There are fome hiftorical mistakes in Dr. Gillies's Hiftory of Greece. He tells us, p. 11, "that the inflexible rigour of "defpotifm prevailed in Egypt in all ages." On the contrary, Egypt, both in ancient and in modern times, has been under an aristocratical or oligarchical government. He appeals to Scripture for his account of the Egyptian government; but, if he had ever read the well-known ftory of Jofeph and Potiphar's wife, he would have found that the maxims of government were by no means defpotic. If the bishops of England fucceeded to their office by hereditary right, like the Egyptian priefts; if they had the power of judging the fovereign, and naming to the fucceffion; and if religion had as much influence in England as in Egypt; it is eafy to fee where the power of government would center. In p. 30 Dr. Gillies relates the infult offered to the beautiful Ganymede, and exprefsly contradicts it in the note. In p. 66 and 67 he destroys the panegyric he had pronounced on the Grecian manners in the heroic ages. In p. 68 he mistakes an effect for a cause. It was not the unfettled tenure of landed property that com-` pelled the Grecian tribes to migrate, but the fpirit of migrating, common to all barbarous tribes, that prevented them from acquiring the idea of a permanent and feparate property in land. Barbarians, according to Tacitus, are more profufe of their blood than their fweat. In p. 75 he tells us, that, after the Ionic migration, "the Athenians, ingenious, and fond of

novelty, made fuch alterations in their writing and pronoun"ciation, as diftinguished them from their Ionian brethren." If he had read Strabo, whom he fometimes pretends to quote, he would have found, that "the Ionians made the changes; " and that the Athenians retained the original purity of their

language." In p. 204 he talks of "the tranfcendent me "rit of the Pindaric ftyle; that it is fo natural, free, and un"constrained, as to bear lefs resemblance to poetry, than to "a beautiful and harmonious profe." This applies very well to the English Pindaric odes at the end of the laft, and the beginning of the prefent century. Our author feems never to have read the Greek Pindar. Whenever he talks of military or naval affairs, he difplays a profound and amufing ignorance. He calls the Grecian fhips, (p. 153) long-boats. In p. 273 he mentions feparate brigades in the Perfian army; and in p. 372

tranfcribed by Dr. Gillies, p 8; Mr. Mitford, p. 132 and 134, with Dr. Gillies, p. 81 and 82; Mr. Mitford, p. 146 and 148, with Dr. Gillies, p. 86; Mr. Mitford, p. 150 and 184, with Dr. Gillies, p. 89; Mr. Mitford, p. 193, with Dr. Gillies, p. 103; Mr. Mitford, p. 2:3, with Dr. Gillies, p. 129.

he

he fays, "the Lacedemonians thickened their ranks ;" we fuppofe he means "deepened their files." He informs us, p. 516,. "that the Corcyreans landed in the Peloponnefus, and fet fire to the harbour of Cyllene." Is not this idea taken from an Irish newspaper, during the laft war, "that the combined "fleets of France and Spain had burned and deftroyed the environs of Gibraltar?" He fays, p. 272, "the flames of Sar"dis brought the inhabitants from all parts of Lydia to their "affiftance." Did they come in air-balloons? He tells us, P. 413, that, in the maritime provinces of Thrace, the climate vies with the delightful foftnefs of the Afiatic plains." Does Ovid fay fo? Concerning the temple of Olympian Jupiter, he fays, p. 441," that it was covered with "Pentelican marble, cut in the form of brick tiles." Bricktiles! We are informed, p. 278, that, in ancient times, the fuccefs of a naval engagement principally depended on the activity of the rowers, and the kill of the pilots. In p. 307 he mentions the mufter-roll of Xerxes' army. At. the battle of Thermopyla, he fays, "the Greeks four times difpelled the "thickest globes of Perfians." Query, What was a globe of Perfians and how thick were the thickeft globes? After a tempeft, he tells us, p. 332, "that the neareft veffels were faved by hauling them under the shore." This method of saving veffels we recommend to the confideration of lee-shore admirals.

In this New Hiftory of Greece the antiquarian and the philofopher will meet with little inftruction or entertainment. The merit of the work is of the rhetorical and declamatory kind; and when the author attempts to think and to fpeculate, to inquire and discover, he goes beyond his depth. There is a facility and a flow in the ftile; and, along with this, the verbofity of one who has been bred up to the trade of writing, and accustomed to compofe with more celerity than correctnefs; and with more diffusion than energy. The manner of Mr. Gibbon is fometimes imitated; by which means the ftile abounds with inequalities; and there are grammatical improprieties to be found almoft in every page, the title page not excepted. The dedication contains fome of the groffeit vio⚫lations of truth we remember ever to have read, even, in a dedication.

In p. ift he fays," the victories of barbarous nations are "celebrated in the artlefs fong, and commemorated by the "rude monument ;" and adds, in the next fentence," their "adventures, which thus pafs unremembered by themselves:" In the following fentence he continues, "one people became an object of attention to another, only as they became con"fiderable." Separate property in land is thus defcribed. p. 8: The idea of an exclufive and permanent right to all

66

"the

the ufes of a piece of land." In p. 29 he calls "Dardanus, An ceftor fifth in degree to Priam;" Mr. Mitford had called him "Ancestor in the fixth degree to Hector." Dr. Gillies has made nonfenfe of the phrafe. In p. 67 he begins to use the abftract for the concrete in imitation of Mr. Gibbon, but not in his manner. "The patient fortitude of Ulyffes regained Ithaca, but not without wading through the blood of his fubjects." And in the following page: "The avarice of individuals is unwilling to relinquish the fields which it has been the object of their induftry to cultivate." In p. 273 he ufes "future occafion" for following occafion, and does fo through the whole work. In p. 350 he fays "the Athenians fkillfully encircled their enemies. around." It required fome skill, indeed, for the fmaller number to encircle the greater; but " to encircle them around" -still more marvellous! In p. 351 he fays, "The victors difdained to purfue the vanquifhed"-a kind of difdain which was unknown to Julius Cefar. In p. 373 he tells us, "Fear hindered them to fight; the wall hindered them to fly.' In p. 421 he employs a ftrange phrafeology. "This revolution had important effects, which we fhall proceed to explain when we have punished and difmiffed Paufanias." This mode of writing was unknown to the ancients, and in modern times has been appropriated to kings and reviewers.

We do not recollect any literary work that has been ushered into the world with fuch pomp of panegyric as the prefent *. Perhaps, on a fubject of antiquity, the author thought that he might adopt the ftile of the ancients.

Sum pius Eneas, famâ fuper Ethera notus.

But unmerited encomim defeats itfelf, and, inftead of being a tribute to the living, becomes an epitaph on the dead.

(To be continued.)

ART. II. Anecdotes of the late Dr. Johnson, during the last Twenty Years of his Life, by Hefther Lynch Piozzi. Small 8vo. 4s. fewed. Cadell, London.

THE

HE love of anecdote is one of the most prevailing paffions, or rather appetites, of the prefent age. In the gratification of this defire, it must be confeffed, the public discovers more voracity than tafte. Whatever hands men up to fame, or down

* Dr. Gillies's Hiftory of Greece was noticed in four monthly journals, and two newspapers, with high encomiums of praife, within feven days after its publication. Could this, without example in the annals of our literature, have happened fpontaneously or by accident? or had the author himself drawn up the articles in readiness for the purpofe before his book was in general circulation?

to

to infamy, becomes indifcriminately the object of the biographer; the memoirs of Charles Price, or the Brighton taylor, furnish a morning meal to the literary glutton, equally well as the life of Samuel Johnson, or the hiftory of John Duke of Marlborough.

Of the nine lives of this giant in learning, as he is called, which have been promised to the public, Mrs. Piozzi's is the fifth that has been published, and in our judgment the best. This lady enjoyed the best opportunity of being acquainted with her hero, as he lived chiefly with her and her family for eighteen years; he had a profound reverence for his perfon and abilities; and, as fhe is a woman of learning and accomplishments, is fully equal to the fubject he has undertaken.

She begins by giving fome anecdotes of his birth, figure, and education, which ferve as a key to his future character. His father Michael was a bookfeller at Litchfield. He was a man of great corporeal ftrength and fize; extremely pious; addicted to melancholy; fubject to madnefs; and always on the point of beggary. Our hero had alfo an uncle Cornelius, who could leap as far in his boots as any other man in his fhoes, and another uncle Andrew, who kept the ring in Smithfield for a whole year, and was the best boxer and wrestler of his age. Under his uncle Andrew he ftudied the art of boxing, at which he was very expert. Thus by hereditary right he poffeffed that robuftnefs of body and mufcular merit, which is generally connected with vulgarity of mind.

His father and mother were both well ftricken in years when he was born; and, as he was the fon of their grey hairs, he was immediately looked upon as a prodigy, and became the plaything of their dotage. By the inftruction of his mother, he could pronounce the words little natty at three years of age and, having given fuch a wonderful fpecimen of his uncommon abilities, he was ever called upon to perform his tricks and antics, and exhibit before company; though he was fometimes fo averfe to be produced as a fhew, that he ufed to run up a tree and hide himfelf-perhaps in order to be found. From this early education he probably contracted the habit of exhibiting himself as a fhew, which he carried into all companies, and retained to the last hour of his life.

From his father he inherited the principles of Jacobitifin and attachment to Epifcopacy; which were fo much improved by his education at the univerfity of Oxford, that through all his future life he held a whig, a prefbyterian, and an atheift, in an equal degree of abhorrence.

For fome time he exercifed the office of a pedagogue or fchoolmaster, in which he learned to domineer over boys, and to employ thofe magnificent polyfyllables, and fefquipedalia verba, which not only gave the oracular dignity of darknefs to what

he

he faid, but, by the thundering fonorousness of their pronoun ciation, had a confiderable effect upon the auricular organs of his scholars. Hence proceeded his domineering infolence in company, which in him was no affectation; his lexiphanic differtations; and his bow-wow manner of speaking, which, according to Lord Pembroke, contributed fo much to his fuccefs. in the world.

Having given these openings into his character, with more penetration and good fenfe than any of his biographers, Mrs. Piozzi relates a variety of stories and anecdotes concerning him, including no less than twenty years of his life. For the better instruction of the reader we will felect a few from this promiscuous mass, that illuftrate his character with regard to his religion, his taste, his humanity and friendship, and his wit or convivial hilarity.

With regard to his religion, our fair biographer informs us (p. 220)"That he was lowly towards God; docile towards the church, and implicit in his belief of the gospel." He did not however attain at once to the fuperlative merit of implicit faith, "for at ten years of age (p. 7) he was disturbed by fcruples of infidelity." After a diligent but fruitless fearch for evidence on this myfterious fubject, he recollected to have seen a book in his father's fhop, De Veritate Religionis Chriftianæ. He feized the book in a fit of remorfe, and read it with avidity; but finding that he could not understand it, as it was written in Latin, he gave up any further inquiry, and began to follow his pleafures. But, from the pain which his conduct gave him, by one of the boldeft inferences that ever was made, he deduced the immortality of the foul, which was the point that his belief ftopped at; and from that moment, refolving to be a Chriftian, he became one of the moft zealous Church of England faints which this nation has produced. Notwithstanding of this extraordinary converfion, he did not all at once get the better of the old man, "for corruption at an early period entered into his heart by a dream." When our elegant hiftoriographer interrogated him concerning this nocturnal corruption; "Do not afk me," replied he with much violence, and walked away in apparent agitation. Thus, to the irreparable lofs of the learned world, this dream hath gone the fame way with Nebuchadnezzar's, and there is no Daniel to divine and interpret! His faith in the immortality of the foul feems now to have acquired a tolerable degree of thicknefs and confiftency, and to have extended to purgatory as well as heaven and hell. Having got the play of Hamlet in his hand, he was reading it quietly in his father's kitchen, and kept on fteadily enough, till coming to the ghoft scene, he fuddenly hurried up ftairs to the street-door, that he might fee people about him. He continued long to be

afraid