two friends, with whom he regularly maintained a correfpondence throughout life. In June 1722, Mr. Bowyer left college, and entered into the printing bufinefs with his father. In 1728, he married a very accomplished woman, who died fuddenly about three years after; by whom he had two fons, one of whom furvived him. Through the friendship of the Right Hon. Arthur Onflow, he was appointed Printer of the Votes of the House of Commons in the year 1729, and continued in that, employ under three fucceffive Speakers for almoft fifty years. In 1736, he was appointed Printer to the Society of Antiquaries; and was elected into that respectable body the 7th of July. in the fame year, and foon fhewed himfelf to be a very useful member. In the year 1747, Mr. Bowyer entered a second time into the matrimonial state with a most benevolent and worthy woman, by whom he had no children. In the year 1761, he fucceeded Mr. Richardson, the celebrated Author of Clariffa, &c. as Printer to the Royal Society, and had the fatisfaction of continuing in that employment till his death, under the friendship and patronage of five fucceffive Prefidents, viz. the Earls of Macclesfield and Morton, Sir James Burrow, James Weft, Efq; and Sir John Pringle. In 1767, he was appointed to print the Rolls of Parliament, and the Journals of the House of Lords. He was principally indebted for this appointment to the Earl of Marchmont. The want of fufficient room now compelled him, though not without reluctance, to exchange White Fryars, where he was born, and had refided nearly 67 years, for Red Lion Paffage, Fleet-ftreet; where he opened his new office,. with the fign of Cicero's head, under which was inscribed "M. T. CICERO, A QUO PRIMORDIA PRELI," in allufion to the well known early editions of Tully's Offices. Mr. Bowyer had always been fubject to a bilious colic, and during the last ten years of his life was afflicted with the pally and the ftone; but, notwithstanding thefe infirmities, he preferved in general a remark, able cheerfulness of difpofition, and received great fatisfaction from the converfation of a few literary friends, by whom he continued to be vifited. The faculties of his mind, though fomewhat impaired, were ftrong enough to fupport the labour of almost inceffant reading, which had ever been his principal amufement; and he regularly corrected the learned works, and especially the Greek books, which; came from his prefs. This he did till within a very few weeks of his death, which happened in November 1777, when he had nearly com pleted his 78th year. The publications of Mr. Bowyer are an incontrovertible evidence of his abilities and learning: to which may be added, that he was In 1722, he wrote the Preface to Mattaire's Mifcellanea Græco rum, &c. In 1726, he published a View of Baxter's Reliquiæ," an admirable sketch of W. Baxter's Gloffary of Roman Antiquities. In was honoured with the friendship and patronage of the most diftinguished perfonages of his age. For more than half a century he ftood unrivalled as a learned Printer; and fome of the most masterly productions of this kingdom appeared from his prefs. To his literary and profeffional abilities, he added an excellent moral character. His regard to religion was displayed in his publications, and in the courfe of his life and fludies; and he was particularly distinguished by his inflexible probity, and an uncommon alacrity in affifting the neceflitous. His liberality in relieving every fpecies of distress, and his endeavours to conceal his benefactions, reflect great honour on his memory. Though he was naturally fond of retirement, and feldom entered into company excepting with men of letters, he was, perhaps, excelled by few in the talent of justly discriminating the real characters of mankind. He judged of the perfons he faw by a fort of intuition; and his judgments were generally right. From a consciousness of his literary fuperiority, he did not always pay that attention to the Bookfellers which was expedient in the way of his bufinefs. Being too proud to folicit the favours in that way which he believed to be his due, he was often difappointed in his expectations. On the other hand, he frequently experienced friendships in cafes where he had much lefs reafon to have hoped for them: fo that, agreeable to an expreffion of his own," in what he had received, and in what he had been denied, he thankfully acknowledged the will of Heaven." The two great objects he had in view in the decline of life, were to repay the benefactions his father had received, and to be himself a benefactor to the meritorious of his own profeflion. These purposes are fully difplayed in his laft will. Mr. Bowyer, agreeably to his own direcion, was buried with his friends in the church-yard of Low-Leyton in Effex, near the South-weft corner of the church, where an infcription is placed to the memory of himself and feveral of of his relations.' From this immenfe ftorehouse we are at a loss what to make choice of for the amusement and information of our Readers. We have anecdotes on anecdotes: for it is the difpofition of the indefatigable compiler of thefe memoirs rather to give too much than too little; and to gratify a hungry hunter of biography with all the fport he can defire, ftarts more game than a perfon lefs keen in the chace hath any inclination to purfue, or any appetite to partake of. Amidft a multitude of curious and original papers relating to the literature of the prefent century, we are prefented with anecdotes of fome of the most diftinguifhed authors who have figured in it: the bare recital of whofe names would fill many pages of our review. Some of the most interefting and enter 1731, he wrote an Answer to Bowman's Sermon on the Traditions of the Clergy, &c. &c. But his tract on the Origin of Printing (in which he was much affifted by his ingenious Biographer), and his Conjectures an the new Teftament, are performances which most Atrongly mark his abilities, learning, and application. taining taining accounts are of Mr. Nelfon, Dean Stanhope, Mrs. Eltob (celebrated for her knowledge of the Saxon language), Mr. Markland, Dr. W. Wotton, Dr. John Taylor, Dr. Courayer, Bishop Tanner, Bishop Littleton, Dr. Middleton, Dr. S. Chandler, Mr. S. Richardion, Maittaire, Bifhop Pococke, Carte the Hiftorian, Mr. Thomas Edwards author of the Canons of Criticifm, Dr. J. Brown, Dr. Beattie, Bifhop Clayton, George Vertue the Painter, Mr. Burgh, Browne Willis the celebrated Antiquary, Dr. Mead, Dr. Jortin, Dr. Armstrong, Mr. Garrick, Bifhop Squire, Mr. Rowe-Mores, Dr. William Friend, Mr. Spence, Mr. Chefleden the celebrated Surgeon, Dr. Zach. Grey, Dr. John Ward, Dr. Parfons, Mr. Hooke, Mr. Hollis, Dr. Borlafe, Mr. Henry Baker, Bishop Warburton, Sir William Brown, Dr. Salter, &c. &c. &c. Mr. Nichols's refources have been very numerous and very refpectable. He tells us, that he had once an intention of giv ing an alphabetical lift of all the friends who have afforded him. affiftance in this elaborate undertaking; but, fays he, they are now so numerous, that to name them would certainly be confidered as oftentation; and to fome of them (to Sir John Pringle, Dr. Richardfon, Dr. Fothergill, and Mr. Coftard) thofe thanks would come too late, which to the furviving contributors are nevertheless very cordially paid.' Some anachronisms have unavoidably arisen from the works having been fo long paffing through the prefs. Many of them, however, are corrected in the Appendix, which is exceedingly copious, and abounds with fresh ftores of literary information and entertainment; and in which the Author chooses rather to appear triflingly minute, than to fuffer articles to remain which it was in his power to correct or improve. From the multifarious matter which lies before us, we will felect, for the amusement of our Readers the account given of that truly great fcholar, and original writer, Dr. Warburton, the late Bishop of Gloucefter.But for the anecdotes relative to this celebrated perfon, we muft refer the curious Reader to our next Review. ART. VIII. Letters from an American Farmer, CONCLUDED. THE See HE interefting materials of which thefe letters are com pofed will be a fufficient apology for extending our account of them beyondt he limits ufually affigned to publications of this class. There are few parts of thefe letters that will excite greater aftonishment in the breafts of those who are unacquainted with States the rigour with which the poor flaves are treated in the fouthern REV. Oct. 1782. T States of America, than that in which our Author fo feelingly describes (and we fear without exaggeration), the state of the negroes in South Carolina: While all is joy, feftivity, and happiness, fays he, in CharlesTown, would you imagine that fcenes of mifery overfpread in the country? Their ears by habit are become deaf, their hearts are hardened; they neither fee, hear, nor feel for the woes of their poor flaves, from whofe painful labours all their wealth proceeds. Here the horrors of flavery, the hardship of inceffant toils, are unfeen; and no one thinks with compaffion of thofe fhowers of fweat and of tears which, from the bodies of Africans, daily drop, and moisten the ground they till. The cracks of the whip, urging these miserable beings to exceffive labour, are far too diftant from the gay capital to be heard. The chofen race eat, drink, and live happy, while the unfortunate one grubs up the ground, raifes indigo, or hufks the rice; exposed to a fun full as fcorching as their native one; without the fupport of good food, without the cordials of any chearing liquor. This great contraft has often afforded me fubjects of the most afflicting meditation. On the one fide, behold a people enjoying all that life affords most bewitching and pleasurable, without labour, without fatigue, hardly fubjected to the trouble of wifhing. With gold, dug from Peruvian mountains, they order veffels to the coafts of Guinea; by virtue of that gold, wars, murders, and devaftations are committed in fome harmless, peaceable African neighbourhood, where dwelt innocent people, who even knew not but that all men were black. The daughter torn from her weeping mother, the child from the wretched parents, the wife from the loving husband; whole families fwept away, and brought through ftorms and tempefts to this rich metropolis! There, arranged like horfes at a fair, they are branded like cattle, and then driven to toil, to ftarve, and to languish for a few years on the different plantations of these citizens. And for whom muft they work? For perfons they know not, and who have no other power over them than that of violence; no other right than what this accurfed metal has given them! Strange order of things! Oh, Nature, where art thou?-Are not thefe blacks thy children as well as we? On the other fide, nothing is to be feen but the moft diffufive mifery and wretchednefs, unrelieved even in thought or wish! Day after day they drudge on, without any profpect of ever reaping for themselves; they are obliged to devote their lives, their limbs, their will, and every vital exertion to fwell the wealth of masters, who look not upon them with half the kindness and affection with which they confider their dogs and horses. Kindness and affection are not the portion of thofe who till the earth, who carry burdens, who convert the logs into ufeful boards. This reward, fimple and natural as one would conceive it, would border on hamanity; and planters must have none of it! If negroes are permitted to become fathers, this fatal indulgence only tends to increase their mifery: the poor companions of their fcanty pleasures are likewife the companions of their labours; and when at fome critical feafons they could wish to fee them relieved, with tears in their eyes they behold them perhaps doubly oppreffed, obliged to bear the burden of nature-a fatal prefent-as well as that of of unabated tasks. How many have I feen curfing the irrefiftible propenfity, and regretting, that by having tafted of thofe harmless joys, they had become the authors of double mifery to their wives. Like their maters, they are not permitted to partake of thofe ineffable fenfations with which nature infpires the hearts of fathers and mothers; they muft repel them all, and become callous and paffive. This unnatural fiate often occafions the most acute, the most pungent of their afflictions; they have no time, like us, tenderly to rear their helplefs off pring, to nurfe them on their knees, to enjoy the delight of being parents. Their paternal fondness is embittered by confidering, that if their children live, they muft live to be flaves like themselves; no time is allowed them to exercise their pious office, the mothers must faften them on their backs, and, with this double load, follow their husbands in the fields, where they too often hear no other found but that of the voice or whip of the task-mhafter, and the cries of their infants, broiling in the fun. Thefe unfortunate creatures cry and weep like their parents, without a poffibility of relief; the very inft net of the brute, fo laudable, fo irrefillible, runs counter here to their master's intereft; and to that god, all the laws of nature must give way. Thus planters get rich; fo raw, fo unexperienced am in this mode of life, that were I to be poffeffed of a plantation, and my flaves treated as in general they are here, never could I reft in peace; my fleep would be perpetually disturbed by a retrospect of the frauds committed in Africa, in order to entrap them; frauds furpaffing in enormity every thing which a common mind can poffibly conceive. I fhould be thinking of the barbarous treatment they meet with on fhip-board; of their anguish, of the defpair neceffarily infpired by their fituation, when torn from their friends and relations; when delivered into the hands of a people differently coloured, whom they cannot understand; carried in a strange machine over an ever-agitated element, which they had never seen before; and finally delivered over to the feverities of the whippers, and the exceffive labours of the field. Can it be poffible that the force of custom fhould ever make me deaf to all thefe reflections, and as infenfible to the injuftice of that trade, and to their miferies, as the rich inhabitants of this town feem to be? What then is man; this being who boals so much of the excellence and dignity of his nature, among that variety of unfcrutable myferies, of unfolvable problems, with which he is furrounded? The reafon why man has been thus created, is not the least aftonishing It is faid, I know, that they are much happier here than in the West Indies; becaufe land being cheaper upon this continent than in thofe iflands, the fields allowed them to raise their subistence from, are in general more extenfive. The only poffible chance of any alleviation depends on the humour of the planters, who, bred in the midst of flaves, learn from the example of their parents to defpife them; and feldom conceive either from religion or philofophy, any ideas that tend to make their fate lefs calamitous, except fome ftrong native tenderness of heart, fome rays of philanthropy, overcome the obduracy contracted by habit.' It will furely be one of the first regulations of general policy, as foon as the turbulency of the times will permit the Americans to attend to internal reformation, to reftore to thele their unfortunate T 2 |