Degenerate as these days were, compared with those of the apostles, they were golden ages in comparison with the times that followed. Some taught what they called positive theology, that is to fay, compilations of theological opinions, collected from scripture, and fathers, and councils. Others went into Scholaftical divinity, that is, confused and metaphyfical reasonings, by which they pretended to explain the doctrines of religion. A third fort were all taken up with contemplations and inward feelings, and their divinity was mysticism. Even these were preferable to others, who read the categories of Aristotle, or the life of a saint, in the church, inftead of a fermon, and who turned the church, I will not say into a theatre, but into a booth at a country fair. The pulpit became a stage, where ludicrous priests obtained the vulgar laugh by the lowest kind of dirty wit, especially at the festivals of Christmas and Easter. One of our old historians says, The devil was so pleased with the preachers of the eleventh century, that he sent them a letter of thanks from hell for the advantages which his kingdom derived from their pulpits.

In describing the state of preaching in reformed countries, after paffing high encomiums on the first reformers, and on many Puritan and Nonconformist preachers (overlooking however many great names which have adorned the English church, and greatly contributed to the improvement of preaching], our Author thus laments the influence of civil authority on the eloquence of the pulpit:

• In all reformed countries the pulpit was taken into the service of the state, and became a kind of attorney or folicitor-general retained to plead for the crown. The proof of this lies in the articles, canons, and injunctions, which were girded on the clergy of those times; and how thoroughly the state clergy have understood this to be the true condition of the pulpit, their fermons will abundantly prove. The best state instructions to preachers were given in the DIRECTORY by the assembly of divines: but even these include the great, the fatal error, the subjection of God's word to human law. If, when all other institutes were taken into the service of the ftate, the pulpit had escaped, it would have been wonderful indeed: but, if the pulpit be a place, and the preacher a pensioner, in the name of common fenfe, what are we to expect from both!

From this sad constitution we derive the lifelessness of later preaching. The ill fated youth before he is aware finds himself bound to teach the opinions of a fet of minifters, who lived two hundred years before he was born. His masters believed their own articles, and therefore preached them with zeal: but it would be unreafonable to expect a like zeal in him for the fame doctrines, for he does not know what they are, or, having examined them, he does not think them true, and thus subscription to other men's creeds becomes the death of good preaching.'

After perusing these specimens of our Author's style and spirit, many of our Readers will, we apprehend, agree with us in regretting that, while in fo good a cause he discovers fuch a laudable portion of the fortiter in re, he has not been able to blend

blend with it a little more of the leniter in modo. But we must not expect inconsistencies; and perhaps gentleness is a quality inconsistent with the active and daring spirit of a reformer.

ART. V. The World as it goes; a Poem. By the Author of the Diaboliad. Dedicated to one of the best Men in his Majesty's Dominions, &c. 4to. 2 s. 6d. Bew. 1779.

UNDER the fimilitude of a dream this manly fatirift describes

the Muse, to whom he particularly devotes himself, as exhibiting a picture of the world as it goes. The more prominent parts of the piece are, The Temple of Friendship, the Palace of Self-interest, The Den of Adultery, and the Castle of Freedom. As a specimen of this Writer's powers of description, we shall present our Readers with a view of the Den of Adultery.

،

Methought, in one short moment there arose

A rugged Den, whose threat'ning jaws disclose
Such loathsome shapes, so horrid to the fight,
That all my nerves were stiffen'd with affright.
No monstrous shapes, that, erring from her plan,
Nature brings forth to be the scourge of man,-
No pois'nous reptile, whose envenom'd bane
Can stop the life-blood coursing through the vein,
And bring on instant death, but there were seen,-
The blue, the grey, the speckled, and the green.
-No stupefying leaf, -no deadly flower,
Planted by fate for man's despairing hour,
But, with an intermingled foliage, wave
Their baneful tendrils round the dismal Cave.'

The groupe, which is introduced as paying a shameless hoamage, where

in loathsome state

The lustful Regent of the dungeon fate,

is drawn with great vigour and spirit, and the colours are laid on with a strength and boldness that evidently speak the hand of

a master.

The attendants at the Palace of Self interest are of equal merit, and are equally numerous. Not so, alas, the votaries of Friendship! Into HER temple ONE only demands admittance:

' Deep in the shady bosom of a wood,
Methought a large and ancient temple stood :
Upon the folid strength of arches rear'd,
In rev'rend dignity the fane appear'd.
Around the dome luxuriant ivy crawls,
And deadly ferpents hiss within the walls :
In mould'ring sculpture croaking ravens rest,
And daws discordant find a fecret nest:

Brambles and weeds, with pois'nous blossoms crown'd,
Weave their rank tendrils and infest the ground;
While the furrounding growth of thicken'd trees

Collects the vapour and obstructs the breeze.

-Its ancient form remain'd;-but ev'ry grace,
Which deck'd the building and adorn'd the place,
Had long been left to moulder and decay,
To Time's relentless fangs a yielding prey.
Imperfect characters of faded gold,
High in the front, its ancient goddess told.
Beside the gate, with broken sculpture grac'd,
'Mid storied urns, by cank'ring Age defac'd,
Orestes stood, in mutilated pride,
And Pylades was mould'ring by his fide.
There was a time when ev'ry labour'd part
Bore the nice touches of ambitious Art:
When the rich altars blaz'd with sacred flame,
And Friendship was a dear and honour'd name:
When heart-sick votries, drooping with despair,
Found a fure refuge and asylum there;
Where, from oppreffion fate and worldly strife,
They pass'd in peace the closing years of life.
There injur'd Virtue turn'd its willing feet,
And found a welcome and fecure retreat:
There the bold youth, with love of arms inspir'd,
Felt his young foul with heighten'd ardor fir'd;
Preferr'd his pray'r, and, big with promis'd fame,
Sprung to the war and gain'd an hero's name.
-But now no more on Friendship's altars blaze
Th' afcending flames; - no more the fong of praise,
In grateful chauntings, echoes through the dome:-
Exil'd by interest from her native home,
She wanders all forlorn; the daily sport
Of ev'ry fool that cringes in a court,
Of ev'ry knave, and all the endless train
Of those who sweat beneath the luft of gain.
-Among the rich, the noble, and the great,
Who hears her cry, who mourns her hapless fate?
To her deferted temple who repair ?
PORTLAND alone demands admittance there."

The complement at the close is well introduced, and, if public fame, which feldom errs on the favourable fide, may be credited, it has the additional merit of being just.

Succefs is too apt to beget indolence and inattention: this, however, is not the cafe with our present Author. The poem before us is certainly equal, if not superior, to any thing he has hitherto published.

In the structure of his verse there is a blemish which we wish could have been avoided. It seems to have arifen from his taking Churchill's manner, which undoubtedly was not a good one, for his model: we mean the running one couplet into the other, which, except in occafional inftances, is feldom done but at the expence of either strength or harmony.

ART.

ART. VI. Sketches from Nature; taken, and coloured, in a Journey to Margate. Published from the original Designs. By George Keate, Efq. 2 Vols. Small 8vo. 5 s. sewed. Dodsley. 1779

ORICK left many natural children, or, in more familiar.

Y phrafe, bye-blows, but Mr. Keate is the legitimate

spring of that fingular and celebrated writer, and it is with peculiar fatisfaction we recognise the father's features in the son.

In this pleasing sentimental journey, many things occur to entertain us, and nothing that will offend either our tafte or our judgment; we are, in fine, presented with a variety of scenes that interest our affections, and none that can any way tend to injure our morals: -on the contrary, we may affirm, that the reader, who can peruse these pages, without feeling himself the better for it, must be poffefied of a mind either too exalted, or too much depraved for improvement by this mode of instruction, Mr. Keate is not one of your geographical travellers, nor is be a hunter after antiquities or pictures. His aim is not to gratify the inquifitive with the defcriptions of rare things; his bufiness is rather with the HEART; and your feelings will be )touched, though your curiosity be unsatisfied.

Readers in general, as well as Reviewers by profeffion, are ready enough to give their opinion of every book they perufe. It is but fair, that Authors should be allowed the fame freedom with their Readers. Mr. Keate has, accordingly, taken leave to indulge in a pleasant description of the various characters and complexions of Readers *, dividing them into the following claffes :

The Superficial Reader,

The Idle Reader,

The Sleepy Reader,

The Peevish Reader,

The Candid Reader,

The Conjectural Reader.

• I may possibly,' fays he, not escape cenfure for having omitted the LEARNED reader, to whom so many prefaces and dedications have formerly been addressed, but this was in the times when learning was possessed by few. In this age, so enriched by the inundations of the press, every author is to presume that all his readers are learned, no one being willing to difpute a title which may call in queftion the validity of his own.

• The SUPERFICIAL reader is one who finds not leifure, or inclination, for more literature than he can take in over a loitering breakfast, or whilst his hair dreffer is adjulling his person. - He contents himself with extracts from nerus-papers, magazines, and reviewskims over title-pages and indexes, and adding to them the smuggled opinions of those who look deeper into books, pafles at routs and tea-tables for a well-read gentleman.

• In a chapter which he entitles 'The Reader's Looking-glass.

• The

The IDLE reader is the reverse of the former. He is a great peruser of little volumes, but reads without method, or pursuit, not making knowledge, but amusement, his object.

-He is in one sense of the happiest class, for he is in no danger of ever reading himself out; so many persons being daily employed to perpetuate his pleasures, by seducing novels-little histories, which familiarize the arts of intriguing-Memoirs of Prostitutes-Anecdotes of Women of Quality-and Lives of Highwaymen.

• The SLEEPY Reader is ever a man of a dull languid temperament, both of body and mind.-He takes up a book when he can do nothing else, and pores over it, till it drops from his hand;-or if by repeated attacks he fairly arrives at the Finis of a volume, he has waded through it so between fleeping and waking, that it is often a doubt with himself whether he has read it at all.

No works of genius are ever seen on his sheives, they are of too fimulating a nature, and would defeat his purpose, -but a plenty of Soporific treatises, under the varied titles of Journals, Annotations, Books of Controversy, and Metaphyfical Differtations.

An old relation of mine, who died a martyr to the gout, used, as he fat in his study, to estimate his books not from the pleasure, but from the good naps they had afforded him. This, cousin, said he(pointing round the room with his crutch)-this is a composer-this a dozer-every twenty pages of this excellent author is as comfortable as a glass of poppy water.-I believe I was near three months leeping through yonder large volume;-and to this worthy little gentleman on the middle shelf, I was indebted for two admirable nights rest, when a chalk ftone was forming in my toe. But my most valuable friend is this set of books by the fide of my couch.-I call them my grand opiate, and as a mark of distinction, my flannel night-cap generally lies upon them.

• Now I am well aware that when these Sketches from Nature shall appear, half my readers will be on the tiptoe of curiosity to know how the last mentioned books were lettered; but as I have not I hope a fpice of ill-nature in my composition, I publicly declare the secret shall die with me.

• The PEEVISH reader is made up of conceit and ill-bumour-He cavils with the design, the colouring, or the finishing, of every piece that comes before him. - Few have fufficient merit to extort his approbation-he had rather even be filent, than commend, and finds his highest fatisfaction in discovering faults.

A man of this cast is an object of compaffion; for in the imperfect state of human labours, he must pass his time very miferably!

-But let us leave him to the severe destiny of never being pleased: -To counterpoise his spleen, behold the CANDID reader appears.Amiable fpirit!-in thee I contemplate contem the gentleman-the scholar. -the true critic-flow to cenfure-eager to applaud!-convinced by what arduous steps superior excellence is attained, thy liberal mind cherisheth every effort of genius, and unwillingly condemns what thy correct judgment cannot approve.

But CANDID reader! thy character hath been more happily delineated by a long-admired writer; in quoting whose lines i cannot

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