ly circulated, it became public in 1746, to the chagrin and diffatis faction of the author. Mr. Huffey bore the fevere attack with great forbearance; but the Hibernian fpirit was roufed by the illiberal fatire against the whole nation : "Nature indeed denies them fenfe ; But gives them legs, and impudence, and feveral Irish gentlemen in London feem to have entered into a combination to challenge the author. To avoid a fucceffion of duels, by the advice of his friends, he prudently retired into Monmouthshire, though he did not himself entertain ferious apprehenfions of danger*. These facts are principally drawn from a Letter written to him by his friend Mr. Fox, which is preferved in the collection at Pont y Pool. War-Office, Sept. 6, 1746. "My dear Sir Charles, "You may well wonder I have not wrote to you, but I have thought fo much about the scrape your last ode has been like, and may fill be like to draw you into, that I could not write without endeavouring to inform you of the truth, and have not yet been able to get at the truth of the various reports that have been made about it. What is certain, I believe, is that Huffey came to Holland house to enquire for you fome hours after you went. You know I thought it natural that he might expoftulate with you about it; but as he actually fet out for Ireland laft Sunday to lay at leaft till May, 1 thought it certain, and still think that re entinent must drop and be forgot. But it has been too strongly to have no ground reported, that the Irish (to fhew they have und. rtandings) have determined to make an i reconcileable quarrel of it; and that a dozen or fourteen had entered into mutual promifes, that the first who met fhould affront you; and farther, that one Mr. Mervin had promifed Mr. Huffey to be his proxy in the quarrel as foon as you should come to town. You may laugh at al this; but I do affure you at the fame time, that every body ridicules and condemns it. Your ferious friends, and I in the first place, think it puts you in a difagreeable fituation, and I am heartily and exceffively concerned about it. Lord Harrington will talk to Dumville about it, and thinks as I do, and other pains will be taken to bring these gentlemen to better fenfes than their own; and I flatter myfelt that it fubfides, and the ridicule of making a perfonal quarrel of a national reflection, must be acknowledged. I have heard too, that Mr. Mervin fays his asking for you at White's was as Mr. Huffey's meffenger, not on his own account. "But I ftill think you will run rifque of being affronted, though the abfurd engagement to challenge you they will be afhamed of; and what good telling you all this does, I don't know. But you can't imagine how very uneafic I have been, and fhall be about it, till I am fure 'tis all over,”! His abfence, and the intervention of friends, cooled the anger of thofe whom his fatire had provoked, gave them time to reflect on the abfurdity of converting a national into a perfonal quarrel, and their caufe was justly avenged by fome counter lampoons, which vied with his own fprightlines and wit*. In 1746 he was inftalled Knight of the Bath, and foon after his return to London, appointed envoy to the court of Drefden; a miffion which his lampooners imputed to cowardicet, but which he attributes to a nobler motive; his affliction for the death of his friend Mr. Winnington, which threw him into a temporary fit of deep melancholy, and confiderably affected his health. An Epitapht which he composed to his memory, is written with much feeling, and a Letter to Sir Thomas Robinson on that event, does honour to his friendship. "I am here a good deal retired, and in a melancholy way, which I have been in ever fince the death of my friend Mr. Winnington, in whom my country loft an useful citizen, and the man upon earth I loved the best. 'Twas upon his death I begged the king to fend me abroad, and refigned a very profitable employment to come out of a country where I miffed an object that I efteemed and honoured very highly, and where every thing daily put me in mind of him. When he dy'd he had much the belt intereft of any man in England with the king; and had three times in one day returned the Chancellor's of the Exchequer Seal into the king's hand, who wou'd fain have forc'd it upon him; but he was fteady to his friends, and the cause in which he had embark'd, and proof against the temptation of power itself§." "The votary of wit and pleasure was inftantly transformed into a man of business, and the author of Satirical Odes penned excellent difpatches. He was well adapted for the office of a foreign minister, and the lively no less than the folid_parts of his character, proved ufeful in his new employment: flow of converfation, fprightlinefs of wit, politeness of demeanour, cafe of addrefs, conviviality of difpofition, together with the delicacy of his table, attracted perfons of all defcriptions. He had an excellent tafte for difcriminating characters, bumouring the foibles of thofe with whom he negociated, and coneiliating those by whom the great were either directly or indirectly governed. In 1749 he was appointed, at the exprefs defire of the king, to fucceed Mr. Legge as Minitter Plenipotentiary to the Court of Berlin; but in 1751 returned to his embaffy at Drefden. During his refidence at thefe Courts, he transacted the affairs of England and Hanover with fo much addrefs, that he was dispatched to Petersburg, in a time of "Stop, ftop, my fteed, hail Cambria, hail," &c. "Who's that, what, Hanbury the lyric," &c. "Think you because you basely fled To Saxony to hide your head, On Odes you ftill may venture?" &c. "Near his paternal feat, here buried lies," &c. § Grantham Papers. Drefden, July 10, N. S. 1747." critical sritical emergency, to conduct a negociation of great delicacy and importance." We reluctantly omit the particulars of his minifterial fituation, which are related in a very interefting manner. He retained his office of ambaffador till the year 1757, but latterly with fo much fatigue and vexation, from the nature of the bu finefs, that he fulici ed his recal. At the mutual defire of his own Court and that of Pruffia, he remained a few months longer at Petersburg, but "all his efforts proved unfuccefsful, and the Emprefs coalefced with Auftria and France. In the midft of this arduous bufinefs his health rapidly declined, his head was occafionally affected, and his mind diftracted with vexation; the irregularities of his life irritated his nerves, and a fatiguing journey exhaufted his fpirits. "Soon after his arrival at Hamburgh, in the autumn of 1757, he was fuddenly fmitten with a woman of low intrigue, gave her a note for 2,cool. and a contract of marriage, though his wife was ftill living; he alfo took large dofes of ftimulating medicines, which affected his bead, and was conveyed to England in a state of infanity. During the paffage, he fell from the deck into the hold, and dangerously bruifed his fide; he was blooded four times on board, and four times immediately after his arrival in England. In a little more than a month he recovered, and pafled the fummer at Coldbrook-Houfe. From this place he wrote a letter to his friend Mr. Keith, which proves the calm ftate of his mind, and breathes the warmth of paternal affection : By a letter which I wrote to Baron Wolfe fome time ago, and which I don't doubt he fhewed, you have been informed already of the wretched ftate of my health, both at Hamburgh and fince my return to England. But I am now as perfectly well as ever I was in my life, and improving this charming place, where I hope to see you one day, to talk over things that nobody but you and I in England underftand. My beloved Lady Effex, who I affure you has a true friendship for you, and who I believe efteems you as much as any man in the world, who is not of her own family, will I hope be very foon here to pafs away the beft part of the fummer with me; I leave you to imagine my happinefs in feeing her, to behold what I love much the beft in the world, endowed with every exterior charm, and an infide that at least equals her beautiful perfon. Her knowledge of the court and of the world is prodigious. She has many acquaintance among her own fex, and two of the most exemplary women we have in England for her friends, I mean Lady Catherine Fox, and the Countess of Dalkeith. She is diftinguifhed more than any woman that comes to Court by the King; and for good breeding and good fenfe, has hardly her equal in England. But one thing, which perhaps you don't know about her is, that the fhines full as much in the character of a good housewife, as fhe does in that of a fine lady; and all the accounts of my Lord's eftates, and the expences of his house, are neatly kept in books by her own hand. In fhort, fhe has exceeded all my hopes, and requited my fondeft wishes about her; and I will not imagine this defcription to be tedious to you, because I am sure the friend will feel and read with pleasure, what the father feels with tranfport, and writes with truth." "Towards the latter end of 1759, he relapsed into a ftate of infanity, and expired on the 2d of November, aged 50. "His official difpatches are written with great life and fpirit; he delineates characters with truth and facility; and defcribes his diplo matic tranfactions with minuteness and accuracy, but without tediousnefs or formality. The verfes of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams were highly prized by his contemporaries, and the letters of his friend Mr. Fox, abound with extravagant commendations of his poetical talents; but in pefufing those which have been given to the public, and thofe which are ftill in manufcript, the grea er part are political effufions, or licentious lampoons, abounding with local wit and temporary fatire, eagerly read at the time of their appearance, but little interefting to pofterity.. Three of his pieces, however, deferve to be exempted from this general character; his Poem of Ifabella, of the Morning, is remarkable for ease of verfification, and happy difcrimination of character; his Epitaph on Mr. Winnington is written with great feeling; and his beautiful Ode to Mr. Pointz, in honour of the Duke of Cumberland, breathes a spirit of fublimity, which entitles the author to the rank of a poet, and excites our regret that his mufe was not always em、 ployed on fubjects worthy of his talents. Sir Charles left by his wife two daughters, Frances, first wife of William Anne late Earl of Effex, and Charlotte, who efpoufed the Honourable Robert Boyle Walfingham, youngest fon of the Earl of Shannon, à Commodore in the navy." Such is the nature of this work, in which the student will find various information, and the man of tafte an entertainment congenial to his feelings and purfuits. ART. II. Phytologia, or the Philofophy of Agriculture and Gardening, with the Theory of draining Moraffes, and with an improved Conftruction of the Drill Plough. By Erafmus Darwin, M.D. F. R.S. 4to. 612 pp. l. 11s. 6d. Johnson. 1800. IN N a fhort Introduction, of little more than one page, Dr. Darwin informs his readers, that his object is to attempt a theory of vegetation, deduced principally from the experiments of several eminent perfons, fuch as Hales, Grew, Malpighi, &c. Whoever contemplates the works of nature; whoever attempts to enumerate and to defcribe the multitude of natural objects objects which ftrike the human fenfes on every fide, is unavoidably forced to remark, and to acknowledge, an indefinite gradation of bodies differing in form, power, magnitude, and other properties. But while he admires their variety and their powers, while he endeavours to comprehend their ftructure and their dependence, he seeks in vain for the beginning, and for the end of the feries; he attempts, without effect, to discover any precife limits between its parts; for who can perceive and defcribe the primitive particles of matter, or who can say which is the most complicated body of the creation? Where is the real limit between animals and vegetables, and which is the philofophical diftinction between the human and the inferior species? Yet human industry has attempted, with useful effect, to dif tinguish the animal from the vegetable, and thefe from other objects; has fubdivided each of thofe grand divifions into leffer parts, and has affigned to each certain characteristic distinctions, which render the attainment, and the communication of natural knowledge, eafy and determinate. But those artificial diftinctions of an uninterrupted feries are unavoidably defective, fince they prefcribe limits to what has no known limits; they define what is incapable of any precife definition. Hence, between the bordering limits of any two contiguous claffes or divifions, fome equivocal objects do neceffarily exift, and which may be faid to belong to either of the claffes, or to none. Hence alfo is derived an inexhaustible fource of difpute, of declamation, and of pedantic remarks. But whoever withes to preferve order and perfpicuity, whoever is a true lover of knowledge, will naturally ftrive to adhere to the fcientific diftinctions, as being the only means of rendering ourfelves intelligible; and will, at the fame time, avoid all such equivocal words, or ftrained meanings and expreffions, as can only be productive of doubt and confufion. The author of the work, which is at prefent under our examination, has evidently paid little attention to the abovementioned neceffary precaution; nor is this defect compenfated by an adequate quantity of new matter, or useful knowledge. We fhall, however, as far as it is in our power, endea vour to lay before our readers fuch paffages, and fuch remarks, as may enable them to form an adequate idea of the work; giving first a general view of its contents. This work is divided into three Parts, the contents of which are as follows: Part I. Phyfiology of Vegetation. Sect. I. Individuality of the Buds of Vegetables. III. Their Umbilical Veffels, Sect. |