prieft is faid to fprinkle a new-married couple, Mr. Park began to fufpect that the old lady was actuated by mischief or malice; but he gave him ferioufly to understand that it was a nuptial benediction from the bride's own perfon, and which, on fuch occafions, is always received by the young unmarried Moors as a mark of diftinguished favour."

From the abstract given here we may expect a most interesting and affecting account from Mr. Park himself, of his thoughts and feelings when efcaped from the "land of thieves and murderers." Having fortunately found his horse, he traverfed a defart country for two days; oppreffed by hunger and the most tormenting thirst, he came to the huts of fome Foulah fhepherds, where he was very kindly entertained. Having entered the dominions of the Negroes he experienced much kindness, and wandered for fifteen days, till, at length, on the fixteenth, he beheld, flowing through a very extensive town, Sego, the capital of Bambarra, and, flowing from west to east, the majeftic Niger. The King of Bambarra himself appears to have been well-difpofed towards Mr. Park, but, afraid of incenfing the Moors, great numbers of whom were in his capital, he fent him money to purchase fifty days provifions, and to conduct him out of his dominions on the road to Tombuctoo. Sego, as defcribed by Mr. Park, with the adjacent country, wore an appearance of magnificence and cultivation which he did not expect to find in the heart of Africa. Before the King of Bambarra had taken measures, Mr. Park had recourfe to the hofpitality of a poor Negro woman "She led him to a cottage, procured him an excellent fupper of fish, and plenty of corn for his horse; after which the fpread a mat for him upon the floor."-The good woman having performed the rites of hofpitality towards himself, called in the female part of her family, and made them fpin cotton for a great part of the night. They lightened their labour by fongs, one of which must have been compofed extempore, for our traveller was himself the fubject of it; and the air was, in his opinion, the sweetest and most plaintive he had ever heard. The words, as may be expected, were fimple, and may be literally tranflated as follows:"The winds roared, and the rain fell. The poor white man, faint and weary, came and fat under our tree. He has no mother to bring him milk-no wife to grind his rice." Chorus." Let us pity the white man-no mother has he, &c. &c." Simple as the words are, they are natural and affecting; and contain a curious allufion to the ftate of manners in favage life, in which the women perform all the domeftic duties.

Our traveller learned from the guide that conducted him to Silla from Sego, that it would be very dangerous for him to proceed onwards to Tombuctoo, as the northern banks of the Niger were chiefly in the poffeffion of the Moors to Tombuctoo. Finding there was little hopes of escaping from Tombuctoo, fhould he arrive at that city, he got all the information concerning its fize, population, the manufactures, trade, and manners of the inhabitants, that he could collect. He now determined to return along the fouthern bank of the Nig r, which was more beyond the reach of the Moors. Being now wholly among the Negroes, he had an opportunity of minutely obferving their manners, difpofitions, opinions, manufactures, and arts. Hofpitality is confidered as one of the first moral duties. This exertion of benevolence Mr. Park daily experienced, and others he often obferved. They believe in a Supreme Being, and in a future ftate of rewards and punishments, appointed for good and bad men. This important belief Mr. Park declares to be universal among them. We are informed in the abftract, that Mr. Park's narrative will contain an accurate account of the vegetable and animal productions of this part of Africa; the character of the natives; the agriculture and manufactures; modes of living, manners, fuperftitions, wars, police, and government; arts, commerce, especially those branches of the laft connected with European trade; all which his travels through the Negroes enabled him to inveftigate. Mr. Park traced the Niger to its fource, which he found to be at a fmall village, called Sankari. Soon after, being confined by fickness, he experienced the most benevolent attention from a Negro, named Carfa Taura. Withing to return to the Gambia, but a defart of five hundred miles intervening, he was obliged to wait until his friend Carfa fhould be ready to cross it, with a caravan of flaves, which did not happen till five months after Mr. Park's recovery. In that time, by converfing with his heft, and other Negroes, he much increafed his knowledge of thofe countries. The abftract of his travels, drawn up by Bryan Edwards, muft raise very high expectations of Mr. Park's deftined work; expectations, which those who know him concur in thinking his accuracy of observation, difcriminating and vigorous mind, fully qualified him to fulfil.

A most important geographical discovery by Mr. Park, is, the course of the Niger, which he has afcertained to be from weft to eat, as affirmed many ages ago by Herodotus: he alfo fubftantiates the account of the Lolophagi, fo long deemed fabulous. The more difcovery is increased, the more manifeftly does the abfurdity appear of that fpecies of incredulity

which obftinately denies hiftorical allegations fupported by testimony, because without the range of its own confined experience.

In Major Rennell's reafonings on the geographical difcoveries of Mr. Park, there is, as might be expected from the author, great knowledge and moft ingenious inference, with confiderable probability of just conjecture, especially on the farther courfe and discharge of the Niger.

We wait with impatience for an opportunity of confidering the interesting and important travels, difcoveries, and conclufions of Mr. Park, when fully given to the world by himself.

ART. V. Memoirs of the Kings of Great Britain of the Houfe of Brunfwick-Lunenburg. By W. Belfham. 2 Vols. 8vo. Pp. 788. Price 14s. Robinfons, London. 1798.

WE proceed to accompany Mr. Belfham, according to a

chronological fucceffion of events; though, by adopting this progreffive arrangement, we deviate from his confufed mode of writing. In our critique on his " History, from the Revolution to the Acceffion of the Houfe of Hanover,' we obferved, that he defpifed giving references or authorities; but we find that, when he was a younger man, he abounded in quotations, and delighted in extracts. One circumftance, however, appears remarkably ftrange, efpecially when we recollect, that he is the beft poet that feigns moft;" that his principal vouchers to character are felected from the writings. of Pope, and, confequently, that the hiftoric truth of Mr. Belfham depends on the malignant and rancorous fatires of the Dunciad From fuch impure fource does this fcribbler draw the ftreams that he circulates; and in fuch waters, warped and diftorted by the guts of party-virulence, it is impoffible that a faithful delineation of perfons, or forms, can be reflected; yet, in 'fuch a mirror, must a modern reader view the refemblance of Lords Hervey, Chefterfield, Townfhend, and Scarborough; Bishops Herring and Secker; and the patriots, Shippen and Pelham. For the character of Charles the XIIth, of Sweden, he gives us an extract from Johnson's Imitation of Juvenal; for a picture of the melancholy decay of Scotland, in confequence of the Union, he gives us the language of the antient Bard of Caledonia :

"I have feen the walls of Balclutha, but they were defolate. The fire had refounded in the halls, but the voice of the people is heard no

more.

more. The ftream of Clutha was removed from its place by the fall of the walls. The thiftle fhook there its lonely head; the mofs whistled to the wind. The fox locked out from the windows; the rank grafs of the wall waved round his head. Defolate is the dwelling of Moina; filence is in the house of her fathers." P. 369, VOL. I.

It is poffible, however, that Mr. B. may not mean to tranfmit authentic hiftory; for he has here adopted the French infignificant title of Memoirs, and therefore he may only defign to write what he remembers. To this fuggeftion, however, we cannot eafily accord, fince this acute and learned author feels himself highly indignant, because Coxe has indifcriminately coupled his name with the fuperficial Smollets. (vid. late Preface.) However lightly we may estimate the writer of Roderick Random, as an hiftorian, he certainly knew men and manners much better than Mr. Belfham; he is, in general, confiftent in his defcriptions, and poffeffed, at leaft, equal information with him. But, in hiflory, we expect not empty declamation, or pretty poetry; we look for the foundation of modern British history in the Journals of the Houses of Parliament, the Statutes at Large, official Gazettes, and State Papers; authentic Records, preferved in our public Libraries; Hatfel's Precedents, the State Trials, public Treaties, &c. To thefe, however, Mr. B. has not had the leaft recourfe; for he has not cited one paffage from fuch authorities, though he frequently refers to the works of the philofophic Frederic of Pruffia, Lord Melcombe, and fcraps of poetry, in proof of his ftatements. If our youth continue to derive their knowledge of the English Conftitution, and the laws of their country, from fuch garbled compilations, we fhall foon find them as ignorant of the real state of the nation, in the eighteenth century, as are fome modern young ladies, perfectly acquainted with the Recefs of Mifs Lee, the Rofes, and other hiftorical Romances, of the true events that occurred in the reigns of Elizabeth, and the Plantagenets. Such publications, in which fiction and truth are blended, if poffible, are ten times more deftructive than novels in general; for they incapacitate the mind for the reception of correct information, by the falfe ideas previously implanted.

But to recur more immediately to the publication before us. In a late number we exhibited a fpecimen of Mr. B.'s mafterly pencil, in the portrait of Lord Clarendon. We will now difplay a few lines of the face of Louis the XIVth: he was "vain, unfeeling, unprincipled, haughty, ambitious; the ruling paffion of his life was the thirst of GLORY." (P. 129. VOL. 1.) He was haughty, that is, "he was generous,

affable,

affable, condefcending." (P. 130.) He was "unfeeling," yet

his heart was foftened by diftrefs:" (ibid.) He acknowledged, when too late to rectify his error, that he had formed miftaken opinions refpecting that glory which he had been for anxiously folicitous to acquire," (ibid.) yet he had been a "munificent patron and rewarder of merit. Under his reign great characters were formed; great public works, both of ornament and utility, conftructed. Science, and the arts, flourished under his aufpices, and a new Auguftan age appeared." When Louis wrote the letter to the Count d'Eftrades, wherein he ftated that he aims at glory, preferable to any other confideration," he had more expanded notions of the meaning of that word than Mr. B. who appears to confine it to martial glory. If Mr. B. understands the Greek language, (which we much doubt;) for, fpeaking of the pragmatic fanction, in a pragmatical note, he obferves, the term "pragmatic," univerfally applied to this famous edict, is used in a fenfe fo uncommon, that it may be pardonable en pafant, to remark its derivation from the Greek πραγματικός, carrying with it the complex meaning of a public and weighty fanction;") when reyuarzo, fignifies neither public nor weighty, but fimply active fanction,) we advise him to tranflate this word into that language, and then he will find that Ace, which fignifies glory, is, at the fame time, a real definition of it, and a definition pregnant with confequences. This word properly means opinion, and is made ufe of to denote glory, as confifting in the good opinion which the world has of us. Ev doku ewe, is to be in the good opinion of others, and donuos is one of whom the public has a good opinion. Louis, probably, was a better fcholar than fuch a biographer.

In the fame spirit of felf-contradiction, he fays, "in contemplating the hiftory of this reign, (George I.) we have just caufe to lament the weakneffes and defects of the external fyftem of policy by which its counfels were influenced;" (VOL. I. P. 264.)-In P. 262 he had obferved, that " if we cannot always applaud the juftice, or the wifdom of his counfels, it muft, at least, be acknowledged, that they were enforced with an extraordinary degree of vigour and fuccefs."

In the quotations of Belfham verfus Belfham, we have confined our extracts to two adjoining pages: were we to review Sir Robert Walpole's character, at length, who is reprefented as pufillanimous and vigorous, phlegmatically indifferent, yet of a clear and mafculine understanding, our readers would ftare with aftonishment. But Mr. B. though a diffenter, and a strong enemy to "CHURCH AUTHORITY, the chimera vomiting flames," has copied a part of an able and

animated