in the beginning of the queen's reign, Mrs. Macaulay has given us a paragraph, in which are fome expreffions not wholly unfuitable to a later period: though it is probable that the ingenious lady is wholly innocent of any double meaning, either in this or any other part of her work. Let our readers form their own judgment of the paffage:

The tories and high churchmen, having now gained a complete victory over their adverfaries, purfued their advantages with an indecent triumph. The whigs were openly accufed of aiming at the establishment of a commonwealth; and even the late king, who was as little of a commonwealth's man as any prince of his time, was involved in this cenfure. A book, reflecting on Charles the Firft, by a vote of both houfes, was declared to be a fcandalous and villainous libel, which tended to the fubverfion of monarchy; as fuch it was ordered to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman. The nonfenfical doctrine of a divine and undefeafible right was canted in the pulpits, and founded in the two houfes of parliament; and hardly any veftiges remained of the revolution, but an additional load of taxes, and the large increase of corruption and venality it produced in the nation."

The general hiftories of Anne's reign, are, for the most part, chiefly filled with the pompous particulars of the Duke of Marlborough's campaigns. Such narratives are confeffedly of little ufe, except it be to amufe and bewilder the imaginations of their readers. It is not fo in the performance before us. The military operations of that celebrated commander are here related with a brevity which, as indeed the epiftolary form of the work required, could admit of only the principal circumstances; and thefe are exhibited with a spirit and rapidity fimilar to what we so much admire in the concife hiftorical writings of M. de Voltaire.-The following apology is made by our Author, for having ftudioufly avoided the minutiae of thofe details with which other hiftorians ufually overcharge their defcriptions of fieges and battles:

Thus, my friend, I have related to you all the capital military actions of the English and their allies in Germany, 'Flanders, Italy, and Spain, during the first five years of the war. I do not know how you will tafte the arrangement of the matter; but I am sure you will approve the brevity of the detail; and that I have not teazed you with perplexed and confufed defcriptions of battles, feldom understood by the writer, and never by the reader, even when the great master of the military fcience, Julius Cæfar, condefcends to relate his wonderful exploits in Gaul; and when the pen of Julius, my friend, cannot inftruct us in the manner in which his victories were atchieved, is it not a contemptible vanity in hiftorians to

waste

wafte their time, and, what is yet worse, the patience of their readers, in long and minute relations of military actions, which they would not have understood had they been on the spot on which they were fought, and which are only defcriptions detailed from one ignorant writer to another?"

This Third Letter produces a ftriking inftance of the evil confequences of ftate-compliances with the humour or the partialities of a prince: that fatal complaifance which, as our Author expreffes it, innovates into the prescribed rules of government;' and fhews how dangerous are all precedents which, in monarchies, weaken the limitations laid on prerogative.' The inftance relates to Prince George of Denmark, to whom the queen, his wife, committed the whole management of the fea-department, under the title of Lord High Admiral; with a council to affift him. The legality of this appointment was, indeed, queftioned, for it was a new court which could not be authorized to act but by an act of parliament: yet the refpect paid to the queen prevented the matter from being made a public question: fo that, unhappily for the NATION, the objections to the measure never went beyond a fecret murmur.' The Writer thus briefly mentions the result of this polite and dutiful refignation to the fovereign will:- Prince George was a man of a very indolent difpofition, of little or no judgment in the bufinefs confided to his care, good natured, and eafy to be impofed on: it was not the intereft of those who managed the war, that laurels fhould be gathered at fea; all the naval expeditions, therefore, were ill planned; from the avarice of contractors, the fleets were ill and fparingly victualled; from the want of judgment in the lord high admiral, they were worfe officered, and the commanders fo ill fuited to each other in their difpofitions, that the service frequently fuffered from their quarrels and want of agreement. The taking of Gibraltar, the fubjection of Minorca and Ivica to the dominion of the archduke, the transporting troops to Spain, the reduction of Barcelona, the raising that fiege, and the conducting Prince Charles with great pomp to Portugal, were all the mighty exploits, my friend, performed by the fleet in the last four years of the war.'

The union of England with Scotland, is, perhaps, the most capital event by which the reign of Anne was distinguished; and, accordingly, our Author has paid due attention to it: relating the circumftances of the negociation, and explaining the views by which the two great parties were guided, in the course, and conclufion, of the treaty, with judgment and impartiality.

As this was entirely a whig-meafure, fet on foot at a time when that party had, by their polite compliances, got into fome degree of credit, even in a Jacobitical court, it, in course, met with ftrong oppofition from the tories in both houses of

parliament. In the upper houfe, Lord Haverfham declared his diffent from the union, for the fake of the good old English conftitution, in which he dreaded fome alteration from the additional weight of fixty-one Scotch members, and these returned from a Scotch privy-council: he faid, if the bishops would weaken their own caufe fo far as to give up the two great points of epifcopal ordination and confirmation, if they would approve and ratify the act for fecuring the prefbyterian church government in Scotland as the true proteftant religion and purity of worship, they must give up that which had been contended for between them and the prefbyterians for thirty years.'

Lord North and Gray complained of the fmall and unequal proportion of the land-tax impofed on Scotland, by this act; and the Earl of Nottingham, after expatiating on the great advantages that were prodigally caft into the northern scale, concluded with lamenting that he had outlived the laws and the very conftitution of England.-All oppofition was however fruitless. The miniftry, though with great precipitation, and in the way of furprise, carried their favourite measure; and completed an union which, as Mrs. Macaulay remarks, had, on very found principles of policy, been feveral times rejected by both nations; and which was, at this time, with great difficulty, coerced on the Scots: though, as Burnet obferves, the advantages which were offered to Scotland, in the whole frame of it, were great and visible. The Scots were to bear lefs than the fortieth part of the public taxes, and they were to have the eleventh part of the legislature. Trade was to be free all over the island, and to the plantations; private rights were to be preferved; and the judicature and laws of Scotland were ftill to be continued.'-The following are our Author's reflections on this memorable event:

Whether, my friend, the fecurity pretended to be obtained by England by this union was worth purchafing at so high a price; whether the union has answered the expectations of those who prophefied that it would be the means of extending the bounds of the British empire, and of enlarging the happiness of its citizens, by cementing in the clofeft bands of friendship two nations who had ever regarded each other with the eyes of jealoufy and averfion, will be differently determined by men, who, from their different connections in both or either countries, have contracted different prejudices; but whether, my friend, as the tories of thefe times predicted, it will be attended with confequences no lefs fatal than the deftruction of the laws and conftitution of England, the fpace of a very few years will, in all probability, determine beyond a doubt.'

[To be concluded in another article.]

G.

ART.

ART. VII. Obfervations on the Introduction to the Plan of the Difpen fary for general Inoculation. With Remarks on a Pamphlet, intituled," An Examination of a Charge brought against Inoculation by De Haen, Raft, Dimfdale, and other Writers, by John Watkinfon, M. D.". By the Hon. Baron T. Dimfdale, &c. &c. 8vo. 2 S. Owen, &c. 1778.

ISAGREEABLE as this controverfy must be to every friend

D of the falutary practice of inoculation, it is however of

fo much importance as to demand a confiderable fhare of the public attention. That the body of the people have hitherto been little benefited by inoculation, is acknowledged on all fides. That new attempts fhould be made to give them their share of its advantages, was a natural effect of the benevolent, fpirit fo prevalent in the prefent age. Unfortunately, the proper direction of thefe attempts is a matter concerning which the best friends of the practice are much divided; and, as ufual in all cafes of a public nature, private motives may be fufpected to have interfered, and to have rendered the question ftill more perplexed and difficult of decifion.

Dr. Watkinfon, in the pamphlet to which this is an answer, refts the defence of the plan [in which he is concerned] of inoculating the poor of London at their own houfes, principally on these grounds that the inoculated small-pox are in fo fmall a degree contagious as fcarcely to be capable of propagating the infection; that even the natural fmall-pox will fcarcely occafion an epidemic attack of this disease, without the prevalence of a particular conftitution of the air; and that the increafed number of deaths by the fmall-pox fince the introduction of inoculation, is not to be imputed to this practice, as there appears, from the bills of mortality, to have been a gradual increase in this article from a period much earlier than the practice of inoculation in England. He further attempts to fhew, in favour of the charitable plan particularly in queftion, that the number of deaths from the small-pox has actually decreased since its inftitution.

On all these heads Baron Dimfdale, in the publication before us, offers contrary obfervations. He adduces feveral inftances of the spread of infection from the inoculated fmall-pox. He contends, that although particular ftates of the air may be more favourable than others for the propagation of the fmall pox, yet that this difeafe is never produced without actual contagion, and therefore will, in general, prevail in proportion to the opportunities offered for the communication of infection. He endeavours to fhew the alarming confequences justly to be appre

• See Review, vol. lvi. p. 481.

hended

hended from the carelefs method in which, according to Dr. W.'s own confeffion, the fociety practife their inoculations; confequences, which the very confined benefit it can afford in fo large a city as London, are by no means likely to counterbalance. Laftly, he proves that the extracts from the bills of mortality printed in Dr. W.'s work, were artfully stated and managed, fo as to feem to confirm the Doctor's affertions, particularly with regard to the good effects already derived from the inoculating fociety, though, in fact, they rather evince the direct contrary.

th/

It is not our business, especially fince the difpute is now be come fo perfonal, to decide on the queftion. The matter is before the Public, who, doubtlefs, will pay a proper regard' to the character and reputation which the Writer before us has th fo honourably established. We fhall, however, venture one remark on a part of the fubject which is lefs confined to the particular object of debate.

The Baron, fpeaking of the argument that general inoculation, though poffibly producing fome mischief, would be the caufe of greater good, afks, "Can a man be fo unfeeling as to reafon coolly on the fum of good and evil produced, where the lives of fellow-mortals are the objects?" Now, we apprehend, it is the cool confideration of this point which alone muft direct us in every cafe, whether medical or political, in which the welfare of mankind is concerned; and that it is not only a lawful mode of determination, but fuch as we are obliged by juftice and true benevolence folely to follow. With respect to the practice of inoculation, it is certain that it can only be defended on this ground in every method of practising it. When à perfon inoculates his child, he well knows that the life not only of a fellow-mortal, but of the deareft relative he has, is put to a hazard; but reflecting on the greater fum of good than evil which has refulted from the practice, he rightly concludes that parental duty obliges him to venture on this hazard for the prevention of greater danger. On this principle, we can by no means concur with the Baron in his fevere cenfure on a late general inoculation in a certain town, in which, after eleven hundred had gone through the difeafe, with all the success that could be expected, by inoculation, 250 who refused to join their neighbours in this falutary plan, were infected naturally, of whom 59 died. If Bedford be the place meant, as we imagine it is, we have authority to fay that a bad kind of natural Imall-pox had broken out in the town before the inoculation be

*This number, and the following of 59, are corrected from 11,000, and 70, as printed in the pamphlet, in confequence of an additional table of errata fince tranfmitted to us.

REV. Apr. 1778.

X

gan