ART. 32. A Letter to a Friend on the Teft Act. By a Chriftian Believer, Philanthropist, and North Briton. 8vo. Is. Stockdale. London, 1790.

The author, from the fingularity of the title-page, seems to entertain no mean idea of his own abilities; and far be it from us to depreciate them. His letter, however, contains nothing new or convincing on an argument which has engaged fome of our beft writers. And we take our farewell of him by modeftly hinting that, in our opinion, there are a few profeffions in which he might appear more refpectable, and perhaps do more good, than as an author.

ART. 33. A Letter to the Parliament of Great-Britain on the intended Application of the Proteftant Diffenters for obtaining a Repeal of the Corporation and Teft Acts. By a Member of the University of Cambridge. To which is added a genuine Extract of a Letter from King Charles the Fir to his Son the Prince of Wales, afterwards King of England. 8vo. rs. Rivingtons. London, 1790.

This is one of thofe fugitive publications that never will be read after the period that produced it. We do not fee the propriety of the extract from the Letter of Charles the First, as his authority will go but a fhort way with most readers. The author's own address is a much fuperior performance. He feems mafter of an elegant elocution, and has the decency not to prefume too much on the leisure and patience of his readers,

DIVINITY,

ART. 34. A Sermon, preached in the Cathedral Church of St. Peter York, before the Hon. Sir John Wilson, Kut. one of his Majesty's Juftices of the Court of Common Pleas, on Sunday, July 26, 1789. By the Rev. Matthew Rayne, A. M. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Published at the Request of the Gentlemen of the Grand Jury. 4to. Is. York, printed. Robinfons, London. 1789.

In this elegant little compofition Mr. Rayne takes occafion, from the behaviour of Gallio to Paul, to fhew the impropriety of the civil magiltrate interfering in religious difputes. Gallio, he obferves, before he would attend to any thing on the fubject, inquired whether Paul was brought before him on account of any injuftice or flagrant immorality, in either of which cafes he should think it his duty to give a fair hearing; but,' adds he, if it be a queftion of names and words, and of your law, look ye to it, for I will be no judge in fuch matters.' After a brief historical account of the ftate of the different parties at that time fubfilling at Corinth, the author draws a few inferences in favour of the most unreferved toleration, and feems to lament any restraining laws, however obfolete and dormant they may be called, fhould remain in a country fo enlightened as our own. Throughout the whole of the fermon the most liberal and be nevolent fentiments are to be discovered; and whatever ideas we may form of the degree to which the author would extend religious li berty, we are forced to admire the goodness of his heart and the force of his reafoning.

ART.

ART. 35. A Thanksgiving Sermon, occafioned by the happy Recovery of bis prefent Majefty from his late dangerous Indifpofition, preached on April 23, 1789, before the Society of Proteftant Diffenters at Manffield. 8vo. 6d. Bradford: printed for the Author, and fold by Johnson, London, 1790.

By fome accident this fermon escaped our notice when we reviewed the other publications on the late happy occafion.

The author feems to take fo much pains to imprefs his hearers with a just sense of the great importance of his fubject as would make fuch as are ignorant of it doubt its reality. Among other things we have a brief display of the outlines of our happy conftitution, for the benefit of those who may not have made that conftitution their study. This is introduced by a sentence that is either unintelligible, or that remains among thofe difputed points which ought not to have been mentioned in a brief display. After this is got over, we have a hint at the flave trade, the toleration act, and the Hanoverian fucceffion. With all these adjuncts, and a few more, our author has contrived to make out a fermon of nineteen pages.

ART. 36 An Exhortation to all Chriftian People to refrain from Trinitarian Worship. 12mo. 4d. Johnson. London, 1789.

By the price and ftyle of this book we conceive it is intended for the ufe of the poor. In our little judgement, the poor may be better employed than in the study of polemical divinity. Let unitarians convince them, by their fuperior attention to the wants of the poor, and by all the other Chriftian virtues of universal charity and brotherly love, that their opinions have the greatest influence on the heart, and they will find this will prove a more certain way of convincing the unlettered than the moft logical arguments or fplendid production of texts. As this addrefs is confeffedly compiled from Mr. Toulmin's Free and ferious Addrefs to the Christian Laity,' it is unneceffary to fay any thing on the merits of the performance; we fhall therefore dismiss it with advifing that a fourpenny loaf be circulated among the cottages of the poor instead of four pennyworth of controversy,

MEDICAL.

ART. 37. Truth vindicated; or, The Specific Differences of Mental Difeafes afcertained. By William Rowley, M. D. 8vo. Wingrave. London, 1790,

1s. 6d.

Objections having been made to feveral of Dr. Rowley's definitions in his Treatise on Mental Diseases, he now juftifies himself by citing the authority of a number of medical writers, whofe opinions are conformable to his own. For our part, we did not fo much difapprove of his definitions as we questioned the real existence of the endemial infanity, which he reprefented as fo prevalent a disease. On that fubject he has delivered no farther detail of authenticated cafes ; and therefore our opinion remains the fame as before.

ART.

ART. 38. A Treatise on the Strangles and Fevers of Horses; with a Plate reprefenting a Horfe in the Staggers flung. By T. Proffer. 8vo, 35. 6d, White. London, 1790.

The ftrangles is a difeafe in horfes fomewhat analogous to the fmall-pox in the human fpecies, fo far as these two dilempers are extremely general, and never incurred oftener than once. Mr, Proffer makes feveral remarks on the practice recommended by the moft eminent farriers with regard to the ftrangles. From fome he differs, and with others he coincides in opinion, on particular parts of the treatment. His acquaintance with the various fyftems of farriery appears to be extenfive; and we doubt not that the fuccefs of his practice is correfpondent to the judgment with which it seems to be directed.

ART. 39. A compendious Treatife on the Venereal Difeafe, Gleets, &c. divefted of the technical Terms; with the beft Methods of Cure, &c. 8vo. 2s. 6d. London, 1799.

In thofe fyftems of medical practice which are calculated for general ufe, the chief danger refulting from them is, that perfons unacquainted with phyfic are liable to mistake the disease, however accurately the author may have defcribed it. This objection, indeed, cannot lye against the venereal difeafe, where the occafional caufe may always be fufpected, and the fymptoms in general are local and characteristic. But there is another danger, from which empirica cannot be fecure, in this diftemper; and that is, the inability of unpractifed perfons to judge of the conftitution and circumftances, which cannot be defined with precifion in any treatise on the subject. The author of the prefent work seems to have endeavoured at explicitnefs as much as poffible; but, after all his pains, it is probable that the treatise will too often prove the means of protracting and rendering more stubborn, inftead of eradicating the disorder. lotion, as may be conjectured, is a temperate folution of corrofive fublimate.

The

THE prominent feature of this month, in the fight of an Englishman, is the diffolution of the old, and the

CONVOCATION OF A NEW PARLIAMENT.

The general election of members of parliament is faid to be carried on with unusual coolness and indifference. In fome inftances, we may prefume, experience, dearly bought, has demonftrated the folly of bartering independent fortune with the chance of civil preferment,

5

preferment, or of making a figure as an orator in parliament. But this circumftance, as it is not peculiar to the prefent juncture, is not fufficient to account for the phenomenon in question.' A kind of political languor feems to have fallen on the nation. We are unwilling, to fay that patriotifm has decreased, that public virtue is not as firmly rooted in the minds of our men of rank and fortune now, as towards the conclusion of Sir Robert Walpole's administration, when the public fpirit of John Duke of Argyle, the Lord-Chancellor Hardwicke, Mr. Pelham, his brother the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Harrington, the Earl of Stair, and others, roused an effectual oppofition to the advifer of a general excife, and the author of a fhameful compromife with the Spaniards; a minifter who crouched to foreign nations, and would have trampled under foot the liberties of British fubjects. Neither do we affirm that there is above balf the reafon for oppofition to government now, that there was at that period; for, while it cannot be disguised that Mr. Pitt has forgotten his maiden * zeal for a reformation of parliament, and that he is in the high way to the establishment of that dreadful engine of oppreffion which Walpole prevented by fairly announcing it; it can as little be denied that he has uniformly prefented, in concurrence with the unanimous voice of parliament and of the nation, a manly and firm countenance to our foreign enemies. We certainly do not owe thanks to Mr. Pitt for any folicitude about our ease, or our enjoyment of political rights, and civil freedom. But we cannot but applaud the feafonable countenance and fupport which he afforded to the Stadtholderian party, and thereby fnatched the provinces out of the hands of France, and threw them into the scale of British affluence and national prosperity and glory. In the fame fpirit he holds the proper language to the court of Madrid, and prepares to repel violence, and avenge infult. Yet, although. there is not really, as we have already ftated, above half the reafon for oppofing miniftry in the prefent general election that exifted just fifty years ago, there is not half fo much oppofition, or half fo much providence and anxiety about prefent profperity, or the fecurity and tranfmiffion of happiness and freedom to pofterity. It were to be wished that, on the prefent occafion, Mr. Pitt were taught to know what parts of his conduct are geperally approved, and what refented.

In nations, as well as individuals, there is a tendency to run from extreme to extreme; and, agreeably to this principle, an alternation of activity and repose, of exertion and laffitude, by

*It was on this point that Mr Pitt chiefly infifted in his first, or, as firft fpeeches are commonly called, his maiden fpeech.

which

which particular objects appear more bulky, and occupy too much attention and labour at one time, and too little at another. The American war, the difmemberment of the empire, the revolution in Ireland, political affociations, petitions, remonftrances, and fchemes of political reform: these formed a bufy period in the hiftory of Britain, and ftretched the nerves of her fenfibility and action to a pitch bordering on delirium. The fit is over, and we have funk into languor and lethargic indifference. The fpirit of civil and political freedom, like vegetation in fresh foil, glows with the greatest warmth in the northern divifion of this united kingdom. In Perthshire, which is to Scotland what Yorkshire is to England, the great and princely family that has predominated in that extenfive country, from the beginning of the prefent century, even under the covert of the minifterial wing, is fcarcely able to maintain divided empire with the affertors of independence.

The counties in North-Britain, by devices of a moft flagrant nature, founded on feudal ideas, but no lefs worthy of 'condemnation in a moral + than a political light, are, in respect of representation, in a moft deplorable fituation. The late decifion of the Lord-Chancellor, on the fubject to which we allude, which does both him and Lord Loughborough the highest honour, tends, in fome measure, to rectify a most scandalous abuse. But, to exterminate the evil radically, requires the interpofition of the legiflature. It is thought that the Chancellor's upright decifion will turn the tables against the minifter in feveral of the counties in Scotland, which groaned under an oppreffive aristocracy. Lord Fife, lately created a peer, had a whole army of nominal electors at his command.

Of all the electing bodies in Great-Britain the first in import

ance is

WESTMINSTER;

the feat of government, of the royal family, the prime nobility and gentry for half the year, and fuperior to all other communities in the kingdom, taken individually, in wealth, confequence, extent, and population. As people of all ranks and conditions are affembled, and have an intereft and influence in this great city, it may be confidered, in fome meafure, as an

*The Duke of A- -e.

†The enormities to which fictitious voting has given birth are almost incredible. A clergyman, and a profeffor in an university, accepted a fictitious title to vote for a gentleman to whom he had been obliged; but made a merit with the Scotch minister of deferting his friend on the day of election; which he did on pretence of awa kened CONSCIENCE. His treachery, it is faid, has been well rewarded.