a Dutch poet, who, after the mechanical turn of his countrymen, had invented a mill to make verfes: From the multiplicity of Dr. Pricftley's publications, it might be imagined that his reverence was poffefled of a like mill for manufacturing lectures and differtations. Not that the prefent performance appears to be of recent manufacture; the lectures, it contains, having been compofed, fo long ago as the year 1762, when the author was tutor in the languages and belles lettres at the academy at Warrington. Their prefent publication is profeffedly to compliment Lord Fitzmaurice, and to illuftrate the doctrine of the Affociation of Ideas; which Dr. Priestley hath efpoufed with much zeal, and is defirous of extending to every branch of science. With refpect, however, to practical treatiles on the polite arts, we hold it doubtful whether a profound investigation into the phyfical principles, on which their powers of pleafing depend, be either neceffary or expedient. That fuch enquiries are ingenious and worthy the attention of adepts, we admit; but we apprehend they are not the beft calculated for the improvement of tyros; many of whom may be capable of comprehending, and become even captivated with the more obvious beauties of thofe arts, and yet be perplexed and difgufted with abftrufe refearches into the sciences on which they are founded.

Setting this objection afide, our ingenious lecturer hath dif covered a masterly acquaintance both with the practical and theoretical parts of his fubject; the feveral branches of which, he treats in a methodical and fatisfactory manner *. In a work of this nature, nevertheless, the critical reader cannot expect much novelty, or that the author, who must be in a great degree a compiler, is not greatly obliged to preceding writers on the fubject.

S.

Thoughts on the Letter of Edmund Burke, Efq. to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the Affairs of America. By the Earl of Abingdon. 8vo. Is. Jackson, Oxford.-Almon, London.

At the end of one of the volumes of Mr, Wilkes's parlia mentary fpeeches, lately printed, we have the following encomium on the noble author of the thoughts before us.

Except indeed that he fays nothing on the divifion of his fubject, refpecting Elocution; a very effential one furely, in a course of lectures on Oratory. But for this he apologizes, by faying he had no occafion to commit the precepts on that head to writing, in the practical part of his bufinefs. A defect this, which he should have fupplied, however, when he offered them in print to the public.

We

"This noble Earl has been one of the most steady and intrepid affertors of liberty in this age. England has effential obligations to the family of the Earl of Abingdon. When the Prince of Orange was at Exeter in great difficulties foon after his landing, when, "both the "clergy and magiftrates of Exeter were very fearful, and very back"ward, when the bishop and the dean ran away, and the clergy "flood off," as Bishop Burnet fays, Lord Abingdon came in and joined our glorious deliverer. The fame ardour for freedom glows in the breaft of his noble defcendant, with an almoft unexampled fpirit and activity. The citizens of Geneva, as well as the people of Eng land, dwell with pleasure on the praife of a peer, who has made the moft generous efforts for them in the caufe of public liberty, and often facrificed the pleasures and enjoyments of focial life to their interefts. No gentleman was ever more formed to please and captivate in private life than the prefent Lord Abingdon, or has been more defervedly, more generally esteemed and beloved. He poffeffes true honour in the highest degree, has generous fentiments of friendship, and to fuperior manly fenfe joins the most easy wit, with a gaiety of temper, which diffufes univerfal chearfulnefs. It is impoffible not to be charmed with the happy prodigality of nature in his favour, but every confideration yields with him to a warm attachment to the laws and constitution of England."

We cannot help thinking it an untoward circumftance with refpect to modern patriotifm that its greateft ornaments should be thus at odds with one another. A houfe, and of courfe a party, divided against itself, cannot ftand: it is prognofticate of fpeedy diffolution, alfo, when the divifion falls out among the leaders of it, especially thofe in whom the happy prodigality of nature is oppofed to the fublime and beautiful of art. What a

pity that art and nature fhould not cordially combine in the compofition of a patriot! What a pity that an Abingdon and a Burke fhould differ and not be able to keep their difference to themselves. Yet fuch, alas! appears to be the cafe.

"Having feen Mr. Burke's late publication on the affairs of America, I was led to read it with all the attention which every performance of his muft neceffarily deferve. I fympathife most cordially with him in those feelings of humanity, which mark, in language so expreffive, the abhorrence of his nature to the effufion of Human Blood. I agree with him in idea, that the War with America is "fruitless, hopeless, and unnatural;" and I will add, on the part of Great-Britain, cruel and unjust. I join hand in hand with him in all his propofitions for peace; and I look with longing eyes for the event. I participate with him in the happiness of thofe friendships and connexions, which are the fubjects, fo defervedly, of his panegyric. The name of Rockingham is a facred depofit in my bofom. I have found him difinterefted, I know him to be honest. Before I quit him therefore, I will first abandon human nature."

If this be not fuperlative panegyric, we know not what is. To abandon the individual for the community is patriotic; but VOL. VI

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to abandon the whole fpecies rather than give up an individual may be polite, but it is certainly neither patriotic nor civil.-So far, however, we are told Mr. Burke and the present noble writer are agreed. Let us fee in what they differ.

"Mr. Burke commences his letter with the mention of "the two "laft acts which have been paffed with regard to the troubles in "America." The first is, for the Letter of Marque;" the fecond, "for a partial fufpenfion of the Habeas Corpus." Of the former, he fays little, as not worthy of much notice. Of the latter, his diftinctions are nice, his ftrictures many, his objections unanswerable; and yet, although fo well apprised of the dangers and mifchiefs of this act, he fays, "I have not debated against this bill in its progrefs "through the houfe, because it would have been vain to oppofe, and "impoffible to correct it." But this is matter of inquiry. As I thought differently, I acted differently. Being in the country, this bill was in its way through the houfe of lords before I knew any thing of it. Upon my coming accidentally to town, and hearing of its ma lignity, I went down to the house, I oppofed it, and entered my folemn proteft on the journals against it. It is true, I ftood fingle and alone in this bufinefs; but I do not therefore take shame to myfelf. Rectitude of intention will even fanctify error. But Mr. Burke fays, During its progrefs through the Houfe of Commons, it has been "amended, fo as to expreis more diftin&tly than at firft it did, the "avowed fentiments of thofe who framed it." Now if the bill was amended in its progrefs through the Houfe of Commons, Mr. Burke's reafon for not debating against the bill" cannot be well founded; for his reafon is, "that it would have been vain to oppofe, and impoffible . to correct it:" but to amend a thing is to correct it; and, therefore, if the bill was amended, it was not impoffible to correct it.

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The cafe was this. This bill was brought into the Houfe of Commons under the black coverture of defigning malice. Some of the honourable members of that house, seeing it in this dark disguise, endeavoured to unrobe it of its darkucfs. Their endeavours fucceeded, and "it was amended, fo as to exprefs more diftinctly than it at first "did, the avowed fentiments of thofe who framed it." In this shape it came to the House of Lords: bad enough in all confcience: but I ufe Mr. Burke's own words when I fay, there is a difference be tween bad and the worst of all." I thought it bad, and therefore 1 put my negative upon it: had it been worse, a fortiori, I fhould have done the fame. But here it would feem as if Mr. Burke and I were not agreed in our notions of bad and worfe for what he holds bad, I efteem worse, and what he calls worse, I think bad.”

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Whether his lordship borrowed this quaint quibbling of bad and worse from Belial in Milton's pandemonium, we fhall leave to the decifion of acuter critics; let us attend to his explanation.

"To explain myfelf. He confiders a partial fufpenfion of the Har beas Corpus a greater evil than an univerfal fufpenfion of it. I conceive the contrary: though if Mr. Burke's premises were right, I should ap prove his reafoning, and admit his confequences, He fays, "when

ever an ect is made for a ceffation of law and juftice, the whole peole fhould be univerfally fubjected to the fame fufpenfion of their franchises." Be it fo: but then the whole people should fall under the reafon and occafion of the act. If England was under the fame predicament with America, that is to fay, it Englishmen were looked upon to be rebels, as the Americans are, in fuch a cafe, a partial fufpenfion of the Habeas Corpus would be invidious, and confequently more unjust than a general fufpenfion of it; for why should one rebel be diftinguished from another? but Englishmen are not accounted rebels, and the Americans are; and therefore in the fame degree that a partial fufpenfion, on the one hand, might be juft, an universal fufpenfion, on the other, would be unjuft. Where the offence is local, the punishment too must be local. It would have been unjuft if the lands in America had been forfeited to the crown in the year 1745, ⚫ because Scotland was then in rebellion. I do not use these arguments in favour of the bill. The principle was bad with respect to America: it was worse with regard to this country. And herein confifted the very malignity of the bill for whilst the Habeas Corpus was taken away from the imputed guilty Americans, the innocent English were at the fame time deprived of its benefit; fufpicion, without oath, being made the two-edged fword that was to cut both ways,

"But, fays Mr. Burke, "The alarm of fuch a proceeding," (that it is of an univerfal fufpenfion of the people's franchifes) "would then "be univerfal. It would operate as a fort of call of the nation." As to my part, I have heard fo many calls of the nation of late, without any answer being made to them; that I fear the nation has either loft its hearing or its voice: but fuppofing otherwife, of what avail can a call of the nation be against the fupremacy of an act of parliament? And who fhall dare to refift the authority of a ftatute that can alter the eftablished religion of the land, nay even bind in all cafes whatsoever? but more of this by and by,

"Mr. Burke goes on to fay, "As things now ftand, every man in "the West-Indies, every one inhabitant of three unoffending provinces on the Continent, every perfon coming from the Eat-Indies, "every gentleman who has travelled for his health or education, "every mariner who has navigated the feas, is, for no other offence, "under a temporary profcription," But how did things ftand before the amendment of the bill? Not only every man as described above, but every individual in this kingdom was under the fame temporary profcription. The writing of a letter to, or receiving a letter from, Ainerica, in this country, though the contents were ever fo harmless, was ground of fufpicion fufficient to immure a man in the caftle of Dume fries, or Pendennis, or wherefoever elfe perfecution fhould think fit to send him*, We have been faved from this hell-governed profcrip

*It is faid that the number of perfons who died in different prifons dur ing the defpotic government of the Marquis de Pombal, late minister of Portugal, without having been conviЯed of any crime, is computed at 3970 perfons; and thofe who were languishing in irons at the time of his dif grace amounted to 800. If this at had paffed, as it was firft framed, and we may measure our punishments by thofe meted out to our brethren in America; what reafon is there to fuppofe that our fituation had not been the very counterpart of this ?

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tion. Oppofition removed it from us. It had been well to have done fo from every subject of the realm: but it did what it could, and the liberty of many unoffending perfons has been preserved thereby.

"This being the state of the bill, amended, as Mr. Burke himself confeffes, one might have thought that, though bad, it was better than it had been; but the very reverfe of this is the opinion of Mr. Burke: for in one place, he fays, "the limiting qualification, instead of tak"ing out the fting, does, in my humble opinion fharpen and envenom it to a greater degree." And, in another, he adds, "that far "from foftening the features of fuch a principle, and thereby re"moving any part of the popular odium or natural terrors attending it, I fhould be forry, that any thing framed in contradiction to the fpirit of our conftitution did not inftantly produce in fact, the "groffeft of the evils, with which it was pregnant in its nature." So that amendment, by foftening the features, and removing the popular odium, without producing the groffeft of evils with which it was pregnant in its nature, has, if I may ufe fuch terms of contrariety, made the bill orfe. Such is the doctrine of Mr. Burke, and juft it may be: but if it be, I can only fay that he and I fee objects through different mediums; and that if he thinks it right to do evil that good may come of it, I wish to do good, by averting the evil.

His lordship has certainly the advantage of both Mr. Burke and Belial here. Again,

"Another argument made ufe of by Mr. Burke for not debating against the Bill, is this. "It is," fays he, "fome time fince I have "been clearly convinced, that in the prefent ftate of things, all op"pofition to any measures propofed by minifters, where the name "of America appears, is vain and frivolous." I think fotoo: but then, it does not therefore follow that oppofition is to be laid afide. The queftion, how far a member of either house can give over his attendance in parliament, because he is out-voted, is a nice queftion; and worthy the examination of those who have leifure and abilities for the purpose. My own private opinion is, that no member, individually, can do this, confiftently with his duty. Collectively he may as the precedent of feceffion, during the adminiftration of Sir Robert Walpole, fhews; and as reafon proves: for it is not to be prefumed that a combination to this end can be obtained, without a fufficient foundation for it; and therefore when it does take place, it is intended, as Mr. Burke elsewhere fays, " as a fort of call of the "nation." But even here, I must not think it juftifiable, unless fupported on the following grounds. In the first place, the feceffion must be general, that is to fay, it must not confit of this or that party only in oppofition, but muft include the whole minority against the meatures that have provoked feceffion. In the next place, it mu be a feceffion not fub filentio, but proclaimed either by remonftrance on the Journals, or public addrefs to the people; and when both thefe circumstances attend the act, then feceffion is not only juttifiable, but is the most faithful pledge of duty that can be given. I have therefore exceedingly to lament that a feceffion, fuch as this is, has not been carried into execution; and not only on account

of