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inform our readers, that the account of his character and writing prefixed by the Right Rev. Editor, is chiefly intended to vindicate this great man from the calumny, which has represented him as addicted to superftition, as inclined to Popery, and as dying in the communion of the Church of Rome. Concerning the falfity of the last charge, there cannot, we think, remain the leaft doubt in the mind of any one who has examined into the affair. The principal circumstance which gave rise to an idea that he was inclined to Popery, seems to be, that, when Bishop of Bristol, he put up a cross in his episcopal house.

With respect to this circumftance, his advocate pleads, that it was intended by the blameless Prelate, merely as a fign, or memorial, that true Christians are to bear their cross, and not to be ashamed of following a crucified Master; but, at the fame time, he owns, that, on account of the offence it occafioned, both at the time and fince, it were to be wished, in prudence, it had not been done.'

In farther vindication of Bishop Butler, passages are quoted from his Sermons, and from a Charge to his Clergy, delivered only five years before his death, which strongly express his abhorrence of Popery.

After all that is advanced in this apology, we cannot think the good Bishop entirely exculpated from the general charge of a tendency toward superstition. The strong manner in which he expresses himself concerning the importance of external forms of religion, in his Charge to the Clergy, compared with the ac• knowleged fact of his erecting a cross in his chapel, and with the well-known pensive turn of his mind, will, altogether, throw a degree of gloom over his religious character, not altogether worthy of that manly understanding, and that philosophical spirit, which appear in his writings.

To the apology for Bishop Butler, prefixed to this volume, is fubjoined a judicious summary of his moral and religious fystems.

ART. IX. The Correspondence of Two Lovers, Inhabitants of Lyons. Published from the French Originals. 12mo. 3 Vols. 7s. 6d. fewed. Hookham, &c. 1788.

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F nature and paffion have any longer the influence which they were wont to poffefs, the present volumes will assuredly be well received by the world. They contain a well-written detail of love-adventures, intermingled with admirable observations on the several propenfities of the human heart. The catastrophe of the story-no other than the destruction of the lovers by each other's hands, and which is faid to be founded in fact, is truly horrible. The accompanying reflections on that act, are, how

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ever, such as must awaken in every bosom a sense of its enormity. There, is therefore, nothing of pernicious tendency in this pubJication, as many might at first, and from a simple relation of the event, be led to imagine.

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The following sentiments are, so just, so pertinent, and, inHeed, fo truly philosophical, that we shall not apologize to the reader for the space which they may occupy in our journal. They are given in answer to Faldani, the hero of the piece, who had remarked to his friend the Curate, and in somewhat acrimonious language, on the disproportion of the goods of fortune among mankind:

The CURATE to FALDONI.

Icommend the strictness of your moral sentiments, and your opinion of the inequality of rank among mankind. But, my dear fon, all these fine reasonings will not correct the world; and the truths you atter will not perfuade any to descend from the ladder on which he is mounted. Though, in reality, I esteem no more than you the people who are proud of the advantages they derive from birth and fortune, yet I go with the stream, and bow my head to him whom chance has placed above me. Moralizing may afford confolation; but to change the established custom of things is impoible! Enjoy the beauties of rural life; raise your foul to the Supreme Being; think in peaceful folitude on the crowd of wretches who languith in chains, or on a bed of agonizing fickness. How many would envy your lot, and with, like you, to have the privilege of beholding the glory of the rifing fon; and yet you dare to murmur, who have only to look around you for ample objects of content! Where lie your pains? what is your distemper what fetters confine you You poffefs all the freedom, health, and riches, that nature can bestow; and, above all, ability to enjoy them. But shocking prejadices impofe their iron yoke on your neck; haughty mortals raise a wall of feparation between you and you your mistress! Well, my friend, this is an happiness, created by an inclination which would tyrannise beyond the bounds of reason. God forbid that I should fay there is no hope of fuccess for your affection. I have given you my promife to dispose the heart of a mother in your favour, and time, accident, and your own behaviour, may fecond my efforts. But examine your felf, and tell me whether the extravagance of your wishes at this very instant is not the only fource of your distress: when confidering how far you are from having obtained your object, ought you not to be prepared for misfortunes, that they may not overset you, should they arrive? There is a certain softness that attends melancholy re flections: for fufceptible hearts there is a secret charm in forrow. It is your duty, if I may be allowed the expression, to render as comfortable as possible your bed of thorns. A Sibarite, reclined on rofes, dares complain. Why will you not adopt that way of thinking, which, let fortune smile or frown, will be most salutary? Under affliction, thank heaven that it is so supportable; and bear in memory the bleffings that precededit*** Believe me, my friend, happiness and virtue are found only with moderation. A foft voice,

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voice, a gentle gale, fragrant odours, are delightful; but thundering ftorms, dazzling lustre, shrieking cries, and strong scents, wound our organs, and leave behind them disagreeable impressions. Nature, by bestowing on us a delicate organization, teaches us to avoid every thing which may disarrange it; she shews us by the models of beauty placed before our eyes, that from the harmony, proportion, and unity of their parts, flows that inexpressible charm which wins our approbation. If she has created passions, their course is bounded, and the commands them to accompany the real wants of mankind. Hence, the savage clans who reft in their original institutions, are not fufceptible of durable emotions; their tranfient resentment does not weave the dark and intricate plots which are contrived by our depraved hearts; and their love is only a physical sentiment excited by the presence of its object, and fugitive as the pleasure with which it is gratified. In this state man may be happy, because he acknowleges only the impulfe of nature; but when, subject to the capricious laws of our social contract, instinct is lost in the chaos of factious passions, he is perpetually crossed in his motions, and frustrated of his designs. The foul becomes passive amid the crowd of contending inclinations: in the disarrangement of the senses, she conceits ideas of the greatest disparity: substitutes the phantoms of the imagination for real objects; makes use of reason itself to justify her errors; abuses words, things, and fixed principles; and stops not till, wearied out and stupified, as it were, it is obliged from the tumult to seek repose. Nature, who impressed the stamp of thought on the forehead of man, there paints, in successive scenery, all the internal emotions; the palpitations of fear, the convulfions of anger, the cares of ambition, the corroding pangs of envy, the agonies of love. Do these alarming symptoms announce felicity? Is the inhabitant at ease, while his house is in a conflagration? I admire those investigators of the human heart, who are champions in behalf of the passions! They are awed by no difficulties; even avarice finds in them able panegyrifts!

• For the idea of a happy mortal, let us fix our eyes on the wife man. We shall see him equally calm, whether triumphant or unfortunate; alike a stranger to unmanly fear and feverish expectation; enjoying, by a moderate exercise of his faculties, all the blessings of nature; rejecting nothing allowed him by reason; refraining, without violence, from what she disapproves; availing himself of the theory of the passions to regulate their use; facrificing his taste to his principles; refreshing the fallies of his mind, if they have a tendency to bewilder it; appearing in society the friend of mankind, ever ready to plead the cause of the absent, to defend the rights of the weak, to bring forward modest merit; indifferent to all systems, having no object in view but truth; never adopting an opinion without examination; never passing sentence, without having weighed the merits of the cause; making his reflections the base of his conduct, and to avoid repentance leaving nothing to chance which he can dispose of by prudence. None can be more indulgent to his fellow-creatures, whom he serves without hope of reward: nay he does more, he heaps obligations on the individual who studies to injure him, and punishes his enemies with benefits. Hatred finds no admission in his heart; it belongs belongs only to weak souls, to children and infirm age: it is a proof of impotence, and the breast which owns the influence of that tyrant, needs no other punishment. The savage crushes the infect, and thinks no more of it: the philosopher turns aside and suffers it to live. He knows neither the ambition of honours, nor the love of gold. What are to him the ridiculous importance of rank, or the puerile vanity of title? Could he be angry, it would be with the blockhead who rates a man's worth by his parchments and dangling ribbands; but nothing can alter the even temper of his foul. The arrows of scorn brash over him without a wound; he walks befide the arrogant without noticing him; he lives in the midst of intrigue unmoved by the agitation of its vortex; he fees courtiers scrambling around him for the gewgaws of grandeur, while the favourites of preferment fit on the top of fortune's wheel. He is amused with every thing, but nothing can give him pain. He meets with no rivals in his road, because he aspires at nothing. Men every where are his friends, because he has nothing to ask at their hands. What should he wish for Wealth or honours? He thinks the journey, life, too short to admit of those cares; and he passes through fociety like a pilgrim with his ftaff, ready to depart. When he is tired of the world, he finds relief in folitude. There, furrounded by his books, he talks with the celebrated dead of every age. What conversation can equal that of Homer and Virgil? How infignificant men appear to him, when he leaves the company of such fublime geniuses! With what pity he hears the jests of witlings, the dull discourse of folly, and the furfeiting confidence of self-love! His acquaintance with the Muses renders him proof to the seductions of love; but he yields his heart to the charms of friendship: friendship, the balm of life to every honeft heart, which time strengthens, misfortune purifies, superior to fate, and survivor of the passions. For what do we not find confolation in a friend? Love cools; pleasure has its period; riches make to themselves wings and flee away; reputation vanishes; as years advance, mankind retire from our company; we insensibly become strangers in the world; fociety feels not our loss; youth and the graces are objects of universal attraction; reduced to ourselves, or rather our ruins, dreading folitude, oppressed with languor and melancholy, we seek for an asylum from the tediousness of age and find it in friendship. We mingle our last tears with her sympathetic streams; and commit to her tenderness the care to scatter roses on our tomb.'

This performance is much in the style and manner of Rouffeau; and there are many passages in it which would have reflected honour on that great and distinguished writer. It probably proceeds from the pen of the author of Laura, a novel of confiderable merit; and which is noticed in our Review for May 1788, p. 442.

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ART. X. Essays on Shakespeare's dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff, and on his Imitation of Female Characters. To which are added, fome general Observations on the Study of Shakespeare. By Mr. Richardfon, Profeffor of Humanity in the University of Glasgow. Small 8vo. pp. 96. 2s. sewed. Murray. 1788.

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R. Richardson, as we observed, in noticing his former publications, does not write for the vulgar, who commonly rest satisfied with being pleased, without enquiring why they are fo. These will regard his essay to account for the pleafure which they receive from the exhibition of Shakespeare's dramatic character of Falstaff, in the same light as they would an attempt to account for the pleasure which the Aldermen of London receive from tortle and venison seasts; and may think he has been as idly, though not so arduoufly, employed, as the philofopher at Lapura, who was endeavouring to extract sunbeams out of cucumbers, But, notwithstanding the ridicule with which the multitude may be tempted to treat such investigations as the pretent, Mr. Richardfon's Essays will not fail of attracting the notice of philosophers and moralifts. Shakespeare is the great poet of nature; and by properly analysing the characters of his incomparable dramas, confiderable light may be thrown on the philofophy of the human mind. He has given us, in Fala ff, a character that we all like, and with whom we are perpetually entertained; and yet no one, poffibly, would choose to de nought a perfect resemblance of him. He is reprefented as a drakard and debauchee, a designing parafite, a liar, and as a man without any true principle, honour, or courage wh oce then, it is natural to enquire, can arife the pleasure Mahutas character affords; how comes it to pass, that Old 'held fuch a favourite on the stage, and should intereft ', that we ament the disgrace which poetic justice thould be inflicted on him? dotele Elaysis intended as a reply to this question; Sr. Rich ro on juttly remarks, that though neither

y warpet" the ly tame years ago, written by a gentleman by to prove that Sir Joon Falstaff was no coward d. p.79); and Mr. R. referring to this ice forms to be the refuit of deliberafra ion; bat is it not apparent cowar? Can any one doubt, f-qenthong, that shakehis cowardice?

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