Art. 22. The Flitch of Bacon; a Comic Opera, in Two Acts: As it is performed at the Theatre-Royal in the Haymarket. By the Rev. Henry Bate. 8vo. I S. Evans. 1779.

This com.c opera might possibly amuse in the theatre, but the Reader mult feel disappointed at the manner in which the fubject is treated. The exhibition of the several claimants of the Flitch afforded scope for a diverity of character, of which the Writer has not taken the least advantage, though it seemed almost imposible for a poet not to avail himself of so obvious a circumstance. The fable has little relation to the famous Dunmow Flitch of Bacon, and the dialogue is coarse and inelegant.

POETICAL.

Art. 23. Select Satires of Horace, tranflated into English Verse, and, for the most part, adapted to the present Times and Manners. By Alexander Geddes, 4to. 5 s. Cadell: 1779. However juft Mr. Geddes's observations may be, that conciseness, perfpicuity, and an elegant fimplicity are the great and leading characters of He race as a fatirist, yet we can by no means agree with him that these excellencies are likeliest to be retained by adopting the Hudibrastic measure, in preference to that of ten syllables with legitimate rhymes.

However well adapted Hudibrastics may be to subjects that are ludicrous and low, yet, surely, the jingle and quaintness of doggrel verse must be totally incompatible with every idea of so exquifitely graceful a writer as Horace, whose wit is always elegant, and whose very pleasantry is philosophical.

With respect to the tranflation itself, though the verfification in general be eafy and familiar, it is too frequently, feeble, inelegant, and vulgar.

In those parts which are adapted to the present times and manners we meet with nothing peculiarly striking, except, indeed, it be in the application of the following passage:

Quidam notus homo, cum exiret fornice: Maste
Virtute esto, inquit, fententia dia Catonis, &c.
When, late, a rev'rend prelate faw
A priest from Drury's haunts withdraw;
"Courage! (he cry'd) fince wh-re you must,
"Far better there to quench your luft,
"Than form wild projects in your head
"How o profane your neighbour's bed."

A former tranflator, in commenting upon the above-quoted paffage in the original, remarks how defective must be the system of Heathen morality, when a philosopher could encourage a man in the commiffion of one vice, merely that he might avoid the chance of falling into another. Mr. Geddes seems to have viewed the passage in a different light, otherwise, in adapting it to the present times and manners, he would scarcely have applied it to a reverend prelate. Were it poffible to suppose that a thought so subversive of that purity which Christianity injoins, could by any means gain admittance into the breast of a reverend prelate, he must certainly be lost to all propriety and decency of character who could utter it. But thas it will ever be: those who, studying mankind only in their closets, at tempt to describe manners they have never seen, are certain in the end to betray their ignorance and presumption.

Art. 24. A Poetic Epistle to the Author of a Paraphrafe of a celebrated Chapter of St. Paul. Fol. I s. Faulder. 1779. On the supposition that Mr. Anitey, the humorous Author of The New Bath Guide, could not write seriously, our Author imagined (when he saw the Paraphrafe on the 13th Chapter to the Corinthians * advertised) that this son of pleasantry must mean a burlesque; and having read the poem, he still thinks that it is a ludicrous performance. What a construction!

On this idea, the Author of the pamphlet before us has given Mr. Anstey a friendly admonition; of which a single line, • Renounce thy errors, and repent in time,'

may be a sufficient specimen.

Art. 25. The Divorce. A Poem. 4to. I s. 6 d. Bishop.

1779.

The Author tells us in his preface' he is refolved, with his eyes open, to join the fcribbling tribe.' Of this rash resolution take the following proof:

'We, who scorn the mufty rules
That stern religion taught her fools,
Have set at length the matter right,
And prov'd it as a juster rite,
To find a flaw-and kindly sever
Whom fate unkindly yok'd together."

Art. 26. An Effsay on Man, in his State of Policy; in a Series of
Twelve Epistles. By Thomas Delamayne, Esq. 4to. 2 s. 6 d.
Harrifon and Co,

Of the Twelve Epistles, announced in the title-page, the present publication contains only Three. When Mr. Delamayne has completed his design, we shall give an account of the whole perform

ance.

Art. 27. The Guardians; a Poem. By a young Lady of Portf

mouth. 4to. 6d. Robinson, &c. 1779.

The young Lady of Portsmouth, with fingular diffidence and modesty, requests, if this little poem should become an object of the Reviewer's notice, that the worst lines may be selected as a specimen of "the Author's performance.

We are forry that a task should be imposed upon us, especially by a Lady, which, we must confefs, our abilities are in no degree equal to. For how can we presume to point out the worst lines, when all are equally good?

The poem is intended as a compliment to Admiral Keppel. Art. 28. Friendship the derniere Ressource. A Poem, addressed to a Gentleman late of Cambridge. By a young Gentleman of the Middle Temple. 4to. 18.6d. Evans.

For the fake of this young Gentleman's acquaintance, we will hope that Pope's observation is not true,

That each bad author is as bad a friend.

• For an account of this performance, see Review for June, 1779. Art.

Art. 29. Bagnigge-Wells: A Poem. In which are pourtrayed the Characters of the most eminent Filles de joye. With Notes and Illustrations, critical, historical, and explanatory. 4to. 1 s. 6d. Hawkins, in Paternoster-Row. 1779.

Thy arbours, Bagnigge, and the gay alcove,
Where the frail nymphs in amorous dalliance rove,
Where 'prentic'd youths enjoy the Sunday feast,
And city matrons boast their Sabbath's rest;
Where unfledg'd Templars first as fops parade,
And new-made Enfigns sport their first cockade;
Sing Muse, converfant in the various styles
Which deck St. James's, or adorn St. Giles.'

Thus fings the Muse of Bagnigge-Wells; and the poem proves

the Author happily conversant with his noble subject.

Art. 30. Ode to the Genius of Great Britain.

Dodiley.

A Pigmy bestriding the Pegasus of Pindar.

4to. I S.

Art. 31. The Modish Wife. A Poem. Inscribed to the reign

ing Ton. 4to. I s. Dixwell.

A general fatire on modern female dissipation, and fashionable vice. The subject and the verse equally contemptible. MISCELLANEOUS.

Art. 32. Thoughts on the Conduct of Admiral Keppel; together with Reasons for restoring Sir Hugh Palliser into the full Confidence and good Opinion of his Country. 8vo. 3 d. Richardfon and Urquhart. 1779.

A fober and sensible vindication of Admiral Palliser, under fourteen diftinct heads, -the last of which being a general conclufion from the whole, may be here extracted. If a man, who in the heat of action behaved with the greatest gallantry, and in the most exemplary and meritorious manner, who fought his ship till the was reduced to a perfect wreck, who was the last in action, fuffered the most in the action, and did not desist while fighting was permitted bim;-if such a man, to whom the more generous spirit of the ancients would have decreed public honours and rewards, were to fall a facrifice to party rage, and to be treated as an enemy to the state, who was the most anxious to serve the state, the navy of England, which was heretofore its glory and its boaft, must be hastening with quick fleps to inevitable ruin.'

Art. 33. A Treatise on the Custom of counting Noses. 8vo. IS.

Kearfly. 1779.

This humorous Writer is of opinion that the Custom of counting Nefes will appear to the sagacious reader a subject of the greatest import; being, says he, no less than that upon which every movement of the state depends: 'During this nasal ceremony, reason and argument attend in suspence, and are often dismissed without a power of appeal. Life, liberty, and property, is bere under a most absolute controul: Is it not then incumbent on us to inquire into the nature of that upon which every thing so dear to us depends ?? After examining into the causes and effects of this custom, he proceeds to inquire into its conveniency.

In

• In the first place, then, the nose was. ore this institution, (allowing me to speak in metaphor) the member of society; and therefore certainly now the non proper to be employed. It partook of the smallest share it performing the functions of the human frame. Its peculiar sense is, comparatively speaking, trifing, and that too is fregelv destroyed, by the almost continual colds which we labour under in this climate.

• Again: it is, in some cases, from the habiliments of office, and a peculiarity of shape, in fact, the only point of the man that can be got at. For example, my Lord Bathurst, when a little while ago Lord Chancellor, could not, I contend for it, be told, upon a stateday, by any other evidence in nature. A meagre Bishop, in his lawn (though I confess it would be a very new appearance), comes within the fame case; as do Judges, Peers, gentlemen of the Bar in the House of Commons, and the Speaker in general. The prefent one happening to have so much forehead, does not overtura the rule, for exceprio probat regulam, cum multis aliis; so that, but for this, in fome of the inftances I have given, as that of my Lords the Bishops (whose taciturnity is not, from long and immemorial ufage, now a matter of remark), an enterprising Minister might, like Bayes, foist in a bench of buckram upon any urgent occafion, and thus carry a question against the most leading principle of the constitution.'

After expatiating with much pleasantry on the policy of the cuftom, he concludes with a COMPLIMENT to Dr. Johuson, on the clearness of his definition of the nose, which first opened and gave a scope to his comprehenfion of the subject.

Art. 34. A short Appeal to the Public. By the Gentleman who is particularly addressed in the Postscript of the Vindication of some Passages in the fifteenth and fixteenth Chapters of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 8vo. Is. Robion, In the Postscript to his Vindication Mr. Gibbon makes a few obfervations on an anonymous pamphlet, under the title of A few Remarks, &c. By a GENTLEMAN.- Most of the instances, says Mr. Gibe bon, which are here produced, are of so brittle a substance, that they fall in pieces as foon as they are touched: and I searched for fome time before I was able to discover an example of some moment where the Gentleman had fairly staked his veracity against some pofitive fact afferted in the two last chapters of my History. At last I perceived that he has absolutely denied that any thing can be gathered from the Epistles of St. Cyprian, or from his treatife de unitate Ecclefias, to which I had referred, to justify my account of the spiritual pride and licentious mauners of fome of the Confeffors.'

The Gentleman, in this Appeal to the Public, replies in the following manner - As I profess truth to be the only object of all my inquiries, fo, when found, I mean ever to make it the fole rule of all my words and actions. I thall not therefore attempt to justify, or even to palliate, the apparent error, otherwise than that the Author's period impressed a very different idea on me than the words of St.

* " The prominence on the face, which is the organ of scent,

and the emunctory of the brain.

Cyprian

Cyprian, as referred to, then did, or still do; and that very idea, through almost unpardonable inattention, I expressed with the utmost inaccuracy. But as the very best excuses may not prove fatiffactory to all readers, I readily give it up, as I would any other error or errors pointed out to me, which I think it is the indispensable duty of every man of honour to do. I should moreover have acknowledged my obligations to the Author himself, for pointing out my error, had he done it with becoming decency and good manners."

The Gentleman acquaints us that there are several remarks both before and after the passage Mr. Gibbon has condescended to take notice of, in which he had fairly staked his veracity against some pofitive fact afferted in his hiftory; and he appeals to the Public, if they had not a right to be fatisfied on feveral other articles to which he has chosen to be utterly filent. He mentions fome few objections which a complete vindication, he says, should have cleared up.-But we refer our Readers to the Appeal itself.

For our account of the Gentleman's former Remarks, see Review, vol. lix. p. 231.

Art. 35. Examen Philosophique et Politique des Loix relatives aux Mariage, Repudiation, Divorce et Separation. Par un Citoyen du Monde.- A Philosophical and Political Examination of the Laws concerning Marriage, Divorce, Separation, &c. 8vo. 29. 6 d. Elmfley. 1779.

The unknown Author of this Examination writes like a philofopher, a man of fenfe, and a good citizen. His tract is addressed to the parliament of England, which he looks upon as the wisest legiflative body in Europe, and to which, together with the study of our free conftitution, he acknowledges himself indebted for what ever ideas he has on the subject of legislation. He further tells us, that if there is a state on earth which has given to laws their true direction, where man is in poffeffion of his native dignity, and enjoys all the advantages of fociety, without giving up too many of the prerogatives which he derives from nature, it is undoubtedly ENGLAND. The best political constitution, however, he justly obferves, has till too many defects; and, indeed, every work of man bears upon it evident and striking marks of his weakness, his paffions, and his errors. It is incumbent, therefore, upon every good citizen, to point out, with modesty and decency, whatever he considers as a defect in that system of laws to which he is subject, and to contribute every thing in his power towards carrying it to as great a degree of perfection as the present condition of humanity can admit.

The subject of our Author's Examination is one of the most important that can engage the attention of a legislator; marriage being one of the principal pillars of society, one of the branches of legiflation which has the greatest influence upon the peace and order of fociety, and the happiness of individuals. Every abufe, indeed, in relation to it, mutt neceffarily be attended with pernicious confequences to the body politic, and to its members.

It is to be regretted that our Author, who seems to be well acquainted with human nature, and to have confidered his subject very attentively, should have confined himself to fuch narrow limits; and fatisfied himself with a tranfient glance at a variety of topics, many

of