crufaders. Mr. G. oppofes not this gafconade, which Monf. Voltaire treats as it deferves ‡.

John and the Pope quarrel about an archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton; and England is put under an interdict. John draws on himfelf his fubjects' hatred by his arbitrary taxations, &c. He pillages the monks, forbidding all applications to the fee of Rome, while himfelf fervilely flatters the Pope !-He pushes the barbarity of the foreft laws to excefs, corrupts the ftream of juftice, &c. The Pope abfolves all his fubjects from their oath of allegiance, and publifhes a crufade against him, His enemics in England, Ireland, France, Scotland, and Wales, are roused.

The Pope gives the crown of England to Louis prince of France, although Mr. G. ingenuously owns that Blanche, prince Arthur's fifter, the emperor Otho, or the king of Caftile, had a better right to it.

Philip, by his influence over Bretagne, &c. forms a fleet of 1700 vellels, little better than flat-bottomed boats, for invading England. Of this fleet the English took 300, funk 100 more, and forced Philip to burn the remainder.

And now two formidable leagues, which divided Europe, were formed. John of England, the emperor Otho, and the counts of Flanders and Boulogne compofed one; Philip of France, the emperor Frederic II. and the Pope the other.

Philip, with 50,000 men, beats the emperor Otho, who had 150,000 at Bouvines in Flanders. Philip behaved with great bravery, while John fhewed none againft Louis, about the fame time, but faved himself by flight.-The counts of Flanders and Boulogne were made prifoners, and treated by Philip with great feverity.

John, having fhamefully refigned his crown to the pope, that pontiff reprefents to Philip the impiety of oppofing a vallal of the holy fee, and oppofes the English nobility and clergy with Langton, archbishop of Canterbury (whom the pope had fupported), at their head: who now demand the execution of the laws of Edward the Confeffor, and the great charter of Hen

ry I.

John requires Langton to excommunicate the barons, but he perfuades John to difmifs all his mercenary troops. John then finds himfelt obliged to fign the great charter, and the charter of forefts.

Mr. G. calls thefe the foundation of the English liberty; but we must take leave to contradict him, and affert, that thele were only the confequences and recognitions of the original English confti

In his prolegomena to Charles XII. of Sweden.

tution.

tution. He acknowledges, however, that the victorious barons fhewed, in their fettlement at this time, a pint of uncommon moderation, neither defpoiling the crown of all they could, nor leaving the people without their share of liberty He notes juftly, that at this time, in England the king tyrannized, in France the nobility. He alfo elegantly compares John, thus reduced within due bounds, to a tyger chained.

The known corruption of John's heart made twenty-five confervators of thefe rights abfolutely neceffary, and that corruption rendered all the efforts of the barons ineffectual; for John, finding that the pope's excommunication of the barons and their adherents had no effect, retires to the Isle of Wight, as though he gave up all hopes of re-establishment, and by his emiffaries collects a formidable body of foreign mercenaries, at the head of whom he destroys all before him, like a famifhed tyger broken loofe.

The barons, now offering the crown of England to prince Louis, Philip accepts it for him, and fends them 7000 auxiliaries, as Mr. G. calls them; and, notwithstanding the pope's forbidding him, permits Louis to fail with 700 veffels. At London he receives the oaths of the barons, &c.

Mr. G. fhews a ftrong partiality for his country indeed, when he equals this invafion of Louis to the conquefts of Henry V. Nor does he advance one argument to prove that the discovery of the dying count of Melun, that Louis intended to destroy all the barons who had invited him over, was not a true one. His pretence, that this report might arife from a panic, is ridi

culous.

When our Hiftorian defcribes John as the vileft king of the Norman and Angevin race, he juftly adds, that truth authorifes him; and we beg Mr. G. to allow us to add, that only fo vile a rival could give Philip the title of auguft, which he seems to have obtained merely from comparison.

Mr. G. fhews not his impartiality, when he affirms, only on the authority of a modern author, that if Louis would have owned the pope's fovereignty over England, he might have had the crown which Henry Ill. got.

Louis, befieged in London, after the defeat of the fleet fent to his fuccour, capitulates, and, as many hiftorians maintain, promifes, when he comes to the throne, to restore the provinces in France which John had loft by confifcation. All the reafons which Mr. G. adduces to fhew that Louis never made fuch

Mr. G. owns that the French wanted fome of the reforms effected by these charters. How much they now want almost all of them, and especially the right of being taxed only with their own confent, all friends of liberty fee, with a figh! 7

a pro

a promise, have not the leaft force, except the last, viz. that Henry never accufed Louis of a breach of this promise.

Mr. G. owns, that the title of auguft is only derived from augeo, and blames Philip for twice deferting his great object, "viz. driving the English out of France," firft by his crufade against the Albigenfes, and, fecondly, by his fupporting his fon's idle expedition into England.

Louis VIII. become king by his father's death, wanted not pretences (poor ones indeed) to fall upon the provinces of our minor Henry in France; and profited fo much by the advantages which the tyrannical English miniftry gave him, as to defpoil him of all of them, except a part of Guienne. The French hiftorians (and among them Mr. G.) think that Louis might have driven the English quite out of France, had he not tuffered himself to be diverted from his direct courfe of fuccefs by the lure of conquests in Languedoc, which Amaury de Montfort had thrown out to him, on condition of his defending them against the Albigenfes and the count of Tholoufe. Louis took the cross, got the dyfentery, and died.

Blanche of Caftile, the queen-mother, obtained the regency, during the minority of Louis IX. and was oppofed by all the great lords, the princes of the blood, and the countefs of Flanders; but Blanche had the courage and addrefs to difconcert all their schemes.

Our Henry was too weak to profit by the commotions in France, being a flave to pleasure, and to Hubert de Burgh. However, he was perfuaded by the duke of Bretagne to make a defcent upon that province, but it was fo ill fuftained, that the duke fubmitted to Louis.

Eleanor, Henry's mother, had married the count of la Marche, and perfuaded her fon to make another invasion of France. But Louis having gained the battles of Tailleburg and Saintes, had the honour of pardoning the count and countefs of Marche, and of presenting the terms of peace to Henry at Abbeville, in A. D. 1259. He retained the provinces which his grandfather had confifcated for John's crime, and restored what his father had gained of the minor Henry.

Mr. G. makes a fine eulogium on Louis's politics, as being founded on equity, and a love of peace: in fhort, as being his cwn; and boasts of their happy effects in the continuance of peace, during the remainder of this reign, and the next, in France.

Rapin thinks our Henry was forced to this treaty of Abbeville*, and he certainly was fo. All that Mr. G. has to oppofe to this honeft confeffion of Rapin, is, that Henry could not

* Tom. 2.

hope

hope for more happiness in his faireft fituation. But this is no proof of Mr. G.'s pofition, that Henry willingly acceded to the terms which Louis prescribed.

The truth of the cafe feems plainly this. Philip the August, and his defcendants, either had a right to all the provinces of the English in France, in confequence of John's forfeiture, or to none of them.

Though the poffeffion of fome of these was obtained, during Henry's minority, by Louis VIII. or IX. yet, if the original confiscation was good, Louis IX. had a right to them all; if wrong, to none of them. But this Louis IX, who was made a faint afterwards (and feems to have wifhed for the title), pretended to examine the matter in point of conscience †, and de-termined with that fort of prejudice which moft men have in their own cafes. He kept what he could have no right to, if he had not a right to the whole, and made a merit of what he reftored. Henry was in a bad fituation, ill-ferved, and incapable of acting with firmnefs, and therefore was weak enough to feem, or really to be, pleased with what was left him, and with appearance of gratitude paid his homage as duke of Guienne, renouncing the dukedom of Normandy, alfo Anjou, Maine, Touraine and Poitou.-In fhort, a pretended faint prevailed over a weak debauchee. He is called a bad politician for giving up any thing, by one set of men, and a faint by another!

We thought it our duty to clofe our review of these two volumes, with this honeft state of the cafe of right between two princes of the rival nations, that our Reader, who is (we hope) à cosmopolite, may judge whether Mr. G. does not fometimes remember too well, that the Author of this hiftory of "The Rivalfhip of England and France" is a Frenchman.

[The account of the 3d volume to be given in another article.]

AR T. X.

Pictura Etrufcorum in Vafculis, nunc primum in unum collectæ Explicationibus, et Differtationibus illuflrate, a JOH. BAPTISTA PASSERIO, Nob. Pifaur. Regiarum Academiarum Londinenfis, Olomucenfis, &c. &c. &c. Socio.-Pafferius's Etrufcan Paintings, &c. Vol. I. and II. Romæ 1767 & 1770. Price 4 1. 10 s. per Vol. half-bound,

TH

HIS fplendid publication is to confift of four volumes in folio, two of which are before us. The first volume contains five Differtations, viz. I. Prolegomena. II. Vindicia

+ P. Daniel fays, "Le roi de France avoit toujours des fcruples fur a juftice de la confifcation, faite par fon aicul, des domaines du pere de Fenri.

Etruria.

Etruria. III. De Laribus Etrufcorum. IV. De Re Veftiaria Etrufcorum. V. De Pictura Etrufcorum: together with one hundred plates of Etrufcan vafes, with the paintings upon them coloured after the originals in the Vatican, and fome other mufeums in Italy, with explanations of each plate.

The fecond volume contains one Differtation, De Arcana Etrufcorum Philofophia, and another, De Musica Etrufcorum; with the fame number of plates, and explanations of each plate, as in the former volume.

Since Dempster's Etruria Regali was publifhed in 1723, the learned have been prefented with many volumes of Etrucfan antiquities, tending to illuftrate the origin, hiftory, religion, manners, and arts, of that once great and flourishing people; but none of these works have excited the public attention fo much as that collection which was diawn from the curious and choice cabinet of the honourable Mr. Hamilton at Naples, and of which we have given fome account in the Appendix to the 42d volume of our Review.

In that work, men of tafte, and artifts, were interefted as much as the antiquary; as it exhibited the forms of many fine vafes, ornamented with curious paintings; and fhewed the effects, in some measure, of a fpecies of encaustic painting, eflentially different from modern enamel painting, generally allowed to have been discovered by John Toutin, a French goldfmith, in the year 1632;—the ancient Etrufcan encaustic painting, being of the nature of terra cotta, or burnt earth, perfectly fmooth, firm, and durable, but without any glaffy luftre, according to the defcription of thefe encauftic colours by the learned Bonarota: Licet perfecte fint levigati, non tamen in iis vitreus ille niter elucet; and the French enamel painting being of the nature of glass, and never efteemed perfect in its kind, unlefs all the colours are vitrified, and fhine with a glaffy fplendor.

The manner of preparing and applying the old encaustic colours has, it feems, been loft for ages. Monf. D'Hancarville fupposes this art had been fo totally loft, even in Pliny's time, that nobody could imitate it; and it is chiefly with a view to its revival that Mr. Hamilton's book, as well as the work before us, have been publifhed: both containing ingenious conjectures on the fubject, which may furnish ufeful hints to the prac

tical artist.

Men of tafte have always been difgufted with the unnatural varnish of paintings; and would rejoice to fee any method of rendering them at the fame time chafte and durable. The ancient encaustic paintings have two excellent properties, which unite in ro other fpecies of painting-They reprefent objects with truth and fimplicity, without dazzling the eyes with falfe lights; and the Etrufcan vafes amply prove them to be literally