title of poet is not to be granted to persons of Mrs. Carter's temperament; it may be difficult to say what shall be deemed enough ardour of feeling and activity of fancy to substantiate pretensions to this exalted rank, but it is easy to say what should be deemed too little. The following is perhaps the best of the additional poems. " TO THE MEMORY OF Овит. Ост. 13, 1742. ⚫ COULD modest sense with softest manners join'd Attract the due attention of mankind, Unhappy Florio! thy ungentle fate Had ne'er reproached the wealthy or the great. No gen'rous hand thy drooping genius cheared; Tho' by the world abandon'd and forgot, And Virtue sheds the tear which Love denies." pp. 381. There are no memoranda remaining to shew to whose memory these, and the following affecting verses, are addressed. Their meaning, however, is sufficiently obvious, though Florio's real name be not known; and they are too beautiful to be supprest, though probably Mrs. Carter's delicacy would not allow her to publish them.' p. 381. As a writer of letters, in which character Mrs. Carter is now introduced for the first time to the public, she appears highly interesting and respectable. The collection here exhibited to the world includes many productions of her different correspondents, Archbishop Secker, Mr. Pulteney, Miss Talbot, Horace Walpole, &c. few of which are of any particular value. There are two rather fantastical letters to Mrs. C. from the celebrated prodigy of premature learning, J. P. Baratier. The merit, however, of the two following letters, will be a sufficient apology for allowing them so much space in our pages. "MISS TALBOT TO MRS, CARTER. "I have shewn my Lord your letter to me, and I think he is rather of your first opinion about the Ouça voila *, that Epictetus is inconsistent with himself, than of what you afterwards suggest, that his permissions are all ironical. The same inconsistency I suspect you will find, in his sometimes speaking as if he could do every thing by his own strength, and at others bidding us invoke Divine assistance. Experience taught him, Conscience told him at some times, that we are poor helpless creatures, and then he spoke the language of truth: at other times proud purblind Reason, untaught, and unwilling to be taught by Revelation, that we were in a fallen state, supposed us noble and perfect creatures, capable of attaining whatever we would. And, by the way, to creatures fatally fond of all extremes, 'tis so much easier (seems falsely so much more heroic) to root out our passions than to regulate them, that I have seen very good Christian writers run into the absurdities of Stoicism. Whereas to keep carefully the narrow middle path, do diligently our best, own humbly that best to be wretchedly imperfect and faulty, and yet rejoice in the most unbounded hope, and aim continually at the most unlimited improvementthis is the truth and harmony of conduct suited to our nature and state, which Christianity, and its peculiar doctrines alone, can teach and enable us to attain. But these peculiarities were what raised the pride and prejudices of the world against it, and made it to the Greeks, even to Epictetus, foolishness. And as the same principle influences so many moder heathens, I think it cannot but be most useful to point out to them ho strangely blind and inconsistent he was, and what it was that blinded him. as well as them. 66 My Lord says there is a great deal in what you say in your third page in defence of Epictetus, when you suppose that he might enjoy the benefit of a light generally diffused, without knowing distinctly whence it came. Poor Epictetus! I hope it was so. Yet this I must say; had he not been dazzled with the little light he had, and too well satisfied that himself was a luminous body from whence it proceeded, he would have sought more diligently for the true sunshine, and seeking would have found it. If he had approved the Scriptures, you say, why should he not have quoted them? I own 1 apprehend he did imitate what he approved in them, the moral precepts; and the doctrines which he both disapproved and despised he did not mention. Still I am more willing to believe that he never did read the New Testament, than that, reading it, so worthy a man should have been unconverted, “Indeed I never meant to speak harshly of Epictetus, for whom my reverence and my pity are equal. But 'tis so much the way of the world to reduce Christianity to a mere moral system (not only consonant with, *The gate is open, i. e. of death. The question was, whether Epicte tus, by this doubtful expression, meant to encourage suicide, contrary to his own principles, and the practice of the best of his own sect, or spoke ironically. + 1 Cor. i. 23. 1 as it is, but) discoverable by mere reason and natural light, that I could not help earnestly wishing to have persons continually reminded in reading his excellent morals, how insufficient and imperfect mere morality is, and how much of his is borrowed, at least, if not stolen, from true Keligion. "I never can think of the immense task you have undertaken without great gratitude to you for so cheerfully going through it, originally, I think, at my request, and rather contrary to your own inclination. But this thought of its having been at first my own suggestion, has made me consider it the more attentively, and will, I own, give me very great and very lasting uneasiness, if this excellent translation, when it appears in the world, is not guarded in such a manner with proper notes and animadversions, as may prevent its spreading a mischief that I tremble to think of. The strict morality of it the infidel will throw aside for impracticable nonsense, but be perfectly satisfied that while it deprives him of the encouragements of the Gospel, it frees him from its terrors; and when such a life as he likes is no longer worth living, Epictetus himself will recommend the pistol. In the mean while, he will parade not a little with the exalted sentiments of Heathenism, and plume himself on the selfsufficiency and independency of man, and the Epicurean in practice will be a Stoic in debate. "It will surely therefore be of use to shew him, that these greatest lights of the heathen world, (I do not include Socrates, who honestly owned that his sublimest notions were such as he had learnt, and wished very earnestly for clearer discoveries) were themselves poor, proud, purblind, wayward creatures; who, when the light of Revelation shone around them, were obstinately stumbling on by their own dark lanthorn. It will be fit to shew them to what precipices this dark lanthorn led to pride, to hard-heartedness, to self-murder:-so far even Epictetus. Had he been indeed religious, he would eagerly have pursued the least glimpse of Revelation; but humility and repentance were mortifying doctrines; and poor Epictetus could steal phrases, and, I think, sentences, from the Bible, and yet continue a proud Heathen. : "Now what I want to see in this edition, is the right reasoning of Epictetus reduced by notes to those true Christian principles which alone can make them firm and sure, and practically useful. He bids us by our own strength root out every passion and feeling implanted in our nature. Christianity teaches us how to obtain that Divine assistance by which we may regulate and surmount them all. Epictetus assures us, that pain and misfortune are absolutely no evils, and that if we feel them at all it is our own fault. Christianity teaches us, that the sufferings of this present time are not to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed *, and that if it be not our own fault, we shall be abundantly rewarded for our patient sufferings. Epictetus treats us like perfect creatures, Christianity like fallen and redeemed ones, and teaches us at once our disease and our remedy. "Many persons will study your book who scorn to look into the Bible: let them therefore be frequently pointed to the true source from whence all they can admire in the other is derived, and from which some passages are plainly taken. *Romans viii. 18. "You do not believe that any but good persons will read this book. Fine gentlemen will read it because it is new; fine ladies because it is yours; critics because it is a translation out of Greek; and Shaftsburian Heathens because Epictetus was an honour to Heathenism, and an idolater of the beauty of virtue. "With the cautions at which I have hinted, the English Epictetus will be a most excellent book, whatever objections 1 have made to the Greek one. There is a warmth and spirit in his exhortations that would do honour to better principles; and this set off with a keenness of wit and gaiety of humour that make him a delightful companion." pp. 129-133. "To MISS TALBOT. "What shall I say to you, my dear Miss Talbot, upon the subject of Epictetus? Though I cannot help, in some instances, entertaining a more favourable opinion of him than you do, the probability which the Bishop of Oxford and you seem to think there may be of his doing mischief, fills me with uneasiness and scruples. You say, indeed, that with proper notes and animadversions, the translation may be an excellent work. But it is surely a dangerous experiment to administer poison to try the force of an antidote. For my own part, I never had the least apprehension that an author who enjoins so strict a morality, who censures even the fashionable vices which fine gentlemen at present consider as mere trifles, and who discovers so deep a sense of religion, could be studied by bad people; or if he was, that the effect would be any other than the convincing them that there was nothing to be gained, though an infinite deal to be lost, by their turning heathens. At present I know not what to think. The Bishop of Oxford and you, I hope, will think for me. The point which gives me the most uneasiness is that detestable 9 voila. And yet how very inconsistent in this article is Epictetus with himself! In an address to his scholars, he expressly bids them wait for God, and not depart unless they had a signal of retreat like Socrates: now Socrates did not kill himself. And in several places I think the upe, &c. means only a natural departure out of life, or a violent death inflicted by others. In passages where the permission seems most plainly given, it is sometimes (if not always) in some ironical way: "Go and hang yourself like a grumbling meanspirited wretch as you are: God has no need of such discontented querulous people as you." But however impossible it may be to vindicate Epic tetus in this particular, do not you treat him a little too severely in some others? Is, "Remember God, invoke him for your aid and protector," and more to the same purpose, the language of one who bids us root out every passion, &c. by our own strength? The Bishop of Oxford has particularly taken notice, that Epictetus asserts the doctrine of grace, and the duty of prayer and thanksgiving to God for his assistance in moral improvement. "Though there is the utmost reason to think that Epictetus, as well as other philosophers since our Saviour, owed much more than they might be sensible of to the Gospel, I find a difficulty in persuading myself that he had ever seen the New Testament, or received any right account of the Christian doctrine. The great number of Christians dispersed about the Roman empire might probably have rendered the New Testament phrases a kind of popular language; and a general illumination was diffused by the Gospel, by which many understandings might be enlightened which were ignorant of the source from whence it proceeded. "If Epictetus had been acquainted with the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles, and approved them, what should prevent his quoting and approving them in the same manner as he does Socrates, Plato*, &c.? If he disapproved them, what possible reason can be assigned for his not warning his scholars against them, as he does with regard to the Pyrrhonists, Academics, &c. It had been happy for him, if instead of rashly and ignorantly censuring the Christians for suffering death from mere obstinacy and habit, he had enquired into the real principles which sup. ported them under it. But it is possible he might be prevented by the character of the Christians, whom the mistaken notions, or the malice of their enemies, charged with the most shocking crimes. This appears from the Apologies of Athenagoras, and others afterwards, and it is probable they might lie under the same wicked scandal in the time of Epictetus. After all, if he had read the New Testament, is it not strange that he should never once mention our Saviour, nor, as far as I can recollect, make any the least allusion to any of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity? "It is a secret to myself if I have by a long intimacy with Epictetus contracted any such fondness for him as to give me any unreasonable prejudice in his favour. I entirely agree with you in thinking him greatly inferior to Socrates; but I do not see sufficient reason to reduce him to a level with our modern Heathens. But however we may disagree in some particulars about Epictetus, I entirely approve the pointing out in the notes the absurdity of many of the principles, and the infinitely superior excellence of the Christian doctrines. I am extremely obliged to the Bishop of Oxford and you for the admirable remarks you have been so good as to send me, and which, if the book is ever published, will make the most valuable part of it." pp. 134-137. As specimens of a very different manner, we shall also insert the following passages from some of Mrs. C.'s letters. from her "It has yet been fair to-day, but I fear will not continue so. However, I must be cauticus of uttering my conjectures here, (at Wingham) where I already pass for more than half a witch. Mrs. -was lately told by somebody in the village, that a very cunning gentlewoman had foretold all the bad weather we have had this summer, and likewise that there would be a worse storm before the end of it. Poor Mrs. long acquaintance with me, was far enough from suspecting that I could be the person characterized by the name of a cunning gentiewoman, till hearing this Cassandra lived at Deal, she was led into further enquiries, which fully proved the charge against me. From my foretelling a storm, it will be a mighty easy and natural transition to my raising it; so upon the whole, it seems to be well for me, that the repeal of the Witch Act will suffer me to do it with impunity. There was just such another ridiculous * The pride of the Grecian school might prevent this, since we know from the best authority, that some of the distinguishing tenets of the Christian Religion, as well as the humility and worldly ignorance of most of the founders of it, were to the Greeks foolishness. |