form the moft numerous affortment, amounting to upwards of thirty.

The collection ends with Poems by Sir Richard Maitland. They have,' fays the Editor, confiderable merit in every view, and fhew him to have been a good man, as well as a great ftatefman. His lighter pieces have a delightful gaiety and garrulity of old age, for he doth not feem to have written a line of poetry till he had reached his fixtieth year.'

We have no doubt of the authenticity of these Poems, and of the fidelity of the Editor; and we have better proof of it than the Editor's word-which, by his own confeffion, in a former inftance, was a voucher not to be depended on. His confeffion, however, would better have entitled him to forgiveness, if he had not leffened its merits by an apology which almoft amounts to a juftification of the crime. In the year 1781, he published a Collection of Scottish Tragic Ballads. To thefe Ballads he prefixed two differtations; and toward the conclufion of the fecond, he afferts that he was indebted for moft of the ftanzas now recovered' [viz. in the 2d Part of Hardyknute, then first publifbed and declared to be original] to the memory of a lady in Lanerkshire.' He attempted to colour the deception ftill more by affecting in a note, that the common people in Lanerkfhire can repeat fcraps of both the Parts.' And is the credit of Scotch poetry ever to be propt up by falfehood? Yes-till vanity difmantles what impofture hath erected.

Of the second part of Hardyknute the Editor must now confefs himself guilty. As for his fecret, he hath obferved the Horatian precept he at firft laid down to himself, Nonum prematur in annum.' This is a very curious application of the Horatian precept! publish a falfehood, but don't confefs it, till the world hath been deceived by it nine years. But this is not the only inftance in which the Editor hath fhewn his dexterity in

* See Review, vol. lxvi. p. 292.

applying

applying the maxims of Horace to a literary imposition; for having afked pardon both of his friends and the Public, for 'keeping the fecret to himself for nine years,' he quotes Horace to juftify him, not in confeffing, but in committing the fraud; and the maxim, as he applies it, would have fully justified him in keeping the fecret to himself nine years longer. Perhaps, like a very young man as he was, he had pufhed one or two points of the deception a little too far.'-Very gentle indeed! only• perhaps and a little too far! But he always thought that novel and poetry had NO BOUNDS of fiction. Horace fays

6

pictoribus atque poetis

QUIDLIBET AUDENDI femper fuit æqua poteftas.'

And left the Editor's no bounds,' and Horace's' quidlibet audendi,” should not carry fufficient emphafis in fmall characters, they are printed in bold capitals: and, STICK AT NOTHING, feems the literal English.

But rather than lofe the applaufe which was bestowed on his ingenuity, the Editor is content to incur a cenfure on his integrity. He informs us, that the Public had been pleased to judge favourably of it; though he hath not told us, that a very acute (though perhaps too cauftic) writer detected the impofition, and exposed it in its true colours, in the Gentleman's Magazine, very foon after its original publication. Thus, it feems, that Mr. Pinkerton hath only the merit of confeffing what the world knew before!

The Preface to this felection of Scottish poems is followed by an Effay on the Origin of Scottish Poetry, in which the Writer difcovers a confiderable degree of hiftorical knowledge, mixed with affectation, and difgraced by infidelity; of which the following fpecimen will be a fufficient proof. By analogy and actual obfervation we know, that, fo far from all nations being defcended of one man, there are many races of men, of quite different forms and attributes. Let us look on man from the extremity of Afia, round to the extremity of America. Are these all from one parent? See where they pafs in review the oblique-eyed, fat-favoured Chinese; the olive-coloured, lank haired Eaft Indian; the large-limbed, dufky Turk; the elegant Greck; the fcowling Hungarian; the large, blue-eyed German; the fquat Dutch; the florid Hibernian. Are thefe one race with the curlpated, black Ethiop, or with the copper-faced American? with the bear-like Laplander, the beftial Zamoide or Esquimaux? Has the lovely Circaffian girl the fingular natural fig-leaf of the Hottentot wench? Has the Egyptian the monkey-shaped head of the Negro ?-And thus Mofes, and his fyftem of the creation, is borne down by a tremendous confluence of epithets!-thofe "fwelling words of vanity," which have been long in ufe, and

may

may be easily collected to fupply the place of reafon and argu

ment.

When the Author confines himself to hiftory, he is much more fortunate than when his wayward fancy tempts him to rove in the wild regions of fpeculation. His remarks on the origin of the Britons, Picts, and Scots, are ingenious and inftructive; and his account of poetry in Scotland, under its dif ferent periods, and in its different languages and dialects, is particularly entertaining, as well as full of curious information.

Our Readers will be pleafed with the following extracts, which may be confidered as a brief analysis of the whole Effay:

Mr. Pinkerton brings the most ancient Britons from the Cimbric Cherfonefus (now Denmark); and fuppofes, that they were afterwards fupplanted by the Belgic Gauls, who inhabited the ifland at the time of Cæfar's invafion. The Cimbro-Celtic Britons (or those we now call Welsh) never appear to have extended their poffeffions beyond the Forth and Clyde. All the northern tract beyond thefe rivers was called Caledonia by the Romans, on account of its vaft woods, from Kaled, a British word, fignifying a wood, the plural of which is Kaledon. Calydon in Etolia of Greece, and the famous Calydonian foreft there, feem to be of the fame Celtic origin; for the Celtic language was the original speech of all Europe.-This is Mr. Whitaker's ingenious conjecture.

The Picts inhabited Caledonia, or the provinces beyond Clyde and Forth. Thefe barbarous people came originally from Scandinavia. According to Scandinavian antiquaries, the Goths were led into the northern parts of Europe from Afia by Odin and his heroes, thence called Afæ, many centuries before Chrift. From their new fettlements, they afterwards fpread over great part of Europe; and Scandinavia became the grand storehouse of nations. But from Scandinavia to the ifles between it and Scotland, and thence to the north of Scotland, was the eafieft and nearest of their colonizations: and we may therefore fuppofe it one of the first. Samuel Infans (frequently confounded with Nennius] informs us, that the Picts were fettled in the Orkneys about 200 years before Chrift; and Eumenius fays, that in the time of Julius Cæfar, 53 years before Chrift, they had been the accustomed enemies of Britain. About the Chriftian epoch they seem to have feized on the northern parts of Caledonia; and in less than a century to have peopled the whole fpaces, then free from woods, down to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, either driving the first inhabitants before them, or, what is more probable, finding the country uninhabited. Thus it is manifeft that the Caledonians were of a diftinct race from the other Britons. Tacitus fays, that their red hair and large joints