our account of the firft volume, we shall lay before our read ers the following fpecimen of the author's ftyle, in the hiftorical part of the work,

While the city (Athens) fell a prey to accumulated evils, the country was laid waste by an implacable enemy. On the prefent occafion, the confederates advanced beyond Athens ; they destroyed the works of the miners on Mount Laurium; and, having ravaged all that fouthern district, as well as the coaft oppofite to Euboea and Naxos, they traced a line of devaftation along the Marathonian fhore, the glorious scene of an immortal victory, obtained by the valour of Athens, in defence of thofe very states by which her own territories were now fo cruelly defolated.

a

If confcious wisdom and rectitude were not fuperior to every affault of fortune, the manly foul of Pericles must have funk under the weight of fuch multiplied calamities. But his fortitude ftill fupported him amidst the flood of public and domeftic woe. With decent and magnanimous compofure he beheld the unhappy fate of his numerous and flourishing family, fucceffively fnatched away by the rapacious peftilence, At the funeral of the laft of his fons he dropped, indeed, few reluctant tears of paternal tendernefs. But, afhamed of this momentary weakness, he bent his undejected mind to the defence of the republic. Having collected an hundred Athenian, together with fifty Chian or Lefbian veffels, he failed through the Saronic gulph, and ravaged the unprotected coafts of Elis, Argos, and Laconia. While this armament weighed anchor in the Piræus, there happened an eclipfe of the fun, which terrified the fuperftitious mariners, whofe minds were already clouded by calamity. The pilot of the admiral galley betrayed the moft unmanly cowardice, when Pericles, throwing a cloak before his eyes, afked, "whether the obfcurity furprifed him "the pilot anfwering in the negative, "neither," rejoined Pericles, ought an eclipfe of the fun, occafioned by the intervention of the revolving planet, which intercepts its light."

Having arrived on the Argolic coaft, the Athenians laid fiege to the facred city Epidaurus, whofe inhabitants gloried in the peculiar favour of Efculapius. The plague again breaking out in the fleet, was naturally afcribed to the vengeance of that offended divinity, They raised the fiege of Epidaurus; nor were their operations more fuccefsful against Troezené, Hermioné, and other Peloponnefian cities. They took only the small fortrefs of Prafiæ, a fea-port of Laconia; after which they returned to the Piræus, afficted with the peftilence, and without having performed any thing that corresponded to the greatness of the armament, or the public expectation. • The

The Athenian expedition into Thrace was till more unfortunate. Into that country Agnon conducted a body of four thousand men, to co-operate with Phormio, in the fiege of Potiḍæa. But in the space of forty days, he loft one thousand and fifty men in the plague; and the only confequence of his expedition was, to infect the northern ariny with that melancholy diforder.

Thefe multiplied difafters reduced the Athenians to defpair. Their fufferings exceeded example and belief, while they were deprived of the only expected confolation, the pleafure of revenge. The bulk of the people defired peace on any terms. Ambaffadors were fent to Sparta, but not admitted to an audience. The orators clamoured and traduced Pericles. The undifcerning populace afcribed their misfortunes to the unhappy effect of his councils; but his magnanimity did not yet forfake him, and, for the last time, he addreffed the affembly: "Your anger, Athenians! occafions no furprife, because it comes not unexpected. Your complaints excite no refentment, because to complain is the right of the miferable. Yet, as you mistake both the cause and the measure of your prefent calamity, I will venture to expofe fuch dangerous, and, if not fpeedily corrected, fuch fatal errors. The juftice and neceffity of the war I have often had occafion to explain it is just that you who have protected and faved, fhould govern Greece: it is neceffary, if you would affert your pre-eminence, that you fhould now refilt the Peloponnefians. On maintaining this refolution, not your honour only, but your fafety, depends. The fovereignty of Greece cannot, like an empty pageant of grandeur, be taken up with indifference, or without danger laid down. That well-earned dominion, which you have fometimes exercised tyrannically, must be upheld and defended, otherwife you must fubmit, without refource, to the refentment of your injured allies, and the animofity of your inveterate enemies. The hardships to which you were expofed from the latter, I forefaw and foretold; the peftilence, that fudden and improbable difafter, it was impoffible for human prudence to conjecture; yet great and unexpected as our calamities have been, and continue, they are still accidental and transitory, while the advantages of this neceffary war are permanent, and its glory will be immortal. The greatness of that empire which we strive to uphold, extends beyond the territories of our most diftant allies. Of the two elements, deftined for the use of men, the fea and the land, we abfolutely command the one, nor is there any kingdom, or republic, or confederacy, that pretends to difpute our dominion. Let this confideration elevate our hopes; and perfonal afflictions will difappear at the view of public profperity. Let us bear, with refignation, the ftrokes of providence; and we fhall repel, with vigour, the affaults of your enemies. It is the hereditary and glorious diftinction of our

republic, never to yield to adverfity. We have defied danger, expended treasure and blood; and, amidst obftinate and formidable wars, augmented the power, and extended the fame, of a city, unrivalled in wealth, populoufnefs, and splendour, and governed by laws and inftitutions worthy its magnificence and renown. If Athens must perish (as what human grandeur is not fubject to decay?) let her never fall, at least, through our pufillanimity; a fall that would cancel the merit of our former virtue, and defroy at once that edifice of glory which it has been the work of ages to rear. When our walls and harbours are no more; when the terror of our navy shall have ceased, and our external magnificence fallen to decay, the glory of Athens fhall remain. This is the prize which I have hitherto exhorted, and ftill exhort you to defend, regardless of the clamours of floth, the fufpicions of cowardice, or the perfecution of envy."

Such were the fentiments of Pericles, who, on this occafion, declared to his affembled countrymen, with the freedom of confcious merit, that he felt himself inferior to none in wifdom to discover, and abilities to explain and promote, the measures moft honourable and useful; that he was a fincere and ardent lover of the republic, unbiaffed by the dictates of selfishness, unfeduced by the allurements of partiality, and fuperior to the temptations of avarice. The anger of the Athenians evaporated in impofing on him a fmall fine, and foon after they re-elected him general. The integrity and manly firmness of his mind refered the fainting courage of the republic. They refcned the dignity of Pericles from the rage of popular frenzy; but they could not defend his life against the infectious malignity of the peftilence. He died two years and fix months after the commencement of the war. The cha racter which he draws of himfelt is confirmed by the impartial voice of hiftory, which adds a few circumftances proper to confirm the texture of a virtuous and lafting fame. During the firft invasion of the Peloponnefians, he declared that he would convey his extenfive and valuable eftate to the public, if it fhould be excepted from the general devaftation, by the policy or the gratitude of Archidamus, his hereditary guest and friend. Yet this generous patriot lived with the moft exemplary œconomy in his perfonal and domeftic expence. His death-bed was furrounded by his numerous admirers, who dwelt with complacence on the illuftrious exploits of his glorious life. While they recounted the wifdom of his government, and enumerated the long feries of his victories by fea and land," You forget," faid the dying fatefman and fage, "you forget the only valuable part of my character: none of my fellow-citizens was ever compelled, through any action of mine, to affume a mourning robe. He expired, teaching an invaluable leffon to

human

human kind, that in the laft important hour, when all other objects difappear, or lofe their value, the recollection of an in nocent life is still prefent to the mind, and ftill affords confolation, more valuable than Pericles could derive from his nine trophies erected over the enemies of his country, from his long and profperous adminiftration of forty years, the depth of his political wisdom, the perfection of his military and naval fkill, and the immortal fame of his unrivalled eloquence.'

Through the early part of this hiftory, where an author is under the neceffity of having recourfe to very obfcure materials, Dr. Gillies has implicitly followed, as indeed he could not do otherwise, the common tract of preceding historians: nor has he, in general, lefs clofely adhered to the ufual authorities, in the more enlightened periods of his fubject, notwithstanding what he informs us, of his having confulted ancient writers, whofe works are feldom perused. He has, at the fame time, in various places, endeavoured to embellish. a trite narrative with ornaments rather meretricious than fuitable to the gravity of hiftorical compofition. But we are always inclined to view with a degree of indulgence the conduct of a writer, who, when he cannot maintain a novelty of fentiment, defcends to folicit the imagination.

[To be concluded in our next.]

Ancient Scottish Poems, never before in Print; but now published from the MS. Collections of Sir Richard Maitland, of Lethington, Knight, Lord Privy Seal of Scotland, and a Senator of the College of Justice. Comprising Pieces written from about 1420 till 1586. With large Notes, and a Gloffary. Vol. I. 800. 6s. in Boards. Dilly.

THE laudable defire of examining the antiquities of our

country, has occafioned many works of our old poets to be emancipated from the duft and obfcurity of musty libraries, that they may be, for a fhort period, admired by antiquaries acquainted with old language, and perhaps return to oblivion, probably to a durance from which they will not again efcape. While this tafte continued, many modern poems were given to the public as ancient, which, though they could never, for a moment, impofe on the real judge, have been greedily received, and held up to admiration, as precious monuments of ancient genius: poems, really ancient, have been recovered from the cobwebs by which they were concealed,

and

6

and from worms, which had already commenced their depredations. Two volumes of this kind, of fuperior merit, were noticed in our fifty-second and fifty-fixth volumes: other collections we fhall, in pity to their editors, conceal, though we mean not to confign to oblivion Dr. Percy's elegant work, the Evergreen, or lord Hailes' publication from the Banantype MS. The latter, though little known, deferves confiderable praise. The Evergreen first communicated fome valuable pieces; but it is, in many refpects, an inaccurate, and, in others, an exceptionable publication: if we wished to know the taste of the prefent times, we fhould not dive into the annals of Grub-street; and a few of the pieces collected by Ramfay are of the grofleft kind. It is alfo juftly obferved by lord Hailes, that those who look in the Evergreen for the ftate of language and poetry among the Scots, during the fixteenth century, will be misled or disappointed;' for he has modernized the verfification, and altered the fpelling.

Mr. Pinkerton tells us, in his title, that these pieces were never before in print, and now published from the manufcript collections of fir Richard Maitland, comprifing pieces written from about 1420 to 1586. This may be very true; but he informs us also that it is easy to deceive; and that, from the fentiments, idioms, and tranfitions, he is certain that Hardykuute, a pretended ancient poem, is the production of this century, and written by fir John Bruce. But he goes on.

Of the Second Part of Hardyknute, written in 1776, but not published till 1781, the editor muft now confefs himself guilty. As for his fecret, he has obferved the Horatian precept he at first laid down to himfelf, nonum prematur in annum; and reques pardon both of his friends and the public for keeping it to himfelf. The fiction, as the publisher can inform, could not pol bly have any fordid view, as the MS. was prefented to him, and one half of the future profits, which was offered,. was refufed. For the impofition, it was only meant to give pleafure to the public; and no vanity could be ferved where the name was unknown. As to the vanity or pleasure of impofing on others, if there be fuch ideas, they are quite unknown to the editor. Perhaps, like a very young man as he was, he had pushed one or two points of the deception a little too far; but he always thought that novel and poetry

bounds of fiction.'

Again,

had no

Since the editor is in the confeffional, he muft not omit that, in the first volume of the Select Scotch Ballads, befide the Second Part of Hardyknute, No 16, The Laird of Wood

houfelic