The work will be of great ufe to young perfons, in enabling them to flore their memories with the leading events of the English hiftory. To others, it may afford brief information, or ferve as an aid to cafual recollection.-The beauties of ftyle, &c. are not to be expected in a Chronological Abridgment: but Mr. Home has certainly been rather too inattentive to his language.

ART.

ART. IV. Petrarch's View of Human Life.

WE

By Mrs. Dobfon.

8vo. pp. 359. 6s. Boards. Stockdale. 1791.

E have had occafion, more than once, to acknowlege ourfelves indebted to Mrs. Dobfon for the entertainment which her abridgments have afforded us. Her Life of Petrarch, collected from Memoires pour la Vie de Petrarch, and her Account of the Troubadours †, have been well received by the public. We are, therefore, forry to fay that we find, in the perufal of this work, little ground to expect that it will add to the tranflator's literary reputation.

The original work, De Remediis utriufque Fortune, though it certainly may be faid to bear marks of genius and learning, and to contain excellent moral fentiments, would, in the prefent day, be thought, on the whole, a tedious performance. Mrs. D. who feems to have been long enamoured of Petrarch, fpeaks of this treatife with great admiration. In her dedication, (ufing the word intrinfic in a new manner,) fhe fays, Intrinfic as the work is in itself, it cannot need an apology:' but we apprehend that few readers, who are converfant with the writings of later moralifts, would be able to labour through the minute details of the goods and ills of life, given in this treatise, without fenfations of fatigue. The work is chiefly valuable as a remnant of the learning and tafte which prevailed at the revival of letters. If it be, on this account, worth translating, it ought to be tranflated entirely, and with accuracy. Mrs. D.'s representation of her author is the fartheft from fuch a tranflation, that can well be imagined. She neither obferves Petrarch's method, nor marks his divifions, nor gives a faithful interpretation of his language. Various portions of the work, felected without any apparent reafon for preference, are thrown together in one confufed mafs, without marking the tranfitions from one topic to another, or affording the reader any notice of the change of fpeakers in the dialogue. In fhort, the exhibition here given of Petrarch's work, inftead of refembling, as every good tranflation will do, the diftinct reflection of furrounding objects from the fmooth furface of a clear lake, may be compared to the glimmering fragments of images reflected from a ruffled ftream.-Out of the numerous topics difcuffed by Petrarch, we fhall felect that of friendship; concerning which, according to Mrs. D., he writes thus:

I abound in friends: It is ftrange that thou only shouldst abound and have fuch plenty of that thing whereof all other men have fuch scarcity: whofo finds one good friend in a long life, is Rev. vol. lxii, p. 490. accounted

*See Rev. vol. liii. p. 222. REV. Nov. 1791.

T

accounted a very diligent traveller in fuch matters.-I am fortunate in friendship; thou canst not know that, unless thou be unfortunate in other things. My friendships are affured-then thy adverfity is affured alfo.-Thou mayft think thy friendships affured, thou mayft joy with one and grieve with another; or if debates happen among them, break thy faith with either or with all. But thou fpeakest of acquaintance not friends, and to have a multitude of meer acquaintance, is unworthy a mind capable of employment: One approved friend is a precious jewel, but common friends bury themfelves in worldly matters, and will not know thee but in profperity; for, led by vile intereft, and envious opinions, they neglec fo dear, fo precious a commodity.-If thou haft fo divine a thing as a friend, be diligent to preferve fuch a treasure; love thyfelf if thou wilt be beloved, and never fhrink from fuch a jewel: But fome are fo difcourteous they cannot love! their cankered minds when much made of, do the more difdain; and the better they are dealt with the more dogged they are. Nothing is fo hard to be known as the heart of man, it is in many cafes an impenetrable as well as an ungrateful foil: Plenty will come to plenty, but in need, the friend is defcried; fearch therefore the depth of the mind; a good mind is a moft excellent thing, it is gentle and loving, fincere and candid, if fuch did inhabit the world it would be holy, quiet, and virtuous; if thou haft one fuch, it will be scarcely found in thy household, for a friend is oft nearer than a brother.'

For what reafon Mrs. D. has, through this work, imitated the phrafeology of our old English writers, we cannot discover: it is certainly neither better fuited to exprefs Petrarch's ideas, nor to interpret his language, than the modern ftyle. How very far this diction, in the manner in which it is here applied, falls fhort of a faithful reprefentation of Petrarch, the learned reader will foon perceive, by comparing the translation with the original.

ART. V. Six Letters on Intolerance: including Ancient and Modern Nations, and different Religions and Sects. 8vo. pp. 550. 6s. Boards. Dilly. 1791.

THE 'inconveniences attending public diffentions are, in fome

mcafure at leaft, counterbalanced by the attention which they excite to important queftions, and by the confequent correction of established error, and the diffufion of ufeful knowlege. The repeated applications which have been made to parliament for a repeal of the corporation and teft acts, have kept the fubject of religious liberty long before the public, and have given exiftence to many judicious publications; by which, liberal ideas muft have been diffeminated. Still farther advantages may be expected, as writers, poffeffing talents and learning equal to the tafk, advance from the particular ground of a temporary

temporary difpute, to the difcuffion of the general topics with which it is connected.

Of this we have a happy example in the work now before us. The author, at the time when the question relative to the tefts was depending in parliament, wrote a very fenfible and able defence of the proposed repeal, in "A Letter to a Nobleman *.” He has now, purfued his ideas on the fubject of the repeal, and on other religious reforms, in a fecond letter; and, in the remaining letters contained in this volume, he has proceeded to a general hiftorical inquiry concerning the ftate of toleration in the ancient pagan world, and in the Chriftian church. The whole work is ftrongly marked with the characters of found judgment, a liberal spirit, and extenfive erudi

tion.

The first letter has been already noticed. The fubject of the fecond letter has been of late fo frequently and fo fully dif cuffed, that we fhall pass it over with remarking in general, that it ftates very clearly the caufes of the failure of the application to parliament for the removal of tefts, and, at the fame time, argues ftrenuously for the farther extenfion of toleration, and for the more perfect reformation of the established church. The most valuable part of the volume is the historical view of intolerance, contained in the laft four letters.

The writer's general pofition is, that intolerance has prevailed, in different forms and degrees, among all nations. In the most ancient times, he finds traces of a perfecuting fpirit among the Hebrews, Perfians, Syrians, Scythians, Egyptians, and Arabians. To determine how far the fyftem of policy in ancient Greece was intolerant, he examines the laws, the inftitutions, and the practices, of the Greeks, refpecting the gods, the temples, the flatues, and the facred myfteries. With regard to the latter of thefe, his remarks are as follows:

• The facred myfteries came particularly under the protection of the magiftrates; and those who revealed them were punished with death.

Not only the laws being fo fevere against the difcovery of the Eleufinian myfteries, but the revelation being held infamous to the highest degree, the ancient authors either forbear to speak of them altogether, or only mention them obfcurely.

The city of Athens fet a price on the head of Diagoras the Melian, for having revealed the Orphic and Eleufirian myteries.For this profanation he paffed for an atheist with the people.

Elchylus narrowly escaped being torn in pieces in the public theatre for having introduced into his dramatic pieces too strong allufions to the facred myfteries, and was faved in confideration of his brother Anynias, who had been wounded at the battle of Salamis.

See Rev. vol. i. New Series, p. 459.

7 2

-But

-But two young Acharnanians, who, uninitiated, had stolen into the temple of Eleufis, and being accufed had been convicted before the high priefts, were immediately hurried to execution by an enraged populace.

Socrates was not initiated into the myfteries, though it was ufua! and honourable for all ranks of people, with a view that he might not be chargeable by his doctrine with infringing the law.

To decline initiation was to incur a fufpicion of infidelity. It was an article of accufation against Diagoras, that he endeavoured to diffuade men from being initiated. So great was the defire to participate of the benets of initiation, that even children were brought to be admitted. The pagans feem to have entertained the fame notions of it, which many Chriftians afterwards had of baptifm, and thofe who delayed it to the approach of death, did it. under a firm perfuafion that all former crimes were then obliterated., The Epicurean philofophers were confidered as enemies to the Eleu finian myfteries, and kept from initiation by the Mystagogues.Thefe philofophers in their turn confidered the ceremonies as fit only to infpire unmanly terror into minds already infected by fuperftition.-Plato was not initiated: but he approved, nevertheless, of the fecret doctrines of the Mystagogues.-Speaking of thofe who eftablished the myfteries, he declares, They were excellent perfons; that they taught, that all who died before initiation would defcend into the infernal regions, and there be condemned to grovel in filth and mire: but all who had been initiated would, upon their arrival at the fame place, be tranflated to the habitations of the gods."

The latter Platonifts were fuperftitiously devoted to the different myfteries.The Emperor Julian was an enthufiaftic admirer of them, and gave them his countenance and fupport. Witnefs his letter to Arfacius, the high priest of Galatia, in which he promifed protection to the inhabitants of Peffinunt, in cafe they made Rhea, the mother of the gods, propitious, by the celebration of the myfteries performed in that city to her honour and at the fame time he threatened them with his higheft difpleafure, if they were omitted, or neglected in the flighteft degree, quoting two lines from Homer's Odyff-y..

The divine philofopher, when he difcourfed to his difciples on the unity of the Deity (a fecret doctrine taught in the myfteries),' was careful to do it in the prefence of thofe only who were initiated; whofe minds were inured to fecrefy, and had given proof of a fanctimonious filence.

It has been remarked, that Plato cautiously diffembled his opinion on the fubje&t of the Divinity, for fear of being called to account by the Areopagites. In his political treatifes, he maintained the utility of a national religion, which he guarded by the feverest pains and penalties, making impiety a capital offence. He may be faid to have borrowed a fyftem of divinity from the Oriental philofophy, and to have fo contrived it, as not to offend egregiously the established worship; for, had he been fummoned before the people, for inculcating falfe doctrines, he might have juftified him

felf