Speaking) the most addicted to the vice which it is a part of their character to endeavour to reclaim.

There is nothing at once so painful, and intolerable a mortification to a man of literary talents, as to shew a civil indifference to the darling of his pen; nor any pleature fo agreeably foothing, as to mark fuch fentiments with a warm encomium, which he himself has distinguished as (in his opinion) deserving particular celebrity. It has been sometimes my misfortune, to fee an unhappy Bard almost blasted by filence, where he expected to receive the full thunder of public acclamation; and I have also seen his eyes glow with pleasure, as the whifper'd compliments have circulated through a company, who had been furprised with the entrance of a man, whom the greatest part knew only by his works, and whose vanity they therefore gratified, by communicating their intelligence from one to another, "that, that is he."

It cannot but be allowed that this impatience of praise proceeds from an ambition of fuperiority, and that it is, in the strict fente, an evidence of vanity : yet it is certainly of the most warrantable kind, and less deferves cur cenfure than any other; for we are easily inclined to admit the apologies of him whose weak nesses are not malicious to others, but hurtful to himselt; and who errs rather from the natural love of dignity and confequence, than from any motives that can injure fociety, or disturb the harmony of the world. And furely to aim honestly at distinction, is rather a virtue than a crime, even if our endeavours are without fuccels: an emulation to arrive at eminence, in the more polished arts of lite, is one of the most laudable pursuits of the mind; and it would be unreafonable not to esteem the learned, becaafe their wisdom is fometimes tinctured with human frailties; frailties, which we all participate, and weaknesses which are infeparable from mortality.

There are numbers, without number, who have no plea of palliation for the confummate impudence of Pride; who depend upon the boldness of their brows, and the effrontery of their eyes, for the support of their conceit: fuch, indeed, are wretches unfit either for the honours of trutt or conversation, and should be rooted from the world, as the nuifances of nature. When we fee the Fop pique himteit on the cut of a coat, or the glitter of a button; the Beauty, on the elegance of a flatter'd forin, unanimated by one

ray of the foul; the Prude, on the pride of a felf-denying negative virtue; the Rake, on the success of Defloration; and the Trader, on the dexterity of undetected deception; shall we not look with an eye of pardon on those failures which have their origin in far more excuseable caufes.

I cannot help thinking that every man of genius has in fome fort a moral claim to our particular veneration: for if we confider the rarity of real ability, the arduous toil of compofition, and the hopes and hazards of publication; if we reflect upon the pangs which an author must indispensibly feel in every laborious undertaking of literature; how, night after night, and year after year, his faculties are upon the stretch; how often his apprehentions and hopes are agitated; and if we farther reflect, that by the pain and study of the writer, the circle of cur moral entertainments are enlarged, our intellects enlightened, and our ideas taught to flow in a more extenfive channel; we shall kindly pafs over the im. becillities of the man, and willingly pay our plaudit to the scholar.

Yet the favourites of the Muses should content themselves with the commenda. tion of those from whom they will ever receive it; from the fentible and refined, from fuch as have equal capacity and tafte: they should confiser, that of the multitudes that read, very few are able either to relish er to judge; and that though every man may centure, yet every man is not therefore a critic : he thould confole himtelt fometimes, even when the "aura popularis," "the gale of favour," is against him, that many of those who condemn his labours, are unable to enjoy the delicate design and conduct of any politer fystem of knowledge, or to diftinguish the fun like glowings of genuine genius from the coxcomic Iparklings of affected wisdom. He should reflect, that the bulk of mankind are engroffed by cares, or engaged in avocations, which deny them the opportunities neceffary to understand the refinements of fcience; that the intellects of fome are immerfed in business, and some diffipated by pleafure; and that as to fuch who may be nominated the butterflies of the species, those amongst them who can read at all, will look for amusement in those volumes where Vice is dreffed up with flowers, and the heart entertained with the wantonnels of amour. The business of the libertine is to purfue, to catch, and to devour; to fiifle the principles of inno. cence,

cence, and to overwhelm the sentiments of honour, by the counteraction of fubtler arguments; from him no man will expect to hear the praises due to genius or to virtue, and therefore from his filence no man should be disappointed.

The most ridiculous Vanity is that which is built on the dignity of Birth, which is commonly diftinguished by the world under the title of Family-Pride. It is frequently the fource of matrimonial forrow, and as often disunites the relation and the friend. A man, disre. garding the pomp of genealogy, supposes it of small consequence whether a man was born yesterday, or a thousand years ago; but estimating the principles of things, not according to their age, but according to their real value, looks back with horror on the maffacres of Nero or the schemes of Catiline; and if he finds a man active for the welfare of the social world, is not folicitous to know whether his ancestors were dignified by blood or

titles, whether they were conquerors or captives.

It would be a maxim equally amiable and wife, to scorn all praise but that which is the natural confequence of conscious defert, and neither to with or aim at any eminence that will not bring along with it an infallible compenfation. A very fuperficial observation will serve to convince us, that Vanity, however artfully concealed or openly displayed, always counteracts its own purposes : Virtue confers a bofom-greatness that renders unnecessary such secondary and fervile afsistances. He who is truly fenfible, just, or ingenious, need not have recourse to arts below himself, to lignify his equity or his parts: for Genius will inevitably incite the admiration of the Wife; Beauty recommends itself; and a benevolent Heart will not folicit, but command our reverence and applaufe.

DIONYSIUS.

:

A

CORRESPONDENT observes to us, that the minutest circumstances re lative to men of eminence afford pleasure; he therefore defires the infertion of the following particulars concerning this truly original genius and worthy cha

racter.

In the year 1774, being much indifposed both in mind and body, incapable of diverting himself either with company or books, and yet in a condition that made some diversion neceffary, he procured a leveret, and afterwards two others, which he bred up tame and domesticated. One of these died early, the second lived nine years, and the third still longer. A very entertaining account of these animals was penned by Mr. Cowper, and inferted in the Gent. Mag. for June 1784, p. 412. The furviving hare has been immortalized by its benevolent and humane mafter in the following lines of THE TASK, B. 3.

One shelter'd hare Has never heard the fanguinary yell Of cruel man, exulting in her woes. Innocent partner of my peaceful home, Whom ten long years' experience of my

care

Has made at last familiar; she has lost Much of her vigilant instinctive dread,

Mr. Cowper was the author of Anti Thelypthora, a Tale in verse, printed in 1781 for Johnfon in 4to. It was a performance in ridicule of his cousin Martin Madan's strange doctrine of Polygamy. A reluctance to expose so near a relation, Mr. Madan's mother and Mr. Cowper's father being brother and fifter, is faid to have induced Mr. Cowper to fupprefs this pleasant jeu d'esprit, which is little known, and now difficult to be procured.

Mr. Cowper had a brother named John, who was fellow of Corpus Chrifti College, Cambridge. He took the degrees

Like crowded forest-trees we stand,

And fome are mark'd to fall; The axe will smite at God's command,

And foon shall smite us all.
Green as the bay-tree, ever green,
With its new foliage on,
The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen;
I pass'd-and they were gone.
Read, ye that run, the awful truth
With which I charge my page;
A worm is in the bud of youth,
And at the root of age.

No present health can health infure,
For yet an hour to come;
No med'cine, tho' it oft can cure,
Can always balk the tomb.
And oh! that (humble as my lot,
And scorn'd as is my ftrain *)
These truths, tho known, too much

forgot,

I may not teach in vain.

So prays your Clerk, with all his heart
And, ere he quits the pen,
Begs you at once to take bis part,
And answer all-AMEN!

Alex

it will not be a matter of furprise, that it has been so much cultivated during the present century. From its progreffive itate of cultivation, we now not only expect authenticity of information, but likewise elegance of diction, neatness of

expreffion, expreffion, and purity of language. How near this performance approaches to our ideas in these respects, our observations will evince.

We are not to look upon the present work (at least as far as relates to the biographical part of it) as entirely confifting of new matter. Had Mr. Smellie lived, we learn from the dedication by his fon (the Editor of the present work), that it was his father's intention to have given the world a literary and characteriftical account of Scottish authors with whom he was perfonally acquainted, in the manner of a biographical dictionary; an undertaking, if properly executed, of much use and advantage: but if the prefent lives were intended as specimens of the intention and execution, the pubfic will not much regret that the design is left to other hands.

The Volume commences with the life of Dr. Gregory; of which, after the first fix pages, containing birth, parentage, and education, we lose the thread till we arrive at the ninety-firtt: this digreffion from the main fubject is merely to introduce extracts from Dr. G.'s works, extending the volume from lucrative motives, and for which the public are requested to submit to a small ad dition of price to that mentioned in the Profpectus. We have, however, no doubt that the public would have been better fatisfied with more original in. formation and a list of the Dr.'s works, than with upwards of eighty pages of extracts. The life of Lord Kames af fords little more than a list of his wri. tings, with some of the critiques of the different reviewers of that time; that of

Hume is the most entertaining in the volume, but the greater part of it has appeared before, which is indeed acknowledged. The admirers of the fascinating Rosseau will find, from perusing the account of the quarrel, which is given at full length, that his conduct towards Mr. Hume must stamp his character with vanity, weakness, and folly; it could hardly be credited that any man, under the particular obligations that the author of Eloise was to Hume, could evince such a spirit of baseness and ingratitude.The following anecdote is highly cha racteristic of the ridicule with which H. generally treated religious subjects. Dr. Warden, Hume, and Smellie, meeting one evening at Lord Kames's, the conversation turned upon a fermon just then published, written by a Mr. Edwards, with the strange titl title of "The Usefulness of Sin;" Mr. Hume repeating the words-the Usefulness of Sin: "I suppose," says he, "Mr. Edwards adopts the system of Leibnitz, that all is for the beft; but," added he, with his usual keenness of eye and forcible manner of expreffion, "what the Devil does the fellow make of Hell and Damnation ?" The life of Adam Smith is equally liable to the same objections as that of Dr. Gregory: copious extracts from the different works of the authors will not prove a palatable biography to any class of its admirers. A Diflertation upon Public Spirit and three Essays close the Volume; these, we are given to under. stand, were written when the author was only twenty years of age; and indeed they require the note.

Stockdale.

the Statesman; confirm the Divine in the fteady profeffion and practice of Religion, and teach the private Citizen the duty of loyalty, and a grateful sense of the happiness he enjoys under a just and mild administration of government.

From an attentive perusal, therefore, of the concluding part of the History now before us, the most solid advantages will accrue; and the critical fituation of the country, at the moment of committing this Review to the prefs, earnestly calls upon us to investigate the conduct

Mmm

of the Cantons, and of their allies; whether opposed to the measures of the French Republic, or observing a strict neutrality; or finally, coinciding or cooperating with those Powers of Europe, who feem to think and act as if the safety of the whole Continent depended, not on any negociations for peace with any persons whatever holding the reins of government, but on the total extinction of a Republican Government in France. The better to enable us to form an opinion upon this delicate fubject, it will be necessary to pursue the sequel of our author's hiftorical memoirs regularly from Chapter VIII. page 249, of the Second Volume, to the conclusion of the work. Tables exhibiting the extent of square miles, the population, the contingent military force, the form of government, the religion, and the language of the Thirteen Cantons, separately and collectively-the same statement of the 23 Bailiwicks fubject to one or more of the Thirteen Cantons-and of the Confederated States, classed under the titles of Affociates, of Allies, and of Sovereignties under the protection of the Forest Cantons, compose a material division in this Chapter, and our author acknowledges that they are mostly compiled from Durand's Statistique élémentaire de la Suiffe, a work of established reputation for its accuracy; we shall, therefore, need no apology for borrowing from the borrower a fummary of these tables, which may be useful in elucidating fome fubfequent events of the first importance.

9.

The following is the order in which the Cantons are claffed:- 1. Zuric. 2. Berne. 3. Lucerne. 4. Uri. 5. Schwitz. 6. Underwalden. 7. Zug. 8. Glaris. Bafle. 10. Friburg. 11. Soleure. 12. Shaffhausen. 13. Appenzel. The total of territory they possess amounts to 7,852 fquare miles. The population to 996,500 fouls. The total of the military force they are enabled to bring into the field, upon the fuppofition that each Canton, faithfully supplies its alloted contingent, is stated to be no more than 9,600. The form of government, prior to the French invafion, was Democratic in fir of the Cantons; Arifto-democratic in three; Aristocratic in four. With respect to Religion, it is very remarkable that five of the fix Democratic Governments profefsed the Roman Catholic, and the other confifted of a mixture of Proteftants and Catholics; and that at Berne, by far the largest in extent of territory and population, and whose government was strictly

I

Aristocratical, the Proteftant was the religion of the state. The popular language of ten Cantons is German. Ger. man and French is the language of two; and German and Italian of one.

The fubject Bailiwicks were all under a Monarchical form of government, that is to say, subjected to the sovereignty of two or more of the Thirteen Cantons; for example, Thurgau was dependant upon the eight old (the first confederated Cantons); Morat, Granfon, Orbe, and Ecballons, acknowledged the fupremacy of Berne and Friburg. And upon the whole, the Canton of Berne poffefsed the largest portion of sovereignty over the twenty-three Bailiwicks. The extent of their territory is stated at 1832 square miles; their population at 344,000 touls; and their total contingent of troops (that is to say of militia) at 2,400 men. Their religion, upon an average, is pretty equally divided between the Proteffant and Roman Catholic. The prevailing language, German.

2. Allies.

3

The Confederated States, as they are titled at the head of Table III. but which we shall better explain, by calling them the States in Confederation with the Thirteen Cantons, yet not incorporated with them; are diftributed into three classes -1. Affociates. Sovereignties, under the protection of the Forest Cantons. The territorial domains of these states amounted to 15,145 square miles; their population to 1,907,300 fouls; and their total con, tingent of troops to 13,400 men. Their governments partly Monarchical; but chiefly, as well as their religion and language, mixed.

From these statistical abstracts we shall select one feparate statement of particular use in forming an estimation of the line of conduct which the Swiss Government ought to have pursued pending the prefent difastrous war, and in which they ought to have been protected and fupported by all the Powers of Europe, if the law of nations, and the dictates of humanity, could have superseded lawlets ambition and felfish political interests.

The whole military force of the country, according to the Tables from which, our fummary account is taken, amounted only to 25,400 effective men. we might add 16,000 regular troops, conftantly kept up, in the fervice and pay of the Government of Berne, and chiefly employed in garrifon duty, at the different Castles belonging to the Canton, and its dependant Bailiwicks, of which :