at length are loft; our flashy retrospect, a mere jet d'eau, may serve to foothe the heats of an autumnal day with its light-dripping fall, and form a rainbow round."

This reminds us of mincing a furloin of beef and reducing it to foup for the purpofe of affording nourishment to very weak ftomachs, without the labour of digeftion. Mrs. Piozzi was an admirer of Mr. Pennant, and had he lived, the work was to have been dedicated to him. "I thought, fays fhe, "to have given fome importance to the work by prefixing on its firft page the name of one of my earliest and moft refpectable friends; than whom no wit, no fcholar, nor no man of general knowledge, ever had more reason to delight in retrospection; but Pennant is gone, and I will fearch no further for a patron." Pref. xi. If Mrs. Piozzi imagine that fhe is a happy imitator of her old and agreeable friend, in his lively anecdotes and pleasant tours, it is neceflary to inform her that she is egregiously miftaken. Sequitur haud paffibus æquis. But if there be not great infincerity in the very firft fentence of her preface, the ftands in no need of fuch information.

"If the Rambler is right when he says, That no man ever obtains more from his moft zealous endeavours, than a painful conviction of his own defects,' how ftrongly mult that conviction prefs upon her mind, who, having collected all thefe facts together, presents them as an object of Retrospection to the Publick. Of thofe who turn them over, how different, how numerous will be the cenfures! while each expects his favourite hero, his bestremembered incident to be dilated and brought forward ;-instead of which others perhaps appear, and take the lead.".

What the good lady means by a "favourite hero to be dilated," we pretend not to conjecture.

We are fully convinced that no general description, no comparison with antient or modern authors, either in poetry or profe, can convey the smallest idea of this lady's ftyle, and the lucidus ordo of her ideas. This is a work fui generis. We fhall give a fpecimen or two of the beft, and we cannot but be apprehenfive that our readers will be contented with a fample without harbouring a wifh to infpect the bulk; for greater perverfion of words, confufion of ideas, and diftortion of figures we have never met with. Mrs. P. certainly has read in a light manner; fhe may lay claim to the merit of industry; but her materials are fo jumbled together, and her language exhibits fuch a tiffue of affectation, inverfion, and obfcurity, that she is abfolutely confounded by her own mafs of matter, rudis indigeftaque moles.

Rome feemed herself annihilated, but as the Pope Pelagius fupported in some measure his facerdotal dignity, he was the first bishop elevated to the papal chair fince great St. Leo, without requiring the Emperor's confent; and the neglect was now more accidental than defigned, for the church had not yet as formally fhaken off the ftate's fupremacy. Pelagius owed his feat and dignity to Narfes, and was the firft Pope, as Gibbon tells, who required celibacy of his clergy: he bid the deacons and fub.deacons leave either their

pa

wives or their offices, and what deacon or fub-deacon was likely to hefitate in the choice? His patron abhorred a married prieft, he faid, and those who were abhorred by Narfes lived not long. The new Emperor, however, wholly fwayed by his young confort Sophia the Proud, had the imprudence, at her fuggeftions, to fend the gallant leader an infulting letter; which the ill-advised lady wrote herfelf, thinking it a high ftrain of loftinefs perhaps to bid him return and fpin with her maids in the palace, and not think of fetting himself up to rule the weft. In effect he was immediately fuperfeded, and his place filled up by a vicegerent, with the ftyle and title of Exarch, the feventh form of government in Rome. This officer held his court at Ravenna, and ruled the state after a new mode, which lafted on (nominally at leaft) till time of Charlemagne. But we muit follow the fortune of old Narfes, who fent his thoughtlefs correfpondent word, that he would fpin her fuch a thread anon as fhe and all her maids never fhould untwist. To keep his word, he made immediate application to Alboin, a femi-barbarous prince, refiding in Hungary, where the rough natives had with horror viewed him to their polluted altar drag by force his promifed bride, the beauteous Rofmunda, whofe father Conimundus having denied her to his arms after betrothment, he murdered even before the fhrieking daughter's eyes; and forming his fcalped cranium into a cup, obliged the wretched Princefs to drink out of her rent's skull the feftive, but to him, in future, the fatal marriage draught. Encouraged by revolting Narfes, this pitilefs leader of Pannonian multitudes preffed forward into Italy; but the offended lady who followed in his train, and loved his chamberlain Count Helmichis, watched an unguarded hour, and betrayed her too-confiding fpoufe into the hands of that lord and another, Peridæus, who ftabbed their mafter Alboin when afleep. The affaffins were obliged to run however; and taking shelter at Ravenna, a town inimical to Narfes, were received, and Peridæus propofed the celebration of his nuptials with the widow, who had promised him her hand in order to obtain the benefit of his. Rofmunda was no rigid obferver of her promifes; the Exarch, to whom the applied for release of them, was himself fenfible to her charms, Longinus, and fent his rival chained to Conftantinople, where Juftin and Sophia caufing him to be thrown to a lion, the brave Croatian killed the favage beaft, threatened the men who turned it out upon him, and having stabbed two noblemen at a time, ufing both hands at once, the Emperor commanded his eyes to be put out, and caged him for the remainder of his life. Count Helmichis meantime, her real favourite, being too much in love to act with prudence, faw the officious manners of the Exarch, and viewed them with a jealous eye but teazing the lady too much with his fufpicions concerning Longinus's zeal in her fervice, made himself inconvenient to Rofmunda's fchemes, and the refolved upon his death immediately. Adding deceit to cruelty, the herself prepared the poison, and with an air of gaiety adminiftered it to him in fherbet. The sturdy officer however, familiar with affaffination, on the fi:ft tafte doubted not the intent; and feizing his perfidious princefs with a firm grafp, forced her to divide the fatal potion with him, and then expired in her lifeless arms. Etmuller fays that foldiers have an idea whoever drinks out of a human skull fhall thereby grow invulnerable. They must have been true defcendants of the old Scandinavian deities who thought fo: but Etmuller* died only in 1732.”

Etuller was no infidel phyfician: he thinks with all his heart, that if you gather a root of cyanus upon Corpus Chrifti day, you may, by holding it tight in your hand, stop a hemorrhage of the nofe,"

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The following quotation is made, that this lady fair may have art opportunity to criticise her own work, and to defcribe an effect which it certainly has had on some readers.

"In these days St. Dunstan too was fo exquifite a performer, that his harp was accounted celeftial, and capable of producing founds without help of any hand at all: witness the old verses made ages after:

St. Dunstan's harp faft by the wall
Upon a pin did hang-a

The harp itself with lyre and all

Untouch'd by hand did twang-a”

And this fuperftition fetting fome fly fellow to tune two ftrings in unifon, &c. putting the inftrument in a place where the wind blew hard, fuggested the idea of Æolus's harp, defcribed by Kircher in Mufurgia. It was no new discovery in our days. But our own island. must not engrofs all powers of Retrospection: the plague which raged at Rome may well detain it perhaps to admire the courage of the pontiff, perhaps in our present humour, to condem as fuperftition what fcarce could even then have been enough praised as piety. When the meek bifhop walked himself in proceffion, fearlefs for his fafety along the infected streets, finging devout litanies to heaven, and requesting from God, not requiring from man, ceffation of the dire calamity. • While thousands literally fell befide him, and ten thousand at his right hand, yet was he not afraid either for the peftilence that walked in darkness, nor for the fick nefs that deftroyed at the noon day. So did true Chriftian faith trample indeed upon the adder, and crush the poifonous bafilifk under foot. The pathognomic fymptom of this difeafe was fneezing, and 'tis not in Eu rope totally forgotten. Some ftill fay, God bless you, upon fuch occafions; others fignifying the fame intent, commute their prayer with a bow. But fcenes of horror were not confined to Rome. Cofroe the Perfian spoiled Jerufalem, and maffacred, I think Cedrenus fays, 90,000 Chriftians; as many Jews had been, in confequence of Sifibetus's edict, forcibly baptized the year before. Famines too, confequent perhaps on fuch a lofs of men to till the earth, drove feveral of the last named race to feek a watery grave, and leap from the high cliffs of Calabria into the fea, rather than ftarve upon its barren fhores; while fomething of a fimilar defperation is recorded of AngloSaxons on the coaft of Suffex. When I read this to an Italian friend however, and when he asked me why they did not rather go o' fishing? I had no anfwer ready. Hiftory herself is often ill prepared enough when fudden queftions interrupt her eloquence; and my poor fummary is willing to confefs, as controvertible, the truth of many a fact recorded here: but with the facts, except as a compiler, myfelf have nought to do. It was in this century at leaft that Ifidore Hispalenfis wrote his books of Retrospection, beginning with the earliest dawn of light, but leaving us in days of fad opacity. And how has that vaporous effect of distance increafed fince his time! How is the difficelty grown almoft infuperable,, of finding through the gloom decided objects on which to fix our mental telescope. My terror is left readers fhould agree to throw it down at once, and think upon this huddled work no more. The ages now under reviewal feem the November of our destined year; in which we travel through dark ages, and in the abyss of chaos and old night meet often, as did Satan once, a vaft vacuity;

"Or elfe a univerfal hubbub wild

Of stunning founds and voices all confus'd."

"Firft feventy years of Retrospection," 1-23, "toffed the bloated body of Vitellius into Tyber," 1-23," while ardent only to chafe affrighted vice into the arms of impoffibility." I.-23.

Gentle reader, what can be meant by the arms of impoffibility? Is the tender maiden induced to marry age and riches? fhe finds her great difappointment in the arms of impoffibility. Does the widow of a refpectable merchant make a foolish match? the looks in vain for her former importance in the arms of impoffibility. Does a weak woman flattered with folly, take up the pen of the hiftorian, and think to add to her reputation and fame? alas fhe feeks them in the arms of impoffibility; or fhould fome vain bookfeller purchase the precious manufcript, in vain will he feek to find his money again in the arms of impoffibility.

We felect the following paffages as exhibiting a fufficient proof of the juftice of our remarks on that perverfion of mind; confufion of ideas, abfurdity and contradiction, which are to be found in these Retrospections.

"The world was then all Roman, born fo, or fo adopted, fo become; for conqueft led but to incorporation. In that enormous, that amazing city, centered all knowledge, all pleasure, all wealth, all power. What wonder then if, midft a heterogenous mafs of inhabitants, raked out from every country under heaven, plurality of Gods and variety of worfhips, licentious mafters and permitted flaves, republican ideas and elective empire, all contrarieties of custom and of climate, miraculously accumulated in one vast fwelling town, which Voffius fays, though I believe him not, contained at one time fourteen millions of refidentiary dwellers? What wonder then, should fermentation act upon the foul congeries? What wonder then,

66 -Should Nature breed

Perverfe! all monftrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable! unutterable! and worfe, &c."

"That fo fhe did breed, we are unable to doubt or to deny. Imperial Rome having confented to his death who lived alone to blefs and purify mankind, became herself accurfed, like fentenced Babylon, in fcripture language, a cage for every unclean and hateful bird.*

It is always more grateful to the critic to praife than to cenfure. We hope the age of chivalry is not paft. We would not try a lady by the fevereft rules of criticifm. We are great admirers of Dr. Johnson, and confider that Mrs. P. was once the friend of that good man. She is a firm believer in Revelation, and looks with juft abhorrence on the enormities of the French revolution. She touches on the accomplishment of prophecy, but there, like wifer heads, she has failed. She makes fome little mention of the origin of language, but there are very few subjects on which the throws any light. Her remarks are Aippant and light, pert rather than pertinent, defultory

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and flighty. She does not diftinguish between obfcurity and fublimity, between fimplicity and affectation. We cannot flatter her with the hope, that this work will prove any addition to her fame or her fortune. It will not add to the stock of our hiftorical knowledge, and mere novel-readers will ftart at the fight of two ponderous quartos. At first we were disappointed, that the events and the characters of eighteen centuries, fhould not have the affiftance of an index or a table of contents, to direct the indufiry or to fatisfy the curiofity of the reader, but we foon inclined to pardon Mrs. P. for this omiffion; for this one good reafon, which probably did not occur to her, that the work is not worth an index.

Thole readers who have patience to read the volumes through, will be ditufted with the affectation of perpetually introducing, Retrofpection's Eye, Retrospection's Glance, Retrospection's View. Retrospection dwells, &c. &c. as well as with the frequent abuse of wores, diftorted phrafeology, and deviations from gran.matical precifion. For inftance, " coetaneous,' ·66 once firm-fit world, conglobed, under one univerfal monarchy," "nafcent civilization," putrifying credulity." "A reign of fourteen years fpent on that bufinels proved that they were no diffemblers nor no hypocrites." 11-27.

Confiderations on the Coronation Oath, to maintain the Proteftant Reformed Religion, and the Settlement of the Church of England, as preferibed by Stat. 1 W. & M. c. 6. & Stat. 5. Ann. c. 8. By John Reeves, Efq. 8vo. PP. 48. Is. 6d. Wright. London.

1801.

IT

T was not to be fuppofed that, during the agitation of a question, involving confequences of the higheft moment, but which the fpurious liberality of the age, and its general concomitant, indifference, an apathy on all matters of religion, appear disposed to confider with as little concern as a mere queftion of commerce or finance, the fteady friend of our laws, the vigilant and firm champion of our conftitution, who, at a moft critical period, afficiated all her dutiful fons in her defence, and fo refcued her from the fangs of Whigs and Jacobins, would remain a filent and inactive fpectator of the paffing fcene. No-all who knew the man, relied on the immediate exertion of his talents in such a caufe. So long as the British Conftitution fhall continue to flourish,

Dum Domus Æneæ capitolî immobile faxum .
Accolet, imperiumque pater Romanus habebit;

will JOHN REEVES be deemed her beft hiftorian, her mof able advocate, and her moft faithful protector.

The Author juftifies the laws which have been paffed, at different times, for impofing reftrictions on all perfons diffenting from the

Eft.blifhed