with what propriety of speech part of Great Britain can be styled a neighbouring country. The libellers of the English Conftitution are not to be found principally among the writers of that neighbouring country (if it is to be fo called), many of whose productions are highly liberal, candid, and enlightened, and are too valuable to be given up in a peevish or fplenetic fit, becaufe Sir John Dalrymple during a LATE Administration found favour at ST. JAMES'S.

Art. 15. Proceedings of the County Meeting held at Mansfield, Nottingham fhire, Oct. 28, 1782. Nottingham printed, by Burbage and Co.

At this very refpe&table meeting, a Refolution was unanimously agreed to, for prefenting a petition to Parliament for remedying the inadequate and difproportionate representation of the Commons of this realm. The arguments used by the fpeakers in fupport of this measure, are fuch as have been often advanced by the worthy advocates for this neceffary reformation; but the elaborate speech of Mr. Walker deferves to be diftinguished. This gentleman took an ample extent of ground, and, in a very masterly manner, completely an fwered the principal objections that have been urged against the falu tary object of the petition. The other speakers were Lord Gallway, Mr. Dickenson Raftal, Mr. Heywood, Sir George Saville, and Lord Surrey; who all concurred in firenuously recommending this previous ftep towards procuring the redress of THIS GREAT NATIONAL

GRIEVANCE.

Art. 16. A Plan for rendering the Militia of London useful and refpectable, and for raifing an effective and well regulated Watch, without fubje&ting the Citizens to additional Taxes or the Interpofition of Parliament. By a Member of the Corporation. Svo. 1 s. 6 d. Kearfley. 1782.

That the trained bands, or, as they are popularly and very aptly termed, the frange bands of the city of London, are a burlesque of every military idea, is as evident, as that any body of fubftitutes whatever is the burlefque of a militia. However, fince we are arrived at that degree of luxury as to fubftitute our money for every duty that does not confer diftinction, and are content on this condition to accept names for things; any mercenary force, that excufes us from the exertion of our privileges, will do, if it is called by a favourite appellation: and fince a large fum is raifed upon the citizens of London for a military establishment, they ought certainly to procure as good a commodity of the kind as can be PURCHASED. The idea of making the city regiments (when fit for duty) perform the nightly watch, instead of thofe poor, old, feeble wretches, who ought rather to be watched themselves, in their warm beds, by able nurfes, would be converting them to the beft ufe, and would be an effectual check to nocturnal depredations, within the city districts. The dedication to the corporate body is figned B. T. Art. 17. A Letter to the Right Honourable the Earl of Shelburne, First Lord of the Treatury. 8vo. ts. Dilly. 1782. Alfafatida for the noftrils of Lord Shelburne, and incenfe for Mr. Fox. The hand by which the drugs are adminißered is not unfkilled in the use of them.

Art.

Art. 18. A Letter from Mr. Dawes to John Horne Tooke, Efq; occafioned by a Part of his Speech to the Middlesex Freeholders, affembled by public Advertisement of the Sheriff of that County, at Hackney, on Wednesday the 29th of May, 1782: in which an apparent Error, on, a fundamental Principle of Government and Legiflation, fupported by Mr. Horne's Credit and Eloquence, is refuted and exploded. 8vo. 8vo. 1s. Stockdale. 1782.

Mr. Horne having advanced, at a public meeting of the Middlesex freeholders, that Reprefentatives in Parliament are the Attornies of the people, Mr. D. in this letter, takes up the queftion of the refponfibility of the Members of the British Houfe of Commons to their refpective conftituents, and, in an intelligent and spirited manner, maintains, that by the original conftitution of this country, the Knights, Citizens, and Burgeffes fent to Parliament, form an aggregate of the whole body of the people, and are its entire reprefentation; and that the end of the appointment of a reprefentative is not particular but general; to advantage, not barely his conftituents, but the commonwealth at large.

POETICA L.

Art. 19. King Stephen's Watch. A Tale founded on Fact. By the Author of the Heroic Epiftle to Sir William Chambers, Knight. 8vo. 6d. Longman. 1782.

Notwithstanding the pofitive affertion in the title-page refpecting the author of this tale, the Editor feems to have no other grounds for it than conjecture; for after telling us it paffes for the work of Mr. Mafon, he adds, it furnishes an argument in fupport of their opinion, who attribute the Heroic and Archæological Epiftles to the fame author.' Thus after all it comes out at last to be nothing more than conjecture built upon conjecture. The fact on which this tale is founded is this: King Stephen prefented a watch to one of his courtiers, and condefcended to regulate it with his own royal hands. The courtier being in a promifcuous company, enquiry was made after the hour of the day. Watches were produced, when the differences were marked, and confifted, as ufual, in the variation of fome minutes. The royal watch alone was before the foremost an hour and a half, and was confequently reprobated as heretical. The courtier, however, infifted that his was right and must be right, being regu Jated by infallible royalty,' &c. &c.

This humorous piece was firft printed in a periodical paper, published at York about the time of the firft Affociation Meeting at that place, and we remember that then the author of Elfrida had the credit of it, nor have we ever fince heard it contradicted or doubted. Art. 20. Ode to Cloacina, upon the most fashionable model: with a Card to Dr. Johnfon. By the Author of Eloifa en Deshabille, 4to. 1 s. 6d. Printed on Blue Paper. Faulder. 1782.

No fpecies of compofition appears to be more at enmity with common fense than the modern ode. The Pindars of the prefent hour feem to think that the perfonification of a few abstract ideas, no matter whether they are brought together in any order or connection, completes the whole of what is expected from them. In ridicule of this abfurd practice, and of the mistaken notion from which it originates, is written the humourous burlefque before us. Thofe who like

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fun,

fun, will not think their eighteen-pence ill beftowed upon it, especially as, for the convenience of application, it is printed on a paper suitable to the fubject.

Art. 21. The Devil divorced; or, the Diabo-Whore. 4to. 2s. 6d. Smith. 1782.

The Writer of this miferable performance, who has thought proper to arrogate to himself the title of a Satirift, affures us, upon thé word of a man of honour, that his defire is to ferve the caufe of good manners and virtue, and to put vice to the blufh.' He, furely, is mistaken, if he thinks this is to be done by fuch ribbaldry as that which he has now published.

Art. 22. Saint Stephen's Tripod: or, Mother Shipton in the Lower Hfe. Comprifing a Scheme of Prophecy, admonitory and epigrammatic, formed on a myttic and denunciatory Syftem of Revelation; and delivered on the ancient Principles of Sybilline Prefcience and oracular Inspiration. 4to. 2s. 6d. Kearfley.

1782.

Mother Shipton, like all the fraternity of fortune-tellers, is an ignorant impoftor. Art. 23. The Forlorn Hope: confifting of the following Poems; The Fragment; the Incantation; Bounce, an Heroic Ode; Surgeons, Occafional Prologue, Occafional Epilogue, &c. &c. &c. 4to. 2 s. Bladon.

This Writer's Mufe is not without fome portion of low humour, and were the lefs careless, obfcure, and dirty, fhe might afford a reader, who did not fet much value upon his time, an agreeable lounge.

Art. 24. Monody on the Death of John Thurlow, Efq. 4to. 18. Norwich printed; Sold by Dodfley, &c. London. 1782.

An elegant tribute of gratitude and affection to the memory of an amiable and worthy character, a brother of the prefent Chancellor and the Bishop of Lincoln.

Art. 25. Elegies: with Selmane, a Tragedy. By Joseph Holden Pott, of St. John's College, Cambridge. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Johnfon. 1782.

In this little mifcellany of Mr. Pott's, confifting of four elegiac poems and a tragedy, we obferve the fame traces of a cultivated mind that were taken notice of in his former publication about two years ago. From what recollection we now have of that performance, his Mufe does not feem to have made any material improvements. Selmane is fuch a tragedy as might have been written without much knowledge either of the drama or of life; it contains, however, many just fentiments, not inelegantly expreffed; and many poetical images, which are no other way objectionable than as they are fometimes improperly, i. e. unnaturally, introduced.-In brief, Mr. Pott feems neither to be lineally or collaterally defcended from Sophocles or Tibullus.

NOVEL.

Art. 26. Memoirs of the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Cherington, containing a genuine Defcription of the Government and Manners of the prefent Portuguese. 2 Vols. 12mo. 5 s. fewed. Johnfon. 1782.

The motto prefixed to this work is rather unhappily chofen; Se non è vero e' ben trovato; for we are at first informed by the Editor that the ftory is really true, and that a Captain Muller, who was for a long time in the Portuguese fervice, and fince dead, drew up the ac count from authentic information; and having communicated it to a friend, received from him, about two months afterwards, the following laconic acknowledgment:

Cariffimo Amico,

Se non e' vero, è ben trovato.

Lisbona, 24di bro, 1778.

FRANZINI.

Which when paraphrafed into English is as much as to fay, "My dear Friend,

"Though all the circumstances you relate may not have actually happened or come to pafs, yet they are as defcriptive of the people you give an account of as if they really had."

At prefent we fee nothing but a mifnomer in the title-page. We know nothing more of Lord Viscount Cherington, than that he was born in Brazil. His father, Dr. Caftleford, is the hero of the tale: and the principal information relating to this gentleman is-that he was phyfician to the English factory at Lisbon, and was banished from thence to Brazil by the villainous artifices of a Jefuit; that he there acquired the esteem and confidence of the Viceroy and his Lady; and that, with their approbation, he married an English gentlewoman who was protected and patronized by them. We are likewife informed, that by the Viceroy's application to the Bishop, a difpenfation from having the bans published was readily granted.' The nuptials are described as having been celebrated with great fplendor; and as a specimen of the Author's manner, we fhall give our Readers the conclufion of the chapter in which this part of the story is related :

The Viceroy and Lady, the bride and bridegroom, retired to an inner appartment, where they entertained themselves with many fprightly remarks on the behaviour of the different guests, till the Lady gave it as her opinion, that it was time for the new married couple to withdraw to their bed-chamber, where we fhall leave them to the purfuit and enjoyment of thofe raptures which refined and fenfible fouls alone are capable of relishing, and which are as far fuperior to the rude, frong, momentary, fenfual grasp of appetite, as reafon is to inftinct, fcience to ftupidity, or elegance to fordid and abandoned floth.

We are perfuaded the candid Reader will not difapprove of our having been particular in our account of this marriage and fupper; for, befides that it ferves to develope and exhibit the real and prefent manners and cuftoms of those people, it was an event that ushered into the world the future hero of our hiftory; the fingular anecdotes of whofe life, though perhaps not fo numerous, were at least as ftrange, uncommon, and unexpected, as any to be found in the numberlefs volumes of novel and romance, made at pleasure, and depending entirely on the fancy and invention of the writer: whereas in the relating of a true, unvarnished tale, fuch as the prefent, the principal merit undoubtedly confifts in confcientiously adhering to the rigour of hiftorical facts, as to time, place, and circumstance, without attempting to warp or pervert them fo as to ferve any finifter or particular

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purpose,

purpofe, leaving only to the ingenuity of the writer the emebellishing and fetting off of the fame, according to the measure of his ca pacity.' What the true unvarnished tale is to be, as we have not the penetration to conjecture, fo neither have we the curiofity to know; and if the Editor pleases we fhall be perfectly fatisfied to fit down in ignorance of what is to come from the little intereft we have taken in what is past.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Art. 27. Candid Suggestions; in Eight Letters to Soame Jenyns, Efq; on the refpective Subjects of his Difquifitions, lately publifhed: With fome Remarks on the Anfwerer of his Seventh Difquifition, refpecting the Principles of Mr. Locke. By B. N. Turner, M. A. 12mo. 2s. 6d. fewed. Lowndes. 1782. This Writer appears to be more skilful in the arts of ridicule than of argument. Whilft he is rallying the Difquifitor for the extrava gance and abfurdity of his ideas on metaphyfical fubjects, he affords his reader fome amufement, and often--not indeed without good rea fon-exhibits his Author in a ludicrous point of light. But in attacking Mr. J.'s more ferious doctrines concerning government and religion, he is himself too much under the fhackles of fyftem, to poffefs either the inclination or the power of demolishing the ftructure, which the Difquifitor's ingenuity, aided not a little by prejudice and bigotry, had raifed. On the topic of religion, many perfons will be of opi nion, that this Writer might have found a fhorter and better way to refute the Difquifitor's reflections upon Christianity, as containing doctrines contrary to reafon, than by faying that fufferings are atonements to justice, and by adducing the facrifices of the heathens, and the forrows of an Iphigenia, a Čodrus, or a Curtius, as proofs that the doctrine of vicarious punishments is not adverfe to human reafon.

With refpect to the principles of policy, there is little probability that Mr. J. fhould meet with a folid and rational refutation from a writer, who pronounces it impoffible to afcertain the principle, that all government is derived from the people; and who afferts concerning Mr. Locke, that had he lived to fee the ill effects of his new fyftem, he would have wept, like Johnny Gay, at the unforeseen confequences of his own fuperior genius.

Art. 28. Thoughts on a Pre-existent State; in Answer to a late Difquifition on that Subject. Small 8vo. 1 s. Cadell, &c. 1782. The Author of this fmall piece, in a very ferious manner, and with much folidity of argument, refutes Mr. J's doctrine of the preexiftent ftate of man. Tracing back the intellectual ideas and moral difpofitions of man to their origin, upon the principles of Mr. Locke, he fhews that man does not come into the world a proper subject of punishment for the vices of a prior flate; and then proceeds to confirm his reafonings, by pointing out their agreement with the hiftorical parts of fcripture. The piece is written with good fenfe and temper, and may be confidered as a complete refutation of Mr. J's doctrine; if that doctrine can be said to be refuted, for which nothing has been offered fufficiently plaufible to procure it any degree of

credit.

Art. 29. Critical Obfervations concerning the Scottish Hiftorians, Hume, Stuart, and Robertson; including an Idea of the Reign of

Mary