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This volume contains many curious particulars; efpecially relative to our late unhappy conteft with the American colonies. Art. 65. Confiderations on the high Price of Grain, and other Articles of Provifion, for a Number of Years back; and Propofitions for reducing them: with occafional Remarks. By Catharine Phillips. 8vo. pp. 90. 15. 6d. Phillips. 1792.

Being addreffed by a female on points of deep investigation, feemingly fo remote from the ufual objects of female attention, we pause at the novelty, until we can refolve within ourselves in what ftyle it becomes us to receive fuch a rarity.

When a lady condefcends-but foftly! we fhould recollect that we are now addreffed by a woman of understanding, and, as we believe, of a perfuafion correct enough to disdain the frippery of common-place compliments, tending to the exclufion of fenfe. Such a writer, who defcribes herself as a decrepid old woman,' might correct our style, by hinting that woman is the co-relative of man, gentlewoman of gentleman, and lady of lord. Alas! Mrs. Phillips may add the prefent confufion in titles to the many inftances which the produces of the growth of luxury. Thefe diftinctions might be preferved in the days of our grand-parents, but they are now obfolete. Among us, every woman is a lady; gentlewoman has funk into a term of degradation; and good woman, ftrange to add, would be received as an infult.

When a lady condefcends to introduce any thing like argument into converfation, falfe politenefs withholds the generality of men from prefuming to controvert her opinion; and whatever may be their thoughts, they conceive that it would be ungentleman-like not to conceal them, under a-" Certainly, Madam!" or fome other complimentary phrafe, equally disingenuous :-but when she prints her fentiments, and offers them to the public, she appears before a tribunal that is above this duplicity, and which has more true refpe&t for her than to treat her like a child: fhe waves the pretenfions of fex, and refts on the abstract merit of her argument.The female friend before us ftands on this only tenable ground.

Mrs. Phillips is a very fenfible and intelligent woman, and may acquit herself with credit in a converfation on this fubject: but her knowlege and obfervation, though he has collected most of the popular caufes affigned for the dearnefs of provifions, do not combine the many complex circumftances that enter into the increase of prices. Suffice it to hint to her, that prices have progreffively rifen, through all generations of our ancestors, as far back as history can reach; and that they will continue fo to do, while the quantity of current fpecie increases; which it always does, especially fince we have found the way to the American mines. When we fay that provifions are dear, the meaning is, that money is cheap; though the bulk of mankind always find it fearce enough, while taxation drains it out of their hands. Luxury is another wide drain; for while manufactures render the conveniences of life plentiful, we are fufficiently difpofed to enjoy as many of them as we can proWho will ufe wainscot or deal furniture, when it can be made of mahogony? Who will eat barley bread, where wheat is

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to be had? There is no end to thefe queftions; and the good fenfe of individuals must draw the only boundary line that can be prefcribed.

Things are easily rectified in Mrs. P.'s opinion; thus- Reduce the prices of meat and drink, and the poor rates will alfo be reduced, which for many years have been a heavy load upon the landed intereft.' Quantity and competition alone can regulate free prices: but were they reduced, is it fo clear that a reduction of the poor rates would naturally follow? Alas! we have our doubt; and thofe who know molt of human nature are not quite fo fanguine. This peculiar burthen which we alone have taken up, is not like Efop's burthen, it will not grow lighter by time. To plead for benevolence to the poor, argues goodness of heart: but Mrs. P. appears yet to learn, that giving to the poor is the abuse of charity. The aged and difabled have an irrefiftible claim for fupport: but gifts to the reft make them idle, vicious, greedy, and infolent. The writer of this article has abundant opportunity to study the difpofition of the poor in a confiderable town, that is amply provided with charitable bequests; and can boldly affirm, that the weakness or vanity of fuch donations has a ftrong tendency to deprave them. To provide them with employment is true charity, and tends to the cultivation of virtuous principles among them.

Mrs. P. obferves, It may reasonably be conje&tured, that an increafe of population may have tended to enhance the price of provifions in this nation; but whether the improvements in agriculture, and the inclofing of fo much common land, as hath of late years been the cafe, may not be fuppofed a balance for the increafe of its inhabitants, I fubmit to confideration *.' In this fhe acts prudently; for it is futile to apprehend an increase of inhabitants beyond what the country can conveniently feed; and yet Mrs. P. leans to fuch an opinion, by defcending to notice private extravagance and wafte, which are only objects of private confideration. Thus I fhall fay but little upon the general ufe of Eat India tea, as tending to increase the price of provifions, because it is to no purpose, so wedded are all ranks of people to this cuftom: but it certainly has confiderable weight. A vast quantity of butter is confumed (rather to the injury of the people's conftitutions), which advances the price of that article of provifion t.' Were it not that articles are raised in proportion to their confumption, and that plenty makes cheapnefs, we should be of the fame opinion. Would the difcourage dairies? People will eat.

We may well fuppofe tithes to excite Mrs. P.'s refentment, as detrimental to improvement; and yet, confidering the validity of her objections to them, the expreffes herfelf with becoming temper. It is ftrange that the clergy do not themselves endeavour to remove fo great a tumbling-block between the people and the church!

We cannot but fmile when Mrs. P. lamenting the wafte of victuals in great families as injurious to the nation, inftances ftewing hams for their effence, and throwing the flesh away, or giving it to the dogs, as a very condemnable wafte of good meat 1. In ↑ Page 28.

* Page 19.

+ Page 27.

this remark, she is a better housewife than a politician. If the rich will have hams to wafte in this ridiculous manner, fo much the better for their country: one hog furnishes but two hams; and if this call for hams encourages the breed, there is all the rest of the carcafe for the market and the falting-trough.

As Mrs. P. takes a wide range, we fhall follow her to a circumftance, which, the believes, has occurred only to herself; and this is the great waste of land in cutting canals for inland navigation; though the admits that the keeping of many horfes is faved by this mode of conveying goods*. If thefe canals fave the keeping of as many horfes as the ground which they occupy would feed, the objection to them is fo far removed: but others, with more plaufibility, have objected to them, as enhancing the price of neceffaries in low country places, by facilitating the carriage of them to other markets:-but cheapnefs, in fuch places, is no evidence of profperity; and if the eafinefs of conveying away their produce raifes prices to an average, its tendency must be to stimulate cultivation, and to rouze the torpid natives to activity:-nothing profpers under a general ftagnation.

We cordially join with this zealous matron in all her extenfive wishes to promote the welfare of the community; and we approve many of her hints for cultivating and planting waste and barren lands, for which, we understand, that diftinguished gardener Miller is her guide and authority: we should thus gain much more land than is loft in roads and canals. The danger in thefe fpeculations is by taking partial views; by mistaking the fymptoms of a diforder for the caufes; and by fixing the attention on the most obvious and grievous, when all ought to combine in the investigation.

THEOLOGY and POLEMICS.

Art. 66. A fhort and plain Expofition of the Old Teftament, with devotional and practical Reflections, for the Ufe of Families. By the late Rev. Job Orton, S. T. P. Published from the Author's MSS. by Robert Gentleman. Vols. V. and VI. 8vo. 125. Boards. Longman.

Mr. Gentleman has now brought this work to a conclufion. These last two volumes are executed in the fame manner as the preceding, of which we have already given a general account't. Little more seems neceffary to be now added. The expofitory part of this performance will probably be, to fome readers, the leaft fatisfactory. We conceive that, for the fake of brevity, (which was a leading object,) the editor must have confiderably abridged what the author had prepared for his congregation; which, not being by him intended for the prefs, is not to be fuppofed what it would have been had he himself prepared it for the public eye. The reflections, at the end of the chapters, conftitute the most valuable part of the publication. Thefe appear to be entire, tranfcribed from the author's fhort-hand, excepting a few fmall corrections, which

* Page 17.

+ See Rev. vols. Ixxix. and Ixxxi. and New Series, vol. iii. Rev. Aug. 1792.

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must be univerfally confidered as allowable and neceffary. They are natural, plain, practical, and highly characteristic of the author. Thefe, we are well affured, he himself wished, in fome form or other, to be made public.

At the clofe of the book of Daniel, is a fermon on chap. ix. 24-27, concerning the feventy weeks, which contains a clear and ufeful interpretation of that illuftrious prophecy of the Meffiah.

We obferve, in the editor's advertisement, prefixed to the last volume, an apology for the omiffion of his Memoirs of the Author, which had been promifed in the propofals. Materials for these, it feems, have been collected by a clergyman of the church of England, and put into the hands of Dr. Kippis, who had purposed to give fome account of Mr. Orton, under the article of Dr Doddridge, in the Biographia Britannica. When this appears, Mr. Gentleman informs his fubfcribers, (of whom he has a very respectable list,) that he will furnish them with a copy of it, at a fmall expence, fo printed as to be bound up with this work at any future time. We fhall be happy foon to announce it to the public, and hope to find it as true a portrait of Mr. Orton's character, as the engraver has given of his perfon, in the laft volume of this work.

Art. 67. Thoughts on the Neceffity and Means of a Reform of the Church of England. By a Friend to Religion and his Country. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Johnfon. 1792.

By feveral expreffions in this pamphlet, it appears to be the production of a Member of the establishment: but the roughness with which the clergy are treated may, on the other hand, be thought to indicate its author to be fome violent feparatift. To the clergy, the abounding of vice is attributed, and the church is defcribed as an Augean ftable, which requires for its cleaning the Herculean arm of reformation. The choice of perfons destined to the clerical office, the mode of their introduction to livings, the ufual methods of rifing to the highest dignities in the church, the unequal diftribution of its revenues, the mode of paying the clergy, and the almost total want of difcipline among them, are boldly reprobated by this author. After condemning the things that are, he proceeds to fhew us how he apprehends things fould be. Two plans of reform are offered to the confideration of the public. The first chiefly refpects the lopping off redundancies, and equalizing the remaining revenues of the church, fo that no clergyman should have lefs than 100l. per annum, with a house and garden, and no one more than 500l. per annum, except the bishops, who are to be allowed from 1000l. to zcool. and the two archbishops 30col. annually.

The other plan of reform propofed, is, that no one fyftem of opinions nor mode of worship be eftablished, nor made the favourite of the state. With this latter idea, the author informs us, he was fhocked when it was first propofed: but, after attentive confideration, he is convinced of its equity and fuperior advantages. Much may be faid for it by gentlemen of pure fpeculation: but we are of opinion, that many changes must take place in this island, before fuch a thorough reform can be made.

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The author writes with a good intention, and has uttered feveral home truths: but, in fome of his facts, he is not quite accurate. When he fays that our prefent Metropolitan was the fon of butcher, he is mistaken. His uncle was a butcher at Gloucester, but his father was a farmer, or grazier, as we have been credibly informed. When the biographer writes his life, thefe circumftances will be related, not as things which degrade, (for no circumftances of birth can degrade a great mind,) but as having contributed to difplay his virtues, and, of courfe, to exalt his character:

"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather and prunella."

Art. 68. Vindicie Landavenfes: or, Strictures on the Bishop of
Landaff's late Charge, in a Letter to his Lordship. 4to. 1s. 6d.
Cadell, &c. 1792.

The author of these frictures manifefts a moft candid and liberal mind; and though we are not convinced by his arguments, we have been highly pleased with the Chriftian temper with which he propofes them. He endeavours to juftify the teft and corporation acts by comparing the state to a club, which latter, he obferves, has its rules: but the question is not, whether a club or a state should or fhould not have laws and regulations, but whether it be politic to frame more restrictive laws than the object avowed in the focial compact, whether of a club or a nation, requires? If an agricultural fociety were to be formed, would it be wife to make it the firft rule of admiffion, that every member profeffes his belief in the fexual fyftem of Linné, or in the doctrine of phlogiston? fince a man may be a good farmer, without a knowlege of either. In like manner, an individual may be a good member of the state, and able to do his king good fervice as a citizen, though he cannot believe all the Thirty-nine Articles; and the question here is, Ought the government to exclude men from the duties and privileges of good citizens, on account of points of belief which cannot affect their good citizenship?

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We fhould willingly reafon more at length with this amiable writer, would our limits permit. He concludes his ftrictures with this truly Christian exhortation: Let us banish anger and evilfpeaking, and ftudy peace with all men; affured, that one breach of the law of love is of more importance in the fight of God than a thousand fpeculative errors which difturb not the quiet of others, or a thousand fpeculative truths, which have no influence on ourfelves.'

Art. 69. Sermons, by Thomas Mutter, D. D. Minister of the Old Church, Dumfries. 8vo. PP. 404. 6s. Boards. Moore, -Leadenhall-street. 1791.

These discourses, as we learn from the editor's advertisement, were compofed without any view to publication, and appear nearly in the fame ftate in which they were delivered. A few of them are on moral topics, which are treated in a plain and useful

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