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but tafte alfo, will be found to be in proportion to freedom, unless the influence of this general law be counteracted by inferior circumstances and accidents, as any general law, either in the phyfical or moral world, may be obferved to be in many particular inftances.

Liberty cannot alone, he allows, or all at once, refine the genius or tafte of mankind; other circumftances must concur, but liberty is ftill the animating caufe, and a total deprivation of it would foon be found to extinguish every spark both of genius and tafte. A people may be free, and yet rough and unpolished in their taste as well as manners; but a nation of flaves muft either difcover no taste at all, or a vitiated and faife one. The rufticity of the antient Romans proves nothing against the happy influence of liberty: but if we confider how fhort a period intervened, from their beginning to study the arts, till they lost their freedom; and reflect, that the defpotifm of their emperors put a fudden and unnatural ftop to farther improvement, it will afford a convincing proof, that liberty is favourable, and arbitrary power unfavourable, to the liberal arts. This our Author endeavours to prove from the beft authorities, and what he advances on the subject will be agreeable to every ingenious Reader.

He gives us a fhort sketch of the growing intercourse which the Romans had with the inhabitants of Greece, of the progress their language made at Rome, and of the importation of the works of Greek writers and ingenious artists, with which Italy was enriched at different times, from the conclufion of the first Macedonian war, till fome time after the birth of Cicero; and fhews, that thefe circumstances must have been favourable for promoting a genuine tafte among the Romans. He likewife endeavours to answer the arguments that may be brought, for the fuperior advantages which tafle is, by fome people, thought to have in an absolute government, from the common opinion about the influence of the protection which Auguftus afforded the Muses.

The laft age of the Republic, he obferves, formed the great writers of the Auguftan age; and nothing can be more abfurd and trifling, he thinks, than to afcribe the merit of the fine writers of thofe times to the patronage of the emperor, or his minifter. They knew well how to make a proper ufe of thofe geniufes who then flourished; but who had been formed in other times, and by conversation with diffe

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rent men. Tafte was at it greatest height in Rome, when Auguftus came to the helm of affairs, and from that moment 'began to decline. It was not all at once, indeed, extinguifhed; human fociety, and the genius of men, muft be polifhed, or made barbarous, by degrees. But as the Romans, from the period when they began to be civilized, had made the most rapid progress in tafte, and, in all probability, would have attained to a far greater degree of perfection, at Teast in some branches, had not the abfolute power of the emperors checked their genius; fo, from the time that a period was put to their liberty, they as rapidly declined, and the fatal effects of the change of their conftitution upon tafte became vifible. Some writers appeared, indeed, in the days of the emperors, of extraordinary merit: they were, however, few in number, and lived not in a period fo diftant from the Ciceronian age, but that we may naturally fuppofe the noble fpirit of that age might have been communicated to them, and the animating genius of liberty not yet altogether extinguished in Roman breafts.

In the feventh Letter our Author continues the fame fubject, viz. the influence of liberty upon tafte, and makes fome obfervations concerning the age of LEWIS XIV. Sufficient reasons, he thinks, may be given for the figure which the French writers of this age make, and will for ever make in the annals of the world, without having recourfe to the influence of the monarch's power, or drawing a conclufion unfavourable to liberty. He endeavours to fhew, that in France, during the reigns of feveral kings preceding LEWIS XIV. the rights of the bulk of the people were enlarged, their underftandings improved by a freedom of enquiry, their fpirits animated, and their tafte made manly and bold by perpetual ftruggles about independence and freedom, both facred and civil: in a word, that a spirit of liberty prevailed, and formed Ithofe geniuses, who flourished when he came to the throne, and during the last years of his father's reign.

In the last Letter he enquires, why England has produced fo many great poets, and no capital painters or ftatuaries. He afcribes the elevated fpirit of British poetry to the genius of the people, and to that of liberty, together with the boldnefs and copiousness of our language; and tells us, that thofe extravagant flights, and that irregularity, which are too confpicuous in fome of the greateft names among the English poets, may be attributed to the want of eftablishments of learned focieties in London.

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"Here then, fays he, we may perceive one reason why our neighbours, with much lefs genius, have excelled us in correctness of taste. They have established in their metropolis, focieties to fuperintend and direct the public approbation, while we have allowed the humours of the people to be the fovereign arbitrator. In dramatic performances, the Pit has always been able to condemn or approve, and this has generally been led by a few; who, without perhaps any other qualification but a larger fhare of brifkness and conceit than the reft, have taken upon them to direct the judgment of the town. The universities, removed at a distance, could not have much influence: in these a foundation might be laid for excelling, by ftudying the originals of all beauty; but when works came to be offered to the town, 'twas found that a claffical spirit was lefs calculated to please, than one more adapted to the taste of a place where no fuch learned focieties were inftituted, and where a different taste prevailed. Were a fociety, like the French academy, established in London, of fuch dignity as to make the most accomplished among the Great, ambitious of being members of it, it could not fail of having a happy influence. Not only would it ferve to promote a good tafte, it would alfo give a fpur to genius, and encourage many people to cultivate talents, which at prefent they neglect. What an additional ornament would fuch a fociety be to the British metropolis! What an honour would it be to its Founder, and to those whofe interest and rank might give them an opportunity of promoting fuch an inftitution! This would make correctness of tafte as much the characteristic of the English writers, as freedom and genius have hitherto been, and foon enable the British muses to become as fuperior to the French in the former, as they are by all good judges allowed to be in the latter."

That England has produced no painters or ftatuaries, whofe productions have been known beyond the limits of their own country, muft arife, our Author fays, from fome cause or other in the circumftances or genius of the People. Such a deficiency, among a people fo remarkable for genius in other refpects as the English, must be owing, he tells us, to moral causes, and not to any natural inability of excelling in a particular art.

The Reformation, he obferves, naturally gave a check to improvements in Sculpture and Painting, by taking away the greateft encouragements and motives to excel in these arts. In Italy,

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at the restoration of politeness and arts, we are told, poets and painters appeared at the fame time:

A Raphael painted, and a Vida fung.

POPE.

"In England, continues he, Spenfer and Shakespear, much greater poets than Vida, were accompanied with no painters of any fame, much lefs able to enter the lifts with Raphael the greatest master of his art, the modern world can boaft of; and ever since the revival of letters and arts, Great Britain hath been left infinitely behind in painting by Italy, and other Roman Catholic countries, while our poets have fung with a nobler fire, and catched the free and manly fpirit of the antients, more perhaps than has been done by thofe of any other country in modern times.

"There are no paffions of the human mind capable of be-ing worked up to greater heights, or of producing ftronger effects, than fuperftition and enthufiafm; hence we may eafily conceive, what an influence the confecrating of ftatues and pictures, as objects of adoration in Roman Catholic countries, must have upon the minds of the people, and for what reafons no pains are fpared, and no expence grudged, to procure pieces of the moft ftriking beauty and expreffion to adorn popifh altars, and to animate the devotion of superstitious votaries. Fact and experience, as well as reafon and theory, confirm this opinion, and naturally account for those ftrong powers of fancy which Roman Catholic painters have difcovered, and for that great encouragement they have met with from the religious. The firft and the laft works of almost all the great masters have been devotional pieces, and done too for fome religious houfe."

The fituation of Great Britain, our Author thinks, has been another reason why fculpture and painting have made fo little progress in this country. Living in an ifland, and almost separated from the reft of the world, the inhabitants of England have been lefs vifited by foreigners of diftinction than thofe of any other part of Europe of equal confequence, and thus have wanted one motive to encourage arts that are ornamental, viz. the vanity of difplaying grand works to ftrangers.

He obferves farther on this head, that the English nobility, and people of fashion, have refided lefs in London, than thofe of the fame rank in other nations have done in the capitals of their different countries. How far this may have been of ad

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vantage to the kingdom in general, or what bad effects may arife from the tafte for living in town, or near it, that has of late prevailed fo much among people of rank and fortune, beyond what it did in former times, he does not pretend to determine whatever bad confequences may flow from this humour in other refpects, it must be allowed, he thinks, to have a natural tendency to improve and polifh the manners of the people, to promote a tafte for what is elegant and fplendid, and to afford the greateft encouragement and opportunities to cultivate the fine arts.

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The Proceedings and Sentence of the fpiritual Court of Inquifition of Portugal, against Gabriel Malagrida, fefuit, for Herefy,. Hypocrify, falfe Prophecies, Impoftures, and various other heinous Crimes: Together with the Sentence of the Lay Court of Justice, paffed on him the 20th Day of September 1761, and publifhed in Lisbon by Authority. Faithfully tranflated from the original Portuguefe. 4to. 2s. Marth.

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N this land of freedom, where every man is at liberty to take his quantum fufficit of religion, and to chufe its qua lity; where opinions unfavourable to all divine inftitutions are broached with impunity, and where the moft illiterate form themfelves into focieties, and affemble to difpute the truth of doctrines revealed from Heaven; we hear of religious perfecutions with horror and with wonder. With us, indeed, religious liberty is manifeftly abufed; it becomes the fubject of dispute with the witling, and of raillery with the profane but even this evil is more tolerable than religious tyranny; for much lefs is to be feared from the fophiftry of the fhallow free-thinker, than from the rage of the infatuated bigot, de

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Odious, however, as perfecution is, in all its circumftances, we cannot fay that we looked upon the death of Father Malagrida either with horror or concern. The deteftable practices of the jefuits, their horrid plots, and dark ing trigues, have rendered them justly obnoxious to people of all perfuafions. · · ··

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Father Malagrida was a jefuit, and by birth a Milanefe. It appears, that he had been the greateft part of his life a mif fionary, in South America; and when he was tried by the Inquifition, he was confiderably advanced in years. The

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