laws, manners, customs, and other circumstances, of a country, so near to her, and of which, on all accounts, it was so important to her to obtain a just and accurate knowledge. But this ignorance exceeded all bounds; and was, by no means, confined to the lower, or even middle, classes of society. We remember hearing a Frenchman, in 1786, who was a member of one of the liberal professions, and who had been in England, as a prisoner of war, among other facts equally authentic, which he was stating to the company at a Judge's table, gravely assert that to such an excess was liberty carried in this country, and so little authority had the Sovereign, that it was a common thing for the mob to stop the Royal Coach, in its way to the palace, and opening the door on one side pass out at the other, familiarly saying to their King, "good morrow George." The inan really believed what he told, and many other tales equally absurd and equally false, has the writer of this article heard from the mouth of welleducated Frenchmen! The general source of such ignorance is vanity, which leads a Frenchman to think that no country is worth attention but his own. La grande nation is his idol now; as le grand monarque used to be; and as, probably, le grand empereur, all-monster as he is, soon will be.

Soon after the appearance of Dr. Beattie's Essay on Truth, Dr. Priestley wrote to him, to inform him of his intention to publish a book, in which many of his (Dr. E.'s) positions would be attacked and overturned; and in the hope, no doubt, of leading the Dr. into a controversy, in which Priestley delighted, and by which he hoped to live. In the following Letter to Mrs. Montague, written in August 1774, Dr. Beattie adverts to this circumstance; and declares his opinion of Priestley's tenets.

"Dr. Priestley's Preface is come out, without any acknowledgement of the information conveyed to him in my letter. But he has written to me on the occasion, and says, he will publish my letter in that book which he is preparing, in opposition to the Essay on Truth,' as he thinks such a letter will do me honour. He praises the candour and generosity which, he says, appear in my letter, and seems to be satisfied, that I wrote my book with a good intention; which is the only merit he allows me, at least he mentions no other. He blames me exceedingly for my want of moderation, and for speaking, as I have done, of the moral influence of opinions. He owns, that his notions, on some of the points in which he differs from me, are exceedingly unpopular, and likely to continue so, and says, that perhaps no two persons, professing Christianity, ever thought more differently, than he and I do. It is a loss to me, he seems to think, that I have never been acquainted with such persons, as himself, and his friends, in England: to this he is inclined to impute the improper style I have made use of on some subjects; but he hopes a little reflection, and a candid examination of what he is to write against me, will bring me to a better way of thinking and speaking. His motive for entering the list with me, is no other, he says, than a sincere and pretty strong, though perhaps a mistaken regard to truth.' This is the substance of his letter, as I understand it. There are indeed some things in

it, which I do not distinctly understand; and therefore, I believe, I shall not at present make any reply. He does not tell me, what the points of difference between us are: but I find from some reports, that have penetrated even to this remote corner, that he has taken some pains to let it be known, that he is writing an answer to my book. A volume of his Institutes of Religion' lately fell into my hand, which is the first of his theological works I have seen; and, I must confess, it does not give me any high opinion of him. His notions of Christianity are indeed different from mine; so very different; that I know not whether I should think it necessary or proper to assume the title of a Christian, if I were to think and write as he does. When one proceeds so far, as to admit some parts of the gospel history, and reject others; as to suppose, that some of the facts, recorded by the Evangelists of our Saviour, may reasonably be disbelieved, and others doubted; when one, I say, has proceeded thus far, we may without breach of charity conclude, that he has within him a spirit of paradox and presumption, which may prompt him to proceed much further. Dr. Priestley's doctrines seem to me to strike at the very vitals of Christianity. His success in some of the branches of natural knowledge seems to have intoxicated him, and led him to fancy, that he was master of every subject, and had a right to be a dictator in all: for in this book of his, there is often a boldness of assertion, followed by a weakness of argument which no man of parts would adventure upon, who did not think that his word would be taken for law. I am impatient for the appearance of his book against me; as I cannot prepare matters for a new edition of the Essay on Truth,' till I see what he has to say against me."

In his Preface, however, Dr. Priestley paid some compliments to Dr. Beattie; though, as Sir William Forbes, truly observes:

"No two writers were ever more opposite to each other in their modes of thinking on the most interesting subjects. Dr. Priestley was an avowed Socinian; a staunch believer in the doctrine of necessity; and, though he admitted the great pillar of Christianity, the resurrection of the dead, yet he subscribed to the doctrine of materialism*. In all this, and in many other particulars, the principles of Dr. Beattie were the very reverse. The attack of Dr. Priestley, however, gave him no concern. He appears, indeed, by his correspondence with his friends, to have formed, at first, the resolution of replying to it; and he speaks as if he had already prepared, his materials, and of being altogether in such a state of forward. ness, as to be fully ready for the task. On farther consideration, how. ever, he abandoned the idea, and he no doubt judged wisely. For, while Dr. Priestley's Examination' is now never heard of, the Essay on Truth' remains a classical work, of the highest reputation and authority."

Again adverting, at a subsequent period, in the autumn of 1775, to Hawkesworth's Voyages, in another Letter to Mrs. Montague, he animadverts upon them and upon other works of that same writer,

Preface to "Disquisitions relating to matter and spirit," p. xiii.

with so much good sense and sound criticism, that our readers, we are persuaded, will thank us for laying the passages before them. And, indeed, all the productions of Dr. Hawkesworth are so highly, and so generally, esteemed, that every just objection to any parts of them, ought to be as generally known and circulated.

"Your reflections on the little disaster with which our journey concluded, exactly coincide with mine. I agree with Hawkesworth, that the peril and the deliverance are equally providential; and I wonder he did not see that both the one and other may be productive of the very best effects. These little accidents and trials are necessary to put us in mind of that superintending goodness, to which we are indebted for every breath we draw, and of which, in the hour of tranquillity, many of us are too apt to be forgetful. But you, Madam, forget nothing which a Christian ought to remember; and therefore I hope and pray that Providence may defend you from every alarm. By the way, there are several things, besides that preface to which I just now referred, in the writings of Hawkesworth, that shew an unaccountable perplexity of mind in regard to some of the principles of natural religion. I observed in his conversation, that he took a pleasure in rum nating upon riddles, and puzzling questions, and calculations; and he seems to have carried something of the same temper into his moral and theological researches. His Almoran and Hamet' is a strange confused narrative, and leaves upon the mind of the reader some disagreeable impressions in regard to the ways of Providence; and from the theory of pity, which he has given us somewhere in the Adventurer,' one would suspect that he was no enemy to the philo sophy of Hobbes. However, I am disposed to impute all this rather to a vague way of thinking, than to any perversity of heart or understanding. Only I wish, that in his last work he had been more ambitious to tell the plain truth, than to deliver to the world a wonderful story. I confess, that from the first I was inclined to consider his vile portrait of the manners of Otaheite, as in part fictitious; and I am now assured, upon the very best authority, that Dr. Solander disavows some of those narrations, or at least declares them to be grossly misrepresented. There is, in almost all the late books of travels I have seen, a disposition on the part of the author to recommend licentious theories. I would not object to the truth of any fact, that is warranted by the testimony of Competent witnesses. But how few of our travellers are competent judges of the facts they relate! How few of them know any thing accurately, of the language of those nations, whose laws, religion, and moral sentiments, they pretend to describe! And how few of them are free from that inordinate love of the marvellous, which stimulates equally the vanity of the writer, and the curiosity of the reader! Suppose a Japanese crew to arrive in England, take in wood and water, exchange a few commodities; and, after a stay of three months, to set sail for their own country, and there set forth a History of the English Government, religion, and manners it is, I think, highly probable, that, for one truth, they would deliver a score of falsehoods. But Europeans, it will be said, have more sagacity, and know more of mankind. Be it so: but this advantage is not without inconveniences, sufficient perhaps to counterbalance it. When a European arrives in any remote part of the globe, the natives, if they

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know any thing of his country, will be apt to form no favourable opinion. of his intentions, with regard to their liberties; if they know nothing of him, they will yet keep aloof, on account of his strange language, com, plexion, and accoutrements. In either case he has little chance of under. standing their laws, manners, and principles of action, except by a long residence in the country, which would not suit the views of one traveller in five thousand. He therefore picks a few strange plants and animals, which he may do with little trouble or danger; and, at his return to Europe, is welcomed by the literati, as a philosophic traveller of most accu rate observation, and unquestionable veracity. He describes, perhaps with tolerable exactness, the soils, plants, and other irrational curiosities of the new country, which procures credit to what he has to say of the people; though his accuracy in describing the material phenomena, is no proof of his capacity to explain the moral. One can easily dig to the root of a plant, but it is not so easy to penetrate the motive of an action; and till the motive of an action be known, we are no competent judges of its morality, and in many cases the motive of an action is not to be known without a most intimate knowledge of the language and manners of the agent. Our traveller then delivers a few facts of the moral kind, which perhaps he does not understand, and from them draws some inferences suitable to the taste of the times, or to a favourite hypothesis. He tells us of a Californian, who sold his bed in a morning, and came with tears in his eyes to beg it back at night; whence, he very wisely infers, that the poor Californians are hardly one degree above the brutes in under. standing, for that they have neither foresight nor memory sufficient to direct their conduct on the most common occasions of life. In a word, they are quite a different species of animal from the European; and it is a gross mistake to think, that all mankind are descended from the same first parents. But one needs not go so far as to California, in quest of men who sacrifice a future good to a present gratification. In the metropolis of Great Britain one may meet with many reputed Christians, who would act the same part, for the pleasure of carousing half-aday in a gin-shop. Again, to illustrate the same important truth, that' man is a beast, or very little better, we are told of another-nation, on the banks of the Orellana, so wonderfully stupid, that they cannot reckon beyond the number of three, but point to the hair of their head, when. ever they would signify a greater number; as if four, and four thousand, were to them equally inconceivable. But, whence it comes to pass, that these people are capable of speech, or of reckoning at all, even so far as to three, is a difficulty, of which our historian attempts not the solution. But till he shall solve it, I must beg leave to tell him, that the one half of his tale contradicts the other as effectually, as if he had told us of a people, who were so weak as to be incapable of bodily exertion, and yet, that he had seen one of them lift a stone of a hundred weight.-I beg your pardon, Madam, for running into this subject. The truth is, I was lately thinking to write upon it; but I shall not have leisure these many months."

In the summer of 1773, Dr. Beattie had the honour of being introduced to the King and Queen, with whom he had a long conference at Kew, and soon after his Majesty settled on him a pensión of

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2001. a transaction which reflected equal honour on the party who conferred, and the party who received, the favour. In the month of July in that year, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him by the University of Oxford, as a mark of admiration of his philosophical and poetical talents, and as a testimony of esteem for his virtuous application of both. The former of these events set him at his ease in respect of circumstances, and left him at full liberty to pursue his studies, as far as his domèstic afflictions would allow him. The appearance of a posthumous work of Hume's, called "Dialogues on Natural Religion," in 1779, gave rise to the following just animadversions of Dr. Beattie.

"An extraordinary book has just now appeared in this country; but before I say any thing of it, I must trouble you with a short narrative.

"During the last years of Mr. Hume's life, his friends gave out that he regretted his having dealt so much in metaphysics, and that he never would write any more. He was at pains to disavow his Treatise of Human Nature,' in an advertisement which he published about half a year before his death. All this, with what I then heard of his bad health, made my heart relent towards him; as you would no doubt perceive by the concluding part of the Preface to my quarto book. But immediately after his death I heard, that he had left behind him two manuscripts, with strict charge that they shou'd be published by his executors; one, the History of his Life,' and the other, Dialogues on Natural Religion.' This last was said to be more sceptical than any of his other writings.Yet he had employed the latter part of his life in preparing it. The copy which I have, was sent me two days ago by my friend and neighbour Dr. Campbell; than whom no person better understands the tendency and the futility of Mr. Hume's philosophy, and who accompanied it with a note in the following manner: You have probably not yet seen this posthumous performance of David Hume. As the publisher, with whom I am not acquainted, has favoured me with a copy, I have sent it to you for your perusal; and shall be glad to have your opinion of it, after you have read it. For my part, I think it too dry, and too metaphysical, to do much hurt; neither do I discover any thing new or curious in it. It serves but as a sort of Commentary to the Dialogues on Natural Religion and Providence,' published in his life time. What most astonishes me is, the zeal which this publication shows for disseminating those sceptical principles *.'

"In my answer to Dr. Campbell's note, I told him, that I was happy to find, from his account, that the book was not likely to do much harm; that I would acquiesce in his judgment of it, which I was persuaded was just; but that at present my circumstances, in regard to health and spirits, would not permit me to enter upon the study of it.

"Are you not surprized, Madam, that any man should conclude his

Dr. Campbell's prediction, as to the fate of this posthumous work of Mr. Hume's, seems to have been completely verified; for the "Dia.. logues concerning Natural Religion," are now never heard of.