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necessary and safe, or it is not; if it is, the sooner the better; if it is not, time only can shew it. He that has plenty of wholesome vegetables cannot starve; and it is very odd, that what is the only antidote for distempers, when one has them, should cause them when one has them not, or at least has them not to any dangerous degree. The coming into the regimen slowly can only postpone the distemper it may produce a few days, or weeks longer; indeed, all that the voluptuous say about that, is mere farce and ridicule. As to Chandler, he was ever a voluptuary and epicure, and at venison time every year makes himself sick, dispirited, and vapourishing; and yet he was younger than you, when he entered upon it, and I am of opinion if he had not, he had been in Bedlam long e'er (ere) now; for he has naturally a warm imagination and an inflamed fancy.

"Dr. Hulse knows nothing of the matter. He is indeed a very good practitioner in drugs, and on cannibals in their inflammatory distempers; but he knows no more of nervous and cephalic diseases than he does of the mathematics and philosophy, to which he is a great enemy, and without them little is to be made of such disorders. There may be times and seasons when a little indulgence in chicken, and a glass or two of wine, may not only be convenient but necessary, as a person stops to take his breath in ascending a steep hill; for example on coldcatching, a nausea, or inappetency, &c.

"I can honestly assure you, all the plunges I have ever felt, these twenty years, since I entered upon a low regimen, have been from my errors in quantity, and endeavouring to extend it; and I never get quite free of them but by pumping the excesses up by evacuation, and returning rigidly to the lightest and least I could be easy under from the anxiety of hunger; and you will find this the surest rule to go by; for abstinence, even under a low diet, is sometimes as necessary as under a high diet.

"I find by yours, you go on timorously, grudgingly, and repiningly. It is true you are not a physician, but you are, I hope, a Christian. St. Paul kept his body under. Our Saviour bids us fast, and pray, and deny ourselves without exception; but for this there is no need of revelation advice. If you read but what I have written on this last, in the Essay on Regimen, as the means of long life and health, or Cornaro's and Lessius's little treatise, your own good sense would readily do the rest; but you puzzle yourself with friends, relations, doctors, and apothecaries, who either know nothing of the matter; are well under a common diet; or, whose interest it is, or at least that of the craft, to keep you always ailing, or taking poisonous stuff; and so you are perplexed and disheartened. I have gone the whole road, had one of the most cadaverous and putrified constitutions that ever was known; and I thank God, am returned safe and sound at seventy, every way well, but the miserable infirmities of age." p. 73.

Respecting the Catalogue, the Doctor thus writes to the same person..

I wish you would think of employing a fit person to collect, and

write a character and contents of, all the books in the English or French, that are fit to amuse and instruct the serious and virtuous valetudinarian, of whatever kind; such a catalogue, if judiciously collected by a man of virtue and taste, would be a great charity; would be well received by the virtuous and serious of all parties; would be of great service to the fair sex; and would keep many persons from the play house, and the tavern, and perhaps from worse places."' p. 82.

He proceeds to dilate on the advantages of such a production, saying, a little whimsically, that it would be as useful for England, as Bedlam is; and perhaps more so;' and in a subsequent letter to Richardson he enters again upon the subject, and proceeds to state more fully the nature and classification of the works of which such a catalogue should consist, recommending the catalogue of mystic writers, published by Poiret, as a model for it.

A few pages are occupied with an interesting memoir of Dr. Hartley, his sister, and eldest son. After some letters of the late Rev. W. Gilpin, we have then an account of Joseph Ameen, the Armenian Prince. This man was a most extraordinary instance of the impelling force of a ruling passion, of the privations which may be willingly submitted to in the pursuit of a favourite object, and of the difficulties that may be conquered by perseverance. Ameen's father, flying from the tyranny of Kouli Khan, settled at Calcutta, as a merchant; and sending for his son to that place, the youth was so much struck with the perfection of the European in the military art, and the variety of their information, that from that time he burned to burst the bonds of slavery and ignorance in which his countrymen were held under the yoke of their oppressors. Accordingly, he resolved to go to Europe, for the purpose of acquiring the art military, and ' other sciences to assist that art.' His father, however, refused to listen to any of his schemes; for God,' says Ameen, did not give him understanding in these things.' But I could 'not bear,' he adds, to live like a beast, eating and drinking ' without liberty or knowledge.' He therefore resolved to work his passage to Europe, and after kissing the feet of Captain Fox, of the ship Walpole, a hundred times,' he prevailed upon him to admit him on board his vessel, on that condition. How he proceeded on arriving in this country after a laborious passage, will best be seen in his own simple narrative, contained in a letter to his great patron the first Duke (at that time Earl) of Northumberland. Ameen had recommended himself to the notice of the Earl's steward, at a time when he was wandering through the piazzas of the Royal Exchange in the greatest distress, by warning him of the roguery of a Turk, whom he overheard conversing in the Turkish language with another Mussulman, and concerting to practise an imposition upon the

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steward, respecting the sale of a set of Arabian horses, about which they were bargaining. The whole epistle is exceedingly interesting as a specimen of mingled simplicity and acuteness, as well as for the originality of the style.

""I entered," says he, after detailing the circumstances of his parentage," with my little money into Mr. Middleton's academy. I had the honour to tell your Lordship so before. I was first a scholar, and when my money was gone, I was then a servant there for my bread; for I could not bear to go like a dog, wagging a tail at people's doors for a bit of bread. I will not grieve your Lordship with the miseries I went through. I do not want to be pitied. I got service at last with Mr. Robarts, a grocer in the city. For this time I carried burdens of near 200 lbs. upon my back, and paid out of my wages to learn Geometry, and to complete my writing, and just to begin a little French but because, my Lord, I almost starved myself to pay for this, and carried burdens more than my strength, I hurt myself, and could not work any longer; so that I was in despair, and did not care what did become of me. A friend put me to write with an attorney in Cheapside, which for a little time got me bread; but I was resolved, in despair, to go again to India, because nobody would put out his hand to help me to learn; and my uncle sent £60. to Governor Davis to carry me back.

"I am afraid I am too troublesome in my account to your Lordship, but we people of Asia cannot say little and a great deal, like scholars. Now I met by chance, some gentleman who encouraged me, and gave me books to read, and advised me to kiss Capt. Dingley's hands, and shew my business to him. He was a brave soldier; took me by the hand; spoke to his serjeant, an honest man, to teach me the manual exercise; and gave me Toland's Military Discipline, and promised to help me to learn gunnery and fortification. But I was again unfortunate; for when light just began to come to my eyes, he died, and I was like as before, except that I knew a little of manual exercise, and had read some of the Roman History. I could learn no more, nor live; I was broke to pieces, and bowed my neck to Governor Davis, to go over to my friends, without doing any of those things I suffered for.

"I am in this net at present, but am happier than all mankind, if I can meet any great man, that can prevail on Governor Davis to allow me something out of the money he has, (only on condition that I return, that I return to blindness again;) that I may go through evolutions with recruits, and learn gunnery and fortification; and if there is war, to go one year as a volunteer. If Governor Davis writes that I have a great man here, my protector, my father, who looks upon me as a person run away and forsaken, will make me an allowance to learn. If I could clear my own eyes, and serve my country, and my religion, that is trodden under foot of Mussulmans, I would go through all slavery and danger with a glad heart; but if I must return, after four years slavery and misery, to the same ignorance, without doing any good, it would break my heart.

"My Lord, in the end, I beg pardon. I have experienced of your Lordship's goodness, else I would not say so much. I would not

receive, but return. And I want nothing, but a little speaking from the authority of India Governor to my friends. I have always been honest. Those I have been a slave to, will say I am honest. Mr. Gray trusted me.'" p. 184.

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We have not room for a very singular letter from this extraordinary man, addressed To the most shining, most Christian king, Heraclius, of Georgia and Armenia,' offering his services as a volunteer, detailing the reasons that had urged him while yet a child, to endeavour to gain instruction in the European arts of war, and giving an account of the policy by which England maintained her superiority above other nations. This letter is a fine specimen of the fervid feeling and eloquence of the East, joined to that spirit of inquiry and ardour of personal exertion, which brought Peter the Great from the stormy regions of the north, to learn the art of ship-building, to which he looked for the aggrandizement of his country. Ameen's reliance was placed upon the scimitar, which at the close of his letter, he prays, more however in the spirit of a Mahommedan, than of a Christian, the eternal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' to sharpen upon all the 'enemies' of his majesty. His letter to his sweet father and bis uncle, his beloved, as he styles them, giving an account of the hardships he bad endured in his eager pursuit after knowledge, and vindicating himself from the imputation of undutifulness and deficiency in natural affection, in baving left them, is likewise extremely affecting; it expresses a firm trust in Divine Providence, and displays some religious feeling; but his whole soul was absorbed in the military passion, and to his favourite idea of emancipating his country from the tyranny of the Turks, all the faculties of his strong mind were bent. This hope, however, he was never permitted to see any rational prospect of realizing. Being enabled by the generosity of his friends in this country to reach Armenia, he was presented by Prince Heraclius with a command in his army, where he evinced the greatest skill and courage; but all his efforts were unable to excite a military spirit among his countrymen, and he was at length reluctantly compelled to relinquish the idea, finding, as he expressed himself in a letter to the celebrated Lord Lyttleton, who was one of his patrons, that they were devoted to a mercantile life, and must continue to live and die slaves.'

This extraordinary man was well known to Wilson, the English Claude, for whom he had a great affection. Calling one day on this gentleman, he was shewn the prints of Alexander's battles after Le Brun, which threw him into such an ecstacy, that his features and gestures became animated to a degree of fury which Wilson declared no description could reach, and which probably afforded as high a gratification to the painter, as

the contemplation of the Macedonian's conquests did to the Ar

menian prince.

The account of Joseph Ameen is, perhaps, the most interesting article in the volume. There are, however, some other letters, which deserve not to be passed over with indifference. One would have thought the most laborious industry could' scarcely have added any thing to the mass of anecdotes already given of Dr. Johnson, from Boswell's ponderous quartos, down to Miss Boothby's thin volume; nevertheless, we find two or three letters here, which we do not recollect to have seen before. The volume contains several letters from Dr. Claudius Buchanan ; one from the Rev. John Newton; one from Voltaire to Lord Lyttleton, together with his lordship's reply. It concludes with a letter from the late Rev. Wm. Jones, of Nayland, on the death of Mrs. Jones, which has, we believe, been repeat-" edly published.

Art. VIII. Reflections concerning the Expediency of a Council of the Church of England and the Church of Rome being holden, with a View to accommodate Religious Differences, and to promote the Unity of Religion in the Bond of Peace: humbly but earnestly recommended to the serious Attention of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, the Most Reverend the Archbishops, the Right Reverend the Bishops, the Reverend the Clergy, and all Lay Persons, who are able and willing dispassionately to consider the important Subject. By Samuel Wix, A. M. &c. &c. Second Edition, with Additions. London, 1819.

MR.

(Concluded from page 462.)

R. Wix proceeds resolutely to deny that the Church of Rome is the Antichrist of Scripture, and condemns' those 'who have' (he says) in an intemperate zeal, as uncharitably as absurdly stated the Church of Rome to be the Antichristian power; adding, that he is hurt when he notices so cruel a charge from however high authority.'

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This is all in the due order of things, because if any writer, after having proved, to his own satisfaction, that the Churches of Rome and England agree in all fundamental doctrines, were to admit the Church of Rome to be either idolatrous or antichristian, it would be to condemn his own church: "Thus say"ing, thou reproachest us also." Does Mr. Wix, however, seriously expect that this modern theology is to invalidate the whole stream of evidence which has flowed down from the commencement of the papal apostacy to our own times? Are all the lights of history to be extinguished in his favour, and are his mere dicta to outweigh the opinions of such commentators as Newton and Mede, Archbishop Leighton and Bishop Burnet,

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