"The story is in Ælian, that some studious scholars bade great sums of money for an earthen candlestick that had been Epictetus's."

392. Images. "O strong delusions in the hearts of men, that there should be any cause to contest with Christians in such a controversy!"

413. Difference of the four Gospels illustrated by four knots in a garden, set to the same pattern, but with different herbs.

425. "I conceive that in the Resurrection of the Just every countenance which had disfigurement in it, or any monstrous disproportion, shall be new shaped and fashioned; because that great workmanship of God, which abideth for ever, shall be conspicuous to all eyes with most exact decency and comeliness."

424. Light of the New Jerusalem.

425. "Diamond differs from other precious stones in that its colour cannot be called by any name: there is a white gloss and a sparkling flame mixt together, which shew fairly, but render no constant colour."

429. Opinions concerning the body of Moses a curious question arising from the Transfiguration.

431. The heaven where the blessed are at rest cannot be the air, our heaven, nor

that of the lower orbs. A false reason for the latter part of the opinion.

432. Satan tried to discredit Scripture by inventing fables like its truths.

442. "The devil promised our Saviour all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and since he refused it, then the same devil, by the mouth of these canonists, proffers it again to try, though he will none of it himself, if some other, in the name of a vicegerent, will take it for him.

443. "We have stolen a name from virtue, and called our riches our goods."

444. "The glory of the Gospel is like God's rainbow in the clouds, not only a beautiful, but a merciful token-a bow with the string towards the earth, so that it is not prepared to shoot arrows against us.”

445. "Lazarus, and the others who were so revived, were never after seen even to smile."

446. "Some one (Lorinus) said elegantly of St. John the apostle, who outlived all his fellows, but died not a martyr as they did, that to live to such an extreme age was his martyrdom. Longævitas Johanni martyrorum quoddam fuit.' Surely God multiplies the days of a good man oftentimes, that he may please him the more by desiring death."

447. "Though God prepare for us a new heaven and a new earth, yet he must give us a new heart likewise to delight in them for ever."

SIR EGERTON BRYDGES.

P. ix.

rum.

Theatrum Poeta

Preface.

E want some standards of fixed opinion, and tests of perpetual reference, by which we can assure ourselves that we are not under the delusion of momentary caprice and accidental excitation. What was verum et bonum once, says Phillips, continues to be so always. If therefore what is modern differs from what was formerly verum et bonum, it cannot itself be itself verum et bonum.”

x. "If indeed we look to the minor poets, they are always the creatures of the epoch at which they wrote."

xiv. “The vulgar, great and little, have always an acquired taste, which changes with every generation.”

xvii. "There is something perhaps in the conflict of the Drama, which by raising energetic emotion forces out natural, vivid, and poetical thoughts rather than those which are the results of the cold, artificial, and far sought efforts of the closet. When Shakespeare set himself in form to write poetry, he did not reach a strain much above those of inferior men."

xix. "If it be better to execute well in an inferior class, than to attempt with more imperfect success composition of an higher order, then the French school is the safest. Abilities much less rare are fitted to produce good French poetry; and the reader is content if he finds his understanding exercised, even though his imagination be left to sleep."

xix. "the exclusive cultivation of imagery went to as great an excess, as the attention to abstract thought and observa

xx. "It is not by the masters of the art, that at any period, or during any prevailing fashion, excesses are committed. It is by their followers; by the imitatores, servum pecus; who seizing the leading feature of their models, exaggerate it into the sole object of ambition of their own absurd mimickries."

xxvii. Danger of poetry as a pursuit.
xxxi. Churchill.

xxxiii. Charlotte Smith.
xxxvii. Shenstone.
xxxviii. Akenside.

43. Minor poetry of the early Stuart reigns well likened to the gardens of that age.

47. Warton.

been to have withheld this admirable letter from the public!"

158. The old Duchess Sarah of M. said, "the Whigs were rogues, and the Tories fools," this was always her opinion of them.

159. The Magazin de Londres, in French, started about the same time as the Monthly Review, and also by R. Griffiths, at his appropriate sign of the Dunciad.

238. The first Monthly register, or catalogue, is in the third number, and it notices Mason's Installation Ode in these words, "Our panegyrick odes have so near sameness in them all, that we imagine our readers will excuse our quoting no passages from this; which is, however, looked upon as a very ingenious performance by the admirers of that species of poetry."

295. Whiston thought he injured his constitution, by "long attendance, morning and afternoon, on his father (a clergyman), while he learned the chapters, &c. for the Lord's Days."

Vol. 2.

431. Memoirs of Fanny Hill. The praise of this abridged book is most extraordinary. One might suspect that none but Cleveland himself could have had the impudence to write it. At the end of vol. 7, it appears in a list of books published by R. Griffiths. Vol. 3. A. D. 1750.

P. 182. L'ABBÉ YART's Idée de la Poesie Angloise.

189. The Actor, this perhaps led the way to Lloyd.

334. "Poetry in general, is in these times so little regarded that no son of the Muses, unless a high favourite, and exalted by fame above his brethren, will venture to hire out his works upon the common of public encouragement without first securing the kindly shelter and safe resort of a good subscription."

417. The Fathers of Mercy the best customers for slaves, and thus the great encouragers of piracy.

420. The Algerines preferred Roman Catholic slaves, as having some hold on them

6. 8. A lady's poem in praise of him, and in censure of Bradbury; "bold Bradbury," I suppose," who preached that insolent sermon upon Queen Anne's death." 227. "A promising title is commonly the least promising sign of a good author; and it is observable that the best books, either | ancient or modern, have the fewest words

in their title pages. The immortal poems of Homer, Virgil, (?) Milton, and that entire library in miniature, the Spectator, are instances of this."

311. Hydromel is honey and water boiled and kept unfermented, with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmegs.

335. Jeffries's Treatise on Diamonds. 345-6. The Hutchinsonian Taylor, John Dove.

427. M. Trochereau's select English poe

try.

Vol. 4.

P. 28. A most obscene poem analysed at length.

157. Peter Wilkins in the Monthly Catalogue.

"Here is a very strange performance indeed. It seems to be the illegitimate offspring of no very natural conjunction, like Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe; but much inferior to the manner of these two performances, either as to entertainment or utility. It has all that is impossible in the one, or improbable in the other, without the wit and spirit of the first, or the just strokes of nature, and useful lessons of morality of the second. However, if the in

See supra, p. 147.-J. W. W:

a sufficient amends for all the dullness and unmeaning extravagance of this author, we are willing to allow that his book has some

merit, and that he deserves some encouragement at least as an able mechanic, if not as a good writer!"

159. The Mirror,-two first numbers of a periodical paper published at Dublin, reprinted here.

230. Fielding's just remarks on the increase of the lower class, "the civil power not having increased, but decreased in the same proportion,"—in his Inquiry into the causes of the increase of Robbers, &c.

231. His account of the organization of rogues, with their lawyers, &c. 232. Effects of gin-drinking and gaming.

234. More miserable poor than in any other part of Europe.

239. Fielding would have had executions as private as possible.

303. Thales, a monody sacred to the memory of Dr. Pocock, in imitation of Spenser, from a MS. of Mr. Edmund (Rag1) Smith. -"Any thing from the ingenious author of Ph. and Hipp. must have merit enough to render our farther mention of this small posthumous track unnecessary."

379. Bertram's First Observations in his Travels from Pennsylvania, called "a heavy performance; in which they can find nothing worth extracting."

387. "A compendious or brief examination of certain ordinary complaints of divers of our countrymen,-by Wm. Shakespeare, 1581, reprinted 1751, 1s. 6d." Reviewed as if it were genuine, and appearing to be of Elizabeth's age. (?)

449. The Chevalier Ramsay held that Adam and Eve procreated all their descendants in Paradise, and that the whole human race actually fell with them, and this he calls the great, ancient, and luminous doctrine of our co-existence with them."

66

537. The morals of this Journal are on a par with its theology, its politics, and its taste. It says of Ninon L'Enclos, "her sentiments are expressed with the most manly freedom, yet without the least indelicacy.

"Captain Rag was a name which he got at Oxford by his negligence ofdress."-JOHNSON'S Lives of the Poets.-J. W. W.

Her readers at first will be apt to suspect her to have been a female libertine; but on a further perusal and nearer acquaintance, she appears to be one of those honest, open, sprightly geniuses, who never make any secret of what they think. In a word, she was a free-thinker, in the most honourable sense of the appellation. Love she entirely strips of all its romantic trappings. She always takes it for what it really is; for a taste founded on the senses; for a blind passion, which supposes no merit in the object which excites it, nor even obliges it in the least to be grateful."

Vol. 5.

P. 43. ADV. of Versorand. Another instance of the way in which lascivious books were favoured in this journal.

70. A gross offence to decency.

97. On the appearance of Warburton's edition, they call Pope, the great prince of English poets.

218. In Minorca the art of slinging is still kept up, and cattle kept compleatly in command by it, the cracking of an empty sling intimidates them. But savage herdsmen often severely hurt the cattle thus, and therefore the farmers forbade the use of it to such of their servants as were of an evil disposition.

396. A good specimen of some anonymous pastoral poems, which I suppose to have been written in bonâ fide imitation of A. Philips. "Thus plained he; 'twas love for which

he plain'd,

Love which the lass he loved, disdainfully disdain'd.

"Haste, pity, Mally; lovely Mally, haste. I die; for sure I die; death cometh fast." 518. Adventures of John Daniel. 12mo. 38. Compared with Peter Wilkins, this, the critic says, has more nature and morality, Peter's rather the better diction.

Vol. 6.

P. 54. SOME quintum quid suspected in the nervous fluid as the immediate agent between mind and matter.