some views, but they do not prevent our being enlightened and cheered with his splendor and warmth. If there is any one trait by which Dr. Johnson's mind can be difcriminated, it is a gigantic vigour. In information and in taste he was excelled; but what he seriously attempted he executed with that masterly original boldness, which leaves us to regret his indolence, that he exerted himself only in the moment when his powers were wanting, and relapfed again into his literary idleness. Yet, with all his faults, he has perhaps never been equalled; with all his irregularities and blemishes, he will probably never be excelled. Vancenza; or, the Dangers of Credulity. By Mrs. Robinfon. 2 Vols. Small 8vo. 5s. Bell. 1792. MRS. Robinfon's eager, partial, and injudicious friends, have mifled and injured her; nor are we wholly free from the inconveniencies which they have occafioned. The merits of Vancenza have fo often met our eyes; it has been fo often styled excellent, admirable; the world has been so frequently called on to confirm this fuffrage with their plaudits, that we dare not hint a fault, or hesitate diflike What we disapprove, we must speak of plainly, and, if our gallantry is called in question, the blame will fall on those who have compelled us to be explicit. After this introduction we need not say that we think this novel unworthy of the high reputation of its author, a reputation the fource of which it is not our present business to examine. In estimating the merits of Vancenza, it is not neceflary, with all the formality of an Aristarchus, to lay down rules for the conduct of an epopeia of the familiar kind. It is enough that the plot be artfully involved and naturally unravelled, while each part co-operates to produce the event. In reality, nothing extraneous should be introduced, and each trifling episode should be remotely connected with the catastrophe. This, however, is a rule which must occafionally be difpenfed with. Ornaments are often required in such works, and they cannot always be parts of one whole; nor should we have objected that the pilgrim's story, in the fecond volume of the novel before us, was an isolated appendage, if the flight eft contrivance had not been fufficient to have connected it with the principal event, and to have explained the only part in which the denouement feems too artificial; -we mean the removal of the pictures to discover the fatal pannel. These are supposed to have hung there for many years, nor was it with in the circle of expected contingencies, that they should be removed in the life-time of Elvira: so that the whole of the history might be loft for ever, the prince Almanza might have married his sister, and their innocent progeny never known the crimes to which they owed their birth. In other respects the story is conducted with skill. To the adventitious ornaments our censure must be chiefly directed. The language is in general highly and poetically laboured. It is refined into obscurity; and perfpicuity of description is often facrificed to a flowing period. There are many instances where, but from the future pages, it is difficult to discover the events in the blaze of description: a particular one now lies before us in the affaffination of the count of Vancenza. The old observation may be well applied to Mrs. Robinfon: if you intended the language to be prose, it is too poetical; if to be poetry, it is very faulty. But to the proof. • After passing an hour in restless rumination, the broad beams of light, penetrating through his curtains, roused him from his letbargy of thought: he started from his pillow feverish and dejected, and, scarcely knowing whither he bent his way, passed through the long gallery which opened to the terrace facing the lake. The fun diffused its moft splendid glories over the grateful bosom of the humid earth: the wild fowl hovering over the glit tering water, sweeping its lucid surface with their variegated wings: the soft mufic of the mountain breezes; the hollow found of falling cascades; the distant precipice still hiding its blue head amidst the fevering clouds that floated in feathery folds before the breath of morning; the flocks and herds bounding and frisking along the verdant openings on the fide of the valley; the intermingling notes of woodland melody presented a picture so exquifitely fublime, that Del Vero, fafcinated with delight, forgot for a moment even the graces of Elvira.' We need not point out that fome of these epithets are unneceffary, fome inconfiftent, and fome improper. In the next passage that we shall select, we find the earth decorated with gems: this may be; but these gems are also enamelled; nor are they in their usual situations. If we suppose too, that the gems so enamelled may be flowers, we must not imagine that they grow in the usual way: the enamelled gems at Vancenza are fhook from the wings of fummer, the wings are perfumed, and fummer blushes: while the flowers are gems, the corn is of gold, the hills flope, and a vineyard is neither yellow nor black, but tawny. The whole, however, is too luxuriant for analysis. • It was in that delighful season of the year, when nature difplays plays her richest foliage, and decorates the earth with a thousand enamelled gems, shook from the perfumed wings of bluthing fummer; the birds attuned their throats to the wild melodies of love: and the face of the creation glowed with exulting beauty; the vale was covered with sheaves of golden grain; and the fides of the floping hills concealed by the rich mantle of the tawny vineyard: they passed through groves of citron and myrtle, intermingling with thick clusters of pomegranates, forming a perpetual alcove, through which the rays of the fun could scarcely penetrate! A's evening advanced, the grey shadows of twilight stole over the valley; while the burning orb, retiring to its wef tern canopy, cast a crimson lustre over the acute summits of the diftant mountains." Some of the metaphors are ludicrous or incorrect. 'The manners of the Spanish beauties, when compared with those of Elvira, fink into contempt as the twinkling of the glowworm fades before the orient day.' Again: true merit defies the honeyed tongue of flattery, as the diamond mocks the fire of the consuming crucible.' These are not folitary instances; yet we ought to add, that the metaphors are sometimes animated, fometimes elegant-Chastity exposed to the breath of flander is like the waxen model placed in the rays of a meridian fun: by degrees it loses its finest traits, till at length it becomes an infipid mass of useless deformity.' Again: • Here he turned aside to wipe away the involuntary tear wrung from his bursting heart by the hard grafp of unrelenting confcience.' Mrs. Robinfon's partiality for the ornamented language of poetry has led her also to employ it improperly, as in the following paffage. • When the hand that writes, and the heart that dictates these lines, are freezing on the dreary pallet of the grave; when the faint traces of my forrows shall fade before the obliterating wing of time; perchance some kindred eye may drop the last commiferating tear, and wash out the remembrance of my woes for ever." Polished and figurative language like this is the production of a mind at ease; and the pardage we have quoted is written in a moment of the most poignant agony, at a time when the tears flowing, had, in a great degree, defaced the manufcript, and the paflage was, on that account, with difficulty decyphered.' Elvira, at the age of fifteen, is described as in the noon of cultivated youth; and we find, in these volumes, the true criterion, we have formerly noticed, of a female pen, the indifcriminate use of the epithet 'fine.' No milliner's apprentice fcrawls scrawls a love-scene without introducing her hero as a man of fine sense, fins accomplishments, as well as fine eyes. Mrs. Robinson should have avoided it; but she has 'fine pallions,' ، a fine sense of honour,' 'fine accomplishments,' &c. The female author is confpicuous in other circumstances. After the death of the heroine, she stays to tell us that prince Almanza was chief mourner; at the revival of Almanza from his insensibility, into which he had fallen in consequence of the accident in hunting the wild boar, he addresses Elvira with all the rapture of Aimwell, declaring himself in elysium and the object of his attention an angel: this we suppose the ladies may consider as 'quite in nature;' but we are too old to join in the opinion. There are fome other errors perhaps more important, if the young ladies, in their rapid glances over these enchanting volumes, can be for a moment supposed capable of imbibing information. In the beginning of the second volume, we have a description of an almost Lapland winter in Spain, while the more tender plants are placed in the fame spot. We know that snow fometimes falls even in this climate; and that, on the mountains, it is permanent. But such violent storms in the vallies which defend the citrons are scarcely ever feen. The Spanish ladies, in general, are represented as courting admiration, instead of the secluded modesty, or more natural reserve, with which travellers have decorated them. Indeed the ladies, if we except the marchioness and Elvira, are of our metropolis; and the heroes differ but in titles from fashionable Englishmen. There is one circumstance which we have profeffed always to treat with indignation- viz. every attempt to glofs over the follies of popery, or to represent its absurdities as facred. The pilgrim does penance for crimes. He had stolen a young woman from a convent, and, in his own defence, killed her brother. The latter could not be a crime: is it for the former then that 'Conscience wrings the tear from his bursting heart?" The crime is their's who, from motives of avarice or ambition, could counteract the designs of providence by the seclusion of helpless, reluctant, females. If our cafuistry has any credit, we do not hesitate in declaring, that the refcuing one of these is an action that might atone for many fins: but we forget-we are relapfing into one of the tenets of the religion we have reprobated. We have hinted at the principal faults which occur to our notice in this work, and they are such as we think confirm the opinion given in the beginning of this article. It is with reluctance that we have engaged in this difquifition; but whatever may be the splendor of a name, we have never fcrupled offering our opinion. The public will ultimately decide, and to their fupreme tribunal we leave the decifion, scarcely appre hending that the judgment will be reversed. Philofophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXXXI. for the Year 1791. Part II. 4to. 7s. 6d. Elmsley. 1791. OUR former delay we endeavour to compenfate, by quickly noticing this fecond part of the volume of last year, which is at leaft more bulky, and in many respects more important than the first. Art. VIII. On the Rate of Travelling, as performed by Camels; and its Application, as a Scale, to the Purposes of Geography. By J. Rennell, Efq. F. R. S.-If the camel is with propriety called the ship of the defert, major Rennell's dif quifition may be styled an attempt to discover the longitude by land. This patient animal steps, it seems, with remarkable exactness; and, in places where means of measuring time and diftances are unknown, it is of confequence to come near the latter by approximations of this kind. Of the internal parts of Africa we know little; but, if the plan we suggested in reviewing the Proceedings of the African Afsociation had been executed, it would have been no very difficult matter to have afcertained, with tolerable accuracy, by means of celestial observations, the situation of fome places, which would have corrected and assisted the mode of menfuration proposed in the article before us. In the Arabian Defert there are three spots whose precise situation has been accurately afcertained, viz. Aleppo, Bagdat, and Bufsorah: from these our author calculates with the afsistance of different Journals. We must, as usual, give the result. The mean rate of a loaded camel's travelling appears to be 2.478 British miles an hour; general. ly fpeaking about 21; and, with the help of a watch and a com pass, the distance and bearing, as appears from Mr. Carmichael's experiment, who succeeded very well with only a pocket compass, may be traced with confiderable accuracy. The mean of the heavy caravan's day's journey was 7 hours 27 minutes; the mean of the light caravan's progress 8 hours 52 minutes. This estimation is taken from the whole time: the optional day's journey feems to be 7h 51", and 9h 8" refpectively; the distance about 20 or 22 miles each day. If the halts be reckoned, about a mile and a half must be deducted, or one halt to 12 travelling days. The distance, afcertained by the step of the camel, is fome what different: the mean number of steps in 20 hours (we take the mean between Mr. Holford's and Mr. Carmichael's experiments) was 2175, which give the number of miles per hour |