bottle of Burgundy, a French chanfon d'amour, and a found fleep, the next night at Calais.

"Sir Greg. While your father and the man you had wronged lay ftretched on their bier!

"Mufe. Um-No: as it happened, the gentleman mended, in fpite of me and the doctors': the news was fent me, we became the beft of friends, and in fix weeks I had the pleasure to wish him joy of his recovery.

"Sir Greg. After feducing his wife, and

"Mufc. Was it my fault that fhe was handsome, and I irresistible?" Sir Greg. Ha! You may well be a favourite with the ladies!

Mufc. Oh, yes: I can't help it. No more can they. I have a fmile for one, a nod for another, a wink for a third, a hem and a how do you do for a fourth, and the who gets a fqueeze of the hand from me thinks herself in heaven!

Lady L. And you really have no fear of a rival, with Lady Fancourt?

Mufc. A rival? Ha, ha, ha! Rival?-Charles is gallant-Her ladyship is polite-but-Oh, no: fhe is too fond of me."

Sir Greg. Indeed!

Mufc. Paft doubt.

Lady L. How do you know?

Mufc. She told me fo.

Lady L. What, herself?

Mufe. Herfelf.

Sir Greg. With her own lips?

Mafc. Lips? Ha, ha, ha! No; the lips often deceive; the eyes never,

Lady L. Be not too confident; there are coquettes in the world.

Mufc. I know it; I am one. How do you like me, Sir Gregory?
Sir Greg. Not at all.

Mufc. Ha, ha, ha! No?

Sir Greg. You are a modern man of fashion; a beau, whofe characteristic it is to babble; though you know little of what you fay, and lefs of what you mean.

Mufc. And you are a bully, of the old fchool: a kind of walking machine, to grind down beef.

Sir Greg. (Afide) Baboon!

Mufe. You are an old batchelor, too; and have been all your life preaching continence, and practicing

Sir Greg. (Suddenly) Sir, I mutt beg you will not, any more, make free with my moral character.

Lady L. Fie, Mr. Mufcadel! There is nothing of which Sir Gregory is fo chary as his moral character.

Sir Greg. Niece!

Mafc. Egad, it is ve y true: a fair character, like a fair skin, if clofely infpected, has a thoufand irregularities,

Lady L. (Significantly) Ay, like the purple bloom on a fresh gathered plum, it must be admired, not touched: if you handle it, you deftroy its beauty-Don't you, uncle?

Mufc. Your character and mine, baronet, are certainly very oppolite.

• Sir

• Sir Greg. Or I would hang myfelf! You pretend to wit: but, like bookfellers, you deal in what you don't understand.

Mufc. Ha, ha, ha! You are an eight day clock, wound up once a week; a fixed ftar, that every fool knows where to find; an evergreen, always of one colour: a parish clerk, whofe whole vocabulary begins and ends in amen. I am a camelion; an English April-day; a comet, that always appears in a blaze, is the talk of the town, the terror of married men, and the admiration of the whole world! While everybody is enquiring whence it comes, how long it stays, where it goes, and when it returns?

Lady L. You affect fingularity, Mr. Mufcadel.

Mufc. No: it is natural to me. We men of fashion are always leading the canaille into abfurdities, purpofely to laugh at them. We are a kind of Will with the wifp; we glitter and entice the gazer into a bog, and there leave him.

Lady L. Come, come; I muft begone, to drefs..

Sir Greg. Ah! you are rare animals!

Mufc. Meteors, Sir Gregory; which you terreftrials may gaze at, but cannot reach: a kind of rainbow, the fplendor of which everybody admires, but nobody can equal.'

[Exeunt.

On the fuppofition that this comedy, as we have already faid, will be generally perufed, we refrain from giving an outline of its plot, and from entering into a particular examination of its parts: only farther remarking that we think it very interesting and impreffive in the library, and that, we underftand, it was equally fo on the ftage. We lament that any hafty zeal or prejudice on the part of the audience, or any inadvertent expreffions from the author's pen, fhould have driven it from public reprefentation, after having been performed only fix times.

MONTHLY

For

G.2.

Tay.r.

CATALOGUE,

APRIL, 1794.

POLITICAL and COMMERCIAL.

Art. 16. A Letter to the Right Hon. Earl Stanhope, in which the
Neceffity of the War is confidered, and the Conduct and Views of
Great Britain and her Allies vindicated. 8vo.
pp. 89. 2s. 6d.

Miller. 1794.

WE can scarcely conceive what it was that induced this author, when he first refolved to confider the neceffity of the war, and vindicate the conduct and views of the powers confederated against France, to addrefs his letter to Lord Stanhope; for he tells us, in his 3d page, that, among the many eminent perfons either in the phalanxes of government or of oppofition, to whofe opinions on the prefent interefting crifis the people looked up with anxious impatience, no one thought of ranking this noble Ear!, though poffibly fome few fanatics, whofe imagination and prejudices, had long fince ran away with

their judgment and difcretion, did, probably, anticipate the day when, from a British peer, they should receive a fanction for their chimeras, and fome food for their hopes.' If the author entertained an idea that he might perhaps have made the noble Lord a profelyte to his opinions, he must have had a very high notion of his own talents; as fo many able writers, who have treated the fame fubject, have failed to operate a political converfion in his Lordthip. Perhaps it was this very failure of other great men that fpurred him on to purfue an object which they had abandoned as unattainable. The more defperate the attempt, the greater the glory of fuccefs: it is in the removal of diforders which are deemed by others incurable, that a phyfician hines most; and it must crown his fame to cure a head pronounced by his learned brethren to be tribus Anticyris infanabile. If it were on this ground that the writer proceeded when he refolved to addrefs Lord Stanhope, we must applaud his fpirit, though we cannot praife his judgment.

With refpect to the performance itself, abftracted from the confideration of the perfon to whom it is addreffed, truth compels us to fpeak of it in terms of approbation; and thofe who most strenuously condemn the policy of the prefent war muft confefs that the author maintains its juftice and neçeflity with great ability, and in many inftances with fuccefs.

Those who have heard Lord Stanhope fpeak, as a public orator, will be glad to fee a picture of him in a few lines, which gives a trong idea of his, Lordship's manner :

Those who are acquainted with your Lordship must be fenfible that a coolness of judgment is by no means the most prominent feature in your character.-Tnofe fudden and irregular flathes, which are occafionally bursting from the crater of your understanding, afford a pretty clear idea of the contents, and a full illuftration of every part of the Volcanic mountain.' LETTER, &c. p. 3, 4. Sh.

Art. 17. Confiderations on the French War, in which the Circumftances leading to it, its Object, and the Refources of Britain for carrying it on, are examined, in a Letter to the Right Honourable William Pitt. By a British Merchant. 8vo. pp. 66. 1s. 6d. Eaton. 1794.

Though profeffing to carry thefe confiderations no farther than the prefent war, the circumftances leading to it, and the refources of this country for fupporting it, the British Merchant allows himself a very wide range, and travels far beyond his felf-prefcribed limits at the beginning of his journey.

He examines the title of Mr. Pitt to the character of a statesman and of a financier, and he undertakes to fhew that he has no fair pre. tenfions to either. Mr. P.'s open oppofition to Mr. Fox's India bill, and his covert adoption of its provisions. His production of a ftring of propofitions for regulating the commercial intercourfe between this kingdom and Ireland, not a fingle word of which, he said, could be altered, though he afterward concurred in alterations of fo effential a nature that the minifters of Ireland did not dare to prefs them on the parliament of that country-His declaration that, without fome arrangement, it was impoffible that the commerce of the two kingdoms

could

could go on, coupled with the fact that, without any arrangement, except an explanation of one act of parliament in the laft feffions, it has fince been carried on for years-His determination to go to war with Spain for a paltry object, and his acceptance of a kind of half apology from that court-His refolution to wreft from Ruffia and reftore to the Turks the poffeffion of Oczachoff, which, in the hands of the Ruffians, he faid, would endanger the balance of power; and his fubfequent confent that the Emprefs fhould retain a conqueft which would, in his opinion, put it in her power to impofe a yoke on, at leaft, the North of Europe-All these facts the author quotes as irrefragable proofs that Mr. Pitt is not entitled to the appellation of a ftatesman. His affertion may be juft: but what has all this to do with the prefent war,' or with the circumftances leading to it ?' It is not, however, our bufinefs to find out a connection between the main fubject and the Episodes, when the author himself did not think it proper to create any. He appears to us, in one particular, at least, to refemble Sterne in his Triftram Shandy, who makes his readers travel a confiderable way on their journey before he thinks proper to bring his hero, not on the ftage, but even into the world.

Mr. Pitt's pretenfions to the character of a financier the author overturns with ability; and, if his objections to the prefent war were that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not qualified for his office, and confequently not likely to be able to raife the fupplies, nor to manage the revenue with judgment, we would fay that this point was as judicicufly introduced as it is ably treated:-but his objections to the war are of a far different nature; and therefore we must remark that, though his obfervations refpecting Mr. Pitt's talents as a financier may be juft, and his arguments conclufive, they are misplaced, when introduced into a work bearing fuch a title as the prefent; and we feel ourfelves juftified in faying with Horace- "Non erat his locus."

Qur author next takes up the fubject of parliamentary reform, and fhews that Mr. Pitt has brought on himself, in that bufinefs, the imputation of duplicity and infincerity. This is an attack on the miniiter's heart, as the former was on his head; and, if each might be confidered as having been made with fuccefs, they would leave our premier " poor indeed!"-but our author does not ftop here; for he brings charges against Mr. Pitt, which, if true, would point him out as a very fit object of impeachment; for, without mincing the matter, the writer tells him that he has prostituted the peerage for the purchase of votes in the House of Commons.' It is not for us to investi gate the truth and the propriety of this affertion: but, could we for a moment fuppofe it to be well founded, we fhould feel the most inexpreffible difguit at the repeated panegyrics on the conftitution pronounced by the minifter; for nothing could be more deteftable than that a man should be loud in the praife of that inftitution on which he was trampling at the very time. We cannot believe that Mr. Pitt was guilty of fo grofs an act of inconfiftency; and therefore we will prefume that, when he advifed the king to beftow coronets with fo very liberal a hand, his object must have been to preferve the conftitution inviolated, without any regard to the prefervation of his own power or place, and, confequendly, without intending to fully the hiahertofpotless purity of the Houfe of Commons!

It would be a tedious task to follow the prefent author through all his wanderings; we only obferve that, before he comes immediately to the question of the prefent war, he touches on the flave trade, the corporation and teft acts, the French revolution, Mr. Burke's and Mr. Paine's books, political focieties, modern divifion of parties, proclamations, infurrections, profecutions for fedition, the injustice of ftigmatizing the enemies of the war with the odious name of Jacobins, and the wilful mifapplication of the word equality. This enumeration will ferve to fhew that we were not wrong when we faid that the author allowed himself a very wide range indeed.

He next confiders the objects of Auftria and Pruffia in carrying on the war, which he afferts to be the restoration of monarchy in France, and, with it, that defpotifm which muft neceffarily grow out of a government profeffing to derive its authority not from man, but from beaven. In the purfuit of fuch objects, he justly obferves that it would be fhameful in England to concur with the allies.

The Bank of England does not escape the lafh of this writer, who thinks that this establishment ought to bear no inconfiderable share of blame for its conduct in refusing to discount bills, when, on the prospect of a war, the merchants and manufacturers were reduced to great diftrefs for money to answer their engagements: he fuggefts the propriety of forming feveral public banks at the expiration of the exifting charter of monopoly enjoyed at prefent by the Bank of England.

In fpeaking of the refources of England for carrying on the war, he touches on one point, which will draw on him the refentment of the clergy, who will not fail to make the nation ring with the cry of "the church is in danger;" for he roundly afferts that the poffeffions of the church ought to be fold for the relief of the public. As this is facred ground, we will not profane it with our unhallowed feet; the author therefore shall tread it by himself:

'Our annual expenditure may now be stated at 17,000,000l. and every campaign muft add 500,000l. for intereft to it. But how is this revenue to be procured a languid and diftreffed commerce must neceffarily be followed by a diminished revenue, and should that commerce not recover itself it is not eafy to point out new subjects of taxation. The land is already very heavily burthened, not by the land-tax only but by the poor rates and other charges, which give no affiftance to the revenue. To meddle with the funds, might affect public credit. The Duke of Richmond indeed has pointed out a fubject of taxation in cafe of emergency, which might be found productive, I mean the poffeffions of the church. Formerly indeed tythes and glebe lands were confidered by fome as the property of the church by divine right, but now it feems admitted that they are only falaries to the ecclefiaftics, paid not immediately out of the public treafury, but by lands or the produce of lands fet apart by the ftate for their use. These the state may refume whenever the public exigencies require it, paying to the clergy their

"The poor rates at Norwich owing to the ftagnation of the trade are faid now to be not less than twelve fhillings in the pound on the rack rent."

falaries