We confes that we are by no means thRd with these refections. Not to mention the impoffibility of perfuading perfons of tender, and perhaps not miftaken, opinions, to withhold what they deem it charity to beftow, it is by no means clear, that if we could reduce every one to this non-feasant difpofition, many milerable wretches would not perish for want of affitance. The giving of ins is by no means fetting up private judgment against a public law: for though it may be faid, that the legiflature have provided for the poor, yet daily experience fhews, that this provillon is ineffectual; at least it may, in many cafes, come too late: and a diftreffed object may perish before the proper officer can be called to his relief, or before it is determined to what legal ailiitance he has a juft title.

Indeed, if the giving of money only could be restrained, it might effectually put an end to mendicancy as a trade, without doing injury to humanity. But it would be inhuman to deny food and rayment to the hungry and naked, from a perfuafion that they may be fupplied by a legal provifion, which, from various delays and impediments, may, perhaps, come too late for

their neceffitics.

The next regulation our Author propofes, is, that befides the Overfeers of the Poor, there be a general Superintendent over a certain number of parishes, as the Justices in feions fhall find. moft convenient.

We cannot help thinking, however, that it would be too great a truit repofed in any one man, to give him the general fuperintendency over a number of parishes: but our limits will not allow us to enter farther into a difcuffion of this fubject, which is in truth of the highest importance. And whatever may be thought of the two particular regulations proposed by our Author, it must be allowed, that in the courfe of his animadverfions on prior schemes of this nature, he hath made many judicious reflections, which merit attention and regaid.

We must not omit to inform the Reader, that in the concluding chapter, the Reverend Writer takes notice of the defects in other branches of the office of Juftices of the Peace, on which he animadverts in alphabetical order. It is obfervable, that under the title Game, he remarks, that One of the principal acts, viz. the 5 Ann. c. 14. is neither grammar nor commen fent, and is a difgrace to the ftatute back. Whether the ftatute deserves this fevere cenfure, we cannot take upon us to determine, having no opportunity of confulting it; but a criticilin of this kind, on any work whatever, may juftly be deemed fh and illiberal, and more cfpecially fo, when a folemn act e legifature is the fubject of its feverity. We may add,

that

that it comes with the greateft impropriety from the Reverend Writer, who has not fcrupled to reprehend Lord Hale, as fetting up private judgment against the public law.'

GOTHAM: A Poem. Book II. By C. Churchill. 4to. 2s. 6d. Kearfly.

TH

HIS Bock is, in every respect, fuperior to the former: but the Author has employed, perhaps to no material purpofe, a confiderable part of it in apologizing for those defects in his poetry, which, in a Writer of fo much fpirit and genius, we have frequently had occafion to regret. Vain, certainly, must be his apologies with the fober and the ferious, fince he owns, that he cannot fpare time from the purfuit of pleasure, to polish or methodize his productions; and his affertion, that Nature

Breaks the fence

Of thofe tame drudges, Judgment, Tafe, and Serfe,

is evidently ill-grounded; for Tafte and Judgment are founded on the principles of Nature, and owe their very exiftence to thofe ideas of comparative excellence and beauty which we borrow from her works.

Of the occafional ftrokes he aims at the Reviewers, we forbear to take notice, out of deference to the public; concluding, that we have no right to take thofe liberties Mr. Churchill fo largely allows himfelf, or to fill our pages with impertinent recriminations. They will be much better employed in giving our Readers an idea of this nervous poem, fo far as the rhapfodical form of it may allow us; for Gotham feems to have neither plan nor defign, at least that we can discover.

The progrefs of moral Reformation, and the gradual means of gaining over the Mind to Virtue, are juftly and ingenioufly defcribed:

In her own full and perfect blaze of light,
Virtue breaks forth too ftrong for human fight:
The dazzled eye, that nice but weaker fenfe,
Shuts herfelf up in darknefs for defence.
But, to make frong conviction deeper fink,
To make the callous feel, the thoughtless think,
Like God made man, the lays her glory by,
And beams mild comfort on the ravish'd eye.
In earnest moft, when moft the feems in jelt,
She worms into, and winds around the breaft,
Ꮜ 2

To

292

To conquer vice, of vice appears the friend,
And feems unlike herself to gain her end.
The Sons of Sin, to while away the time
Which lingers on their hands, of each black crime
To hufh the painful memory, and keep
The tyrant Confcience in delufive fleep,
Read on at random, nor suspect the dart
Until they find it rooted in their heart.

'Gainft Vice they give their vote, nor know at first
That, curfing that, themselves too they have curs'd,
They fee not, till they fall into the fnares,
Deluded into virtue unawares.

Thus the fhrewd Doctor, in the spleen-ftruck mind
When pregnant horrour fits, and broods o'er wind,
Difcarding drugs, and ftriving how to please,
Lures on infenfibly, by flow degrees,

The Patient to thofe manly fports which bind
The flacken'd firews, and relieve the mind;
The Patient feels a change as wrought by stealth,

And wonders on demand to find it health.

The fubftance of the Author's Apology is contained in the following lines; which while we quote, Mr. Churchill muft own, that we are ready to do him juftice, without partiality, even to ourselves:

Had I the pow'r, I could not have the time,
Whilft fpirits flow, and life is in her prime,
Without a fin 'gainit Pleasure, to defign
A plan, to methodize each thought, each line
Highly to finish, and make ev'ry grace,'
In itself charming, take new charms from place.
Nothing of books, and little known of men,
When the mad fit comes on, I feize the pen,
Rough as they run, the rapid thoughts fet down,
Rough as they run, discharge them on the town.
Hence rude, unfinish'd brats, before their time,
Are born into this idle world of rime,

And the poor flattern Muse is brought to bed
With all her imperfections on her head.

Some, as no life appears, no pulses play

Through the dull, dubious mafs, no breath makes way,

Doubt, greatly doubt, till for a glass they call,

Whether the child can be baptiz'd at all.
Others, on other grounds, objections frame,
And, granting that the child may have a name,
Doubt, as the fex might well a Midwife pofe,
Whether they should baptize it, Verfe or Profe.

E'en what my Masters please; Bards, mild, meek men,
In love to Critics stumble now and then.

Something I do myfelf, and fomething too,

If they can do it, leave for them to do.

In

In the fmall compafs of my careless page
Critics may find employment for an age;
Without my blunders they were all undone;
I twenty feed, where MASON can feed one.

When SATIRE floops, unmindful of her ftate,
To praise the man I love, curfe him I hate;
When SENSE, in tides of paffion borne along,
Sinking to profe, degrades the name of fong;
The Cenfor fmiles, and, whilft my credit bleeds,
With as high relish on the carrion feeds
As the proud EARL fed at a turtle feast,
Who, turn'd by gluttony to worse than beast,
Eat, 'till his bowels gufh'd upon the floor,

Yet ftill eat on, and, dying call'd for more.

The concluding fimile, in the above quotation, is equally deftitute of delicacy and propriety.-But the following imprecations contain fublime imagery, and moft powerful expreffion :

Let War, with all his needy ruffian band,

In pomp of horrour, ftalk thro' GOTHAM's land
Knee-deep in blood; let all her flately tow'rs
Sink in the duft: that Court, which now is our's,
Become a den, where beafts may, if they can,
A lodging find, nor fear rebuke from man;
Where yellow harvests rife, be brambles found;
Where vines now creep, let thiftles curfe the ground;
Dry, in her thousand valleys, be the rills;
Barren the cattle, on her thousand hills;
Where pow'r is plac'd, let tygers prowl for prey;
Where Juftice lodges, let wild affes bray;
Let cormorants in churches make their neft,
And, on the fails of commerce, bitterns rest;
Be all, tho' Princes in the earth before,

Her Merchants Bankrupts, and her Marts no more;
Much rather would I, might the will of Fate
Give me to chufe, fee GOTHAM's ruin'd state
By ills on ills, thus to the earth weigh'd down,
Than live to fee a STUART wear her crown,

Let Heav'n in vengeance arm all Nature's hoft,
Thofe fervants, who their Maker know, who boast
Obedience as their glory, and fulfill,

Unqueftion'd, their great Mafter's facred will.
Let raging winds root up the boiling deep,

And, with deftruction big, o'er GOTHAM fweep;

Let rains rush down, till FAITH with doubtful eye
Looks for the fign of Mercy in the sky;

Let Peftilence in all her horrours rife;
Where'er I turn, let Famine blast my eyes;

Let the Earth yawn, and, ere they've time to think,

In the deep gulph let all my fubjects fink

Before

Before my eyes, whilft on the verge I reel;
Feeling, but as a Monarch ought to feel,
Not for myfelf, but them, I'll kiss the rod,
And, having own'd the juftice of my God,
Myfelf with firmness to the ruin give,

And die with thofe for whoin I with'd to live.

This (but may Heav'n's more merciful decrees
Ne'er tempt his fervant with fuch ills as thefe)
This, or my foul deceives me, I could bear;
But that the STUART race my Crown fhould wear,
That Crown, where, highly cherish'd, FREEDOM fhone
Bright as the glories of the mid-day fun,

Born and bred flaves, that they, with proud mifrule,
Should make brave, free-børn men, like boys at school,
To the whip crouch and tremble-O, that thought!
The lab'ing brain is e'en to madness brought
By the dread vifion, at the mere furmife
The thronging fpirits, as in tumuit, rife,
My heart, as for a paffage, loudly beats,

And, turn me, where I will, diftraction meets.

The characters and reigns of the Stuarts in England, are not lefs happily than juftly defcribed. As a fpecimen let Charles the fecond ftand forth:

From land to land for years compell'd to roam,
Whilft Ufurpation lorded it at home,

Of Majefty unmindful, forc'd to fly,
Not daring, like a King, to reign, or die,
Recall'd to repoffefs his lawful throne,
More at his people's feeking, than his own,
Another CHARLES fucceeded; in the fchool
Of travel he had learn'd to play the fool,
And, like pert Pupils with dull Tutors fent
To fhame their country on the Continent,
From love of ENGLAND by long abfence wean'd,
From ev'ry Court he ev'ry folly glean'd,

And was, fo clofe do cvil habits cling,

Till crown'd, a beggar; and when crown'd, no King.

Thofe grand and gen'ral pow'rs which Heav'n defigu'd
An inftance of his mercy to mankind,

Were loft, in ftorms of diffipation hurl'd,
Nor would he give one hour to bless a world;
Lighter than levity which frides the blaft,
And, of the prefent fond, forgets the past,
He chang'd and chang'd, but ev'ry hope to curfe,
Chang'd only from one folly to a worse;
State he refign'd to thefe whom state could please,
Careless of Majefly, his wifh was cafe;
Pleafure, and Pleasure only was his aim;

Kings of lefs wit might hunt the bubble fame;

Dignity,