ing "that it is a well known fact, that the earlief Christians worshipped pictu.es." Nothing, certainly, can be more contrary to fact. His other remarks upon the fame author, are undoubtedly more fevere than any which we were inclined to make.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE,

Mr. Maurice is engaged in a work which will be entitled Brahminical Fraud detected; or the attempts of the Sacerdotal Tribe of India to invelt their fabulous Deities and Heroes with the honours and attributes of the Chriftian Melliah, examined, expofed, and defeated.

We understand that the feventh Edition of Thinks-I-tomyfelf, now in the prefs, is to contain a new Preface, and a Portrait of the Author thinking to himself.

The new edition of the late Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry will feedily be published.

An Anfier to Ward's Errata of the Proteftant Bible, with an Appendix, contarsing a Review of the Preface to the fourth edition of the Errata, by the Rev. Richard Grier, is juft ready for publication.

A fplendid work in quarto, entitled, The Border Amiquities of England and Scotland delineated, is in great forwardness. The first part will appear on the S1ft of March, and will be continued quarterly. It is intended to exhibit fpecimens of the architecture, fculpture, and other velliges of former ages from the earliest times to the union of the two Crowns.

Mr. Bonnycafle will fpeedily publish in two octavo volumes, a Treatife on Algebra, in practice and theory, adapted to the prefent ftate of the Science, and containing many particulars relating to the difcoveries and improvements that have been made in this branch of Analyfis. Work is defigned to form the fecond and third parts of the author's intended general courfe of Mathematics.

This

Kabington's Caftara, with a biographical and critical Effay, by Mr. C. A. Elton, the tranflator of Hefiod, is reprinting at Brittol.

Mr. J. S. Browne propofes to publifh, by Subfcription, a Catalogue of Bifhips, containing the fucceflion of Archbishops. and Bithops from the Revolution of 1688 to the prefent time.

Mr. James Smyth of the Cullom Houfe, Hull, intends fhortly to publifh, in an octavo volume, a Treatife on the practice of the Cuftoms in the entry, &c. of goods imported.

ERRATUM.

P. 593, line 11 from the bottom, for. 1787 read 1907.

THE

BRITISH CRITIC,

For FEBRUARY, 1812.

Πᾶσι δίκαια νέμειν, μηδὲ κρίσιν ἐς Χάριν ἕλκειν.

PHOCYLL.

By Juftice led, and not by favour fway'd.

ART. I. Extracts from the Diary of a Lover of Literature. 4to. pp. 250. 11. 1s. Race, Ipfwich; Longman, London. 1810.

THEY who are in the habit of complaining that the art of book-making is too much encouraged, and that its effects increase too rapidly, will not congratulate themselves on the appearance of this volume. Should it become an example, executors and pofthumous friends will be deprived of one fource of pleasure and profit; and any gentleman who has amufed his leifure or foothed his pride by entering in a Diary, the books he has read, the fights he has feen, and the converfations in which he has mixed, may expand the matter with remarks, made either at the time or afterward, and oblige the world with a neat quarto,-price only one guinea. A diary begun fourteen, and finifhed ten years before the period of publication, can hardly be interefting from its application to temporary fubjects; and, with respect to thofe which are more permanent, the form of a journal is too defultory for profound thinking, or for effectual and fyftematic illuftration.

But without being profound or fyftematic, a mifcellany of houghts, facts, and opinions may be entertaining, instructive," and useful. It may; but the great probability is that it will

I

BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XXXIX. FEB. 1812.

not.

not. Who is the man whofe cold, feparate reflections, not elicited by argument, chaftifed by contradiction, or enforced by practical illuftration, can afford inftruction or real entertainment, on fubjects about which all men think in fome degree, but on which few take pains to meditate attentively, until the defire of fludy, or the neceffity of forming a fyftem obliges them to confult authors of deep and extenfive infor mation? Who can hope to inform or intereft the great mass of readers by brief and occafional remarks on fome hundreds of authors, divines and flatefmen, befide incidental notices of pafling events and public characters? Who is the man, who with prudence could venture on fuch a publication ?

These questions appear to us very difficult to folve, for objections arife in the mind against every profeffion, rank and age, and againft all kinds of circumftances and connections. The attempt, however, is made, and we must learn from the work itfelf by whom. The author is a barrifler, who having, as it fhould feem from dates, a great deal of leifure from the purfuits of his profeffion, amufes himself with mifcellaneous reading. He feems to have a little Greek, a fair portion of Latin and French, and Italian enough to read a moderately eafy poet with a tranflation by his fide. To this gentleman, on the 12th of September, 1796, a thought occurred..

"On this day," he fays, "the twenty.feventh anniverfary (as Gibbon, in ftately language, would defcribe it) of my birth, I begin a regifter of my obfervations and reflections:-a tafk which I deeply lament has been fo long deferred, but which I am refolved to profecute with vigour, now it is begun.; anticipating much delight from the review it will enable me to take of my occupations and purfuits, and of the feelings, and opinions with which they were accompanied,"

Determined to give an early proof of his vigour, he falls to work the fame evening, and attacks "Temple on the Origin of Government," and "Gulliver's Travels." Day by day, for five years, according to the evidence of his publication, he continued reading, walking, talking, vifiting, and infpecting, and always noting in his book the feelings and opinions to which his purfuits and occupations gave rife. In this manner he collected, we doubt not, a large mass of paper covered with words; and we believe, for we have fome notion of the effects of folitary vanity, that he received much delight from the perufal of his own commemorations. In, or about 1810, a new thought truck him; he would cut or copy

copy a certain number of pages from his Diary, to edify the public with his feelings and opinions. To account for this whimfy is entirely out of our power. Our notions of the effects of vanity, and our difpofition to allow very largely for impulfes of that paffion, beyond the inftances which our own obfervation and reading fupply, afford us no means of divining how the prefent publication could be devised and executed. That the author does not mix largely with the world is apparent, both from the manner of his remarks, and the general ftatements in his Diary; but any one of the few he feems to affociate with, could have furnished irrefiftible reafons against the publication. His friend Lord C., for example, or his friend Mr. L., might gently have infinuated, that as his knowledge of languages fupplies no remark which can abridge the labour of the ftudent, or elucidate the difquifitions of the learned, as his reflections on the authors he has read are trite when true, and scarcely fpecious when falfe, as his travels are far lefs entertaining and inftructive than any equal number of pages extracted from the books which are fold in towns and cities under the denomination of guides, and as his vifits to the Opera-houfe and the picture-exhibitions exhibit him only as a moderate connoiffeur and a small dilettante, his book would contribute little toward his renown, and produce no advantage to its readers. Such a friend might have intimated that a guinea is a great deal of money to be exacted for anonymous and defultory opinions on the poetry of Milton, Horace, Ariofto, Pope and Dryden; on the criticifms of Longinus, Quintilian, and Hurd, and on the various compofitions of Johnfon, Burke, Bofwell, Parr, and many others, interfperfed with fuperficial reflec tions on paffing politics, confpicuous individuals, and periodical publications. No man could have offered an opinion against the propriety of making fuch a journal. It becomes every one, according to his talents and his leifure, to fecure the power of forming an accurate retrofpect of his acts, words, and thoughts; but perhaps no man, at all verfed in human affairs, would have advifed a publication of that which can, hardly in any hands, be fo managed as to be useful or delightful to others.

It does feem to have occurred to the author himself that his publication might not be very favourably received, and his expreffions of hesitation, apprehenfion, and felf-encouragement reprefent very naturally the flutter of a young' mifs, who is called upon to fing her new Italian air. He fays;

"With refpect to my fuccefs in this adventure, if I am not generally very fanguine, there are certain moments-under the encouraging influence of a balmy air, bright sky, and vigorous digeftion-in which I am not altogether without hope. When I advert, it is true, to the numerous faults that deform the following pages, all crowding in hideous fucceffion before me—when I reflect on the various improvements of which the whole would he fufceptible, even under my own mature revifal-above all, when I compute what brighter talents and ampler attainments might have achieved in a fimilar career-my heart, oppreffed with the load of my infirmities, finks in defpondency within me: but when I confider, on the other hand, the wretched trash with which the Public is fometimes apparently content to be amufed, my fpirits, in a flight degree, revive; I cannot difguife, from myfelf, that I am at least entitled to equal indulgence with fame of thefe candidates for public favour; and in the momentary elation of this ignoble triumph, am tempted to anticipate a reception, which however moderate and fubdued for an illusion of the fancy, may perhaps prove ridiculously flattering compared with the actual doom that awaits me."

We fhall produce fome fpecimens from the work, to show how far our observations on it are well founded, and enable the reader to judge of the entertainment to be derived from a more general perufal.

It is our duty to obferve, that on the fubject of religion, this author exhibits himfelf to peculiar difadvantage. He appears to be one of thofe, who having clevated themselves to a fancied height in philofophy, difdain the contefts of fects, and treat Revelation with fneering difrefpect; affigning to the writers of the Gospel mere human intelligence, and mere human motives. Such fciolifts decide with an air of authority, and criticize with a peremptory determination on fubjects which they can only have partially viewed, and on works which their contracted line of intellect does not enable them to fathom. To fupport this obfervation, we had marked feveral paffages in the book before us, but on more mature confideration, we choose to let the remark stand on our own credit, and not to verify it by an extract, or even a reference, for reafons that may eafily be gueffed.

Turning from "grave to gay," we will follow the journalift to a place of public entertainment, and obferve what feelings and opinions he thinks fit to record as arifing at the Opera-house. On the 5th of June, 1798, after reading Haflam on infanity, and looking over "Godwin's Memoirs of Mrs. Wolftonecraft," he fays;

"Attended