notes, or completely written lectures: about Mr. Hume and Dr. Robertson, and Lord Kinnoull, and the Archbishop of York, &c. &c. &c. His Majesty asked what I thought of my new acquaintance, Lord Dartmouth? I said, there was something in his air and manner, which I thought not only agreeable, but enchanting, and that he seemed to me to be one of the best of men; a sentiment in which both their Majesties heartily joined. "They say that Lord Dartmouth is an enthusiast," said the King; but surely he says nothing on the subject of religion, but what every Christian may, and aught to say." He asked, whether I did not think the English language on the decline at present? I answered in the affirmative; and the King agreed, and named the "Spectator" as one of the best standards of the language. When I told him that the Scots clergy sometimes prayed a quarter, or even half an hour, at a time, he asked whether that did not lead them into repetitions? I said it often did. "That," said he, "I don't like in prayers; and excellent as our liturgy is, I think it somewhat faulty in that respect."

Some advances were made to our strenuous and succes, ful advocate for Truth, to tempt him over to the Church of England, but he declined the proposal,

"Might it not (says he) have the appearance of levity and insincerity, and, by sonie, he construed into a want of principle, if I were at these years (for I am now thirty-eight) to make such an important change in my way of life, and to quit without any apparent motive than that of bettering my circumstances, that church of which I have hitherto been a member? If my book has any tendency to do good, as I flatter myself it has, I would not, for the wealth of the Indies do any thing to counteract that tendency; and I am afraid that tendency might in some measure be counteracted, (at least in this country), if I were to give the adversary the least ground to charge ine with inconsistency."

Dr. Beattie suffered much from doinestic calamity. His wife became insane; and both his sons died, after attaining maturity. His spirits gradually sunk under these afflictions, and the loss of his youngest son, Montagu, affected his mind almost to derangement.

"The death of his only surviving child (says Sir William Forbes) completely unhinged the mind of Dr. Beattie, the first symptom of which, ere many days had elapsed, was a temporary but almost total loss of memory respecting his son. Many times he could not recollect what had become of him; and after searching in every room of the house, he would say to his niece, Mrs. Glennie, "You may think it strange, but I must ask you if I have a son, and where he is? She then felt herself under the painful necessity of bringing to his recollection his son Montagu's sufferings, which always restored him to reason. And he would often, with many tears.express his thankfulness, that he had no child, saying, "How could I have borne to see their elegant minds mangled with madness!" When he looked for the last time on the body of his son, he said, "I have now done with the world ;" and he ever after seemed to act as if he thought so. For he never applied himself to any sort of study, and answered but few of the letters he received from the

friends whom he most valued. Yet the receiving a letter from an old friend never failed to put him in spirits for the rest of the day. Music, which had been his great delight, he could not endure, after the death of his eldest son, to hear from others; and he disliked his own favourite violoncello. A few months before Montagu's death, he did begin to play a little by way of accompaniment when Montagu sung: but after he lost him, when he was prevailed on to touch the violoncello, he was always discontented with his own performance, and at last seemed to be unhappy when he heard it. The only enjoyment he seemed to have was in books, and the society of a few old friends. It is impossible to read the melancholy picture which he draws of his own situation about this time, without dropping a tear of pity over the sorrows and the sufferings ef so good a man thus severely visited by affliction."

After lingering a few years, almost in a state of insensibility, he died in 1803.

Memoirs of M. de Brinboc: containing some Views of English and Foreign Society., 12mo. 3 vols. 12s. 6d. Cadell and Davies.

This is the production of a superior writer. The incidents are numerous and striking, and the interest is powerfully supported. M. de Brinboc is a Frenchman who has been forced to fly from his country on account of his principles. After various adventures on the continent he arrives in London, and we are adinitted to some curious Views of English Society drawn with much skill, and very highly coloured.

The characters are very numerous and happily discriminated, and the style and sentiments are admirable.

Poetic Sketches by T. Gent. 12mo. 4s. 6d. Yarmouth, Beart. London, Rivington. 1807.

Mr. Gent does not aspire to any high rank as a poet, but his compositions merit the praise of correctness, simplicity, and sometimes of elegance. The following is perhaps one of the most pleasing specimens that the volume affords.

THE BEGGAR.

Of late I saw him on his staff reclin'd,

Bow'd down beneath a weary weight of woes,
Without a roof to shelter from the wind

His head, all hoar with many a winter's snows.
All trembling he approach'd, he strove to speak;
The voice of mis'ry scarce my ear assail'd:
A flood of sorrow swept his furrow'd cheek,
Remembrance check'd him, and his utt'rance fail'd.

For he had known full many a better day;
And when the poor-man at his threshold bent,
He drove him not with aching heart away,

But freely shar'd what Providence had sent;-
How hard for him the stranger's boon to crave,

And live to want the mite his bounty gave!

The Rising Sun; a Serio-comic Satiric Romance, by Cervantes Hogg, F. S. M. Vol. III. 12mo. Appleyards, London, 1907.

The sale of the first two volumes of this satire was so satisfactory to the publisher, that he has added a third by way of postcript; in which some further adventures of Mr. Merryman, Mr. Windpuff, Mr. Bedboard, Mr. Brownbread, Mr. Mimkin, Mr. Turn-anyway, and other notorious worshippers of the Rising Sun are related with the same blunt whimsicality as in the preceding volumes. They have amused us not a little, and we can commend in pretty warm terms the parody on a fairy tale, to which the author has given the title of Prince Georgiskhan, and the Fairy Prudentia. It is ingeniously managed; the satire is just, and we hope it may prove salutary.

Beachy Head: with other Poems, by Charlotte Smith: Now first published. 12mo. pp. 219. Johnson. 1807.

It was intended to prefix to these poems a few particulars of Mrs. Smith's life; a design which we are not sorry to learn was abandoned, since we are told, that her memoirs, in lieu of a scanty account, are likely to appear, with a selection of her correspondence, on a inore enlarged plan, and under the immediate authority of her own nearest relatives.

The principal of these poems is Beachy Head. It is in blank verse, and the genius and pathos of this exquisite poet are frequently to be traced in it, but we do not rank it among her happiest compositions. It is often languid and dilated, and the descriptions possess no novelty. The Studies by the Sea are written with a bolder pen, and some of the stanzas are extremely beau tiful.

What glories on the sun attend,

When the full tides of evening flow,
Where in still trembling beauty blend ́
With amber light, the opal's glow ;
While in the east the diamond bow,
Rises in virgin lustre bright,

And from the horizon seems to throw,

A partial line of trembling light

To the hush'd shore; and all the tranquil deepy

Beneath the modost moon is sooth'd to sleep.

Forgotten then, the thundering break
Of waves, that in the tempest rise,
The falling cliff, the shatter'd wreck,
The howling blast, the sufferer's cries;
For soft the breeze of evening sighs,
And murmuring seems in Fancy's ear
To whisper fairy lullabies,,

That tributary waters bear

From precipices, dark with piny woods,
And inland rocks, and heathy solitudes.

They

The other poems are thus entitled; The Truant Dove, a fable from Pilpay; The Lark's Nest, from Esop; The Swallow; Flora; The Horologe of the Fields; Saint Monica; A Walk in the Shrubbery, &c. The notes occupy about a third of the volume. chiefly explain the names of plants, flowers and birds, which Mrs. Smith was always fond of introducing with rather too much affectation of science. Upon the whole we do not think these productions will add much to her reputation.

Flora and Studies by the Sea, are reprinted from her "Conversations for the Use of Children and Young Persons.'

Anthologia. A Collection of Epigrams, ludicrous Epitaphs, Sonnets, Tales, Miscellaneous Anecdotes, &c. &c. interspersed with Originals. 12mo. 4s. Highley, 1807.

W. T. of the

The title is not very appropriate. Middle Temple has collected more weeds than flowers, and some of the former are rather of a noxious quality. We will transcribe two or three of the epitaphs, not tempted however so much from their novelty, as from the assurance in the title page that decies repetita placebunt.

On the Tomb of Dr. Fuller, at Oxford.

Here lies Fuller's Earth.

On William Williams.

Here lies the body of W. W.

Who never more will trouble you, trouble you.
At Seven-Oaks, Kent.

Grim Death took me without any warning,

I was well at night, and dead at nine in the morning.

VOL. II.

Another.

The wedding-day appointed was,
The wedding-clothes provided;
But, ere that day did come, alas!
He sicken'd, and he die did.

F

Also, when any knight, citizen, or burgess, doth enter or come into the lower house, he must make his dutiful and humble obeisance at his entry in, and then take his place. And you shall understand, that as every such person ought to be grave, wise, and expert, so ought he to shew himself in his apparel; for, in times past, none of the counsellors of the parliament came otherwise than in his gown*, and not armed nor girded with a weapon. For the parliament house is a place for wise, grave, and good men, to consult, debate, and advise, how to make laws, and order for the commonwealth, and not to be armed as men ready to fight, or to try matters by the sword. And albeit the writ for the election of the knights have express words to choose such for knights as be girded with the sword, yet it is not meant thereby that they should come and sit armed, but be such as be skilful in feats of arms, and, besides their good advices, can well serve in martial affairs; and thus the Roman senators used, who, being men of great knowledge and experience, as well in martial affairs as in politic causes, sat always in the senate house and places of council in their gowns and long robes. The like also was always, and hath been the order in the parliament of this realin, as long as the ancient laws, the old customs, and good order thereof, were kept and observed.

If f any other person or persons, either in message or being sent for, do come, he ought to be brought in by the serjeant, and at the first entering must following the serjeant) make one low obeisance, and being part in the middle way, must make one other; and when he is come before the speaker, he must make the third, and then do his message: the like order he must keep in his return. But if he do come alone, or with his learned counsel to plead any matter, or answer to any objections, he shall enter, and go no farther than to the bar within the door, and there do his three obeisances.

When any bill is committed, the committees have not authority to conclude, but only to order, reform, examine and amend the thing committed unto them;

* From a motion that was made in the House of Commons in the year 1613, it appears, that the members in the last parliaments of Elizabeth wore gowns. ✅