the fame to-day as yesterday; thofe graces, which are not fo much in the objects themfelves, as in the eye of the fpectator, who has often found it difficult to discover them.'

Monf. Grofley feems to apprehend (and we heartily accord with him in his obfervation) that England is indebted for its profperity and grandeur to its feparation from the church of Rome.

If, fays he, de la Fontaine had feen England and Italy, he would doubtless have rectified the memoirs, which he has left us concerning the countries of Papefigue and Papimanie: Papefigue is called, fays he, L'ifle province, ou les gens autrefois Firent la figue au portrait du S. Pere: Punis on font: rien chez eux ne prospere.— L'ifle fut lors donnée en appanage

A Lucifer; c'eft ja maison des champs.

"The ifle and province, the inhabitants of which formerly made mouths at his Holinefs's picture: they are punished for it: nothing fucceeds or profpers with them.-The island was then given to Lucifer as an eftate; his country-house stands upon it.

that

By means of memoirs more authentic, Molza, who was at the fountain-head of information, has made the panegyric of excommunication. According to him, God, to fhew his contempt of worldly things, gives them to the excommunicated. It in fact appears, England has found, in the excommunication under which it lives, and the interdict which it has obferved but too well, the fource of that opulence, fplendor, and power, to which it has attained by degrees, as well as of that liberty which is its most firm fupport.'

From among other, obfervations which this Traveller makes concerning the church of England, we may felect the few fol lowing:

After having fpoken of Bishop Burnet, whom he appears greatly to diflike, he proceeds, The church of England is, at prefent, very far from being actuated by thofe narrow principles which felf-intereft dictated to Dr. Burnet. If we except a few Bishops, who fometimes, but to very little purpose, affect qualms of confcience, the Eng. lith clergy behave to the Diffenters with that nobie confidence, with which every rational body of men is infpired by acknowledged fuperiority: they would, however, be glad that all Proteftant Diffenters would be fatisfied to fay their prayers in private; they esteem fome individuals among the Catholics; but they have very little regard for the body in general.The ftation of minifters in London, in the country-towns, and in the country itself, is, in proportion to their rank, very honourable. The Universities are the ordinary feminaries of clergymen. Youth, inftructed in thefe places by public authority, imbibe no principles and prejudices but fuch as fuit with the English government.- A college life, continued by those who intend for orders, generally gives them that felf-fufficient, affuming, and almoft infolent air, which, in fome measure, gains upon the the inferior clergy of France.--The Bishops, under the denomination of Spiritual Lords, have preferved the right of fitting in the upper houfe of parliament, where they are placed on the right fide of the

throne;

throne; but fcarce is their opinion afked: they always vote with the court; whether it be that the lives which fome of them have led at the univerfities, at fchools, and in libraries, have made them but little acquainted with affairs of ftate and political difcuffions, or that they are apprehenfive of rifking the dignity of their characters, by entering into thefe debates, which are often carried on with great warmth.The English clergy are not in their own country either aliens or the flaves of a foreign power: the ties which bind them to their children, unite them at the fame time to the flate. Hence the clergy, as well as the Bishops, are always devoted to the prevailing party in the government: thus we find that in all the revolutions by which England has been agitated fince the Reformation, the eftablished church has never taken the lead, but has quietly followed the impulfe given by the directing power.The English clergy are very tractable with regard to feveral articles in which all Chriftian communions are agreed; if, when the liturgy was compiled, they had thought as they now do for the most part, it feems doubtful whether the Athanafian Creed would hold the place, which it has at prefent, in the body of that liturgy. With regard to the punish ments of a future ftate, whilft, with Zuinglius, they limit their duration, they have nothing left but the fame purgatory which furnished the first reformers with their principal topics of declamation against the church of Rome. Who ever went to the other world to fee? was the answer made by a grave divine, whom I questioned concerning the prefent ftate of that question.'

Our Traveller proceeds to offer various obfervations concerning the foundations in favour of the fciences, and other public eftablishments for the benefit of the nation, all of which he with great truth fpeaks of as honourable to this kingdom. He confiders our civil wars, and the changes which they introduced, as having been very beneficial to the culture and improvement of arts and literature.

• Cromwell, he remarks, did not reign upon principles capable of forming a numerous or brilliant court. The nobility, condemned to occupations which could not give the vigilant eye of the Ufurper any umbrage, had no refource but in philofophy and the cultivation of the intellectual faculties: fuch had been the refource of the first men of Rome, in the combuftion of the civil wars of Sylla, Cæfar, and Auguftus. The English genius electrified, if I may be allowed the expreffion, by the fhock of revolutions, attached itself to fcience and literature, and that with an ardour of application which foon produced mafter-pieces in all the different fpecies of compofition:' In a comparative view of the meafures taken in France and England for the promotion of learning, our Author makes the following obfervation :

The condition of men of letters, either fcattered up and down among the citizens, or enrolled in learned focieties, has not the leaft refemblance in the two nations. The focieties established in England on the principles of independency, acknowledge no laws but those under which they have laid themselves: in the eye of an Englishman, the academies which Paris fo much boats, are, with refpect

to

to men of learning, what coops are to birds, and ponds to filhes, The English confider our penfions and court gratifications of learned men in no other light but as the wages of dependency to thofe who receive them, and as fhackles to the liberty of fpeaking and writing. --If we confider men of letters in the light of citizens: in France, fequeftered from fociety, and as it were, in exile, they pafs their lives. in a manner to all appearance ufclefs both to the ftate and themfelves; whilst in England they are scattered among the clergy, in the army, and the law; and, to the advantage of their country, difcharge all the functions which it requires of thofe feveral profeffions they fupport literature and fcience upon a ground, which would be ufurped by ignorance were they to forfake it.'.

The progrefs of the English, in the polite arts, has not, in the opinion of this Writer, been extraordinary.

Among the travellers of that kingdom, fays he (that is, among the greater part of the gentry and nobility) there are numbers of connoiffeurs who indulge this taite with all the impetuofity of their national genius. They have not, however, been as yet fuccessful in forming artists capable of vying with those who fprung up fo falt in Greece, Italy, and even in France, at the command of a Pericles; of the house of Medici, or of Colbert.'

In examining the pages which treat on the ftate of the arts, in this country, the Reader will no doubt discover, as upon other occafions, that truth is fometimes intermixed with mistake; the remarks are indeed too general and imperfect to lead to any fair and fatisfactory conclufion. The English are faid to have a kind of rambling tafte, and, as the refult of this Writer's investigation, (which could not be fufficiently accurate to allow him to determine fairly on the fubject) to have no tafte of their own.

• But, he adds, what nation in Europe ever had a taste of its own? The love of change and novelty throws our taftes into a fluctuation and uncertainty, and into thofe inconfiftencies which torment a child in the midst of its play-things and babies. Each nation thus tormented, often ridiculous in the eyes of its neighbours, periodically fo even in its own eyes, is neither lefs happy nor content, nor less filled with an exclufive admiration for its own productions and fan cies. The fixed and invariable tastes are established

Ultra Sauromatas ;

That is to fay, in the most remote parts of Afia, in those countries, whofe inhabitants, not fo much through choice as indolence, drefs, build, furnish their houfes, fing, paint, and write in the fame manner at prefent as they did 3000 years ago.'

Under the article eloquence, he reprefents our pulpit declamation, as a tedious monotony; that of the bar, as not fixed, being rather, he fays, a long dialogue between the counsellors, than a continued difcuffion of the point of law, or matter of fact; but real eloquence he allows is difplayed in the parliament. He fpeaks highly of our fovereign in this view, having heard him more than once deliver his fpeech in the House of Lords; it w then the English language was pronounced with all its

3

grace

it feemed to him to have a cadence and harmony quite new to his ear, and it appeared to him no lefs harmonious and agreeable in the mouth of Lord Mansfield: The Monarch, he adds, fpeaks to the foul, the Lord Chief Juftice to the underftanding.'

An account of the English laws, courts of juftice, form of government, and other fubjects immediately connected with these, conftitutes a great part of the fecond volume of this work; intermixed with fome fenfible remarks and difquifitions, together with hiftorical relations and amufing anecdotes: but these are commonly fo interwoven with the topics directly under confideration that we could not properly offer many extracts from them, even if we had not already exceeded the limits to which the na ture of our work ufually confines us. Let us however give a brief view of what this traveller fays under article, The King.

After having obferved that the variety of paffions conftantly in play among the English, requires the utmost dexterity in the hand which undertakes to direct them, he adds,

The advice which Phoebus gave his fon, before he put the reins of his chariot into his hand, feems to be addreffed to a prince who afcends the throne of England:

Parce, puer, ftimulis; fed fortiùs utere loris:

Sponte fua properant: labor eft inhibere volentes.

In the prefent itate of things, proceeds our Author, whatever be the merit, however courteous the behaviour, of a King of England, he will find his people actuated by the fentiments which God obferved in the Jewish nation: This people draweth near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.-If, notwithstanding, any King ever deferved the love of his people, it is George III. he leads, at his rural feat near Richmond (a feat much inferior in magnificence and luftre to that of many noblemen) a life of the most regular fimplicity; which he divides entirely between the Queen and his books. It is true he comes every week to hold a levee and a drawing-room at St. James's; but the court is by no means brilliant; he comes with the Queen in a very plain equipage, escorted by a few light horfe. I have already obferved that coachmen and carmen, never ftop at his approach, and that they take a pride in not bowing to him: "Why fhould we bow to George? fay the infolent rabble: he should bow to us: he lives at our expence."-This is a grofs mifreprefentation. The roads are wide enough; and every body gives way to the King and his attendants.

At his court he is affability itself. All thofe he speaks to, he accofts in the most polite manner, and never opens his lips except to fay the moft obliging things. His palace, which has no guard except at the gate, is open to every Englishman, as well as to every foreigner who is attracted thither by curiofity.

The fame fimplicity accompanies the King when he repairs to parliament, to fhew himself in all the luftre of majefty: his hair, which is very thick, and of the finest light colour, tied behind with a ribband, and dreffed by the hand of the Queen, is one of his most Ariking ornaments: he eats in public only when it is unavoidable, RIV. Sept. 1772.

and

and on these occafions he is ferved upon the knee, according to the custom of the house of Auftria, adopted by Henry VIII. This practice would have prevailed in France about the fame period; but Lewis XII. and Francis 1. that is to fay, goodness and affability themfelves, then fat upon the throne: in the opinion of two princes of that character, the greatnefs of a King of France does not depend upon a vain ceremony.'

However acceptable to many English Readers the above pas fage may be, there are fome who will certainly object to the former part of it. It is well known that the English are well difpofed to love their King, and be ftrongly attached to him, whatever complaints they may fee reason to make concerning fome measures of the adminiftration. The honour of a Grand -Monarque, or a blind fubmiffion to arbitrary dictates, as if the inhabitants of a country were wholly formed to fupport the fplendour and luxury of one man, is a principle which they justly abhor; but mild and reasonable methods will commonly fecure their fidelity and affection: and it has indeed been remarked, that nothing is more likely than fuch means, artfully employed, to reduce them into a kind of flavish fubjection. As to the merry, though coarfe, expreffions which fome of the rabble might ufe, little more is to be inferred from thence than a difpofition to jocularity, which they will fometimes venture to indulge, in oppofition to Monf. Grofley's account of the melancholy fo conftantly prevailing among every rank in this na tion; a subject which he feems carefully to have kept in view throughout his work.

It is hardly worth while to take notice of the intimation he feems to intend in the latter part of the extract, concerning the fuperiority of the French to ceremonious cuftoms, &c. or to recriminate by any observations upon what has been fo repeatedly faid of the oftentation, flattery, and fervility, prevalent among that people. Nor need we wonder that this Gentleman, befide a general prepoffeffion in favour of his own country, difcovers a stronger attachment to royalty and defpotism, than we fhould think a mind improved by learning and philofophy could readily admit. He fpeaks with horror of the unhappy catastrophe of Charles I. and, at the fame time, does not attend to those caufes which ferve greatly to extenuate, if they do not entirely justify, the procedure of thofe who found, or thought, themfelves under the fatal neceflity of bringing that unfortunate prince to the fcaffold. And we obferve that he mentions the ardour which Milton difcovered in the caufe of liberty under the depreciating terms of a blind zeal. At the fame time he acknowledges that, for its flourishing state, the preponderancy it has acquired in the balance of Europe, and its naval force in confequence of the Navigation Act, Great Britain is indebted to