worthy and amiable difpofition. "We are all born to fuffer afflictions; and I have had a large fhare: but I fincerely protest none has ever been felt by me fo feverely as thofe, which have Befallen my friends."

It appears from the epiftle fucceeding, that the Lady had not fo good an opinion of the reft of the world, particularly of the critics; whofe cenfure the imputes to peevifhnefs and envy.

"Is your fummer-houfe yet transformed; or does it remain a butt for Mr. Lyttleton's and Mr. Miller's cenfure? They find fo much at the Leafowes to raife their envy, and confequently their spleen, that it is happy for them fome one object offers that they can vent it upon : when that is removed, they will wish it up again; fo vexed will they be to find themselves under a neceflity of commending. What can be a greater misfortune to a critic? P pe would have died many years ago, had he been obliged to refrain from fatire, the fole delight of his little peevish temper. How happy was he to meet with a Timon at his villa! The world furnishes many: but thofe who would find one, muit not feek him at the Leafowes.

"How charitable would it be, Sir, if you would take a trip to this little Retreat at this melancholy feafon!--The English hang themfelves, it is faid, in the month of November, and I find the French begin to catch the infection; for they go to la Trappe; that and hanging are fynonimous. What then, if, to indulge the fplenetic humour which the denfity of the air and the fhortnefs of the days incline you to, you should come and fpend them in my chimney-corner? Nothing will put you enough in mind of fpring to make you regret it, unless it is the finging of my two Canary-birds; and they fhall, if you please, be fent out of the parlour; after which the most profound filence will reign, and dulnefs be triumphant. This is what I invite you to; but you will be no fooner here than the fcene will appear to me quite changed: my propofal is therefore mercenary: I confefs it, felf-love will have it so."

This trite reflection on the melancholy month of November again occurs in the hundred and twelfth letter; as aukwardly introduced by a poor attempt at humour, palpably the effect of an impatient fit of the spleen.

"Mrs. Davies receives your compliment with the utmost fenfibility and gratitude. If in return of your politenefs to her, you should afk her a favour, he can but deny you, you know: but I think the cannot. Pray then let it be that the thould not leave me to myself, which is the worst company, and to my thoughts, which are as little pleas ing as the found of the west wind that haunts my little habitation, and which may be foon expected to take up its winter refidence here. Oh woeful thought! Oh woeful found! None but the friendly Robin Red-breaft fooths my ear after those rough founds: but in the melancholy month of November, in which the English hang themselves, I expect more pleasure than from the Robin; fince you and Mr. Hylton will join in this harmony, and favour me with your company: then (and not now) genius, taite, &c. will refide in my Hermitage."

I iz

As

As we do not doubt the fincerity of the Letter-writer's friend fhip and esteem for Mr. Shenftone, we must not give the highftrained compliments that fo often occur in these letters the name of Flummery. But we cannot help obferving it would have been. as impolite as ungrateful in that writer if he had not returned the Lady's compliment., And yet fhe intimates, more than once, that both were too fincere to be complimentary.

"If either of us regarded ceremony, I fhould wait till I had the pleasure of hearing from you, before I troubled you with renewing our correspondence; and then I fhould endeavour to exprefs how much joy your company here had given me, and how much regret your abfence had caufed me. But as I always fuppofe, when the rays of friendship appear, ceremony vanishes, I take it for granted, you will ufe none of it with me, nor expect any from me: It is but a vapour. This point fettled, I must tell you that I have been more than nine days (the common period) confined with a cold; and, very happily for you, have been unable to fet pen to paper. My first act and deed, which is writing to you now, fhews how many fuch you have efcaped and ftill greater would you think your escape, if you knew how very flupid my illness made me.

:

"Not the felf-flattery of J-G— C——, junior, Efq; in his Preface to the Life of Socrates, nor his fmart fcourges of great men in his Notes, have awakened me enough to read all his book; but I will do it foon, as your very just remarks in the margin carry me agreeably through the road which this young Biographer feems to have fown with nettles: but as he raifes himfelf upon that bank, I with they do not fting him when they come to maturity.

"I fend you a letter of the Duchefs of Somerfet's; which I defire you will return as foon as you have read it: for till then I cannot anfwer it.-That the fhould agree in liking all you write, I do not wonder; but am not a little proud of having chofe out a poem of yours to fend her, which pleases both her grace and her chaplain. For tho' it would ftand the test of all the Ducheffes and their chaplains in England, yet that my Duchefs judges as myfelf, raifes my vanity, and increafes my pleasure.

"You left yourself in fafe hands, when you intrufted me with several things of your writing: for all thofe you called incorrect, or did not commillion me to fhew, I never did; though, according to my own opinion, I might have done it without offence to your Mufe: but it would have been an offence to you; and friendship is with me facred."

This is certain that, whether by habitude or congeniality, there appears a wonderful fimilarity, as the Lady herfelf acknowledges, in the modes of thinking of these two refpectable correfpondents.

"Your file is always pleafing to me, whether you write at different periods, or otherwife. I confefs, this laft way, which makes a little journal, is the more agreeable, because it imitates converfation, and makes one fancy one's iclf upon the place, and in the company

defcribed.

defcribed. You could not, Sir, have faid any thing more flattering to me, than that there is a resemblance between my imagination and yours. It would be too vain in me to own that I think fo; but I may fay with truth, that there is a great fimilitude in our way of life, and our folitary amufements; and that may also cause a refemblance in our turn of thought. Whenever mine tallies with yours, I fhall conclude I am right, and be proud of it. For example, I am as pleafed as you are to have people of taite fee my improvements here, and take a pleasure in hearing them commended; and am glad when chance fends fuch perfons here: and my friendship for you makes me alfo glad to hear when they go to the Leafowes: but I fhould not like to have it a fhew for the public in general, as Lord Cobham's; of which every body tires.-Your neighbourhood to Hagley will often cause you to have good company drop in at the Leafowes; and those who have once feen it, will wifh to fee it often: nor do the beauties of Hagley in the leaft obfcure thofe of your place. Proceed, Sir, in your fchemes, which will diffufe pleasure around you, as well as give pleasure to yourself. But I would not have you (nor would I myself, though we were ever fo rich) execute our fchemes all at once: for Í think there is more joy in forming the plan and feeing it grow by degrees towards perfection, than there is in feeing it perfect.

"I fend you a goofe, a gander, a mallard, two ducks, and a rumpled egg-fhell."

That poor lady Luxborough had adopted moft of poor Shenftone's prejudices, is pretty apparent from the liberty fhe takes with writers, of whofe merit, we prefume, the could know little but from hearfay. Gil Cooper never was a favourite of ours; and yet, we conceive it did not become either Shenftone or his friend her ladyship, to treat him fo cavalierly as is done in the extract from the forty-third letter above quoted, and in the following fhort citation. "I return your Life of Socrates; which I am told 'Squire C―r has taken out of the Lives of the Philofophers, though he detefts a plagiary."-That poor Gil was a pert coxcomb is admitted, but that he was more fo than Shenstone was a formal one, we much doubt; while we conceive that their genius, though of a different fpecies, was pretty nearly equal. They had both their share of merit; but this fhare was moderate; and, tho

Wits are game cocks to one another and men of great abilities can afford to depreciate each other without diminishing their value in the eyes of the world, this is

This epithet dropped from us, in allufion to Mr. Gray's having made use of it, in his letters to Mafon. "I have read too an octavo volume of Shenstone's Letters: Poor man! he was always withing for money, for fame and other diftinétions; and his whole philofophy confifted in living against his will in retirement, and in a place which his tafte had adorned; but which he only enjoyed when people of note came to fee and commend it: His correfpondence is about nothing elfe but his place and his own writings, with two or three neighbouring clergymen, who wrote verfes too." What would Mr. Gray have had to say if he had lived to read Lady Luxborough's

Letters ?

not the cafe with fmall-talkers, fmall-writers, and fmall-wits.One proof, how little lady Luxborough was qualified to judge or talk of writers, occurs in the following fhort mifinformation refpecting two or three well-known performances.

"I would fend you Pompey the Little, if I had it; but the gentleman who lent it me, borrowed it of another gentleman, to whom it was to be returned on a day named. It is entertaining enough for fuch a trifle. Fielding, you know, cannot write without humour. Peregrine Pickle I do not admire: it is by the author of Roderick Random, who is a lawyer: but the thing which makes the book fell, is the hiftory of Lady V-, which is introduced in the last volume, I think) much to her ladyship's difhonour; but published by her on order, from her own memoirs, given to the author for that purpose; and by the approbation of her own Lord, What was ever equal to this fact? and how can one account for it?

As the last specimen of the feare-equalled, abundant cafe, politeness and vivacity, and at the same time, of that great fimilarity between the taste of thefe very amicable correfpondents, par · particularly with regard to wit and humour, we fhall close our article with the continuation of the 67th letter.

to me

S

"I would eagerly embrace any opportunity of contributing to your entertainment, and am grieved it is to little in my power: my few correípondents at London are too much taken up with their own amufements to think of regaling their country Friends: nay, I believe, few of them think at all, being giddy with the whirlwind of diverfions of which they are in a continual rotation, and impart none of their pleafures, nor even the relation of them, to us Campagnards; fo that we have nothing to impart that is new to each other. The ftagnation of the co. modity fcandal, I am not for for; but that of the currency of wit, humour,' or indeed the mergerance of the day, we fuffer by: for when they circulate, lancholy thoughts, which are too apt to pr reclufe people, and do us as much hurt in one fente, as the people of world's having no thought at all docs them in another.—hat I 3 vit now perceive that I let my own thoughts ramble without bounds, that my pen obeys them to your misfortune. I confole myfclf a little in remembering to have heard you say you loved to receive long letters from your friends. Happy fhould I be, were you (who to my cofi are not) like an Irishman, who being fent with three-pence for a letter directed to his mafter, flyly changed it for one he faw in the post-house, charged fixpence, being double; and though it was directed to another gentleman, brought it home to his maiter, rejoicing at his contrivance, as this letter was twice as big as that he expected: were this, I fay, your cafe, the letter I am writing would have fome merit with you; whereas, intrinically it has juft none at all, except its coming from a fincere friend, though ftupid correfpondent.

d

"But to continue this rhapsody (which I advise you to throw into the fire before you read it); I, who never was given to speak much in praise of kings, cannot but commend the huimane conduct of our own, upon occation of his fon's death, and the tenderness he has

thewa

fhewn to the Princefs Dowager and her children. But I need not have excufed my commending kings, fince the actions I commend in him are not owing to his royalty; but when humanity is joined with it, thofe actions are more confpicuous, and, I fear I might add, more rare. I am affured (à propos to kings) that the memoirs of the House of Brandenburgh are wrote by the King of Prussia himself, which makes me with to read them."

("A propos to nothing yet faid") the Reviewers have nothing more on this occafion à propos to fay.

ART. IV. A Philofophical and Political Hiftory of the Settlements and Trade, of the Europeans in the East and West Indies. Continued from page 374, and concluded.

We have called the laft volume of this work the most interesting, partly because it treats of that part of the world, to which the eyes of all Europe are at present directed, either by curiosity or intereft; and partly because the last book contains a number of general reflections, occafionally applicable to all places, times and circumftances.

It begins with Book XV; containing an account of the first expedition of the French into North America; with the progress of the colony of Canada; their difputes with the inimical favages, their connections with the amicable Indians, and their ceffion of part of the provinces united to that colony.

In Book XVI. the account of the progrefs of the French settlements is continued, including their fettlement of the island of St. John, the discovery of the Miffifippi, the ceffion of Louisiana to the Spaniards, the origin of the last war between the English and the French, and the fuccefs of it in the taking of Quebec, and the ceffion of all Canada to the former, at the peace.

Book XVII. treats of the English colonies at Hudfon's Bay, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New England, New York, and New Jerfey; Book XVIII. of the Colonies of Pennfylvania, Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, Georgia and Florida.—In this part of the work, the candid and ingenious author gives an impartial account of the rife of the prefent unhappy differences between these colonies and the mother-country entering on a political enquiry into thofe feveral objects of difpute which have fo much agitated our English patriots, both on this and the other fide of the Atlantick.

Of the right of the mother country to tax the colonies, it perhaps will not be allowed that a foreigner is a competent judge,

Under the following titles, religion, government, policy, war, navy, commerce, agriculture, manufactures, population, taxes, public credit, fine arts and bellesLettres, philofophy and morals.

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