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for a market will not be then practicable, the recourfe of Queenhithe and the remainder of Fleet-ditch, will then be of little avail, as they may not be attained with the like facility as heretofore, and may be many days acquiring, what is now attained in a few hours: these are fenfible obftacles, and have been well confidered between the two lower Bridges, by a very judicious referve, and intimates, that whatever good, if any, may attend thefe embankments, the ancient convenience of inlets, for the repofe of the craft out of the main ftream, is more than a counterpoife, and I think if that were the only reason, embankments may not be permitted.'

Without extending our reviewing powers to the River Thames, the object in question, it may be remarked, that however right the Author of this tract may be in his principles, he is rather too perfonal and farcaftic in many places, to obtain a cordial attention; or not to render his affection fomewhat doubtful.

Art. 43. The Conduct of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Winchester, as Vifitor of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, fully fated with brief Obfervations on vifitatorial Power. Addreffed to his Lordship. 8vo. Is. 6d. Evans, &c. 1770.

As there has been a former publication by Dr. Kent, partly upon the fame fubject, the Author of this pamphlet, acquaints us that he has here accommodated the fubftance of that to his prefent purpofe, that he had liberty to make what ufe he thought proper of that performance, as likewife of other authentic papers relative to the proceedings in queftion. The matter of fact complained of is thus reprefented, that Dr. Walker was amoved from his fellowship by the prefident and fellows of Magdalen College, because he had held, for more than the space of a year, two ecclefiaftical preferments: which (according to his own account) were taxed together in the ancient valors at 37 marks: he appealed to the vifitor, and was restored upon this plea; viz. that beneficium ecclefiafticum being in the fingular number, and he having no preferment, feparately taken, above the value of twenty marks, his fellowship ought not to be confidered as void. The words of the ftatute, in Latin, are then given us at large, after which follows the bishop's letter, or decree, in which he fays, I can easily perfuade myself, that it was not the intention of your founder to permit any of your fellows to enjoy, together with his fellowship, a certain annual income of four or five times the value of it; and could therefore have wished that no appeal fo circumftanced had been brought before me, but as the founder has not declared his intention in exprefs words, and as it has been the conftant rule not to make inferences from ftatutes, which have a difqualifying tendency; and further, as the vifitor is unhappily tied down to a plain, literal, and grammatical conftruction, I think myfelf obliged to determine that Dr. Walker has not been legally amoved from his fellowship; and therefore to decree that he should be restored to it again." It is alfo farther obferved, in this letter, that a change of times, and difference of circumftances, may make it defirable that more fcope had been given to the vifitor, who might then have feen this application in a different light, and have judged accordingly. The bishop concludes with obferving that Mr. prefident and the other

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other gentlemen concerned in the amotion of Dr. Walker, were tom hafty in taking that ftep, without confulting their vifitor.

Any perfon from a general view of the cafe would be led to condude that when the founder of a College had expreffed, that a fellow fhould be amoved from his fellowship, when he became for one year poffeffed of an ecclefiaftical preferment of fuch a value, did certainly: intend, that this rule fhould extend to any number of preferments which together might amount to the ftipulated fum; although in the ftatute he had ufed only the fingular number: but there are cafes in which it may be neceffary to adhere to a literal meaning, and we do not by any means pretend to enter into the merits of the difpute.

This Author pleads that visitors have given different vifitatorial interpretations, full of inferences from every kind of ftatute, and conducive to the well governing of the fociety; that they conidered the whole defign of the founder, and laboured fo to regulate the feveral parts of which it was compofed, as to give order, confiftency and ftability to the whole fyftem, not overlooking the folemn charge he had given them, that his intention fhould be moft ftrictly obferved.

After many fpirited, reflections upon Dr. Walker's cafe, in which the bishop is warmly cenfured; the farther part of this pamphlet is. employed upon a tranfaction fubfequent to it, and which this writer thinks, of a nature more ferious and alarming, Dr. Kent having, we are told, ventured to exprefs his diffatisfaction at the decree in a

r. to his lordship, and which was apprehended to have been done 1 terms difrefpe&ful to his lordship's office and authority, as vifitor, was after fome other measures, cited to appear at Chelfea, to anfwer to certain articles to be objected to him for a contempt of the office and authority of the vifitor, and particularly for writing to the faid vifitor a contemptuous letter dated 18th May." The event appears to have been that Dr. Kent was fufpended from all the emoluments and profits of his fellowship for the space of fix months. This Author hopes he fhall not be cenfured as a forward and petulant. man, if with due refpect to his lordship's ftation and character, he endeavours to mark out, as far as this inftance is concerned, the limits between lawful authority and ufurped power, under which latter clafs he feems to apprehend the proceedings in question are to be ranked. Though there is great appearance of truth and reafon in what is here offered, we can only at prefent recurr to the well known rule in difputed cafes, audi alteram partem.

Art. 44. Effays on the Game Laws, now exifting in Great Britain; and Remarks on their Principal Defects: alfo Proposals for the better Prefervation of the Game in this Kingdom. With a Plan for the "Destruction of Vermin. By a Sportsman. 8vo. 15. Becket.

To hear the clamour that is continually made about game, is enough to make a meer citizen imagine, that to prevent poaching was as important a national concern, as to prevent the running of weol out of the kingdom, or of tea and brandy into it. Whereas it arifes only from the arbitrary view of certain men of fortune, proud. of the noble character of sportsmen, who are ready to move heaven and earth to preferve the exclufive property in a little animal called a

hare,

hare, and in a few fmall birds, for their own tables; when not many perfons would envy them these curious articles, but for the abfurd and edious diftinction established as to the property of animals wild by nature. What can be more illiberal, or more refembling oriental tyranny, than the privilege affumed by these fportsmen, of fporting through a farmer's inclofures, in an eager purfuit of the most timorous animal in nature! at the fame time that the honeft farmer, who incars great lofs by feeding thefe creatures, and whofe fences are torn to pieces at the pleafure of the neighbouring bafhaws, dares not touch One of thefe facred quadrupeds, unless he receives it at the fpecial grace of the hunter, who confiders a favour of this kind as full compenfation for the injuries fuftained by the chafe for a whole feafon. It would be difficult to conceive a scheme more unjust, calculated merely to gratify a truly ridiculous piece of oftentation! and here comes a Nimrod fo fond of extending the penal laws, as to estimate the life of a hare as equal to that of any one of his fellow creatures who is not poffeffed of an hundred pounds a year! This is his propofal :

If it was felony for an unqualified perfon to kill game, there would be as few poachers as there are thieves; and a person who deprives us of what we value more than our domeftic animals, or perhaps any other part of our property, deferves the punishment of a thief.

We appeal to fuch of our readers who value a qualification in the head beyond one in land, whether it is worth while to attempt to reafon with this portfman? It may however be hinted to him, that the more pains fportsmen take to monopolize game, the lefs they will have of it. Many a fine neft of eggs is, by way of revenge, crushed by fplay feet tipt with iron, and many a young hare is worried by farmer's dogs; which all the affociations of fportfmen in England cannot prevent, but which indeed, they rather occafion.

Our Author laments his cafe very pathetically on account of the decrease of game. I am, fays he, an old fportfman, and have feen the game gradually decrease every year;'-we have just above told him the reafon why I hope I fhall not furvive the game of this island, or be obliged to banish myself from my native country to enjoy the pleasures of the chafe in my old age. Poor gentleman! if he must go abroad, he will not meet with better fport than among the Ottawawas or the Tweeghtwees: all the difficulty will be, that as thefe Indians are alfo affociated for the prefervation of their game, and are very tenacious of their hunting grounds, he may find it as difficult to make out his own qualification there, as to difpute theirs.

Our Author's fcheme for the deftruction of vermin, is by a premium for them all over the island at one time: which is fomething like Swift's scheme for extirpating the lues venerea, by a univerfal falivation.

Art. 45. The Night and Moment: A Dialogue. Tranflated from the French of M. Crebillon. 12mo. 2 s. Richardfon and Urguhart.

Love is the fubject of this dialogue, and it exhibits a very just difplay of the licentioufnefs of French manners. The chastity of the expreffion, and the indecency of the fentiments conveyed in it, form

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a contrast to each other. In a language, which cannot raise a bluff in the most innocent, it endeavours to excite the moft diforderly emotions. A capacity which might have been employed with utility to mankind in difcuffing the most important topics, its author has perverted to the unmanly purpose of recommending fenfuality. His work is a proof of his genius, but does no great honour to his under ftanding, or his heart, The English tranflator has not been able to do him entire juftice. In the copy we perceive not that beautiful delicacy which runs through the original, and conftitutes its only merit.

Art, 46. A Soldier's Journal, containing a particular Defcription of the feveral Defcents on the Coast of France last War; with an entertainining Account of the Iflands of Guadeloupe, Dominique, &e. and also of the Ifles of Wight and ferfey. To which are annexed, Observations on the prefent State of the Army of Great Britain. Izmo. 2 s. fewed. Dilly, ke

There is an air of natural fimplicity in this journal, which fhews it to be a genuine production of the hand it profefles to come from: it contains an amuling account of the difficulties which the writer experienced on his enlisting, and being immediately ordered on the detached fervices expreffed in the title. In the relation of thefe expeditions it would be unreasonable to expect other circumftances than were likely to come within the obfervation of a man, who never rose higher in his profeflion than to the rank of corporal.

His concluding remarks relate to the wanton exercise of power by fuperiors in command; and the neceflity a foldier is driven to by the fmallness of his pay, from his being for frequently called out to exercife, and from the extraordinary neatnefs in drefs, required on thofe occafions.

Art. 47. Strictures on Agriculture; wherein a Difcovery of the phyfical Caufe of Vegetation, of the Food of Plants, and the Rudiments of Tillage, is attempted. Addreffed to the Landholders and Farmers of Great Britain and the Colonies. By John Dove. 12mo.

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It is impoffible for the whole itical and aftical families of epithets to give any adequate idea of the abfurdity of this myftical, fophiftical, cabaliftical, enthufiaftical, fantaftical, performance. It is a rhapfody of Hutchinfonian nonfenfe, in which the whole fcience of Agriculture is faid to be comprised in one Hebrew word, and Mofes and the Prophets are afferted to teach farming and grazing in the highest perfection.

Art. 48. The Conspiracy of the Spaniards against the Republic of Venice. Tranflated from the French of the Abbé St. Real. Small 8vo. 2s. 6d. bound. Baldwin. 1770.

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The French original of this work has long been celebrated as a mafterly compofition. This laft tranflation of it is a pretty per formance, and better fuited to the style of the prefent age than the old one of 1675, or even the later verfion of Dr. Croxall.

This remarkable event is the ftory on which the tragedy of Venice Preferved was founded.

Art.

Art. 49. Four Letters from John Phillips of Liverpool to Sir Wil:liam Meredith, on a very recent Occafion. 8vo. 1s, Cowburne at Liverpool. Sold by Bell in the Strand.

John Phillips may doubtless be very arch with his correfpondent, on fome election quarrel; but as the letters are directed to a particular gentleman, it was not perhaps thought neceffary by the writer that any one befide the parties fhould be able to understand them. But then friend Phillips ought to remember that he owes the Monthly Reviewers a fhilling which they paid for thefe four letters, that are not worth an halfpenny to any one but himself."

DRAMA TIC.

Art. 50. The Old Women Weather-wife, an Interlude; as performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. 8vo. 6d. Bladon. There is fomething laughable in this little interlude; in which three venerable females con over, in burlefque ftrains, their prog noftics of the weather, and the figns of the times their aches, their cramps, their twitches, and the tremendous fight of the comet with a fwinging tail,' with which it threatens

To finge the bum of Madam Venus.'

The piece ends with finging and dancing, in character; and the brandy-bottle is introduced with this wife reflection, that When the horrors grow too ftrong, There's nothing kills 'em like a fong."

And that

When fong and dance will not prevail,
And all your wife prefcriptions fail,-
Af fuch a time, 'tis very handy
To have, hard by, a little brandy.'

SER MON S.

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I. The Release of Barabbas; or, the Caufes of popular Clamour and Difcontent confidered. In a Discourse on St. John, ch. xviii. ver. 40. 4to. 1 s. Baldwin. 1770.

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£** It does not with certainty appear that this fermon was ever delivered from the pulpit; although, in p. 2, the folemnity of the day' is mentioned, and Good Friday is referred to, in a note. The Author declaims, with great earneftnefs, against the frenzy of the times, the folly of the weak, the audacioufnefs of the wicked, and the defperate efforts of faction;' and infifts much on the infamous character of Barabbas, who, though guilty not only of fedition but of murder, had the voices and favour of the people, in preference to the holy and beneficent Jefus.-He laments, in his preface, that the clergy have not, as yet, diftinguished themfelves, and fhewn their attachment to government, by their zeal in attempting to expel the common delufion, to give men proper fentiments of their civil and chriftian liberty, and to recal them by the principles of reafon, and the fanctions of religion, to the practice of truth and foberness, &c. Perhaps, however, the clergy fhew their wifdom and prudence in forbearing to interfere in our present political altercations; and especially

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