fair will pretty near bring matters to a conclufion.

Sptember 5. We this day gained as complete a victory as has been made for fome time paft, and that was done by form, with hardly any lofs on our fide; and yet we have deftroyed and taken more than our whole army confifted of. The enemy were upwards of 50,000, and ours about 5000: their army all departed, and we took near 400 horses, 15 elephants, 11 camels, and 85 pieces of cannon. The day before the storm, I was about 400 yards before the enemy in a battery of four 18-pounders and two 12-pounders, with four bawitzers; I kept a good fire on them, and made a breach. My command was fix officers, 500 Seapoys, and 70 Europeans; the next morning we ftormed at day break, about a mile from the breach, which put the enemy into confufion, and occafioned great flaughter, the dead bodies lying in heaps one on another; our lofs was not ten men. Three or four days after this we took poffeffion of the two paffes, with 1 3 pieces of cannon; which make upwards of 200 pieces taken fince we entered the field, which was the first of July laft. The enemy have but one place to make a stand at; but I believe, by this time, it is all over with them,

Odober 4. The old Nabob, whom we are in pursuit of, has fent away his money and women, and fled with confufion, broke down two bridges, and left a great party of his army in a miferable condition. Thefe were beaten by 1300 of our feapoys, the day before yesterday, who took their baggage and camp, &c. put them in great dilorder, and difperfed them to their native homes.

The Nabob's commander in chief is dead, and now every thing is in the utmoft confufion: upon the whole, there never was any action in India equal to what has been executed in thefe late. engagements; especially when it is confidered that we took the field in the rainy fexton, when we had not a fuficiency of bullocks to draw our guns, and wanted every thing that any army in

this country was always before equipped with.

The last Dutch Eaft India ships, which arrived in Holland from Batavia, brought letters from Caffimbazar, which give an account, that in March, 1763, a most violent fire happened at Moxudabath, which had reduced that place to ashes. And that on the 2d of April following there was fuch a vehement earthquake at Deher or Decca, that it caused the water in the river Ganges to rife twenty feet above its common course, and agitated it in the fame way as it is at new and full moon: upwards of 500 vessels with provifions, and a great number of people's lives, were loft; but the most shocking and difmal account was, that Lockepoer, about two days journey from Decca, a circuit of land near 15 Eng lifh miles in circumference, was fwallowed up, and all the people and cattle on it were drowned.

May 3. Was held a general court of the East-India Company, at Merchant Taylors Hall, in Threadneedle street ; at which there were many debates, which were carried on with great coolness and deliberation; and the Court broke up with a refolution, that the following queftion fhould be determined by ballot at a general court to be held to-morrow morning; namely, "That it be recommended, and that the Court of Directors be empowered to agree with Lord Clive for the payment of his jaghire for the space of ten years, provided his Lordship fhall fo long live, and the Company fhall be in actual poffeffion of the lands out of which it iffues, and the revenues thereof, during that period of time."

We hear another General Court is ordered to be held on Saturday, for the further confideration of the Company's affairs, relating to Lord Clive's going to Bengal.

It was alfo propofed, that the Company's forces under the command of Lord Clive, fhould amount to 4000 men.

A great quantity of Lord Clive's baggage, &c. is already fent, in order to be hipped off for the East-Indies,

The BEAUTIES of all the MAGAZINES

For

SELECTED,

JU N E, 1764.

XX:XXXXXXXXXXXX:XXXX

From the St. JAMES'S MAGAZINE.

Inconfiftency of the REVIEWERS. fuccefsful in murdering their adversaries credit.

W

HAT was formerly obferved concerning the fyftems of the antient philofophers, namely, that by advancing oppofite and contradictory opinions they all equally detracted from the influence of philofophy, is in the highest degree applicable to the modern profeffors of criticism: I mean to those tremendous fcourges of all candidates for literary honours, the Monthly and Critical Reviewers.

Tho' thefe gentlemen agree in the main; that is, tho' their virulence and abilities are equal, they differ in one very material article: it feems to be a rule with the former to condemn what ever is praised by the latter, and vice verfa; and indeed it cannot be denied that both are in this respect in the right,

as both feem to be in the cafe of certain criticks spoken of by Dr. Young. "Who judge, their knack of judging

wrong to keep."

Thefe literary draw-canfirs may properly be compared to the ferpent's teeth fown by Cadmus, which fprung up armed warriors from the ground, and immediately joining battle, mutually flew each other. Our critical adventurers feem, like them, to derive their birth from the teeth of ferpents, and fo ftrenuous is their oppofition to each other, that they feldom fail of being VOL. III.

fition appears in the judgment pafied by
A remarkable inftance of this oppo-
these modern Ariftarchufes, or (to use
Ben Johnson's quibble) 'itark affes, up-
on a poem entitled, Privilege, which
will, I believe, be acknowledged by the
judicious, neither to deferve the fevere
cenfures of the fupercilious Monthly
Reviewer, nor the lavish praises of his
critical antagonist.

The former, with his accustomed
dogmaticalnefs, afferts pofitively, that
Privilege, a poem, contains nothing
more than fome impertinent abuse of
living poets and dead kings; the latter,
that the author of Privilege may vie
on the other hand, feems to be of opinion,
with the celebrated Churchill as a poet.
poem is the work of a man of genius;
It cannot indeed be difputed that this
but I apprehend that the Judicious
will hardly admit Mr. Critical Review's
ipfe dixit, that this author's sketch of
the reigns and characters of fome of the
British monarchs, is in every respect
fuperior to Churchill's recapitulation of
the Stuart's reigns, in the second book
of Gotham. To prove how falfe this
judgment is, I fhall beg leave to cite
and confront fome paffages of both po-
ems. The picture of James I. the fea-
tures of which the Scottish author of
the Critical Review tells us are exag-
gerated, is thus drawn by Churchill.
I i

"Lies

1

felf a tool To the mad whimfies of a favourite fool." Tho' these lines are not without their beauty, the foregoing muft be allow'd greatly to furpaís them in energy and poetical colouring. The character of Of Trowel he had learn'd toplay thefool,

And like pert pupils with dull tutors fent
Tofhame their country on the continent,
From love of England by long abfence
wean'd,

From every court he every folly glean'd,
And was, so close do evil habits cling,
'Till crown'd a beggar; and when
crown'd no king."
And a little lower,
"Women rul'd all, and minifters of ftate
Were for commands at toilets forc'd to
wait;

Women who have as monarchs grac'd
the land,

But never govern'd well at fecond hand.
To make all other errors flight appear,
In mem'ry fixt, ftand Dunkirk and
Tangier."

The author of Previlege has fucceeded better in this king's character than in any of the foregoing, yet fill he falls fhort of Churchill. Thus has he portray'd the merry monarch.

"In frolic gaiety from Breda's fhore,
Lay as fortune's frown he never bore,
e were a joy and want a jest,
long panting for the fweets

Zamoli wired few; the changing realm
AU a troke the vices of the helm;
In ples round thegiddyfubjects rove,
A tai licence, ridicule, and love;'
A tape to folly, and to whims a flave;
Caim he receiv'd the joke he freely gave,
Without profufion in his focial hour,
Stranger to prudence mid the fcenes of

power;

His fcoff religion, glory was his hate, Careless of right, and thoughtlefs of the ftate;

Foes were regarded, but his friends unknown,

Thofe very friends who rais'd him to the throne, &c."

If the author of Privilege makes an approach to the emphatical expreffion of Churchill, tis in this character only; but the picture, drawn by the author of Gotham, is fo much more ftriking than that of his rival, that the latter may be compared to a painter who ufes water colours, whilft the former, like a Raphael or a Michael Angelo, fets off the objects he reprefents with colours, which vie with the variegated vivacity of nature. However, even if Privilege was allowed to be equal to Gotham, as a poetical compofition, which is by no

dered as a proof of equal genius in the means the cafe, it should not be confiauthor, for a reafon which the Critical Reviewers would have difcovered, had their difcernment but come up to the tenth part of their virulence. It must, I think, be evident to every one, who is not deficient in the abovementioned qualification, which I take to be essential to the true critic, that the author of Privilege has propofed Churchill as his model, and that he is almost entirely indebted for his fuccefs to an happy imitation of that author. This circumftance alone would be fufficient to place the former very much below the latter, in the fame manner, as 'tis this, and this only, for which Homer and Skake. fpear are indebted for their acknow ledged fuperiority to Virgil and Milton.

From the St. James's MAGAZINE.

To the Author of a literate, alliterative BARD.

T

HO' fatire runs a muck about the town,

Cuffs ftrong mens ears, and knocks poor weak ones down ;

Rolls them, in fport, or malice, in the dirt,

Spoiling their cloaths, it feldom does them hurt:

Nay e'en the mighty Juvenal of the age,

Hath fhewn fome marks of pity in his rage,

1 2

But

But thou, inhuman butcher as thou art,
Play't not the ruffian's but the hangman's part.
A true high-dutch jack-ketch, expertly bred
To cut men up, alive; and fpit them, dead.
What had the harmlefs haplefs L- -e done ?
Where is the crime of pedantry and pun,
That thou shouldft thus, with more than favage fury,
Condemn the culprit without judge or jury;
Then hang him up, as 'twere in mere terrorem,
With all his virtues ftrung like crimes before him,
In th' iron chains of damn'd alliteration,
A living laughing stock for all the nation ?
Was it for thee, (who haft fo long giv'n o'er
The play of rhime to tend the fage's lore)
Howe'er provok'd, to dip thy fober pen
In the foul ink of fquabbling wits again?
Was it worth while to make a glow-worm feel,
Or break a butterfly upon a wheel?

No, let the harmless infects fport or fhine,
Long as their day is fair or evening fine ;
Full moon, their fummer past, their feeble ray
Will cease to blaze, their flutt'ring wings to play =
Let then the poor ephem'rons have their flight,
They only live, alas! from morn to night :
And, tho' they buz, while hov'ring on the wing,
They're merely drones, that neither work nor fting.
Wave but a fly-flap, and you lay them low,
Ending their puny beings at a blow.

Charles Churchill's mufe, fhould e'er he so incline,
Could damn ten thousand of them in one line.