IX. Asiatic Researches; or Transactions of the Society instituted in Bengal, for inquiring into the History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature of Asia. Vol. X. X. Travels in various Countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. XIII. Rokeby, a Poem. By Walter Scott, Esq. XIV. An Appeal to the Gospel; or an Enquiry into the Justice of the Charge alleged by Methodists and other Objectors, that the Gospel is not preached by the national Clergy: in a Series of Discourses, de- livered before the University, in the Year 1812, at the Lecture founded by the late Rev. J. Bampton, M.A. Canon of Salisbury. By Richard Mant, M.A. Vicar of Great Coggeshall, Essex, and late Fellow XV. A full Report of the Trial of John and Leigh Hunt, Proprietors of the Examiner, on an Information filed ex officio by the Attorney-General, decided by Lord Ellenborough and a special Jury, in the King's Bench, Westminster, Wednesday the 9th of Decem- ber, 1812. To which are added, Observations on the Trial, by the Editor of the Examiner XVI. Elements of Musical Composition, comprehending the Rules of Thorough Bass, and the Theory of Tuning. By William Crotch, Mus. Doc. Prof. Ŏxon. XVII, Horace in London, consisting of Imitations of the XVIII. A View of the Progress and present State of Animal Chemistry. By Jöns Jacob Berzelius, M.D. Pro- fessor of Medicine and Pharmacy, &c. Translated from the Swedish by Gustavus Brunnmark, D.D. XX. Remorse, a Tragedy, in five Acts. By S. T. Coleridge 361 XXI. An Address to the Parishioners of St. Pancras, Middle- sex, on the Subject of the intended Application to Parliament for a new Church. By T. F. Middle- XXII. Things by their right Names. A Novel. By a Per- XXIII. Comedies of Aristophanes, viz. the Clouds, Plutus, the Frogs, the Birds. Translated into English, with XXIV. The Geographical and Historical Dictionary of Ame- rica and the West Indies, containing an entire Trans- lation of the Spanish Work of Colonel Don Antonio de Alcedo, Captain of the Royal Spanish Guards, and Member of the Royal Academy of History, with large Additions and Compilations from modern The Substance of the Speech of W. Huskisson, Esq. in the House of Commons, in a Committee of the whole House, upon the Resolutions proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer respecting the State of the Finances and the Sinking Fund of Great Bri- tain, on Thursday the 25th March, 1813 XXVII. Colonial Ecclesiastical Establishment, being a brief View of the State of the Colonies of Great Britain and of the Asiatic Empire, in respect to religious In- struction; prefaced by some Considerations on the national Duty of affording it. To which is added, A Sketch of an Ecclesiastical Establishment for British India, humbly submitted to the Consideration of the Imperial Parliament. By the Rev. Claudius Bucha- nan, D. D. late Vice-Provost of the College of Fort William, in Bengal, and Member of the Asiatic XXVIII. The Countess and Gertrude, or Modes of Dicipline. By Lætitia Matilda Hawkins. In four Volumes XXIX. Asiatic Researches; or, Transactions of the Society instituted in Bengal, for enquiring into the History 412 460 THE BRITISH REVIEW, AND LONDON CRITICAL JOURNAL. OCTOBER, 1812. ART. I.-Memoirs of the public Life of John Horne Tooke, Esq. containing a particular Account of his Connections with the most eminent Characters of the Reign of George III. his Trials for Sedition, High Treason, &c. with his most celebrated Speeches in the House of Commons, on the Hustings, Letters, &c. By W. Hamilton Reid. 8vo. pp. 192. London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones. 1812. In this age in which every man living considers himself as qualified for a biographer, one has only to die to become a hero. The obsequies of no man are now complete without his biographer as well as his undertaker, and to consecrate to fame the virtues of the deceased, is as much in the order of things, as to commit his body to the dust. In times so liberal of encomium on the dead, it would have been strange, indeed, if Mr. Horne Tooke had left nobody behind him to take care of his memory, and to acquaint those that remain with the full extent of their loss. The gentleman who has piously executed this task, and whose work is now in our hands, was not, we must confess, at all known to us in his literary character, until we met with this specimen of his talents and taste and probably we shall remain in ignorance of the full extent of his merits, unless we shall happen to live long enough to read his claims to our gratitude in the pages of his own biographer. As reviewers, however, we have some present obligations to the author. He has written a very little book; and has therein afforded so decisive a proof of his qua VOL. IV. NO, VII. B lifications for judging of the merit of Mr. Horne Tooke, both as a politician and a philosopher, that we are spared the trouble of making one critical observation on his work. It will be quite enough to produce a single passage from the book, at once to fix the intellectual character of the writer in the estimation of every reader of the smallest intelligence. The following passage exhibits a fair average specimen of the genius, the spirit, the reasoning, and the dialect of some of our reforming patriots. "But notwithstanding all the plausibility of these gentlemen, and the pretended loyalty of those who stigmatize every complaint with the name of croaking, stubborn and unyielding facts, which mark the present period as without any precedent in the annals of our history, with real dearth and absolute scarcity, have frequently for a time afflicted this and other kingdoms, to the ruin and distress of thousands. But the perpetuation of famine was reserved for Mr. Pitt and the friends and advocates of eternal war. If the cause of the high price of provisions is asked-the answer is ready in one word, and that is-war. A war unprecedented in its causes as well as its effects. As to its causes, they are unhappily concealed in consequence of the length of its duration. The minds of men are mostly made up from the most recent, and not from distant occasions. "The length of any contest renders its origin so comparatively dark and complicated, that few have time or patience to make the necessary enquiries. The indolent many, therefore, adopt the opinions of the active and interested few. It is the same with the common ideas of the rise and results of the present war; of which too many argue as if a proposition not perfectly demonstrable in the whole, might not be allowed to be so in part. And thus if a house is evidently falling, we must not say so till it is evidently a heap of ruins. "One truth is clear, that unless the price of provisions quickly fall, that of labour rise, or trade recover its original vigour, many thousands more of aged persons and children must fall upon the parishes. The number of paupers already amount to a fifth part of the population. It was lately hinted to government in an examination relative to a town in the north, where many hundred manufacturers are out of employ, that it would be a favour to provide them with implements of husbandry, and send them to New South Wales! The every day appearance of many once busy towns, is now become that of Sunday, for its stillness and absence of business. In countries where many little farms have been enveloped in great ones, the surrounding cottages have mostly disappeared; the young men are in the armies, and the old ones in the workhouses. But this is not all; the symptoms of decay have reached the capital, the heart of the country. It is no exaggeration to say, that half of the counting houses in London are shut up, or nearly deserted; these and warehouses are now every where |