time. The part inhabited at prefent contains little more than one hundred and fixty thoufand people, di ributed into eighty-two parifhes, one hundred and twenty-five religious houfes and convents, fifty-five monafteries and confervatories for women, forty-three colleges and feminaries, and thirty-two hofpitals and houses for paupers and pilgrims, erected with a magnificence emulative even of the ancient buildings. It has at present twenty gates, but in the time of Pliny it had twenty-four, and fix hundred and forty-four towers. This metropolis ftill retains that noble emulation of the ancients, which, united with modern grandeur, makes it more pleasant and defirable to all nations than any other city in the world. It "Such is, in few words, the outline of the origin and progress to empire and to decay of a city which has ever excited the aftonishment of the philofopher and poli ician, as well as of the traveller. To view it has always been a favourite object with the man of tafte and leifure, and is well worth the whole of the grand tour besides. is the school of the artist, the library of the hiftorian; and to investigate its treasures is to become acquainted with its viciffitudes, and impress its most important revolutions for nearly the laft two thousand years in the most agreeable manner. And it is hoped that to detail its beauties will be esteemed the genuine unn of the "utile dulci." This work is more interefting to artists and antiquaries than to any other defcription of readers. The plates contain thirty-nine subjects, ably designed and neatly engraved; but they are on too fmall a fcale, two of the subjects being generally on one plate, the fize of an octavo page: to the fecond volume is prefixed a very good map of Rome. ART. XXXVIII. The Lady's and Gentleman's Botanical Pocket Book, adapted to Withering's Arrangement of Briti Plants. Intended to facilitate and promote the Study of Indigenous Botany, By William Mavor, L. L. D. 12mo. PP. 210. 3s. WE fhall allow Dr. Mavor to explain for himself the object and ufe of this pocket-book, obferving only that it seems well calculated to answer the purpose for which it is intended. "It has been judged most expedient to adapt our plan to WITHERING'S Arrangement of British Plants, the last dition, because it is the most popular and fatisfactory book that has yet appeared on the fubject; but it is by no means effentially neceffary, that every person who uses this Pocket Companion should have the fame guide. Any work in which indigenous plants are arranged, according to the latest improvements in the science, will answer the fame purpole. "The declared and obvious intention of the Botanical PocketBook, is merely to ferve as a record of what plants each person in his researches has had an opportunity of discovering and examining, "It will thus ftimulate farther enquiry, by the facility with which every addition to our vegetable difcoveries may be noted down; G4 down; and it will infallibly gratify the young ftudent, by affording a lafting remembrance of his diligence and application. "The accomplished Botanist will likewife find it convenient for enabling him to notice the habitats of rare or curious plants, or to regifter new discoveries; and from the united labours and obfervations of fuch, collected into one focus, it is probable that a more perfect work on indigenous botany will in time be completed, than by any other method hitherto attempted. "To affift and encourage the above purposes, the claffes, orders, and genera are here fcientifically arranged, and fpaces left to fill up, apportioned, as far as poffible, to the number of fpecies under each genus: "For instance, under the genus NYMPHEA is a space for two fpecies, and the entry may fland thus: NYMPHEA alba, white water lily, Blenheim Lake. "Little farther illuftration of the ufe of this manual feems neceffary; but, fuppofe the ftudent in a botanical excurfion has picked up a certain number of plants, belonging to different genera, each species of course must be accurately examined and determined, and its name and place of growth written under the proper genus, that he may, at all times, be able to refer to what he has feen, even fhould the ftrong impreffion which the entry will make on the mind be cafually obliterated. "It is neceffary to obferve, however, that the clafs cryptogamia is not admitted on this occafion; both because it is not fo generally ftudied as the rest, and because it would have extended this work too far. However, thould the public fanction this novel attempt to render botany still more fashionable, it is intended to form a fecond Pocket Book for that clafs, and to add some botanical effays, to explain and illustrate that difficult part of vegetable nature.”, ART. XXXIX. A brief Statement of Facts, wherein several inStances of unparalleled Inhumanity, Oppreffion, Cruelty, and Neglect, in the Treatment of the Poor, in the Parish of Damerham South in the County of Wilts, are confidered and expofed. By Philip Henvil, Curate of Egerton. Pr. 56. London. WE will not fhock the minds of our readers by a relation of the facts here enumerated; they are fuch as would difgrace the most hardened Overfeer that ever tyrannized in the plantations of Jamaica. We give Mr. Henvil infinite credit for thus honourably broving the malignant refentment of fuch a worthlefs fet of wretches as he has defcribed, and hope he will thus nobly perfevere in the difcharge of his duty, until the grievances he complains of are fully redrefed. Then, indeed, when "the eye fees him it will blefs him, and when the ear hears him, it will bear witnefs" of his virtuous labours. 1 REVIEWERS REVIEWERS REVIEWED. ART. XL. Rumon's Review of Middleton upon Tithes. TO THE EDITOR. SIR, THE 'HE hiftory of Reviewing in this country would be an object of curiofity to the philofophical 'confiderer, if it was faithfully detailed and properly coloured. But the firft Review upon the prefent plan of Monthly Remarks was, what was for this reafon denominated the MONTHLY REVIEW, fet on foot (we believe) by a committee of Prefbyterian teachers in London, and, having the management of it committed to the keeper of their public library, in St. Martin's Lane, Dr. Kippis, continued an open hoftility to the church from the commencement to the clofe of the Doctor's life. The manager being alfo an avowed Arian, as we believe each of the committee to have equally been, this Review became the established vehicle of Arianism, and of Prefbyterianifm to the public. The clergy, and the laity of the church, that were true to her interefts, or faithful to her doctrines, perufed the effufions of both every month with indignation, yet never attempted to counteract them by an oppofed Review. The writer of this article remembers well his own indignation at the time, though only a young ftudent at the University; had even the boldness to project fuch a Review, as ought to have been both projected and executed by others; but had too little knowledge of the world, and too few connections in literary life, ever to carry the project beyond the mind that formed it. About the fame period, however, a fecond Review was begun by the late Dr. Smellet; not from any defire of counteracting the bad principles of the Monthly, but merely from a quarrel with the proprietor of it. Thus the CRITICAL became the open antagonist of the Monthly; and publications in favour of the church, or of orthodoxy, began by accident to receive a toleration, if not a countenance, that they had not known for years before. In this manner the two rival Reviews went on, till, as new managers, or new affociates, have arifen, the rivalry has ceafed, and the Critical has joined the Monthly in its hoftility to orthodoxy and the church. The latter, indeed, has kept on a fteady courfe of hoftility, never wavering in its hatred, never sparing in its venom, as immortal in its oppofition as the committee prefiding over it, and ftill breathing out the virus of old Prefbyterianifm, inflamed with the worfer virus of new ́Arianism, or new Socinianifm, or new Deifin. The church, indeed, has lately rouzed from her indolence, and what I fondly planned in youth, I have lived to fee realized in my old age; the BRITISH CRITIC having torn a part of the empire of literature from the monopolizing hands of diffention; and continuing to gain every year upon the long-ufurped dominions of herefy. The late Mr. Jones, of Nayland, that truly reverend and very learned and very worthy man, the honour of being an active promoter in forming the plan of that Review. had Review. But the mcft effectual oppofition given to the Heretical Reviews has been the establishment of the Anti-Jacobin, and the avowed defignation of a portion in it to the Review of the Reviews themselves; fuch a defignation pointing directly at the heart of the mifchief, laying open the "fomes peccati" there, and expofing both to the eye of the public. And, in the profecution of the fame good purpose, I beg leave to enter upon a little of the furgery of criticifm in your Review, to diffect with a fair knife a paffage in the Monthly for December, and to burn down the proud fleth that is fpringing up in it. The recent furveys of our counties, projected with the view of improving the agriculture of our island, but executed by men heady, ignorant, and rash, are threatening to plunge us all into a wild fea of innovations. In the narrowness of their fouls, and in the darkness of their ignorance, these men attend only to a fingle point, and give up every thing for the fake of this. They accordingly fet up their cry against TITHES, as the grand bar to all agricultural improvements. And the Committee of Diffenters, in St. Martin's Lane, who know tithes to form a principal part of that provifion for the Clergy, at which they have long caft an envious eye, or by which the clergy are fupported in their warfare against herefy, unite heartily with men, that mean no harm to the church, perhaps, none to religion, probably, bat ere madly pursuing agricultural improvement at the expence of all probity, all propriety, all religion in the land. "It would be fpeculating in too wide a field," cries the Committee's Reviewer of a work by a Mr. Middleton,* land-furveyor, on the agriculture of Middlefex, "to inquire whether the circumftances of Europe may not, in the courfe of a few years, oblige us to a general commutation of tythes: it is fufficient to confider, how far the taking them in kind operates againft agricultural improvements. There are different opinions on this fubject; but the series of these reports has made it apparent to which fide the general opinion leans." If this is true, and we believe it to be fo, it is time for the public to keep their eye upon these presumptuous, yet ignorant, reporters, and to be upon their guard against these new principles of reform. The Committee's man we fee cordially uniting in this reform, and heartily abetting the prefumption of thofe reporters. But he abets with all their ignorance: nor can this ignorance be better expofed, than by repeating his own words, and only fubftituting a new object for tythes. "It would," then, indeed, "be fpeculating in too wide a field, to inquire whether the circumftances of Europe may not, in the courfe of a few years, oblige us to a general fixednefs of rents for land: it is fufficient to confider, how far the fluctuation of their rents operates against agricul ural improvements." This, indeed, "is fufficient" of itself to brand the Reviewer with folly for his intimation. But he goes on to cite his "learned philofopher," the land-furveyor, because he "has given * M. R. Pp. 394, 395• his fentiments on this head in fo clear and decided a marner, that it may not be unacceptable to our readers," and (let us add) may ferve that cause of confufion for which he, with his affociates, has laboured fo ftrenuously of late. "In many parishes of this county," cries the raven croaking from the battlements of the church, "the tythes are taken in kind; and, which is nearly the fame, in others they are annually valued and compounded for." The land-furveyor here goes a bar's length beyond his applauder. The latter mentioned only the taking of tythes in kind, as prejudicial to agriculture; but the former objects also to annual compofitions, and avers they are "nearly the fame" with taking in kind. Betwixt them, the Clergy are to be deprived of both. But the land-furveyor here is egregiously mistaken, even in his own province of furveying. No annual compofition ever comes up to the full amount of tythes taken in kind. The writer of this article is familiar with both, and speaks decifively of both. Common sense, indeed, demonftrates this to be the cafe; the tythe-owner being fure to deduct in his charge to the tythe-payer, for the expence of carrying off the tythe, and even, in ninety-nine inftances out of a hundred, charging much below the real value behind. So grofsly mistaken is Mr. Mid. dleton! But, "in several parishes," he adds, "a reasonable compofi, tion is taken." What this writer calls "a reasonable compofition,” may be eafily conjectured from the general complexion of his face, as fet against the Clergy. He means fuch as a fpirit of religion, a spirit of ftudioufnefs, and a fpirit of timidity, the refult of both, have too often induced the Clergy to accept from the turbulent, the facrilegious of their parishes. The Clergy, in general, I believe, hardly receive one half of their rights from tythes throughout the whole kingdom. A farmer, we all know, ought to make three rents from his lands. Mr. Young even fays, they ought to make three and a half. The actual tythe then of an estate, rented at 1ool. a year, would be worth 30l. or 351, annually. This worth would be equal to 6s. or 6s. 6d. in the pound of the rent. But what Clergyman ever receives fuch a compofition, however due to him? What Clergyman ever receives any compofition like it? The higheft, we believe, hardly afcends to four fhillings, generally drops to three, or to half-a-crown, and (in the ri diculous indifcrimination of fome clergymen, and many laicks, con, founding the rent with the produce) frequently finks to two fhillings. Thus the Clergy lofe, at the best, more than one-third of their rights by compofition, and, at the worft, (if this be the worst) more than two-thirds. Yet the lowest (I doubt not) is the "reasonable compofition" noticed by Mr. Middleton; as "in fome [parifhes]," he fubjoins immediately, "it has been very little advanced during the laft twenty years," while the value of the tythes themselves has been advanced very greatly. "Happily," he obferves, in a tone which fhews his whole foul at once," there are farnts which pay a modus," and fo pay a penny for a pound, the very effence of a modus being the fmallness of its payments. Modufes, indeed, have gone on fo far in this fcandalous peculation upon the patrimony of the church, that, |
