first barbarous attempts at reprefentation and ornament, to its prefent degree of neatness and beauty.

It is impoffible to produce any fpecimens from a book confifting only of brief references to Engravings of Coin, which were indeed very rude untill about the time of the reformation, when the types vifibly mended. The introduction of Roman Letters in the Legends, inftead of the Saxon; and the reverfe being made to receive a more refpectable ftamp, by the old crofs and pellets being changed for the national arms quartered by the cross, firft began to give our Money a more agreeable afpect. But the laft improvement in tafte and execution, commenced under the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, whofe Coins are really handfome, and are the patterns now followed at prefent, with small deviations in the fancy of the arms on the reverse.

Art. 18. The Mufical Lady. A Farce. As it is acted at the Theatre-Royal in Drury-Lane. 8vo. Is. Becket and Co.

A humorous fatire on the extravagant fondness fhewn by fome of our people of diftinction, particularly the Ladies, for Italian Operas, Italian Mufic, and Italian Performers. This falfe tafte is certainly a proper object of ridicule for the English Stage. Not that we are infenfible to the beauties of thofe compofitions which the land of Mufic hath produced, many of which are undoubtedly excellent; but it is the blind devotion of IGNORANCE and AFFECTATION, to what, like Mifs Sophy, they neither understand, nor would admire, but for fashion's fake, that we think fo justly liable to the lafh of the Satyrift.-It is faid we owe this petit piece to the ingenious Author of the Jealous Wife.

Art. 19. Catalogus Librorum apud Paulum Vaillant, Bibliopolam, Londini Venales proftantium. 8vo. 2s. Vaillant, 1762.

It is not our custom to take notice (in the Review) of a Bookfeller's Catalogue; but this before us contains fo large a Collection of foreign Literature, that we thought it might be no unwelcome information to our Readers, to learn that fuch an one is published. The titles of the Books are more amply copied than is ufual; and the Date of every Edition is given, but we are forry that the Prices are omitted. However, as it is, our Readers, especially those who live in the country, may be glad to confult it. They will here find that many a valuable book, fuppofed only to be had by fending abroad for it, may be met with in London.

RELIGIOUS.

Art. 20. An Enquiry concerning the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Wherein this Sacrament in general is firft confidered, and afterwards the Manner in which it is administered in the Church of England. With an Appendix, containing fome Ob

fervations

fervations on a Book, entitled, "A plain Account of the Nature and End of the Lord's Supper." By John Scrope, D. D. Rector of Castle-Combe, and Vicar of Kington, St. Michael's, in the County of Wilts. 12mo. Is. 6d. vington.

Ri

Dr. Scrope regards this divine inflitution with far more mysterious reverence, as Milton expreffes himself on another oocafion, than the Jate learned and worthy Bishop Hoadly has done in his Plain Account. He is fomewhat, harth in his ftrictures on that celebrated work, and on its Author; of both which, he speaks in the following terms: a. "The Animadverfions I have been making on the Plain Account cannot, by any means be fuppofed to proceed from any personal dislike, or ill will, to the Author; for as he has not thought proper to put his name to his book, he muft of course be supposed to be unknown to me. I could heartily have wished he were no Clergyman of the Church of England, and am grieved that his Preface obliges me to confider him in that character. With regard then to his reflections on the offices of our Church, I cannot help taking notice of the infincerity of those who repeatedly subscribe to thefe offices in token of their approbation, and then publickly either raise objections again!t them, or explain them in a fense which they must think in their confciences was never intended. Nor is it, I conceive, a fufficient juftification of this practice. to pretend, that your defign is to adapt them to the use of fuch as attend upon them in our Churches, or to interpret such passages as may stand in need of interpretation, or to lead all perfons concerned to make use of them in the most proper and Christian manner? Every one is at liberty to examine the offices of the Church before he fubfcribes. There is fufficient time allowed, and supposed to be employed, in fuch previous examination. And it will be fo employed by every man of honesty and confcience, who will confider it as his indifpenfable duty. It is therefore unfair, false, and dishonest, either to deny that fuch liberty is given, or to write afterwards against those things, the truth of which, and your belief of them, you have before folemnly acknowleged by your fubfcriptions."

Hard fayings! who can bear them?-We wish, however, that Our Author had no foundation for fome things which he has said in regard to fubfcriptions.

As to his Explanation of the Nature, Design, and Efficacy of the Sacramental Inftitution, and his notion of the Doctrine of Grace, which he greatly infifts upon, in oppofition to the Author of the Plain Account, (who difliked the very term)-they are fuch as might naturally be expected from a Writer who appears to be not a little attached to mystery, and averfe to the free exercife of reafon in matters of religion. But, however we may differ from him, in regard to this much controverted fubject, candour obliges us to acknowlege, that he writes in a manner becoming a learned Divine, and in terms well adapted to the inftruction and edification of fuch Readers, as are willing to be guided by the fenfe and authority of the Church, in articles of faith, and modes of worship.

Art. 21,

CONTROVERSIAL.

Art. 21. King David vindicated from a late misreprefentation of his Character, in a Letter to his Grace the Archbishop of Can-terbury. By Thomas Patten, D. D. late Fellow of C. C. C. now Rector of Childery, Berks. 8vo. 2s. Rivington.

Dr. Patten tells his Grace of Canterbury, that " Conscious of his want of talents, &c.-he hath waited-long, in hopes that David's caufe would have met with fome better manager;"-but that “the filence of abler advocates hath devolved this talk upon him." -We are aftonished to think how this gentleman could poffibly be ignorant of the publication of Dr. Chandler's Treatife on this fubject, which came out some confiderable time before Dr. Patten's pamphlet, and which, to deal plainly and honefly with this laft-named Writer, is in every refpect fo exceedingly fuperior to his production, that he might, we apprehend, with a very fafe confcience, have held himself excufed from intermeddling in a Controverfy, wherein he appears but ill qualified to make a very diftinguished figure; unless it be for the narrow, uncandid, unchristian, and unmanly spirit of persecution, which breathes, or rather foams, through his whole performance. He talks much of anfwering fuch books as The Hiftory of the Man after God's own Heart, by cenfures of CONVOCATION, the resentment of AUTHORITY, and fuch like infallible modes of refutation and conviction; which, whatever be the occafion, we look upon as an high infringement of the facred liberties of the republic of letters, which ought never to be forgiven, untill the offender has asked his country's pardon, for fo grofs an infult upon one of her most valuable bleffings.

We would by no means be confidered as advocates for the Hiftorian in queftion, nor for any licentious or indecent abuse* of that noble freedom wherewith St. Paul has fo warmly encouraged us to fearch the Scriptures:---but when a Minister of the GOSPEL takes upon him to fhut THE Book against his fellow Christian, and to call for the conftable, it is enough to roufe the relentment of every confiftent Proteftant, of every Briton, who knows the value of that happy freedom of enquiry, to which, under God, we are indebted for the civil and religious liberties we enjoy.But enough concerning this virulent effufion of a bigotted attachment to CIVIL AUTHORITY IN matters of CONSCIENCE,-which we are furprized to fee addreffed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, as that learned and worthy prelate is by no means an encourager of fuch illiberal and unchriflian principles.

Rouffean, in his Eloifa, has an excellent remark on this subject; which we shall here apply, and leave to Dr. Patten's mature reflection. -------“ My real opinion is, that no true believer can be a perfecutor, and an enemy to toleration. If I were a magistrate, and the law inflicted death on Atheists, I would begin to put it in execution, by burning the first man that should come to accufe and profecuse another." ELOISA, Vol. IV. p. 6. Note.

Which ought always to be difcountenanced by every method that may be found agreeable to the pitit of genuine CHRISTIANITY; but God forbid that any other method should be thought of in a Proteftant Country,

4

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For APRIL, 1762.

Anecdotes of Painting in England, with fome Account of the principal Artifts, and incidental Notes on other Arts. Collected by the late Mr. George Vertue, and now digefted and published from his original MSS. By Mr. Horace Walpole. 4to. 2 Vols. Printed at Strawberry-Hill, 11. 14 s. bound. Bathoe.

TH

HE Hiftory of kingdoms and ftates (fays an elegant Writer *) is that of the miseries of mankind. The Hiftory of the fciences and the fine arts, is that of our fplendour and happiness; a confideration which, alone, is fufficient to render it interefting to every friend of humanity." To trace the rife of thefe arts, therefore, and to mark the feveral ftages of their progrefs, with a view to facilitate their way to perfection, is a tafk as worthy the gentleman as the scholar or the virtuofo; the laborious refearches of the antiquarian being thus made conducive to the embellishments of life, and rendered both agreeable and useful to fociety. Next to the immediate cultivation of the polite arts, and spreading that happy contagion, which is to bé caught only by living examples, is the merit of difplaying the reputation, and pointing out the perfection, of those mafters, whofe fame hath furvived their perfons, and not unfrequently their works.

It were fuperfluous to mention here how much artifts of more than one profeffion are indebted to the Editor (we might, indeed, rather fay the Author +) of this work. Tafte,

Efai fur l'étude de la Littérature; of which more particular mention was made in the XXVth Volume of oar Review, p. 224. † Mr. Walpole acquaints us, in his Preface, that he was obliged to compofe, a-new, every article collected by Mr. Vertue.

REV. April, 1762.

R

erudition,

erudition, good-fenfe, and liberality, qualities not always united, have been attributed to many an oftentatious Mecænas; but if to these we add an affiduity in studying, and eagerness to place, every object of emulation in the point of view beft calculated to infpire tafte for the past, and awaken future efforts of genius, none can lay a jufter claim to the title of Patron of Literature and the fine Arts, than the honourable Artift at Strawberry-Hill. Poffeffed of the happiest talents, for creating embellishments out of the moft fimple materials, and ftriking entertainment out of the dryeft and most barren fubjects, he has favoured the world with a Catalogue of Authors*, not inferior itself, in point of literary merit, to moft of the performances celebrated in it. Nor has he lefs happily fucceeded in the work before us; which, had it come from any other hand, had probably afforded as little inftruction or amusement, as the tittle-tattle stories of a tasteless biographer, a mere chronologer's lift of dates and names, or an auctioneer's catalogue of pictures.

It is fomething remarkable that England has not produced, as Mr. Walpole obferves, a fingle volume on the works of its Painters. It is true, this country has rarely given birth to a genius in that profeffion; Holland and Flanders having furnished us with the greatest artists we have to boast. Mean while, in Italy, where the art of Painting has been carried to an amazing degree of perfection, the lives of the Painters have been written in numerous volumes, almost fufficient of themselves to compofe a library. Every picture of every confiderable mafter has been minutely defcribed; their biographers treating of the works of Raphael and Corregio with as much importance as commentators fpeak of Homer and Virgil: while, indulging themselves in the inflated style of their language, they talk of pictures as the works almost of a Divinity, though at the fame time they lament them as perifhing before their eyes. The French, neither poffeffed of fuch mafters, nor fo hyperbolic in their diction, contrive however to fupply by vanity what is wanting in either. Pouffin is their miracle of genius; Le Brun difputes the preference with half the Roman fchool. A whole volume is written even on the life and works of Mignard; and Voltaire, who affects to understand almost every thing, and does not fufpect that judgment in Painting is one of his deficiencies, fpeaks ridiculously in commendation of fome of their artists.

See Review, Vol. XIX. p. 557.

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