Lord Littelton's Letters, which is repeated in the notes: where alfo one or two fhort poems are inferted. ART. 13. Pendeh-F-Attar. The Counfels of Attar, edited from a Perfian Manufcript, by the Rev. J. H, Hindley, A. M. 12mo. Black and Parry. This is a collection of moral poems in the Perfian language, by a very celebrated Poet of that country, who flourished in the twelfth century. An account of him may be found in Herbelot, and in Major Stewart's Catalogue of the Oriental Library of the late Tippoo Saib. There is alfa a tranflation of these poems in Latin among the manufcripts of the Harleian collection. We prefume that to ftudents in the Perfian language Mr. Hindley, the editor, will appear to have rendered effential fervice, as we have the authority of Sir William Jones, who has made many remarks on the poems, for recommending them as well worthy of attention. They are feventy-fix in number, and are all upon reli. gious and moral fubjects. ART. 14. The Lion and the Water-Wag-Tail: a Mock Hexoie Poem, in Three Cantos. By Caftigator. 12mo. 174 PP: 5s. Sherwood and Co. 1809. This is a burlefque but not unpoetical narrative of the plots carried on with intent to difgrace the late commander in chief. That the author is capable of higher efforts is plain, by what he has here executed, in a free, but often vigorous ftyle. The following fpecimens will prove this, to every reader capable of judging. He begins thus: "I write, by indignation fpurr'd, A poem to explain a word." Well, What is this word? Is it gold? love? ambition? No, fays the poet, "My word means none of thefe; these tend Some point to gain, embrace fome end; My word, that fo the mind can thrall, Tends to embrace no end at all, And did the pens of all the men With its own gall, 'twould not describe it. Pretends through ignorance to be wife; In a word, as we cannot afford a long quotation; A troop of human nature's foes, And common fenfe perverted, try To make men fink, despair, and droop---. And loathfome leave the fane and hearty; My word means thefe; what is it ?-PARTY.' P. 10. That the poem must have been haftily written, is evident, but that he who could write fo in hafte, and could fo vary a fubje&t, not in itself poetical, muft have very excellent powers, is clear past all denial. We hope to meet him again. ART. 15. Lines addrejed to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, on his being appointed Regent, by Philopatria, Jun. 8vo. 28. Sherwood. 1811. As this is the first poetical tribute to the Regent that has prefented itself, at least to an examination, it feems but fair to exhibit a fpecimen. Better things, we truft, will fucceed. "On ALBION's cliff now finks the glowing blaze, And the Sire Bird in Honor's lap decays. From parent duft behold the Phoenix rife, Fledg'd with new pow'rs, and wing towards the skies. And stop the chafms which forms and winds have rent. NOVELS. P. 3 ART. 16. The Shipwreck, or Memoirs of an Irish Officer and his Family. In three Volumes. By Thomas Edgeworth, Efq. 12mo, 155. Tegg. 1811. ·Mifs Edgworth we know, and Mr. Edgworth we know, but of Thomas Edgworth, Efq. we know nothing. Among the whimficalities of this Irish novel is the following: A man, in this age of boaxing, wishing to play a trick upon another, perfuades him that he has a contract to fupply Ruffia with 2000 cats, there being a prodigious want of that article in that country. He undertakes to pay him at the rate of two guineas per cat. In confequence of this liberal offer, the poor fellow collects cats, to the amount of many hundreds; and the confequent distress, confufion, lofs, and disappointment, is pathetically detailed.Ex uno difce cætera. POLITICS. ART. 17. An Expofé of the prefent ruinous Syftem of Torm and Country Banks, and a Sketch of a Plan for the Establishment of District Banks, to be founded on Principles that must effectually fecure them from the Rife of Bankruptcy. By a British Merchant. 8vo. 40 PP. 25. Wilfon. 1810. "The decay of public fpirit, the bankruptcy of private wealth, and the exorbitant high price of the market," are the great national calamities upon which this writer dwells with much emphafis, though with more declamation than argument, and more affertions than proofs. We agree with him in the wish that public fpirit was more ardent and univerfal, lefs mixed with bafer motives, and more powerful in its effects. But that "the very name of country has difappeared from amongst us," and that this is owing to "the prefent fyftem of town and country banks," we cannot at all admit. His affertions that private bankruptcies are multiplied, and the prices of provifions enhanced, by the prodigious increase of paper credit, and particularly by the extenfive circulation of country bank notes, appear more confonant to truth. But the correction of thefe evils by any legislative provifion is, we conceive, a task of danger and difficulty; and, after all, the diforder appears at certain periods to effect its own cure; and the attendant lofs falls principally on credulous or fpeculating individuals, many of whom, it must be owned, in a great degree, deferve their fate. The fubftitute for country banks propofed by this author, is the establishment of what he terms "diftrict banks," throughout the empire, to be fupported by fubfcription, and managed by directors and trustees, under certain regulations, which he fets forth. Thefe inftitutions muft, we conclude, be established by parliamentary authority, and by the fame autho rity the country banks must be abolished: otherwise, the latter being in poffeffion of the money market (if it may be so termed) the author's propofed district banks would enter into a very dif advantageous competition, and probably increase the evils which they are defigned to remedy. Yet fuch a legislative measure would, we conceive, be deemed highly arbitrary, and injurious to private property, embarked to a large amount, in thefe con. cerns; and there is no probability, we think, of its ever being adopted by parliament. A lefs violent, and perhaps a more practicable remedy would, in our apprehenfion be, to regulate the prefent banking establishments in country towns, and restrain them from iffuing notes to a greater amount than the property invested in their trade, or poffeffed by the feveral partners engaged in it. But even to fuch regulations there may be objec. tions of which we are not at prefent aware. The fubject, how. ever, merits attention; and few, if any, of our statesmen are capable of forming a more accurate judgment on this, as on every other political measure, than the gentleman to whom the author has addreffed his work. ART. 18. A Letter addreffed to the Right Hon. Lord Grenville. By a Briton. 8vo. 174 pp. Vernor and Hood. 1810. Of the political rhapsodies which our duty has impelled us to perufe, we have scarcely met with one fo rambling and incoherent as that now before us. Profeffing to advise and admonish the Noble Lord addressed, on his future conduct as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, the author launches into a variety of topics, and entertains us with various, but not very fhrewd remarks, on most of the political characters of the prefent age; but no clear view of any fubject, no connected feries of argument, fcarcely any fixed principle or distinct object appears throughout the work. The moft, or rather the only, useful fuggeftion is in the early part of the Letter; in which the writer complains that fo many perfons, especially in the north of England, are admitted into orders who have not been educated at either of our Univer. fities, and recommends that their establishments fhould be fo far enlarged as to admit all who are destined to the facred office. It cannot be denied that great numbers are already educated and supported by thofe inftitutions; and the further extenfion of them (though no doubt defirable) must be the work of time. As to the author's political remarks: they do not, in general, agree with our fentiments; but it is impoffible to difcufs them here. He feems animated with much hatred and contempt of the Gren ville family, and peculiarly hoftile to the Marquis of Wellesley (in our opinion the preferver of India) whom he would have again tried for his conduct towards the native Indian powers, though he has already been acquitted by a great majority in Parliament; But the moft barefaced calumny is on the merit of that great and ever-to-be-lamented minifter, Mr. Pitt; whom the author dares to accufe of "furreptitiously and scandalously obtaining (what he calls) the refcinding of the refolution of the Houfe of Commons," namely," the acquittal in the House of Lords." Where can this author have lived if he is ignorant that the trial of Lord Melville did not commence till some months after the decease of Mr. Pitt? If knowingly he uttered this calumny, we have not words to ex prefs our opinion of fuch a writer. After this Tample, no reader (if any one but a reviewer can read fuch a farrago throughout) will wonder at the praises lavished on Horne Tooke, Sir F. Burdett, et hoc genus omne, or at the uncandid attacks on fuch characters as the Marquis of Wellefley and Mr. Yorke * ? ART. 19. An Appeal to the Public, in Behalf of Nicholas Tomlin fon, Efq. a Captain in his Majefty's Navy. 8vo. 43 PP. Baldwin. 1810. 2s. The cafe of this gentleman, as related by himself, undoubtedly appears in a favourable light. Above fourteen years ago, being then a lieutenant, he commanded a small armed veffel, called the Pelter; which having received confiderable damage in the channel, was obliged, as he ftates, to put into Dartmouth, not being able, from the ftate of the weather, to fetch Plymouth. As there is no royal dock-yard, or establishment, at Dartmouth, the neces fary repairs were, of courfe, performed by workmen, or rather by a fingle fhip-builder, employed by the commander of the ship; and amongst other vouchers tranfmitted by him to the Navy Office, was the receipt of a blackfmith, for twenty-nine pounds five shillings, given to the builder, who undertook the whole work, and included in his account. In the courfe of the last year it was difcovered, or at leaft fufpected, that this receipt was not in the blackfmith's hand-writing; and on this ground, Captain Tomlinfon, after having been carried to Bow Street, (where, he informs us, the Sitting Magiftrates difmiffed the charge as unfounded) was arraigned at the Old Bailey, for "forging and ute tering it as true a receipt for 291. 5s. with intent to defraud his Majefty." If there was, in this tranfaction, any fraud in the builder who undertook the repairs (which we do not mean to infinuate) it cannot be fuppofed that Capt. T. an officer who has diftinguished himfelf by many gallant actions, could have been a participator in the guilt and it appears hard that, under fuch circumstances, and after the lapfe of fourteen years, he fhould be arraigned as a felon at the Old Bailey; more efpecially after the Magiftrates had difmiffed the complaint. Yet we cannot fuppofe that a refpectable public Board, with whom no perfonal motive can be fuppofed to have operated, could have preferred fuch a charge, unlefs fome circumftances (of which we are not aware) made it, in their opinion, an indifpenfable duty. We are glad, however, This writer affects to imitate the ftile of the author of the Purfuits of Literature, but wretchedly caricatures it. We have noticed a number of pedantic, but often blundering quotations from the Claffics; particularly "uxores olentis viri," instead of mariti; by which the fenfe is injured and the metre spoiled, to |