doubt, or a matter of fact, Mr. Paine has not confulted the welfare of mankind in attacking it at the time and in the manner that he has done:' yet, in fpite of all his rhetoric against Mr. P. as unkind to his fellow-creatures by publishing his deiftical religious opinions, Mr. Burges, when he comes to speak of Chriftianity as a truth, fo far forgets the ground of his cenfure on the author of the Age of Reafon, as to hope that its memory will perish for ever if it will not ftand the teft, and to declare that, if he thought it a fraud, he would obliterate it from his own mind as a nuisance, and endeavour gradually to extirpate it from the minds of others. Mr. B. may lay ftrefs on the word gradually: but if the circumftance of its being a fraud makes it a nuisance, the force of his former reasoning is taken away. He probably means well, but his pamphlet is an injudicious publication; and Mr. Paine may, fairly retort on him the very cenfure with which he is attacked on the fcore of an indifcreet avowal of opinions. To tell the people that, politically, it matters not whether their religion be true or falfe is a most effectual mode of leffening its influence on the common mind. Such may be the language of the politician, but it ought not to be that of the minifters of the gospel. Art. 31. Efays on the most effential Theological Subjects, particularly the Divine Humanity of the Lord-Man's Self-derived Intelligence-the Importance of Divine Things-and the fpiritual Liberty of Man, &c. &c. Together with an Introductory Preface. Defigned for the Promotion of the New Jerufalem Church, announced by Emanuel Swedenborg, Meffenger of the fecond Advent of our only Lord and Saviour Jefus Chrift. By George Nicholfon. 8vo. pp. 148. 25. Boards. Sibly. 1794 38. Fanaticifm, though charged on many religious fects by others, is a character which no fect is willing to take to itself. Perhaps few religious profeffors have given ftronger indications of this quality than the followers of Swedenborg, whofe claim to credit as the founder of a new church refts on pretenfions to fupernatural iiluminations, and an intercourse with angels and fpirits; the wonderful and fublime relation and discoveries of whose spiritual experience his disciples receive with implicit confidence; and whose doctrines have never yet been explained in such a manner as to bring them within the comprehenfion of logicians and philofophers. Yet the prefent writer fpeaks of his mafter not only as the illuminated and infpired, but as the truly rational Swedenborg: he publishes thefe Effays, that the divine truths which are now revealed from the Lord, may be rationally underflood and perceived; and he calls on his readers to think and judge for themfelves, and not to take their creed on his authority, but on that of their Great Leader, the illuftrious Meffenger of the New Difpenfation; adding, as an admitted maxim, that only that converfion to the truth can be of permanent and effectual ufe, which fprings from the impartial inveftigation of evidences. After thefe profeffions, we might feem authorized to expect fuch a plain ftatement of the principles of Swedenborgianifm, and of the grounds on which they reft, that every candid inquirer might at once judge of the validity of this new prophet's pretenfions, and of the reasonablenefs of adopting his fyftem. All this, however, we have in vain fought in the prefent publication. No evidence is adduced in proof of Swedenborg's divine illumination, except his own ipfe dixit; and as to doctrine, as delivered in these Effays, we meet with mifts of obfcurity in every page, which our unenlightened intellects are incapable of difperfing. When we are told that Jefus Chrift is the only true God, the Jehovah, the Everlafting Father; that the divine effe, hitherto worshipped under the name of Jehovah, cannot be feen even by the spiritual eye of faith, but that the New Church vorships a visible God, in whom is the invifible, and whose divine human is the only proper object of which we have a spiritual idea;——when we are told that, though the common fiction of three divine and eternal perfons in the Godhead is a flagrant abomination, neverthelefs there is in the perfon of Chrift a divine trinity, of which his effential divine is the Father, his divine human is the Son, and his divine operation is the Holy Spirit ;-when we are told that regeneration is a divine influx, by which man is made fpiritual, and endued with a true perception of the Lord Jefus, whofe divine effence confifts in goodness and truth;-when we receive thefe, and other fimilar propofitions, as the doctrine of the New Jerufalem Church, we find curfelves in a thick wood of words, and ask in vain for clear definitions and legitimate proofs. Mr. Hindmarsh tells us, with indignation against Dr. Priestley for having made the fuppofition, that Swedenborgianism is not Unitarianifm. Neither Mr. Nicholson nor any of the Swedenborgian teachers plainly tell what this new doctrine is. What is to be inferred from all this, but that it is a hopeless undertaking to bring enthufiafm to the ftandard of common fenfe, and that, in religion at leaft, it is impoffible infanire cum ratione? We are at a loss what to make of the author's date in his title-page, 179438. He cannot mean to call on his readers for fo great a ftretch of faith as to believe, which the characters, algebraically read, affert, that 1794 is equal to 38: perhaps the number 38 may be intended to mark the year for the commencement of the New Jerufalem Church. POETRY and DRAMATIC. Art. 32. Llangunnor-Hill: a Loco-defcriptive Poem, with Notes. Humbly dedicated by the Author to the Public at large. 8vo. 25. Printed at Caermarthen. It feems a pity that this poem was not printed in, and confined to, the Welsh tongue; as it will, we fuppofe, be chiefly interefting to Welsh readers, and as the author is, perhaps, more intimately acquainted with the Cambro-British than with the English language. That he is not fo perfectly and critically killed in the latter, as will fully justify his attempting to write and publifh poetry in it, may be juftly inferred from feveral mistakes which we marked in reading this performance; fome of which feem to manifeft not only poetical defect, but even a mif-ufe of words, of which we should fuppofe a competent English writer, either in verfe or profe, would have been incapable. With regard to poetic imperfection, for inftance, we may produce the following lines: V. 33. With penfive contemplation fir'd!' Who ever before heard of the mind being fired with penfive contemplation? IOI. • What charming beauties ftrike your fight!' What reader will be charmed with fo glaring a pleonasm as this redundant epithet ? 248. • And various other forts befide More pleonasm here! 294. That villa, beautiful and new—' To fay that a building is new is not very loco-defcriptive;' any more than the epithet in the next quotation : 301. How green the fir-trees ftanding near!' The greenness of the firs does not, according to our taste, much improve the view of Penlan Manfion-house.' We are now to take a view of Caermarthen Bridge: 436. Which ferves to join each fever'd shore, And waft the paffing trav'ler o'er.' Here we have one of thofe improprieties which feem to indicate the writer's incomplete acquaintance with our language. What idea can we form of a traveller being wafted over a bridge? If fuch a mode of croffing a river ever occurred, it must have happened by the extraordinary operation of a prodigious high wind; or in confequence of the bridge being overflowed by a fudden and tremendous inundation ! Another reafon for our thinking that Llangunnor-Hill should have been only printed in the Welsh language, is, that none but Welshmen can read and pronounce it: witnefs the following lines: And Pen'ralltfawr amongst the reft.' With many others, too tedious, indeed, to mention. He is Although we could not overlook the glaring defects of this writer's verfification, we acknowlege, with pleasure, his merit in a higher re. fpe&. If his work cannot claim a comparison with the Cooper's Hill of Denham, the Windfor Forest of Pope, or the Grongar Hill of Dyer; if he be not an excellent poet; he appears to be a very good man. We honour his piety, and we efteem his benevolence. the feeling advocate of the poor; and his humanity is amiably extended even to the brute creation. Among other paffages which have given rife to this remark, we were not the leaft pleafed with the compaffionate manner in which, after having glanced at the flinty hearts of our sportsmen, he laments the hard fate of the timid and inoffenfive Hare. With this proof of the poet's tenderness and fenfibility, we shall conclude our remarks: Thence Llwyn-y-Gwragedd Hill appears, Yet though by foes encompafs'd round, And ufelefs are her piercing cries.' Art. 33. The Golden Age, a Poetical Epiftle from Erafmus Dn, M.D. to Thomas Beddoes, M. D. 4to. 1s. Rivingtons. 1794. Some poet, of confiderable talents for ridicule, but of whofe identity we have no conception, has chofen for his present fubject whatever is new, fingular, or, in his apprehenfion, abfurd, in the philofophy of the Doctors Darwin and Beddoes. We are forry to fee the powers of fatire (an inftrument which may be usefully employed,) fo ill applied in the prefent inftance. If men of genius, of fancy, and of invention, had always been thus checked in their flights, they would never, perhaps, have foared to the fublime heights which they frequently attained; and the world might have been deprived of many an IMPORTANT, many a GLORIOUS difcovery! If in their excurfions into the boundless regions of imagination, fuch men have fometimes failed of bringing home any thing of the high value or utility which they expected and fought, the difappointment was to themJelves, and the public fuftained no lofs. On the other hand, when in only one, out of many, aerial voyages of difcovery in fcience, they have returned laden with the GOLDEN FRUITS, how richly have mankind been benefited by the labours of thofe whom, perhaps, they once turned into ridicule, under the indifcriminating names of innovators or projectors? Thofe diftinguifhed adventurers, who, at their own expence and risk, thus nobly embark in the service of mankind, fhould never be obstructed. Why fhould we put an extinguisher tinguisher on the light of the human mind, instead of carefully trimming the lamp that is bounteously provided by Heaven for our guidance ! Art. 34. A Poetical Epiftle addressed to Mifs Wollstonecraft, occafioned by reading her celebrated Effay on the Rights of Woman, and her Historical and moral View of the French Revolution. By John Henry Colls. 4to. 15. Vernor, &c. The main defign of this publication, if we mistake not, is to pave the way for a fubfcription to two vols. of poems, by the author, and Mr. William Dyke. Of the poetry of this last named writer, we have here no fample but the epiftle to Mifs W. may be confidered as an ample fpecimen of the talents of Mr. Colls. In the dedication of this work he profeffes his very high admiration of the lady's abilities, but he diffents from her political principles, particularly refpecting the French revolution. His verfes are not inelegant, but we fee nothing in the poem that we can extract, with any great appearance of advantage to the author. Art. 35. Sonnets: By a Lady. 4to. PP. 24. 2s. 6d. Debrett. 1793. The fonnet is not improperly claffed among the most difficult and artful of the smaller poetical compofitions, as it requires the utmost accuracy, and a conclufion containing fome ingenious thought exhi bited with peculiar neatnefs and felicity. If we could convict the compofitions before us of fome inaccuracies and violations of prescribed rules, we must alfo acknowlege that, on the whole, they are extremely pleafing; and we might extract feveral paffages from them which are replete with tender and refined fentiment, evidently the production of an elegant and reflecting mind. Of thefe, we fhall transcribe only the following, to juflify our commendation : From the Sonnet entitled the Yew-tree. With eye ferene-a parent mark'd the spot For foon below thefe boughs I faw him laid. Scarce could revolving Spring one garland fpare. 'Ere its fast-grated doors prepare To give another mournful tenant room.' Thefe lines are too pathetic not to be felt by all who have shared in fimilar griefs. The two following ftanzas, in the Sonnet entitled Change of Fortune, are truly defcriptive of the fordid paflions of a bafe world: • Once fortune fmil'd-and plenty crown'd my board, And friends would flock my garden's sweets to fhare. 1 i 4 From |