truth, which is the office of a cooler and more discriminating faculty; but that they were given to animate us to warmer zeal in the pursuit and practice of truth, when the judgment shall have pointed out what is truth.

Through this natural warmth, which they have been justly told is so pleasing, but which, perhaps, they have not been told will be continually exposing them to peril and to suffering, their joys and sorrows are excessive. Of this extreme irritability, as was before remarked, the ill-educated learn to boast as if it were an indication of superiority of soul, instead of labouring to restrain it as the excess of a temper which ceases to be interesting when it is no longer under the control of the governing faculty. It is misfortune enough to be bora more liable to suffer and to sin, from this conformation of mind; it is too much to allow its unrestrained indulgence; it is still worse to be proud of so misleading a quality.

Flippancy, impetuosity, resentment, and violence of spirit, grow out of this disposition, which will be rather promoted than corrected, by the system of education on which we have been animadverting; in which system, emotions are too early and too much excited, and tastes and feelings are considered as too exclusively making up the whole of the female character; in which the judgment is little exercised, the reasoning powers are seldom brought into action, and self-knowledge and self-denial scarcely included,

The propensity of mind which we are considering, if unchecked, lays its possessors open to unjust prepossessions, and exposes them to all the danger of unfounded attachments. In early youth, not only love, but friendship, at first sight, grows out of an ill-directed sensibility; and in afterlife, women under the powerful influence of this temper, conscious that they have much to be borne with, are too readily inclined to select for their confidential connections, Яexible and fattering companions, who will indulge and perhaps admire their faults, rather than firm and honest friends, who will reprove and would assist in curing them. We may adopt it as a general maxim, that an obliging, weak, yielding, complaisant friend, full of small attentions, with little religion, little judgment, and much natural acquiescence and civility, is a most dangerous, though generally a too much desired coufidante: she sooths the indolence, and gratifies the vanity of her friend, by reconciling her to her own faults, while she neither keeps the understanding nor the virtues of that friend in exercise. These obsequious qualities are the "soft green" on which the soul loves to repose itself. But it is not a refreshing or a wholesome repose: we should not select, for the sake of present ease, a soothing flatterer, who will lull us into a pleasing oblivion of our failings, but a friend, who, valuing our soul's health above our immediate comfort, will rouse us from torpid indulgence ta animation, vigilance, and virtue,"

We should gladly make farther extracts, from the Sketch of the Female Character, and Comparative View of the Sexes, from the chapters on the Modern Habits of Fashionable Life, en Dis

sipation

*

sipation, and on the Duty and Efficacy of Prayer but we must content ourselves with the specimens which we have already

exhibited.

In making our departing bow to this lady, with our acknowlegements for her good intentions, and our testimony to the abilities which she has manifested, we are compelled to lament that there should be so poor a prospect of her moral and religious admonitions having any great effect on the fashionable part of society, to which she has chiefly devoted them., We have indeed heard, with pleasure, of the extensive circulation which these volumes have attained: but the great world, as it is called, while it will crowd to hear a popular preacher, or will rapidly purchase a moral work of which every one talks, is but slightly impressed by the serious admonition of either; and it confers a sanction even on immoralities, which defies the strictures of the under or vulgar world. By the operation of pride and splendid emulation among the rich and noble, virtue will be continually outraged; and the vices of extreme luxury and dissipation will probably continue deaf to remonstrance, and must work their own cure.

Moo-y.

ART. XII. The History and Antiquities of Staffordshire, compiled from the Manuscripts of Huntbach, Loxdale, Bishop Lyttleton, and other Collections of Dr. Wilkes, the Rev. T. Field, &c. &c. Including Erdeswick's Survey of the County; and the approved Parts of Dr. Plot's Natural History. The Whole brought down. to the present Time; interspersed with Pedigrees, and Anecdotes of Families, Observations on Agriculture, Commerce, Mines, and Manufactories; and illustrated with a very full and correct new Map of the County, Agri Staffordiensis Icon, and numerous other Plates. By the Rev. Stebbing Shaw, B. D. F. A. S. and Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. Vol. I. Containing the antient and modern History of Thirty Parishes, in the Hundred of Offlow, arranged geographically, with an Appendix of the most curious Charters, &c. Illustrated with sixty-two Copper-plates, and a copious Index. Folio. Fine Paper, 41. 12s. 6d. Common, 31. 10s. Boards. Nichols, Robson, &c.

To

o write a county history, such as county histories in our times have been, is an enterprize for which few men have the requisite ability, courage, perseverance, and leisure. It is reason

*We particularly recommend to general attention. Mrs. More's remarks on the pernicious attempts, in courses of Education, of making Short Cuts to Knowledge;' for, as she very justly remarks, we must purchase knowledge by paying the fair and lawful price of time and industry, nor is there any idle way to acquisitions really worth phy name. Vol. ii. p. 156.

5

able,

able, therefore, that he who engages in a compilement of this kind should receive from the public that indulgence and support, which so laborious and expensive an undertaking has the fairest claim to receive. This observation applies perfectly to Mr. Shaw; whose history of Staffordshire, of which the first volume is now before us, if conducted throughout with the same indefatigable industry and research which he has here manifested, will be well entitled to rank with the most respectable productions of that description.

- In 1791, Mr. Shaw commenced this work; led (as he tells us) by an inherent fondness, heightened by casual circumstances, for delineating the face of nature, and rescuing the memory of past ages from the dust scattered over it by time. His first precursor in a work of this kind was Sampson Erdeswick, Esq. son of Hugh Erdeswick of Brazen-Nose College, in' 1553-4; who, in 1593, wrote "A Short View or Survey of Staffordshire."This munuscript work falling into the hands of Mr. Chetwynd, (Mr. Erdeswick's executor,) together with the additional collections of Mr. Ferrers of Baddesley, and of WilJiam Burton the Leicestershire historian, besides very large materials of his own, they were all unhappily lost on the repairing of Ingestre-hall: but they were again discovered at Ingestre; and Mr. Shaw, having been favoured with the use of them by Col. Talbot and the Rev. G. Talbot, has made very liberal use of them in this compilation. They consist of two folio volumes, one containing copies of all the records of the Chetwynd family, with a variety of elegant drawings; the other, a clear and concise account of most of the parishes, with pedigrees of families in the hundred of Pyrehill. Dr. Plot's Natural History of Staffordshire, published by subscription in 1686; and the manuscripts of Mr. Huntbach of Featherstone, consisting of valuable church notes, extracts from old records, pedigrees, and several regular histories of parishes, and which were the ground-work of Dr. Wilkes's collection; have also been in the hands of Mr. Shaw. Dr. Plot, indeed, furnishes almost all the natural history which is to be found in this volume; and the other papers, which have been incorporated with Dr. Wilkes's history, form the substance of the introduction; which consists of a general history (as distinguished from the local history of particular parishes, &c.) of Staffordshire, from the earliest times. These, together with thirteen folio volumes of Staffordshire MSS., containing transcripts of all the antient deeds, court-rolls, &c. belonging to the great barony of Stafford, collected by Henry Lord Stafford; and a collection by Mr. Loxdale, vicar of Leek, in 1735; constitute the principal public sources from which the materials of Mr. Shaw's

Shaw's work are drawn.-To private individuals, who have lent him means of original information, he professes to owe very liberal obligations, which he enumerates in his preface.

By these aids, Mr. Shaw has been enabled to give, in this his first volume, (a very large folio,) an account of almost every inch of ground, and every individual house, church, tombstone, and epitaph, in the hundred of Offlow. The tenure of the lands, the customs of manors, the pedigree of every family of note, an account of the principal persons whom they have produced, a minute detail of the history and a description of every public edifice and well-known mancr-house, are given with unwearied circumstantiality; the natural productions and manufactures have their share of notice, though indeed they bear but a small proportion to the other contents of the volume; and the whole is enriched with numerous engravings, some of which (the contribution of individuals to the work) are executed in a style of considerable elegance, while others have certainly but little claim to praise.

Subjoined to the General History of Staffordshire, we have its Natural History; in which is given a description of its climate, rivers, zoology, indigenous plants, and mineralogy; and here we meet with a minute and curious account of the coal-mines of this county, taken from the mineralogy of the South-west of Staffordshire communicated to the author by James Weir, Esq.-From this valuable paper we wished to have given an extract, by which our mineralogical readers would doubtless have been entertained: but the detail would have led us beyond our proper limits.

The general and natural history of the county having been fully treated in this introductory part of the work, the author proceeds, in his laborious accumulation of materials, to elucidate the local and particular history of individual towns, parishes, and hamlets; and here the antiquary, the naturalist, and the student of English history, will frequently meet with topics that will interest him: but the natives and inhabitants of Staffordshire will chiefly profit by the labours of Mr. Shaw in this portion of his work. To such readers, almost every thing which is here found must afford useful or entertaining information;-every page will enable them to combine the present with the past state of some favourite haunt; and will introduce them to a still more intimate familiarity with scenes in which they have passed their youth or their manhood. Sometimes they will be taught to reverence and admire the simple virtues of their remote ancestry, and sometimes be led to smile at the eccentricity and whim of their modes and customs. Perhaps they will find these latter most strongly exemplified in

the

the odd tenures by which their lands were holden.

We have a striking instance of this under the head of WHICHNOR in this volume, where Mr. Shaw gives at length a copy of that part of the grant made by John of Gaunt to Philip ́de Somerville Duke of Lancaster, of some manors, on certain very peculiar conditions; one of which was that mentioned in the VIIIth vol. of the Spectator relating to the Flitch of Bacon. The following extract on that subject was taken from an antient parchment-roll written in Henry VII.'s time, when it was put into English (says Mr. Shaw) from a like roll in French written in the reign of Edward III.

"Nevertheless, the said Sir Philip shall fynd, meyntienge and susteigne one bacon flyke hanging in his halle at Wichnore redy arrayde all times of the yere bott in Lent to be given to everyche mane or womane married after the daye and yere of there mariage be passed; and to be gyven to everyche mane of religion, archbishop, bishop, prior, or other religious; and to everyche priest after the yere and daye of their profession finished or of their dignity reseyyed, in forme following: whensoever that ony such byfore named wyll come for to enquire for the baconne, in theire owne persone or by ony other for them, they shall come to the bayliffe or to the porter of the lordship of Wichnovre; and shall say to them in the mannere as enshewethe"Bavliffe, or porter, I do you too knowe that I come for myselfe (or, if he be come for ony other, shewing for whome he demaunde) to demaunde one baconne flyke hanging in the halle of the lord of Whichnovre, after the forme thereunto belonging," after which relacioun, the bayliffe or porter shall assigne a daye unto him upon promise by his feythe to retourne and with him to bring tweyne of his neighbours. And in the meyn time, the said bayliffe shall take with him tweyne of the freeholders of the lordshipe of Whichenovre, and they three shall go to the manour of Rudlowe belonging to Robert Knyghtleye; and there shall somon the preseid Knyghtleye, his bayliffe, commanding him to be redy at Whichenovre, the day appoynted, at pryme of the day wythe his caryage; that is to saye a horse and a saddylle, a sakke and a pryke, for to convey and carye the said baconne and corne a journee owtt of the countee of Stafford at his costages. And then the said bayliffe shall, with the sayd freeholders, somon all the tennants of the sayd manoir to be redy at the day appoynted at Whichenovre, for to doo and perform the services which they owe to the baconne. And at the day assygned all such as oue services to the baconne shall be redy at the gate of the manoir of Whichenovre from the sonne rysinge to none, attending and awatyng for the comyng of hym that fetcheth the baconne. And when he is comyn, there shall be delivered to hym and hys fellowys, chapeletts, and to all those whych shall be there to doe their services dew to the baconne. And they shall lede the seid demandant wythe trompes and tabours and other manner of mynstralseye to the halle door, where he shall fynde the lord of Whichenovre, or his steward, redy to deliver the baconne in this manner"

or

"He