and that all kinds of pre-difpofition, &c. are injuries to the judgment.' The great principle and duties of Chriftianity, though founded on the best reason, yet owe much of their fupport and influence to a virtuous disposition of mind. A good man would wish them to be true, and a bad man would be interested in feeing them proved to be falfe. Both, it is certain, are under fome bias. But Chriftianity is not the lefs rational because the prepoffeffions of virtue are on its fide, and thofe of vice at eternal enmity with it. In the ninth lecture, on Univerfal Religion,' our Author makes an apology for the name of Deift, with which,' he informs us, he had been reproached by ignorance.' He affures us, however, that so far from difliking this nobleft of all appellations, he felt no other regret than that he was not worthy of it. I could,' fays he, look up to Jupiter and Apollo, to Mars and Venus, to Mofes, Chrift, and Mahomed, and not even from my errors and faults be afraid to wear their names: but to be called after the name appropriated to that perfectly wife and perfectly good Being, who animates and bleffes the univerfe, feems to call for a character of understanding and virtue, which is alarming; and though I could rejoice in deferving, I fhould be very cautious in affuming it.' We need make no comment on this paffage: but cannot avoid obferving, that for the indecency of the allufion, and the artful malignity of the infinuation, it hath scarcely been paralleled fince the days of Julian the Apoftate. The lectures on Univerfal Toleration' contain little that is worthy of particular notice. The Author rings his changes fo often on liberty and free enquiry, that by repetition his fentiments become tirefome, and in their commonnefs lofe their influence. His compofitions, in general, bear the marks of great hafte; and these two lectures, in particular, feem to prove that he wanted much to get to the conclufion. Indeed, we feldom obferve any beginning or middle in Mr. Williams's productions. He appears to be always fomewhere or other about the end. This arifes from a want of a regular fyftematic plan; or a logical correctnefs and economy of thought. The following reflections on perfons who pride themselves in having fouls made of fentiment, are very juft, though they might have been introduced as well in any other part of his work, as where we chance to find them. Try a fentimental man, or a fentimental woman, on any of the fubjects which they are diffolving or even dying upon, when reading fome quaint tale, and you will find them wholly deftitute of the genuine and ufeful principles of nature; not in the fituation of perfons perfons who want to be induced to act juftly and virtuously; but incapable of good impreffions. There are no brutes on earth fo unfeeling as thefe diffolving, dying people; nor any perfons fo incapable of virtue as those who waste their whole lives in reading tales of the virtues of other people. Look on a modern mother, whofe time is spent in reading hiftories and novels, and enervating her own conftitution and that of her children by the effects of fentiments. Look back into antiquity, and fee the virtuous matrons of Greece and Rome, fulfilling their duties with an active and amiable dignity; teaching their children to think and act fo as to contribute largely to the public happiness, and you will fee the difference between real and pretended knowledge.' Our modern fentimentalifts are indeed very poor creatures! All their effufions, and all their feelings, are feldom any thing better than evidences of paralytic affections. Though they melt, and languish, and die, on the foft pillow of fentimental tenderness, yet when their charity is tried, their exquifite fenfations vanish in a moment, and benevolence is only a pretty word, that begins in fancy and ends in found! Our Author's averfion to thofe fentimental beings, leads him to renew his fatire on them, in his fecond lecture on Modesty ; in which, after drawing an admirable and truly characteristic picture of vanity, he obferves, that when religion had credit enough to serve as a cloke to infirmities and vices, the vain man was always religious, and covered his pretences with it. But now, an undefinable and unintelligible matter called SENTIMENT, is the fubftitute. All that we know of what is commonly called Sentiment, is, that it fupplies the place of wisdom and virtue; and is a rule of life which every man and woman keeps in fome elegant recefs of the mind; that it vibrates like a mufical inftrument, and all the events of life play upon it but being totally different in different perfons, it admits of that wonderful mixture of wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, which we fee around us. There is no virtue refined enough for its regard: and no vice which it will not admit of. In fhort, by fetting afide the use of investigation, reafon, education, habit, and reflection,-Sentiment becomes the very principle of profligacy; and, by its ineffable and fupernatural emotions, renders the mind abandoned and worthlels. Here therefore, if any where, vanity must have a chance of fuccefs. As fentimental virtues exift only in tales, letters, and converfation, where the imagination is at liberty to invent, and no more judgment is requifite than to preferve probability, one would think a vain man, who is effentially a liar, muft find his account in this fentimental commerce. He does-fo as to impofe longer upon men in this way than in any other. The strong ftrong propenfities which are formed in good minds by the focial virtues, difpofe men to admire all appearances of them; and to be easily imposed on by pretenfions to extraordinary degrees of them. They are only perfons of mature judgments and underftandings who steadily difbelieve fupernatural efforts, and fufpec all progidies, and all wonders. Sentimental friends are like friends in mafques, who pafs on each other for angels; but when time, ardour, and the irrefiftible defire of mutual intercourfe, bring on a difcovery, and pull off the covering, hardly any thing can equal the difappointment; they fly from each other with horrid deteftation, and nothing can exceed the rancour and malignity of thofe feparated, fentimental friends. Indeed, there is not a virtue of importance to fociety, that can long exist or remain uninjured, when affociated with vanity. Truth, both as a quality of the mind, and as a focial virtue, is the first obftacle it must remove. Juftice it can have no idea of, because it feeks its own gratification at all events, and benevolence is eradicated by selfishnefs.' We would gladly tranfcribe more from this masterly dif courfe but we have already proceeded to our utmost limits in the extracts which we have made from these volumes; and muft conclude our remarks by obferving, that the moral lectures contain many valuable obfervations; and that however we dif approve of his theological principles, we cannot help acknowledging the elegance and spirit of the Writer. ART. II. Archaeologia: or, Mifcellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity. Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London. Vol. V. 11. 15. Boards. White, &c. 1779. TH HIS learned body hath already favoured the world with feveral curious and entertaining publications. The prefent volume confifts of forty-four numbers; fome account of which we fhall lay before our readers, according to our usual method. The book now before us opens with, Obfervations on the Hiftory of St. George, the Patron Saint of England. The annive fary of this reputed faint, is the day appointed by ftatute for electing the officers of this refpectable fociety; it seemed, therefore, very pertinent, that a differtation,fhould be exhibited on the fubject; especially, as fome evil-minded perfons had advanced pofitions tending to the annihilation of this faint. Mr. Pegge, well known in this line of erudition, generously stands up in defence of St. George, in oppofition to Dr. Pettingal, and the late Mr. Byrom. Dr. Pettingal, about the year 1760, wrote a Differtation on the original of the Equestrian Figure on the George, &c. in which he concludes, that there are no fufficient grounds to believe there ever was [and was there ever fuch fuch an infidel as Dr. P.?] fuch a perfon as St. George; and he farther labours to prove, that the infignia of our moit noble English Order, the George and Garter, are to be refolved into an emblematical, or rather a telefmatical apparatus, Mr. Pegge acknowledges the ingenuity and erudition with which this is attempted, but he endeavours to fhew that there is fufficient evidence to induce a belief both of the reality of the perfonal existence of St. George, and of his martyrdom, which is all that he contends for; as to the ftory about the Dragon, &c. it may go, for what he cares, to the old Dragon bimfelf. Mr. Byrom, the other infidel adverfary, for whofe memory Mr. Pegge expreffes the highest regard, has delivered, as ufual, his fentiments on the subject, in a metrical garb. He infinuates, that the inftitution of the Moft Noble Order of the Garter was at first founded in error and mistake, and that, fince that time, we have all been involved in a misnomer. He apprehends, that the names of Gregory and George have been confounded, that Pope Gregory the Great, who fent Auguftine, the monk, to convert the Anglo-Saxons, was received as their patron, as the Irish have St. Patrick, the Scotch St. Andrew, &c. but that, in a courfe of years, the name was corrupted into George, Mr. Pegge appears to have fufficiently confuted this hypothefis; he acknowledges, that St. George is only to be regarded as a military faint; and he imagines, that the English, during the time of their crufades in the Eaft, heard much of his fame, and brought accounts of him to England, where he was at length felected by our King Edward the Third, as the patron of the Noble Order. On the whole, Mr. Pegge affumes, that whether St. George be a real or an imaginary faint, he, and not St. Gregory, was undoubtedly understood at the time of the inftitution, as likewife ever fince, to be the patron of the Order of the Garter. In the first number of the fourth volume of this work, Mr, Strange attacked an opinion which had prevailed, that few traces of Roman antiquities are to be met with in the principality of Wales. Having before examined Brecknockshire †, he now proceeds to give an account of fome remains of Roman and other antiquities in Monmouthshire, which, though not ftrictly in Wales, adjoins to the former county. His differtation is long, but ingenious and learned, though rather dry and uninteresting to the generality of readers, who will be wearied in attending to etymologies and conjectures concerning ancient places; but the true antiquary views these things with a differ For an account of Byrom's Mifcellanies, Vide Review for . 1773, P. 24. + Vide Review for O&t. 1777, P. 260. ent A Roman ftation at Caerwent, together with remnants of walls, roads, buildings, causeways, &c. `have much employed this gentleman's attention. Among other difcoveries, he informs us of a Roman Mofaic pavement within the wails of the camp at Caerwent; it is in a kind of cellar, or outhoufe, in the middle of an orchard belonging to Mrs. Ann Williams. A print is given of the remains of this pavement, engraved from an original drawing, by Mr. Hay of Brecknock. Mr. Strange was affured, by a friend, that he remembered the figures of a lion, a tyger, and a ftag, all which are now destroyed, though part of the figures of a vafe and a bird are ftill to be feen. The defign of this pavement appears to have been very regular and elegant; and no defign, as Mr. Strange obferves, can exceed that of the fcalloped border, the like to which he does not recollect to have seen in any other work of the kind. From Caerwent he proceeds to Caerleon, where he meets with several objects to engage his attention, and among the reft, a hollow circular fpot, known at Caerleon by the name of Arthur's Round Table, which is generally fuppofed to be a Roman work, and to have ferved by way of amphitheatre; this occafions fome pertinent remarks. The greatest Roman curiofity, lately found at Caerleon, is a triangular hooped gold ring, with an intaglio fet in it, representing the ftory of Hercules ftrangling the Nemean lion: it is in the poffeffion of Mr. Thomas Norman, of that town. Mr. Strange closes the article with an account of fame other remains of antiquity; three grave-ftones, of which prints are given, that seem to have been laid upwards of four or five hundred years ago: one of them in the church of Chriftchurch, is remarkable for a custom which parents have of expofing their fick children on it, on the eve of Afcenfion-Day. In the third volume of this work, Mr. Daines Barrington gave an account of the remains of the Cornifh language, to which he now makes fome additions, written in 1776, at which time, he informs us, Dolly Pentraeth, then ninety years of age, was ftill living; but we apprehend the is fince dead: however, as a proof that the Cornish language is not entirely loft with her, a letter is produced, dated Moufehole, July 3, 1776, written by one William Bodener, a fisherman, both in English and Cornish. This man is fixty-five years of age, and fpeaks the language very readily. He has been at fea with five other men in a boat, and has not heard, he fays, a word of English among them for a week together; and he adds, that there are four or five other perfons, ftill living, in the village of Moufehole, who can converfe in Cor • Vid. Rev. for Dec. 1775. P. 497. |