you, for your clients, as they will lofe no more caufes by its blunders. But if it is myfelf only that has escaped your remembrance, I must endeavour to refresh it by a vifit, before I am worn out of your memory, beyond all power of recollection."

Thefe inftances are certainly felected with great judgment, and afford ftriking examples of Mr. Melmoth's fuperior talents as a tranflator-but it is impoffible to compare them with their respective originals, without perceiving that the degree of latitude which Mr. Melmoth takes in his tranflations, and which give them fo much eafe and elegance, produces an uniformity of Ityle, wholly inconfiftent with a characteristic reprefentation of the peculiarities of his author. The freedom and luxuriance of Cicero's ftyle are much more perfectly copied by Melmoth, than is the pointed concifenefs of Pliny.

The prefent writer juftly remarks, that, while a tranflator endeavours to give to his works all the ease of original compofition, the chief difficulty which he has to encounter, will be found in the tranflation of idioms, or that turn of expreffion which does not belong to univerfal grammar, but of which every language has its own, that are exclufively proper to it, The tranflation is perfect, when the tranflator finds in his own language an idiomatic phrafe correfponding to that of the original; as in Sterne's tranflation of Slawkenbergius's Tale; nihil me pœnitet bujus nafi, "my nofe has been the making of me." To execute this kind of imitation, with fuccefs, requires great ingenuity and tafte; as our author has fhewn in feveral inftances of fuccefs in Cotton's tranflation of Montaigne's Effays, and of failure in Eachard's Terence and Plautus; and in a comparison of Smollet's tranflation of Don Quixote with that of Motteaux.

From thefe, and other parts of this effay, we could easily select many entertaining extracts: but we have already made quotations from the work fufficient to convince every reader of good taste, that the volume will repay the trouble of a diligent perufal of the whole.

ART. II. Obfervations on the Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs; and on Mr. Paine's Rights of Man. In Two Parts. By Sir Brooke Boothby, Bart. 8vo. pp. 283. 5s. fewed. Stockdale. 1792.

ΤΗ

HOUGH Sir Brooke Boothby, as he fays of himself, and as indeed it is evident on the face of his work, be neither Burkite nor Painite,' yet we fear he will not wholly escape the imputation of being a party man. In fome pages of his book, he gives his readers too much ground to entertain a fuf

picion of that kind. He feems to confider it as the most culpable part of Mr. Burke's conduct; not that he has contradicted all his former political doctrines; not that he has blindly given way to rage, and gratified his paffions, without liftening to fact or reafon; not that he has wantonly indulged himfelf in the most ungenerous and atrocious abufe of an auguft affembly, which, whatever may be thought of its decrees, cannot, without a departure from candour, be supposed to have acted from any but the faireft and moft upright motives; not that he has avowed and maintained fentiments which are false in themselves: but that he has dared to utter and defend fentiments, which do not happen to be the fentiments of that party in concert with which Mr. Burke had previously carried on the warfare of politics *.

Of this party, commonly termed the Oppofition, Sir Brooke Boothby feems to think that the leaders have engroffed all the virtue and wifdom, all the genius and integrity, in the kingdom; that they alone are the true Whigs; that they are poffeffed of more than papal infallibility; and that when they pronounce against the Whigifm of men or books, all appeal to reafon, or to any other tribunal, is precluded; and that though a man be wife, or good, or great, yet if he be not a Whig, i. e. if he be not of this party,

* So far are we from condemning Mr. Burke for the circumftance of differing from his party, confidered fimply in itself, that we think that he, and every other man, are worthy of praife for exerting their own judgments, and for declaring their opinions, on matters of importance, however they may chance, by so doing, to differ from thofe with whom they agree in other points. We apprehend that it has been one of Mr. Burke's faults, that he has given too much into thefe party obligations. (See Rev. vol. vi. p. 298. New Series.)

It is very feldom that we can quote Dr. Johnfon's political opinions with approbation: but we moft cordially fubfcribe to his fentiments on the prefent fubject. "An eminent public character being mentioned, Dr. Johníon faid, I remember being prefent when he fhewed himself fo corrupted, or at leaft fomething fo different from what I think right, as to maintain that a member of parliament fhould go along with his party right or wrong. Now, Sir, this is fo remote from native virtue, from fcholaftic virtue, that a good man must have undergone a great change before he can reconcile himself to fuch a doctrine. It is maintaining that you may lie to the public; for you lie when you call that right which you think wrong, or the reverse. A friend of ours, who is too much an echo of that gentleman, obferved, that a man who does not flick uniformly to a party, is only waiting to be bought Why then, faid I, he is only waiting to be what that gentleman is already." Bofwell's Life of Johnfon, vol. i. p. 398.

he is nothing-in fhort, that this party can never be in the wrong, no, not when a whole nation is against them. On the other hand, he fuppofes that the oppofite party can never be in the right. If the minifter abftains from profecuting writings, which Sir Brooke himself acknowleges would be exalted into greater confequence by being thus noticed, it is not wisdom nor moderation, nor a regard for liberty, nor any other laudable, nor even innocent motive, by which the minifter is influenced. No. It is becaufe the object of the writer, to prove that England has not a free conftitution, falis in with the intereft of a bad minifter, who is defirous of maintaining the fame pofition. (P. 237.) *

After deducting, however, for thefe little partial attachments and prejudices, which certainly detract from the merit of his performance, there ftill remains much praife due to Sir B. Boothby for many of his obfervations; and more especially for those contained in the former part of the work. In oppofition to Mr. Burke's vain and empty dream of a wicked republican faction combining for a purpose nothing short of the overthrow of our whole conftitution, he obferves that, from all the evidence which we can collect, republican principles fecm to have made but little progrefs in this country:

Of the difpofition of the nation in this regard we have a recent and not inconclufive fpecimen. The author of the Reflections and the high church party proclaim the church and king in danger, and the fires of Birmingham are lighted up. A few diffenters and republicans endeavour to fhew that our religious and civil liberties are incomplete, and they cannot meet to dine at a tavern without danger of affallination. One man eminent above the rest for his virtues and ufeful talents ftands particularly charged with the horrible crime of propagating religious tenets abominably tolerant, and civil opinions fhockingly too favourable to the bulk of mankind. He is marked out by thefe loyal and orthodox incendiaries. His property is pillaged, his dwelling burnt, and his perfon hunted for. If the chafe had been fuccefsful thefe bloodhounds might not perhaps have eaten their game, because fach a repaft is not to the tale of an English mob; but they would cer

* When Mr. Paine fays, that we have not a free conftitution, he means that it is not free enough; that our liberties ought to be extended; and he has explained himself fo fully, that it was impoffible to mistake his meaning. If a bad minifter fhould fay, that we have not a free conftitution, he must mean that we have no conftitutional right to freedom; and his intention must be to abridge our liberties. It is hard to conceive how any one can reprefent the object of Mr. Paine and that of the minifter as the fame, unless he either wishes to deceive his readers, or is grofsly deceived by his own party prejudices.

tainly have confummated their auto da fé by hanging him up in terrour to all future philofophers. In the conclufion, the juftice of the country has been fince denied, or hardly and partially yielded to the fulleft evidence of the moft flagrant guilt. Now I defire any obferving impartial man to contraft this with what he believes would have happened if the diffenters had attacked the parfonage or even the tithe barn of the clergyman who is reported to have inflamed his congregation with to much angry abufe of his Chrif tian brethren, and to draw the confequent inference. If I were difpofed to push this argument to its extent, it might I think be fhewn from it that fuch a work as the Reflections is at this moment and in this country at least as dangerous to peace and good order as Mr. Paine's Rights of Man.'

The ground on which Mr. Burke is defended in the Appeal, for having fo vilified and reprobated the free and popular part of our conftitution, always appeared to us extremely weak. The infufficiency of it is here well exposed:

By way of apology, for what you must therefore allow to exift, the feeming tendency of the Reflections to anti-popular or Tory principles, you ftate, that it is reasonable when one of the branches of the conftitution appears endangered, to support that, without any reference or regard to the other two; that it is natural, in the anxiety for the prefervation of this object of immediate folicitude, to feem to undervalue, to vilify, almost to reprobate and dijown, those that are out of danger. Upon this paffage there are, I think, two obfervations to be made that when the gentleman compares himself to the venerable Priam, the monarchical branch of the conftitution is his Hector-the fpes fidiffima Teucrum--and that thofe who conceive the popular part of the conftitution to be in danger of being fwallowed up in the influence of the crown, (and you cannot fuppofe the exiftence of fuch miftaken men wholly impoffible,) have juft as good a right to forget the monarchy as the gentleman has to forget the democracy; and if Mr. Paine thinks the crown too ftrong and the popular representation too weak, in undervaluing, vilifying, reprobating and difowning the crown, he does no more, according to you, than follow the voice of nature and truth.'

To his arguments against Mr. Burke, Sir Brooke adds also his own obfervation of facts:

The gentleman does not admit that the French have acted under any dread of arbitrary power that lay heavy upon the minds of the people. He has been lately in France; and he founds his opinion on what he Jaw and obferved while he was there. To the obfervation of one man the obfervation of another may be fairly opposed; the authour of this pamphlet has alfo at various periods of his life pafled fome part of his time in France, and the impreffion left upon his mind is quite different from that which is the refult of your client's obfervation. To his view, that fine country has always appeared to languifh under the evils of a vicious conftitution; prefenting an odious contrast between the higher and lower orders, an infolent imperious nobility, and an oppreffed and fuffering people;

ple; and totally deficient of the middle independent rank, the ftrength and finew of a nation. All penury and privation on one fide, rendered still more bitter and poignant by the faftidious, offenfive luxuries of the other. Nor have the morals of this military monarchy appeared better than its political conftitution. Among the great, perfonal bravery, and the point of honour founded upon it, were the only qualifications for which the favour of the court did not offer much more than an equivalent. All the civil and domeftic virtues were configned over to the people, the canaille, as objects of contempt and ridicule, under the title of qualités bourgeoifes, a phrafe to which, thank God, our language furnishes nothing fynonimous. In a word, virtue was a ufeless incumbrance to the great, whom the want of it could not debafe; and offered no incitements to the little, who could not be elevated by its poffeffion. One half of the nation was above and the other below its influence.

If thefe things have appeared in fuch oppofite lights to the authour of the Reflections and the writer of this pamphlet, it is not extraordinary that their conclufions on the French revolution fhould be fo different: which of the two has feen the objects nearest to what they really are it does not belong to either of them to determine; but I cannot avoid making one remark with which I am much ftruck, that when I fee a man qualified like the right honourable gentleman venture publicly to praife, and in a great degree to approve, the military monarchy of France, I think it time more than ever to return thanks to Heaven that this dangerous neighbour is removed a little farther from our doors.'

Sir Brooke next fhews the infufficiency of the quotations brought forward in the Appeal, to prove that the revolution of 1688 was placed by the Whig managers of Sacheverel's trial on the fame ground on which Mr. Burke had placed it in his "Reflections:" contends that the affertion, that this revolution can be justified by neceffity only, is a position on which he is willing to meet his opponent at iffue before all the Whigs past, prefent, and to come: extracts a regular fet of canons of Toryifm from Mr. Burke's late writings: fhews that the right hon. gentleman, in deciding all the late difputes that have happened in Holland, in the Auftrian Netherlands, and at Liege, uniformly takes part against the liberties of the people, and feems to fancy himself deputed by Providence to lead the powers of Europe to Paris, as St. Dominic did on a like occafion to Thouloufe: vindicates the memory of Rouffeau against the calumnies of Mr. Burke; and then paffes on to the fecord part of his work.

Here we think Sir Brooke Boothby is more successful in the general character and defcription that he gives of Mr. Paine's

In the French vocabulary, all the adjectives belonging to virtue were transferred to rank and confideration. Honnette gensgens comme il faut-la bonne compagnie--le bon ton, &c. &c.'

writings,