part of the population of England (a part constituting almost the whole available strength of the State) can be either cajoled, led, or driven, into measures, subversive of every thing that is dear to them, as men, as Britons, and as Christians. These are classes not to be aroused by trifles. The British lion is not easily provoked. The most insignificant and mischievous animals may, unmolested, play their fools' tricks around him; but if, presumptuously relying on his forbearance, they should proceed seriously to molest him, a growl or the lifting up of a paw would disperse them. p. 11.

we

Then follows a reprobation of the Whigs, and a compliment to the present Administration, which know to be just, as founded upon the downfall of Buonaparte by their means; but it is also true, that the Whigs did not, as Mr. R. supposes, (p. 11) endeavour to conciliate the Radicals, by any dereliction of prin ciple. They neither accepted nor indorsed the bills of the Radicals; they only wanted as many as they could to move their political cash from the Bank of "Messrs. Radical Reformer and Co." into their own-as they might otherwise have got fictitious

notes.

We cordially wish that the new Bills may put an end to all these scenes of mischief and folly.

95.

The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists considered: By Bishop Laving ton. With Notes, Introduction, and Appendix, by the Rev. R. Polwhele, Vicar of Manaccan and of St. Anthony. 8vo. pp. 493. and 312 of Introduction. Whittaker.

THE merits of the original Work, and of its learned and Right Reverend Author, have been too long established, to need our commendation; and on the talents or the industry of Mr. Polwhele it would be superfluous to enlarge. He has distinguished himself in various important branches of Literature. As a Topo. grapher, he has daringly explored the mines of Antiquity, as the Historian of two Counties, Devonshire and Cornwall. As a Poet, he bas long and successfully courted the Muses. And in his own more legiti mate profession, as a Divine, his publications have been particularly

valuable.

Of the Volume now before us Mr. Polwhole thus speaks:

"It was about the time of a controversy with Dr. Hawker (which had its origin in some accidental remarks of the Antijacobin Reviewers) that I intended to republish Bishop Lavington's Enthusiasm of Methodism; and but for several circumstances not worth noticing here, I should have carried my design into execution; especially as I possessed a valuable me. moir of Lavington, which had been communicated to me by the late Chancellor Nutcombe and Archdeacon Moore.-Not long since I was reminded of the project by some friends, who were of opinion, that the publication would ⚫ much serve the cause of the Church.'-The coincidence of Warburton's and Lavington's opinions on this subject, is very remarkable. What think you (says Warburton) of our new set of Fanatics, called the Methodists ? I have seen Whitfield's Journal, and he appears to me to be as mad as ever George Fox the Quaker was. These are very fit Missionaries, you will say, to

propagate the Christian Faith among In

fidels.-There is another of them, one Mission. Wesley, who came over from the same He told a friend of mine, that he had lived most deliciously the last summer in Georgia, sleeping under trees, and feeding on boiled maize sauced with the ashes of oak-leaves; that he will return thither, and then will cast off his English dress, and wear a dried skin like the savages, the better to ingratiate himself with them. It would be well for Vir. the and Religion, if this humour would lay hold generally of our overheated bi. gots, and send them to cool themselves in and Webster would make a very entertainthe Indian marshes. I fancy, that Venn ing as well as proper figure in a couple of bear-skins, and marching in this terror of equipage, like the Pagan priests of Hercules of old:

44 4

Jamque Sacerdotes primusque Politius ibant,

Pellibus in morem cincti, flammasqué ferebant.'

See Nichols's Illustrations of Literary

History, vol. 11. pp. 66, 65.

"I tell you what I think would be the best way of exposing these idle Fanaticsthe Printing passages out of George Fox's Journal, and Ignatius Loyola, and Whitfield's Journals in parallel columns. Their conformity in folly is amazing. One thing was extremely singular in Loyola; he be came, from the most modest Fanatic that ever was, the most cold-headed knave, by lished. The same natural temperament, that time his society was thoroughly estabthat set his brains on a heat, worked off the ferment. The case was so uncommon, that his adversaries thought all his fanaticism pretended. But in this they were cer ainly mistaken. The surprising part of

Fanaticism; the Deserted Village; the Belle School; and the Belles turned Biblemongers, or a New Plume for Vanity; a Satiric Sketch,

II. Correspondence; the Bible Society; the Lancasteriau School; the Catholick Question; the Merlin of the Catholicks; Methodism, its bright side; and Bishop Fell."

We shall take an early opportunity of laying before our Readers some interesting notices of Bp. Lavington, and other specimens of the work.

96. Observations on certain Ancient Pillars of Memorial, called Hoar-Stones; to which is added, a Conjecture on the Croyland Inscription. By William Hamper. 4to. pp. 27. Longman and Co.

FOR these "Observations," ou a curious subject, the Publick are indebted to an elegant and skilful Antiquary, who informs us that,

In many parts of Great Britain are to be seen certain upright rude pillars, or massy blocks of stone, which in England are called Hoar-Stones, or by a name of nearly the same sound, with all the gradations of dialectical variety.-Their appellation in Scotland is the Hare-Stane; and amongst our Cambrian neighbours they are known as the Maen-gwyr, and Maen-hir, the first syllable signifying a stone, in the plural Meini-hirion *.

"So remote is their antiquity, that all tradition of the purpose for which they were set up has ceased, and their name has lost its distinctaess; whilst the contrariety of opinion expressed by those writers who have noticed the subject, has raised an additional mist of obscurity around it."

Mr. Hamper divides his elucidation of the subject into three sections, the first of which contains the notices of different Authors, who have incidentally noticed Hoar-stones. These are, Dugdale, Dodsworth, Gough, Hutton, Nichols, an Anonyinous Writer in 1666 (published by Hearne), Sir Walter Scott, and Rowlands.

The second section is "An Exposition of the name of Hoar-stones, whereby is shewn the intention of our Ancestors in erecting them."

The third is, "A list of places, where they occur, or which have been named from them."

Mr. Hamper concludes with a very

"The diversity of opinion amongst Antiquaries relative to the first word on that inscribed Hoar Stone, called Saint Guthlac's Cross, near Croyland in Lincolnshire, is well known. It may be sufficient for the present purpose to refer to Mr. Gough's preface to the History of Croyland Abbey, printed as No. XI. of Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica; where, in addition to two very fanciful sketches, the form of the stone, with its broken top, and the arrangement of its letters, are accurately shewn from a drawing by Mr. Essex.

"As far as Roman Capitals can express the Inscription, which is partly monogrammatic, it stands thus:

ΑΠΟ HANC

PETRA'

GVTHLA CVS H'T SIBI ME TAM.

Bearing in mind that this was 'recut, and the face of the stone smoothed,' about the middle of the last century, and that the top of the letters in AIO were cut upon the fracture, and inclined to the centre of it, (Preface, pp. xv. xvi.) ;' I ventare to conjecture that what is called an I, between the A and the O, is the lower part of a Cross, whose head ranging above the neighbouring letters, would by the breaking of the stone be completely destroyed, whilst they were only partially mutilated.--One difficulty being removed, the Inscription becomes intelligible.

ALPHA OMEGA.

HANC PETRAM GUTHLACUS HABET SIBI METAM. "This connected with the symbol of the

"Sir R. C. Hoare, in his Ancient History of North Wiltshire, p. 113, observes that they are also found in Ireland."

would convey a religious sentiment, something like the following:

Christ the beginning and the end we own; Though Guthlac here has plac'd his Boun

dary Stone."

97. Ormerod's

97.

Ormerod's History of Cheshire. Concluded from p. 532.

THE following interesting sketch of the biography of Sir Peter Leycester will be found in Part 7. p. 461.

"SIR PETER LEYCESTER was born 1613, and completed his education at Brazennose College, under the superintendance of Mr. Samuel Shipton, afterwards successively Rector of Mabberly and Alderley. It appears from his MS additions to his own copy of the Cheshire Antiquities, that he resided at Brasenose in 1631, and the two following years. In 1647 he succeeded his father in the family estate, at the age of thirty-four. The Parlia mentarian party were at this period enjoying the height of their success, and the loyalty of the Leycesters was sufficiently marked to expose him to their resentment. He was accordingly committed to prison in 1655, with several other distinguished loyalists, but for what period does not appear, and forced to compound for his estate by a considerable sum.

"The circumstances of the times, which excluded the active mind of Mr. Leycester from many of the resources of employment or amusement congenial to it were probably the means of directing his attention to genealogical antiquities. His studies appear, in the first instance, to have turned exclusively on the compilation of his own pedigree, and the collection of autient documents from monastic chronicles and other evidences relating to the Earls of Leicester, from whom he believed his ancestors to have sprung. To these succeeded an examination of the deeds of the Grosvenors, Duttons, and other antient Cheshire families with which he was connected by blood. These occu pied him in 1649, when his taste for local antiquities appears to have been completely formed. In the three following years (as far as can be judged from the dates prefixed to the several abstracts of family deeds yet remaining at Tabley), he collected the greater part of the materials for his History of Bucklow Hundred.

"The mode adopted by Mr. Leycester was, either to form a copious abstract, or to take an exact copy of every document possessed by the family, drawing the inost remarkable seals, and writing fac similes of the most antient charters, for which purposes the deeds seem generally to have been intrusted to him. The abstract formed in the bouses of the several families are of a much more slight description. From these documents he drew up his pedigrees, referring, by numbers, to his books and abstracts; and it is observable, that he rarely admits facts which do not appear to be supported by original docuwents within his imediate knowledge,

"In arranging these papers, in forming another collection of additional materials in 1657, and in similar pursuits connected with his own muniments, Mr. Leycester appears to have passed his time until the Restoration. Two months after this event he was elevated to a baronetcy, and his work may be supposed to have slept for a time. The task of collecting was. however, resumed in 1664 and 1666; aud in 1672, when the greatest part of the account of Bucklow Hundred had passed the press, this part of his labour appears to have ended with the examination of the Toft papers. In the following year the entire work was given to the world, in the 60th year of the Author's age, and the 24th from the commencement of compiling.

"A controversy which instantly grew out of the publication, has been noticed in another part of this volume. It continued during the life of Sir Peter Leycester, and from the asperity with which the latter part of it was conducted, and the relationship and neighbourhood of the contending parties, it must doubtless have embittered the later years of an Author whose talents and labours merited an honourable repose.

"Sir Peter Leycester died on the 11th of October, 1678, in the 65th year of his age, and was interred in the family vault at Great Budworth.

"From a miniature now in the pos session of his descendant and representstive, Sir Peter Leycester appears to have had an extremely intelligent and handsome countenance, with a general portly comeliness of aspect, heightened by the effect of the large wig, and the altier costume of Charles the Second. His unpublished MSS. are extremely numerous, but chiefly of a private nature; among them are prayers on almost every occasion, some of which were composed during his imprisonment, characters of some near relations, and schemes of historical reading, eviucing a system of close and com. prehensive study. With these were mingled, charges to juries in his capacity of chairman of the sessions, and other papers of a miscellaneous nature; but nothing appeared to justify the tradition of his having meditated a general History of the County, unless a copy of Booth's pedigrees, which he had enlarged in many instances from original authorities, could be cited as the intended basis of such a work. Considering the period of life when Sir Peter Leycester commenced bis Account of Bucklow, the time it occupied him, and the advanced age at which be concluded, it is not likely that he ever meditated an undertaking which, if exeented with the same progiese, would have - required two centuries to complete it.

For