just view of the subject." The various circles of stones, Loganstones, rock-altars and basons, are allowed to be "carefully described." And the author " degrades the cromlech, perhaps with reason, to a Tepulchral monument." The critic also tells us, that " of the pasturage and agriculture of Danmonium, we have an elegant and pleasing account." He cannot help adding, however, that "it is not history but romance." The Reviewer's concession, that Mr. P. offers" some good reasons for his opinion that the ancient Ictis was the island of St. Nicholas," is of great importance. The St. Nicholas hypothesis is the principal and most elaborate part of the work; and its merits would atone, in the opinion of every candid antiquary, for all Mr. P.'s imputed errors throughout the British Chapter.

Yet

In the ninth section Mr. P. it seems, rashly adopts the fancies of the ingenious Colonel Vallancey; and he, afterward, is guilty of a crying sin, in referring us to Ossian, as "genuine evidence.' some of our first antiquaries (particularly Mr. Whitaker in his great history) have referred us to the authority of Ossian. After having been thus forced to allow a large part to possess merit, and after thus industriously searching for faults and making exceptions the most frivolous and absurd, the hypercritic cannot conclude, it seems, without pronouncing Mr. P. "a faithful historian." Is the conclusion justified by the premises?

At the end of this weak and malevolent effusion, the C. R. adverts to Mr. P.'s postscript, "where, he observes, are some complaints of those qui ante nos nostra dixerant." "We perceive, he adds, that Mr. P. has anticipated himself by publishing, among the Exeter Essays, his own paper on Falconry." That this paper, on Fal conry, belonged to Mr. P. could only have been known to the Re viewer, from his having seen a letter to a college friend," (a letter which is in very few hands) unless the Reviewer be, as Mr. P. suspects, one of the Exeter Society.

*

From the Critical we pass to the MONTHLY REVIEWERS, the latter of whom, though they do not greatly favour Mr. Polwhele's

* "I have good reason (says Mr. P.) for suspecting the author of the Essay on the Population of Europe' to be the writer of those Strictures on the Historical Views, which a leading member of the Society has styled a most ferocious attack on Mr. Polwhele's reputation, the product of malevolence and vulgarity. Yet, with every cause for suspicion, I have not indulged a wish to retaliate. I have always shrunk, indeed, from the painful office of unmasking a literary hypocrite, or of exhibiting, in its proper colours, the jesuitical speciousness of a Reviewer. And though I deem the judg ment which the essayist may have pronounced against me extremely severe, yet no one can assert that I have discovered any symptoms of resentment, or that

"Manet altrâ mente repostum Judicium PARidis." See Letter PP. 13, 14.

hypothesis

hypothesis" by no means think themselves at liberty to load the writer with heavy censures." "His learning, (say they) his ingenuity, and his application place him above this kind of treatment. Every man has an equal right to form and communicate his senti ments. If, indeed, this be done with a magisterial tone, or be the mere result of ignorance and inattention, or of ostentation, conceit, and folly, such a writer will deservedly meet with chastisement and contempt; but who will assign such a rank to Mr. Polwhele? If he has allowed his imagination to range too freely, it must be admitted that he is not destitute of plausible argument. The etymologist and the antiquary stand in need of very correct attention to direct and assist their enquiries: and even Mr. Bryant who has obtained 'so much merited applause, is not exempt from objection." "On a subject so uncertain and obscure, it is almost wonderful, that so much should be written. Some part, however, of the book is employed in answering objections, removing difficulties, or confuting hypotheses advanced by others. Yet, with this and other allowances, far more is offered to attention than, on a topic so remote and so involved in darkness, could have been reasonably expected. We cannot but admire the industry, the acuteness, and the sagacity which the remarks, well founded or not, will be allowed to discover."

The Reviewers of the BRITISH CRITIC freely declare, that "the reputation of Sir W. Jones cannot add one atom to the weight of an opinion so light in itself, as Mr. P.'s idea of the Eastern colonie zation." Yet "having noticed (say they) what we think reprehensible in Mr. P.'s hypothesis, we go on to do what we like much better, especially with such a writer, to distinguish and to praise," "With respect to the rites of Druidism, Mr. P. writes like a scholar well grounded in the principles of Christian philosophy." "In his De scription of the Druid Rock-Idol, we know not which we should admire most, the lively propriety of the language, or the judicious good sense of the sentiment. The language is very vivid and happy; while the sentiment raises the author high above, what even an antiquary must call, the reigning credulity of antiquarianism." Mr. P.'s conjecture respecting the British art of dyeing cloth, was ridiculed as one of the wildest absurdities, by the Critical Reviewer, But these gentlemen think it " as novel as pleasing, and probably no less true than ingenious." On the whole, they represent Mr. P. as a very respectable historian, extremely ill-used by many of his subscribers, among whom, we have no doubt, is the literary assassin, now almost unmasked, for public infamy.

The style in which the EUROPEAN Critic notices the antiquities is very favourable to Mr. Polwhele; but, to the extracts already made, we have no room to add more.

The strictures on the Parochial History shall be the subject of our next concluding article.

See Monthly Review for November 1799, PP. 280, 281.

ART.

SIR,

ART. XXXIV. GODWIN's ST. LEON.

TO THE EDITOR.

HE conduct of the Monthly Reviewers, fince the commence

had any influence on political, moral, or religious opinions in this country, has excited not only attention, but indignation: not indeed on account of the ability which they have of late exhibited ; but on account of the mischief they may occafion, by that extenfive circulation, for which they are indebted to the early establishment of their work, and the good fenfe that directed its original management. Inftead of defending those establishments, and inftead of vindicating those principles, by which they, and all of us, exist and flourish, they have, with inconfiderable levity, and at a most important crifis, been guilty of a dereliction never to be forgotten. But finding that their conduct has become the fubject of general reprobation; and checked by the well-timed labours of their recent opponents, they have now betaken themselves to a different system. They, forfooth! are all moderation and candour !-But with what reality, obferve in the Review of St. Leon*; which uninteresting or rather difgufting performance, they have laboured, with their ufual dexterity in fuch cafes, to rescue from inftant and deserved oblivion.

Their experience has taught them the precious method of damning with faint praife, those works which are calculated to oppofe innovation; and it has also taught them, the no lefs dexterous method of celebrating, with feeming cenfure, the labours of new fangled philofophifm. St. Leon, they fay, "must be perufed with caution and difcernment and fome of the author's remarks tend to diminish the love of virtue in a female heart." But then they tell us, that "his fentiments are fublime; his mind vigorous, and that he is not one of the ordinary herd of novelifts." Now, is this to be accounted any thing else, than a lure to the pruriency of youthful and irregular imaginations?-They fay "the character of St. Leon is mafterly." But this is merely affertion: for they have not illuftrated their pofition by any delineation of this masterly character, and which, in fact, is as vague, and devoid of difcriminating features, as any that occurs in the most trivial and infipid of modern novels. Instead of a delineation of character, they have given us, what they perhaps think the fame thing, an outline of the story, which they confider as very excellent and very interesting. people! Do they not know, that not many readers, from Scilly to Shetland, have been able to peruse it from beginning to end? The truth is, that the debility of the writer, finks under the weight of his fubject. But then, "beautiful painting is to be seen in various parts of this romance; and they could extract pages of just observation and acute remark: for example" and then they annex a ftring of the juft obfervations and acute remarks, of this vigorous. but eccentric mind. This is fortunate; fince it affords an opportunity, which they feldom chufe to allow, of grappling with them and which shall not be neglected. Remark ift. The paffions of

Poor

an husband and father will be found to be the true school of huma

nity." Does this mean any thing more juft or more acute, than that the conjugal and paternal affections tend to foften and improve the heart? The obfervation is, no doubt, juft-and it may perhaps be new to the author of St. Leon and the Reviewer-if these perfonages, which, I doubt much, be different. 2d. "Adverfity is the feason of fober thought, calls home the erratic thoughts, and teaches us to be cheaply fatisfied." Very original! and very acute! fo much so that every moralift in profe or in verfe, who treats of the viciffitudes of fortune, has told us, that humility, both in deeds and defires, is taught by adverfity. There is novelty however in the expreffion; and a pretty imitation of the figurative language of Della Crufca fo much admired by the Monthly Reviewer. Adverfity is a feafon; and this feason is a public crier that calls home any wandering animal, fuch as a mind, that may have gone aftray-and this public crier, with rapid transformation, becomes a teacher, who teaches, O rare! how to buy and fell. Mark, too, the trickly word erratic, fo pleafing to the metrical ear of a Della Crufca Reviewer! 3d. "It may be laid down as a rule, that they who cannot hate, can leaft endure to be the objects of hatred." This is quite hot from the jumbled, effervefcent brain of fentimental philofophifm; and belongs obviously to its favourite figure, nonfenfe. Who is it among mankind, who cannot hate? Or if you can suppose a monfter fo defective in conftitution, what notion could he form of any paffion that he never felt, fo as either to endure it or not endure

Are the author of St. Leon, and the Reviewer, so very ignorant of human nature, as not to know, that we can have no knowledge of the paffions of others, but by referring them to what paffes in our own minds? 4th. "The ingredients of fublimity are the materials of heroic virtue." What does this fignify ? Change the order, and perhaps you may make it out. "The ingredients of heroic virtue are the materials of fublimity." Turn it any way you please, read it backwards or forwards, and ftill it is no other than nonfenfe.-But the words, Mr. Reviever, are pretty! 5th. "Our fenfes are the masters of our minds, and reafon vainly oppofes itself to the liveliness of their impreffions." What a juft and accute observation! And how dull have been all antient and modern moralifts, who have never observed, that our reason and our senses are often at variance !-If the maxim mean, that reason is always vanquifhed; it may be fo with philofophifts; but was not fo with Socrates; nor I truft, with many others Then follows a long maxim, not worth transcribing, about feeling; and which fays no more, than, with the affistance of a clumly metaphor, that feelings are inftantaneous. But if the preceding be dull, and trite, admire what follows. "There is fomething indefcribably delicious in the concentration of mind." Concentration! what a pretty word! For as to the meaning of the fentence, it is quite out of the quel tion; we must dwell merely upon the word; unless there be an error of the prefs, and that we ought to read body instead of mind. Then, though last not least-" Self importance of man! upon how flight a bafis do thy gigantic erections repofe ?" As to the repofe of a gigantic erection, whatsoever there may be in the subject, there

is certainly much delicacy in the expreffion nor do I like much to meddle with it. At all events, the maxim will receive full illuftration by the change of a fingle word, "felf importance of the Monthly Review! upon how flight a bafis do thy gigantic erections repofe!" And this illustration will ferve, whether the Reviewer be himself the author of St. Leon or not. I have only to add, concerning these marveloufly juft obfervations, and acute remarks, that many of them have a mortal twang of Mary Wolftoncraft.

You may have remarked in the whole of this article, not only an infidious attempt to preferve a pitiful performance from unavoidable neglect; but a woeful difplay of bad tafte and erroneous judgement. This is a view which you have overlooked in your occafi`onal ftrictures on the critical affertions of the Monthly Reviewers. But it is of importance; for here, as in every other department, they are faithful to true philofophifm: and blame or applaud as it fuits their moral, political, or religious opinions. If a poetical work bear hard against any of their favourite champions or opini ́ons, they select a few rhymes, that may not found quite in union with one another, though the very faults they notice may be juftified by the example of Pope, and quote them as a proof of the author's dulnefs. But when they are feafted with a poetical epiftle, abufive of Hannah More, they quote with great glee, a long paffage, containing among others fuch excellencies, the following de lectable lines.

5

Yet this, my dear fifter, is wrong and abfurd,

No doctrine like this, was e're taught by our Lord.

Does the Monthly Reviewer read our Lurd? This is in the spirit of their own fort of criticifmn. But to fay no more at prefent on a subject that may be enlarged upon, is it not lamentable, that perfons fhould pretend to decide in matters of tafle, who may tire you with the difcuffion of a Greek metron; but who know not the difference between deification, and perfonification? Thinking, no doubt, to conclude their hypocritical obfervations on Henvill's* Sermons with an acute remark, they fay "Mr. Henvill inadvertently deifies nature, and speaks of her as a goddefs: She is extremely capricious." And then add, with their ufual fort of flippancy, "which is not correct in a Chriftian Divine." They might as well fay, that Solomon is a heathen for his defcription of wildom in the book of Proverbs; or, ftill more, Jeremiah, for his admirable representation of the city of Jerufalem. But the writings of Solomon and Jeremiah are a kind of reading, which fome of the prefent Monthly Reviewers may perhaps think greatly beneath their notice. SCIPIO, Junior.

P. S. The diftrefs of the Reviewer, placed fo critically between Peter Pindar and the author of the Baviad, and which he endeavours to cloak by a fhew of indifference, is furely too ludicrous to efcape fome playful animadverfion. His ftrictures on the Bishop of Lincoln will furely meet with reproof.

*September, 1800.

ART.