little more real than the gold-mines of Miffiffippi; and that the fmallness of our numbers made it prefumption in us to afpire to more than a very fubaltern place among the nations of Europe; if I were not convinced, and able to demonftrate, that these notions, refpecting us, are in every respect falfe, I fhould probably have refrained from publishing my fentiments, and filently lamented the approaching miferies of my country. "Europe ftill looks to us for help; notwithstanding the military fucceffes which have fo wonderfully changed the scene, the ftill depends on us; and an idea that we have even a flowly-diminishing ability to carry on the war, might, even now, occafion a very mifchievous de pondence on one part, and obftinacy on the other. I rejoice to fee the felf-confiding energy of Britons!-to fee that we are triumphant because we dare be fo; -Ego me nunc denique natum "If ever there was a feafon for glorying in the national character, it is now. We have refifted violence with firmness; we have heard without dismay the threats of a nation which was fweeping mankind from the earth; we have seen powerful kingdoms hiding their heads like the oftrich, and yet leaving themselves expofed to deftruction; we have been deferted, left alone to fight against the enemy of laws and of religion; yet we have never meanly fhrunk from the conteft! "To the intrinfic power of the nation; to its morals; to the adminiftration of public affairs; to the exalted character placed by Providence on the throne of this country, and protected by his care, we owe these unparalleled bleffings. "If, in the courfe of this pamphlet, I have expreffed opinions contradicting those which have been fanctioned by great authority; yet I hope I have not done it in a captious or contentious manner. It cannot be the lot of any one man, however great his talents, to act every part in the drama of focial life; and much must be left to others who may neither be equally able, nor equally diligent. Next in point of merit to the important measure of providing for the gradual extinction of the old public debt, which Mr. Pitt propofed with fo much good fenfe, and has perfevered in with fo much honour, is his prefent plan for preventing, as much as poffible, the dangerous accumulation of a new one. The income tax is founded in moral equity, and political wifdom; and heavy as it is, the people do not murmur at it, because they see its neceffity; and I fhould be more forry that it has failed (and muft, under any prudent modifications ftill fail) of being fo productive as was expected, if I did not know that this failure, inftead of being a reafon for defpondency, is chiefly occafioned by circumftances which ought to give additional confidence-by more general diffufion of wealth among a greater number of inhabitants. It has been too much the fathion of late to magnify, either from maligwity or from ignorance, the difparity of human conditions. If the divifion divifion of income among us were really fo unequal as it is continually reprefented by declaimers, where would thofe myriads of the middle clafs have been found, who have armed at their own expence for the general protection? If the inequality of income has been increafing, how is it that all taxes on articles of univerfal confumption are hourly more productive, while those of an oppofite kind are many of them diminishing? that, with respect to new taxes, those which bear on the general population ufually exceed, or at least, equal expectation; while thofe which bear on articles of limited use, or, like this, are founded on a speculation of greatly concentrated income, almost always fall fhort of the first calculations?" ART. VIII. Irish Purfuits of Literature, in A. D. 1798, and 1799. Confifting of Tranflations, Second Thoughts, Rival Tranflations, The Monftrous Republic, Indexes. 8vo. Wright. 1799. HIS is a defultory, but a very ingenious performance. As the title-page gives us to understand, it confifts of at variety of scraps; fcraps, however, which we have examined with pleasure and fatisfaction, and from which we have derived much information. The author hath obferved little or no method in the arrangement of his materials; and we cannot be expected to reduce them to order: we shall at once, therefore, and without ceremony, cite fuch paffages as may inftruct or entertain our readers. "POSTSCRIPT TO THE ADVERTISEMENT. "It was not my intention to have entered into any difcuffion of the momentous queftion of an Union, in the prefent publication, referving that for a more elaborate work, now in confiderable forwardnefs, intitled, Quæries Political and Philofophical, in which I have endeavoured to afcend to firft principles, and original writers, refpect. ing the conftitution of human nature, and the foundation of political regimen or civil government; the following anecdote, however, is fo curious, that I fhould think myself culpable were I to withhold it from the public, until that work fhall be fubmitted to their cognizance, "The late EDMOND BURKE, that celebrated orator and statefnan, to whofe influence principally, with the British Cabinet, may be afcribed the grant of the Elective Franchife to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, in the memorable year 1793; (fee Rival Translations) at an earlier period, appears to have been a well-wisher to the Parliamen tary Union of the fifter kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, In the year 1761, he came over to Ireland, in the train of Lord Halifax, then Viceroy, and in a confidential letter, written by him to the Rev.. William Dennis, the friend and companion of his youth, when through N 3 his his intereft he had been appointed Mafter of the Free School of Naas,' in the Diocese of Kildare, (who was afterwards made chaplain to Lord Townshend, during his administration in Ireland, and bene ficed by government) after detailing the steps he had taken to procure Mr. D. that appointment, and the patronage of the Bishop of Kildare, through the mediation of Mr. O'Hara,' Mr. Burke concludes with the following remarkable expreffion of his fentiments refpecting Irish public affairs:" • Dear Dennis, • I must defer, for the present, the account you defire of public affairs, as I have fomething more interefting to you about your own,' as to public affairs, I have very little to fay. Before your country politicians are fo angry about an Union, they ought to be fure that it will be a prejudice to them, and that it will be offered to them. It is an odd dread of a beggar, that a rich merchant intends to enter into partnership with him! What the effect of a Union would be, is a matter of deep and difficult enquiry; but you may depend upon it, that, at present, there is not the leaft thought of it entertained, either bere, (Dublin Caftle) or in England. • Dr. Lucas makes a wretched figure in the House, (of Commons); he cannot speak, and he will not be filent; mean time his phyfical reputation feems to decline nearly as faft as his political. My eyes are ftill very fore-I hope by this time, I may congra tulate Mrs. Dennis on the birth of a fon. Nov. 7, (1761.) • I am, yours most affectionately, E. BURKE. Your friend Garret (Burke, his brother,) defires to be remem bered.' "This letter was directed to Mr. Dennis, at Clonmell, where he had been for feveral years, usher of the Latin School ;-it is copied by another hand, but the corrections throughout, the fignature E. BURKE, the date, and the poftfcript, are in his own hand-writing.It is a curious and valuable document indeed, and muft furely have great weight, at the prefent momentous crifis, in conciliating the minds of the Irish Catholics efpecially, towards the grand imperial measure of Union, when coming fo unequivocally recommended, from fo fteady a friend, and fo powerful a folicitor for their emancipation as Mr. BURKE. "The authenticity of this document is vouched by the original Jetter itfelf, now returned to the proprietor, my refpected friend, William Smyth, Efq. No. 7, Granby-Row, Dublin." August 20, 1799: "THE SIGN OF THE PROPHET DANIEL. As the fign of the prophet JONAH was given in wrath; fo the fign of the prophet DANIEL was given in mercy, for the prefervation of the apostles, difciples, and chriftian converts among the Jews; and according ya amidit the general havoc, not a hair of their heads perished, perished, according to their divine MASTER's comfortable prediction, in whom they trusted, and whom they obeyed. "This fign is called the abomination of defolation, ftanding in the holy place' or precincts of the temple-Matt. xxiv. 15. Signify. ing the Roman encampments' (5gaтorrow Luke xxi. 20) whofe enfigns, were called, propria legionum numina,- -- the proper divinities of the legions'-by which they fwore, and to which they facrificed. And, accordingly, the chriftians inftantly fled from the devoted city, on the first coming of Titus, and before he had furrounded the city, with his immenfe lines of circumvallation; (begun on Saturday June 2d. and finished on the third day, to the wonder of the worldfor the LORD wrought for Titus) and saved themselves in the mountains,' as directed. Matt. xxiv. 16. "The prophecy of Daniel, which our LORD thus fan&tioned, by his quotation and explanation, (and whofe whole book Profeffor Eichorn ftill more daringly wishes to expunge from the Hebrew canon as a legend' ufeful only to thofe who practice divination by the fcriptures, and for those who pray in private,' see Monthly Review, 1797, Aug. Appendix, P. 494, &c.) is to be found in that moft celebrated prophecy of the Seventy Weeks near its close.” ix. 27. and again, xii. 11. GRIESBACH'S GREEK TESTAMENT. I Dan. "The fecond edition, I understand, is published: unless confiderably amended, from the first, it should by no means, be confidered as a ftandard text; however useful in other refpects. See his unfkilful corruption of the famous text, of 1 Tim. iv. 16. introducing an alteration of the punctuation, which makes downright nonfenfe of the paffage-referring OE to Σry as an antecedent; but Σrvy✪ refers to Timothy, (See alfo P. L. 350.) as one of the pillars and bul warks of the Church, Gal. ii. 9. See alfo, his most injudicious defalcations of the text, Acts xxiii. 9. where bouaxe is dropped; though required by the fenfe, and by Acts v. 39. And by a ftill more unwarrantable licenfe, Col. ii. 2. xx пaтços naι to xgise are all excluded; leaving, to refer to GOD the FATHER;' whereas it plainly relates to the Son, JESUS CHRIST, in whom are depofited all, the treasures of revealed knowledge.' "Such is the pruriency of editorial criticifm, or rather hypercriticism." WAKEFIELD. « Ν. Β. ὁ κοσμο της αδικίας is juftly and elegantly rendered the varnisher of injustice,' by Wakefield; but he fhould have acknowledged his obligations, in this and numberless inftances, to that mine of erudition, Wetstein's Greek Teftament, 2 vols. 4to. from which he has pilfered, and given untranflated,-in the present oftentatious fashion, and as a cloak for ignorance, or crude and indigested common place, (the Satirift always excepted) the following soft appofite paffage, Euripid, lon. 850. Οίμοι κακέργος ανδρας ως συγών Οι συνδιθεντες ταδικ ειτα μηχαναίς Woe is me! how I always abhor thofe malignants, Who compofe injuftice, and then, with gloffes Varnish! "And I fhall add another and no lefs appofite quotation from Wet. ftein, which he ought to have adduced and tranflated. Προς καλην ὑποθεσιν και δίκαιαν αγωνι ξομενοι λόγω, For purpofe fair and just in fhew, contending With an eloquence, able to varnish even the worst measures.' Plut. Gracchi. "How admirably is this expreffed in the language of Milton: His Tongue, Dropt Mana, and could make the worse appear "If we proceed to the sequel : Τον τξοχον της Γενέσεως. The wheel of human life, Little metaque fervidis Evitata rotis." MONTHLY REVIEWERS, credit do the M. Reviewers reflect on themselves and on their principles, by ftiling (the author of the Pursuits of Literature) ff this very ingenious and learned writer," (as they acknowledge him to be) a literary alarmist and a [political] Mefmer,”—for noticing the Titular Bishop of Waterford's" abfcure Pastoral Letter" -but which the prefent rebellion, bursting forth from his diocefe and diftrict in the very firit inftance, laft May, fully juftifies the Satirift's defcription thereof-" Darkness mixed with fire." Still more ex ceptionable, perhaps, is their unworthy palliation of the guilt of an obfcene Novel-whofe author most defervedly incurred the lafh."When a young SENATOR amufed himself with writing a loose Novel,” and when an ECCLESIASTIC dares to introduce ribaldry into a tranf lation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and to vilify and reject the infpira. tion of the Sacred hiftorians; are fuck, to be reprefented as "Gob. lins ?" and "our frightful Satirift," as a "Ghoft-feer," exercifing "the craft and myftery of alarm," upon thefe fuppofed phantoms of his own imagination?" as if national morals were at end, public turpitude patronized by the law-giver, and the worship of the Lingam about to be eftablished at St. Paul's"-" magnetiling his readers, by this obvious trick of hyperbole, into a perpetual hysteric; and convulfing them with the titillatory fpafms of ever-varying fears."Surely fuch lingo, and fuch fentiments, are a difgrace to their Review, and an infult on the public; of which, the Satirift has evinced him felf |
