hundred and sixty public statues, which strike the eye of a stranger, and attract his notice as much as the finest ornaments of the most Bourishing city of Greece did Pausanias, are exposed to all the injuries of the weather, and entirely left to the care of the populace, who respect them as sacred relics. This respect descends from parent to child, and is founded on a taste for the sublime and beautiful, which the habit of seeing such things admired and hearing them praised ren ders natural; and this habitual attachment to the fine arts is so inhe rent in the Italians, that the ladies of Rome and Florence can discourse with as much propriety on the subject, as ever a German professor did on the science he practises. • The Florentines bear a striking similitude to the ancient Athe, nians, in the veneration they profess for whatever has any relation to their country. Florence is in their eyes with respect to the whole of Europe, what Athens in the famous panegyric of Isocrates is represented to be with respect to all the rest of Greece, They view in Florence every excellence of every kind and every age; and, in re, garding other nations, owing to this self-esteem, they behold nothing But barbarity and ignorance; they fancy that they alone have in. vented, produced, and practised every thing that is useful or agreeable.'- • All expectation of the revival of a noble pride, however, seems to be vain, when, in a free nation, there are too many people in whose eyes Phocion was a fool; too many who look down upon a hero with a haughty pity; who do not believe that there ever existed any great men; who think fame an empty bubble, because it has always proved impossible for them to do any thing worthy of it; who contract their brows into the appearance of a frown, which visibly betrays their ti morous emotions, when the word freedom is pronounced by an ad venturous innovator in their presence; who would exclude from the press the most sublime monuments of the honour of their formerly simple and unsophisticated nation, in which the heroic deeds of their fathers are depicted in the most lively colours, by which the love of virtue, of concord, of liberty, of religion, of the country, and of the laws, would, like a stream of fire, rush into every heart, and awaken in it at the same time an utter aversion to the poison of foreign manners, to prodigality, to effeminacy, and to avarice; adducing, in their support, this shameful and pitiful maxim, "That it is dangerous to pull down an old house over your shoulders." This translation is made with more fidelity, but with some what less elegance, than the French version by Mercier; who abridged what was tedious, and varnished what was offensive. ART. XIII. The History of the Reign of George the Third, King of Great Britain, &c. from the Conclusion of the Seventh Session of the Sixteenth Parliament in 1790, to the End of the Sixth Scssion of the Seventeenth Parliament of Great Britain, in 1796. By Robert Macfarlan, Esq. Vol. IV. 8vo, pp. 650. 9s. Boards. Evans. 1796. I' F our readers will give themselves the trouble of turning back to our accounts of the former volumes of this work, in Rev. wol. xliii. p. 187; vol. lxvii. p. 420, and N. S. vol. xvii. p. go-they will find, on comparing the several articles, that we have thought the writer entitled to a considerable portion of praise for industry in collecting and correctness in relating facts; and that we have been disposed to allow his work a place, if not in the first class of historical writings, among those useful compilations which are distinguished by the name of Annals; and, though this is not the title under which Mr. Macfarlan has chosen to present his work to the public, he himself, at the close of the preface to this volume, gives it the appellation of Annals of Europe. Under this comprehensive character, the present volume, especially, may have pretensions to be considered; for it is in fact a general retrospect of the affairs of Europe through the period mentioned in the title. Besides the parliamentary history of Great Britain for these years, which may perhaps be faid to be the principal object of the work, and in which the author has condensed, with considerable ability, the leading arguments on each side in the more important debates, this volume contains heads of the contest in 1790 between Ruffia and Sweden; a connected view of the origin, progress, and termination of the war in India; a history of the French Revolution, from its commencement, to the late unsuccessful negotiation; an account of the rapacious partition of Poland; and particulars of the late disturbances in America. The larger part of the volume might more properly be considered as a portion of the history of France, than of that of England; and here the reader will find little which has not been repeatedly related in other publications. At the commencement of this history, we were inclined to give the author credit for an attachment to the genuine principles of British freedom: but, in the sequel, we saw occasion to remark that his tone on this subject was lowered; and we must now confess that, whatever spirit of liberty might have animated his pen in the outset, it is by this time almost, if not altogether, evaporated. The preface, indeed, contains a confident boast of impartiality; and the writer values himself on having, in an age in which men must not speak what they think, discovered a mode of expressing his sentiments, so as not to disgrace a freeman, either by the concealment or perversion of truth, whose cause he has invariably espoused, hav ing courted no party. The general spirit of this volume by no means agrees with this declaration. The author has indeed discovered a mode of expressing his sentiments which will give no offence to the present administration, nor to the advocates for the present war, and which would probably pass muster with any minister of any despotic power in Europe: but we cannot think that he has at the same time been so fortunate to adopt a mode of expression, which will suit, we will not say warm republicans, but-even the temperate and consistent friends of the British constitution. In his description of the several stages of the French revolution, of French leaders, and of French proceedings, all is invective, without any appearance of discri mination or moderation. The measures of our administration in commencing, conducting, and continuing the war are justified; the common language of the alarmists against the friends of freedom is adopted; the appellation of "acquitted felons" is quoted without censure as the language of government; and even the severe sentiments of the Scotch courts on certain occasions are maintained. The political spirit with which the volume is written may be sufficiently seen in the following short pas sage, on the subject of the late state trials: In Ireland steps had been taken to assist a French invasion by debauching the minds of the populace and inveigling the soldiery; but in England no overt acts of treason had been committed, or at least no acts, which juries could be induced to declare treasonable. Of what lawyers style constructive treason many persons, that on this occasion came before a court of justice, were certainly guilty; but, as the acts charged in the indictments did not seem to aim directly at the sovereign's life, to which treason in its most obvious acceptation points, petty juries discovering no immediate intention of this crime in the conduct of the culprits, acquitted those, whom, if accused of sedition, they would have condemned. The escape of the republican leaders in England through this mistake in the mode of prosecu tion, which proceeded from the errour of the interpreters of the law. rather than of the ministers, was the cause of much triumph to the minority, who declaimed with violence against the tyranny of govern ment, the partiality of grand juries, and the injustice of the reports made by committees of both houses asserting the reality of conspira cies against the constitution. But, when it appeared that the ancient doctrine of constructive treason inculcated by the sages of the law would not in these enlight ened times be adopted by twelve men on their oaths, indictments for sedition instead of treason took place, the remaining culprits were convicted and punished, and those who had hair breadth's-escapes were deemed only acquitted felons. In Ireland and Scotland a few suffered for treason, and several were banished for fourteen years to Botany-Bay for sedition. Stanhope, Lauderdale, Grey, Sheridan and Fox condemned the sentences awarded in the North as illegal, cruel and vindictive, since the punishment in England for sedition ex.. tends no farther than fine, imprisonment, or the pillory. But, after a minute and laborious discussion, the strict adherence of the Scotch judges to the law and long established practice of their country was indisputably evinced; and the officious interference of the minority in a question, which they either did not or would not understand, only redounded to their disgrace, as upon a division in the Lower 7 House House they could only reckon in their favour about thirty voices and in the Upper only one, that of Stanhope, the mover of the question." After having read this passage, will the reader suspect the author of being a friend to a radical reform of parliament? Yet he says, on the affair of Mr. Tooke's petition: The petition was clearly intended by Tooke for arresting the public attention, and for convincing the people by so bold and decisive a step of the rotten constitution of the Lower House. Why then did not the members prove the petition, if it was a false and scandalous libel, to be so in the committee? Tooke offered to prove all his allegations, but was denied that liberty. Here then both parties were at issue, but the House declined the contest, and allowed the affair to sink, as they called it, into merited oblivion. Did this superciliousness arise from the notoriety of the facts stated in the petition, and from the impossibility of disproving them? This was the conclusion which their conduct dictated to the nation, and the ferment, which soon agitated the island through its whole extent on the subject of representation, demonstrates the impolicy of attempting the suppres sion rather than the removal of a grievance. With the knowledge already possessed by the people, and with the light constantly pouring from the press, they neither will nor should rest contented without a radical cure of the evil.' This is not the only instance of inconsistency to be found in the volume. In one passage, Mr. Burke is highly extolled as a writer whose predictions have been so fully confirmed by the event, that even his enemies must confess, that though his oracles were delivered in prose, he was no less a prophet than a poet' yet in another, the author speaks of him with contempt under the same character: By literary admirers he is extolled as a poet, and by clerical devotees idolized as a prophet; being often filled with the inspiration of the former, if not swelled with the insanity of the latter." The following will hardly be considered as a fair, certainly not as a flattering, portrait : Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a member of distinguished talents, and a much better comedian than his father. With a countenance generally enriched with rubies he has a figure not ungraceful, and a distinct ut terance, but not a commanding voice nor pleasing fluency of language, the stream of his oratory, like that of most authors, running through an uneven and rocky channel. Hesitation and repetition, however, are not so frequent in his studied harangues, and in them his party is fond of com paring him to Pitt; whom he follows at a long interval, having Fox Burke and others far before him in the oratorical race. Though said by partizans to reconcile conciseness with ornament, and to unite Burke's golden tide of eloquence with Fox's subtlety, vigour and variety, he is in fact rather a good debater than a great orator. Greece and Rome produced but two such characters; and we have How the happiness of seeing the first specimen in modern times of SO so rare an accomplishment. Sheridan's speeches like his friend Fox's are better in the reading than in the delivery; and therefore, as a slovenly, petulant and venomous Scotch peer, who, though suffered by the Patrician politeness of the Upper House to discharge his cru dities, would be coughed down by the Plebeian impatience of the Lower, always turns his face to the reporters, so ought Sheridan to address the galleries rather than the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This gentleman's comick powers are confessedly great, but unfortu nately a talent for satire is generally reckoned an indication of a bad heart; and his intimate acquaintance with Jews is thought to have improved his system of morality just as much as Fox's new-born Sa viour has advanced their fortune. Why it is said should we be sur prized at the derangement of the Prince of Wales's finances, when Sheridan was his companion and adviser? His frequent attempts at wit, which is often tinctured with gall and venom, break the thread of his reasoning and bewilder both himself and the audience. Hence more attention is paid to his jests than his arguments; and he is often heard rather for amusement and laughter than for instruction and persuasion. Add but prodigality to the worst character in his best play, and you will have according to fame, here perhaps a liar, his picture drawn by his own pencil.” The words marked in Italics, in the above extract, are a sample of the rudeness and indecency of language which this writer often manifests; and, in his general narration, he most usually speaks of persons only by their name, or the mere word which forms their titles, without their appropriate designations as Grey, Jervis, Abercrombie, York, Moira, Howe, Lauderdale, Lansdowne, Cobourg, Clairfait, &c. &c. How. ever the dignity of history may demand this sacrifice of etiquette in speaking of remote periods, or of natives of other countries, it is an obtrusive incivility in the annals of recent events, and in denoting living personages *. Besides this objection, the style is generally incorrect, especially in respect to the essential point of punctuation. Retrogade we observe printed instead of retrograde, and various other instances of slovenly' inattention. We are sorry thus to detract from the praise which we bestowed on the preceding parts of this work: but the present volume is more a hasty and violent party publication, than a correct and impartial history :—although, as annals of the times, it still has merit. * We remark a mistake in p. 457, where the author has endea voured to assign his appropriate title to the Right Hon. Lord Ame lius Beauclerk, Captain of the Dryad Frigate. He erroneously salls him the Hon. Capt. Beauclerk |