THE BRITISH CRITIC, A NEW REVIEW, FOR MAY, JUNE, JULY, AND AUGUST, QUO PEDE CEPIT EAT. VOLUME I. London: PRINTED FOR F. AND C. RIVINGTON, NO. 62, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD. Al 4 THE BRITISH CRITIC, A NEW REVIEW. 1 Prospectus. TF the number of Reviews already in existence were the only point to be confidered, there could be no reason to attract the public notice to a NEW ONE. Nor is it any apparent want of knowledge, or ability in the Authors of these publications, that encourages the present Competition with them. As Critics, some of them perform their task in a distinguished manner; most of them so well, that, on the whole, the cause of Taste and Literature receives, no doubt, a great advantage from their labours. But, highly as we value Taste and Literature, and inseparably as their interests are connected with such works, there are objects of yet more importance continually presented to the mind of a Reviewer; and thence reflected to the Public in such colours as his Principles or Prejudices may chance to give. Such are the opinions that, from time to time, are published, on the two great topics of Politics and Religion. CRITICISM, though professedly the primary object of Reviews, gives place, in point of public importance, to the discussion of opinions on these subjects. It is of much less consequence to a country, whether its Writers excel in Style and Diction, in the arts of Compofition, and the various branches of Literary Skill, than whether their opinions on those leading points are found and right; and whether their defects or merits of that kind are fairly or unfair'y ftated by the periodical reporter. Here then we find the evil that so much demands a Remedy. Some of our principal Reviews have long been animated by a spirit very hoftile. not only to the whole establishment in Church and State, but to all that Englishmen in general hold most sacred, in the principles by which it is supported; in Politics, to Monarchy itself; in Religion, to Chriftianity, 409090 |