day, difgufted to-morrow, with the fame objects: hence alterations commence; deviation fucceeds to deviation; their first ideas are extended, improved, and varied, till by infenfible gradations, both the form and value of the original defign are entirely changed.

All that in fuch cafes the architect can do, and in difcharge of his duty should do, is, at the time, to notify, by written information, the confequences of the alterations taking place. I fay written, for words are foon forgotten, or, if remembered, explained away, and fometimes denied. But written teftimony admits of no equivocation, it cannot be difputed, and will fix the blame where it should be fixed, not on the architect's want of care or judgment, but on the builder's wavering difpofition'

We shall take our leave of Sir William Chambers's Trea tife, with a paffage relative to the English school of painting; which will, no doubt, give great fatisfaction to every Englishman who is a lover of his country.

:

It must be allowed, that, fince the first publication of this book, the art of painting has taken a very different turn. At that time, little encouragement was afforded to any but portrait painters; and to confefs the truth, very few, even of thefe, deferved much to be encouraged but the inftitution of a Royal Academy for the regular inftruction of artifts; the establishment of an exhibition under Royal patronage, in which they are admitted to start competitors for fame with thofe moft famed; the encouragement held forth to them by his Majefly, the nobility, the gentry, and even by fome of their own profellion, have rouzed the genius of our English artifts, ftimulated their ambition, and brightened up their profpects. Many of them now vie with the firft of their contemporaries in Italy, France, or elsewhere; and fhould encouragement become yet more generally diffufed, it might reafonably be conjectured, from the rapid ftrides already made toward perfection, that in the courfe of a few years, the English fchool might expect to stand unrivalled, or at least equal in fame, to any other of its time.'

This Treatife must be equally acceptable to the architect, the connoiffeur, and the builder. It contains that accuracy and precision on a fubject of art, which an artift only can af ford; that knowlege which a profeffional man alone can give: and to these are fuperadded, that variety of illuftration, and that fpirit of refearch, which genius alone can fupply. It bids fair to hold the fame rank among the works of architects, that Leonardo da Vinci's Treatife, and Sir Jofhua Reynolds's Difcourses, on Painting, will ever maintain among the judges and lovers of that elegant fifter art.

To this edition, three new plates of decorative architecture are added, to the numerous fplendid engravings before given : but we must take the liberty of recommending to Sir W. Chambers, to add a good index, or copious table of contents, to any future edition of this work; as well as to attend more carefully

to

to the little peculiarities of his language, and particularly to the punctuation; the rules of which are, indeed, too often violated, even by eminent writers. Sew. & G.

ART. III. Tranfactions during the Reign of Queen Anne; from the Union, to the Death of that Princefs. By Charles Hamilton, Efq. 8vo. pp. 342. 6s. Boards. Cadell. 1790.

THE

'HE reign of Queen Anne was a critical period; fhe was of the true Stuart race, though the governed by Whig maxims, in prejudice of her brother, then living in exile. Parties, of course, ran very high under fuch equivocal pretenfions, and many officers under the crown, at that time, were of amphibious principles. The papers of temporizing Jacobites of that reign, who accommodated their attachments to their intereft, are occafionally produced as the memoirs of moderate men; and, under that character, are ufcd to vilify opponents, fome of whom perhaps were no better than themfelves, but who stood on more tenable ground. The neceffary qualifications and avocations of a statesman exclude the idea of an immaculate character; though the writer of the work before us has found one in the Duke of Hamilton, who was pofitively every thing that was good; while the Duke of Marlborough is execrated and held up to deteftation throughout, as pofitively, for every thing that was bad; very monster in human form! Can fuch unqualified reprefentations be received as just?

There is a material and obvious diftinction between detailing hiftorical events with temper and fidelity, and relating them with undifguifed invective; and the virulent fpirit betrayed in every page of thefe Tranfactions, is little calculated to bespeak the confidence of an impartial reader :-but it is proper to let the author give an account of himself, and of his literary treasures.

That the authenticity of my materials may not be queftioned, I am reluctantly forced to point out the fource from which they were drawn, and to give fome account of my Father, by whom they were bequeathed. He was fon of James Earl of Arran, afterwards Duke of Hamilton, and of Lady Barbara, third Daughter of Charles II. by the Duchefs of Cleveland, who gave him birth at Cleveland Houfe in March 1691, during that Lord's confinement in the Tower. The Queen and the Duke of Hamilton, incenfed at the difcovery of this connection, made the retreat of Lady Barbara to the Continent, the principal condition of Lord Arran's release from imprisonment, and from an impending profecution. This Lady

* Queen Mary, on whom, during the abfence of the King, the executive government had devolved.'

accordingly

accordingly withdrew to the Nunnery of Pontoife, where the pined away and died. My Father having been reared up at Chiswick by the Duchefs of Cleveland, was, by Lord Arran, on his becoming Duke of Hamilton, and marrying the Honourable Mifs Elifabeth Gerard, fent over to France, where the care of his perfon and education was intrufted to the Earl of Middleton, at that time Secretary of State to James II.

Brought up in that Minifter's family, admitted to an unlimited fhare of his confidence, privy to a great part of his correspondence, he was held in great confideration at the Court of St. Germain, until the fatal catastrophe of the Duke of Hamilton in 1712. This cru circumstance, followed by a train of other difappointments, drove him at length to Swifferland, where he divided his days between the pursuit of alchymy and a friendly intercourfe to the laft, with the late Earl Marifhal, who, in 1737, promoted an union between him and Antonietta my Mother, a defcendant from the well known family of Courtenay.

Having thus traced out, as briefly as is confiftent, the channel through which I obtained the authorities which form the bafis of this work, I proceed to difcharge my truft with confidence and fidelity, promifing to give, as occafion occurs, fuch quotations, in fupport of the facts which I fhall advance, as fhall place their authenticity beyond the reach of fophiftry.'

There is a circumftance, in the production of these boasted Gallic-English ftate papers, too obfervable to be overlooked. They are obviously published to disgrace the Revolution, by stigmatizing the parties concerned in effecting that change of government, and those who paffed for patriots about that era, as men of no principle; but the principle of self intereft is inherent in all men. If then thefe victims of an expiring party, continued to negociate privately with, and to amufe, the court at St. Germain's, while they acted openly for King William, Queen Anne, and the Elector of Hanover, why did not the exiled Princes, when they found themselves deluded in all their expectations, blow up the characters of their betrayers at once, by publicly exhibiting the proofs of their treachery; which would have materially ferved their caufe, by effectually distracting the adverfary's councils and operations? Why was this detection poftponed until all the parties, on both fides, had, for a long time, peaceably retired from the fcene of action, to their eternal reft, and the cause of the exiled family was totally extinct? Why, but because the dregs of that party, lofing the last object of their attachment, and finding no other bufinefs remaining, employ themfelves in ranfacking old cabinets to garble papers, and aftonifh us with their retrofpective difcoveries! As to the prefent eager dogmatical writer, he is, with all his vehemence, but a feeble agent in this bufinefs, the mere echo of Sir John Dalrymple and Mr. Macpherson. For common

known

known facts, he graces his margin with quotations from out parliamentary journals, Torcy's Memoirs, &c. while the chief points that he aims to establish, reft on general references to Macpherfon's papers, MS. letters in his own poffeffion, and anecdotes communicated to him by his father. Not being competent to inveftigate evidence of fo private a nature, we leave the fubject open to public difcuffion and determination: for neither the writings afcribed to Offian, nor to Rowley; are yet verified, nor received according to the pretenfions of their refpective foster parents.

N.

ART. IV. The prefent State of Hudson's Bay. Containing a full Defcription of that Settlement, and the adjacent Country; and likewife of the Fur Trade, with Hints for its Improvement, &c. To which are added, Remarks and Obfervations made in the inland Parts, during a Refidence of near four Years; and a Specimen of five Indian Languages; and a Journal of a Journey from Montreal to New York. By Edward Umfreville, eleven Years in the Service of the Hudfon's Bay Company, and four Years in the Canada Fur Trade. 8vo. pp. 230. 45. Boards. Stalker. 1790.

THE

HERE is not, perhaps, any joint trade or monopoly existing, that is carried on in a manner more unoftentatious, or what is meant by the vulgar term fnug, than that which is in the hands of the Hudfon's Bay Company. The commodities in which they trade, are procured in fo fterile and frigid a climate, and by fo few agents, that there is no fcope for that eager competition for fubordinate emoluments, which the more genial and extenfive territories of the Eaft hold out to needy adven

turers.

We know nothing of Mr. Umfreville beyond what appears in this publication; he proposes an interefting fubject; and in his general addrefs to his readers, we at once perceived that he is not on good terms with the company that he has ferved. This circumftance, at the fame time that it promifed all the intelligence which we could defire, or at least that he poffeffed, could not but incline us to liften with caution to whatever he urges against them: for a little experience of human nature will convince us, that mankind are feldom without fome bias, which imparts its peculiar complexion to all reprefentations.

Mr. Umfreville continued, during eleven years, in the fervice of the Hudfon's Bay Company, and then, it teens, differed with them about his falary. Hine ille lacryma! The company hence appears to him in the light of an odious monopoly; every article in the management of the bufinefs incurs

his condemnation; and the good of the public requires that the trade fhould be laid open. The laying open the trade to the industrious adventurers of this nation, would be an act worthy a patriotic adminiftration. What great events from trivial caufes fpring! The Hudfon's Bay Company are in the enjoyment of a lucrative trade; one of their clerks quits their fervice in difguft, on a difpute about wages; and hence all their fecrets are to be expofed, and their conduct arraigned, for the public good! Yet, after all, we only find Mr. Umfreville treading in the same steps with a nameless writer, who, above twenty years ago, argued against the company's charter in nearly the fame manner t; without difclofing any more of the fecrets. Now, though a compliance with his terms might, perhaps, have bought a continuance of his fervices in this monopoly, his views expand, on his being difcharged, and I here beg leave to repeat, that uninfluenced by prejudice, or actuated by interested views, I have no profpect but the good of my country, which is very fenfibly wounded by every restraint that is laid on its commerce ‡.'

After quitting the fervice of the Hudson's Bay Company, Mr. Umfreville was employed for four years in the Canada fur trade; an affociation of Canada merchants having greatly interfered in the company's bufinefs, by cultivating an intercourse with the Indians nearer to their own homes, and having faved them long journies to Hudfon's Bay: but his own account of the prefent ftate of the fur trade, will be more explanatory on the fubject:

Twenty years ago the Governor of York Fort, which was the Company's principal establishment in the Bay, annually fent home at least thirty thousand fkins, and maintained no more than twentyfive men, at very low wages; at prefent that place has upwards of one hundred men at it, who have increafed falaries, and it fends home no more than twenty thousand skins, upon an average, from itlelf and four fubordinate fettlements; and thefe are procured at an expence, which a few years back would have been looked upon as next to an annihilation of their commercial existence.

It is an uncontrovertable fact, that fince the French have eva. cuated Canada, the fur trade from the inland parts of Hudfon's Bay, has been carried on to a greater extent than ever it was before; for the Company, who till then confined themselves to the fea-fhore, knew nothing of the numerous nations inland; and these again knew as little of them: that the Company, notwithstanding they had obliged themfelves by their charter to explore the whole of their territories, confined themfelves within a fmall circle. They confequently did not exert their influence to procure peltries, or to + See the American Traveller, Rev. vol. xli. p. 44.

• Page 5. ↑ Page 160.