upon him on that account, but as a circumstance no way improper to note, for the Reader's information. It may also prove an additional inducement to the candid Protestant, to look into his pamphlet, from a laudable defire to know what the oppofite party has to fay, on its own behalf: and we may venture to affure our Readers, that this honest Farmer has many fhrewd things to offer to their impartial confideration : we do not mean altogether on a religious, but rather on a political account.

With respect to his compendious view of the present State of Ireland, it is entirely a laboured panegyric on the country and its inhabitants; in which, however, making some due allowance for his natural partiality to his native foil, we believe the colouring of his pleafing picture is not unpardonably heightened. We have a high efteem for the country-its natural advantages are, doubtless, equal to thofe of any other ifland in the world; and as to its acquired ones, if they are not in all respects equal to thofe of England, perhaps, the English themselves are chiefly anfwerable for it. Neverthelefs, it must be confeffed, that, confidering all the discouragements and reftraints which we have cramped the rifing Genius of Ireland, our brethren and fellow fubjects of that country have really done wonders; infomuch, that with all our boafted fuperiority, we are, in many refpects, but imitators and followers of Irish industry, and Irish public fpirit.

To this entertaining pamphlet is annexed a Paper, containing thirteen pages, which feems to have been written by the ingenious Henry Brooke, Efq; Author of Gustavus Vasa, the Farmer's Letters, &c. It is entitled, the Farmer's Cafe of the Roman Catholics of Ireland; in a Letter from a Member of the Proteftant Church.' It is intended to fhew the reasonableness of mitigating or abating the rigour of the old penal laws, under which the present Roman Catholics of Ireland cannot but think themfelves grievously oppreffed. He argues upon the change of times, principles, fituation, and circumftances; in fine, of every occafion that produced those penal laws.

Had an hundred Pitts,' fays he, and an hundred Cecils, compofed the fenate of our ancestors, at the time that thofe penal laws were enacted; had those laws been ever fo wife and fo juft, fo wholesome and neceffary, and well ⚫ suited to the season; is that a reason that they should con⚫tinue fo to the end of time? In a world where nothing is

permanent; where modes, manners, principles, and prac

tice are at a flux; where life is uncertain, and all it con⚫tains changeable; Nature and Reafon will conform to fi⚫tuation and circumstance; and where caufes have ceafed, in any degree, the confequences ought to ceafe in the fame ⚫ proportion.

་

It is not now with Rome as it was in the days when Princes held her fteed, and Emperors her ftirrup. The Kings of the earth have, pretty clearly, refumed her ufurpations and acquifitions of temporal dominion. It is not now, as it was when she cried Peace! and it became Peace; [ or when the breath of her mandate kindled the nations to 'battle. Even his Holiness is, now, but a poor limitted Prince, pent up within his little Italian demefne. If fome few ftill acknowlege to hold of his authority, it is a homage of words, and not of facts; they will not acknowlege to 'hold of his power. He is reftored to the quiet and unen'vied poffeffion of all the lordship and interest he can acquire in heaven. But the fceptre, even of his fpiritual dominion upon earth, is, of late, as I take it, most wonderfully 'fhortened.

Matters are much altered with the ecclefiaftical world, ' even fince I wrote the Letters that have roufed your spleen. Whether it be through a decline of the Romish religion, in 'particular; or, poffibly, through a decline of all religion in general; the pontifical and epifcopal Dictatorfhip and autho⚫rity are wofully fallen, from the chair of Infallibility, where they have been feated by opinion. The fons of the most bigotted ancestors do now perceive, that piety and immorality are not rightly confiftent. And even the vulgar and ignorant, among the Roman laity, would grumble at de'parting from an inch of their property, though the Priest 'fhould advife, and the Pope himself should enjoin it.

But, Sir, if the change of times and principles, fituation, and circumstances; if the change of every cause that ' produced those penal laws, have not availed for a change of 'confequences; for fome mitigation or abatement of their rigour, toward thefe my unhappy brethren, the Roman Catholics of Ireland: if no argument, I fay, that is taken 'from changes, may avail for the purpofe, I will take one 'from permanence and duration itself, that shall strike light ⚫ and conviction to the eye of every beholder; that Power may gainfay, but cannot refute; that Malevolence may difpute, but never can answer.

REV. Aug. 1760.

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• About

About fix generations have now paffed away, according to the rates of purchase and eftimate of the life of man, fince thefe people have offended in word or in deed. No riotings have been heard in their houses, no complainings in their fleets; they have been filent and harmless as sheep before their fheerers. Our parties, factions, and infurrections, as they are merrily ftiled in England, have been all ⚫ among ourselves; this people were neither actors nor partakers therein. They have offered themfelves to our fleets and to our armies ; to tend our perfons, to till our grounds, to hew our wood, and to draw our water. Where we admit them to fight for us, they have ever proved valiant; where we admit them to ferve us, they are found loving, obfervant, and faithful. Temptations have come to their doors and called them forth; the contagion of rebellion hath broken out among their neighbours; they have yet remained quiet, and continued untainted; ftill loyal to their fovereign, amenable to government, and fubmiffive to law, through a long and trying fucceffion of about feventy years, they have fcarce appeared to repine in the midst of their calamities.

When I look back on the querulous and reflefs nature of man: when I trace the human propenfities through the records of ages and nations: in all the hiftories of thofe ftates who had leaft caufe of complaint: throughout the commonwealths of Afia Minor, the Archipelago, the Grecian continent, Italy, the islands of the Mediterranean, &c. where the rights of nature, under forms of various inftitution, were afferted by liberty and guarded by law: where the affurance of property gave most reason for content: I can find but few inftances of any people who, through fuch a length of time, have continued firm and unfhaken, in an uninterrupted loyalty and fubmiffion to ' government.

What then, do we look for further? What proofs do ye yet require, of peacefulness and attachment at the hands of these our brethren? Is no period to be put to their • ftate of probation? Muft they for ever keep out upon quarantine, without harbour or hopes of reft or reconciliation? That were hard, indeed.

If it is revenge that we feek, they have, already, fuffered enough, not for their own faults, but for the hoftility of their forefathers. If we feek our fafety, alone; let C us chace them, at once, from country and community; or put

an

an end to our domeftic fears, by giving them caufe to defend "us.'

Indeed, Sir, neither common fenfe, nor fenfe of any kind, can poffibly fuppofe, that acts of kindness which have been, from the beginning of the world, the cement of friendship to all other people, fhould prove the reverse to these people alone.

Had they been to us, as the fwallow, in autumn, who forfakes all connections on the approach of inclemency, I should never have pleaded for any confidence in them, But a people, who, through a winter of feventy years 'continuance, have never failed, or forfaken, or given us 'cause of offence, furely merit fome confideration, fome grateful and chearing ray to warm them to a sense that Proteftants are not, by choice, of a cruel, unforgiving, and 'malevolent nature.'

Letters to a Friend. Concerning the Septuagint Tranflation, and the Heathen Mythology. 8vo, 5 s. bound, Richardfon, &c.

A

Short view of what is contained in these Letters, will, we apprehend, be fufficient for the bulk of our Readers. The fubjects of them, indeed, are not generally interefting, and our Author's notions concerning the Heathen Mythology are extremely fancyful, not to fay ridiculous.

The first Letter contains fome general reflections on the Septuagint verfion, and the fitnefs of the time when it was made. The LXX tranflation, fays our Author, was 'made above two hundred years before the appearance of 'Chrift in the flesh which was time enough for its being published and received amongst the nations, to prepare them for, and keep them in expectation of his advent. So that, by this means, all might fee and know the things contained in the law and the prophets, which Chrift, when on earth, told them he came to fulfil. And fo there could be no impofition in referring to the old teftament for proofs and marks of his miffion and Meffiahfhip: neither could the Jews object to fuch appeals; fince the tranflation was not only made, but approved, by their rulers, and publicly ratified by their authority. Neither, had they been fo wickedly inclined, would they have dared to alter the Hebrew copies in thofe paffages referred to, because this • tranflation

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⚫ tranflation would have detected the forgery. So that the LXX became at once both a proper voucher for Chrift, and the truth of his miffion, to the Gentiles, and a check upon the Jews: and upon this account the facred Penmen of the New Teftament might chufe to cite the Greek verfion, rather than the original Hebrew, or than make a new ⚫ tranflation of thofe paffages they cited. For it was not the critical investigation of the fignification of a few particular "words with which they had to do, as proof that Jefus was the • Meffiah; but with the general iffue, and application of the typical, fymbolical, and prophetical defcriptions and predictions relating to Chrift, and what he was to BE, DO, and SUFFER, whereby they might know whether it was he who was to come, or they were to look for another. And this purpose the Greek verfion at that time answered, as being fufficient to difcover and point out the general • tendency of the whole defcriptive and predictive evidence in the Old Teftament, and the meaning and application of thofe quotations they have left us upon record. I say, at that time; because the hopes of remiffion of fins, and ex'piation by blood, were kept alive by their use of facrificature and its rites; and the nations thereby prepared, when the Greek verfion came into their hands, to fee the ori⚫ginal use and intent of facrifice, and that Chrift and Chriftianity were the end and aim of all their religious ritual, however perverted and mifapplied. And in fact we find, that they came in, and embraced Chriftianity, more readily • and fooner than fuch of the Jews who had fet up the ." types for realities, and were tinctured with the notion of a temporal deliverer..

A confiderable part of this letter is taken up in endeavouring to fhew that Virgil's eclogue, intitled Pollio, cannot admit of a rational interpretation any otherwife than as applied to the MESSIAH.

In the fecond Letter our Author endeavours to prove that the Pagan Mythology, when traced up to its original, is a traditional detail of the actions, fufferings and offices of the great Redeemer, couched under the veil of fables, or a scenic reprefentation of the life and death of that DIVINE HERO: a manner of inftruction, we are told, familiar and intelligible in thofe early days, and in the eastern nations, and which, at this time, is no otherwife obfcure, than from the want of the right key to decypher it, though the principal figures are fometimes almoft hid by the luxuriancy of poetic drapery.-The victory of Apollo over the Dragon Python, ac

⚫cording