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was in England he wrote three copies şiring to be drawn in his own coun, of it without the assistance of any try dress, the artist replied, that other copy, and without so much as unless he had seen it, or it were delooking to one as his guide in wri- scribed by one who had, he could not ting the others. He would often draw it. Job remarked upon this : laugh at his friend, Mr. Bluett, on “ If you can't draw a dress you never hearing him say he had forgotten any saw, why do some of you painters thing. He told him," that he hard presume to draw God, whom no one ly ever forgot any thing in his life, ever saw ?” Many of his repartees and wondered that any body should.” in company showed him to be a man

There was a happy mixture of the of wit and humour. He expressed a grave and cheerful in his natural disapprobation of Christianity as not temper. His gentle mildness was allowing divorces. It was once obguarded by a proper warmth. To all served io him, that a Christian takes in distress he was kind and compas- a wife for better or for worse. Job sionate. He was commonly very replied: - What, if she prove all pleasant in conversation ; and would

worse ?" every now and then divert the com

Though he was a Mahomedan, he pany with some witty turn or agree- did not believe in a sensual paradise, able story, but never to the prejudice nor did he adopt many other ridicuof religion and good manners. It lous and vain traditions, which pass was visible that, notwithstanding his current among the generality of the usual mildness, he had on necessary Turks. He was very constant in his occasions sufficient courage. A stoc devotion to God. He called one afry which he told showed this. Pass. ternoon on the learned Dr. David ing one day on his way home through Jennings, an eminent dissenting mithe country of the Arabs, with four nister, after the family had dined. It servants and several negroes which was found that he had not broken he had bought, he was attacked by his fast that day. Some pastry was fifteen of the wild Arabs, the com- procured and set before him, but he mon banditti or robbers in those would not partake of it till he had parts. On the sight of this gang, Job retired into another parlour for de: prepared for defence; and, setting votion. He said, that he never prayed one of his servants to watch the ne. to Mahomed, nor did he think it law. groes, he, with the other three, stood ful to address any but God himself on his guard. One of his men was in prayer. He was so fixed in the killed in the fight, and Job himself belief of one God, that it was not was run through the leg with a spear. possible to give him any notion of a However, two of the Arabs, together Trinity. A New Testament in his with their captain and two horses own language was put into his hands. being killed, the rest fled, and Job When he had read it, he told Mr. secured his negroes.

Bluett he had “ perused it with a His aversion to pictures of all sorts great deal of care, but could not find was exceedingly great; and with one word in it of three Gods, as some great difficulty was he prevailed on people talk." On all occasions he to sit for his own. He was assured discovered a singular veneration for that pictures were never worshipped the name of God, and never pro. in this country, and his was desired nounced the word Allah without a for no other end but to preserve the peculiar accent, and a remarkable remembrance of him. He at last pause. His notions of God, Provi, tonsented, and it was drawn by Mr. dence, and a future state, were indeed Hoare, who, when the face was finish

very just and reasonable. ed, asked in what dress it would be His learning, considering the dis. most proper to draw him ? Job, de- advantages of the place from whence

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he came, was far from being con- God's care of all his creatures, and temptible. The books in his country, particularly of the remarkable chanamounting to not more than thirty in ges in his own circumstances, all of number, and all on religion, were in which, he piously ascribed to an un. Arabick and in manuscript. The seen hand. He frequently compared Koran, he said, was originally writ- himself to Joseph. And when he was ten by God himself, not in Arabick, informed that the king of Futa had and God sent it by the angel Gabriel killed a great many of the Mandinto Ababuker before Mahomed's birth. roes on his account, he said with a The angel taught Ababuker to read it; good deal of concern : “ If he had and no one can read it but those who been there he would have prevented are instructed after a different man. it; for it was not the Mandingoes, ner from that in which the Arabick but God, who brought him to a is commonly taught.* Job was well strange land." acquainted with the historical part of Job had heard, by vessels from our Bible, and spoke very respect- Gambia, that after captain Pike sail. fully of the good men who are men. ed, his father sent down several tioned in it, particularly of Jesus slaves to purchase his redemption ; Christ, " who,” he said, " was a very and that Sambo, king of Futa, made great prophet, and would have done war upon the Mandingoes, and cut much more good in the world if he off great numbers of them, upon achad not been cut off so soon, by the count of the injury they had done to wicked Jews, which made it neces- his school-fellow. sary for God to send Mahomed to It was an instance of Job's good confirm and improve his doctrine." sense and foresight, that the reason

Job, in his captivity, comforted of his learning from the sailors and himself with reflections on the pro- writing the names of the headlands vidence of God directing all events ; on the English coast was, as he told and would,on proper occasions, speak Mr. Bluett : “ That if after his rein conversation justly and devoutly of turn he should meet with any En

glishman in his own country, he * The difference, in Mr. Bluett's opi-' might be able to convince him that nion, depended only upon the pointing he had been in England.” the Arabick, an invention of late date.

SIR E. BRYDGES, K. J. AND ROBERT BLOOMFIELD, PASTORAL POET."

TURNING over, accidentally, that any thing more contemptible iş the Censura Literaria for February, the form of ten-syllable lines, cannot I happened to stumble, at p. 91, be penned by a man of common upon some blank verse of Robert sense. I will justify this assertion by Bloomfield's, introduced by a strong two or three extracts. encomium of sir E. Brydges, K. J.

“ Relick of affection, come; Of the critical faculties of sir E.

Thou shalt a moral teach to me and mine. Brydges, K. J. I have not a very ex- The hand that wound thee smooth is cold and alted notion; and I turned, therefore, spins to the poem itself, there to form my

No more !!!!! own opinion. It is addressed to a This last line is as pure prose as Spindle, once in the possession of ever fell from the pen of sir E. BrydMr. Bloomfield's mother. And much ges, K. J. himself; and it is as pureas I may be inclined to praise the ly bathos as any thing to be found in motive of the verse, yet I do believe, English literature.

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"Debility pressed hard around The seat of life, and terrours filled her brain :

Nor causeless terrours: giants grim and bold,

Three mighty ones she feared to meet : they came; Winter, Old Age and Poverty, all came!!! The last had dropped his club."

What the club of poverty is, Mr Bloomfield, I suppose, can tell me but, as for the three giants, they are quite new.

"When death beheld Her tribulation he fulfilled his task, And to her trembling hand and heart at

once

Cried, SPIN NO MORE!"

Here, then, is the moral; and it appears that dame Bloomfield possessed the rare faculty of spinning with her heart as well as her hand; and that death came to ease them both. How natural that this last mentioned gentleman should find her in the very act of spinning. She, as her son so poetically exclaims,

"She who could spin so well!" But she was a mighty spinner; for she spun "through all her days." But now comes the great moral. The spindle was left half full of "downy fleece," and so

""Tis the motto of the world! We spin vain threads, and dream, and strive, and die,

With sillier things than spindles in our hands!!!"

This is, indeed, a pathetick and a sublime moral; and it serves Mr. Bloomfield for a basis whereby to make a transition to his "spinning"

of verses.

"Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines."

His case seems desperate, and nothing but the same gentleman who stopped his mother's spindle will stop his pen; for thus he says himself:

"Then feeling, as I do, resistlessly, The bias set upon my soul for verse, Oh! should old age still find my brain at work,

And death, over some poor fragment striding, cry

'Hold! spin no more! Grant Heaven, that purity

Of thought and texture may assimilate
That fragment unto thee," &c. &c.

This is unintelligible nonsense in some parts; and in others, it conveys alarming tidings as to the perpetual labours of Mr. Bloomfield's' brain. But now, let us hear sir E. Brydges, K. J. He introduces the above silliness [I have quoted nearly the whole of the piece] by saying:

"Every one is acquainted with the pastoral poetry of Bloomfield. It is not generally known, with what wonderful power and pathos he can write blank verse! !''

And he concludes it by adding :

"There is no reader of English poetry who does not recollect Cowper's exquisite lines on his mother's picture. This fragment of Bloomfield's forms a noble companion to them!!! It strikes me to be written in a loftier tone, and still more excellent manner than any of his other productions. Let him give new delight and astonishment to the world by a moral and descriptive poem in blank verse!”

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Let me ask you, sir, who is most pitiable he who receives such glaring adulation, or he who gives it. Perhaps the latter. For whether he bestows it from meanness of spirit, or from a wretched imbecility of intellect which disqualifies him for judging what he writes about, he is equally an object of pity. I do not remember any thing so absurd from Mr. Brydges, till he was made a knight. If any of your readers can give me a new perception, and teach me to find the meanest degree of merit in what I have extracted, I will unfeignedly thank him. But till then, my prayer is, that Mr. Bloomfield may ever have such an admirer, and such an admirer such poets to admire.

Sir E. Brydges, K. J. calls Mr. Bloomfield's prosaick inanity a 66 com panion" to Cowper's exquisitely pa

claim

same.

thetick lines on his Mother's Picture. The art that baffles time's tyrannick, I will take Cowper from my shelf, and quote the first dozen lines, and To quench it) here shines on me still the leave your readers to judge :

Let sir E. Brydges, K. J. confine “Oh that those lips had language! himself to copying the titles of old

Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee books, and giving abstracts of their last.

contents, and he will be suitably emThose lips are thine; thy own sweet ployed : but let him reverence himsmiles I see,

self in future, too much, to write The same that oft, in childhood, solaced such hyperbolical encomiums on so

barren and mean a topick. Voice only fails, else, how distinct they say,

I am, sir, your's, &c. 'Grieve not my child, chase all thy fears

CASTIGATOR. away' The meek intelligence of those dear eyes

March 7, 1809. (Blest be the art that can immortalize,

me ;

FROM THE LONDON ATHENÆUM.

REMARKABLE ESCAPE FROM DEATH,

To the Editor of the Athenæum. Si'r,

THE following example of escape by about forty men, he saw this desfrom apparently inevitable death is so perado, armed with a carbine, a brace singular, that I think it deserves to of pistols, a scymetar, and a dagger, be recorded, and cannot but prove issue out of a wood at a short disacceptable to your readers.

tance, at the head of his troop. InIn the attack of Manilla by sir Wil. stigated by a sudden emotion of reliam Draper, in the year 1763, cap- sentment, Bishop determined to ina tain Richard Bishop, of the marines, fict on this man the just punishment greatly distinguished himself by his of his offences; but being himself intrepidity and professional know, without weapons, he borrowed a pisledge; in consequence of which, he tol from the holsters of the officer was by that general made governour who accompanied him. Thus proof the town and fort of Cavite, the vided, he galloped up to the Malay, principal port in the island of Lu- and presented the pistol to his head. qonia. At this time there was in the The Malay and his followers, conneighbourhood a Malay of extraordi- founded at this bold act of a single Dary bulk and strength, and of the man, offered no resistance. The pismost ferocious disposition, who had tol missed fire; on which, Bishop, formerly worked in the dock yard, striking the Malay with it a violent but had deserted, and having collect- blow on the head, knocked him off ed nearly a hundred men of like cha- his horse. In ihe meanwhile the En. racters with himself, committed every glish troop, hastening to the assist. species of lawless violence on the per- ance of their leader, and concluding sons and property of the peaceable him to be fully equal to cope with in habitants. For the apprehension his fallen antagonist, pursued the of this man captain Bishop had long banditti, who immediately fled, and offered considerable rewards, but both parties were soon out of sight. without effect; when, one day riding All this was the work only of a few out with a brother officer, attended seconds; during which, Bishop see

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ing the Malay stunned on the ground, Bishop, unable to walk, crawled on alighted in order to secure him; or, his hands and knees to his horse, if necessary, to kill him with one of which he found grazing at the dishis own weapons. No sooner, how. tance of a quarter of a mile, near the ever, was he off his horse, than the spot where the contest began. He Malay was on his feet, and began a mounted him with difficulty, and was desperate struggle with his rash as- soon afterwards happily joined by his sailant. It was the business of the friends, who had chased their oppo. former merely to employ his own nents into some dangerous passes, offensive weapons; the latter had the and returned, not without solicitude double necessity of defeating their for the fate of their commander, use, and of applying them to his own whom they had so long left. advantage. The Malay was singu- The victor carried away the spoils larly strong and active, inured to hard of his enemy, part of which, the scy. labour, and exerting himself in his metar and fatal dagger, the writer of native climate : the Englishman of this letter has more than once seen. much less muscular force, and that The story was first related to him by reduced by long privations, and by captain Bishop himself, and afterthe influence of excessive heat ; but wards fully confirmed by the late the disparity was in a considerable de colonel Flint, who at that time served gree compensated by the energy of an with captain Bishop in the island. invincible mind.

Your readers will naturally look This contest for life continued for with anxiety to the subsequent histoalmost an hour, when at length Bi- ry of this gallant officer; and they shop, almost fainting with fatigue, will learn, with deep regret, that he was thrown on his back, and the was lost on board his majesty's ship Malay, kneeling on him, drew his the Thunderer, commanded by com. dagger, and with all his force aimed modore Walsingham, in the great at his breast the fatal blow. At that hurricane which occurred in the moment Bishop, exerting his last West Indies, in the year 1780. remains of strength, with both hands I am, sir, averted the point of the dagger as

Your obedient it descended, and changing its direc

Servant, tion, drove it upwards into the throat of the Malay, who immediately fell

P.H. C. down dead upon him.

LAW REPORT.

THE following case is perhaps he was looking at some young men unparalleled in the annals of Boiv. playing at cricket, he heard a gun go street.

off, and immediately saw the prisonOn Tuesday, May 16th, Miss Ma- er, Miss Mary York, in a paddock, ry York, a young lady, about 24 divided from the park by a paling, years of age, was brought by Laven- with a gun in her hand. He, in conder before Mr. Nares, the sitting sequence, went up to the paling, and magistrale, on a charge under the found Henry Parker there speaking Black Act, of a most extraordinary to Miss York, and observing to her nature. Robert Coombes stated, that that, if she fired the gun off again in on Sunday afternoon, about five such a careless manner, he should o'clock, he

was passing through come over the paling and take the Kempton Park, in Sunbury; and as gun from her. He heard her ask

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