the remaining debility of the once over-distended vessels; whence the use of stimulants, tonics, &c. As to gout, he considers it as so very much the same with rheumatism in its seat, progress, and termination, that any difference of treatment suggested can only arise from that experience which, in fact, directs all practitioners of a certain standing. We cannot say much in commendation of the style of this letter, (as it is called,) which in many parts is too florid and metaphorical for the sober simplicity of science, and sometimes fails in point of correctness. NOVELS. Art. 51. Edmund and Eleonora : or Memoirs of the Houses of Summerfield and Gretton. By the Rev. Edmund Marshall, A. M. 8vo. 2 Vols. 10s. 6d. Boards. Stockdale. 1797 Ai. The introduction to these volumes informs us that the author is advanced in years, and has long been tormented with the gout; that, on various accounts, he thinks less severely than some rigid censors respecting the class of writings called Novels; and that it was to beguile the hours of pain and confinement that he composed the present work, which is his first essay, and will most probably be his last. Of its merits he speaks with much modesty, relying more on its moral tendency, than on its claims to literary supereminence. Such being the circumstances under which these memoirs appear, it would be unfeeling and unjustifiable to exercise on them the seve rity of critical examination. They are characterized by the circumstances of their origin, for they appear to be the production of an amiable and benevolent clergyman, unacquainted with the artifices of a practised novel-writer, and little versed in the machinery of incident and the developement of plot. They display no solicitous accuracy and studied graces of composition: they present no agitating obsta cles to the desires and pursuits of the persons introduced: but the path of life is plain and open before them, and they are all (with little exception) gifted with every virtue and accomplishment, and basking in the sunshine of fortune. It is impossible not to observe, also, the frequency and complacency of the author's descriptions of festive entertainments, rural diversions, and the luxuries of opulence. The principal merit of the work, indeed, must be allowed to consist in its morality, as inciting to-by displaying-acts of enlarged benevolence, general wisdom, political integrity, and a well judged (though not perfect) system of education. The clergy owe thanks to their worthy brother for the delineation of an useful and respectable individual of that profession, in avowed opposition to the cha racter of an unprincipled priest in Mr. Cumberland's novel intitled Arundel of which work, see an account in M. R. vol. lxxx. p. 332. G.2. Private History of Peregrinus Proteus, the Philosopher. By C. M. Wieland. Translated from the German. 12mo. 2 Vols. pp. 300 each. 7s. 6d. sewed. Johnson. 1796. Art. 52. : Ir our xviiith vol. p. 523, we observed in general of the writings of this author, that they are accused of inculcating a hopeless epicurism, and are justly reprehensible for the frequent introduction of scenery scenery licentiously voluptuous. To the latter charge, especially, the novel before us is certainly obnoxious. On its plan and conduct we may perhaps enlarge when the corrected edition of the original shall reach us. The prose of Wieland is not easily translated with felicity: but it is an object that great writers should be rendered with attention. To give an idea of the quality of this version, we transcribe a paragraph taken at random, with a few critical insertions: Vol. i. p. 130. How? Surely not the Menippus of whom the crazy Damis, in his travels of Apollonius, relates the most insipid of all gossiping stories, (nursery-stories,) the story of the Empuse (Empusa, according to Porson, who first naturalized the word) or Lamia, which, for making (in order to make) this Menippus fall in love with it (her), assumed the form of a beautiful woman of Phonicia, built a magnificent house, and pushed the matter between her and her hoodwinked lover so far, as to make a wedding of it; when, on the entrance of the dear wonder-worker (a new word, coined in the fair mint of English analogy, and preferable to the thaumaturgus of Jortin) Apollonius, who came quite unexpected to the nuptial feast, he caused the whole enchanted banquet, with all the gold and silver vessels, and all the servants, to vanish away; and compelled the poor bride, in tears and trembling, and chattering of teeth, to confess that she was one of those spectres with which nurses used to threaten their froward children, and had attracted the good-natured (lovely) Menippus to her only for the sake of making him fine and fat, and then eating him up alive; as she, and the other lamias, her sisters, were great lovers (very keen fanciers) of young well-fed men, because they (who?) had such pure blood? Was it the same?" What is become of the nursery-tone so studiously observed in the whole original paragraph? Tay. RELIGIOUS and POLEMICAL. Art. 53. Five Discourses, containing certain Arguments for and It has always been deemed, by the learned advocates for the Christian religion, an important object to assign adequate reasons for its rejection by the great body of the Jews, in whose antient scriptures the coming of the Messiah was predicted; and by the learned and enlightened among the heathen, to whom the absurdity of Pagan superstition could not but be manifest, and who might have been expected to lend a ready attention to so rational and sublime a system as that of the gospel. While infidels have triumphed in these facts, as furnishing an invincible objection against the divine origin of Christianity, its more judicious and candid defenders have felt and confessed the difficulty which pressed on them from this quarter, and have employed much learning and ingenuity in solving it. Besides the solutions which have, in course, appeared in general defences of Christianity, and in occasional discourses from the pens of Barrow, Tillotson, Tillotson, Clarke, Secker, Jortin, and others, an excellent treatise was written early in this century by Mr. Weston, on the Heathen Rejection of Christian Miracles. In the present ingenious discourses, Mr. Ireland resumes the subject, on grounds somewhat different from that of former writers. Those considerations, which might have prepared the minds both of Jews and Pagans for the reception of Christianity, he places in opposition to the circumstances which in fact led them, respectively, either to withhold their attention from its evidences, or to contemplate the system with prejudice and aversion, and to reject it without examination. From the antient Jewish history, it is shewn that the Jews were impelled, by their perpetual political depression, and by the constant union of religion with their secular concerns, to expect a spiritual in preference to a temporal Messiah. A sufficient reason is, however, assigned for their rejection of Christianity, in their preconceived notion of a temporal sovereignty, arising from a false interpretation of their scriptures. The speculative Greek is then shewn to have been required, by his established habits of reasoning, to receive the history of the Gospel with full credit, and to admit its moral system as superior to any that the world had produced; whereas he was, in fact, led to a hasty and unfair rejection of Christianity, by a dread of the strict morality which it enjoined; by an aversion to the exclusive authority which it claimed; by contempt for its persecuted professors; by a predilection for a system of philosophy contradictory to the doctrine of Christianity; or by an attachment to Pagan superstitions. The argument is maintained with a degree of ingenuity, which would have done the preacher credit before an academic audience; and authorities are introduced in the notes, with a variety that shews extensive reading, and with a pertinency which evinces sound judg-, ment. E. Art. 54. Sermons on the Character of Christ. By John Martin. 8vo. pp. 456. 7s. 6d. Boards. Martin, No. 432, Oxford-street. This volume of sermons appears to be the production of a wellmeaning man, who has too much zeal to value knowlege, and who, provided he can support his reputation for orthodoxy, cares little what becomes of his charity. He has chosen a theme richly fraught, with moral instruction; yet in travelling from the Incarnation to the Ascension, he has scarcely gathered a single lesson of practical utility. The whole is either mystical rant, or trifling declamation, weakly conceived and incorrectly expressed; from the perusal of which we can promise our readers little either of pleasure or profit. E. Art. 55. Sermons by James Gillespie, D. D. late Principal of St. Mary's College, in the University of St. Andrew's. Published from the Author's Manuscript by George Hill, D. D. PP. 390. 53. d. Boards. Vernor and Hood. 1796. Fashion, who holds so imperious a sway in almost all human affairs, ventures to exercise her authority even in the church, and presumes to fix the length and determine the form of sermons. Our pious ancestors sat with delight while the preacher filled up his hour, and patiently saw him turn the hour-glass for a second: they counted the 8vo. number number of heads into which he divided his discourse, and, after ninthly and tenthly had passed over their ear, waited, without murmuring, for the application. In these days of frozen zeal, a pitiful half-hour is the utmost that either the preacher or the hearer can devote to this fatiguing business; and, in a polite auditory, the sound of first, secondly, and thirdly, would be insufferable. When our readers are told, as we inform them on the authority of the editor, that one of these sermons only was composed about twenty years ago, and all the rest at a much more remote period, they will immediately conclude them to be old-fashioned; and such, in all respects, they will on perusal be found. The preacher not only takes his text-a practice not yet, indeed, quite obsolete-but makes frequent quotations, from a very old-fashioned book. The system which he follows is as old as the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England; and, as many are willing to beHeve, much older. His divisions and subdivisions are in the good old textual method of the Scotch divines and English nonconformists, of the last century: the style, because we cannot find in Dr. Blair's Lectures a suitable epithet, we must venture, on our own authority, to call puritanical; which in old times, for aught that we know, may have been a very good style ;-and, as to length, though they may not quite reach the standard of the fast-sermons in the time of the Long Parliament, they are far beyond the dwarfish measure of the present day. We do not say all this to depreciate the value of these sermons, which, in truth, we think very good of their kind: but merely because we wish it to be clearly understood for what class of readers they are adapted. What one class,' as the learned editor justly observes, will peruse without interest, may meet the wishes and the needs of another and old-fashioned sermons, such as these, will not fail to be admired by " some quantity" of old-fashioned readers. E. Art. 56. Sermons translated from the Original French of the late Rev. James Saurin, Pastor of the French Church at the Hague. Vol. VI. On Sacramental Occasions. By Henry Hunter, D. D. Pastor of the Scots Church, London-Wall. 8vo. pp. 364. 6s. Boards. Dilly. Of Saurin it is unnecessary for us at present to give an opinion: his name is well known; and his merit, as an eloquent preacher, has been long admitted. Many of his sermons were some time ago presented to the public in the English language by Mr. Robinson, of whose translation, in five volumes selected from twelve, of which the original consists, our readers will find an account in M. R. vol. lxxii. Dr. Hunter undertakes the continuation of the design which Mr. R. left unfinished; and he publishes this volume with an intimation of his intention to proceed, if the reception given to this specimen should afford him sufficient encouragement. Without entering into an invidious comparison of the present with the former translator, we give it as our opinion that Dr. Hunter's style of composition in his own sermons renders him particularly well qualified for the task of translating Saurin. From the manner in which the pre sent sent volume is executed, we entertain a hope that the Doctor will not want sufficient inducement to complete the work. E. Art. 57. Three Sermons, inscribed to the Friends of Peace, Reason, and Revelation. By a Clergyman of the Church of England. 2s. 6d. sewed. Messrs. White. 1796. 12mo. PP. 102. We are ambitious of being ranked among this writer's dedicatees, as pointed out in his title-page; and, as far as the sentiments of his sermons are adapted to promote peace, to encourage the legitimate exercise of reason, and to diffuse the benefits of revelation, none of his readers will more heartily concur in commending them. This is, we are persuaded, their general tendency. The first discourse, preached to a benefit society, very properly recommends philanthropy, and endeavours to reconcile the poor to the evils of life, and particu larly to our national calamities, by shewing that they are the disci pline of Heaven for our sins. The second is political, and is intended to shew that governors ought to be wise men; and to prove that true wisdom will confirm this country in its adherence to its old systems, without listening to the dictates of false philosophy, which (according to the picture here drawn) is bringing France to ruin.-The third inculcates the lessons of pious submission and obedience. The author deals largely in exaggerated description, and in tinsel glitter: but the former we impute to his zeal for peace, reason, and revelation, and in course readily pardon: the latter we ascribe to the warmth of juvenile fancy, which will naturally cool: we therefore eave the defects of this preacher to the correction of time and expe rience. MILITARY. Art. 58. A Treatise on the Discipline of Light Cavalry, with annexed Plates, by Capt. L. Neville, of the 13th Regiment of Light Dragoons. 8vo. pp. 64. 11 Plates. 4s. Boards. Egerton. 1796. This treatise is admirably calculated to fulfil the purposes which it professes. The instructions contained in it are concise, plain, and easy, and will be particularly acceptable at a period in which so many corps of light cavalry are forming. Contrary to the too general practice of rough-riders, Capt. N. anxiously recommends gentleness and humanity, as the surest means of training both the horse and the recruit. His sentiments on this head are so congenial to our own, that we with pleasure transcribe them: It should be generally understood, that art, and not force, succeeds best with all horses, and with all riders. That every rider must be patient and temperate with his horse; and every teacher eminently so with both. That it is best to prevent the possibility of restiveness and anger in the horse, by a sufficient preparation of previous lessons and that both man and horse should be duly prepared before they proceed to a new one. Lessons should be short and lively, so as not to weary the mind or body of man or horse: they should be finished correctly by patience and perseverance. Let the misunderstood part of a lesson be tried again, and a few steps only being obtained, haltand dismiss the rider or the horse. Thus it will remain on the mind, being the last act.' REV. MARCH, 1797. Bb The E. |