viz. that Randal's method is prodigiously expenfive, and prodigiously beneficial to bim.· Mr. Y. juftly celebrates Mr. Stillingfleet's Mifcellaneous Tracts relating to Natural Hiftory, as deferving to be univerfally read. He congratulates Ireland on the regifters of Mr. Wynn [not Whynn] Baker, and praifes Mr. Billing's Treatife on the Culture of Carrots, as a very precious performance, truly experimental, &c.; but justly condemns Rocque's piece on Lucerne, &c, as wild, improbable, inaccurate, and totally inconclufive. He concludes his Review of agricultural writers, with a just confeffion, that Mr. Harte's Effays on Hufbandry' (8vo, 1755), are much fuperior to any eulogium, &c. The perufal (Mr. Y. fays) of these books, led him to conclude the fubject of them [Agriculture] by no means exhaufted, and that he might add to their number, without the imputation of attempting to improve perfection: "Extremi primorum, extremis ufque priores *.” He declares, I fubmit with deference to their [the Public's] decifion; but, confcious of numerous imperfections, I feel with anxiety the rafonefs of parting with a MS. on which I wished to ftamp a merit it is far from poffeffing.' He adds, that the experimental part of this work coft him, exclufive of products, nearly 1200l. This affertion will not appear improbable to the Reader, when he is affured, that Mr. Y. had the refolution to try every thing, even the experiments, which he was fenfible could not anfwer. On fuch a plan who can wonder at any loffes +? Well may he difcourage all perfons from following his example, of quitting the prudent path. There may have been ages (fays he) in which patriotifm was as fubftantial a good as food or raiment; but the prefent I take to be fomewhat dif ferent? This is certainly no fit place to discuss the profit of patriotifm in our days. We apprehend, however, that the public will hardly allow, that the expence of making experiments, which the maker is fenfible cannot poffibly answer,' is a proof of patrictifm. There are nevertheless methods of turning a man's loffes to good account; and an experiment which turned out lofs, may, by being held out to the public as a warning, be converted to folid profit, and the loft gold, by a certain chemistry, rise in the species of food and raiment. "Extremus primorum, èxtremis ufque prior fis!" fays the exhortation of the fatyrist. + This conduct, however, is agreeable enough to a maxim with which he begins his preface, viz. that in agriculture it is jomewhat neceffary to a before we think (p. 1.), an axiom which, for the honour of agriculture, we cannot admit. In the mean time, we must applaud Mr. Y's determination to * leave expensive experiments to the nobility and gentry of large fortunes,' and to avoid the prefumption of attempting a private execution of public ideas.' [To be continued in our next.] ART. XI. A Letter to the Authors of the Monthly Review; occafoned by their Remarks on two Pamphlets lately published; one entitled, Thoughts on feveral interefting Subjects; viz. On the Exportation of, and Bounty upon Corn: On the high Price of Provifions: On Manufactures, Commerce, &c. The other, A Defence of the above Pamphlet. Being a Reply to the Appendix annexed to The Expediency of a Free Exportation of Corn at this Time. In which the Mifreprefentations, false Reasoning, and wilful Deceit of the Author, are fully exposed and refuted +. By Mr. Wimpey. 8vo. 6d. Crowder. WE E are at prefent much in the fame fituation with those who are faid to have pulled an old houfe about their ears; having expofed ourselves to a challenge for offering a flight hint or two in favour of the bounty on corti: though we by no means defired to be confidered as taking up Mr. Young's quarrel, there ftill remaining points of fome importance to be fettled, even if he should happen to be on the right fide of that question. As we have feveral times, on former occafions, and lately in confidering Mr. Young's pamphlet and another together on that fubject, entered pretty fully into the queftion of the bounty, we hope Mr. Wimpey will excufe our recapitulating what has been fo often urged: but as we would not be accused of treating him with neglect, we fhall produce fix Facts, on which he lays great ftrefs, and examine what they amount to. 1. 'Tis an undoubted fact, that exportation is never carried to fo great an height as when corn is very plenty, and confequently cheap.'. Granted. 2. That the firft unfavourable or unfruitful year that follows fuch large exports, inevitably advances the price 50, 60, and fometimes 100 per cent.' An unfavourable feafon, by the nature of things, will inevitably raise the price of corn: but what was the confe quence of an unfavourable feafon in the early part even of the last century, when hiftorians tell us, that the nation ↑ Rev. vol. xliii. p. 400. * Review, vol. xliii. p. 159. ‡ Rev. vol. xlii. p. 229. ftill depended on foreigners for daily bread; that there was a regular import from the Baltic, as well as from France, and if it ever stopped, the bad confequences were fenfibly felt by the nation? We will not carry Mr. W. a century farther back. 3. That the LEGISLATURE, in fuch an emergency, has always thought it. expedient and fit, to prohibit, for a certain time, all exportation, even without a bounty.' And very prudently as there is one price of corn which limits the bounty, it would be well if another price was fixed, beyond which exportation fhould ceafe. 4. That the LEGISLATURE, in cafes of great exigence, hath not only prohibited all exportation, but hath opened our PORTS, and given free permiffion for importation.' And with good reason; the advantage of commerce is the mutual fupply of national wants. . 5. That exportation has been fo far carried beyond its due bounds, by the bounty, that what has been exported one year, with a bounty of 20 per cent. we have fometimes been obliged to buy again the next, at an advance of 100 per cent.' That too much corn may be fometimes carried abroad, may be determined by a fubfequent bad crop, but what has the bounty to do with that? The bounty having a limitation, cannot be charged with occafioning a scarcity: this muft be owing to exportation beyond or without the bounty, when it is fent abroad to better markets. Perhaps we may fometimes purchase corn in again at a dearer rate than we before fold it at. Inconveniencies attend all human affairs; here is a temporary inconvenience, which, though it may play fome money into the hands of cornjobbers at critical times, and make the confumer difcontented, yet preferves the corn trade' alive, by buying in when we can no longer fell out. 6. That thefe occurrences have not only happened once, as if by chance, but from the commencement of the bounty to the prefent time, fcarcity and high prices have regularly and conftantly followed a large and extensive exportation, as certain effects from an infallible caufe; though they have been fometimes longer, according as the following feafons proved, ere they were felt or perceived.' We here beg leave to doubt the regularity and conftancy which Mr. W. aflerts. Confidering how many variable cir Hume. App. to James I. REY. Mar. 1771. R cumftances . cumftances must be taken into the examination, we imagine he will find it a difficult matter to give a clear proof of it: and furely Mr. W. will not feriously fuppofe a fcarcity occafioned this year, to operate after the intervention of a plentiful feafon or two, during which it was not perceived! Indeed, if fuch an indefinite latitude is affumed in affigning caufes, it will be difficult to fay what may not be proved. To conclude, we would recommend the following points to Mr. W.'s private confideration, without wifhing to engage him in a farther controverfy, for which neither he nor the Reviewers may have leisure or inclination: 1. Whether it is not expedient that corn, as a neceffary of life and an article of commerce, fhould be kept as nearly as poffible at a regular medium price? 2. Whether the bounty with its attendant reftriction, does not tend to keep corn at a medium price? 3. Whether this expedient, by preventing corn from stagnating on the farmer's hands, has not encouraged the growth of corn, and caufed more land to be tilled, than was applied to that purpofe before the bounty existed? 4. Whether, if the bounty was difcontinued, the first plentiful feafon would not ruin many of our farmers, and hence difcouraging the growth of wheat, render us again dependent on other countries for bread? Without the bounty our merchants could only export corn when the price is fo much advanced at foreign markets as to pay the freight and gratify them for the trouble of negociation; but by aid of the bounty they are now enabled to export it when foreign markets are as much below that standard as the bounty amounts to; hence a stagnation of corn at home is prevented and when the price of corn at home exceeds the medium price established between the raiser and confumer by the Legislature, the operation of the bounty ceafes. Hence any confequent scarcity is not fairly chargeable on the bounty, which only affifts in carrying off the fuperfluity it gave rife to. But when a scarcity happens, from whatever cause, either abroad or at home, we have a certain fecurity against famine, by fhutting up our ports outward, and, if needful, by opening them inward, till the feafons come round again. Thus, though corn may rife in price, it will always be to be had. A happy circumftance, which the records of history inform us we could not always boaft. ART. XII. ART. XII. King Lear; a Tragedy. Written by William Shake . fpeare. Collated with the old and modern Editions. 8vo. 3 s. fewed. White. 1770. HE plays generally afcribed to Shakespeare are forty-two TH in number. If the Editor lives to fulfil his declared intention of publishing all the dramatic works of this voluminous Bard, in a manner conformable to this fpecimen, the public are to expect an edition of Shakespeare's plays in forty-two octavɔ volumes! an edition which, in the bookfeller's phrase, may, with good reafon, be styled a library book. Perhaps, however, he may propofe to bind two plays in one volume. This may be done, provided they do not exceed the fize of the present specimen, which confifts of 192 pages, befides 26 of Preface, &c.-But, ftill, the Price, SIX POUNDS SIX SHILLINGS unbound! Tibbald, at one-sixth of the money, will continue to ftand the best chance in the market; notwithstanding the beautiful mezzotinto print of Shakespeare, here prefixed, by way of frontispiece: which is, indeed, a very fine one, from an original picture, by Cornelius Janffen, in the collection of Charles Jennens, Efq; of Gopfal, Leicestershire, to whom the work is dedicated. The public will naturally expect fomething extraordinary in the notes, as an equivalent for the extraordinary purchase. But if we are to judge from the fample before us, this, of all the numerous editions that have been given of Shakespeare, with annotations, will be the most tedioufly trivial; the greatest number of the notes confifting merely of verbal variations in the feveral readings of the various impreffions: many of them of no other confequence than to fhew the Editor's amazing industry, and to fwell the fize of the book.-Here and there indeed, but not very frequently, we obferve the annotator venturing out into the higher road of commentary, and reafoning on the true, meaning of his Author, where it is obfcured by errors of the prefs, the mistakes of a transcriber, or the whimfies of an Edifor; but, for the most part, he contents himfelf with barely telling us that the fo's read fo, the qu's thus, P. this way, and R. that; with regard to the omiffion, infertion, or variation, perhaps, of fome' paltry expletive. As a fpecimen of his more important annotations, let us take the first that occurs, on cafually opening the book.-A 4. Sc. 2. we obferve his illustration of two very doubtful words, in Albany's fine reflection on Gonerill's unnatural behaviour to her father: She that herfelf will filver, and dif-branch, |