The Dean has fome other obfervations, of this kind; but we must proceed with the volume. And, next in order, we come now to (No. 10.) Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet's Hiftory.'

Our Readers will remember how feverely the bishop was treated, in the humourous Memoirs of P. P. Clerk of this parifh,' printed in the Mifcellanies published by our Author and Mr. Pope. In this paper, the great hiftorian of the whigs is attacked in a different strain + ;-with ill-nature, and with outrage-had he been the hiftorian of the tories, he would have efcaped all this abufe. There may, however, amidst fo much fcurrility, be fome truth, Hear what this investive Remarker fays:

This Author is, in moft particulars, the worst qualified for an historian, that ever I met with. His ftyle is rough, full of improprieties, in expreffions often Scotch, and often fuch as are ufed by the meaneft of the people.-His obfervations are mean, and trite, and very often falfe. His fecret history is generally made up of coffee houfe fcandals, or, at beft, from reports at the 3d, 4th, or 5th hand. The account of the pretender's birth,' (aye! there lay the poor bishop's unpardonable fin !) would only become an old woman in a chimney-corner. His vanity runs intolerably through the whole book, affecting to have been of confequence at nineteen years old, and while he was a little Scotch parfon of 40 pounds a-year.-His characters are miferably wrought, in many things miftaken, and all of them detracting, except of those who were friends to the prefbyterians. That early love of liberty he boafts of, is abfolutely false; for the first book that I believe he ever published, is an entire treatise in favour of paffive obedience and abfolute power; fo that his reflections on the clergy, for afferting, and then changing thofe principles, come very improperly from him. His work may be more properly called a Hiftory of Scotland during the Author's Time, with fome Digreffions relating to England, rather than deferve the title he gives it: for I believe two thirds of it relate only to that beggarly nation, and their infignificant brangles and factions.In his laft ten years, he was abfolute party-mad, and fancied he faw popery under every bush.-He never gives a good character without one effential point, that the perfon was tender to diffenters, and thought many things in the church ought to be amended.'-And does not every moderate churchman, now living, think the fame ?We have omitted several paffages in these remarks, for want of room to infert the whole; but we must not forget to obferve, that he See alfo the Dean's Preface to the Bishop of Sarum's Introduction. This anecdote deferves to have been better authenticated; and we are forry the Dean did not exprefsly refer to the tract here mentioned.

makes

makes fome conceffions in favour of the bishop's private charac ter; and one or two in favour even of his book; which, after all, it is pretty apparent, the Dean would have thought a very tolerable fort of a book, if he had not perufed it with partySpectacles.

11. An Abstract of the Hiftory of England, from the In-. vafion of it by Julius Cæfar, to William the Conqueror.'-Not worth mentioning; and most certainly, as well as fome other fcraps in this publication, was not worth printing.

12. A Letter to a Member of Parliament, in Ireland, upon chufing a new Speaker there: 1708.'-This letter relates to the great question, about that time much agitated, concerning a repeal of the Sacramental Teft. Few of our Readers need be told what a zealous advocate the Dean was for that act.-At this juncture, it feems, there was great reafon to apprehend that the choice of a speaker of the Irish houfe of commons would light on a gentleman who was no friend to the teft-act. He therefore wrote this letter, as a diffuafive against chufing fuch a perfon; and among other arguments, he has the following very remarkable one: I will put the cafe: if the perfon to whom you have promifed your vote be one of whom you have the least apprehenfion that he will promote or affent to the repealing of that claufe, whether it be decent or proper he should be the mouth of an affembly, whereof a great majority pretend to abhor his opinion? Can a body, whofe mouth and heart muft go fo contrary ways, ever act with fincerity, or with confiftence? Such a man is no proper vehicle to retain or convey the fenfe of the house, which, in fo many points of the greatest moment, will be directly contrary to his. It is full as abfurd, as to prefer a man to a bishopric whe denies revealed religion. But it may poffibly be a great deal worse.'-Can any thing be a stronger proof that the pious Dean thought prefbyterianism worfe than downright infidelity?

12. Some few Thoughts concerning the Repeal of the Teft. Few indeed; the whole making but a page: which was, probably, no more than the beginning of a paper on this fubject. What is here offered, is not very material to the point.

a

13. • Maxims Controlled in Ireland.'-The Dean here examins the truth of fome maxims in ftate and government, with reference to Ireland, which, he fays, generally pass for uncontrolled in the world; and he confiders how far they fuit with the condition of that kingdom. This, which is not a party, but truly patriotic, paper, contains a fhrewd, fenfible, and affecting reprefentation of the diftreffed ftate of our fifter kingdom, at the time when this tract was written: we hope, and believe, matters are not quite fo bad there at prefent-although it is most certain

certain, that we do treat our fellow-fubjects of Ireland very ty rannically, in many refpects.-We are now arrived at the end of the Political Tracts; and muft close the book, for the prefent. [To be continued.]

G.

A Portrait of Oratory. By J. Garner, M. D. 8vo. 2s. Sandby.

OTHING is more common than for the herd of didac

Ntic writers, in laying down the theory of an art, to be

tray their incapacity to reduce their rules to practice. How different was the cafe with the great Longinus,

Whofe own example ftrengthens all his laws,

While he's himself the great fublime he draws!

In like manner, the Limner of the prefent Portrait of Oratory, does by no means content himself, with giving us a bare unfinished sketch, the mere outlines of elocution; but hath finished his piece with the higheft glow and richest pomp of colouring. What is here exhibited to the public eye, fays he, is the child of a few leisure hours, which, flying, fwift, on golden wings, it was prefumed, would, not unprofitable, be expended, in canvaffing the fubject of facred oratory.' And if any one in drinking the rill of this production, reap even, the smallest draught of benefit, the labor, labor! no, pleafure, of fome hours will not be uncrowned.'

Our Readers may already discover fome traces of that happy talent, which our Author poffeffes, of adapting his ftyle to his fubject. We are not to learn, indeed, that, among the prefent numerous competitors for oratorial excellence, there have been critics invidious enough to reprefent the dazzling, blazing, heart-inflaming, terrific ftyle of this Writer, as merely imitative. Dologodelmo's Oratory's high encomiums upon the mighty Soaretherial, fay they, have furnished Dr. Garner with his beft figures, his moft founding epithets, his moft fublime flights

Oh Death, thou long-lived Mortal,'

Says the genius of Hurlothrombo. Had our Author, fay these critics, been to addrefs this longeval skeleton of mortality, he would have called him,

Oh Death! thou speechlefs Orator!

But, how do they know this? How can they prove this fuggeftion not to be the child of malice? Truly thus. The following

See the immortal Hurlothrombo, 1ft Ed. page 9.

paffages,

paffages, they pretend, have too great a fimilitude not to juftify the fufpicion of imitation. Dr. Garner supposes an affectionate father, expreffing his pungent exultation of heart,' to addrefs. a reformed fon in the fubfequent terms:

my fon! my fon! What a fea of intenfe fatisfaction overflows this breaft.-Oh! transporting! transporting !—Oh! ceafe not, ceafe not, my beloved! to travel the delightful ftreets of virtue, that rapture may warm a fond father's breaft, beginning to bend under the rifing mountain of years; that, at the fetting of life's fun, the confideration of leaving behind me a virtuous child, may fhoot a refulgent, golden, ray of comfort through my foul, taking wing into a fhorelefs futurity.'

This. fpeech is fuppofed to be only an improvement on the following of King Soar-ethereal to his mistress:

Oh! my Cadamore! that I might die always to live with thee; for when the fetters of flumber have linked these limbs and the ground together, when the chains of fleep have bound 'this body to the earth; when thefe eyes, thefe ears are infenfible, I have other eyes that fee, other ears that hear, and myself rejoices when myself is dead.'

Now, not to infift on the wide difference there is, between a man's breaft bending under a rifing mountain,' and his body being bound to the earth,' we do infift, in oppofition to thefe critics, that the above paffages are totally diffimilar. They yet perfift in carrying on the parallel farther. The rejoicing father above-inftanced wifhes, that in the dread, the joyous, all remunerating, day, he and his fon, may meet, with ravished hearts, with faces, clad in fmiles-that, Ó rapturous reflection! they may spend, together, an eternity, in laughing, heavenly, groves, plucking golden, ever-ripening, fruit off flourishing trees of blifs, extatic!'

The joyous meeting here projected, it is faid, is evidently taken from the following fpeech of Hurlothrombo:

Let us go, my Lord, we'll this moment mount her upon the back of the fun; in the mean while, you get a straddle upon the moon, there you'll be mounted aloft and ride after her, fpar and whip, whip and fpur, and you'll be fure to overtake her in the eclipfes; there you'll be clapped together, face to face, one upon another; and all the world will fhout and fay, he has her, he has her! Huzza.'

The malevolence of thefe critics, leads them ftill greater lengths, even fo far as to cavil at almost all our Author's tropes and figures. But, we fhould be glad to know, what is oratory, without tropes and figures? and as to the propriety of them, the beft writers might be quoted to prove it problematical. Whatever tenet is efpoufed, fays our Author, that opens a door to a torrent of licentioufhefs, be the fharp axe of folid argument ap

plied to its very root.' How hypercritical is it to object here a rooted tenet's opening a door to a torrent! How captious to oppose the keen edge of ridicule against the sharp axe of folid argument! Solidity, fay they, betokens weight and ftrength; its effects bearing a greater fimilitude to the ftroke of a mallet, the crufh of a rammer, or, the fillip of a three-man beetle,' than to the keen severity of an edge-tool.

Again, when our Author thus calls out to the flouncing Tags of gious controverfy, Ruft thou fharp-edged sword? eternal, in thy fcabbard !' these critics affect to fneer; pretending that it is impoffible for a fword to keep growing rusty for ever; for that fome time or other it must be fairly rufted through and can grow rufty no longer. But, who doth not plainly fee, that fuch remarks are the mere effects of ignorance or envy? Away with fuch contemptible correctnefs, the frigid fuggeftions of cold-blooded critics, eftranged to the captivating, foul-enchanting, heaven-vivifying powers of oratory! Let us throw afide therefore fuch invidious criticisms, and with our Author, turn the feet of thought into the tract of themes, meriting fedate, reiterated contemplation.' Hear part of our Author's addrefs to Oratory and to Orators.

Hail! Hail! O Oratory! Queen of the heart! Permit an affectionate fon to employ his pencil, in attempting to heighten the amiable grace of thy features, &c.'-With regard to the Orator, he thus beautifully queries, replies, apoftrophizes, and exclaims. Shall he groping, tread the dark, but fiery paths of religious controverfy? Or fhall he feed his flock with the food of pathetic difcourfes or practical fubjects? With the food of pathetic difcourfes or practical subjects. The duties, the influencing principles of religion, which reafon's beams, which revelation's radiant funfhine, ope; thefe, thefe, ye fons of Eloquence! are what? the precious pearls you are to work upon;' not upon fpeculative controverted points, which feed with fresh fuel, the fire of party-zeal. Party-zeal! Devouring vulture! that has long, long, O Christianity! been gnawing thy very vitals; that, yet, wounds thee, with her fharp, envenomed tooth +. O the fcenes! the fcenes! fcenes! Humanity cannot contemplate, without heart-convulfing horror, that have, hence, derived their birth. O benevolence! benevolence! how, how haft thou

Befides, there is poffibly, after all, a flight error of the prefs, and the word ruft fhould have been printed reft. Where then would be the impropriety? And what would become of their criticisms ?

The pitiful critics above mentioned object alfo to this paffage; telling us that a vulture has no teeth. But what of that? every body knows it has confounded talons, and that's as bad.

7

May