of which George Townshend, the prefent Earl of Leicester, is faid to be the lineal heir. Mr. T. preferves the regard expreffed in his former publications for Richard III. or king Dick, as he fometimes calls him. When he speaks of the bridge near the Black Friars, he adds with a kind of enthufiafm, but the arches of this bridge, which fpan the ancient river Soar, fhould be ever memorable as the paffage of one of the bravest kings, that ever fwayed a sceptre, to the field of battle, and his death, arrayed in martial glory, panting for fame and victory.' A man of courage he might be but impartial truth will allow no praife to his memory as a man of rectitude and real honour. Such relics of him as can be collected are here noticed: a piece of his stone coffin appears in one of the prints; the houfe in which he slept, and the bedstead which he occupied the night before the battle of Bofworth, form another. This volume is illuftrated by nearly fifty engravings. The exactnefs, the ingenuity, the fancy, as well as the application of the author, are here manifefted. The oval, containing twelve heads of eminent perfons, and placed before the characters which we have mentioned, is a pretty device and a pleasing picture. The fame may be faid of others,-moft, if not all, the fruit of Mr. Throfby's own skill and labour; excepting a fine fragment of painted glafs in his poffeffion, faid to represent St. Peter, which was copied by the late Mr. Schnebbelie, draughtsman to the Society of Antiquaries. ART. IX. The Fable of Cupid and Psyche. Tranflated from the Latin of Apuleius: to which are added a poetical Paraphrafe on the Speech of Diotima, in the Banquet of Plato; Four Hymns, &c. &c. with an Introduction, in which the Meaning of the Fable is unfolded. 8vo. pp. 152. 45. Boards. Leigh and Sotheby. 1795. AT T the fynod of Florence, Gemiftus Pletho foretold to George of Crete that mankind would at length unanimouny renounce the gospel and the koran for a religion fimilar to that of the pagans. Of this remarkable prophecy, it was reserved for the ftupenduous profaneness of the present age feriously to attempt the fulfilment. We should unwillingly imitate the credulous intolerance of Pope Paul the Second. We are far from being predisposed to difcern any serious impiety in the occafional fportive play of fancy and of learning. Our alarms do not tranfmute a fociety of Dilettanti in the fine arts into a confederacy for the revival of claffical fuperftition. In the compofition of theatric pageants, we discover no latent wifh to familiarize the ritual of E 2 antiquity. antiquity. We behold the painter, who immortalizes a mythological theme on his canvas, without fufpecting him of purfuing the re-cftablishment of the elegant divinities of Greece and Rome. Yet we think it difficult that any impartial friend to religion fhould contemplate the various movements of the pupils of philofophy throughout Europe, without fuppofing them to aim in concert at the restoration of idolatry. Not in their writings only, but in their Pantheon of Paris, the eloquence of men the most accredited has been employed in the recommendation of hero-worship, as likely to offer new incentives for useful conduct; and the crowd, ever prone to change, feems but too willing to forfake the cold abftractions of a metaphyfical devotion, for the fafcinating allurements of a ceremonious and fenfual religion. Among the moft zealous and industrious, although not among the most able, priests of a dangerous fectarism, is the modern Gentile-Thomas Taylor-who infcribes this volume to the Prefident, Council, and Members of the Royal Academy; and certainly he has chofen, on the prefent occafion, one of the most beautiful fables of the heathen fystem, and one that is arrayed in all the luxurious embellishments of the gorgeous ftyle of Apuleius, in order to display his talents at fpiritualizing an amufive legend, and at engrafting abftrusely mystical interpretations on a highly romantic narrative. Still we think that a more rational plan of expofition were as yet better calculated to attract an avowed adherence to his fanaticism, than the recondite unintelligible allegory which he fo devoutly patronizes, and which is much fitter to fatisfy the initiated than the afpirant. Surely it were more aufpicious of fuccefs first to fummon all the claimants of Olympus before the inflexible tribunal of reafon, to fubject them to the purifying scrutiny of philofophy, and, inftead of propofingto reftore with indifcriminate zeal the over-peopled calendar of polytheifm, to admit only the real benefactors of mankind to the divine honours of this eclectic theology. It may not be wholly abfurd that, under the name of Dêmêtêr or of Ceres, ftatues and cenotaphs fhould be erected to the memory of him who firft obferved the procefs of nature in the diffemination of vegetable feeds, who first gathered grains of wheat, planted them in fome unoccupied fpot, attended to their exclufive growth, and thus inftructed mankind in the earliest agriculture. It may not be wholly abfurd to celebrate Prometheus the author of fire, Hefaistos the inventor of the forge, or Triptolemus the discoverer of the plough. To dance on their holiday, to place their bufts over hearths, to hold convivial feftivals in commemoration of their fer-ices, may clafs among the innocent rites of an exploded and extravagant credulity : but but by what milder term than that of blafphemy could we call the mischievous dedication of hymns or temples to the tyrannical licentious Jupiter, or to Mars the homicide? We are, however, well aware that by no reprimand of ours will this felf-fatisfied writer be induced to revise his fuperftitious orthodoxy, or to fwerve from the precife opinions which Jamblichus revealed to Edefius, and thus handed down to Chryfanthius and Euftathius. He expects, no doubt, to be counted as a new link of the golden chain of Eunapius. Leaving, therefore, his Introduction to operate as it may, we reprint a portion of the tranflation: In the mean time, while Pfyche wandered over various realms anxiously fearching after Cupid, he, through the pain of the wound from the lamp, lay groaning in the bedchamber of his mother. Then that extremely white bird, the fea-gull, who fwims with his wings on the waves of the fea, hakily merged himself in the profound bofom of the ocean. There placing himself near Venus as the was bathing and fwimming, he informed her that her fon was feverely burnt, that he was groaning with the pain of the wound, and that his cure was doubtful; that befides this the whole family of Venus was every where reviled; in the first place Cupid, because he had retired to a mountain in order to have illicit connection with a girl, and in the next place, faid he, yourself, by thus withdrawing to fwim in the fea. Hence it is faid, continued the bird, that there is no longer any pleafure, elegance, and feftivity to be found, but that every thing is inelegant, ruftic, and horrid that nuptial ties, focial friendships, and love of children are no more, but in their place have fucceeded enormous filth, and the bitter loathing of fordid compacts. Thus did this loquacious and impertinent bird defame the fon of Venus by murmuring scandal in her ear. But Venus being enraged at the information, fuddenly exclaimed in a firm tone of voice, "So then this hopeful fon of mine has got a miftrefs! Come, tell me, thou who alone doft ferve me with affection, tell me the name of her who has folicited the ingenuous and naked boy, and whether he is one of the tribes of nymphs, or of the number of the goddeffes, or of the choir of the Mufes, or belonging to my train of the Graces?" The loquacious bird was not filent: " But my mistress," faid he, "I am not certain, though if I well remember, he is faid to have been vehemently in love with a girl whose name is Pfyche." Then Venus, being indignant, exclaimed, "Does he then love her who is the rival of my beauty, and who is emulous of my name? and does he mean to make me, who first brought him to the knowledge of her, act the part of a bawd ?" The paffage-omnem Veneris familiam male audire, quod ille quidem montano fcortatu, tu verò marino natatu fecefferitis, ac per hoc non voluptas ulla, non gratia, non lepos, fed incomta & agref tia & horrida cunéta fint : non nuptiæ conjugales, non amicitiæ fociales, non liberûm caritates; fed enormis illuvies, & fqualentium faderum infuave faftidium-might more concifely have been rendered: "The whole family of Love are cenfured: he has feceded to his mountain-nymph, you to your fea-bath: hence there is no more pleasure, grace, nor delicate enjoyment; all grows inelegant, coarfe, and rude; the nuptial endearments, the focial friendships, the filial charities are no more: but in their ftead are feen filthy enormities, and the fouring irksomeness of fordid unions." In the next paragraph, the fubftitution of the generic term Goddeffes for the fpecific Hore of the original has a bad effect. Indeed an affected ufe of terms, a needlefs expanfion, and a lofs of elegance, are too frequently perceptible. The tranflator is infufficiently familiar with the English claffics to compose well. If the diffonant accounts of Jordano Bruno, who vifited England in company with Sir Philip Sidney, may be credited, he was probably a philofopher of the Platonic fchool; and, in his Afino Cillenico, he has already endeavoured to make the fanciful fictions of Apuleius fubfervient to the inculcation of these opinions. It is ftrange that, in one of the most brilliant periods of human culture, the Medici and fome of the most accomplished men of Italy fhould have embraced these Platonical tenets. To the tranflation fucceeds a poetical paraphrafe of the cele brated fpeech of Diotima, feveral idolatrous hymns, and a pa negyric; out of which latter we shall extract fome couplets: See, as the leader of the noble band, The greatly wife and good Plotinus ftand; Genius Genius acute! th' exalted task was thine Our rev'rence next, as men of mighty name; Surely Philoponus had fome claim to be named after Simplicius. ART. X. The Commonwealth of Reafon. By William Hodgson, now confined in the Prifon of Newgate for Sedition. 8vo. pp. 104. 2s. 6d. Symonds, &c. 1795. WE WE feel the duty of our office extremely painful, when it obliges us to speak harthly of the productions of perfons whole fituation is that of diftrefs: but, when we are placed in fuch a ftate as that we must either do violence to our fenfibility, or facrifice the cause of truth, we cannot hesitate in our choice. In all our political labours, we have contended for the native. excellence of the British conftitution; we have lamented the various departures in practice from its theory and fpirit, which have been ably pointed out by many reformers: but, on all occafions, we have contended that nothing could more effectually fecure the establishment of rational liberty, than the pure, unadulterated, and genuine conftitution handed down to us by our ancestors. We have zealously concurred with those who afferted that, though the forms of this conftitution were retained, its fubftance in many inftances was loft: we have lent our fincere fupport to those whofe object was to recover and restore this fubftance, and by judicious reforms to make the conftitution in practice what it was in principle: in a word, we have always been for reforming, but never for annihilating, E A the |