To Hift'ry gave a philofophic air,

And made the intereft of mankind her care;
Pleas'd her grave brow with garlands to adorn,
And from the rofe of Knowledge ftrip the thorn.'
The English hiftorians are next introduced.

Hail to thee, Britain! hail! delightful land!
I fpring with filial joy to reach thy strand:
And thou! bleft nourisher of Souls, fublime
As e'er immortaliz'd their native clime,
Rich in Poetic treasures, yet excufe
The trivial offering of an humble Mufe,
Who pants to add, with fears by love o'ercome,
Her mite of Glory to thy countless fum!
With vary'd colours, of the richest die,
Fame's brilliant banners o'er thy Offspring fly:
In native Vigour bold, by Freedom led,
No path of Honour have they fail'd to tread :
But while they wifely plan, and bravely dare,
Their own atchievements are their latest care.
Tho' CAMDEN, rich in Learning's various flore,
Sought in Tradition's mine Truth's genuine ore,
The wafte of Hift'ry lay in lifeless fhade,

Tho' RAWLEIGH's piercing eye that world furvey'd
Tho' mightier Names there caft a cafual glance,
They feem'd to faunter round the field by chance,
Till CLARENDON arose, and in the hour
When civil Difcord wak'd each mental Power,
With brave defire to reach this diftant Goal,
Strain'd all the vigour of his manly foul.
Nor Truth, nor Freedom's injur'd Powers, allow
A wreath unfpotted to his haughty brow:
Friendship's firm fpirit fill his fame exalts,

With fweet atonement for his leffer faults.
His Pomp of Phrase, his Period of a mile,
And all the maze of his bewilder'd Style,
Illum'd by Warmth of Heart, no more offend:
What cannot Tafte forgive, in FALKLAND's friend?
Nor flow his praises from this fingle fource;
One province of his art difplays his force:
His Portraits boaft, with features ftrongly like,
The foft precifion of the clear VANDYKE:
Tho', like the Painter, his faint talents yield,
And fink embarrass'd in the Epic field,
Yet fhall his labours long adorn our Ifle,
Like the proud glories of fome Gothic pile:
They, tho' conftructed by a Bigot's hand,
Nor nicely finish'd, nor correctly plan'd,
With folemn Majefty, and pious Gloom,
An awful influence o'er the mind affume;
And from the alien eyes of every Sect
Attract obfervance, and command respect.
REV. July, 1780.

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In

In following years, when thy great name, NASSAU!
Stampt the bleft deed of Liberty and Law;
When clear, and guiltlefs of Oppreffion's rage,
There rofe in Britain an Auguftan age,
And clufter'd Wits by emulation bright,
Diffus'd o'er ANNA's reign their mental light;
That Conftellation feem'd, tho' ftrong its flame,
To want the fplendor of Historic fame:
Yet BURNET's page may lafting glory hope,
Howe'er infulted by the spleen of POPE.

Though his rough Language hafte and warmth denote,
With ardent Honefty of Soul he wrote;

Tho' critic cenfures on his work may fhower,
Like Faith, his Freedom has a faving power.

Nor fhalt thou want, RAPIN! thy well-earn'd praife;
The fage POLYBIUS thou of modern days!

Thy Sword, thy Pen, have both thy name endear'd;
This join'd our Arms, and that our Story clear'd:
Thy foreign hand discharg'd th' Hiftorian's truft,
Unfway'd by Party, and to Freedom juft.
To letter'd Fame we own thy fair pretence,
From patient Labour, and from candid Senfe.
Yet Public Favour, ever hard to fix,
Flew from thy page, as heavy and prolix.
For foon, emerging from the Sophists' school,
With Spirit eager, yet with Judgment cool,
With fubtle skill to fteal upon applaufe,
And give falfe vigour to the weaker cause ;
To paint a fpecious fcene with nicest art,
Retouch the whole, and varnish every part;
Graceful in Style, in Argument acute;
Matter of every trick in keen Difpute!
With thefe ftrong powers to form a winning tale,
And hide Deceit in Moderation's veil,
High on the pinnacle of Fashion plac'd,
HUME fhone the idol of Hiftoric Tafle.

Already, pierc'd by Freedom's fearching rays,
The waxen fabric of his fame decays.-

Think not, keen Spirit! that these hands prefume
To tear each leaf of laurel from thy tomb!

Thefe hands! which, if a heart of human frame
Could ftoop to harbour that ungenerous aim,

Would shield thy Grave, and give, with guardian care,
Each type of Eloquence to flourish there!

But Public Love commands the painful tafk,
From the pretended Sage to ftrip the mask,
When his falfe tongue, averfe to Freedom's caufe,
Profanes the fpirit of her ancient laws.

As Afia's foothing opiate Drugs, by stealth,
Shake every flacken'd nerve, and fap the health;
Thy Writings thus, with noxious charms refin'd,
Seeming to foothe its ills, unnerve the Mind.

While

=

While the keen cunning of thy hand pretends
To ftrike alone at Party's abject ends,

Our hearts more free from Faction's Weeds we feel,
But they have loft the Flower of Patriot Zeal.
Wild as thy feeble Metaphyíc page,

Thy Hift'ry rambles into Sceptic rage;
Whofe giddy and fantastic dreams abuse

A HAMPDEN'S Virtue, and a SHAKESPEAR'S Muse.
With purer Spirit, free from Party ftrife,
To foothe his evening hour of honour'd life,
See candid LYTTELTON at length unfold
The deeds of Liberty in days of old!

Fond of the theme, and narrative with age,
He winds the lengthen'd tale thro' many a page;
But there the beams of Patriot Virtue fhine;
There Truth and Freedom fanctify the line,
And laurels, due to Civil Wisdom, fhield

This noble Neftor of th' Hiftoric field.'

To point out, to Readers of tafte, the mafterly touches of the pencil and the strength of colouring that are obfervable in these, and indeed all his portraits, would be needlefs. The characters of Hume and Clarendon are of peculiar excellence. The comparison between the labours of the latter hiftorian and

-The proud glories of fome Gothic pile

is fingularly happy. He avoids entering into the merits of any living hiftorian, for reasons that are obvious.

In the laft Epiftle, the Author, confining himself more clofely to his fubject, confiders the fource from whence are derived the chief defects of hiftory. These are vanity, national and private flattery, party spirit, fuperftition and falfe philofophy. The influence of national vanity is exemplified in the application of prodigies and portents to the purposes of history.

To feize this foible, daring Hift'ry threw

Illufive terrors o'er each scene she drew;
Nor would her fpirit, in the heat of youth,
Watch, with a Vestal's care, the lamp of Truth;
But, wildly mounting in a Witch's form,

Her voice delighted to condenfe the ftorm;

With fhowers of blood th' aftonish'd earth to drench,
The frame of Nature from its bafe to wrench;

In horror's veil involve her plain events,

And shake th' affrighted world with dire portents.
Still fofter arts her fubtle fpirit try'd,

To win the easy faith of Public Pride:
She told what Powers, in times of early date,
Gave confecration to the infant State;
Mark'd the bleft spot by facred Founders trod,
And all th' atchievements of the guardian God.
Thus while, like Fame, the rests upon the land,
Her figure grows; her magic limbs expand;

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Her

Her tow'ring head, towards Olympus toft,
Pierces the sky, and in that blaze is lost.

In a note on this paffage, Mr. Hayley obferves, there is a curious treatise of Dr. Warburton's on this fubject, which is become very scarce; it is entitled, "A critical and philofophical "Enquiry into the causes of prodigies and miracles, as related by "Hiftorians, with an Effay towards reftoring a method and "purity in Hiftory." It contains, like most of the compofitions of this dogmatical Writer, a ftrange mixture of judicious criticism and entertaining abfurdity, in a ftyle fo extraordinary, that I think the following fpecimens of it may amufe a Reader who has not happened to meet with this fingular book.-Having celebrated Raleigh and Hyde, as writers of true hiftoric genius, he adds: "Almost all the reft of our Hiftories want Life, Soul, Shape, and Body: a mere hodge-podge of abortive embryos and rotten carcafes, kept in an unnatural ferment (which the vulgar mistake for real life) by the rank leven of prodigies and portents. Which can't but afford good diverfion to the Critic, while he observes how naturally one of their own fables is here mythologized and explained, of a church-yard carcafe, raifed and fet a frutting by the inflation of fome hellifh fuccubus within." He then paffes a heavy cenfure on the antiquarian publications of Thomas Hearne; in the clofe of which he exclaims-" Wonder not, Reader, at the view of these extravagancies. The Hiftoric Muse, after much vain longing for a vigorous adorer, is now fallen under that indifpofition of her fex, fo well known by a depraved appetite for trafh and cinders.” -Having quoted two paffages from this fingular Critic, in which his metaphorical language is exceedingly grofs, candour ob

We apprehend the emphafis is improperly thrown upon the last fyllable: analogical propriety, as well as general cuftom, pointing out a different mode of pronunciation than that which is here adopted. In all prepofitions, compounded as this is, the emphafis is univerfally laid on the first fyllable; and the reafon feems to be, that the word, when thus compounded, takes its peculiar and determinate meaning from that fyllable. Forward, onward, upward, downward, backward, &c. or, as they are alfo written, forwards, onwards, &c. ; to these may be added alfo, froward and toward, in their moral acceptation. A liberty of the fame kind has been taken with another word, about which, indeed, writers are more divided.

And blazons virtue in her bright record. E. I. 1. 96.
The tuneful record of her oral praife. E.
Has drawn diftin&ly in her clear record

I. l. 117.
E. II. 1. 67.

Would thus pollute the records of our ifle. E. III. 1. 328. Analogy and cuftom in this inftance feem to be at variance. Whichever authority is preferred, we think it should be adhered to; for a writer to use different modes of pronunciation promiscuously, adds much to the confufion and uncertainty of language..

8

liges me to transcribe another, which is no lefs remarkable for elegance and beauty of expreffion. In defcribing Salluft, at one time the loud advocate of public fpirit, and afterwards fharing in the robberies of Cæfar, he expreffes this variation of character by the following imagery:-" No fooner did the warm afpect of good fortune fhine out again, but all those exalted ideas of virtue and honour, raifed like a beautiful kind of froft-work, in the cold feafon of adverfity, diffolved and difappeared."

The manly ftrain of virtuous indignation which breaks out in the following paffage merits at this time particular attention: it is fuch as every one must join in, who is not actuated by the fame mean and contemptible fervility which it is intended to reprobate.

But arts of deeper guile, and baser wrong,

To Adulation's fubtle Scribes belong :
They oft, their prefent idols to exalt,
Profanely burst the confecrated vault;

Steal from the buried Chief bright Honour's plume,
Or ftain with Slander's gall the Statesman's tomb:
Stay, facrilegious flaves! with reverence tread
O'er the bleft afhes of the worthy dead!
See! where, uninjur'd by the charnel's damp,
The Vestal, Virtue, with undying lamp,
Fond of her toil, and jealous of her truft,
Sits the keen Guardian of their facred duft,
And thus indignant, from the depth of earth,
Checks your vile aim, and vindicates their worth:
"Hence ye! who buried excellence belied,
"To footh the fordid fpleen of living Pride;
"Go! gild with Adulation's feeble ray
"Th' imperial pageant of your paffing day!
"Nor hope to ftain, on base Detraction's feroll,
"A TULLY's morals, or a SIDNEY's foul!"— *

Towards the conclufion, he pays a very juft and elegant compliment to Mr. Gibbon, not without a fevere cenfure on his polemical opponents. The irreligious fpirit, however, of his friend's writings he by no means defends or approves: he has hinted at it with a delicacy of reproof that is likely to ope

* Nor hope to ftain, on base Detraction's fcroll,

A Tully's morals, or a Sidney's foul!] Dion Caffius, the fordid advocate of defpotifm, endeavoured to depreciate the character of Cicero, by inferting in his History the most indecent Oration that ever difgraced the page of an Hiftorian. In the opening of his 46th book, he introduces Q. Fufius Galenus haranguing the Roman fenate against the great ornament of that affembly, calling Cicero a magician, and accusing him of proftituting his wife, and committing inceft with his daughter. Some late hiftorical attempts to fink the reputation of the great Algernon Sidney, are fo recent, that they will occur to the remembrance of almost every Reader.

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