fpend the night there, and to ftay fome days with them; but this we could not do, fo they led us about their houfe, which is, you must think, like a little city; for there are 100 fathers, befides 300 fervants, that make their clothes, grind their corn, prefs their wine, and do every thing among themselves: the whole is quite orderly and fimple; nothing of finery, but the wonderful decency, and the ftrange fituation, more than fupply the place of it. In the evening we defcended by the fame way, paffing through many clouds that were then forming themfelves on the mountain's fide *** 3 In a subsequent letter to Mr. Weft he says: In our little journey up to the Grande Chartreufe, I do not remember to have gone ten paces without an exclamation, that there was no reftraining: not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry. There are cer tain fcenes that would awe an atheist into belief, without the help of other argument. One need not have a very fantastic imagination to fee fpirits there at noon-day: you have death perpetually before your eyes, only fo far removed, as to compole the mind without frighting it. I am well perfuaded St. Bruno was a man of no common genius, to choofe fuch a fituation for his retirement; and perhaps fhould have been a difciple of his, had I been born in his time." In his return from Italy Mr. Gray made a fecond vifit to this monaftery, and there wrote in the Album of the Fathers the following beautiful Alcaic Ode:: Oh Tu, feveri Religio loci, Quocunque gaudes nomine (non leve Numen habet, veterefque fylvas; 1 Da placidam juveni quietem. Vetat volentem, me reforbens The editor obferves, VOL. XXXIX. June, 1775" ・ ..That That this ode is marked with all the finest touches of Mr. Gray's melancholy mufe, and flows with fuch an originality of expreffion, that one can hardly lament he did not honour his own language by making it the vehicle of this noble imagery and pathetic fentiment.' The third fection comprehends the letters which paffed between Mr. Gray and Mr. Weft, after the return of the former from Italy, to the death of the latter, during an interval of fomething more than two months. This correspondence turns chiefly on subjects of literature and their claffical studies; and contains, among other poetical pieces, the fragment of a tragedy, which Mr. Gray had attempted on the death of Agrippina; and an elegant ode by Mr. Weft, on the Approach of May. The series of letters, which the editor has felected for the fourth fection extends from the year 1742 to 1768, when Mr. Gray was made Profeffor of Modern Hiftory. His corre fpondents are Dr. Wharton of Old Park, Mr. Walpole, Mr. Mafon, Mr. Stonhewer, Mr. Beattie, &c. In these letters the author makes fome occafional animadverfions on the works of feveral eminent writers. We shall lay before our readers his obfervations on Akenfide's Pleasures of Imagination, Shaftesbury's Characteristics, and the Poems of Offian.-Speaking of the firft, he says: This poem feems to me (though I have rather turned it over than read it) above the middling; and now and then, for a little while, rifes even to the beft, particularly in description. It is often obfcure, and even unintelligible and too much infected with the Hutchinfonian jargon. In fhort, its great fault is, that it was published at least nine years too early. And fo methinks in a few words à la mode du Temple,' I have very pertly dispatched what perhaps may for feveral years have employed a very ingenious man worth fifty of myfelf.' The editor fubjoins this remark: From the pofthumous publication of Dr. Akenfide's poems, it should feem, that the author had very much the fame opinion afterwards of his own work, which Mr. Gray here expreffes; fince he undertook a reform of it, which must have given him, had he concluded it, as much trouble as if he had written it entirely new.' "One of the letters to Mr. Stonbewer contains the following humorous and fatirical remarks on lord Shaftesbury's Characteristics. • You fay you cannot conceive how lord Shaftesbury came to be a philofopher in vogue; I will tell you: firft, he was a lord; zdly, he was as vain as any of his readers; 3dly, men are very prone prone to believe what they do not understand; 4thly, they will believe any thing at all, provided they are under no obligation to believe it 5thly, they love to take a new road, even when that road leads no where; 6thly, he was reckoned a fine writer, and feemed always to mean more than he faid. Would you have any more reafons? An interval of above forty years has pretty well deftroyed the charm. A dead lord ranks but with commoners: vanity is no longer interested in the matter, for the new road is become an old one, The mode of free-thinking is like that of Ruffs and Farthingales, and has given place to. the mode of not thinking at all; once it was reckoned graceful, half to discover and half conceal the mind, but now we have been long accustomed to fee it quite naked: primnefs and affectation of ftyle, like the good breeding of queen Ann's court, has turned to hoydening and rade familiarity. Mr. Gray appears to have been a warm admirer of the poems of Offian, and to have taken fome pains to make himTelf believe their authenticity. In a letter to Dr. Wharton, in 1760, he thus expreffes himself on this subject; Mr. Stonhewer has probably told you of my old Scotch (or rather Irish poetry), I am mad about them. They are faid to be tranflations (literal and in profe) from the Erfe tongue, done by one Macpherson, a young clergyman in the Highlands... I was fo ftruck with their beauty, that I writ into Scotland to make a thousand enquiries; the letters I have in return are ill swrote, ill reafoned, unfatisfactory, calculated, one would imagine, to deceive, and yet not cunning enough to do it cleverly, In short, the external evidence would make one believe thefe fragments counterfeit; but the internal is fo ftrong on the other fide, that I am refolved to believe them genuine, Spite of the devil and the kirk. It is impoffible to conceive, that they were written by the fame man that writes me these letters: on the other hand, it is almoft as hard to fuppofe, if they are ori, ginal, that he should be able to tranflate them fo admirably. In hort, this man is the very dæmon of poetry, or he has lighted on a treasure hid for ages In this extract we have diftinguified, by the Italic character, fome expreffions, which an accurate and elegant writer would cor rect. The author perhaps might have faid with more propriety My fragments of old Scotch, or rather Irish, poetry I wrote into Scotland' the letters are ill-written, illogical' in fpite of the devil he has difcovered a treasure.'-In short occurs twice; in the former paffage it is fuperfluous. Before we finish this note, we hall take the liberty to mention two or three small inaccuracies in the annotations of tlie learned editor: for little spots are eafily seen in beautiful bodies. They will be acceptable to such ingenious youths, who have a relish for the fame ftudies, p. 5.-The house was obliged to be fold, p. 120. Ifhould do them injuftice, if I was more fcrupulous, p. 190. The principal teftimony, which Mr. Gray has produced; in favour of the Erfe Fragments, is a letter from Mr. David Hume, in which he affirms, that thefe poems are in every body's mouth in the Highlands, have been handed down from father to son, and are of an age beyond all memory and tradition. Yet notwithstanding this external evidence, an Irish writer afferts, that the poems in queftion abound with the ftrangeft anachronisms: for inftance, that Cucullin lived in the firft, and Fingal in the third century; two princes, who are faid to have made war with the Danes, a nation never heard of in Europe till the ninth; which war could not poffibly have happened till 500 years after the death of the fuppofed poet, who fings it.-The truth of the matter, we believe, is this, they are neither the entire productions of antiquity, nor the inventions of a modern Scotchman; but a mixture of both, fabricated out of traditionary tales and wandering ballads. The fifth fection contains a small number of letters, written to Dr. Wharton, Mr. Nicholls, rector of Lounde and Bradwell in Suffolk, Mr. Beattie, and Mr. How, from the year 1768, to the 24th of May 1771. The chief part of this correfpondence confifts of an entertaining journal of a tour, which he made in 1769 through Weftmoreland, Cumberland, and part of Yorkshire. Befides the poetical fragments interfperfed through the foregoing letters, this volume contains all the author's poems, which were published under his own inspection in 1768, and the following pieces, which have not appeared in any former collection of his works: viz, The Death of Hoel, from the Welch; a Sonnet on the Death of Mr. Weft; inferted in our laft number; an Epitaph on Mrs. Clarke; an Epitaph on Sir William Williams, who was killed at the Siege of Bellifle, in 1761; and an Ode on the Pleasures arifing from Viciffitude. left unfinished by the author, but completed by the editor with a spirit of poetry, not unworthy of Mr. Gray. His humour 'would be relifhed by fuch of his friends, who thought this defect not only pardonable but entertaining, p. 213.—If an epic poet was to refolve to finifh every part of his work, p. 234.·Had I not found his lines as high finished, as they would have been, P 235-Had Mr. Pope fat, p. 284. This would be expreffed clearer, if the term metaphorical FIRES was rejected. p. 110. These remarks may be confidered by fome readers, as the nibblings and minutie' of verbal critics. But those who have a proper regard for their native language, will think them not unworthy of attention. The author may chew on them at his leifure' See O Halloran's Introd, to the Hift. of Ireland. 1 V. The Art of delivering Written Language; or, an Effay on Reading. In which the Subject is treated philofopbically as well as with a View to Practice. 800.43. boards. Dodfley. T HIS effay is an attempt to investigate the true principles of the art of fpeaking; to confider the fubject, à priori, analytically and philofophically. The author has therefore chiefly confined his views to abftra&t reafoning and general precepts; very feldom illuftrating what he has advanced by examples. His firft and fundamental propofition, is this: that the warmth and energy of our delivery in reading ought to be inferior to that of speaking, upon fubjects, in which we are immediately concerned. If, fays he, we obferve, the deliveries natural to thefe two fituations, we fhall find, that the latter may be accompanied with every degree of expreffion, which can manifeft itfelf in us, from the loweft of fympathy to the moft violent and energetic of the fuperior paffions; while the former, from the speaker's chief bufinefs being to repeat what he heard with accuracy, discovers only a faint imitation of thofe figns of the emotions, which we fuppofe agitated him, from whom the words were firft borrowed,' This propofition our author endeavours to confirm by reafon and experience. His argument from reafon supposes, that if a reader perfonate an author, he commences a mimic, which in cominon reading would be an impropriety. With respect to experience he obferves, that nature invariably manifests herself, in these two cafes, in two different ways. In his argument from reafon, he does not feem to confider, that it is very poffible for a reader to perfonate an author, without becoming what may be properly called a mimic. A mimic is a perfon, who imitates the peculiarities of another, in order to excite laughter. But in the cafe before us, the reader, when he perfonates the author, aims only to deliver his inftructions in a more lively manner, as the author himfelf, fuppofing him a correct speaker, would have delivered them viva voce. And the nearer he approaches to this mode of expreffion, the more natural and efficacious his delivery. The author proceeds to treat of accent, emphasis, modu lation, expreflion, pauses, &c. The fubftance of what he has advanced is included in the following fummary view of his conclufions, forming what he calls a definition of reading. 6 Reading is the art of delivering written language with propriety, force, and elegance. Where (as in fpeaking) the pronunciation of the words is copied after the polite and Kk 3 learned |