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THEREFORE in small capitals, I cannot help recollecting that there is fome where an incarcerated græculus efuriens, whofe pen delights to libel Cambridge profeffors, efpecially if they are dignified with the lawn fleeves. Whether the Critical Reviewers have any obligations to this "dafhing commentator," I leave your readers to decide. În reviewing Select Efays of Dio Chryfoftom, they are kind enough to give us the following advertise

ment :

• The misfortunes of the learned tranflator of these effays are well known to every one; and whatever may be the opinion of the public with refpect to his political fentiments, and the fufferings he is enduring for them, the world at large, we truft, will rejoice that he is not thereby prevented from perfevering in works of literature and general utility. Such, we deem his compilation of a Greek and English Lexicon, and fuch we believe to be the work before us, which confifts in a tranflation of fome of the writings of a philo fopher, who, like himself, had suffered for his political freedom of speech and opinions. It would not indeed be difficult, and might be inftructive, to draw a comparison between the original author of thefe effays and his tranf lator; and we shall truly rejoice to find that the future days of the latter may be as fortunate as thofe of the former, upon his return from banishment. We make no allufion here to the political creed of either; but confider them both as men of letters, as devoted to science and philofophy, as likely to indulge in the clofet in theories remote from the common apprehenfion of the ages which gave them birth, and as poffeffing talents entitling them to the admi ration and praise of their contemporaries.

The compofitions of Dio breathe throughout the fpirit of liberty, li mited by proper reftraints. The tranflation is conducted in Mr. W's ufuat ftyle, bold, energetic, and impreffive, fuch as his original would have been pleafed with, and to English readers we may particularly recommend the volume, &c.'

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SIR,

ARBITER ELEGANTIARUM.

New Annual Register for 1798.-Horace Walpole.

TO THE EDITOR.

is matter of exultation to the honeft part of the community that you

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*

mode of expreffing their antipathy to our venerable conftitution than they were, while on the tiptoe of revolutionary expectation, accustomed to adopt: but, pray, Sir, who was Horatio Walpole amongst the found reafon ing men of the age; or even amongst the men of tafte, that scraps of fatirical contempt fhould be introduced from his feeble page to garnish the volumes of democracy ?" It is not so easy to prove from the New Testament (this fhallow divine and politician is introduced in the New Annual Regifter for 1798, as observing) that Archbishops and Bishops, in the modern fenfe, are of divine inftitution. St. Peter and St. Paul would have stared at being faluted by the titles of your Grace, and your Lordship; and on what text are founded Deaneries, Prebends, Chapters; and Ecclefiaftical Courts, those popish excrefcencies of a fimple religion, we are yet to feek. Tranflations from one See to another are no doubt authorised by the fame chapter of one of the four Evangelifts, though I know not of which, wherein Pre

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lates are enjoined to vote always for the Prime Minifter for the time being, as the Swifs fight for the Prince, whatever his religion is, who takes them into his pay.*" Are thefe antiquated political quacks fo totally unacquainted with the facred volumes as to be ignorant that epifcopacy is of divine inftitution, and that St. Paul appointed both Timothy and Titus to the office fo exactly delineated, that there hardly exists a poffibility of mistake upon the subject? Let our opponents prove that St. Paul appointed all the Prefbyters to the office of Bishop thus accurately defignated; and then, but not till then, we fhall feel ourfelves under fome obligation to meet them in the conteft. I fee no found reafon to fuppofe, for it must be mere fuppofition, that the Apostles would ftare at being faluted by the titles of your Grace and your Lordfhip, any more than that of St. Paul or St. Peter, for the affectation of holiness was exactly as foreign to their miffion as that of dignity. The truth is, that the infpired Prophet + looked forward with fatisfaction to the times when the church fhould be freed from perfecution by Divine Providence, and Kings, as appointed by his counfels, should become its nurfing fathers, and their Queens its nurfing mothers. The conftitution of fociety, fanctioned by the ninth and tenth commandments in the decalogue, is fuch that there must be different stations amongst us; and it is neceflary that thefe ftations fhould be diftinguifhed by appropriate names, and in fome inftances even by appropriate dress, here we have the origin of the epithets at this day in ufe, and all that our opponents contend for is a filly diftinction in found, not in fact: there is often as little uprightness in reality, and as much perpendicular pride connected with an eldership and fpruce full-bottomed wig, as an Archbishop and lawn fleeves. The continuance of fociety renders it neceffary that men fhould likewife fucceed each other in the stations of life; hence arife thofe, not only inoffensive but neceffary, removals, which our enemies carp at under the name of tranflations; and as to thofe popifh excrefcencies, commonly called fpiritual courts, it is fhrewdly fufpected, that if they derive their existence from Popes at all, it must have been from the fame good man Pope Paul the First, who, with great propriety, exerted a power delegated to the church from on high to discountenance vice and immorality by punishing a very notorious delinquent in the voluptuous city of Corinth. It is, I prefume, unneceffary for me to notice the concluding libel upon the dignitaries of the church, because I do not think it applicable to them in cafes where their confciences dictate an oppofition to the Minifter. Thus, Sir, have I taken the liberty of fending you my fentiments haftily thrown together upon the subject in queftion, not from the idea of affording any new information to your readers in general, but for the fake of thofe few liberal minded Diffenters, whofe love of novelty, notwithstanding the ban of the elders, may induce them to peep into your more perfect law of liberty, that they may know there are arguments in oppofition to their mistaken notions, though the priefts who furnish them with the books they are permitted to perule, take fuch fingular precaution to prevent their being acquainted with them. I have the honour to remain, Your's,

C. W. A.

* See an extract in the New Annual Regifter for 1798, from 2d vol. of the Works of Horatio Walpole,

+ Ifaiah,

SLAVERY

SIR,

SLAVERY OF FARMERS.

TO THE EDITOR.

AMONG other ingenious obfervations on the true causes of our prefent distress for provifions,* the Critical Reviewers have furnished us with the following most curious opinion. "A farmer with twenty acres in England, must be a greater flave than the most laborious negro in the Weft Indies; and, with all poffible fuccefs, would fee the profits of his labour eaten up by the taxes, the tithes, and the poor rates." Taking it for granted that the author of this paffage is fully fatisfied of the truth of what he has fol roundly afferted, I fhall beg leave to argue upon it as an undoubted fact, which comes to us recommended by oracular veracity.

. Such, then, being the inconveniencies attendant on the small farmer, there cannot be a set of men in the nation more egregiously mistaken than the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor. If they allot to the indigent labourer a portion of land which is not large, they manifeftly condemn him to grind in molâ afinariâ? Citizen Waithman also must be a confummate block head, when he infifts on the immediate inclofure of twenty millions of acres of waste land, and the erection of a million and a half of cottages, with half an acre of land to each. If he even allows to his vifionary colony. one hundred acres per man, he is clearly an advocate for flavery; he wishes to reduce his free countrymen to a worfe ftate of fervitude than that of the moft laborious negro. Had he the philanthropy of true patriotism and found philofophy in his heart, had he the genuine love of liberty, had he religion and true humanity, he would rather have propofed the abolition of fituations only calculated to promote the mifery of mankind. To covet for the poor a lot more execrable than that of the African who toils on a West India plantation, is such folly as the world has never heard of till now.

The diftreffes of the small farmer being so overwhelming, even in times in which his labour is rewarded with all pofible fuccefs, I grieve to think, Sir, how many of this class must be abfolutely perishing with need at this critical moment. What can we do to relieve them? my heart yearns with compaffion; my bowels, Oh! my bowels! Shall we raife corn to fifty, fixty, feventy pounds per load? No,.no: be not difquieted. The Critical Reviewers, who have found out the evil, have also discovered the remedy. Hear them! hear them! "There are, they tell us,t people who pretend to humanity and economical regulations, who nevertheless waste as much flour, in the fhape of powder, on their heads, as would afford good breakfasts for numbers of families of the poor." Now these people (or those people, as they are accufatively ftiled by the critical fquadron) are, no doubt, the higher orders juft before spoken of, and stigmatized with difgrace, for ftanding in need of information, in thefe times of wretched ignorance and bigotry. They are the gentlemen employed in the modification of taxes, who retain on an average half a dozen or ten fervants each, who all powder as well as their mafters. Here then is an ample treafury of ways and means for our minifters. It is their wish to relieve those who are most affected by the preffure of scarcity. These, it appears, are the farmers of twenty acres; who are, notwithstanding all poffible fuccefs, in abfolute flavery. Let them depend, for their fubfiftence, on the powdered heads of the higher orders and their domeftic myrmidons. As the times have been peculiarly diftrefling, especially to men in their

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ftation of life, they have of course, in the ufual farmer like manner, contracted their ftomachs to the narroweft poffible compafs. It is not unlikely, that as many small farmers may be able to batten on the noddle of an aristocrat, as animalcules on the cropped head of a democrat, with two or three of their good friends the Critical Reviewers into the bargain. What numbers of poor families, therefore, may be thus fupported! And how delightful will it be, to fee them grazing contentedly and happily upon the wig of a Bishop or a Judge! how agreeable, to feel them tickling our pericranium, and gently irritating the pia-mater, while they winnow the real flour from the lime, chalk, potatoe meal, starch, &c. &c. &c. which we commit with it to our locks!

Dulce eft defipere in loco, Mr. Editor. When grave critics condescend to be abfurd, they muft excufe me if I laugh.

SIR

SANS CULOTIDES.-A POEM.

TO THE EDITOR.

DEMOCRIT,

N the firft fentence of their critique on a poem ftiled Sans Culotides, the Critical Reviewers are thus pleafed to exprefs themfselves. "This publication, as its title imports, contains a violent attack upon the phalanx of in-. corrigible Jacobins; that redoubtable body which has fo long haunted the vifions of minifterial declaimers of all ranks, from the polifhed orator of St. Stephen's to the rude hiftorian of the village alehoufe." The Critical Reviewers, therefore, do not believe in the exiftence of the Jacobins. I, Sir, on the contrary, am one of the credulous many, who can difcern a Jacobin at every corner. I believe that there are not only a host of these noxious animals at prefent lurking among us, but I even doubt if there was ever an age or country not infefted by them. Rome itfelf, Mr. Editor, had its Correfponding Society; and it had, at the fame time, citizens in its bofom, who pretended that they did not fee the confpiracy, ftrengthened the caufe of the faction by their disbelief. Let us but hear Cicero: quanquam nonnulli funt in hoc ordine, qui aut ea quæ imminent, non videant; aut ea quæ vident, dissimuLent: qui fpem Catiline mollibus fententiis aluerunt, conjurationemque nafcentem noncredendo corroboraverunt.

SIR,

POETRY.

TO THE EDITOR.

ACADEMICUS.

I KNOW not, who firft ftrung for the amusement of the public the allitera tive affociation of three poetical performers in one age and nation, with evident allufion, by way of contraft, to a former well-known epigram. I write only from memory, but I think the couplet ran thus:

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"Lætamur nos Poetis tribus,
Peter Pindar, Pye, and Pybus."

See the fame number of the Crit. Rev. P. 91, at the bottom. Citizen Waithman, to wit.

As I think the firft of those writers wants correction in his adopted nickname, as he did that which he deservedly has received in pen and person, and as the allufion will not, I hope, be too far run down by marking the distinction between him and the other two, I offer an addition in the form of triplets, fo as to make it auctior, if not emendatior.

Plauditur poetis tribus,

(Gens & ætas una quibus)
Pfeudo-Pindar, Pye, & Pybus.
Summo Pybus gaudet Rege,
Pfeudo-Pindar imo Grege,

At Pye Rege, Lege, Grege.

In justice to myself, as well as to the first of these authors, I should fay, that I know nothing of his poem, but from the title, and from the character of that fovereign, to whom, by a very well-meant, but, as it afterwards proved, unfortunately ill-timed compliment, it is infcribed; and who exhibits fo ftriking a contraft to the Sovereign of the throne of this kingdom. PRO REGE, LEGE, GRRGE.

HISTORY.

SUMMARY OF POLITICS.

HE Continent of Europe exhibits just fuch a scene as might be expected

TE Cont from the predominating influence of French defpotifm, in every

country, if not in every cabinet, with the folitary exception of Portugal. The natural confequence of the fuccefs of French principles; the diffolution of every tie which, for centuries, had connected the different ftates of Europe; the deftruction of all inftitutions and all boundaries which reafon and prejudice, time and interest had combined to confecrate; the removal of every barrier which divided justice from injuftice; religion from infidelity; integrity from villainy; and virtue from vice; difplay the ftrong characteristics of triumphant jacobinifm; which the degraded Sovereigns, looking down from their tottering thrones, either with ftupid confidence, refulting from incorrigible imbecillity of mind, or dreadful corruption of heart; or else with daftardly fear, the effect of weak and therefore fuccefslefs efforts; widen the banks, in order to facilitate the progrefs of that destructive torrent which they want either the wish or the courage to ftem. In fhort, the evil genius of the Gallic Republic, founded on rebellion and regicide, and nurtured with blood and plunder, affaffination and robbery, has prevailed, and her fanguinary banners not merely unmolefted but encouraged to roave from one extremity of European Continent to the other.

Obedient to the mandate of his tyrant, the fallen monarch of Spain, hugging his chains and embracing the murderers of his family, has proclaimed war against his neighbours and quondam allies, the Portugueze, who incurred the enmity of the French Republic by their faithful adherence to their treaties with the Spanish Monarchy; for it was in compliance with the provifions of thofe treaties, and merely to fupport the Spaniards against the attacks of their enemies, that they engaged in the war with France! What must be the feelings of the King of Spain, when he reflects in fecret on this monftrous act of perfidy and ingratitude, which his bafe fubferviency to the will of the

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