above-recited Acts." Now, as habits of industry when once lost are not easily regained, it is therefore to be hoped, that the considerate and conscientious Magistrates, to whom so important a charge is consigned, will avail themselves of their powers. The salutary purpose of the law is to reform the manners of the people, when unhappily depraved, and restore them as better members to society. In this very interesting view, and under the many privations of a Gaol, it would be an act of the greatest humanity, so to encourage industry, as that the hapless prisoners might be excited and enabled, by his own exertions, to render life more comfortable to himself, more safe to others, and at the same time essentially beneficial to his country.

It has always struck me, that wherever the Bread Allowance to prisoners is not judiciously distributed in distinct loaves, but cut from the Gaoler's or Keeper's loaf (as is the case both here, and other Prisons of this county of Hertford), there ought to be weights and scales provided, and kept apart for that purpose only; in order that the prisoners may always see that their respective doles are fairly and fully dealt out to them. The complaints which have occurred upon this subject may thus be effectually prevented in future.

I found the Gaol much cleaner than at my former visits; and straw being much cheaper, a more liberal supply has been issued, which is changed once in six weeks.

There is still, however, a want of regularity and cleanliness in the management of the present Gaol. The Keeper's house commands but a very small part of it. Uncovered pails, or buckets, are most loathsomely made to serve the purpose of sewers. Here are no Rules and Orders. The Clauses against Spirituous Liquors are hung up; but the Act for Preserving the Health of Prisoners is omitted. To Dr. Lettsom.

JAMES NEILD.

Norton, Durham, Nov. 28, 1808. N your Magazine for January last, p. 29, a case was stated, as to the abuse of a school, by the neglect of the Master; and a request made, that

some of your legal Correspondents would give their opinion as to the means of remedying it.

In the Index Indicatorius of the number for May following, p. 436, A. Z. recommends enquiry to be made respecting the reform of a similar abuse, at Hampton, Middlesex. Application was accordingly made by letter; but no answer having been received, this public mode of requesting information is once more adopted, in hopes that some opinion may be given, by which a charitable endowment (after near fifteen years' neglect) may no longer be misapplied, in a parish where the children are very numerous. THE VICAR. Jan. 6.

Mr. URBAN,

W

ITHOUT the least wish of re

viving a controversy, of which your Readers have perhaps had already plus quam satis; allow me to state an historical fact: "In May 1718, the Government having notice that the Roman Catholicks were about to celebrate the Feast of St. Winifred, at Holywell in Wales, with great solemnity, sent down a party of Dragoons thither; who seized their Priest as he was officiating, with his images, plate, and other utensils; and found a parcel of writings, which discovered several estates settled to superstitious uses." (Salmon.)

A remark of Bishop Lowth, that no error is so trivial, but that it deserves to be mended, must plead my excuse for noticing a speck in the Sun.

The great Luminary of Literature, in his Lives of the English Poets," says, "When the Marquis of Wharton was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Addison accompanied him as Secretary." The trifling error I allude to is an anachronism in the Marquisate; as the Earl of Wharton was not elevated to that rank till more than six years after his appointment as Lord Lieutenant.

Dr. Johnson adds, that "Wharton was impious, profligate, and shamieless; without regard, or appearance of regard, to right or wrong." This severe character applies in some degree to the noble Viceroy, who was certainly bad enough; but would have been still more appropriate to his witty, but far more profligate son, the Duke of Wharton.

Yours, &c.

A MINOR CRITIC. Mc

ILLUSTRATIONS OF HORACE.

Book II. EPISTLE II.
To JULIUS FLORUS.

THIS Epistle is ad ressed to the same person to whom the third letter of the first book is directed. What this Florus was to our Poet, and what he was to Tiberius, we are informed by Horace himself. An old anonymous scholiast makes him a satirist; upon what foundation i have no means of knowing. That he was one of the beaux esprits of the time, and made agreeable verses, we may perhaps recollect to have likewise heard from Horace; the expressions, however, quæ circum volitas agilis thyma, and seu condis amubile carmen * rather lead us to suppose him a poet in the light, pleasant, ludicrous, Catullian method, than a satirist; and this appears to be confirmed by that passage in the Epistle, where Horace says to him:

-

That joys in Bion's keen satiric vein.
If Florus had been in the last predica-

ment, Horace would have said of him what he says of this third.

However that be, the Epistle itself, inasmuch as it depicts to us the then literary world at Rome, though not on its most advantageous side, may be considered as a companion to the preceding one, to Augustus. The occasion and design are much the same with those of the first Epistle to Mæcenas; and it forms no inconsiderable supplement to the nineteenth (or third Epistle to Mæcenas) in the former book. Julius Florus, who was absent with Tiberius, his patron, had upbraided our Poet with not having sent him some long-promised poems. Horace indeed continued, since he had assured Mecenas

advantage to the Roman literature. He therefore amuses his young friend with a long train of apologies, every one of which is a reason why he has no account to give of the promised poems.

The manner in which he delivers these reasons acquires, by a certain partly real and partly affected ill-humour, somewhat of a poignancy that is more easily felt than described. The ridicule with which he so lavishly besprinkles his insolent poetical confratres possesses the two-fold virtue, first, of being introduced with such naïve cordiality, that the stricken gentry themselves could hardly take it amiss; and secondly, of being so true, that it is even at present as suitable, as if it had been expressly written for our times, and in the midst of US. I might have added still a third virtue, especially as it is in fact the most meritorious; namely, that (according to his usual practice) he studiously contrives, by a variety of fine observations and suggestions, and particularly by the beautiful passage, at &c. (wherein he represents the chaqui legitimum cupiet fecisse poema, racter and the procedure of a genuine virtuoso in the Muses' art) to render his satire instructive.

The moral reflections with which he closes this Epistle, are the philosophy of all his Epistles, as that was the philosophy of his life. They cannot, therefore, be new to us; but the grace which always attended him, diffuses over them a charm superior to most familiar things become, by the the charm of novelty; and even the manner and tone in which he says listen to him all the day long. them, so interesting, that we could

circumstance of being born at such a Tibure vel Gabiis.] Probably the place as Tibur or Gabii, was a recommendation to a young slave, partly because of the particularly good air of those places, partly on account of a less corrupt state of manners: so that thence a favourable preposses sion both in behalf of their health and their innocence was conceived.

In scalis lutuit.] The Roman houses were so constructed, that there was scarcely any other hiding-place than under the staircase.

Ibit qui zonam perdidit.] Whether this proverb, which seems to have been

民

1. H. I. F. I.T. U Cal. Junii, A. C. 1808. On asking who this Mr. Clerk might be, and what his specific merits, I was referred to a very curious article in the Edinburgh Review, No. XII; a publication, by the way, not universally approved in our Combinationrooms. If the account of the book on Naval Tacticks given by these Scotsmen be true, which account really is not ill drawn up, it follows, that of all the benefits derived to this Country from the manœuvre of breaking the line, since the 12th April, 1782, downwards, this John Clerk is the ultimate author; for that the manoeuvre was his, and not Lord Rodney's invention.

To all the statements in the Edin

burgh Review, I have nothing to oppose but their improbability prima facie, and the unfitness that such statements in a Country like this should be true. What am I to believe, that where Vaccination, and the Life-boat, have gained Parliamentary applause, and large sums of public money for Greathead and Jenner, "the magnificent invention" in Naval Tacticks, which has stood as it were in the gulph to save us from ruin, should have passed unrequited and unhonoured till the 1st June, 1808, and then noticed by three obscure individuals in a remote part of the North ?

No, Mr. Urban, this, I trust, will be found to be scandalously false; or, by my faith, if otherwise, it is scandalously true. And I hereby invite any of your intelligent Correspondents to contradict and disprove the foul insinuation on our National gratitude : in so doing, they will very greatly oblige, C. DUILLIUS.

Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN, Jan. 28. SEND you a few inscriptions copied from monuments in the Parish Churches of Norbury and High Offley; which, as they refer chiefly to the same family as that whose epitaphs appear in vol. LXXI. p. 17*, you will probably favour them with a place in one of your Numbers.

High Offley and Norbury are ad

See also vol. LXXVII. p. 1105.

joining parishes in Staffordshire, situ, ate between Eccleshall in Staffordshire, and Newport in Shropshire, about four miles distant from Eccles! hall, and nearly the same from Newport.

Norbury Church is a plain old stone building, consisting of a Nave and Chancel, and a modern brick Tower at the West end of the Nave, in which are four bells and a small one. In the Chancel on slabs are these inscriptions; the two first being on brassplates.

1.

"Here lyeth the body of John Partington, steward to yo Right-worshipful S Charles Skrymsher of Norbury Mann, in this parish, kut. which trust he disharg'd with the greatest integrity, industry, and prudence, near 30 years; and has left us an example truly worthy of our imitation, in his charity to ye poor, love to his neigh bour, fidelity to his master, and devotion of July, in ye 52nd year of his age, anno to his God. He departed this life, 9th day Dom' 1707."