To Hift'ry gave a philofophic air, And made the intereft of mankind her care; Hail to thee, Britain! hail! delightful land! Tho' RAWLEIGH's piercing eye that world furvey'd With fweet atonement for his leffer faults. D In In following years, when thy great name, NASSAU! Though his rough Language hafte and warmth denote, Tho' critic cenfures on his work may fhower, Nor fhalt thou want, RAPIN! thy well-earn'd praife; Thy Sword, thy Pen, have both thy name endear'd; Already, pierc'd by Freedom's fearching rays, Think not, keen Spirit! that these hands prefume Thefe hands! which, if a heart of human frame Would shield thy Grave, and give, with guardian care, But Public Love commands the painful tafk, As Afia's foothing opiate Drugs, by stealth, While = While the keen cunning of thy hand pretends Our hearts more free from Faction's Weeds we feel, Thy Hift'ry rambles into Sceptic rage; A HAMPDEN'S Virtue, and a SHAKESPEAR'S Muse. Fond of the theme, and narrative with age, This noble Neftor of th' Hiftoric field.' To point out, to Readers of tafte, the mafterly touches of the pencil and the strength of colouring that are obfervable in these, and indeed all his portraits, would be needlefs. The characters of Hume and Clarendon are of peculiar excellence. The comparison between the labours of the latter hiftorian and -The proud glories of fome Gothic pile is fingularly happy. He avoids entering into the merits of any living hiftorian, for reasons that are obvious. In the laft Epiftle, the Author, confining himself more clofely to his fubject, confiders the fource from whence are derived the chief defects of hiftory. These are vanity, national and private flattery, party spirit, fuperftition and falfe philofophy. The influence of national vanity is exemplified in the application of prodigies and portents to the purposes of history. To feize this foible, daring Hift'ry threw Illufive terrors o'er each scene she drew; Her voice delighted to condenfe the ftorm; With fhowers of blood th' aftonish'd earth to drench, In horror's veil involve her plain events, And shake th' affrighted world with dire portents. To win the easy faith of Public Pride: D 2 Her Her tow'ring head, towards Olympus toft, In a note on this paffage, Mr. Hayley obferves, there is a curious treatise of Dr. Warburton's on this fubject, which is become very scarce; it is entitled, "A critical and philofophical "Enquiry into the causes of prodigies and miracles, as related by "Hiftorians, with an Effay towards reftoring a method and "purity in Hiftory." It contains, like most of the compofitions of this dogmatical Writer, a ftrange mixture of judicious criticism and entertaining abfurdity, in a ftyle fo extraordinary, that I think the following fpecimens of it may amufe a Reader who has not happened to meet with this fingular book.-Having celebrated Raleigh and Hyde, as writers of true hiftoric genius, he adds: "Almost all the reft of our Hiftories want Life, Soul, Shape, and Body: a mere hodge-podge of abortive embryos and rotten carcafes, kept in an unnatural ferment (which the vulgar mistake for real life) by the rank leven of prodigies and portents. Which can't but afford good diverfion to the Critic, while he observes how naturally one of their own fables is here mythologized and explained, of a church-yard carcafe, raifed and fet a frutting by the inflation of fome hellifh fuccubus within." He then paffes a heavy cenfure on the antiquarian publications of Thomas Hearne; in the clofe of which he exclaims-" Wonder not, Reader, at the view of these extravagancies. The Hiftoric Muse, after much vain longing for a vigorous adorer, is now fallen under that indifpofition of her fex, fo well known by a depraved appetite for trafh and cinders.” -Having quoted two paffages from this fingular Critic, in which his metaphorical language is exceedingly grofs, candour ob We apprehend the emphafis is improperly thrown upon the last fyllable: analogical propriety, as well as general cuftom, pointing out a different mode of pronunciation than that which is here adopted. In all prepofitions, compounded as this is, the emphafis is univerfally laid on the first fyllable; and the reafon feems to be, that the word, when thus compounded, takes its peculiar and determinate meaning from that fyllable. Forward, onward, upward, downward, backward, &c. or, as they are alfo written, forwards, onwards, &c. ; to these may be added alfo, froward and toward, in their moral acceptation. A liberty of the fame kind has been taken with another word, about which, indeed, writers are more divided. And blazons virtue in her bright record. E. I. 1. 96. I. l. 117. Would thus pollute the records of our ifle. E. III. 1. 328. Analogy and cuftom in this inftance feem to be at variance. Whichever authority is preferred, we think it should be adhered to; for a writer to use different modes of pronunciation promiscuously, adds much to the confufion and uncertainty of language.. 8 liges me to transcribe another, which is no lefs remarkable for elegance and beauty of expreffion. In defcribing Salluft, at one time the loud advocate of public fpirit, and afterwards fharing in the robberies of Cæfar, he expreffes this variation of character by the following imagery:-" No fooner did the warm afpect of good fortune fhine out again, but all those exalted ideas of virtue and honour, raifed like a beautiful kind of froft-work, in the cold feafon of adverfity, diffolved and difappeared." The manly ftrain of virtuous indignation which breaks out in the following paffage merits at this time particular attention: it is fuch as every one must join in, who is not actuated by the fame mean and contemptible fervility which it is intended to reprobate. But arts of deeper guile, and baser wrong, To Adulation's fubtle Scribes belong : Steal from the buried Chief bright Honour's plume, Towards the conclufion, he pays a very juft and elegant compliment to Mr. Gibbon, not without a fevere cenfure on his polemical opponents. The irreligious fpirit, however, of his friend's writings he by no means defends or approves: he has hinted at it with a delicacy of reproof that is likely to ope * Nor hope to ftain, on base Detraction's fcroll, A Tully's morals, or a Sidney's foul!] Dion Caffius, the fordid advocate of defpotifm, endeavoured to depreciate the character of Cicero, by inferting in his History the most indecent Oration that ever difgraced the page of an Hiftorian. In the opening of his 46th book, he introduces Q. Fufius Galenus haranguing the Roman fenate against the great ornament of that affembly, calling Cicero a magician, and accusing him of proftituting his wife, and committing inceft with his daughter. Some late hiftorical attempts to fink the reputation of the great Algernon Sidney, are fo recent, that they will occur to the remembrance of almost every Reader. D 3 rate |