foner (though your very good friend) Dr. Priestly, for his fuperior skill in logic and metaphyfics; which curious specimen of your partiality appeared in your last Review.

The Question about Baptism, refolved. To the AUTHOR of the LONDON MAGAZINE.

SIR,

I N your Magazine for September there is a folution defired to the question, viz. how we can account for the converts to christianity being baptized only into the name of Jesus, according to St. Luke's history of the Acts of the Apostles, when St. Matthew informs us, that our Lord gave orders to his Apoftles to disciple nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. In my humble opinion the solution is easy, fince baptifm was no other than an initiating rite into the church and kingdom of God, over which Jesus prefides as the one Lord; or, if you will, baptifm is no other than a monument that recognizes the fact of God's having exalted Jefus to the right hand of power. This is its design and end, as appears from the Institutor's saying, "all power is given to me in heaven and earth, go ye, declare this, by difcipling all nations, and baptifing." But as this is the great end of baptifm, it speaks no other language than that God has given glory to the man Christ Jefus, whom God raifed from the dead. So baptizing in the name of Jesus is the very fame thing with baptizing in the name of the Father, of the

a

Son, and of the Holy Ghost; forafmuch as the Father exalted him to the right hand of power, and gave mankind demonstration that he has fo exalted him, by bestowing the gift of tongues, of miracles, and of prophecy; without which bestowment, the testimony of the fact had been inncomplete; and therefore any monument of the exaltation of Jesus, does neceffarily recognize the power of the Father, and the manifestation of that power by miraculous gifts, which peculiar manifestation is in fcripture phrafe called the Holy Ghost.

Hence we can easily conceive that the command to baptise in the name of the Father, &c. is not to be considered as a form of words, conftituting the rite of baptifm, but as expreffive of the spirit and meaning of the institution, which is fully complyed with in the act of recognizing the exaltation and Lordship of Jefus; fince, as I faid before, we must afcribe his elevation to the Father, and the evidence of that elevation will be found in those extraordinary gifts which attended the ministration of his Apostles.

A fimilar idea of baptifm, St. Peter has given us when he speaks of " baptism now faving us by the refurrection of Jesus Chrift from the dead; angels, authorities and powers being made fubject to him." And moreover, those instances which we have of scripture baptifm are all in harmony herewith.

Should this folution appear fatisfactory to the querist, it will give pleasure to your humble servant,

Ot. 3, 1770. A CITY MINISTER.

us

E are not a W little obliged to our correfpondents for snatching from that obícurity we were on the point of finking into: for as we mentioned in our last, it was not because our fociety was in any degree diminish ed that we failedto figure anvayas usual, but because the printer of the London Magazine, in too ftrict conformity to the taste of the times, gave that place to the clamour of politics, benevolence was wont to occupy: however he has at length alcertained us a spot, which we are to claim for our own and we now moft chearfully proceed to business

from being convinced that we are not wholly undiftinguished by the public favour.

As we have received some very lively epistles on admitting a gentleman into the society, we shall, on this occafion, put that affair upon a proper footing. It must surely be a strange fpecies of benevolence that is to be confined to sex, rank or nation. The worthy or the unhappy merit indiscriminately our attention, and Mrs. Milnham is fo bardy as to declare that she should rejoice if it was poffible to reform the errors of mankind, noless than the rejoices when

it is in her power to be serviceable to the daughters of the creation. She likewise observes that it is in a great measure owing to illiberal and abfurd ideas that there is so bad an understanding where there ought to be the most cordial friendship. Men and women were never intended to be upon hoftile terms; and she will insist that if we were properly discreet they would never be designing: that it is our own conduct which produces the levity we affect to be disgusted at; for a woman uniformly decent, must be treated with uniform propriety.

Besides, Mrs. Milnham begs leave to ask these outrageously delicate ladies, whether it would not be somewhat inconfiftent with the plan of benevolence to expose the young people under her protection to frequent tete-a-tetes with any man living. The honourable lover cannot wish to shun the however scrutinizing eye of wisdom and experience; nor does she know a means of obtaining due impreffions of the underftanding, good-breeding or principles of those gentlemen that might make choice of her amiable pupils, but from conversation and intimacy: she, there fore, does not hefitate to declare that the will most willingly receive alimited number of young gentlemen, whose characters will bear the test of examination, as occafional visitants even to the feraglio, as Alicia is pleased to call the aflembly of which the has the honour to be president; and will take no small pains to do justice to their several merits.

But if it had been possible for her to have deviated from the rules of reason, because not reconcileable to the ideas of caprice, before she had ventured to make an experiment, the happy result of Posthumus's acquaintance must confirm her in her original sentiments. Where the mind is just, the actions could not fail to be correspondent, and though this Pofthumus was universally esteemed, and entertained the highest esteem for every separate member of the society, yet he foon made his peculiar election, and now daily blesses the period that brought our establishment to his knowledge; instead of which, had he been refused the countenance and indulgence he folicited, he had perhaps by this time been united very

unsuitably, and the fine feeling Lavinia still in her dependant situation.

Yet if Mrs. Milnham was arraigned for admitting Posthumus, what cenfure will not the declaration she has now made draw upon her; especially when these critical fair ones are told that this very Posthumus has been allowed to introduce three of his friends more than once on visiting days, and that they are in the high road to obtaining an equal share of the fociety's approbation?

The first I shall present to the knowledge of our readers is a young fellow about two and twenty, but long exercised in the school of disappointment. His mother, who happened to be a most accomplished woman, took care early to cultivate his mental endowments. Before he was twelve years old he had learned every moral, every focial diftinction, and had a sense of the obligations he owed this truely maternal lady beyond her most flattering expectations. Wherever he went, her merits were inseparable from his imagination. Thus would the have spoke, thus would the have acted, the constant suggestion, when any thing either generous or graceful was uttered or perfonated; for upon every occasion she still had the advantage in his opinion. Nor was it alone the sentimental document that she dealt out; she was at once his preceptor and his play-fellow, for she had too much of the philosopher about her to despise the amusements of infancy, because less important than the weighty business of the card table. She knew that exercise was as necessary to the well being of her beloved boyas boyas any one of the conveniencies of life: therefore so far from proving an interruption to the various games of battledore, shuttlecock, and taw, with a little million of, &c. the made herself so great a proficient in them, that mama's company was the first to be requested, nay the answered so many good purposes, that her fon never betrayed a with to mix with the rude school-boys of his acquaintance, and tho he might not have all the learning they could boaft, he had his morals and his principles wholly uncontaminated. It may perhaps be asked what became of his father all this time; I answer he was abfent upon a foreign and most dangerSssa

ous :

ous station, from whence, indeed, he never returned, and as this child had been her fupport during several tedious years of abfence from the man she loved, so he became her support also in the fad hour of their final separation.

His provifions was, however, by no means an ample one; for when his father's fortune came to be divided amongst four claimants, himself, his mother and two fifters, he could not help thinking it incumbent upon him to engage in some way of life that might enable him to improve it for their fakes. Unhappily he had not a friend out of his father's profeffion, and he well knew the distress his mother would feel if he expressed an inclination to embark in a naval capacity; offers were nevertheless made him of so flattering a nature, that rather than be an impediment to his advancement, this mother was induced to bury her tender apprehenfions deep in her heart, and become herself one of his warmest advisers to accept them.

The parting-but I cannot attempt to describe it. He bid adieu to his country upon the most exalted principles; yet was heaven pleased to visit him with calamity. A report waś spread that the ship fired at fea, and that all on board perished with her. was enough-in vain did the helplessness of two lovely girls plead for confideration; their pleadings only defeat

It

ed the purpose they were meant to effect. A constitution, naturally delicate, was ill calculated to fustain fuch repeated shocks; the husband, the fon-she funk under the stroke, and, though all refignation, was a victim to maternal tenderness.

The fatal news was not wholly groundless; the ship and all her cargo was loft, notwithstanding her crew was providentially preserved. Mr. Sidney Hew to London in order to avoid the evil that had already befallen him; for he found the mother of his affections had breathed her last figh for him. His fifters were quite infants at his father's departure from England, and the eldest of them is now only fixteen: he has with most unexampled generofity impaired his own little capital, for the improvement of theirs and having afcertained them an independance, is now content to employ the few hun. dred pounds that remain as occafions

of advantage may offer, and has situated himself in a compting house; for he conceives it would be beyond measure dreadful for two girls to be left totally friendless, nor will, on that account, ever quit England, unless they should be disposed of to his fatisfaction in the matrimonial way.

The fecond youth, upon sociable terms with the society, is a Mr. Craven, bred to the law, but a practitioner only when his assistance can be useful to the deserving and opprefied individual. His father's death has brought him into the poffeffion of a fine estate, and his father's example will secure him from making an improper use of it. It would be perhaps to hold him forth merely to ridicule to enter into a more particular delineation of his character, until by giving our readers specimens of his mode of converfing, we have convinced them that vivacity and fentiment are in no degree incompatible.

The third and last of our male favourites, is a young clergyman, who does unspeakable honour to the name; for he is pious without affectation, learned without pedantry, discreet without formality, and charitable without oftentation. And now ladies, you who arraign Mrs. Milnham's conduct, say which of the three do you find exceptionable ? what danger, what impropriety, can prudery itself apprehend from fuch connexions? be assured you quite mistake the matter; it is to be nice in the choice of your companions, not to fly society, that can fupport your claims to good and amiable. The men, as things are usually managed, unless they mix with the uninformed and the dissipated, have no opportunities of converfing with the female world; instead of which, we ought to encourage their vifits in order to remove their prejudices: we ought to feel an honest pride in convincing them that we have claims to their best esteem, and that there is no acquifition of fuperior value to the friendship of a refined, an accomplished, a benevolent heart, though lodged in a feminine bosom. This would be to reform, this would be to correct the errors, no less of education, than felf-sufficiency: this would be to bring decorum into fashion, and establish elegance on the most solid bafis; for weak and infignificant as we may deem ourselves, it is us that can repeal

repeal or confirm the customs of the age; nor, if there were no women capable of tolerating the vicious, would there be one votary to vice that durst shew his head; at least appearances would be most diligently preserved, and we may hold appearances as cheaply as we please, but they are the strong poison of the community.

Having taken up fo large a space in defcribing the additions and amendments in the society, we shall not this month enter upon any interesting subjects, but beg to inform our correfpondents that an invariable rule is under confideration with respect to our future mode of answering epistles; for instead

:

of giving the whole letter, its contents will be canvassed, discussed, and either applauded or refuted, in full assembly, and the various opinions arranged under the article, conversation. We will prove that there are no people under the fun so lively as the people of sentiment. We will convince the young and the unreflecting that flying from themselves, so far from being the means of obtaining, is the very cause of their having no acquaintance with happiness, and that we can only truely be said to live, whilst we live to reafon and to virtue.

[To be continued]

T

ESSAY III. and last.
Servetur ad imum

Qualis ab incepto procefferit. Hor. HE stage being an object of much attention amongst us, we have had several literary productions relative to the art of acting. Addison and Steel and their friends gave a fanction and a gracefulness to the Theatre, by the attention which they paid it from time to time with classical elegance in the Spectator, Tatler, and 'Guardian. Colley Cibber's Apology for his own Life, one of the pleasanteft books that ever was written, contains many ingenious observations; but Colley, who had a confiderable dath of the spirit of Montague, was too volatile to enter deeply into any fubject; and his remarks, however just and agreeable, are not profound. The Lives of the British Actors and Actresses, by his fon Theophilus, are not without their share of merit, though much inferior to the stile of the father. Dr. Hill's Actor, or a Treatise on the Art of Playing, is none of the worst productions of that multifarious author; and, if I am not mistaken, players may learn many useful lessons from it, while his other readers, who compose the audience at our theatres, may be assisted to judge with more candour and difcernment. I have read some years ago a performance, entitled, An Effay on theatrical Expression in Tragedy; and aç

cording to my recollection, it is the most ingenious and philofophical ingenious performance that we have upon the subject of acting.

Nor have we had only prose performances on this subject, for there has been more poetry written upon it of late years, than one would imagine. The first thing in that way that I remember, is, the Art of Acting, a poem by a young gentleman, published by Francis Stamper, a low comedian of great merit, who played many years at the Edinburgh theatre, and died in that city. Next came The Actor, an epistle to Bonnell Thornton by Robert Lloyd; a poem of acknowledged merit. Mr. Lloyd holds the same system with regard to the players that I have attempted to illuftrate.

"Or fool, or monarch, happy or diftrefs'd,

No actor pleases that is not poffefsd." A little after appeared Churchill's Rofciad, a poem, temporary in its subject, but so forcible in its expression, and harmonious in its numbers, as to bring its author at once into very great popular reputation, before ever he attached himself to the popular party, then so violent in oppofition to the court; and I doubt not but many passages of that poem will be read with fatisfaction in after times. The great success of the Rosciad roused other men of genius to exert their poetical talents in the fame extraordinary stile.-Hence arote Thespis, by

Mr.

Mr. Kelly, which though it had not the Herculean vigour of Churchill, had more correctness, and many beauties. I must also mention-The Covent Garden Rosciad-The rational Rosciad-and Momus's-the Rosciad of Mr. Foote's theatre-for the more numerous the literary performances upon this subject, the more must it appear an object of general attention. As another proof upon this head, and indeed a strong proof, it may be observed that all our periodical publications, our magazines, and newspapers are occasionally seasoned with entertaining remarks on our different theatrical performers, and even with verses in their praise. Mr. Whitehead, the present poet laureat, hath written fome very pretty verses in honour of Mr. Garrick, Mrs. Cibber, and Mrs. Pritchard: they are printed in Dodsley's Collection. By these strains of panegyrick on theatrical majesty, the courtly bard prepared himself for nobler numbers.

A louder yet and yet a louder train to celebrate the real royalty of Great

Britain.

There is a monthly publication called The Dramatic Cenfor, which contains fome very good observations on the performance of many of the favourite characters on our stage. I wish it fuccess; and hope that the favour of the public shall not be wanting to encourage improvements upon it. A judicious and impartial theatrical cenfor must be of confiderable service to our players. We all remember the excellent humourous account which the Spectator gives of the Trunkmaker, who fat in the gallery in his time, and distributed with a large oaken stick, his applaufe and cenfure to the performers on the stage, with conftant and unchallenged propriety. I wish we had fuch a literary trunkmaker, who would from time to time publish his remarks; they would not only be of service to our present players; but would preserve many curious and useful hints for future performers. There are many minute circumstances in the exhibition of a character upon the stage, which do not appear from reading the poet, but must be supplied by the player from his observation of human life. These minute circumftances may be preserv

ed in a theatrical review; as a gallery of pictures in the dresses of the times, gives us a lively idea of the appearance of our ancestors.

Life's moving pictures well wrought plays,

As the author of The Spleen, a poem, ingenioufly stiles them, would be still more lively, if every little article of manners in every character were preferved; and if not preferved by writing, many characteristical minutie must fade away with the age which gave them birth, and be totally forgotten in after times, so that pofterity shall wonder why their forefathers were so highly entertained with characters, which they indeed think diverting, but cannot perceive in them such exquisite subjects of risibility.

As I purpose to treat only of the profeffion of a player, I am not to enter upon the wide field of the drama itself, concerning which so much has been written in various ways: fome having treated it merely as an object of criticism, others as the fubject of moral and political disquifition, and of the latter class of writers, some extolling it as a school of virtue and refinement of manners, others declaiming against it, as a seminary of debauchery and idleness. It may eafily be per perceived what my opinion is the subject, by my having paid fo great attention to the performers.

upon

Jeremy Collier of the last age, and Jean Jacques Rousseau of this, two writers of as different a complexion as can well be imagined, have, in their attacks upon the stage, both agreed in decrying the profession of a player, and in representing it as incompatible with moral rectitude. D'Alembert has shewn himself the judicious and elegant apologist of the players; and I would recommend to every one who is prejudiced against them to read what he has written.

For my own part, I cannot see аву reason why the profeffion of a player should corrupt the morals more than any other. If it is the diffimulation necessary to assume a feigned character, that is thought so hurtful, I flatter myself that I have shewn that the art of a player is not diffimulation, but a mysterious power of being to a certain degree the character which he represents. If it is the affuming bad characters