infinuations of felf-taught fanatics, who decried human learning (like our modern Methodifts) and fet reafon and grace at variance. "The fiattering (Sciolus) foul of lapfed man (fays this author) in its molt vigorous contendings unto beatitude by its own acies, cannot now, as in its eftate of native innocence, with the eagle, behold the refulgence of funny truths, foaring in the highest regions of contemplation, penetrating the arcana and effences of things; but, through the flagginefs of herpinion, flutters, oitrich-like, in grofs and earthly ideas; forming fenfual and faint conceptions; and in its furvey, after taking fhews and fhadows for fubitances, gets the mind big of diftemperature in the ftate of infecurity." The thought is poetical; though the expreflion is affected and fantastic. In enlarging on the benefits of logic, the author fays, "This is that which, by grace, recovers us to our primoge nial condition; unclouds the mafqued mind; plows up and unfeals the depth of reafon; evolves the hidden ideas of things, and unites the knottiness of every emergency. By it confufed things are made diftinét, abftrufe obvious: and the planetick thought to act concentrick, and in its fphere. This alfo rangeth the pell-mell concep

tions to battalia and order. It unfolds oracles, making them toothlefs; turneth into milk bony paradoxes, and cloudy ænigmas into clear funfhine."

From declamation the writer proceeds to compliment; and he is equally extravagant in his flattery of Cromwell, as in his recommendation of logic. "You drive on couragioufly (fays he) and have almost doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Reformation and a happy peace will not longer ride at a dead anchor." "And fince God hath made you thus great may he alfo make you grateful. He hath given you the conqueft of affairs to give you the conqueit of yourfelf. Be the fhadow; be the echo; or rather be the heliotrope, fhutting and opening to his good pleafare.'

Speaking of the effect of the adminiftration of affairs under Cromwell and his officers, the author fays, "The world will venerate each of you as a LOND. MAG. Sept. 1783.

of fieth.".

little deity refiding as a guest in a body You will (fays he) render England the world's Utopia; the moft felicitous of nations; and having abfolved your courfes through the zodiack of praife-worthy actions, you will fet, laden with honours and fatisfying foul-peace:-treafures of a higher carac than the world's magnalia; and the prayers of faints afcending with you will petar your entrances through Heaven's portcullis, while you fcale the battlements of glory to perfect your triumphs, and with feraphic hierarchies chaunt eternal trifagions in ravifhing divifions, and every colon and column of your lives, quartered with the memory of your atchievements, caufe your name, rivalling with time, to furvive on earth, perfumed as incenfe, and odorous as a pile of fpices." Could irony itself have rendered Cromwell and his officers more ridiculous? To thofe who know the real characters of thofe heroes, this extravagance of praise hath all the effect of pointed fatire.

I will present the reader with another fpecimen of that fpecies of panygeric which produces nothing but difguft and contempt for the writer, and though ferioufly intended for an encomium, yet hath all the appearance of

« An

banter and ridicule. In the dedication of two volumes of fermons to the late Bishop Warburton, by the Rev. Thomas Hunter, a Chefbire clergyman, we have the following high-floren expreffions of bumble adoration: addrefs to Bifhop WARBURTON is not, an eafy part. The fingularity, the dig nity, the greatnefs of the character, trike us with awe and reverence; and a retreat from the prefence which confounds us with our own infignificance might be thought molt prudent, did not the experience of your lordíaip's goodnefs and diftinguished humanity disipate our fears, and invite our approach."-" Your lordfhip, like the fit leminary in our fyftem, may communicate without diminution or fear of lefing any of your own fullness and luitre."-" Our vanity is flattered by your lordhip's notice. The most infignificant acquire confideration in the

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words fhall be virtuous, and the morals wicked; and his characters fhall be outrageous lovers and philofophers. And he fhall fay to the univerfe, "I am a favourite of fortune; I write and I receive love-letters;" and the univerfe fhall fee the letters he received were written by himself.

And in his romance he fhall teach the art of fuborning a maiden by philofophy; and the hall learn from her lover to forget fhame, and become ridiculous, and write maxims.

And the fhall give her lover the first kifs upon his lips, and fhall invite him to lie with her, and he fhall lie with her, and the fhall become big with metaphyfics, and her billet-doux fhall be homilies of philofophy.

And he shall teach her that parents have no authority in the choice of a hufband, and he fhall paint them barbarous and unnatural.

And he fhall refufe wages from the father, because of the delicacy natural to men, and receive money under-hand from the daughter, which he fhall prove to be exceedingly proper.

And he fhall get drunk with an English Lord, who fhall infult him; and he fhall propofe to fight with the English Lord; and his mistrefs, who has loft the honour of her own fex, fhall decide upon that of men; and the fhall teach him, who taught her every thing, that he ought not to fight.

And he fhall receive a penfion from the lord, and shall go to Paris, where he fhall not frequent the fociety of well-bred and fenfible people, but of flirts and petit-maitres, and he fhall believe he has feen Paris.

And he fhall write to his mistrefs

that the women are grenadiers, go naked, and refufe nothing to any man they chance to meet.

And when the fame women fhall receive him at their country-houfes, and amufe themfelves with his vanity, he fhall fay they are prodigies of reafon and virtue.

And the petit-maitres fhall bring him to a brothel, and he fhall get drunk Jike a fool, and lie with strange women, and write an account of all this to his mitrefs, and the fhall thank him,

And he fhall receive his miftrefs's picture, and his imagination fhall kindle at the fight; and his miftrefs fhall give him obfcene leffons on folitary chastity.

And this mistrefs fhall marry the firft man that arrives from the world's end, and, notwithstanding all her craft, the fhall imagine no means to break off the match; and the fhall pass intrepidly from her lover's to her husband's arms.

And her husband fhall know, before his marriage, that the is defperately in love with, and beloved by another man; and he fhall voluntarily make them miferable; but he shall be a good man, and, moreover, an Atheist.

And his wife fhall immediately find herfelf exceedingly happy, and fhall write to her lover, that were fhe till free, fhe would prefer her hulband to him.

And the philofophic lover fhall refolve to kill himself.

And he shall write a long differtation, to prove that a man ought to kill himself when he has loft his miftrefs; and his friend fhall prove the thing not worth the trouble; and the philofopher fhall not kill himself.

And he fhall make the tour of the globe, to give his miftrefs's children time to grow, that he may return to be their preceptor, and teach them virtue, as he taught their mother.

And the philofopher fhall fee nothing in his tour round the globe.

And he fhall return to Europe.

And the hufband of his mistress, though acquainted with their whole intrigue, fhall bring his good friend to his houfe.

And the virtuous wife fhall leap upon his neck at his entrance, and the husband fhall be charmed; and they fhall all three embrace every day; and the hufband fhall be jocofe upon their adventures, and fhall believe they are become reasonable: and they fhall continue to love with extacy, and fhall delight to remember their voluptuoufnefs; and they fhall walk hand in hand, and weep.

And the philofopher being in a boat, with his miftrefs only, fhall be inclined to throw her overboard, and jump after her,

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And

And they fhall call all this virtue and philofophy.

And while they talk of virtue and philofophy, no one thall be able to comprehend, what is either virtue or philofophy.

And they fhall prove virtue no longer to confiit in the fear and flight of temptation, but in the pleasure of being continually expofed to it; and philofophy fhall be the art of making vice amiable.

And the philofopher's miftrefs fhall have a few trees, and a fmall ftream in her garden; and the fhall call her gardens Elyfium, and no one fhall be able to comprehend her.

And the hall feed the wanton fparrows in her Elyfium; and fhe fhall watch her domeftics, male and female, left they should be as amorous as her

felf.

And the fhall fup with her day-labourers, and hold them in great refpect; and thall beat hemp with them, with her philofopher at her fide.

And her philofopher will determine to beat hemp the next day, the day after, and every day of his life.

And the labourers thall fing, and the philofopher fall be enchanted by their melodies, although not italian.

And the fhall educate her children with great care, and thall not let them fpeak before ftrangers, nor hear the

name of God.

And the fall gormandize; but fhe fhall eat beans and peas feldom only, and in the temple of Apollo, and this fhall be philofophic forbearance.

And the fhall write to her good friend that the continues as he began, that is,, to love him patiionately.

And the hufband hall fend the letter to the lover.

And they fhall not know what is become of the lover.

And they fhall not care what is become of the lover.

talk of virtue, it is ufelefs to practice

it.

And that, it is the duty of a young girl to go to bed to one man, and marry another.

And that it is fufficient for those who deliver themfelves up to vice to feel a temporary remorfe for virtue.

And that a husband ought to open his doors and his arms to his wife's lover.

And that the wife ought to have him for ever in her arms, and take in good part the husband's jokes and the lover's whims.

And the ought to prove, or believe fhe has proved, that love between married people is ufclefs and impertinent.

And this book fhall be written in an emphatic ftile, which thall impofe upon fimple people.

And the author fhall abound in words, and fhall fuppofe he abounds in arguments.

And he fhall heap one exaggeration upon another, and he fhall have no exceptions.

And he fhall with to be forcible; and he fhall be extravagant; and he fhall always induftrioully draw general conclufions from particular cafes.

And he thall neither know fimplicity, truth, or nature; and he fall apply all his force to explain the caficit, or molt trifling things; and farcasm fall be thought reafon, and his talents fhall caricature virtue, and overthrow good fenfe; and he fhall gaze upon the phantoms of his brain, and his eyes ihall never fee reality.

And, like empirics, who make wounds to fhew the power of their fpecifics, he fhall poifon fouls, that he may have the glory of curing them; and the poifon fhall act violently on the mind and on the heart; but the antidote shall act on the mind only, and the poifon shall prevail.

And it all thew that, while you

And when, in his romance, he fhall have mutually degraded philofophy by

manners,