An Oration delivered at the Dedication of Free-Mafons' Hall, Great Queen-ftreet, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, on Thursday, May 23, 1776. By William Dodd, LL.D. G. C. 40. Is. Robinson.

When pompous and magnificent epithets are applied to incon fiderable objects, they naturally excite emotions of ridicule, in hearers even the most candid and averse to sarcastic observation. This remark was perhaps never more ftrongly verified than in the dedication prefixed to this piece of rhetorical extravagance; in which, as well as in the fubfequent pages, it is hard to fay whether indignation or contempt be the paffion moft uniformly provoked. Had the orator however reftricted himself to declaiming on the mysteries of mafonry, we might have pardoned an affectation which derived fome claim to indulgence even from the reputed frivolity of the fubject. But when we find a reverend gentleman gravely facrificing the dignity of philo fophy to the grandeur of free-mafons, the bombaft of the fpeaker is no longer entitled to lenity, but calls for the animadverfion of every friend of decency, truth, and fcience, As this rhap fody has been published by the general request of the lodge, it appears to have met with the unanimous approbation of the fraternity. By lefs interested judges, however, it will probably be confidered, with greater juftice, as a burlefque on thofe myfteries which it has been intended to celebrate.

The Child's Directory; or easy Lessons, in four Parts. Defigned for the Ufe, Infruction and Improvement of Children and Youth. Part I. A Collection of Scripture Sentences. Part H. The Ten Commandments explained. Part III. Against Inactivity, Sloth, and Idleness on Compaffion and Cruelty. A Summary View of the Things that are lovely. Part IV. Hymns, Forms of Prayer, and the Lord's Prayer. To which is prefixed, an Address to Chil dren on good Behaviour. By James Walder. 12mo. 4di Buckland.

Mr. Walder thinks, that the generality of people take more pains to give their children a polite education, than to make them virtuous, or useful members of fociety. He therefore wifhes to recommend thefe plain and eafy leffons to the attention of children and youth, in order to infpire them with fentiments of virtue and religion; to guard them against the influence of bad example; againft pride, vanity, lying, flandering, and other vices; and to lead them on to the belief and practice of moral, focial, and religious duties.

The title page fufficiently fpecifies the contents. We fhall only add, that the author is a ferious and fenfible proteftante diffenter, and his leffons plain, pious, and rational.

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State of the Goals in London, Weftminster, and Borough of Southwark. By William Smith, M. D. 8vo. 15. 6d. Bew.

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If this pamphlet could be confidered as a proper object of criticism, we should not hesitate to pronounce it, with respect to ftile and compofition, a very contemptible performance as the fubject is of an important nature, we hope proper enquiry will made into the truth of that information which the author has laid before the public. His account of the King's Bench requires a very serious anfwer from the marshal of that prison. Obfervations on the Art of Brewing Malt Liquors; in-a Series of Strictures on a fecret Syftem, inculcated in a private, Course of Lectures on Brewing, lately delivered to feveral eminent Initiates ~ in that myftic Mode of Practice; to whofe Perufal they are particularly dedicated. By a Practical Brewer. δυο. 25. Wilkie..

We learn nothing more from this Practical Brewer, whofe ftrictures are equally profound as his subject, than that he pretends to greater knowledge in a myftical art, than others who have been initiated in all the fecrets of the fystem.

ERRATUM.

By a mistake, the following note was omitted at p. 343. l. fr.: * Mr. Pope, in a letter to a friend, thus warmly vindicates Dr. Garth against thofe, who charged him with infidelity in his last moments. "The beft natured of men, fays he, fir Samuel Garth, has left me in the trueft concern for his lofs. His death was very

heroical; and yet unaffected enough to have made a faint or a philofopher famous. But ill tongues, and worfe hearts, have branded even his last moments, as wrongfully as they did his life, with irreligion. You must have heard many tales on this fubject; but if ever there was a good christian, without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth." Pope's Letters to feveral Perfons, let. viii.

Whether Mr. Pope had, or had not, any particular perfon in view, when he fpeaks of "ill tongues and worfe hearts," cannot eafily be known. It is probable he might glance at Mr. Addison. The animofity between Addison and Pope, concerning the translation of the Iliad, commenced in 1715; and this letter was written foon after the death of Dr. Garth, which happened Jan. 18, 1718-19. Berkeley's writing the Analyst is a prefumptive argument, that the report in queftion was not entirely groundless.

THE

CRITICAL REVIEW.

For the Month of December, 1776.

A General Hiftory of the Science and Practice of Mufic, by Sir John Hawkins. In Five Volumes. 4to. 61. 6s. boards. Payne.

HE great work that is at prefent the object of our

THE confideration, is the production of a gentleman equally

remarkable for his love of mufic, and for the laborious refearches to which he has fpontaneously fubmitted in the profecution of this arduous undertaking.

Sir John Hawkins informs us in the Preface, that these volumes are the refult of fixteen years application, and are compiled from materials which were not collected in double that period. It evidently appears that neither pains nor expence have been spared in conducting the inquiries; and many of these are such as could only be obtained by a degree of skill and erudition, equal, if not fuperior, to what is requifite in any other literary inveftigation. Befides an examination of the vast stock of miscellaneous materials collected by the indefatigable Dr. Pepufch, fo much celebrated for his profound knowledge in the theory of the fcience, and which have ever fince been accumulating, Sir John Hawkins has had recourse to the Bodleian, and the college libraries in both universities; to that in the mufic-school at Oxford; to the British Museum, and to the public libraries and repofitories of records in London and Westminster. Even the manfions of the dead have been entered, under the direction of the induftrious and learned author, for the purpose of ascertainVOL. XLII. Nov. 1776.

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ing

ing facts and dates, by fepulchral and monumental infcriptions.

After the profecution of researches fo extenfive and elaborate, it may juftly be prefumed that the work which is now offered to the public, contains fuch multifarious and recondite information, relative to the principles of mufic, and the progrefs of the fcience, as hitherto has hardly ever been amassed in the moft copious treatifes on the subject.

In reviewing a work of this uncommon nature, we muft acknowledge that we feel all the weight of the arduous province in which we are engaged. An adequate acquaintance both with the theory and practice of mufic, is a qualification that can be fuppofed very rarely to accompany those who have chiefly devoted their time and ftudy to the more general pursuits of literature. Indeed if this were not a propofition that would be readily admitted, it might be fufficiently evinced from many observations in the volumes which now lie before us. For, not to mention other inftances, we there find Dryden and Addison, who were our predeceffors in criticism, accufed of palpable ignorance in the fcience of mufic, whenever they write of that fubject. Our anxiety, however is alleviated by the confideration, that we were lately exercised in perufing a work of a fimilar kind *, and that cur attention will be principally employed on hiftorical anecdotes and remarks.

The Hiftory is preceded by a preliminary Difcourse, of -which we fhall give a curfory account.

After drawing a comparison of poetry, painting, and mufic, Sir John Hawkins enters upon the confideration of the writers who have treated of the latter of thefe fciences.

If, fays he, we take a view of thofe authors who have written ́on mufic, we fhall find them comprehended under three claffes, confifting of those who have refolved the principles of the fcience into certain mathematical proportions; of others who -have treated it fyftematically, and with a view to practice; and of a third, who, confidering found as a branch of phyfics, have from various phenomena explained the manner in which it is generated and communicated to the auditory faculty. But to whom we are indebted for the gradual improvements of the art, at what periods it flourished, what checks and obftructions it has at times met with, who have been its patrons or its enemies, what have been the characteristics of its most eminent profeffors, few are able to tell. Nor has the knowledge of its precepts been communicated in fuch a manner as to enable any but fuch as have devoted themselves to the ftudy of the science

* Dr. Burney's Hiftory of Mufic.

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to understand them. Hence it is that men of learning have been betrayed into numberless errors refpecting mufic; and when ..they have prefumed to talk about it, have difcovered the groffeft ignorance. When Strada, in the perfon of Claudian, recites the fable of the Nightingale and the Lyrift, how does his invention labour to defcribe the contest, and how does he err in the confufion of the terms melody and harmony; and in giving to mufic either attributes that belong not to it, or which are its leaft excellence! and what is his whole poem but a vain attempt to excite ideas for which no correfpondent words are to be found in any language? Nor does he, who talks of the genius of the world, of the firft beauty, and of univerfal harmony, fymmetry, and order, the sublime author of the Characteristics, dif. cover much knowledge of his fubject, when, after afferting with the ptmoft confidence that the ancients were acquainted with parts and fymphony, he makes it the teft of a good judge in mufic that he understand a fiddle."

• Sir William Temple, fpeaking of mufic in his Effay upon the ancient and modern Learning, has betrayed his ignorance of the fubject in a comparifon of the modern mufic with the ancient; wherein, notwithstanding that Paleftrina, Bird, and Gibbons lived in the fame century with himself, and that the writings of Shakespeare, and the Paradife Loft were then extant, he fcruples not to affert that "the science is wholly loft in, the world, and that in the room of mufic and poetry we have nothing left but fiddling and rhyming."

Mr. Dryden, in thofe two admirable poems, Alexander's Feaft, and his leffer Ode for St. Cecilia's day, and in his Elegy on the death of Purcell, with great judgment gives to the feveral inftruments mentioned by him their proper attributes; and recurring perhaps to the numerous common places in his memory refpecting mufic, has defcribed its effects in adequate terms; but when in the prefaces to his operas he fpeaks of recitative, of fong, and the comparative merit of the Italian, the French, and the English compofers, his notions are fo vague and indeterminate, as to convince us that he was not mafter of his fubject, and does little elfe than talk by rote.

Mr. Addifon, in thofe fingularly humorous papers in the Spectator, intended to ridicule the Italian opera, is neceffitated to fpeak of mufic, but he does it in fuch terms, as plainly indicate that he had no judgment of his own to direct him. In the paper, Numb. 18, the higheft encomium he can vouchsafe mufic is, that it is an agreeable entertainment; and a little after he complains of our fondness for the foreign mufic, not caring whether it be Italian, French, or High Dutch, by which latter we may fuppofe the author meant the mufic of Mynheer Hendel, as he calls him.'

The author juft obferves, that to remove the prejudices refpecting mufic, which thofe only entertain who are ignorant of the science, or are mistaken in its nature and end;