or must the islands be encumbered with a fuitable military force to guard them? Thefe iflands are depraved enough at prefent; and what moral, religious, or political confequences would arife from an influx of fuch reformers, may be left to our author's future thought on the fubject.

Art. 33. The Debate on a Motion for the Abolition of the Slavetrade, in the Houfe of Commons, on Monday and Tuesday, April 18, and 19, 1791; reported in Detail. 8vo. pp. 123. 25. W. Woodfall.

Those who are in anywife interested, or who intereft themfelves, in the difcuffion of this momentous queftion, will doubtless be gratified with the opportunity of poffeffing a connected series of the speeches delivered on that memorable occafion; and which are otherwife generally found in the piece-meal difordered state in which they are haflily compiled by the emulators of Mr. Woodfall, in fome of the newspapers, and from them fcantily abridged in the monthly collections.

Art. 34. Virtue triumphant: or, the Victory of the Planters in Parliament. Evo. pp. 28. Is. Ridgway. 1791.

This coarse attempt to abuse the majority that negatived the propofal to abolish the flave-trade, would not fill more than a column of the Gazetteer; and being, as we conjecture, refufed that column by the printers of the daily papers, as being more space than it merited, the cunning rogue, not to lose his wit, has ingeniously refolved to take in his humane friends, by endeavouring to raise a shilling out of the curiofity of every one who wished to fee their victorious adverfaries well difciplined!

Art. 35. An Address to the People of Great Britain, on the Confumption of Wett India Produce. 12mo. pp. 12. 1d. Phillips. This is the effufion of fome fond zealot, who, on the refufal of parliament to abolish the flave trade, hopes to destroy it by a ferious diffuafion of our wives and daughters from the ufe of fugar! We can have no objection to his making as many female dif ciples as he can argue into habits of economy: but has he duly confidered what uproars he may occafion, fhould his reafons prevail with any masters of families to enforce fuch a decree, while the females remain unconvinced and contumacious? By a curious calculation, he finds that if he can make converts of 38,000 families, which confume, each, five pounds of fugar weekly, the future trade in flaves must fink. A little time will fhew his powers of reafoning and of perfuafion..

POETRY and DRAMATIC.

Art. 36. Efifle to William Wilberforce, Efq. on the Rejection of the Bill for abolishing the Slave Trade. By Anna Letitia Barbauld. 40. pp. 14. 1s. Johnfon. 1791

The mute of benevolent fpirit, and of elegant numbers, here affumes the tone of refentment, and lashes, with keen feverity, the fenatorial opponents of the late unfortunate flave-bill. As every production of this lady's pen, (which, we are glad to find, is not wholly thrown afide,) will be read with pleafure, even by those who

may

may happen to differ from her in fentiment, with refpect to the fubject, we shall gratify our readers with a short extract from this fmall but highly animated poem:

In vain, to thy white ftandard gathering round,

Wit, Worth, and Parts and Eloquence are found:
In vain, to push to birth thy great defign,
Contending chiefs, and hoftile virtues join;
All, from conflicting ranks, of power poffest
To roufe, to melt, or to inform the breaft.
Where seasoned tools of Avarice prevail,
A Nation's eloquence, combined, muft fail:
Each Alimfy fophiftry by turns they try ;
The plaufive argument, the daring lye,
The artful glofs, that moral fenfe confounds,

Th' acknowledged thirst of gain that honour wounds:
Bane of ingenuous minds, th' unfeeling fueer,
Which, fudden, turns to ftone the falling tear:
They fearch affiduous, with inverted skill,
For forms of wrong, and precedents of ill;
With impious mockery wreft the facred page,
And glean up crimes from each remoter age:
Wrung Nature's tortures, fhuddering, while you tell,
From fcoffing fiends bursts forth the laugh of hell;
In Britain's fenate, Mifery's pangs,give birth
To jefts unfeemly, and to horrid mirth
Forbear!-thy virtues but provoke our doom,
And fwell th' account of vengeance yet to come;
For, not unmark'd in Heaven's impartial plan,
Shall man, prond worm, contemn his fellow man?
And injur'd Afric, by herfelf redrest,

Darts her own ferpents at her Tyrant's breaft.'

Juvenal, himself, were he now living, would not blush to hear fuch lines compared with his vigorous and manly ftrains.

In the remainder of this poem, the luxurious lives and depraved manners of the Weft India flave-holders, as they are frequently called, are sketched with fome of the boldeft ftrokes of the fatiric pencil.

Art. 37. Modern Poets, a Satire. 4to. 1s. 6d. Ridgeway. 1791. The ftyle of this poem reminds us of Churchill's Mufe, to which that of the prefent fatirift is nearly akin. This bard exercifes the lafh on many of his brethren and fifters of the prefent day. Some of the left-handed compliments which he pays to brother Peter Pindar, may be here given, by way of fample:

But ah! with Wolcot try'd, how guiltless thefe * !
Wolcot who deigns difgracefully to please,

At once Vefpafian tax'd the human dung †,
From the Town's filth his ill got treasures fprung.

• Some wou'd-be poets, pointed at, in the lines preceding those here quoted: but to us, not clearly pointed out.

Is not the author mistaken, as to the article which the Roman

emperar, with fuch vulgarity of tafte, felected for taxation ?

With tafle obfcene his fordid hoards admit
Old tales, new lies, the excrements of wit!
Tho' the half crowns on Kearley's counter fwell
Genius with Titus cries " I hate their smell !'

In his dedication, to the Reviewers, the poet glances at their critical office, by flyling them felf-created.' The Jelf-creation of our critical judges has often drawn a fneer from thofe culprits who have fallen under their cenfure: but may it not be obferved, that by whatever means the rod has been placed in their hands, it seems to be continued there by the common confent of the public?-no bad fign of its being generally exercised to their fatisfaction. Were it otherwife, the decrees of the Court of Criticism would often be reverfed-but when, and in what inftances, has this happened? Art. 38. A Cat with Four Hundred and Fifty Tails.

By Mafter Tom Plumb, A. M. 4to. 1s. 6d. Locke. 1791. Meant, if Mafter Tom means any thing, as a fatire on the ftrange and ridiculous manner in which the buck ftudents, the blood ftudents, and the fop ftudents, at Oxford, fpend, or rather mif-fpend, their time. What kind of genius the author himself is, feems to be july intimated in the following lines, taken from p. 21. of his Epilogue, in which he trims the Reviewers:

I'm more a madman than a poet!

By Phoebus' blood I tell ye true:

By the fame blood the world fhall know it!

Morn, noon, and night-the devil's to do!'

If Mafter Plumb's pedigree were truly made out, it would certainly appear that he is lineally defcended from Harlothrumbo, bred out of a Bedlam daughter of Nat. Lee.

Art. 39. An Addrefs to every Briton, on the Slave Trade; being an effectual Plan to abolith this Difgrace to our Country. 4to. pp. 19. 15. Robinfons. 1791.

This little poem is animated by that enthufiafm which the subject fo naturally excites: but the compofition is unequal. There are in it paffages, in which the fire burns faintly, and the blaze feems ready to expire, though it prefently burfts forth afresh, for a moment, and then continues alternately rifing and finking, as we have often feen the flames, in a city conflagration. The whole of this poetic addrefs may be confidered as an invective against the British fenate, on account of the mifcarriage of Mr. Wilberforce's Slave-bill: but it is the invective, not of malignity, but of benevolence, compaffionating the fufferings of the unhappy fons of Africa.

Among other allufions to the miferies to which the poor Negroes are fubjected by the flave-trade, the following incident is, at least, well imagined, if not founded in fact: which we may july allow it to be, because we fee no improbability in the circumstances.- A fable youth defperately plunges into the raging deep, to gain the fhip which is bearing away his beloved :

The familiar phrafes, and low expreffions, which we often find, in the common productions of our English Parnaffus, feldom fail to remind us of the line in Prior:

What fhould be great, you turn to farce!'

His ftrong black arms
Hurling the billows into foam behind him.
At length upon the helm he hangs, he hugs
What bears him off to flav'ry, for it bears

His love." Take, Chriftians, take your willing flave;
But oh when landed on the fhore of groans,
"Oh! do not part us; let us ferve one lord;
"At least let us be fellow flaves!"-His ftrength
Here fails, he quits his hold-whirl'd in the draught
Of waves, is he not loft? Lo! there he ftill,
But faintly, fwims! Save him, oh fave him quick!
Ah! who regards a hero, if a flave ?

Who pities him? One only; the alone,
Alas! the weakest of them all, to fave him
Offers her feeble aid; ftrives hard to plunge
Down headlong 'midst the raging billows. She
Is bound, faft bound.-Ah fee! he finks, he's gone!
With fuch a fhriek as fhe then gave, and fell
Dead, Even with fuch a fhriek,-Oh Mercy, freeze
The inmoft foul of every British Fair

With pity and cold horror at the fate

Of her poor chain-bound fifters!

The plan mentioned, in the title-page, confifts in an exhortation to every Briton, who has a vote for a reprefentative in parliament, to give it to none who will not vow

To fnatch at each occafion to ftand forth

The friend of Afric.-Britons all join hands
And take a folemn oath, thus, thus to ftand,
The joint fupporters of a righteous caufe!'

Such is the motion:-but what is the probability that it will be feconded, with that fuccefs which the poet to laudably wishes? Art. 40. Next Door Neighbours; a Comedy, in three Acts; from the French Dramas L'indigent and Le Diffipateur, as performed at the Theatre Royal, Hay-market. By Mrs. Inchbald. 8vo. PP. 70. 15. 6d. Robinfons. 1791

Mrs. Inchbald's fuccefs in adapting French dramas to an English flage is well known; and, flight as many of these pieces are, yet, in an age fo fond of novelty, they ferve to add to the variety in request. They are, in fact, articles eafily worked off, and very marketable. The prefent is a pleafing, and occafionally an inte refting, production: it fhrinks, indeed, from criticism, for it could not bear its teft: but, as it exalts honefly and depreffes knavery, it may divert and amend those who look to the moral, without weighing the probability of circumstances and events by which it is produced.

Art. 41. The Kentish Barons: a Play, in three Acts, interfperfed with Songs. By the Hon. Francis North. Firft performed at the Theatre Royal, Hay-market, June 25, 1791. 8vo. PP. 441s. 6d. Ridgeway. 1791.

Of the Kentish Barons, the plot is improbable; yet, perhaps,

not

not in fuch a degree as to destroy the intereft, nor to counteract the feelings, of the fpectator; and the manners of the piece, being thofe of former times, tend to prevent too close an inspection.The characters are not, in general, very ftrongly marked: perhaps the plain-fpoken and honest Bertram ftands foremost, as the best dif criminated perfonage. The drunken humours of poor, honest, fober Gam' amufe us for a scene or two, and tire us through the reft of the play. The remainder demand no particular notice. The dialogue is correct, and fometimes pretty: but furely the incidents might have given room for fentiments more pathetic, and language more tender.

Art. 42. Satire di Salvator Rofa; &c. i. e. The Satires of Salvator Rofa; published by G. Balfetti, London, 1791. Crown Svo. pp. 225. Printed by Cooper in Bow-ftreet.

This is the most beautiful edition of the fix fatires of the celebrated painter, Salvator Rofa, that we have seen. Indeed we are acquainted with no good Italian edition of these fatires: as they have been generally printed fecretly, without the name of printer, place, or editor. They are fo free, that, even in Holland, they have been generally published without the printer's real name. The life of Salvator Rofa, as a painter, has been frequently written: but, prefixed to the prefent publication, we have an ample account of him, as a poet. His fatires more refemble the roughnefs and feverity of Juvenai, than the keen and playful politenefs of Horace. Salvator was not only an original and admirable painter, and a poet of great force and genius, but an excellent mufician; not only as a performer on inftruments, and a finger, but as a compofer, according to Dr. Burney; who, as proofs of his mufical abilities, has inferted, in the 4th vol. of his Hiftory of Mufic, feveral extracts from the painter's own mufic-book; by which it appears, that his invention and knowlege of harmony were equal to thofe of the greatest masters of his time *. Salvator Rofa died in 1673.

The fubjects of his fatires are, Mufic, Poetry, Painting, War, Babylon, and Envy. Thefe poems want a commentary; for though the fatire be broad, yet, being fometimes perfonal, local, and temporary, few readers, at prefent, are acquainted with the allufions. As far as paper, letter, and accuracy, are concerned, we can venture to recommend this edition to the notice of all lovers of Italian literature, who are likewife curious in typography.

Art. 43. True Honour. An Ode.

Occafioned by the Death of

1791.

John Howard, Efq. 4to. 6d. Robinsons. An animated tribute to the memory of the benevolent Howard, in which his fterling and fingular merit is well contrafted with the falfe glare of external diftinctions.

NOVEL.

Art. 44.
The Adventures of King Richard Coeur de Lion.
which is added, the Death of Lord Falkland; a Poem.

Το

By J.

See alfo Monthly Rev. vol. lxxxi. page 550.