when I name the British author in the fame breath with Cicero. And if the fyftem of the noble lord was defigned merely for the courtier, with the courtier let it reft. Without the formality of fyftem, the ftrict obfervance of moral rules is difpenfed with in the negociations

of courts.

Let it be numbered then among courtly privileges to patronize deceit. When perfidy and diffimulation are declared by patent to belong to the members of the diplomatic body, they will become, perhaps, more emphatically, the reprefentatives of Kings.

But while things are thus adjusted to the meridian of courts; while the civil code, in many countries, is no more than the breath of Kings; and in all countries, may be diffolved by legislative power; the moral code, which is paramount to all civil authority, and from which all civil obligations arife, remains eternally in force.

It was delivered from heaven to the people, and to maintain its authority is the jus divinum of nations.

With thefe fentiments I clofe the Effay and fuch fentiments are addreffed more particularly to the British youth by one of their public guardians, who then only feels the full importance of his station when he animates the rifing generation in the pursuits of honour."

These observations of our Author, though but little connected with the fubject of the Effay, cannot fail of being approved by every good citizen, by every friend of virtue; they come with great propriety from the pen of a profeffor of philo fophy and we hope that all the public and private instructors of youth will, in the moft earnest and affectionate manner, endeavour to imprefs their minds with fuch fentiments.

In his fecond Effay, the Doctor treats of Language, as an univerfal accomplishment. He introduces it with obferving, that, in tracing the origin of arts and sciences, it is not uncommon to afcribe to the genius of a few fuperior minds, what arifes neceffarily out of the fyftem of man; that though these are inventions which originate with one only, or with a few authors, yet there are others which neceffarily refer themselves to the multitude; and that the casual exertions of the former ought not to be confounded with the infallible attainments of the fpecies.

Under this precaution he introduces the queftion concerning language, and proceeds to enquire, whether it be derived to us at firft from the happy invention of a few, or to be regarded as an original accomplishment and inveftiture of nature, or to be attributed to fome fucceeding effort of the human mind.

The fuppofed tranfition of the fpecies, from filence to the free exercife of fpeech, fays he, were a tranfition indeed astonishing, and might well feem difproportioned to our intellectual abilities. Neither hif tory nor philofophy are decifive upon this point; and religion, with peculiar wisdom, refers the attainment to a divine original, Suitable to this idea, language may be accounted in part natural, in part artificial: in one view it is the work of Providence, in another it is the work of man. And this difpenfation of things is exactly conformable to the whole analogy of the divine government. With re

spect

fpect to the organs of fpeech, what is there peculiar to boat? The fame external apparatus is common to us and to other animals. In both the workmanship is the fame. In both are difplayed the fame me chanical laws. And in order to confer on them fimilar endowments of speech, nothing more feems neceffary than the enlargement of their ideas, without any alteration of anatomical texture. In like manner, to divest, or to abridge mankind of thefe endowments, feems to imply only the degradation of the mental faculties, without any variation of external form.

It is not then fuppofed that the organs of man alone are capable of forming speech. The voice of fome animals is louder, and the voice of other animals is more melodious than his. Nor is the human ear alone fufceptible of such impreffions. Animals are often conscious of the import, and even recognize the harmony of found. Thus far there fubfilts a near equality. Vifible figns are likewife poffeffed in common; and language, in every fpecies, is the power of main. taining focial intercourfe among creatures of the fame order.

By the fame medium man is able to converfe, in fome fort, with the brute creation; and there the various tribes with each other. But befides fome general figns conftituted to preferve harmony and correspondence among connected fyftems, there are others of a more myfterious kind, deftined for the ufe and accommodation of each parti cular class. In this fcience the fagacity of the philofopher has hither to made no discoveries. The mystery of animal correfpondence will, probably, be always hid; and it is often no more poffible to defcend into the receffes of their intercourfe, than to open a communication with a higher fyftem.

In the great fcale of life, the intelligence of fome beings foars, perhaps, as high above man as the objects of his understanding foar ahove animal life. Let us then imagine a man, in fome other planet, to refide among a people of this exalted character.

Inftructed in the founds of their language, as the more docile animals are inftructed to articulate ours, he might articulate too, but could acquire no more. He might admire the magnificence of founds louder or more melodious than he had heard before. But by reason of a diffimilarity and difproportion of ideas, these founds could never conduct him to the fenfe; and the fecrets of fuch a people would be as fafe in his ears, as ours in the ears of any of our domestic animals.

For the fame reasons, if one of fuperior race were to drop into our world, our language might be, in fome refpects, impenetrable even to his understanding, because deftitute perhaps of fome percep tions effential to our meaner fyftem.

• Thus each order poffeffes fomething peculiar, which is denied to every other; and it belongs to the Author of the universe alone to exhauft that immenfity of knowledge which he has diffused in various kind and proportion through the whole circle of being.

Here is an arrangement of providence coeval with the birth of things; and confidering the fimilarity of organical texture, the taci turnity of the other animals is a problem to be accounted for, as well as the loquacity of man.

• Whence comes it that he alone fo far extends the original grant as almost to consider it as his peculiar and exclusive privilege? Be

tween

tween the lower claffes and him there fubfifts one important diftinction. They are formed ftationary; he progreffive. Had the exact measure of his ideas, as of theirs, been at firft affigned, his language must have stood for ever as fixed and immutable as theirs. But time and mutual intercourse presenting new ideas, and the scenes of life perpetually varying, the expreffion of language muft vary in the fame proportion; and in order to trace out its original, we must go back to the ruder ages, and, beginning with the early dawn, follow the gradual illuminations of the human mind.'

This fubject is extremely curious, and it would give us pleafure to lay before our Readers the whole of what our Author advances upon it; but the limits neceffarily affigned to this Article will not admit of it. He points out the fteps which lead to the more regular combinations of found, fhews in what manner the analogical and difcriminating faculties operate, and the various ways in which language is enriched, and diverfified in its words, in its texture, and in its idiom.

In moft fpeculations upon this fubject, fays he, there reigns a fundamental error. It confifts in referring the rife of ideas and the invention of language to a different æra, as if a time had ever been when mankind laboured for utterance, yet fought in vain to open intellectual treasures, and to be exonerated from the load of their own conceptions. Under this impreffion we are apt to imagine fome great projectors in an early age, balancing a regular plan for the conveyance of fentiment, and the eltablishment of general intercourfe. In fuch circumstances, indeed, they must have revolved in imagination all the fubtleties of logic, and entered far into the science of grammar, before its objects had any exiftence. Profound abstraction and generalization must have been conftantly exercifed; all the relations of thought canvaffed with care, compared with accuracy, and arranged with propriety, and with order: a defign competent, perhaps, to fuperior beings, but by no means compatible with the limited capacity of the human mind. Now thefe difficulties and incumbrances, in a great measure, difappear, by contemplating ideas and language' as uniformly in clofe conjunction; and the changes in the former, and the innovations in the latter, of the fame chronological date.

"A few ideas, in the ruder ages, are fubjected to expreffion with the fame facility, as a greater number in facceeding periods. And hence fpeech, in all its different parts, is already formed when the vocabulary is exceeding fcanty, and there is no variety or abundance in any one class.'

Having confidered fpeech in its lower forms, our Author proceeds, in his third Effay, to enquire into thofe fuperior marks of refinement and art which conftitute the criterion of a polished atongue. But the extracts we have already prefented to our readers are, we hope, fufficient to give fuch of them as are competent judges of works of this kind, an idea of the entertainment they may expect from Dr. Dunbar's performance. We fhall clofe this Article, therefore, with the bare mention of the fubjects of the remaining Effays, which are, The Criterion of

civilized

civilized Manners-The Rank of Nations, and the Revolutions of Fortune-The general Influence of Climate, and the Tendency of local Circumftances to affect the Character and Conduct of Nations-The Relation of Man to the furrounding Elements-Man confidered as the Arbiter of his own Fortune Fashions that predominate among various Tribes of MankindThe Tendency of moral Character to diverfify the human Form And the hereditary Genius of Nations.

Moft of the Effays are followed by Notes, illuftrating particular paffages, and throwing additional light on the subject of the Effay to which they are annexed.

ART. X. An Attempt to afcertain and illuftrate the Authority, Nature, and Defign of the Inftitution of Chrift commonly called the Communion and the Lord's Supper. By William Bell, D.D. Prebendary of St. Peter's, Weftminster, Domeftic Chaplain to her Royal Highness Princefs Amelia. 8vo. 3 s. Boards. Robfon, &c. 1780.

TH

HE obfcurity and absurdity in which the subject of this publication has been involved, is a striking inftance of that fondness for myftery which is to be obferved in the generality of mankind, and of the advantage which artful and interested men have taken of this prevailing foible. The doctrine of tranfubftantiation feems to be the utmoft poffible extent and degree of priestly impofition and delufion. And in proportion as we depart from the plain and fimple account of the Lord's Supper, contained in the Gofpels, and defended and illuftrated by Bifhop Hoadly and the Author of this Treatife, we depart from the principles of common sense and rational piety, and expose ourfelves to all the follies and extravagancies of fuperftition and enthusiasm. It might, indeed, have been imagined, that Bishop Hoadly's Plain Account had rendered any other formal difcuffion of the fubject needlefs. But we believe that no one who reads the prefent Treatife, without prejudice, will think it fuperfluous, or with that it had not been written. And the friends of Bishop Hoadly in particular cannot but be pleased with a publication, in which his Lordship's general fcheme is fo well fupported, the objections made to fome of his arguments fo effectually obviated, and a few incidental miftakes fo judiciously corrected. The account which Dr. Bell has given in his Preface, of the occafion and defign of his work is as follows:

The following Treatife, which took its rife from the Author's endeavours, feveral years ago, to fettle his own notions upon the fubject, is an attempt to reduce the points in question relating to this rite, as near as may be, to demonftration, by examining into the only fources of information from which any true knowledge of it can be authentically deduced; the history of its inftitution given us by the Apoftles, and whatever elfe is faid of it in the New Teftament itself.

• On

On reviewing the argument with the clofeft attention, he has not been able to detect any fallacy, either in the principles affumed, or the confequences drawn from them. But as it is very far from impoffible that he may have been deceived by fome involuntary prejudice in favour of his own conceptions, he now at length fubmits them to the public; that from the unbiaffed judgment of others he may either derive the fatisfaction of being confirmed in the truth of his deductions, or the benefit of having his mistakes clearly pointed out, and fuch conclufions as may prove unexceptionable established. And with the direct view of more easily obtaining one or other of thefe advantages, the enquiry has been purfued through a series of diftinct, though connected propofitions, drawn up in a clofe argumentative form; in order that every fingle principle upon which it proceeds may plainly and fully appear, and the truth or falsehood of every deduction be readily and clearly determined.

For the fundamental principles here enforced, with respect to the nature and effects of the inftitution concerned, the world has long been indebted to the well-known Mr. John Hales of Eton; and for a profeffed argument in their fupport, to a very eminent prelate feveral years fince deceafed. But how clearly foever they have been eftablished by this diftinguished writer, in confequence of objections which have been urged against fome particulars of his reasoning in their defence, the fubject itself ftill remains involved in obfcurity; and not only the public doctrines of each diftin& Proteftant perfuafion, but the private opinions of individuals of perhaps every perfuafion, either vary confiderably from each other, or at least continue vague and indecifive. This obfcurity and want of decision, therefore, it is the profeffed object of the following treatise to remove, by fuch an application of the only principles upon which the points in queftion are capable of being determined, and fo clear a deduction of the material confequences refulting from them, as may evince the true nature of the rite by a complete direct proof; and without exprefsly adverting to objections, in effect meet and fuperfede them.'

We fear, that notwithstanding the rational principles advanced in this publication, and the juft conclufions drawn from them, both the public doctrines of different Proteftant communities, and the private opinions of individuals, will continue to vary from each other, and will ftill be vague and indecifive. But every attempt to remove the abfurd and fuperftitious notions which are entertained even by Proteftants, of this plain inftitution, and to establish juft and accurate ideas of it, deferves commendation and it may with reafon be expected, that fo candid and judicious a treatife as the prefent will have fome good effect in recalling the attention of individuals of every perfuafion to the fubject, and engaging them to review their principles, to reject the additions and inventions of weak or defigning men, and to content themselves with those eafy and rational notions of the Lord's Supper, that may be gathered from the original accounts which the Evangelifts and Apoftles have given of it. The treatise before us is divided into fections, without titles, through which runs a continued feries of propofitions, exREV. Dec. 1780.

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