the land of the Thutki, in the bay of St. Laurence, where, as it afterwards appears by a letter from one of the party to Mr. Sauer, he narrowly escaped being murdered. The next Chapter contains a geographical defcription of the peninfula of Kamthatka, with a sketch of its civil and natural hiftory, and an engraved View of the Ozernoé Hot Springs. In the month of August 1793, Mr. Sauer and his party failed in a galliot to Ochotik, and from thence he fet off, accompanied by Enfign Alexuf and two failors, on the it of September, for Yakutik, where they were to wait the arrival of Captain Billings. After in. expreffible hardships, fome of their horfes dying in the woods, our Author arrived alone at Yakutik on the 2d of October, having been obliged to leave his baggage and his companions in the woods. Being joined by Captain Billings, he remained with him in Yakutik till the 2d of January 1794, when they let out in fledges for the city of Irkutjk, where they arrived about the middle of the fame month, and met with all the other Officers of the expe. dition. A short account is then given of Captain Billings's expedition acrots the land of the Ifhutski, with a further defcription of the natives, from a journal of one of the party, and two plates; one of a Tihutski woman; the other of a man in armour, with a weman and child; and the body of the work concludes with the following paragraph : "I arrived at St. Peterburgh on the 10th of March 1794, fo very much afflicted with the rheumatism, from a cold caught at Irkutik, that in regard to action I was reduced to the helpless fituation of an infant. The kind attendance, however, of Dr. Rogers, and the friendly affittance of the British merchants in that city, who are fo eminently distinguished for their unbounded hofpitality, alleviated every pain, leffened every difficulty, and prevented the miferies of penury from being added to my misfortunes." And we fincerely hope the encouragement given to his publication will afford additional confolation. There are feven Appendixes to this work. No. 1, is a Vocabulary of the Yukagir, Yakut, and Tungoofe Languages. No. 2, a Vocabulary of the Languages of Kamthatka, the Alcutan Ilands, and of Kadiak. No. 3, a List of the different Stages from St. Peters burgh to Yakutik, Ipecifying the Places, Number of Verits, Houtes, and Churches, in the Cities and Towns, Dates of Arrival and Departure, &c. No. 4, an Account of the full Pay of the different Ranks of the Officers, Sailors, &c. in the Ruffian Naval Service, according to the Regulations of 1782. No. 5, Inftructions of her Imperial Majefty, from the Admiralty College to Captain Billings, for the Expedition. No. 6, Inftructions for Mr. Patrin, the Natu ralift. No. 7, Extracts and Supplementary Obfervations. M. Letters addreffed to a Young Man on his first Entrance into Life; and adapted to the peculiar Circumitances of the prefent Times. By Mrs. Welt, Author of "A Tale of the Times," "A Goilip's Story," &c. (Concluded from Page 277.) TOWARDS the clofe of our laft review of this extraordinary work, we promifed to entertain our readers with fome extracts from, and obfervations on, fome of the most edifying letters in Vol. III. The performance of that promite enjoins us to pay particular attention to Letter XIII. the fecond of that volume, in which will be found fome excellent maxims on the fubject of true Politeness. "It is inconfiftent with irritability, negligence, and rude nefs therefore, if you find your fufceptibility of indignities fuch as Hamlet complains of in his celebrated foli 12mo. loquy-" the proud man's contumely -the infolence of office," &c.-grow queruloas, reftrain it, as you value your future peace. If the perfon who has wounded your feelings be either a friend, or one whofe eftcem you are anxious to procure or preferve, and the circumftanc's of the offence will admit of it, I thould recommend an early, cool, and refpectful explanation. Many a fincere attachment hath pined away under the withering influence of fufpicion, when mutual explicitness might have faved the most severe mutual heart-ache, and have preserved to 2 each party the effential advantage of reciprocal good offices. If you feel any of the indignities (above-mentioned), treasure them in your memory, not to excite your fple netic refentment against thofe from whom they proceeded, for they may as often have been caufed by inadvertency as by a defign to infult you; but by the Imart of your own acute fenfibilities on fuch occations, and by the obfervance which you would think it just to require from others, regulate your own behaviour, in every inftance in which you are lord of the afcendant. "Hate what is arrogant and overbearing, fo far as to avoid thofe faults yourself; but let Chriftian charity teach you caution in affixing fuch opprobrious terms to the behaviour of others." "We have agreed that general civility is effential to politeness, and have determined fretfulness to be as inimical to its nature as it is to the repofe of the bofom in which it is harboured. Now let us look a little at the prevailing fashion of cafe, or rather inattention. The politenets of the laft age had a good deal of officioufnefs in it. I am told, that people often knocked one another down in running to fhut the door, and that, in handing plates charged with the principal delicacy round the table, the moft lamentable mifadventures frequently happened to Nanking china and brocade petticoats. While we fmile at the perplexed ideas which could confound being very troublefone with being very agreeable, and congratulate the polithed freedomwhich a jufter caft of thinking has introduced into our prefent manners, let us take care that our freedom continues to be polifhed. For, of the two extremes, it is better to be laughed at for a little overdoing in the way of civility, than to incur cenfure for infolent negligence." Our Author then inftances the fami har ned, which young gentlemen and ladies have adopted, as being both awkward and ungraceful, and highly unbecoming, except to their very intimite juvenile acquaintance; and an other fill more reprehenfible custom, of calling their elders and fuperiors by their bare names, without any appellation of respect. "Thefe habits are fo far from being tokens of fashionable breeding, that they are proofs of no breeding at all. A well-bred perfon treats you with attention, if not from tenderness to your feelings, from refpect to his own character. I have so often heard what was meant for ease and freedom, decided by excellent judges of men and manners to be heer impudence, that I should tremble at the apprehenfion of your incurring this cenfure." The contrast between ill-nature and good-humour is delineated with precifion and elegance, and comprises falutary advice for avoiding the former and cultivating the latter. Good-humour is the current coin of life; an easy comfortable quality, which we may familiarize by hourly practice, a feed of fpontaneous growth, which quickly produces its hundred fold return." On that interefting fubject to youth, public diverfions, the following just ob fervations will apply to thousands as well as to her fon. "They must be very sparingly reforted to (our Author writes frequented, but it renders the meaning equivocal), for their expence is ill-fuited to your fortune; and an excels in thofe pleasures would certainly feduce your mind from attention to your business, and might even. tually injure your moral and religious feelings. The amusements of life mult never become its employments. Extreme rigidness in abftaining from them may form an illiberal, morofe, unpleasant, character; unbounded gratification must conftitute a diffolute, felfish, unftable one. In this, as in every other point, moderation is the end that we hould aim at; and to determine that moderation with refpect to the danger of excefs, I know of no better rule than to preferve perfect felf poffeffion. When the love of pleafure has the power to unhinge our minds, and to draw us into what we feel to be blameable, it is plainly become our matter, and felf-denial muft fubdue the ty rant." Letter XIV. commences with dif playing the advantages of a taite for literature, and in ftating the different kinds of literature fhe enters upon an ample field of criticism, and condemus or approves well-known works with a high hand-as who fhould fay, "it is our fovereign will and pleasure to condemn fentimental reading as danger ous, and often ridiculous; and there To frequent, is to vifit often, to be much in any place.—Johnson's Dia. fore fore I will anatomize the Sorrows of Werter, and by throwing afide the noble and vital parts, and expofing only the weak veffels and the offals, turn the whole into ridicule and a laughable scene of folly." See p. 137 to 148, in which Rouffeau and Sterne thare, the fame fate as the Author of the Sorrows of Werter and in this place it may be proper to remind our readers, that the Letters to her Son were revised, enlarged, and improved, for the benefit of the public; otherwife the question might be afked, if it was likely that the young man (apprentice to a manufacturer of packs of cards) fhould think of reading Voltaire, Rouffeau, Sterne, and other authors whose writ. ings the condemns, if the had not put him in mind of them by her criticifms, forgetful how prone we all are to follow the example of our common mother Eve, by an inclination to tafte forbidden fruit. But the Lady is determined, at all events, to fhew her great reading, and for this purpofe, in the courfe of her letters in the third vo. Jume, the fubject of our present review, the officiously introduces a few words, or a few lines, relative to almoft every author of ancient or modern times, from Ariftotle to Mrs. Wol. ftonecraft and Dr.Godwin.And strange indeed it would have been if the had left out the Reviewers of Literature. In warning her Son against "the dangers of periodical criticifms," we come in for a large hare of her acrimonious witticifms. The following defcription of our fraternity mult not be paffed over without being honoured with our particular notice. On another occafion The admonishes her fon carefully to avoid illiberal general reproach :" in the prefent inftance, however, the mother indulges herself in the wanton exercise of it without mercy. "Many of our mifcellanies are avowedly hoftile to our civil and religious establishments." If fo, why not fpecify them, that all loyal fubjects may hold in deteltation the principles, the authors, and the publishers. "I could exemplify their moderation and impar." tiality by obferving, that the most plaufible works on the fide of fchifm and republicanifm, I will not quite fay infi delity and anarchy, are felected, and fuffered to amplify their doctrines through fucceffive numbers; and if VOL, XLI. JUNE 1801. * See Vol. III fome fiery champion of the establish ment fhould rufh forth with more zeal than prudence, and lift up his leaden mace against the demon of mifrule, he alfo is unfortunately dragged to the fore-ground, and baftinaded with the most rigid impartiality while to fhew their moderation, any excellent work of the fame tendency is confined to the humble limit of half a page, and what cannot be ridiculed is damned with faint applause. Their regard to truth rests upon their own affertions”—and in the name of candour, on what elfe but affertion does this charitable Lady's cenfures reft; where are her proofs; as an admirer of Lord Grenville's meafures, the should have followed the enacting claufes of his famous Bill; the fhould have affixed the names of the printers as the means of difcovering the audacious authors. But the proceeds" Moft of the publications of which I have been treating (Magazines and Reviews), are undertaken to ferve the purposes of a party; and you will own, that an impartial partifan is as rare as the phoenix; that fole bird. I often think, that these tribunals owe much of the deference with which the public receives their fat to the very politic ufe of the plural pronouns. We are firmly of opinion-It is our decided judgment-are phrases that carry with them an impreffive autho rity which poor fingular I and me can never attain to. For many years, I never met with the above fentences without finding my fancy transport me into an extenfive library, crowded with black coats, large wigs, and green fpectacles. Each individual, while tipping his cup of tea (the modern Helicon), appeared in the act of pronouncing his oracular opinion on the impeached author; while the moderator of the learned corps, collecting the fuffrages as the majority decided, either crowned the work with immortal bays, or configned it to oblivion; well might I, and every unfortunate wight in my fituation, tremble at an allemblage as formidable and invulnerable as that of the fecret tribunal" (of the holy Inquifition); "but fince I have been enabled to take a peep behind the scenes, my terrors and my deference are confiderably diminished. For, alas! my dear boy, these black coats, wigs, fpec. tacles, and commentators, are but the bafelefs fabricks of a vifion. Number one always conftitutes counfel, jury, moderator, and judge; and ave is only compofed of I and myself. It is even whispered, that truth and verity would oftener conduct us into the circumfcribed attic than the fpacious library, where you would meet with one folitary writer glowing with rage and envy at a fuc cefsful competitor, and earning his Sunday dinner by a virulent abufe of the pamphlet which has been extolled by a brother Reviewer, and impeded the circulation of his own." letters for young women, and to take Fordyce's Sermons (though a diffenter) for a model, making it an object to diminish the number of learned wives, and to increase that of good domeftic ones. Having bestowed more than "half a page" on her prefent performance, we take our leave with a brief account of the principal contents of the remaining letters. In Letter XV. the latitudinarianifm of the new philofophy is confidered-Vindication of Alexander the Great, with anecdotes of his life and character. The general tenThe writer of this review acknow. dency of periodical publications is to ledges the charge of making use occa- excite difcontent at the inequality of fionally of the plural we, and he owns mankind-Reflections on the origin of he expected to have found in Mrs. human improvement, as defcribed by Weft's letters, that we included her Rouffeau, and as detailed in Scripture; husband, as furnishing the example of this fubject is continued in Letter fome virtue to be copied by the fon, XVI. The neceffity of induftry conin the conduct, especially as it has been fidered as a general bleffing; this is more than whispered to him, that Mr. one of the moft ufeful leffons in this Welt is a very refpectable man in the book of inftructions. Dreadful immofame clafs (the middle) as that fon; rality of the Democrats; a time ferv. but instead of this we find no mention ing grofs mifreprefentation of facts. made of him throughout the whole Chriffianity favourable to all lawful au work-but we refolves itself into I-thorities; this is a truth deduced from Mrs. Weft (we do not know the Lady's Scripture, and properly maintained by christian name), the Lady, is all in all! hiftorical evidence. fufficient in herfelf to oppofe a host of Critical, Analytical, Monthly, and London Reviewers. After all, curiofity has been bufy to enquire who is Mrs. Welt, the dictatrefs, and how came the acquainted, as the is the wife of a capital grazing farmer at a great diftance from London, with the manners of the beaux and belles of the nineteenth century, the Narciffues of the day the aniwer is, that the is the daughter of a citizen of London, and in her juvenile days might have sparingly reforted to Bond Street, Hyde Park, and Kensington Gardens. We will now recommend her to a task for which the is excellently qualified, to compofe ERRATICS. By a Sailor. Vol. II. and 111. 12mo. THIS Sailor defcribes a trip up the Thames, and another into the Mediterranean Sea, with rambles in Italy, and fome original information refpecting the furrender and fubfequent evacuation of Toulon. Of this laft event he profeffes, and we believe him to have been, an eye-witnefs. In communi ng this information to the public, his adopted the mode of letter The laft impreffive caution to her fon on the fcore of infidelity we felect for a conclufion. Whatever views of earthly temporal happinefs you may blaft by youthful indifcretion, do not deprive your felf of your heavenly immortal inherit ance, nor ever caft away the wretch's last hope, repentance! As fure as you now exit, that impious fuggeftion of the most terrible defpair," the eternal feep of death," cannot but be a fallacy. Confciousness will for ever purfne you; and whatever guilt you incur here, you must fuffer for hereafter.” M. writing, which appears not ill calcu A Sketch of the Life and Character of Lord This Sketch delineates the character of a Magiftrate whofe patne will be re The Author of this pamphlet is an able defender of Country Banks, which he afferts may be confidered as mines to the ingdom, and bankers as the workers of them. The fubject he confiders under the following heads: I. Of Mo ney. II. Of Intereft. III. Of Banks, and the Operations of the Banking Syftem. "While our provincial Banks," fays he, "maintain the confidence of the public, and by an unfullied integrity, and by a liberal accommodation to the mercantile part of the community promote the industrious endeavours of an enterprising people, it will be impoffible for the empire of Great Britain to be outrivalled in her commerce. By extending the trading capi. tals of the merchants, the wealth of the country is put into a progreffive ftate of improvement, and from the largenefs of the capitals employed in trade we must command a great fuperiority over other nations." The writer has fhewn very confiderable abilities in this performance, but by many will be thought to have conducted himself too much in the style of an advocate, as he has certainly kept out of fight many formidable objections to his fyftem. Methodism Unmasked; or, The Progress of Puritanism from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century: intended as a Supplement to "Hints to Heads of Families." By T. E. Owen, A. B. 8vo. This pamphlet, which is compofed chiefly of extracts from ancient and modern publications, is intended to prove that fectaries of all kinds are (and ever have been fince the time of the Reformation), either blind inftruments, or wilful tools, in the hands of Anarchists and Deifts; that their aim is not a reform in religion, but a total overthrow of our religious and political conftitutions, and a revolu tion in thefe dominions fimilar to that which has deluged France with blood, and brought upon millions irreparable ruin. The Author or Compiler hopes the public will give him credit for his good intentions; a: the fame time relying on the consciousness of having endeavoured to do what he believed to be his duty. Chronological Tablets: exhibiting every remarkable Occurrence from the Creation of the World, &c. Chiefly abridged from the French of the Abbot [Abbé] Lenglet du Frefnoy: Arranged Alphabetically, and augmented from authentic Sources to the prefent Time; particularly as regard ing British History. Comprehending brief Accounts of Inventions and Discoveries and in every Department of Science; Biographical Sketches of Three Thousand Illuftrious or Notable Perfons. With a Frontispiece. One Volume, 12mo. This compilation exhibits proofs of induftry, and may be confidered as a very useful addition to the chronological compendiums of our country. Pleafures of Solitude. With other Poems. These are, for the most part, pleafing and elegant, though penfive, compofitions, and breathe much of the true fpirit of poetry. The volume is handfomely printed, and embellished with engravings. Melancholy; as it proceeds from the Difpo The celebrity and excellence of "Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy" is well known. The prefent volume is a very judicious abridgment of it; but the Editor feems by no means to have confined himself wholly to his original; for he has in very many places illuftrated Burton's pofitions by references to, and quotations from, modern history, &c. and has thus greatly enlivened his work. To those who either. have not time or not pa tience to wade through, the variety of quotation, or are not difpofd to endure the quaintnefs, of Robert Burton, the prefent cannot fail to be a pleafing and'interefting substitute. 0002 : A Tour |