energetic, as the Latin. One monfieur le Perrier managed the controversy between him and Laboureur, who appears to have been a kind of enthusiast for the excellency of the French. The whole controversy is extremely uninterefting to the public of England at present, but may afford many curious particulars to those who are fond of the French language and learning.

31. The Tragedies of Sophocles, translated from the Greek; (with a Differtation on Ancient Tragedy) by the Rev. Thomas FranckIin, M. A. A new Edition, carefully revised and corrected. 8vo. Pr. 10s. bound. Davies.

We are pleased to find, from this new edition of Mr. Francklin's ingenious tranflation of Sophocles, that the public voice has approved our recommendation of the work *, which is now neatly printed in a more convenient fize, and may be purchased at a confiderable less expence than the former edition in quarto.

3.2. The Easiest Introduction to Dr. Lowth's English Grammar, de figned for the Use of Children under ten Years of Age, to lead them into a clear Knowledge of the first Principles of the English Language. By the Rev. John Afh, of Pershore ist Worcestershire. With an Appendix, containing, I. Some Short Obfervations on the various Sounds of the Vowels. II. Easy Parfing Exercises on the English Language. III. A Select Collection of Books for Boys and Girls, to shorten the Path to Knowledge. IV. Select Leffons to inftil just Sentiments of Virtue. І гто. Dilly.

Pr. 1s.

This is a plain, easy, compendious system of English gramimar, properly calculated for children. In the title-page the reader has a full account of all its contents.

33. A Summary of the Soul's Perceptive Faculties; and also of Dialectic or Logic: introductory to the Theory of Mind. By the Editor of Letters on Mind. 8vo. Pr. 15. Rivington. Cardan in his treatise de fubtilitate relates, that one of our countrymen, a subtle doctor, was such a deep logician, that only one of his arguments was enough to puzzle all pofterity'; and that when he grew old, he wept because he could not understand his own books. This writer without difpute is one of Lis defcendants: for what can be more fubtle than the following argumentation?

• Let any two things be taken and they are either both the fame with that which is the fame in both, or is common to them both; or one of them only is the fame with that which is the fame in both, or common to both; or they are both different from that which is the fame in both, or common to both.'

* See Crit. Rev. vol. vii. p. 512:

The

ノ

The reader who has an inclination to exercise his reason in

such speculations as these, may have recourse to this learned

tract.

34. A second Vindication of the Right of Proteftant Churches to require the Clergy to subscribe to an established Confeffion of Faith and Doctrines, in a Letter to the Examiner of the First. By T. Rutherforth, D. D. F. R. S. 8vo. Pr. 6d. Robinson and Roberts.

In this letter the author endeavours to vindicate the tendency and force of his arguinent, respecting the right of proteftant churches, &c. against the objections of the Examiner *.

35. An Appeal to the Public, from the malicious Misrepresentations, impudent Falsifications, and unjust Decifions, of the anonymous Fabricators of the Critical Review. By George Canning, of the Middle Temple, Efq; 8vo. Pr. 6d. Dodiley.

When we reviewed Mr. Canning's tranflation of Anti-Lucretius we were influenced by no kind of prejudice, no malevolence of heart. We even selected those passages in which the tranflator seemed to have imitated the spirit and elegance of the original with the greatest success. Our criticisms were the refult of impartial examination: and it is remarkable that not one of them is objected to in this Appeal.

The author has attempted to vindicate his observation on the. length of the Latin hexameter and the English heroic line; but what he has urged in his defence is nothing to the purpose. We are still convinced, that the controversy is to be determined by calculating the number of words, and not the fyllables, of which these lines respectively confift. That an English heroic verse generally contains as many words as a Latin hexameter, is an indisputable fact. In Mr. Canning's tranflation of three books of Polignac there are, we will venture to affirm, more lines confifting of ten words, than there are in the whole Aneid of Virgil. It Latin words in general contain a greater number of vowels, and consequently more fyllables than English words, as they certainly do, it does not follow from thence that they convey, in the fame proportion, a greater number of ideas, which is the point Mr. Canning, upon his principles, ought to have proved. Four English words, he says, are absolutely requisite to express the meaning of docebor. - Granted. But this is not owing to the number of fyllables of which the word confifts, but to the genius of the language; a very different reason from that which Mr. Canning assigns. In short, when he alledges, that a faithful English tranflation, in heroic measure, muft ever contain more lines, by one-third, than the original, if composed

* See vol. xxii. p. 317.

of Latin hexameters, because the Latin line usually confists of fifteen syllables and the English of ten, he argues upon this principle, that words of three syllables must be more expreffive than those of one, and those of fix more expreflive than those of two, by one third; which is evidently false and abfurd.

He acknowledges that his performance is confiderably longer than the original: and he afligns the reason we have now considered. This we faid was an apology for the length of his tranflation. But he exclaims against the word apology, and on that account charges us with a falfification. 'I account, fays he, for the length of my tranflation.'-As accounting for a real or a seeming fault is generally stiled an apology, this expreffion might have passed without cenfure, if this sagacious Templar had not been a notable proficient in quirks and quibbles.

Mr. Canning, we confefs, has detected an inaccurate expreffion*; but it is on the cover of our Review, in the department of our compofitor; and therefore the author of this Appeal is extremely welcome to applaud his own sagacity, and enjoy the triumph.

We cited four lines from his tranflation, in which he speaks of the muse fighting for fiction. But he supposes, that we did not choose to quote the whole paragraph for this admirable reafon : I fancy there was something in the preceding lines which went too much against their grain to be pleasing in the repetition. To what the author might allude we could not conceive, till we observed, that presumptuous rebels were mentioned in those preceding lines, and that we were charged with having hearts bigotted to clanship and jacobitism.' His reader therefore is to suppose, that we are North Britons, and were concerned in the late rebellion. But suppositions are sometimes very diftant from the truth; and that is really the cafe at prefent; for the author of the article which has excited this dudgeon in the breast of the poet, abhors Jacobitism as much as he despises a stupid or an abusive composition; and he can abfolutely avèr, that he was never out of England,

The reader will perceive some indecent allusions in this performance; but as we do not concern ourselves with ribaldry, we leave Mr. G- Cg, if he is pleased with the idea of **** and an 'under petticoat,' to divert himself in his own way.

We have here enumerated all the articles of this impeachment; and as we have not been able to discover either learning or tafte, reason or wit, in this performance, the best advice we can give the author, is, for his own fake, to recal the impreffion, and apply the remaining copies (which perhaps are ninety-nine in a hundred) to a ufe on which we do not choofe to expatiate.'

THE

CRITICAL REVIEW.

For the Month of February, 1767.

ARTICLE I.

The History of England from the Acceffion of James I to the Elevation of the House of Hanover. By Catharine Macaulay. Vol. III. 4to. Pr. 155. Cadell.

T

HE most sensible argument urged by the advocates for the Stuart family is, that their stretches of power never exceeded those of the Tudor race, their immediate predecessors. We shall admit the fact, but what is the consequence? It is faying, in other words, that a fceptre ought to defcend from tyrant to tyrant; and that upon the revival of science, the knowledge of liberty, its fairest fruit, should be the only doctrine ⚫ uncultivated and unimproved. But let us consider this argument in a different light.

If the reigns of the Tudor family were arbitrary, they were beneficent, at the same time. Henry VII. broke the feudal chains of his country, encouraged the spirit of enterprize, improved agriculture, and laid the foundation of those arts which gave England weight and dignity among her neighbours. To Henry VL.. bloody and capricious as he was, we owe the reformation, and our emancipation from religious flavery. If queen Elizabeth sometimes ruled with a rod of iron, the knew how to convert it into a golden fceptre; and her subjects in the glories of her reign forgot the invafions of their own birth-rights. Before we finish this remark, it may be proper to observe, that Elizabeth, towards the close of her adminiftration, relaxed the reins of government, and grew fenfible of the difficulties she muft encounter, had she continued to exert the sovereign power beyond its just limits.

We are ignorant of the periods of the Stuartine reigns which can equal the luftre of those abovementioned; and yet nothing VOL. XXIII. February, 1767.

G

is

is more incredible than the attachment of the votaries of that family to the persons of its princes. We hazard nothing in saying, that it has more than once risen to blafphemy; and that the admitting the Office of Healing into the public Liturgy, was an attempt to clothe the Stewart family with attributes due to Omnipotence alone.

The female Galileo in hiftory, whose work now lies before us, was born within the compass of that century which adopted this miraculous gift into its religious worship; and she writes with the professed design of recalling her readers to the exercise of sense and reafon, without respect to sounds and prepoffeflions. We by no means profess ourselves Mrs. Macaulay's panegyrists. We have formerly observed, that her history must speak for itfelf; and it is with no small degree of furprize we have perceived it hitherto not only unanswered, but unattacked; a circumftance the more mortifying to us, as we are thereby deprived of an opportunity to shew our impartiality, by giving full weight to the fasts and arguments which may be urged in behalf of doctrines once deemed almost national.

The volume we are now to review opens with the happy omen of the spirit of liberty abolishing the courts of arbitrary power, particularly the star-chamber, another term for tyranny itself. We think it needless to trace our author through the arguments urged by the popular members in both houses againft bishops fitting in parliament; especially as we are so far from embracing the doctrine she seems to espouse on that fubject, that we shall quote from her own history the very weighty opinion of a most reverend father in God, archbishop Williams, in favour of his brethren and himself fitting as lords of parliament.

• Williams made a long speech on the occafion: he pleaded that part of the coronation-oath which is relative to the church and faid, "That the king's confcience was so upright, dainty, and fcrupulous, that it ought not to be put upon swallowing fuch gudgeons as to fill itself with doubts and difficulties *." The other arguments he made use of were, the priestly government of Judea, the great power of churchmen in all Chriftian commonwealths from the age of Conftantine, par

66

* It would have been a happy thing for Charles and his family, if his upright, dainty, and scrupulous confcience,” had restrained him from infringing that part of his coronationoath which was relative to the liberties and privileges of the laity.

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