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towards Wesminster, aud the same to hold by the yearly rent of 35. at Easter." He purchased it for 20 marks of silver.

Chestre's Inn is frequently confounded with the house of the bishops of Chester, which stood near the same spot, and was sometimes so named; but Stowe says, the latter was most commonly called "Litchfield and Coventrees Inne, or London Lodgings," and was first built by Bishop Langton.'

Property to the amount of 29,180l. 6s. 9d. belonging to this see, was alienated during the common-wealth.

Under Queen Mary, Bayne the Bishop of this diocese adjudged two persons to be guilty of heresy; and they were committed to the secular power, and suffered death in the flames at Coventry on the 25th of September 1555. The city of Lichfield has since been disgraced by a similar horrid instance of persecution, under a protestant Prince :

In 1611, 9 James 1. Edward Wightman, of Burton-upon-Trent, was tried in the Consistory court of Lichfield, upon sixteen charges of heresy, and condemned. An account of the charges, with the writ for his execution, under the Great Seal of England, to the Sheriff of this city, for his execution, was published in a curious tract, intituled, "Truth brought to Light, and discovered by Time, or a Discourse and historical Narrative of the first xiiij yeares of King James Reign," 1651. The determination of this cause of heresy against Edward Wightman was, "concerning the wicked heresies of the Ebionites, Corinthians, Valentinians, Arrians, Macedonians, of Simon Magus, of Manes, Manichees, of Photinus, and Anaba ptists, and of other heretical, execrable, and unheard-of opi nions;" in which he maintained "the said most perilous and dangerous opinions," as appeared by his own confession, and from a book written and subscribed by him. For which he was, "by divine sentence, declared by the said Reverend Father, the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, with the advice and consent of learned divines, and others learned in the laws assisting him in judgment, justly adjudged, pronounced and declared, so be an obstinate and incorrigible heretick, and was left by them under the sentence of the great excommunication," and to be punished by the secular power as a heretick. The King's writ to the Sheriff of Lichfield, for his execution, was dated the 9th of March, 1611, at Westminster; by which he was com manded," in aliquo loco publico et aperto infra civitatem prædict' ex causa præmissa coram populo publicè igni committi, et ipsum Edwardum Wightman in eodem igne realiter comburi ;" to be burnt in some public place within the city of Lichfield; which barbarous sentence was soon afterwards executed.'

It would appear that in Litchfield the church has not had reason to complain of numerous separatists; and in 1743 the Bailiffs and Justices certified that there was no Papist (save only two or three women) or Nonjuror in the city; neither have we among us any Quaker, or above two Dissenters from

the

the established church of England, under any denomination whatever."

Among the persons of eminence to whom Litchfield boasts of having given birth, she reckons the celebrated antiquary Elias Ashmole, Bishops Smallridge and Newton, and that incomparable moralist and giant in literature, Dr. Samuel Johnson.

This work is on the whole well executed: but, in our opinion, some artificial divisions of its matter, and considerable pruning, would not have subtracted from its value.

MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For DECEMBER, 1809.

BIOGRAPHY.

Art. 14. Memoirs of Josias Rogers, Esq. Commander of His Majesty's Ship Quebec. By the late Wm. Gilpin, M. A. Prebendary of Salisbury, and Vicar of Boldre in New Forest. Published by his Trustees for the Benefit of his School at Boldre. 8vo. pp. 184. 6s. Boards. Cadell and Davies. 1808.

Capt. Rogers having been Mr. Gilpin's parishioner, and well known to him both in his private and his professional character, Mr. G. deemed it a duty to avail himself of various documents which fell into his hands, by paying a just tribute to departed worth in the record of a meritorious life. He accordingly composed the memoirs before us, which form a very interesting historical tract, entertaining even to the general reader, and highly honourable to the lamented subject of them; who was carried off by the yellow fever, at Grenada, 24th April 1795, aged only forty. To the most amiable personal qualities, he added the highest professional merits; and the events of his life display such evidences of his zeal, his activity, his judgment, his coolness, his intrepidity, and his knowlege, as render him an object well worthy of the contemplation and imitation of all young heroes of the ocean. The energy of his mind, indeed, and the versatility of his talents, which enabled him to act on shore as a soldier with as much honour and effect as at sea in his more immediate sphere, assimilate his character very much with that of the illustrious NELSON. He has left one brother, Capt. Thomas Rogers, also of the Royal Navy; having had the mortification of losing another brother, and a nephew, out of his own ship, by fever, while in the fatal West Indies.

NAVAL AFFAIRS.

Art. 15. A Narrative of the Proceedings on board His Majesty's Ship Theseus, 74. Capt. Edw. Hawker, bearing the Flag of James Richard Dacres, Isq. Rear Admiral of the Red, from the 4th to the 15th of September 1804, being an Account of the Hurricane which that Ship encountered in the Western Atlantic Ocean, in Company

Company with His Majesty's Ship Hercule, 74. Capt. Richard Duun. With Engravings, by Capt. Burt, R. N. Folio. 158. Orme. 1809.,

We cannot conceal the disappointment and the disapprobation which this publication has produced in our minds. The narrative is a meagre sort of log-book journal, which (we speak correctly) could be entirely comprized in a page and a half of our Review; and the plates, four in number, might surely be sold separately at is. each: yet the price of the whole is fifteeen shillings. Why should a folio page, measuring 12 inches by ten, be allotted to receive an engraving of only five inches by three and a half ?

MEDICAL, &c.

Art. 16. An Improvement in the Mode of administering the Vapour-Bath, and in the Apparatus connected with it; with Plans of fixed and portable Baths for Hospitals and private Houses, and some practical Suggestions on the Efficacy of Vapour, in Application to various Diseases of the Human Frame, and as may be beneficial to the Veterinary Branch of Medicine. The whole illustrated by eleven Plates. 4to. Ios. 6d. Booth. 1809. This pamphlet gives an account of a mechanical improvement on the method of applying vapour to the human body for the cure of diferent diseases. It proceeds from the pen of the Hon. Basil Cochrane; who, as he informs us, was led to turn his thoughts to the subject, in consequence of being himself a sufferer from some complaints, which he conceived would be benefited by this application. The event justified his expectations; and he was consequently induced to pay farther attention to the different circumstances which might render the employment of the vapour-bath as commodious and as efficacious as possible.

Mr. Cochrane very properly disclaims all pretensions to medical science; and for a knowlege of the use of vapour, as an agent in the cure of disease, he refers to those writers who have treated the subject professionally: he only proposes to point out improvements in the construction and management of the apparatus. Several plates are annexed to the pamphlet, which minutely explain all the contrivances, and which would enable any person who was so disposed to put them into practice. We transcribe the testimonial to the excellence of Mr. Cochrane's apparatus, which is signed by 77 names, most of them well known medical characters in the metropolis; and which will render it unnecessary for us to give any opinion on the subject:

We have examined the improved models as well as the baths erected by the Hon. Mr. Cochrane; and we have no hesitation in declaring, that they are constructed with much ingenuity and simplicity, and that they possess, within a small compass, a degree of effi ciency, accuracy, and variety of application and power, beyond any thing of this nature which we have witnessed. We are, therefore, of opinion, that they would prove an admirable addition to all Naval and Military-Hospital-Establisments. There are few diseases in which, nder the superintending care of the judicious medical man, they may

not

not, at one stage or another, be useful; and in the prevention of disease, as well as during the periods of convalescence, they will also produce effects highly beneficial.'

This article was intended for the last Review, and a reference was made to it at p. 283: but it was accidentally omitted by the Printer.

POETRY.

Art. 17. Poems (never before published) by the Rev. Wm. Lisle Bowles. Cr. 8vo. 6s. Boards. Cadell and Davies. 18c9. The name of Mr Bowles will render this volume acceptable to many whose approbation reflects honor; and we have not perused it without experiencing esteem for the feeling and poetic mind by which it has been dictated. Yet, though we find in these poems beautiful imagery, sensibility, and poetic fancy, they do not entirely satisfy either the heart or the imagination. Mr. Bowles possesses some of the fire of genius, but he often employs it as an ignis fatuus to dance and dazzle; or, to change the metaphor, he is like a Hawk attempting the regions whither the Eagle soars; he rises beyond the sight of the twittering crew, but he never entirely fulfils the expectations which he is capable of exciting. This is more the case in the present volume than it was in his Sonnets; and the reason is that in the Sonnets he was obliged to give his desultory thoughts and images a greater degree of condensation. For want of this restraint, though many passages in his longer poems are touching, few comparatively are forcible, some lines are very weak, and the whole is very unequal in merit. Perhaps Mr. Bowles may consider this observation as a com pliment, and say with Martial;

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Equalis liber est, Cretice, qui malus est.”

At any rate, if Expectation be the happiest feeling of Mankind, the reader of Mr. Bowles's Poems will be truly felicitous; and like the Countryman who dug a field all over in hopes of finding a hidden treasure, though he may not meet in one spot with the col lected gems of ages, he will rejoice as he goes along, and find at the end of his task that he is repaid for it by the advantage and pleasure which its performance has procured him."

Art. 18. Camilla de Florian, and other Poems. By an Officer's Wife. Cr. 8vo. 48. 6d. Boards. Dick. 1809.

We learn that these poems are published in the hope that their profits may administer to the comforts of a sick husband; and the motive and the compositions are equally honourable to the fair writer. Her expressions are sometimes obscure, but her ideas are poetical, and her mind appears to be at once well informed and enthusiastic. In her versification of some of Ossian's poems, she has preserved much of the spirit and wildness of the original, in defiance of the trammels of rhyme and measure: though the admirers of Ossian may think that he is still more sublime in his own excentric prose, and that Ossian versified is like one of his Hebridean descendants stripped of his national plaid, and attired in an English coat and breeches;

while those who are less partial to his rhapsodies will perhaps compare him in his present dress to a madman in a strait waistcoat.

Mrs. Fraser (which is the name subscribed to the dedication) has been happy in several of her imitations from the Spanish; and in the Poem of The Two Nuns,' taken from the German, she has given with great effect the gloomy wildness of the German ghost

stories.

So far we have been much pleased with her poems, and we are happy in expressing our satisfaction:-but, while just praise, from whatever quarter it proceeds, may be compared to the sun which warms and invigorates, flattery like a coup de soleil, enervates while it inflames the mind.-In Camilla de Florian,' which appears to be an original composition, the versification is feeble, and the termination unsatisfactory. Several of the lines are too long, and some of them cannot be read without an unprecedented alteration in the pronunciation of the words. We also found, in many passages, mistakes of number; which are so palpable that they may perhaps be attributed to the ignorance of the printer, though they are not noticed among the Errata.

Art. 19. The Farm House, a Tale; with amatory, pastoral, elegiac, and miscellaneous Poems, Sonnets, &c. By James Murray Lacey. Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. Boards. Vernor and Co. 1809. This sounding title page excites a hope of variety, which is not gratified by the limited number of bells on which the changes are rung. The author's "Sonnets to his Mistress' Eyebrow" are very numerous; we have two or three on Tears, Snow-drops, and Primroses; several, in course, on Love and Friendship; and others on Morning, Evening, Noon, and Night. They are not without pretensions to the epithet of pretty, but they are all so much alike that, with a few changes of names, the title of each might be reversed, with very little injury to the sense of the poem. Mr. Lacey says that they were written merely for his own pleasure: but it is for the amusement of his readers that he who intends to publish ought to write; and the more he adverts to this consideration in the moment of composition, the greater will be his triumph at the period of publica

tion.

Art. 20. Rudigar the Dane, a legendary Tale. By Eaglesfield Smith, Esq. Crown 8vo. 2s. Boards. Johnson. 1809. A horrible story, indeed! involving murder, incest, and suicide. To those who deal and delight in wounds, and blood, and death, and dark tales of unimaginable horror, we leave this production, with the full persuasion of their making an ample feast. Repetition is not only the soul of poetry, but the flesh and blood of ballad-writing; and therefore we have here the following stanza, slightly altered, over and over again :

O list ye rovers of the North

That stem the boisterous wave,

O listen to a minstrel's song,
Lord Rudigar the brave!"

REV. DEC. 1809.

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