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years, attended with an uninterrupted feries of fucceffes, by conquering Hannibal at Zama, and by obliging the Carthaginians to furrender to the flames 500 fhips of war, and acknowledge the fuperiority of the Romans, by becoming their tributaries, laid the foundation of that univerfal empire they foon after fo gloriously attained to.

I will detain you no longer than only juft to obferve of what ufe this publication may poffibly be to us.

If ever this country was in a fituation which required the affiftance of all the abilities in the nation, fhe is acknowledged by every party and defcription of men to be fo at this prefent; permit me then to flatter myself that it is poffible the example of Epaminondas may excite modeft philofophic men to look into themfelves, and exert talents to preferve her, which may have been hitherto unprofitable, only from having been unemployed; and charge me not with vanity and prefumption, if I dare to hope that the young gentleman whom our patriot King has placed at the head of affairs may be even ftill farther encouraged by perufing the Life of Scipio, to bring forward all the power of thofe amazingly extenfive abilities, acknowledged and admired by his most inveterate rivals, which heaven has endowed him with, fuccefsfully to restore his drooping country to that high rank among the nations to which the happy genius of his immortal father once raised her.'

The Abbé Seran de la Tour is an agreeable biographer, and his prefent tranflator has, in general, done him juftice; but feveral fine paffages are debafed by colloquial barbarifms; and Mr. Parry, in tranflating from the French, has not always been fufficiently attentive to the idiom of his own tongue. Speaking of Hannibal, he ftyles him, That illuftrious unfortunate;' and Scipio Africanus is a confulary.' The ufe of adjectives inftead of fubftantives is allowable in French, but intolerable in English. Notwithstanding, however, fuch flight defects, this tranflation may be read with pleasure; especially as the work contains many circumstances that are little known, though relative to the moft illuftrious characters of antiquity. As an example, we shall infert the following paffage:

A party of Scipio's men brought to him a young Spanish lady of quality, of fuch ftriking beauty that the charmed all beholders. Scipio was of an age in which the paffions exert their empire with almost irresistible force, he was feven and twenty, his perfon noble and amiable; his foldiers doubted not but he would be fenfible to the charms of this young beauty; they thought they prefented him with an ineftimable treasure. "You are not mistaken, foldiers," fays he to them, fondly viewing the young Spaniard," behold a prefent the most acceptable you could have made me at any other time; but taken up with the cares of my command, I have not a moment to give to pleasures."

Having afterwards received fome account of this young captive, who with her mother was bathed in tears, he learnt that she was promifed in marriage to a young prince of Spain named Allucio, whom the loved, and who fighed for her alone. He fent to enquire REV. May 1788.

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for Allucio, together with the young lady's relations. "Young prince," fays he, "I know the regard this lovely girl has for you, I alfo am acquainted with your paffion for her; the has been in safe hands ever fince fhe has been in my power, and I now reftore her to you as fond, as faithful, and as worthy of you as the was before the came under my protection; I am delighted in having it in my power to contribute to fo fweet an union, upon which the happiness of both depends; I truft I do each of you fuch a service as gives me a right to expect fome return, and I expect that henceforwards you will become friends to the Roman people. If what I now do for you raises in your minds any favourable idea of me, believe that Rome is wholly peopled with citizens who would all do the fame in the fame circumstances."

Allucio, astonished with admiration, grafped Scipio's hands, befeeching the gods to affift his weak voice, in expreffing the feelings and defires of his heart to repay the immenfe obligations he owed him. He had judged of the Romans by the Carthaginians, he thought them as rapacious; and in this perfuafion had brought all his treasures with him, to redeem his greatest treasure, his love. Scipio long perfifted to refufe them, but as Allucio ftill preffed his acceptance, he confented they should lay them down; but it is only," added he, "that I may be permitted to prefent them to your bride, and that they may be looked upon as part of her fortune, as much as if fhe had received them from her own family."

'After much friendly difpute the Spanish prince's generofity was obliged to fubmit to Scipio's; he therefore acquiefced and returned home with the young princess, publishing together the praises of their benefactor. "He is not a mere man," ," faid they, to all they met," or if he is, he equals the gods in grandeur and elevation of fentiment; he triumphs over his enemies by his arms, and when he has fubdued them he engages their affections by his kindnesses." He returned foon after to rejoin Scipio at the head of a corps of eavalry of fourteen hundred men, and never left him during the continuance of the war in Spain.

Allucio, not fatisfied with thefe proofs of his zeal, wished to record his own gratitude and Scipio's generofity, by a teftimony which might convey both the one and the other to pofterity; with this view he caufed a votive fhield to be made, on which he was reprefented receiving from Scipio's hands the young princefs to whom he was engaged. I have feen this memorial, as remarkable as it is valuable, in the king's cabinet of medals, where it is at this day, after having lain almost nineteen hundred years in the river Rhone, where it is certain Scipio's baggage was loft on his return from Spain to Italy. This fhield was found by a very extraordinary accident in the year 1659; it contains forty-fix marks of pure filver, which is worth about thirteen hundred livres of our (French) money; it is twenty-fix inches in diameter. The plain uniform tafte which reigns through the whole defign, in the attitudes and the contours, fhews the fimplicity of the arts in thofe days, when they avoided all foreign ornaments, to be the more attentive to natural beauties.'

As a farther fpecimen of this work, we had felected the account here given of the battle of Zama; which is extremely

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well defcribed; but on reconfidering the extract, we judge it too long for our narrow space, and must therefore content ourselves with referring the curious reader to the firft volume, p. 207216.

We would request the tranflator to correct, in his next edition, a mistake in p. 239, and to print (inftead of Scipio himfelf') only the pronoun ' himself.' This error fpoils one of the finest stories in the whole work. As it is not of much length, we will transcribe it.

Livy affures us from feveral authors, that Scipio was in this embaffy, and that he met Hannibal at Ephesus; he alfo relates a converfation thefe great men had together. Scipio afking Hannibal whom he esteemed the greatest captain of all that had hitherto appeared, it is faid he answered, doubtless Alexander, because he had defeated, with what we may call an handful of men, immense armies, and had fubdued by his arms fo many and such distant countries, as it hardly feems poffible for one man in his whole life to travel through. Scipio afking who was the fecond, he answered that he knew no greater than Pyrrhus; that it was he who first invented the method of encamping; that no one knew better how to avail himself of the advantages of pofts, of circumftances, and fituations; that this prince excelled as much in managing tempers as in the art of war; fo much indeed that the people of Italy preferred the government of this foreign prince to that of the Romane, who had been fo long their natural mafters. They add, that Scipio again demanding who was the third, Hannibal did not hesitate to name himself."Ah!" fays Scipio, fmiling at this rodomontade, "but what rank would you have placed yourself in, had you vanquished me?" "I fhould have put myself," replied Hannibal, "before Pyrrhus, before Alexander, and before all the greatest captains that ever existed +.”

Scipio felt all the delicacy of Hannibal's flattering judgment, who by avoiding to draw a parallel between him and the most celebrated commanders, infinuated that he knew none worthy to be compared with him.'

The life of Epaminondas is not written in the fame fpirit which animates that of Scipio. The author, as commonly happens with French men of letters, is lefs converfant with the Greek than with the Roman hiftorians. The latter, M. Seran de la Tour has often read, and ftudied; the former he seems to have perused, only with a view to write. Several mistakes escape him, which are not corrected by his tranflator; and he is too much attached to those opinions of M. de Folard, respecting ancient tactics, which are proved to be altogether erroneous: Vide Hiftory of ancient Greece, &c. paffim.

In the book it ftands thus- Hannibal did not hesitate to name Scipio himself.'

† An. R. 559. Ante C. 193.

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ART. IX. A View of the English Interefts in India; and an Account of the Military Operations in the Southern Parts of the Peninfula, during the Campaigns of 1782, 1783, and 1784. In two Letters, addreffed to the Right Honourable the Earl of *********, and to Lord Macartney, and the Select Committee of Fort St. George. By William Fullarton of Fullarton, M. P. F. R. SS. of London and Edinburgh, and late Commander of the Southern Army on the Coalt of Coromandel. 8vo. 5s. Boards. Cadell. 1787.

WERE

ERE it not altogether matter of courfe in politics, for declaimers and writers, in different interefts, to diftinguish the fame things by the moft oppofite names and epithets, we fhould long ago have been confounded amid fuch perverfity. The youngest politician muft remember that the American war, and the feparation of the colonies, were to bring inevitable deftruction upon this devoted land; yet we are not deftroyed, nor like to be on this account; for the prophets and the authors of that war have accommodated the matter together. As big with national ruin was it to attempt a friendly commercial intercourse with our next neighbour: but as clamour could not prevent the measure, the fubject is refigned, and the prophecy forgotten, in the fucceffion of rifing events, none of which upbraid our political infidelity.

Thus has it fared with our Eaft Indian concerns, ever fince India became a capital object of public attention. Employment there has been fo defirable, that the ftruggle to elbow each other out, and to keep friends and patrons in, has operated to involve every thing that paffes, in that remote fcene of action, in an almoft inexplicable confufion. If one writer exults in the flourishing ftate of our Oriental poffeffions, while another deplores the rapid decline of agriculture, trade, and population there; a flight hint of fecret hiftory is often a fufficient key to the difference in their reprefentations, and will admonish us, how far either of them may be intitled to confidence.

Even the refpectable Author of the prefent performance, which generally exhibits the dark fide of its propofed fubject, makes an acknowledgment which is in ftrict unifon with the preceding general obfervations:

You have heard much, my Lord, and read more, of the mifgovernment in India. There have been declamations without end on the peculations of the Company's fervants,-and acts without number to retrieve, if poffible, the Company's affairs but these declamations have only tended to afcertain the rhetorical eftimation due to the perfons who delivered them,-and those acts have too frequently confirmed the evils they were meant to remedy.'

Supposed to be Lord Mansfield.

Though

Though Colonel Fullarton has provided no refervation in his own favour, for joining the language of cenfure and difcontent, it must be allowed that there are no rules without exceptions; yet with the moft favourable difpofition toward our Author, we find it impoffible to yield an unqualified credit to the following representation:

In former times the Bengal countries were the granary of nations, and the repofitory of commerce, wealth, and manufacture, in the Eaft. Veffels from all quarters poured out their treasures on the banks of the Ganges, and the numberless nations that people the northern regions of Indoftan, as far as Cafhmire, Lahore, and Thibet, including a range of feveral thousand miles, ufed to depofit their riches there, as the great mart and centre of their traffic. But fuch has been the reftless energy of our mifgovernment, that within the fhort space of twenty years many parts of thofe countries have been' reduced to the appearance of a defert. The fields are no longer cultivated,-extensive tracts are already overgrown with thickets,-the husbandman is plundered,-the manufacturer oppreffed,-famine has, been repeatedly endured,-and depopulation has enfued. The diftricts are farmed out to Renters, or Zemindars,-and the collections, as well as all other business relating to finance, are committed to a Provincial Chief, who reports to the Committee of Revenue. The Renter holds by a precarious tenure, while it cofts him so much to procure and maintain his fituation, that if his exactions bear proportion to his risk and advance of money, they must be extremely fevere indeed. Neither would it fuit the views of a Chief to be less induftrious in the business of extortion. They must therefore be unufually inexpert, if they do not between them contrive to diftress the inhabitants, to ruin agriculture, and to defraud the Government of at least thirty or forty per cent. of the ftipulated payments. This they manage by ftatements of approaching want, which they themfelves have occafioned; by accounts of provincial works, which are never performed; by unjustifiable deductions, and by connivance at the defalcations of the managers.

The hufbandmen and Ryots dependent on these depredators (compared with whom the feudal Serfs were in a state of freedom) are in their turn happy mortals, when contrafted with the weavers and manufacturers. If the former be plundered of their grain, the chaff at least is left for their fubfiftence; but fuch is the fyftem of commercial regulation, that the wretched manufacturers have hardly a refource. The Commercial Chief, to whom they are fubject, and who, under the Committee of Trade and Manufacture, is charged with the bufinefs of investment, affigns to all the portion of their labour,-by a small advance pretends to an appropriation of their induftry, denies their right to use their ingenuity for their own advantage,-eftablishes a ruinous monopoly, by the abuse of power, and treats them as bondímen toiling for his benefit. The confequence is, defertion among the weavers, a decreafing investment for the Company, enormous acquifition for himfelf, and a fatal ftagnation of all trade and manufacture throughout his district.

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