314 Derrick's Memoirs of the Royal Navy. the Admiral received from the shore, amounted to between six and seven thousand men; our loss was 128 killed, and 690 wounded, and that of the Dutch 65 killed and wounded. The following ships and vessels of the enemy were destroyed; namely, four large frigates, of 44 guns; five large corvettes, from 24 to 30 guns; all the gun and mortar boats, except seven (thirty destroyed); several merchant brigs and schooners; and a great number of small vessels of various descriptions. The storehouses and arsenal, timber, &c. and various marine articles, were also destroyed in part. The next day his Lordship renewed his offer of peace on the same terms as before, on certain conditions; and on the 30th, he had the satisfaction of announcing to the fleet the final termination of their strenuous exertions; that the Dey had agreed to the abolition, for ever, of Christian slavery; to the delivery, to the flag-ship, of all slaves in his dominions, to whatever nation they belonged; and to deliver also to the flag-ship all the money received by him for the redemption of slaves since the commencement of the year.* The naval force employed on this memorable occasion consisted of five ships of 110 to 74 guns, one 50, four large frigates, five sloops, four bombvessels, six Dutch frigates, and 55 gun and mortar boats, barges, yawls, &c.t Lord Exmouth was created a Viscount on the return of the fleet; and various honours and promotions were very liberally distributed to the other Admiral (Milne), the Captains, Commanders, Lieutenants, and Midship * 357,000 dollars for Naples; and 25,500 dollars for Sardinia. [April, inestimable benefits resulting from its glorious and successful issue." This was no more than a just tribute of applause to Government for its spirit, promptitude, and sound policy, in seizing an opportunity, whilst the means were yet in its power, of effecting such extensive good to a multitude of human beings, and the prevention of evil to thousands yet unborn;-as the opportunity, if suffered to have passed by, might have never again occurred; and the blessing of God was upon it throughout. Little now remains to be added, except a few tables and statements, rendered necessary, for the most part, by circumstances which have arisen since the close of the war, and not adverted to before. 1817. In June the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty directed that all ships should in future be built with round instead of square sterns. This plan of construction will add great strength to the after-part of the body of the ship, which has necessarily been comparatively weak, and almost defenceless; and the guns which will be mounted in the round sterns will prevent the ships being raked by the enemy with impunity.* The Kent, of 74 guns, was hauled up on a slip in Plymouth-yard in June, in order to be repaired, which is the first instance of any ship, larger than a frigate, being hove up on a slip; and if practised in time of war, when docks may be wanted for ships in commission, will of course leave more docks at liberty for that purpose. Very many of the frigates were, when the war ended, rapidly wearing out, both those built of oak, and those built of fir; and it was determined to drop those which were nominally under 36 guns, such ships being of too unequal a force to contend effectually with the frigates of the other maritime powers; and to build a great number of large onest: and it will be Sir Robert Seppings was the inventor of this plan. See his letter to Lord Melville, dated 1st January, 1822 (not printed for sale). Some of the frigates of 42 (late called 36) guns are repairing, and probably some others may be repaired, but it is not intend+ See Extraordinary Gazette of 15 Sep-ed to build any more of that class. There tember, for the greater part of the foregoing detail. were no King's ships or vessels building in merchants' yards at this time. 1829.1 Derrick's Memoirs of the Royal Navy. seen by what follows, that this resolution is being carried into effect. 1818. The following table shows what ships were building, and ordered 315 to be built, on the 1st of Sept. 1818 (except those on the Lakes), also those under repair: The following complements of men, Sea-going ships: 6th rate... 150 to 110 in time of peace, were established by the above-mentioned Order in Council, viz. Sloops....110 to 65 cutters, &c. 60 The new method of rating the ships, as mentioned in page 106, occasioned the following variations in the list of the Navy, a very few ships excepted, viz. : As now rated under the new 66 Erratum.-Vol.xcv--- n.584, l. 11, for Whitby" re continued.) 316 Speculations on Literary Pleasures. PHILO HILOSOPHY (says Hierocles, the eloquent commentator upon the works of Pythagoras,) is the purification and perfection of human nature; its purification, because it delivers from the temerity and the folly that proceed from matter, and because it disengages its affections from this mortal body; and its perfection, because it makes it recover its original felicity by restoring it to the likeness of God." In the course of our former attempts to illustrate a few of those concurring sources which make up the sum of our literary pleasures, we have thrown a glance alike at the history and state of philosophy, and certain things connected with our literary history. A disposition to resume the contempla tion of things connected with the former topic, was some time since intimated. But while the acknowledged votaries of divine philosophy, which Hierocles, in his attempts to illustrate the doctrines of the illustrious Samian sage, has justly pronounced an occupation of the mind, which, beyond all human pursuits, will purify and clevate the grovelling affections of human nature, we have at the same time endeavoured to diversify our desultory pictures with some occasional retrospects connected with literature and criticism. The same course may possibly still be allowed us; and if philosophy be indeed the purification of human nature," the diversified walks and recesses of literature may be also said to furnish its high and permanent felicities, and console it under the vicissitudes of its allotment. ·་ And here, reviewing what may be termed the middle period of our national literature, the course of the Eigh. teenth century, we see that intellects of a very high order united to give a character and tone to its literature and its thinking, which has tended eminently to exalt us among the nations of Europe. For genius of a high rank and classification in all its departments and varieties then flourished, and carried the British name to very high celebrity. Some few spirits of the 17th century shone out with an eclipsing lustre; but it by no means follows that the generous tide of genius slumbered, or moved [April, in a turbid stream, during the Eighteenth, because some few master-intellects were engendered in the former period, to which the latter offered no parallel. A race of writers sprang up during the latter period, who have left for the instruction and delight of posterity a series of Essays connected with morals, the muses, and polite literature, of which we find scarcely an example in any other age or nation. We allude to those essays chiefly conducted by Addison, Johnson, Hawkesworth, Moore (author of the Gamester), and Mackenzie, of which, without any comparative analysis, it may generally be said that their accurate views of society and mankind, their wit, and their multifarious learning, place them very high in the scale of comparative excellence. Poetry in all its varied schools, after all that hypercriticism has said, gained very high eminence in many or most of its different periods; and the stores of wisdom, of pathos, and of wit, in which the English language stands proudly eminent, may be said to be chiefly furnished by the Eighteenth century. In view of this the individual whose honest aim is a fair allotment in criticism, will sometimes view with impatience the manifested preference given both to the 17th and 19th centuries, and its the Eighteenth. consequent insinuated inferiority of Of late it has become a fashionable topic in certain quarters to assert the superiority of the present period over that of the preceding century, in philosophy, morals, the belles lettres, poetry, and taste; and the multitude of periodical journals, et hoc genus omne, which profess to arbitrate the standard of public feeling in this last particular, if they are not mainly instrumental, have a wide share of influence in upholding such opinion. It must be admitted that, backed by the influence of genius and talent, the position thus powerfully enforced is likely to have its weight. But the periodical organs of literature of the present age are to a very great extent the vehicles of party. If, then, they obtain in British literature a feature altogether unprecedented, if they have been acknowledged to give a leading tone to the thinking of the age, these insinuated or avowed opinions, enforced as they often are by the powerful fascinations of genius, 1829.] Speculations on Literary Pleasures-Edinburgh Review. may be termed almost omnipotent in literature; since the extended circulation they obtain through the various ranks of a reading community, is altogether unprecedented in the annals of intellectual history. Circulated in every direction through the more courtly precincts of the Metropolis, they equally ramify through the detached and more secluded coteries of the country town and even the hamlet. It is natural to suppose that the sentiments they uphold and maintain, and the positions they favour, pass as genuine among a large proportion of well-educated individuals throughout the na tion, who are by no means without their share of literary discernment, and are alike tenacious of the right of judging in matters of intellectual casuistry. Hence the influence which, from the Edinburgh Review downwards, the periodical press has in the dissemination of opinions, whether they combine the splendour of paradoxical novelty, or positions formerly considered heterodoxical to sound taste. One of these positions has frequently been, or appears to be, that we (or they) surpass in every particular the intellect and judgment of any period preceding our own; and the tone and breathing of a large portion of the periodical writers of our day evince a disposition of no equivocal kind to pluck the wreath from the brows of some of those who were heretofore thought most deserve ing of wearing it. Such impressions cannot but often strike the mind whilst reviewing the Reviewers of the present day. The Edinburgh Review has for many years sustained a proud distinction in the department of literature; and, haud passibus equis, Blackwood's Magazine has of late taken among its compeers a prominent station in arbitrating the standard of taste, and directing the tone of thinking amongst those periodicals who at once solicit the sunshine of public favour, and affect to direct its operation. Of the Edinburgh Review a plain reader would say,-for, as Bolingbroke once premised, a reasonable being may judge of some of these matters without the aid of recondite learning, or the splendour of genius,-that when it enters the realms of literature and taste, is is above all its contemporaries, powerful. But all will see that their decisions in these matters are not to be taken as the invariable dogmas of truth; 317 the world has long since seen the evil effects of error gilded with the fascinations of eloquence; and if to the no blemau just mentioned, as well as to certain other spirits of more ancient times, the well-known aphorism, "parum sapientiæ," has sometimes been applied, the satis eloquentiæ will often fit the reviewers of the North, even if their wisdom sometimes be more ques tionable than they would have it appear. Imposing splendour of thought, and sometimes of style, is what our brethren of the North frequently af fect something great and novel ín literature is with them a ruling ambition, which forms a prominent end in writing, spite of their constantly iterated text, "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur ;" and if they sometimes in this attain success, their genius may be said to merit it. But these endowments should not pass current at the expence of truth; and if writers sometimes, reckless of the latter, seek a refuge in the blandishments of the former, the common sense or honesty of their readers must be excused from a devotion not at all times quite practicable. We will cite an instance or two. The Edinburgh Review, No. 93 (art. Dryden), roundly asserted, a few months since, that throughout the polite æra of Roman literature, there were only two genuine poets of imagination, Catullus and Lucretius. Now this may do very well for novelty; but as Addison observed a long while ago, the writer who undertakes to publish to the world that the classical writers of antiquity were only shallow declaimers, should be told that he comes a great deal too late with his discovery, that their lessons of wisdom and of genius are too firmly established,—so it may be here intimated that a novelty of this sort will not entirely go down now-a-days. In their laboured article on "Milton," about six months before, they make no scruple, in the face of all critical authority, of placing "Paradise Regained," "if not on a direct equality, yet in a class of excellence not unworthy of "Paradise Lost." The vigour of thought and beauty of delineation which distinguishes the article in question (we speak as we would be always understood to do, when alluding to this publication, of its reference to poetry and literature, not to politics,) are justly admired; but it is quite impossible for a person in 318 Speculations on Literary Pleasures-Edinburgh Review. [April, his senses to acquiesce in any such dictum. In the two articles here enumerated there is a great deal of speculation tending to hypotheses to which few can entirely subscribe, penned with powerful effect, but too bold and too sweeping in its requisitions either to obtain the confidence, or satisfy perchance any scrupulous doubts of the reader. Dating back some fourteen years (for, with the reader of any experience, it is curious to see that the same poignancy of satire and virulence of criticism have at least always given them the title of consistency,) we find a review of Boyd's Translation of St. Chrysostom and St. Gregory. With the confidence which usually characterizes them, they hesitate not to pronounce Boyd's "Select Passages" to be so far from an acquisition in English literature (a sentiment which persons not blessed with the same illuminations might be almost inclined to favour), that it must be rather thought an impertinence. The Review in question will strike any fair and temperate awarder of literary merit as amongst the number of those in which a rage for hypothesis outstrips a sense of candour. That the Fathers were destitute of genius and learning, nobody of yore suspected; but the whole tenor of the Review in question is at pains to prove that the most eminent of thein abound in examples of the tumid and bombast in writing, and continually dazzles the imagination with false figures of rhetoric. "For our parts we confess," say they, "instead of wondering with Mr. Boyd, that his massy favourites should be doomed to a temporary oblivion, we are only surprised that such affected declaimers should ever have enjoyed a better fate; or that even the gas of holiness with which they are inflated could ever have enabled its coarse and gaudy vehicles to soar so high into the upper regions of reputation. South, we believe, has said, that in order to be pious, it is not necessary to be dull;' but even dullness itself is far more decorous than the puerile conceits, the flaunting metaphors, and all that false finery of rhetorical declaination in which these writers have tricked out their most solemn and important subjects." Now it is impossible, with the exercise of common candour, and with the work in question before us, to speak in these terms of reprobation; as equally it is, whatever be their faults, to pronounce upon "the rigidity of Chrysostom, the stoic affectations of Clemens Alexandrinus, and the antithetical trifling of Gregory Nazianzen," in the same way as the author of this critique has done. It will probably be thought, moreover, that the sneering allusion which they have directed, in the course of their philippic upon the Fathers, towards a late enlightened Prelate, because in the discharge of his duty he has abundantly cited them in support of his thesis, is as little substantiated in justice. Bishop Tomline thought with reason that these early Christian luminaries possessed, many of them, judgment enough to enlighten him on the point he advocated; and upon_the question of their eloquence, Mr. Boyd may be allowed to be not altogether without reason, when he adduces his book as a specimen in support of it. The Fathers, it has long been agreed, blended their polemical learning with the oriental mythology, and mingled the imaginative doctrines of Plato with the more pure and sacred code of Christian ethics. But the visionary spirit of allegorizing some of the fundamental dogmas of our faith, which frequently prevailed in those times, did not, therefore, fasten on the dignitaries of the primitive Church the imputation of being superficial rhapsodists, or prosaic declaimers, until our Reviewers, in their wisdom, first proclaimed it to the world. But confidence of tone, in its declamatory assertions, is much the fashion in the literature of our day; and the writers of the periodical department of its order, especially, forgetting that sound, however virulently uttered, does not always superinduce sense, have too much legitimatized its title to the charge which a "plain unvarnished" thinker might, sometimes, bring against them. Novelty in all its formis, even when at variance with all currently received opinions (preferred perhaps by some on account of that discrepancy),-splendid paradoxes made feasible by the ingenuity of genius, have been uttered from the mouth of oracular authorities, and have not by any means been wanting in their effective and influential operation. Locke remarks, in one of his "Vindications" (for Locke was of that class of literary men who are peculiarly sen |