ton's knowledge of the obfolete language of the 15th century; efpecially as he had devoted his attention to ftudies of that nature.

The pieces contained in this collection are, A Description of the Fryars first paffing over the old Bridge at Bristol; Ethelgar, a Saxon Poem; Kenrick, a Saxon Poem; Cerdick, a Saxon Poem; Godred Crovan, a poem; the Hirlas, tranflated from the ancient British of Owen Cyfeliog, prince of Powys; Gorthmund, tranflated from the Saxon; Narva and Mored, an African Eclogue; the Death of Nicou, an African Eclogue; February, an Elegy; an Elegy on W. Beckford, Efq. the Copernican Syftem; the Confuliad, an heroic poem; Fragment of a Sermon by Thomas Rowlie; Memoirs of Sir William Canynge; the Antiquity of Christmas Games; Description of fome curious Saxon Achievements; Account of the Tinctures of Saxon Heralds; Copy of an ancient M S. written by Rowlie; the Adventures of a Star; Memoirs of a Sad Dog; the Hunter of Oddities; and about nineteen other fmall pieces in profe and verfe.

The Saxon and British poems are imitations of Offian, in this descriptive and pompous language:

Kenrick. Tranflated from the Saxon.

• When winter yelled through the leaflefs grove; when the black waves rode over the roaring winds, and the dark-brown clouds hid the face of the fun; when the silver brook stood ftill, and fnow environed the top of the lofty mountain; when the flowers appeared not in the blafted fields, and the boughs of the leafless trees bent with the loads of ice; when the howling of the wolf affrighted the darkly glimmering light of the western sky; Kenrick, terrible as the tempeft, young as the fnake of the valley, ftrong as the mountain of the flain; his armour fhining like the stars in the dark night, when the moon is veiled in fable, and the blafting winds howl over the wide plain; his fhield like the black rock, prepared himself for war.

Ceolwolf of the high mountain, who viewed the first rays of the morning ftar, fwift as the flying deer, ftrong as a young oak, fierce as an evening wolf, drew his fword: glittering like the blue vapours in the valley of Horfo; terrible as the red lightning, bursting from the dark-brown clouds: his fwift bark rode over the foaming waves, like the wind in the tempeft; the arches fell at his blow, and he wrapt the towers in flames; he followed Kenrick, like a wolf roaming for prey.

• Centwin of the vale arofe, he feized the maffy fpear; terrible was his voice, great was his ftrength; he hurled the rocks into the fea, and broke the ftrong oaks of the foreft. Slow in the race as the minutes of impatience. His fpear, like the fury of a thunderbolt, fwept down whole armies; his enemies melted

before him, like the ftones of hail at the approach of the fun.

Awake, O Eldulph! Thou that fleepeft on the white mountain, with the fairest of women; no more purfue the dark-brown wolf; arife from the moffy bank of the falling waters; let thy garments be ftained in blood, and the ftreams of life difcolour thy girdle; let thy flowing hair be hid in a helmet, and thy beauteous countenance be writhed into terror.

Egward, keeper of the barks, arife like the roaring waves of the fea: purfue the black companies of the enemy.

Ye Saxons, who live in the air and glide over the stars, act like yourselves.

• Like the murmuring voice of the Severn, fwelled with rain, the Saxons moved along; like a blazing ftar the sword of Kenrick fhone among the Britons; Tenyan bled at his feet; like the red lightning of heaven he burnt up the ranks of his enemy.

• Centwin raged like a wild boar. Tatward fported in blood, armies melted at his ftroke. Eldulph was a flaming vapour, de. ftruction fat upon his fword. Ceolwolf was drenched in gore, but fell like a rock before the fword of Mervin.

Egward purfued the flayer of his friend; the blood of Mervin fmoked on his hand.

• Like the rage of a tempeft was the noife of the battle; like the roaring of the torrent, gushing from the brow of the lofty mountain.

The Britons fled, like a black cloud dropping hail, flying before the howling winds.

Ye virgins! arife and welcome back the pursuers; deck their brows with chaplets of jewels; fpread the branches of the oak beneath their feet. Kenrick is returned from the war, the clotted gore hangs terrible upon his crooked fword, like the noxious vapours on the black rock; his knees are red with the gore of the foe.

• Ye fons of the fong, found the inftruments of mufic; ye virgins, dance around him.

Coftan of the lake, arise, take thy harp from the willow, fing the praise of Kenrick, to the sweet found of the white waves finking to the foundation of the black rock.

Rejoice, Oye Saxons! Kenrick is victorious.'

This and the other pieces, which are called Saxon poems, may ftand in competition with the heroic rhapsodies of the Caledonian bard. Their characters are equally apocryphal; the style and images are perfectly fimilar; and there feems to be fomething congenial in the two tranflators.

The following extract, from the beginning of one of our author's Eclogues, may ferve as a fpecimen of his poetical abilities in the modern ftyle.

• On

• On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide
In flow meanders down to Gaigra's fide;
And circling all the horrid mountain round,
Rufhes impetuous to the deep profound;
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell;
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vaft fhell:
There for a while in loud confufion hurl'd,

It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world.
Till borne upon the pinions of the air,

Through the rent earth the bursting waves appear;
Fiercely propell'd the whiten'd billows rife,
Break from the cavern and afcend the fkies:
Then loft and conquer'd by fuperior force,
Through hot Arabia holds its rapid course.
On Tiber's banks where fcarlet jafs'mines bloom,
And purple aloes fhed a rich perfume:
Where, when the fun is melting in his heat,
The reeking tygers find a cool retreat;
Bafk in the fedges, lofe the fultry beam,
And wanton with their shadows in the ftream,
On Tiber's banks, by facred priests rever'd,
Where in the days of old a god appear'd:
'Twas in the dead of night, at Chalma's feaft,
The tribe of Alra flept around the priest.
He spoke; as evening thunders bursting near,
His horrid accents broke upon the ear;
Attend, Alraddas, with your facred prieft!
This day the fun is rifing in the east :
The fun, which fhall illumine all the earth,
Now, now is rifing, in a mortal birth.
He vanish'd like a vapour of the night,
And funk away in a faint blaze of light.
Swift from the branches of the holy oak,
Horror, confufion, fear, and torment broke :
And ftill when Midnight trims her mazy lamp,
They take their way thro' Tiber's wat❜ry fwamp,
On Tiber's banks, close rank'd, a warring train,
Stretch'd to the diftant edge of Galca's plain;
So when arriv'd at Gaigra's highest steep,
We view the wide expanfion of the deep;
See in the gilding of her watʼry robe,
The quick declenfion of the circling globe;
From the blue fea a chain of mountains rise,
Blended at once with water and with skies:
Beyond our fight in vaft extension curl'd,

The check of waves, the guardians of the world.
Strong were the warriors, as the ghoft of Cawn,
Who threw the Hill-of-archers, to the lawn:
When the foft earth at his appearance fied;
And rifing billows play'd around his head
VOL. XLVI. Auguft, 1778,

I

When

When a strong tempeft rifing from the main,
Dafh'd the full clouds, unbroken on the plain.
Nicou, immortal in the facred song,

Held the red fword of war, and led the ftrong;
From his own tribe the fable warriors came,
Well try'd in battle, and well known in fame.
Nicou, defcended from the god of war,

Who liv'd coeval with the morning ftar.'

There is that bold and romantic imagery in this piece, which is one of the principal characteristics of the true poet. It is called an African Eclogue: but we have no idea of the place where the author lays the scene. It cannot be in Africa, as he makes the Tiber run through Arabia. The description of the river seems to be taken from the account which Strabo, Pliny, Lucan, Juftin, and other writers have given us of the Tigris. That river, fays Pliny, rifes in the Greater Armenia, in the midst of a plain called Elongofine. Where it flows with an eafy current, it is called Digito; but where it runs with rapidity, it has the name of Tigris, which, in the language of the Medes, fignifies an arrow. This river

enters into the lake Arethufa, and continues its courfe without altering the colour of its waters. Afterwards it meets with

mount Taurus, where it plunges into a cave, passes under the mountain, and comes out again on the other fide. The place, at which it enters, is called Zoroanda. And as proof, that it is the fame river, it throws out, as it iffues from the earth, what is caft into it, at its entrance into the cave. Plin. Nat. Hift. vi. 27.

Some of the pieces, included in this volume, are of little importance, and bear the marks of hafte and puerility; but to those who properly confider the author's age and education, they will appear very extraordinary productions; not only on account of their poetical merit, but the very remarkable characteristics of antiquity, by which they are diftinguished. If they are forgeries, the author has conducted his project with as much artifice, as either the noted Pfalmanazar, or Annius of Viterbo *.

There

* Pfalmanazar wrote a fictitious hiftory of Formofa, and fabri cated a new language, which he pretended was the language of that country. Pfalmanazar died in 1763. Annius of Viterbo was a Dominican friar, and a good linguit and antiquarian; but a notorious impoftor. We have the treatifes which he forged, in one volume, published at Antwerp, in 1545, &c. containing Berofus's Antiquities in five books, Manethon's Supplement to Berofus, Xenophon's Equivoca, one book of Fabius Pictor on the Golden Age and the Origin of Rome, one book of Myrfilus on the Pelafgic War,

Cato's

There are feveral pieces in this volume, which the author pofitively afcribes to Rowlie. We should be glad to fee his veracity confirmed, and the authenticity of Rowlie's MSS, fully authenticated; not only becaufe genuine productions are more valuable than forgeries; but because there is fomething feandalous and deteftable in fuch literary frauds. Cheats and knaves have difgraced the republic of letters by their spurious publications. He therefore deferves to be branded as the worst of impoftors, WHO OBTRUDES ANY THING UPON THE WORLD, UNDER THE VENERABLE NAME OF ANTIQUITY, WHICH HAS NOT AN HONEST TITLE TO THAT CHARACTER,

The Ayin Akbary, or the Inftitutes of the Emperor Akbar. Tranflated from the original Perfian. 4to. 55. in boards. Longman,

THE

HE emperor Akbar was defcended in a direct line from Timur Lung, known in Europe by the name of Tamerlane, who conquered Hindoftan in the year 1398. Akbar began his reign in 1556. He was a man of curiofity and learning; and his fecretary Abul Fâzel, who had the immediate fuperintendence of this work, has been univerfally confidered as an ornament of the age and nation in which he lived.

The Ayin Akbary, befides a particular defcription of each province in the Moghol dominions, under the title of the history of the fubahs, contains a full account of the emperor's army (in 1596); the wages, falary, and duty of each particular fervant or officer about him; the attendants, and the daily expences of the haram: the different forts of weights, measures, and coins throughout the empire; the method of refining gold and filver in the royal mint; a description of all the herbs, fruits, flowers, and grains at the different feasons of the year; the ceremonies of marrying in the royal family, their feastings, &c. the emperor's manner of holding a divan, and receiving his people; the honours they pay him, and his method of employing his time. Thefe, with a variety of other curious

Cato's Origines, an Itinerary of Antoninus Pius, one book by C. Sempronius on the Divifion of Italy, a chronological tract by Archilochus, Metafthenes on the Affyrian and Perfian Anuals, and an Epitome of History by Philo. To thefe pieces Annius has fubjoined his own comments. He died in 1500.

Subah is frequently, but improperly, ufed for fubahdar by European authors: fubah is properly the vice-royalty, and fubahdar the viceroy.