238 'Review of New Publications. could have defcribed, as well as the admirable Gibbon does that of Rome; but he has avoided to exhibit Greece in ruins. This ftone of Sifyphus began to roll down the hill till it got to the bottom. He writes for the learned and the unlearned; for the amufement and the inftruction of the young, and alfo for the female reader. The road to ufeful information ought to be as short and as eafy as poffible. Life is not long enough for the acquifition of knowledge in all languages; and he deferves praife and reward who can fhorten the reading of ancient hif tory, as Dr. Robertson has endeavoured to do with regard to the allotted portion of his pen, on modern times. The foreign travels of Dr. Gillies enabled him to converfe with men of all characters, from the highest down to his own ftandard. Some of them will afford the best historical fubjects, for the beft future historians. No wonder his pen dif. plays, and likes to difplay, his power of defcription of battles, feges, and military movements; for he feems to have read all the books on the art of war, and has attended the grand reviews and evolutions of the King of Pruffia. "Gillies is not afraid, notwithstanding the advice of Schomberg to Burnet, to meddle with the account of battles. Grotius failed on this ground. The military retreat of the ten thoufand Greeks to Scutari, including the expedition, with the younger Cyrus, to BabyJon, he difpatches in a fingle chapter; though the march is of great length, and takes up a voJume in Greek, the account is fatisfactory as it is concife. This pen cannot avoid obferving that this retreat feems to have lefs of the marvellous, fince we became fo intimately acquainted with the decided advantage of difcipline, and the confidence of an army under its General. The march of General Goddard through the heart of Indoftan, may be ranked with the expedition of Xe nophon. His handful of difciplined men marched with fecurity, becaufe protected by the awe with which they ftruck the commanders of myriads of cavalry, who were not deficient in bravery. The predicted fiege and conqueft of Tyre, by the contrivance of a long projected mole into the fea (which was copied in the laft century by Richelieu, and fucceeded at Rochelle), the battle of Marathon, of the Granicus, of Iffus, of Arbela, our hiftorian endeavours to make as interefting and intelligible as Lord Marlborough's march from the Rhine to the Danube, as the battle of the Boyne, of Bienheim, of Narva, and Pultowa. He does not affect to believe, or to difbelieve, but upon the best evidence. Arrian is near mifleading him, as to the great flaughter of the enemy's army, and the infignificant lofs of his own men. It is impoffible to have the fame belief or incredulity as another, for belief is not in our power. The battle of Planicy was not fo eafily obtained by Lord Clive, as were fome by the hero of Arrian. His defence of his perfon, when he fingly fcaled the walls of the town of the Malli, was probably heroic, as it was for his life. He was every where ipfe agmen. Perhaps he was relieved fooner than is fuggefted by his panegyrical hiftorians. The defiance of Charles the Twelfth, of the whole Turkish army at Bender, is a parallel inftance of this defperate courage. Henry the Fourth of France was once in the fame danger. Gillies well defcribes the taking of the Sogdian fortrefs, and that of Chorienes, by Alexander: in the firft of which he found Roxana, whom he afterwards married, The difficulty and manner (which is very picturefque) of getting pollesion of the first place in froft and fnow (for he condefcended to obe tain by ftratagem, though never by fraud), may put the reader in mind of the taking of Gibraltar, by our English failors; of Wolfe's clambering up the heights of Abram, to get fight of Quebec, the day after he had written word to England, that he had nothing but a choice of difficulties to contend with; and of the taking the fortrefs of Gwalior, by Major Popham, in Indoftan, which had always, till then, been thought impregnable. "Gillies, though he believes enough, does not adopt all the ftories of Herodotus, who is generally called the father of lies and of hiftory-non quicquid Grecia mendax auder in biftoria. Whatever he omits, he omits by defign. The fecret history of the Perfian war, which Herodotus mentions, and feems to be credited by Rawleigh, to have origi nated in the bed-chamber of Darius's Queen Atoffa, is not brought forward by our histo riographer. The fable of the ring of Gyges (even unknown to Herodotus) is kept back from modern scepticism. Gillies has more faith in ancient story than Voltaire or Mr. Walpole. "I with we had more records of antiquity, and more uncorrupted," fays Mr. Locke. If the reader can get access to the quarto volume of the Athenian Letters, printed, and many of them written, by a noble Lord, he would receive great amufement and information concerning ireece and Perfia, before and during the Peloponnefian war, beyond the death,this pen was going to call it (what it may be called) the reign of Pericles.] He recounts the aristocratic tyranny, and democratic instability of Greece, as impartially as the defpotism of Perfia. Perhaps a modern would not know in which dominions to have chofen to pafs his life; for the filence of a fettled monarchy is, at this moment, preferred by many to the uproar of a troubled commonwealth. In Greece there was no quiet; but the worst times to live in, are the best times to read of. Prifca juvent alios. The reign of George the Second was more favourable to public and to private liberty, than any upon record. Socrates, whose perfonal hiftory and notions are well related, perished Review of New Publications. perifhed while Athens was a democracy, to the difgrace of that mode of government; and this was the fate of Phocion. Is it not poffible, fays Bishop Butler to the Dean of Gloucefter, that a whole city may be mad, as well as an individual? Rouffeau was banished, unjustly or otherwife, but not by the Areopagus, before whom Socrates was not tried, but by a fentence of the aristocracy at Geneva, for fpeculative opinions, which he himself held not to be impious. "Gillies does not weave any biblical accounts into his work, nor connect facred and prophane narration. Voltaire confiders the diftant ramblings of Alexander as no better, or more true, than the labours of Hercules, or the one the lefs of a knight-errant than the other.. Hobbes tranflated Thucydides, to expofe democratic principles and practices. Gillies is for a Commonwealth with a King at the head of it. He is for public liberty, and for vigorous laws to preferve it from anarchy and licentioufnefs. His volumes are all over information, full of found reflection, with now and then a reference or allufion to parallel actions and tranfactions in pofterior times. For the reader may obferve fimilitudes of fact, fituation, and fentiments, that may encourage a notion, that there is nothing new from the human tongue, or head, or heart-nil dictum aut fa&um, quod non prius: aud that life, of antient or modern times, is the fame tale repeated, under different names of actors, and on different ftages. "It ought to be expected, in the words of Berkeley, that " paft times may inftru&t the prefent." Alexander is the prominent figure on his hiftorical canvas. Gillies has taken the fuccefsful pains to enter into the cabinet-council and politics of Philip his father; which Rollin acknowledges himself not able to do, or was beyond his plan, and is a defideratum. It is thought by many, that Philip was one of the greatest politicians and generals the world ever faw. He obtained every thing he purfued, circuitously or directly; and, as Burnet defcribes a perfon of an inferior order, he fuck at nothing, and was afhamed of nothing: he laughed at oaths, and was never deceived by thofe of others: he needed not Machiavel (for be was Borgia and Machiavel in one) to inftruct him in any arts that led to his intereft. Lewis the Eleventh had not half his fimulation and diffimulation. He governed kingdoms, as certainly, as intereft governed him. Alexander only commanded the army that Philip created. The phalanx conquered the world. By force, by fraud, or by management, he put himself at the head of the confederacy against Darius, who, like Lewis the Fourteenth, juft before our time, was near giving law to the rest of Europe; and yet Alexander was athamed of being thought the fon of Philip, and ufurped his defcent from Jupiter. Rollin, the eloquent representative of ancient 239 hiftory in modern language, is not free enough from faults to prevent fome living pens from defcribing parts of the Grecian affairs. Mr. Mitford has finished a volume, like a gentleman, a scholar, a legiflator,, and a foldier. Gillies does not fail on the rocks of Scylla, where Rollin fails. The one becomes rather a vehicle of fuperftition, from which the other is as fafe as from the Charybdis of infidelity. Extracts are spared, as the periodical critics will give them to the reader. Our author fees the actions of Alexander perhaps through a magnifying glass, which is not the cafe with Rawleigh, Rollin, and Boffuet; and exhibits him as the greatest of mankind, in all refpects, except in perfon; and as " a man, not like to any other of the human kind." He had, however, Ariftotle for a fupport, in one hand, and Parmenio on the other, to affift him: a Philip who gave him a kingdom, and an example of ambition and policy; a good difciplined army, every individual of which was as brave as himself, and without whom he could not have conquered. The writer of this Opinion is an enemy to all the heroes, conquerors, and national highwaymen, that ever lived "From Macedonia's madman to the Swede.” "The virtues and vices of Alexander (from both which the Swedish Hero was free) werve boundless and extravagant. His fetting fire to the palace of Perfepolis at the inftigation of Thais and of wine, was fitter for a bacchanal than a great prince. But it has furnifhed our Dryden with a subject for the bett pindaric ode, falvo Pindaro, that ever was written. His march from his Eastern boundary to Babylon was fo disorderly and unmilitary, that it might eafily have been deftroyed. Though he commanded himself to be worshiped as a god, he had the terrors of a mortal. His fuperftition was exceffive, on his entrance into that city, and bordered upon cowardice; and, if history is true, he died by the intoxication of Macedonian goblets. This perfon, who, if he had not been Alexander, would have been content to have been Diogenes-this destroyer of cities, and the founder of them-this ravager of kingdoms, and the giver of them away-this patron of arts and literature-the establisher of foreign and inland trades-the murderer of his best friends-the ornament and difgrace of human nature, lived but to his thirty-third year. He wanted a contemporary Hiftoriographer (for none are come down to us) not to heighten his actions, but to have placed them in the true point of credibility and importance. Gillies, had he been living, might have been felected for his tecretary and hiftorian. Lewis the Fourteenth had his hiftorians in waiting to defcribe his victories in the United Provinces, but they chose to be filent. "The fecretary of Kouli Khan attended his perion, 240 Review of New Publications. Ferfon, and compofed a military volume, from which Sir William Jones wrote the hiftory of his life and actions. Rightly is it fomewhere obferved, to be neceffary, after the performance of great actions, to find Tomebody to record them. "As to the Demon of Socrates (which nobody knows what to make of) Gillies fays but little. Voltaire makes a rude remark upon it. It probably was well enough known to his contemporaries. He thought himself ander a particular Providence, which preferved his virtue, but could not fave his life. The martial female, who attended Marius's army, the Maid of Orléans, and Oliver Cromwell, pretended to infpiration and preternatural help, and to poffefs this gift of divination, prophecy, or foreknowledge. Rollin has an entertaining chapter on the Demon of Socrates. Though Gillies is pofitive in pronouncing the clouds of Ariftophanes to have been the original caufe of the death of Socrates; for, indeed, what mifchief cannot ridicule perform? yet Maty, in his Review of eighty-three, quotes, from a late edition of Ariftophanes, that the philofophers in general, not Socrates, were meant to be hurt and expofed; adding, that if Socrates had loft his life by the means of Ariftophanes, Plate would not have introduced him, in his Sympofium, fitting at the fame table. It is time to conclude this burried and tedious opinion, which is progreffive and retrograde, and scatters itself over a whole fheet of paper. It will be found, that the prefer.t Hiftory, like that of Lord Clarendon, is all alive, without being embarraffed (the cafe alfo of Guiaccardin's) with the periods of a mile. Neither is it written in the fententious or the prefumed ftyle. But important history does not depend upon ftyle. One authenticated fact is worth a volume of well-turned periods. What are become of Varillas and Maimbourg? It is recollected, to the praife of Echard, where he afferts, that he rode more miles to arrive at the knowledge of a fact, than others did at preferment. Gillies writes like a man of courage, as well as difcernment, on the fubject of oracies, in attributing them to human invention, as Vandale and Fontenelle had done before him. Prieftcraft and Laycraft have done a great deal of good as well as harm to mankind. He very properly condemns the facrilegious feizure of the riches of the Temple of Delphi; as a medern would the plunder of Loretto. Gillies makes no remark on the death of Cambyfes. Prideaux has treated it as the judgement of heaven for killing Apis the Egyptian God; as he does the violence and curiofity of Pompey, in breaking open the Holy of Holes at Jerufalem (rather pioufly than ju dicioufly, fays Dr. Middleton), by pronouncing that," after that, nothing profpered with him." If the prefent time is not to be taken up with the difcuffion of foreign and domeftic concerns, on the taking off or the laying on of taxes, of the military defence of the dock-yards, the impeachment of Mr. Haftings, the publication of this work might make it a fit opportunity' for examining the credibility of profane hiftory, the genuineness of the books themfelves, and the merit of this work of Gillies; Fortiter in re, fed fuaviter in modo. MEMORY." 30. THE HEIRESS, a Comedy, as performed. at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. By Lieut. Gen. Burgoyne. In the printed copy of this lucky comedy, befides a dedication to Lord Derby, per veteres amicitias, and thanking him for tranquil leifure, out of fummers at Knowfley; there is a prewhich the play was made in a couple of face, which, adventuring fomewhat to wards a dramatic criticifm, we extract from it for our readers. "The topic is imputed plagiarifm." In point of fable, for infance, is it a reproach to borrow? If instead of fmall and de tached parts, the compleat plot had been taken from a novel, it would have been but imitating the beft poets of every age. Originality of character. In exaction of novelty here, and probability. The paffions and follies, if portrayed a thousand times, may as much credit invention, and effect exhibition, as if Congreve and Moliere had never touched them. It is not whether there may be perfonages in the Heiress, in whom we difcover family features, that is afked; but whether they are not ftill indivi duals, with whom we are hitherto unacquainted, is a queftion not for the author to determine. "Original thought. A fpeech of Rouffeau is faid to have been copied. The author of the Heiress has read that elegant writer and, to fhew how eafily invention may be deceived, he quotes another writer (in his opinion yet more elegant), who thus accounts for unconfcious plagiarifm: "Faded ideas, fays Mr. Sheridan, float in the fancy like half forgotten dreams; and imagina tion, in its fullest enjoyments, becomes fufpicious of its offspring, and doubts whether it has created or adopted," "More fentiment and expreffion due to the imagination of others, may poffibly be challenged, though equally out of the tecollection of the author. He would only with the candid to admit the probability, that while he believed them his own, he thought them his beft. "Of the performers, too much cannot be faid of their attention and zeal. When all have been eminent, it would be unnecessary, if not invidious, to particularize any. There is nevertheless a lady, to whom, by her Randing Zrview of New Publications. franding feparately and individually, the author may exprefs his more than ordinary obligation. Mifs Farren, by her inimitable manner of delivering the epilogue, has made a better apology than his pen could have produced, for a compofition which, from an accident, was much too haftily written in fome parts, and in others pieced together with like infufficiency of time. "The Epilogue excepted, no defects in the following theets can be covered by the excufe of hurry; for the author had rather be thought incapable of pleafing, after his greatest cares, than wanting in the attention and refpect which every man who ventures to publish a production of this nature owes to the world and to himfelf-not to let it pafs from his hands without frequent revifals, and the beft-confidered finish his abilities can give." 31. A Reply to the Personal Invectives and Objections contained in Two Answers, published by certain anonymous Perfons, to an Effay on the Treatment and Converfion of African Slaves in the British Colonies, by James Ramfay, M. A. Vicar of Tefton. THIS pamphlet contains, we think, a clear and regular refutation of the virulent charges brought against the refpectable writer, whofe fituation and refidence in the Weft Indian Ifles enabled him to obferve, in all its magnitude of horror, the mifery of the flaves, and the tyranny of their task-mafters. From motives of humanity he was induced to publish an Essay on the fubject, written, in our opinion, with exemplary candour and moderation. This, how ever, awakened the indignation of thofe who are fattening on the fruits of cruelty and oppreffion; and they, by themfelves or their hirelings, have vented their revenge on the benevolent author, who dared difclofe "the fecrets of their "prifon-house." Will pofterity ས DANT. Paradifo.) believe, that in the 18th century, when civilization, fcience, and philofophy beamed with meridian fplendour, there could poffibly exift fuch a horrible fpecies of traffic as our flave-trade? and that thousands of our fellow-creatures were yearly torn from their country and their friends, and condemned to unceafing and intolerable labour, to hunger, thirst, and cruelty, till Death fet them free? and that all this was done, not to fatisfy the neceffities of human nature, but to gratify an idle and luxurious habit? GENT. MAG. March, 1786. 241 32. APbilofophical, Hiftorical, and Moral Effay on Old Maids. By a Friend to the Sifterhood. 3 Vols. THIS fingular work is introduced by a dedication to the celebrated Mrs. Eliz. Carter, to whom the author pays his devotions, as the ancients did to their three-fold Diana, and reverences her in three diftinct characters, as a Poet, as a Philofopher, and as an Old Maid. In the introduction the nature and defign of the work are explained. M. D'Alembert wrote a benevolent effay on thofe unfortunate beings called Authors; and our excellent philanthro pift, Mr. Hanway, produced a treatife on Chimney-fweepers: excited by fimilar motives of kindnefs, our author has directed his lucubrations to an order of beings whom he thinks ftill more entitled to the regard and protection of an enterprifing philofopher. The defign cannot be better explained than by his own words: "It is the fole purpose of "this Effay to promote the circulation "of good-will and good-humour in "bodies where they are frequently fup"pofed to ftagnate; and to effect this falutary and laudable defign, fome"times with a very ferious and fome"times with a fmiling countenance, "but never by overstepping the line of "modefty and good manners."-The first volume is divided into two parts; the firft of which treats on the particu lar failings, the fecond on the particular good qualities, of Old Maids. After enquiring into their fituation and treatment, their particular failings are claffed under the heads of Curiofity, Credulity, Affectation, Envy, and Ill-nature : and in the fecond part, Ingenuity, Patience, and Charity, are enumerated as the particular good qualities of the Sifterhood. The precife line where the epocha of Old Maidifm commences, our Effayift, with becoming diffidence, forbears to determine; but in a dilemma where neither female wit nor mafculine knowledge could direct him, he seems inclined to comply with the common and vulgar prejudice of affigning the unwelcome title of Old Maid to unmarried ladies of forty. Various examples and characters are interfperfed, and, what is far more valuable, fage and found advice; and though perhaps the friendly profeffions of the Effayift may appear to the Sisterhood in a questionable thape, they may certainly derive 1 242 Review of New Publications. no inconfiderable benefit from the perufal of this first volume-fas eft et ab bofte doceri. 66 In fpeaking of the curiofity of Old Maids, he has the following very juft and liberal obfervation: The lady "who has little or no bufinefs to regulate, if he has unluckily failed to "cultivate a paffion for the pleafing occupations of needle-work, drawing, "mufic, or literature, is often reduced "to the neceffity of fending her "thoughts abroad, and at laft is ren "dered, by habit, a kind of perpetual "fpy on the conduct of her neigh"bours." Of this failing, which he thinks the most prevalent and offenfive, he fpeaks with much and proper afperity. As a fpecimen of our author's manner, and of the nature of the work, we felect the following story: "I knew a fprightly gentleman, who, living in a country town, and having been long peftered by his oppofite neighbours, two maidenly gentlewomen, of the most inquifitive fpirit, contrived to render this provoking nuifance an eternal fund of entertainment. At first, indeed, they teazed him fo much, by their confiant practice of peeping and prying into every minute article of his domestic concerns, that, although he was naturally mild and benevolent, his temper was materially injured, and he could hardly mention his neighbours without uttering a vehement execration against their impertinence. But at length he began to fpeculate on the nature and force of that inordinate paffion, which could impel two rational creatures, in the decline of life, to exert fuch indefatigable activity for the most trivial purposes. He diverted himfelf in framing a thousand little devices to try the full extent of this frivolous curiofity; and the avidity of their define to know every thing which paffed in his house, and, the history of every individual who entered it, furnithed him with the opportunity of putting their curiofity to inTumerable trials. A particular account of thefe devices, and their fuccefs, would form too large an epifode for this little work. I sha'l mention, therefore, only one of his maneuvies, which afforded him his moft capical sport, and which he diftinguished by the whimsical phrafe of Angling for Old Maids at Midnight.' As this, I believe, is a fpecies of fishing not mentioned in The Complete Angier, or in any of our elaborate treatifes on that amusing art, it will require a full explanation. Such then was the process of my friend in his new invented diverfion: Soon after the clock had fruck twelve, he mufted up his perfon in fome cark duguife, and, fallying from a pofterngate, which opened into a different freet, he oceeded to the front-door of his own houfe, and knocked with a very audible rap. His either one or both to their window. If they nothing of his figure, and yet loitered fo long in the street as to inflame the old ladies with The |