vilizing and informing the inhabitants of the ifland. But fo far as the authors of them fondly looked forward to immortality, they were certainly mistaken. The pofitive and literal deftruction of a book, the copies of which have been univerfally diffufed, is indeed difficult; but the fame and honour of thefe papers, as compofitions, are rapidly declining. They were fucceeded, in the fame form, by the Rambler, which, leaving the example of Addifon and Steele, ranks with performances of the most elevated name. The writers of the Spectator marked their airy footsteps in the fand; and, however beautiful the traces might appear, are unable to defy the roarings of the wind, and the tempefts of the element. Johnfon, on the other hand, under the fhape of feuilles volantes, p:efents us with an accuracy and extent of obfervation, and a depth and folidity of reafoning, that clafs his publication with a Bacon and a Locke, a Shaftesbury and a Hume.

Various has been the nature, and various the fuccess, of the imitations with which thefe illuftrious examples have loaded the prefs. For fome time their authors have not ventured to give them in fingle papers, but their number has not been diminifhed by this circumftance. The mifcarriage of fome late attempts of this kind, had taught us to feel a kind of unplea- . fant fenfation in opening fubfequent mifcellanies. The writer of Sylva, however, has contrived to diffipate our prejudice; and we acknowledge in him a friend, agreeable, amufing, and inftructive. That the reader may form fome judgment of the entertainment he is to expect, we will prefent him with the following paper on "conferring and receiving favours."

66

Socrates, though importuned, refufed to go to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedonia. Seneca, who has recorded the fact, fays that his oftenfible reafon was, "not to receive favours which he could not return,"-nolle fe ad eum venire, a quo acciperet beneficia, cum reddere illi paria non poffet: his real one, not to go into voluntary fervitude,"—noluit ire ad voluntariam fervitutem *. The real one, certainly for Archelaus was a bad prince; and courts are not places of freedom and independence, even under good ones. -Befides, the former reafon would, I should think, have been unworthy of Socrates. What! is no man to receive a benefit, but who is able to return it? If so, then (as Ariftotle makes him reply upon this occafion, but furely unphilofophically)" it must be as great an affront to confer a benefit upon a perfon who cannot return it, as to injure a perfon who cannot redress himself t:" and then all acts of kindness, generofity, and charity, must be banished from among men; fince one party is no more at liberty to confer, than the other to receive, a

favour.

De Benefic, V. 6.

↑ Rhetor. II. 23.

! How

How is it, I wonder, that we hear fo many exclaiming loudly against receiving favours? "I think nothing fo dear as what is given me," fays Montaigne;" and that, because my will lies at pawn under the title of ingratitude. I more willingly accept of offices to be fold; being of opinion, that for the laft I give nothing but money, but for the firft I give myfelf:" as if, according to ancient language, "to receive a favour was to fell our liberty,- beneficium accipere eft li. bertatem vendere. It may be fo in fome cafes, and with fome perfons; and I fhall fo far compromife the matter with Montaigne, that we ought to be careful, and perhaps fomewhat nice, from whom we receive favours. But to lay down the propofition univerfally, and with respect to all manner of perfons; to fpurn the very idea of receiving a favour from, or being obliged to, any one; to think and reason, as if fervices conferred and received ought, like other trading commodities, to be weighed as in a scale; to keep an account as of creditor and debtor; and to dread a balance against us as much, as if lofs of liberty and imprisonment were the confequence-all this is wretched 'tis all faftidious hauteur, pride, infolence; denoting a fpirit and temper certainly unchriftian, but unphilofophical alfo, and impolitic in the highest degree. And why? because it would greatly weaken, if not deftroy, all that mutual affection, all that intercourfe of kindness and good offices, fo, by nature, neceffary to the helpless, dependent ftate of man, and fo contributing (if not effential) to his happiness in society.'

Certainly there is much good fenfe, and found morality, in these observations. Our author has properly expofed that mean prejudice, and idle French philofophy, which, firft tracing all our affections and actions to the fource of felf-love, has been afterwards defirous of teaching us, that refined selfishness is the perfection of human nature. What is offered on the fubject of great effects from caufes apparently fmall," is fcarcely lefs ingenious.

Somebody hath called Swift's Drapier's Letters, "the brazen monuments of his fame:" alluding, I should suppose, to the effect they produced, rather than to any thing extraordinary in their compo. fition. They are written, as Swift usually wrote, with abilities and addrefs; but they were far from being the cause of the effect that followed. The truth is, and we have Swift himself confefling it, that "the fuccefs of the Drapier's Letters was not owing to his abilities, but to a lucky juncture, when the fuel was ready for the first hand that would be at the pains of kindling it." Letters.The royal commentator upon Machiavel's prince, if indeed his majesty of Pruffia ́ be the author of that comment, makes the change of Queen Anne's miniftry, and the confequent peace with Lewis XIV. to be caufed by a difpute between the Queen and the Duchefs of Marlborough about a pair of gloves. Chap. 25.. It might be fo; but it must have been, just as the scratch of a pin upon the cuticle may be the cause of

a mortification, where the conftitutional habit is very bad.-I would not fay, therefore, in this and the former inftance, that the Drapier's Letters and gloves were the causes, but that they occafioned caufes, already provided, to begin to operate in producing their effects: which is what thould properly be meant, when great effects are said to proceed from caufes apparently small.

If the idea, in this cafe, be not perfectly new, it is, however, well worth our attention. It fhews us how important a ftudy is the fcience of human nature, and how much depth and philofophy go to the forming an excellent historian. Voltaire is undoubtedly an agreeable writer. He has well investigated the characters of particular men, and the fpirit of parti cular periods. But, examined by this rule, his commendation. will not be great. His hiftories are rather epigrammatic than ethical, and continually facrifice the character of the investigator and the inftructor, to that of the man of wit and the general fatyrift.

One other paffage we will extract from this volume, not fo much from any remarkable merit it poffeffes, as from the importance of the fact it relates.

It is not meant that the magiftrate fhould ever dispense with law, or act against it; but only that he should, as far as he can, temper it with lenity and forbearance, when the letter is found to run counter to the fpirit. For inftance; our ancient Saxon laws nominally punished theft with death, when the thing ftolen exceeded the value of twelve pence: yet the criminal was permitted to redeem his life with money. But, by 9 Hen. I. in 1109, this power of redemption was taken away: the law continues in force to this very day; and death is the punishment of a man who steals above twelve-pennyworth of goods, although the value of twelve pence now is near forty times lefs than when the law was made. Here the fpirit is abfolutely outraged by the letter: and, therefore, might not a juftice, when a delinquent of this fort is brought, endeavour to foften the rigour of this law; or rather to evade it, by depreciating the value of the thing ftolen; by fuffering the matter to be compromised between the parties; and, where the character of the offender will admit of it, inftead of purfuing the feverities of justice, by tempering the whole procedure with mercy? This, and fuch like modes of acting, may be faid, indeed, to be ftraining points; but, unless fuch points bẹ ftrained occafionally, magiftrates must often act, not only against the fpirit of the laws, but against the dictates of reason, and the feelings of their own hearts. Sir Henry Spelman took occafion, from this law, to complain, that "while every thing else was rifen in its va lue, and become dearer, the life of man had continually grown cheaper *."

Fortefcue has a remarkable paffage concerning this law. civil law," fays he, "where a theft is manifeft, adjudged the crimi

hal to restore fourfold; for a theft not so manifeft, twofold: but the laws of England, in either cafe, punish the party with death, provided the thing ftolen exceeds the value of twelve-pence But,

is not this comparison between civil and English law aftonifhingly made by a man, who was writing an apology for the latter against the former? What is it nothing to fettle a proportion between crimes and punishments? and fhall one man, who fteals an utenfil worth thirteen-pence, be deemed an equal offender against fociety, and fuffer the fame punishment, with another, who plunders a houfe, and murders all the family?'

Sylva is introduced to our notice by a pompous preface, in which the writer pathetically exclaims against the multitude of publications that teem from the prefs; and then pro ceeds,

• We would make our book, if we could, the beauties of know ledge, wit, and wifdom; felected from all indifcriminately who can furnish them, and brought more clofely and compendioufly together. For the great object of our work is to make men wifer, without obliging them to turn over folios and quartos † ; to furnish matter for thinking, inftead of reading.'

In the title page too, the volume is pretended to proceed from a fociety of the learned, whom we naturally reprefent to ourfelves as each of them furnishing his voluntary contribution.

This is all quackery and impertinence. Sylva does not, in reality, affume a graver form, or tend more to generate thinking, than every good book that ever was published of the fame fize and the fame variety. And the work, if we have any difcernment in ftyles, is all the production of one hand. So much fo, that the effays which are given us from a book intitled, The Irenarch of Dr. Heathcote," if Dr. Heathcote have a real existence, and be not, like the Slawkenber gius of Sterne, the mere creature of the writer's imagination, are fufficient to prove that the author of Sylva is no other than Dr. Heathcote himfelf. His work, however, is, in one fenfe, a collection, as it is interfperfed with anecdotes and bons mots, fome good and fome indifferent, fome new and fome trite.

* De Laud. Leg. Angliæ, c. 46.

La multiplicité des faits, &c. "the multiplicity of facts and writings," fays Voltaire, is become fo great, that every thing mult foon be reduced to extracts and dictionaries." In Cat. Henaut.-In. ftead of this, we are got altogether into the other extreme far from contracting and abridging, we enlarge and expatiate beyond all bounds; as if quantity, not quality, were the point to be attained. Let the fubject be politics, belles lettres, tafle, morals, or what you have we not quarto piled upon quarto, till the heap grows as huge as Pelion upon Offa 2o

will

F 3

To

To fum up the merits of our author, we cannot justly ascribe to him any of thofe nicer traits of fufceptibility, and those elevated and profound views of morality, which of all things afford us the greatest pleasure in performances of this kind. The higher energies of the understanding, and the venerable powers of difcovery are abfent. But en revanche, he entertains us with good fenfe and vivacity. His remarks fpeak the man of obfervation and experience, and his manner is fo enchanting and agreeable, that the moft faftidious critic will find it difficult to quit his volume, before he has given it nearly a complete perufal.

ART. II. Memoirs of the Literary and Philofophical Society of Manchefter. Vols. I. II. 8vo. 125. bds. Cadell. 1785.

A Brief Comparison of fome of the principal Arguments in Favour of public and private Education. By Thomas Barnes, D. D. Read May 7, 1783.' Dr. Barnes claffes the prime objects of education in the following order; beginning with thofe of lefs importance, and rifing up to those of the greateft. "Health, knowledge, temper, felf-government, morals." On this divifion of the great objects of education, it may be obferved, that the three laft mentioned heads of temper, felf-government, and morals, are all of them reducible to one head, namely, that of morals. Arbitrary divifions should be avoided all arrangements fhould be scientific: Qui bene dividit bene docet. After weighing the arguments for and against a public, and those for an dagainst a private education, Dr.Barnes gives a preference before either to a middle plan, which, by enlarging a private fchool, fo as more nearly to approach to a public one, feems calculated to blend, in fome degree, they advantages, and to divide the difadvantages of both the others. The commion conclufion on this important fubject, after all that has been faid upon it, feems to be very juft: that a private education is the most favourable to good morals, and a public one the beft adapted to produce thofe qualifications which are requifite in order to make a figure in the active world.

A Plan for the improvenment and extenfion of Liberal Education in Manchefter. By Thomas Barnes, D.D. Read April 9, 1783. Dr. Barnes remarks, "that there is a stage which paffes between a fchool and business, which is often a very diftreffing one to a parent, and an useless, if not a dangerus one to a young man. He has paffed through the common

forms