Thefe are unpardonable inaccuracies in modern poetry; to fay nothing of the exceptionable phrafeology of preferring a vow, and the perifbing of misfortunes. A graceful negligence of ftile is often becoming in little pieces of this kind, but there is a difference between being en defhabille and downright flovenly.

ART. XVIII. Songs, Ducts, Trias, &c. in the Duenna: or the Double Elopement. As performed at the Theatre Royal Covent Garden. 8vo. 6d. Wilkie.

From the fpecimens, Mr. Sheridan, jun. author of the prefent production, hath occafionally given us of his tafte and talents for poetical compofition, we were in expectation of feeing in this piece fomething elegant and mafterlyin that difficult fpecies of it, fong-writing. In this expectation however, we are egregioufly difappointed; thefe fongs, duets and trios having, almost all of them, as little poetry and of courfe as little mufical expreffion, as any of the frippery compilations of the fame kind, that of late years have taken fo mightily with an unpoetical public; with whom any fort of gibberifh goes down if the inftrumental mufic, in which we include the finging, be prettily executed. The author, however, has moft probably taken the pru dential part, in rather accomodating himfelf to the vitiated talle of the town, than vainly attempting to correct it; judicioufly pre ferring folid pudding to empty praise,

P L A Y S.

ART. XIX. Old City Manners. A Comedy, altered from the Original Eafward Hoe, written by Ben Johnjon, Chapman and Marflon. By Mrs. Lennox. As it is performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. 8vo. 1s. Becket.

It is much to the honour of Mr. Garrick, in his moral capacity, that he has done his utmost to fupprefs thofe two favourite immoral performances the Beggar's Opera and the London Cuckolds; by fubftituting, in the place of the former his own immaculate and incomparable Cymon, with the operatical pafticcio's of Bickerstaff and Dibdin; and in the place of the London Cuckolds, the prefent comedy of Old City Manners. As a manager, however, we conceive the reviver of this comedy will have no great reafon to congratulare himself on the improvement of NEW City Manners; which are certainly not a whit better, howfoever different from the old.-To Mr. Lennox we matt do the justice to say that the has done the best for the piece; though it was not in her power to raife the characters and fubject fufficiently to figure in the more elegant ftile of modern comedy.

ART. XX. The Man's the Mafter. A Comedy, as now performed at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden.

8vo. 15. Evans.

The contemptible caprice of the town, in applauding abfurdities and indelicacies in old plays, the flightest appearance of which they would anathematize in a new production, very naturally reduce the managers to the neceffity of reviving almost any obfolete farcical stuff,

that

that will but keep the audience in tolerable good humour, till the enter tainment, as it is emphatically called, makes its appearance. To this neceffity we muft impute the revival of a comedy, which, though properly cut it might make a tolerable figure as an after-piece, has not fufficient wit and humour to merit the attention of a polished, however capricious, audience for a whole evening.-It should feem that its appearance was, by fome caufe or other, precipitated; as the flobbering of poffet, the playing at blindman's buff, &c., were certainly meant to be kept in countenance by the Christmas Gambols excufable a month hence.

3.

BOOKS and PAMPHLETS, Published this Month, of which a more particular account is deferred.

ART. 21. The Campaign; or, Birmingham Theatrical War: with a Review of the Conduct of the Rival Generals, and the Officers under their Command on that Expedition. By Simon Smoke'em, Timothy Touch'em, and Christopher Catchpenny. 1s. Baldwin. ART. 22. Sermons on the Evidence of a Future State of Rewards and Punishments arifing from a View of our Nature and Condition; preached before the Univerfity of Cambridge, in the Year 1774. By William Craven, B. D. is. 6d. Cambridge, Merrill,-London, White.

ART. 23. The Rival Friends; or, the Noble Reclufe. 75. 6d. Vernon. ART. 24. A concife Hiftorical Account of all the British Colonies in North America. 2s. 6d. Bew.

ART. 25. Browne's General Law Lift. 2s. Brownc.

ART. 26. An Old Fox tarred and feathered. By an Hanoverian. . 2d. French.

ART. 27. A Wolf in Sheep's Cloathing; or, an old Jesuit unmasked. By Patrick Bull, Efq. Tricket.

$

ART. 28. Several Special Cafes on the Laws against the further Growth of Popery in Ireland. By George Edmond Howard, Efq. 5s. Dublin, Lynch. London, Robinfon.

ART. 29. A Short State of the Reafons for a late Refignation. By John Jebb, M. A. 6d. Cambridge, Fletcher.-London, Wilkie.

"CORRESPONDENCE.

TO THE

GENTLEMEN,

LONDON

REVIEWERS.

Your correfpondent Mr. J. B-n, hath very modeftly waved a minute answer to the queries of "the Barnstaple Philofopher" (as in fingular courtesy he is pleafed to call me) left he fhould have intruded on your patience. Happy apology!-But it would have had a better appearance if he had a little unbended his metaphyfical importance and vouchfafed a reply to fome of them. He might have interwoven

2

his

his fage remarks "on the eight elements of the brain" very commodioufly with it-thus he would have been delivered of his own demonftration, and his letter would at least have borne the face of an anfwer.

But fince he treats my philofophy fo very cavalierly, I beg leave, gentlemen, to whifper into his ear a remark, which, like my objections to fuch fort of reafoning as his, is not the worfe for being of long ftanding-that there is as much an affectation of contempt as there is "of wifdom, gravity, profound conceit" in most of your Sir Oracles; and when a man paffeth by objections under a pretence of defpifing them, it affords fome caufe a fufpect that he is not capable of anfwering them.-Now, I by no means fpeak pofitively, or

in a triumphant tone" of Mr. J. B-n's inability of seafoning clearly. I only fufpect that he is too profound a metaphyfician for that. To come upon plain ground no more fuits the deep views of fome philofophers, than the towering flights of fome divines. It would bring them too much on a level with folks of common sense, who love 'to keep on in the open track of nature and experience, and have nerther the power nor the inclination to foar or to fink after your heroes of the fixth fenfe "who are now in the moon, now under ground."

I believe I have now in the opinion of Mr. J. B-n, forfeited all claims to the character of a philofopher. " 'Tis pitiful! 'tis wondrous pitiful!"--but there is no help for it. We were not all caft in the fame mould, nor furnished with the fame powers.

"Oderunt hilarem triftes, triftem que jocofi."

But I fee no reafon why that should be the cafe. Let us be content with what nature hath given us, and then he who hath but "2 little crackling fquib" will never envy him who hath only a heavy, dark lanthorn.

If Mr. J. B-n hath any more of his metapyfical lucubrations to communicate to the London Review, I hope his apology for intruding too freely on the patience of its readers, will not be a fecond time offered, before he hath anfwered one of my queries;-for till then he cannot expect that I would attack his formidable corps of arguments-brought up and closed in the rear, with all the high "triumphant" powers of QE. D. I am, Gentlemen, your humble fervant,

S. B.

We muft ftill beg Philosophia's pardon for delaying the publication of his long letter,

Mr. Seton's letter to Dr. Priestley is, at his own request, returned him; with a promife however of his fending a corrected copy time enough for our Dext Review.

The answer to Lucinda Lively's queries are fent agreeable to her addrefs. The friendly correfpondent who favoured us with a reply to a letter, reprehending the London Reviewers, which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine of laft month, would do well to tranfmit a copy of it to the Editor of that publication. As to the London Reviewers themfelves, they hope the public do not think it incumbent on them to answer the anonymous hyper"critics of news-papers and magazines.-When the Monthly Reviewers will let the world know who they are, it will then be known what regard is due to them as philofophers; till then their advocates and adherents should not boaft of their reputation in this refpet; left it should provoke a juft refentment to ftrip the geefe of their peacock's feathers, and thew what pretenfion thole critics have to the title of philofophers, which they do not derive from the former labours of the Authors of the London Review.

THE

LONDON REVIEW,

FOR DECEMBER, 1775.

ART. I. A Compleat Treatise on Perspective, in Theory and Prac tice; on the true Principles of Dr. Brook Taylor. Made clear, in Theory, by various moveable Schemes, and Diagrams; and reduced to Practice, in the most familiar and intelligent Manner. Shewing, how to delineate all Kinds of regular Objects, by Rule. The Theory and Projection of Shadows, by Sun-fhine, and by Candle-light. The Effects of reflected Light, on Objects; their reflected Images, on the Surface of Water, and on polished plane Surfaces, in all Pofitions. Keeping Aerial Perspective, &c. The Whole explicitly treated; and illuftrated, in a great Variety of familiar Examples; in four Books. Embellished with an elegant Frontispiece, and forty-fix Plates. Containing Diagrams, Views, and original Defigns, in Architecture, &c. neatly engraved. All Originals; invented, delineated, and, in Part, engrav ed by the Author, Thomas Malton *. Folio, 21. 5s. † Robfon.

At a time, fays our author, when the arts are arrived to fo great a degree of perfection, a treatife on perfpective may be thought an unneceffary publication; either because there are already published many valuable books on the fubject, containing all the rules which are neceffary or useful; fo that unlefs fome new principle could be ftarted, by which the difficulties of repre

Author of the "Royal Road to Geometry;" a work of which we gave an account in our last volume; and on whofe merit we might farther expatiate with great juftice and with fome propriety, as it is not only a moit valuable tract on the elements of geometry in general, but a proper introduction to the geometry of perspective, and particularly to the publication before us.

By fubfcription two guineas; the fubfcription to be kept open till the beginning of February, 1776.

fenting objects perfpectively might be obviated, it is needlefs to encreafe their number. And yet, the writer, tho' he does not pretend to have found out any new principle, or to think it neceffary (the principles of Brook Taylor being the most fimple and perfect poffible) he conceives his own method of elucidating and applying them both ufeful and requifite. In his favour, alfo, we must own that tho' we have been frequently entertained with the science, and agreeably amufed with the feveral authors extant; we never conceived fo clear and comprehensive an idea of it, as from this work; which begins at the foundation, and leads us by an eafy gradation, through the whole theory, previous to the application of its rules; which are here fairly and clearly deduced from the theory given; and which, with the rationale of the whole, the projection of fhadows, reflection, &c. form altogether the moft compleat fyftem of useful perfpective that we remember to have seen.

The work is divided into four books; the two first treating on the theory, and the two laft on the practice of perfpective. In the first book, indeed, the author rambles from his fubject before he enters on it; running into phyfical reflections foreign to the main defign of his work.

66

"I have prefaced this work, fays he, with a fection on light and colour; and as a more effential requifite, to perfpective, the second contains a brief defcription of the eye, and of vilion. In the next is contained the foundation of perspective, which treats on direct vifion, comprized in two theorems, of univerfal application; in which is contained the very effence of perfpective. The two remaining feetions of the first book, are wholly digreffive; they not being at all neceffary, to the understanding of what is contained in the following work; the reader may therefore pafs them over, if he be fo difpofed, without breaking the thread of the fubject. They contain matter of mere opinion; refpecting the materiality of light, reflection, refrac tion, &c."

We by no means agree with the writer in his physical opinions, or in the propriety of the cenfure he frequently paffes, and that fometimes rather rudely, on the fuppofed mifconceptions of the moft refpectable characters in the philofophical world. As they were not neceffary to his fubject, it had been as well if he had omitted them.

In Book the Second, the author comes directly to the purpose, and lays down in a very fimple and intelligible manner the whole theory of ufeful perfpective.

The firit fection is a general introduction, containing many preliminaries, neceflary to be known, previous to what follows.

The fecond is alfo introductory, and contains a full explanation of all the various kinds of projection, ichnographic, orthographic and stereographic; with a circumftantial and comprehenfive definition or perfpective, and other introductory matters.

"The