foundered, for the cure of which he was suffered to remain a great part of his time at grass. However, when I had been about a year and a half at Newmarket, Captain Vernon thought proper to match him against Elephant, a horse belonging to Sir Jennison Shatee, whom by the bye I saw ride this famous match. Forester, therefore, had been taken up, and kept in training a sufficient time to qualify him to run this match; but it was evident that his legs and feet were far from being in that sound state which such an exertion required, so that we concluded he must be beaten, for the reputation of Elephant arose out of his power rather than his speed. Either I mistake, or the match was a four mile heat over the strait course; and the abilities of Forester were such, that he passed the flat, and ascended the hill as far as the distance post, nose to nose with Elephant ; so that John Watson who rode him began to conceive hopes. Between this and the chair, Elephant, in consequence of hard whipping, got some little way before him, while Forester exerted every possible power to recover at least his lost equality; till finding all his efforts ineffec tual, he made one sudden spring, and caught Elephant by the under-jaw, which he griped so violently as to hold him back; nor was it without the utmost difficulty that he could be forced to quit his hold. Poor Forester, he lost; but he lost most honourably! Every experienced groom, we were told, thought it a most extraordinary circumstance. John Watson declared he had never in his life been more surprised by the behaviour of a horse." Vol. I. P. 117.

After such an education, it is rather to be lamented thau wondered at, that Mr. Holcroft should have been plunged into all the errors and miseries of Jacobinism. He was a man certainly of much native talent, his comedies are by no means destitute of legitimate humour; but his mind does not appear to have been cast in any noble mould. He had talent enough to raise him from the lower condition in which he was born, but he had not talent sufficient to guide his judgement, or mature his conceptions after his rise.

The remaining volumes contain some entertaining anecdotes of men and things at the time Mr. Holcroft lived; which, excepting a few objectionable principles here and there, cannot fail of amusing the reader.

ART. XVII. Le Ministre de Wakefield, d'Oliver Goldsmith, en Anglois et en François; Traduction nouvelle, dediée, avec Permission,

Permission, a sa Grace la Duchesse de Somerset. Par Madume Despourrin. 2 vols. 12mo. Leigh. 1816.

To those who are desirous of acquainting themselves with the genius and spirit of the French language, we can strongly recommend the work before us. The spirit of our favourite English novel is so transfused into the French language as scarcely to suffer by the metempsychosis. The authoress of this translation has shewn her judgment in not rendering the original in too close and literal a manner. As a specimen of the work, we shall give the following extract both in the French and in the English:

"But previously I should have mentiomed the very impolite behaviour of Mr. Burchell, who, during this discourse, sat with, his face turned to the fire, and at the conclusion of every sentence would cry out fudge, an expression which displeased us all, and in some measure damped the rising spirit of the conversation.

"Besides, my dear Skeggs,' continued our peeress, there is nothing of this in the copy of verses that Dr. Burdock made upon that occasion.'-Fudge!

"I am surprised at that,' cried Miss Skeggs, for he seldom leaves any thing out, as he writes only for his own amusement.. But can your ladyship favour me with a sight of them?'— Fudge!

"My dear creature,' replied our peeress, do you think I carry such fine things about me? Though they are very fine to be sure, and I think myself something of a judge; at least I know what pleases myself. Indeed I was ever an admirer of all Dr. Burdock's little pieces; for except what he does, and our dear countess at Hanover-square, there's nothing comes out but the most lowest stuff in nature: not a bit of high life among them.'-Fudge! "Your ladyship should except,' says t'other,

your own things in the Lady's Magazine. I hope you'll say there's nothing. low-lived there; but I suppose we are to have no more from that quarter. Fudge!" P. 165.

"J'aurais dû faire mention d'abord de la conduite très-impolie de M. Burchell qui, durant ce dialogue, étoit assis le visage tourné. du côté du feu, et s'écrioit à chaque phrase, avec un air de mér pris, bah! bah! expression qui nous choqua tous, et altéra, en quelque sorte, la gaieté qui commençoit à régner dans la conver Bation.

En outre, ma chère Skeggs, continua notre Pairesse, il n'y a pas un mot de cela dans la copie des vers que Mr. Burdock fit à ce sujet.'-Bah!

"J'en suis surprise, dit Miss Skeggs; car, n'écrivant que pour son propre amusement, il est rare qu'il omette quelque chose;

mais votre seigneurie veut-elle bien m'en donner lecture.”— Bah!

"Ma chère amie, lui répondit l'autre, croyez-vous que je porte ces choses-là sur moi? Quoique ces vers soient très-bons (et certainement je me crois un peu en état d'en juger), du moins je sais ce qui me plaît. Eu vérité j'admirai toujours les petites pièces fugitives du Docteur Burdock; car, excepté ses ouvrages et ceux de notre chère comtesse à Hanover Square, il n'a paru que des choses triviales, et on ne peut citer dans le nombre un sujet du bon ton.'-Bah!

"Votre seigneurie devrait en excepter, dit Miss Skeggs, ses propres ouvrages, insérés dans le journal des dames. J'espère que vous conviendrez qu'il n'y a rien de commun là-dedans; mais je crains bien que nous n'en soyons privées maintenant.'— Bah!" P. 146.

ART. XVIII. Prosody made Easy. By W. Shaw, D.D. Rector of Chelvey, Somerset. 8vo. 56 pp. Longman and Co.

1815.

WE have often lamented that the ingenious Lily did not extend bis versification to the Prosody, and add the charms of poetry to its laws. Dr. Shaw is determined that the English language shall labour under no such reproach, and has accordingly transfused the genius of Lily into our own tongue, and given us a Prosody in As a specimen of the clear and intelligible strains in which Dr. Shaw's precepts are conveyed, let our readers take the following.

"O common make. One-syllables extend,

Greek feminines as Dido, all extend;
Datives and Ablatives of second seek

O long, Adverbials in ō, and patrial Greek;
Quo', eo'. Various denuo, postremo, vero,
Mutuo', are found, as well as sero;

Short modo', always. Cedo meaning give,

To which homo, ego, cito, you may give.

Gerunds with some are short, but long with Maro,

-Doubtful then meaning, sake of long sound ergo." P. 22.

Lily is sometimes, especially in the Qua Genus, tempted to leave the didactic, and to soar into the sublime. The facetious he has left for Dr. Shaw, who has thus nobly remedied the defects of his predecessor and rival.

"When

"When compound words, whether Latin or Greek,
End their first part in i or in o,
Short let them be; no witness seek
Than omnipotens and significo.
But those have i long

To which these belong

Being words all formed by composition;
With Qui, quali, quanti,

Rei, ei, uni, tanti,

And fill the first place by position.

Words cut in parts,

Without breaking their hearts,
And no way losing their senses;
As parvi-pendo, ludi-magister.
Words when compressed,

By Syncope pressed,

Or squeezed much closer by Crasis.
Idem the male;

The compounds ne'er fail,

Of dici, ubique, and ibidem." P. 9.

After this brilliant display of wit and liveliness, upon a subject which would almost set laughter at defiance, we cannot part with Dr. Shaw in an ill humour, which we should otherwise do, for making the o in Geometra long. If Dr. Shaw can forget his own poetry for a moment, and refer to Juvenal, he will find

Geometra, pictor, Aliptes.

Dr. Shaw is equally happy in his próse definitions-he thus defines a Poem.

"A Poem is a neat congeries of verses, of legitimate length and measure."

We wish that we could always, or even often, find it so.

1

ART. XIX. The Sequel of an Attempt to ascertain the Author of the Letters published under the Signature of Junius, in which that hitherto impenetrable Secret is, it is presumed, fully disclosed. By the Author of the Attempt. pp. 29. Longman and Co. 1816.

THERE are few questions which are at the same time more

curious

curious and less important than, who was Junius? It is one, aecordingly, in which many persons have wandered into a wrong path, or stumbled in their search, without incurring much disgrace. "Sub luce malignâ erramus," says the author of this Attempt and Sequel. And most truly says he so. Twenty persons at least, we believe, have been looking after this phantom, and have missed their way. A phantom indeed we should hardly call him; and what name to give him we do not well know. Indeed, one of the difficulties attending the search is, that those who set about it differ as widely in their opinions of what they are looking after, as in the ways which they take. One is hunting for a patriot, a man of letters, and a man of fortune, if not of rank. Another expects to find a needy base assassin, a downright blackguard. In the mean time, the secret we cannot but think must be in the hands of a very few, the sons or successors of those who were concerned to make the discovery at the time when Junius wrote, and one of whom (Lord North) certainly professed to have made it.

Whether the author has succeeded in disclosing the impenetrable secret, we really have not the courage to determine. Thus much we may safely affirm, that he has produced many curious facts, and much important argument. And whereas others have shewn cause why such or such a person may have been Junius, he has gone beyond them in fixing it decisively (as he conceives) upon the person whom he has selected, and proving that he must have been Junius. That person our readers perhaps know already to be John Horne Tooke. Much was said by Mr. B. in his former pamphlet to fix upon him the merit or disgrace which must attach to the author of Junius. In the Sequel a very ingenious, and (we must add) a very powerful argument is brought forward, to identify the writer under the signature X X with Horne Tooke, that writer being already identified with Junius. Some anecdotes are likewise mentioned; less important, but very curious. And both the Attempt and the Sequel will probably repay any person for the money or the time which he may expend on the purchase and perusal of them. If he should close them without being convinced by the arguments which they contain, he cannot fail to admire the ingenuity with which those arguments have been sought out, the fairness with which they are brought forward, the language with which they are adorned; and above all, that dignified abhorrence of every thing low and mean, vicious and disingenuous, seditious and irreligious, which is to be expected from this writer.

ART,