lifhed ftate of society, is an universal paffion for riches, which corrupts every fentiment of tafte, nature and virtue. This at length reduces human nature to the most unhappy ftate in which it can ever be beheld. The conftitution both of body and mind becomes fickly and feeble, unable to fuftain the common viciffitudes of life without finking under them, and equally unable to enjoy its natural pleasures, becaufe the fources of them are cut off or perverted. In this ftate money becomes the univerfal idol to which every knee bows, to which every principle of virtue and religion yields, and to which the health and lives of the greater part of the fpecies are every day facrificed. So totally does this paffion pervert the human heart, that it extinguishes or conquers the natural attachment between the fexes, and in defiance of every fentiment of nature and found policy, makes people look even upon their own children as an incumbrance and oppreffion. Neither does money, in exchange for all this, procure happiness, or even pleasure in the limited fenfe of the word; it yields only food for a reftlefs, anxious, infatiable vanity, and abandons men to diffipation, languor, difguft and mifery. In this fituation, patriotifm is not only extinguished, but the very pretention to it is treated with ridicule : what are called public views, do not regard the encouragement of population, the promoting of virtue, or the fecurity of liberty; they regard only the enlargement of commerce and the extenfion of conqueft. When a nation arrives at this pitch of depravity, its duration as a free ftate must be very short, and can only be protracted, by the accidental circumftances of the neighbouring nations being equally corrupted, or of different difeafes in the ftate ballancing and counter-acting one another. But when once a free, an opulent and luxurious people, lofe their liberty, they become of all flaves the vileft and most miferable.

We will readily acknowledge, that in a very advanced and polished state of fociety human nature appears in many respects to great advantage. The numerous wants which luxury creates, gives exercife to the powers of invention in order to fatisfy them. This encourages many of the elegant arts, and in the progrefs of thefe, fome natural principles of tafte, which in more fimple ages lay latent in the human mind, are awakened and become proper and innocent fources of pleasure. The underftanding likewife, when it begins to feel its own power, expands itself, and pushes its enquiries into nature with a success incredible to more ignorant nations. This ftate of fociety is equally favourable to the external appearance of manners, which it renders humane, gentle and polite. It is true, that thefe improvements are often fo perverted, that they bring no acceffion

of

of happiness to mankind. In matters of tafte, the great, the fublime, the pathetic, are first brought to yield to regularity and elegance; and at length are facrificed to the moft childish paffion for novelty and the moft extravagant caprice. The enlarged powers of understanding, inftead of being applied to the ufeful arts of life, are diffipated upon trifles, or wafted upon impotent attempts to grasp at subjects above their reach; and politeness of manners comes to be the cloak of diffimulation. Yet ftill thefe abuses seem in fome measure to be but accidental.

It was this confideration of mankind in the progreffive ftages of fociety, that led to the idea, perhaps a very roman. tic one, of uniting together the peculiar advantages of these several ftages, and cultivating them in fuch a manner as to render human life more comfortable and happy. However impoffible it may be to realize this idea in large focieties of men, it furely is not impoffible among individuals. A perfon without lofing any one fubftantial pleasure that is to be found in the most advanced state of fociety, but on the contrary in a greater capacity to relish them all, may enjoy perfect vigour of health and fpirits; he may have the most enlarged understanding and apply it to the most useful purposes; he may poffefs all the principles of genuine taste, and preferve them in their proper fubordination; he may poffefs delicacy of fentiment and fenfibility of heart, without being a flave to falfe refinement or caprice. Simplicity may be united with elegance of manners; a humane and gentle temper may be found confiftent with the most steady and refolute fpirit, and religion may be revered without bigotry or enthufiafm.

Such was the general train of fentiments that gave rise to the following treatife. But the Reader will find it profecuted in a very imperfect and defultory manner. When it was first compofed, the Author thought himself at liberty to throw out his ideas without much regard to method or arrangement, and to enlarge more or lefs on particular parts of his fubject, not in proportion to their importance, but as fancy at the time dictated. He would with pleasure have attempted to rectify thefe imperfections, which he has reafon to be afhamed of in a work offered to the public; but the circumftances which he formerly mentioned put that entirely out of his power.'

In the courfe of the work, the Reader will find several confiderable additions, which fhew the taste, good sense, and benevolent difpofition of the Author,

The

The Divine Legation of Mofes demonflrated. In nine Books. The fifth Edition, corrected and enlarged. Vol. I. and II. 8vo. IOS. Millar and Tonfon.

W

E think it incumbent upon us to give a short view of the principal alterations and additions that are made in this new impreffion, of the firft and fecond volumes of the Divine Legation, as few of our Readers can be fupposed to have any inclination to purchafe this new edition, merely on account of the improvements or alterations that are made in it.

On comparing the fourth edition, publifhed last year, with that now before us, the first thing that ftruck us was the omiffion of the following note in p. 20th of the Dedication to the Free-Thinkers; — -See this matter, and what else relates to ridicule, as a test of truth, explained at large, and in a very just and elegant manner, by Mr. Brown, in his first Effay on the Cha racteristics.

What can be the meaning of this omiffion? If this note was proper in 1765, does it cease to be fo in 1766? There is certainly fome mystery in the affair, and how to account for it in a fatisfactory manner, we really know not. It occurred to us at first, that his Lordship might poffibly be offended with Dr. Brown on account of his letter to Dr. Lowth, and that therefore-but this fup ofition carried in it fomething fo little, fo mean, and fo illiberal, that we immediately rejected it we therefore leave it to our more fagacious Readers to account for this matter.

In the 21ft p. of the fame dedication, we have the following note. The Author of a late book called Elements of Criti cifm, fpeaking of men's various opinions concerning the use of ridicule, proceeds against what is here faid, in the following manner" This difpute has produced a celebrated question, Whether ridicule be, or be not, a teft of truth? Which (fays he) stated in accurate terms, is, Whether the fense of ridicule be the proper test for diftinguishing ridiculous objects from thofe that are not fo? To answer this question with precifion, I muft premise that ridicule is not a fubject of reasoning but of fenfe or tafle." Vol. ii. p. 55. The critic having thus changed the queftion, which he calls ftating it in accurate terms; and obfcured the answer, which he calls, giving it with precifim, he concludes, that ridicule is not only the best, but the only, test of truth.

But what is all this to the purpofe? is the dealer in ridicule now debarred the liberty of doing what he has so often done, putting his object in a falfe light; and, by that means, making truth appear like error? As he is not, I inferred, againft Lord Shaftbury, that ridicule is not a teft of truth. How does our critic addrefs himself to prove the contrary? not by fhew

ing, that ridicule is fuch a teft: but that the taste of ridicule is the teft of what is ridiculous. Who doubts that? It is the very thing complained of. For when our taste for ridicule gives us a fenfible pleasure in a ridiculous representation of any object, we do not stay to examine whether that representation be a true one, but conclude it to be fo, from the pleasure it affords us.

His fecond change of the question is a new fubftitution, viz. Whether ridicule be a talent to be used or employed at all? Of which he fuppofes me to hold the negative. What elfe is the meaning of these words? "To condemn a talent for ridicule, because it may be converted to wrong purposes, is not a little ridiculous. Could one forbear to fmile if a talent for reafoning was condemned, because it alfo may be perverted?" p. 57. He has no reafon to fmile fure, at his own mifreprefentation. I never condemned a talent for ridicule because it may be abufed; nor for any other reafon. Though others, perhaps, may be difpofed to Smile at his abfurd inference, that we may as well condemn a talent for reafening. As if reafon and ridicule were of equal importance for the conduct of human life.

He may then perhaps afk, " If I do not condemn the use of ridicule, on what employment I would put it, when I have excluded it from being a teft of truth?" Let him not be unealy about that. There is no danger that the talent for ridicule fhould lie idle, for want of proper bufinefs. When reafon, the only teft of truth I know of, has performed its office, and unmasked hypocrify and formal error, then ridicule, I think, may be fairly called in, to quicken the operation. Thus, when Dr. S. Clarke had, by fuperior reafoning, expofed the wretched fophiftry which Mr. Collins had employed to prove the foul to be only a quality of body; Dr. Arbuthnot, who very rarely misemployed his inimitable talent for ridicule, followed the blow, and gave that foolish and impious opinion up to the contempt and laughter it deserved, in a chapter of the Memoirs of Scriblerus. But to fet ridicule on work before, would be as unfair, indeed as fcandalous, as to bestow the language due to convicted vice, on a character but barely fufpected.'

This dedication is followed by a Poftfcript of about 12 pages, wherein his lordship confiders what the Author of the Pleasures of the imagination has advanced concerning the ufe and abuse of ridicule. The difcerning Reader will be at no lofs to account for this attack upon Dr. Ak-de, when he recollects a late fhort publication of the Doctor's.

The first volume concludes with an appendix of 48 pages, wherein his lordship confiders what Lord Bolingbroke has advanced concerning the moral attributes of the Deity; but the whole of this is taken, with little or no variation, from the view of Lord Bolingbroke's Philofophy, Letter 2d.

The Divine Legation of Mofes demonflrated. In nine Books. The fifth Edition, corrected and enlarged. Vol. I. and II. 8vo.

IOS.

W

Millar and Tonfon.

E I think it incumbent upon us to give a short view of the principal alterations and additions that are made in this new impreffion, of the firft and fecond volumes of the Divine Legation, as few of our Readers can be fuppofed to have any inclination to purchase this new edition, merely on account of the improvements or alterations that are made in it.

On comparing the fourth edition, publifhed last year, with that now before us, the first thing that ftruck us was the omiffion of the following note in p. 20th of the Dedication to the Free-Thinkers;- -See this matter, and what elfe relates to ridicule, as a test of truth, explained at large, and in a very just and elegant manner, by Mr. Brown, in his first Efay on the Cha racteristics.

What can be the meaning of this omiffion? If this note was proper in 1765, does it cease to be fo in 1766? There is certainly fome mystery in the affair, and how to account for it in a fatisfactory manner, we really know not. It occurred to us at first, that his Lordship might poffibly be offended with Dr. Brown on account of his letter to Dr. Lowth, and that therefore-but this fup, ofition carried in it fomething fo little, fo mean, and fo illiberal, that we immediately rejected it we therefore leave it to our more fagacious Readers to account for this matter.

In the 21ft p. of the fame dedication, we have the following note. The Author of a late book called Elements of Criticifm, speaking of men's various opinions concerning the ufe of ridicule, proceeds against what is here faid, in the following manner" This difpute has produced a celebrated question, Whether ridicule be, or be not, a test of truth? Which (fays he) stated in accurate terms, is, Whether the fenfe of ridicule be the proper test for diftinguishing ridiculous objects from thofe that are not fo? To answer this question with precifion, I must premise that ridicule is not a fubject of reafoning but of fenfe or tafte." Vol. ii. P. 55. The critic having thus changed the queftion, which he calls ftating it in accurate terms; and obfcured the answer, which he calls, giving it with precifion, he concludes, that ridicule is not only the best, but the only, teft of truth.

But what is all this to the purpose? is the dealer in ridicule now debarred the liberty of doing what he has fo often done, putting his object in a falfe light; and, by that means, making truth appear like error? As he is not, I inferred, againft Lord Shaftbury, that ridicule is not a teft of truth. How does our critic addrefs himself to prove the contrary? not by fhew