268

It is alfo added, that there were perfona lately living who knew that unfortunate lady.Be this as it may, we cannot recommend this performance to the perufal of our fair readers.--The crim nalities of love find here not only extenuation, but excufe, and the author feems to induate, that where a paffion is exceffive, a violation of virtue is not altogether unpardonable. Documents of this nature are dangerous to young minds, especially where the difireffes of the inconfiderate fair, and her invincible attachment for her first lover, infpire his with a fecret compaffion for her character.

VI. Private Letters from an American in England to bis Friends in America. 1 vol. 12mo. Aimon.

These letters are fuppofed to be written at the clofe of the eighteenth century, by a young American, who is ftimulated by curiglity to pay a visit to the country of his ancestors. The feat of government is transferred to America; and England is an almoft deferted, depopulated nation; the condition of which, and the manners of the inhabitants, he defcribes, as far as he is able to collect them, to his triends in America. Thus far we are informed in an advertisement to the prefent article-But we are very forry to fay, notwithstanding the ground-work is happily enough imagined, and afforded many opportunities both for humour and animadverfion, the execution is inconceivably poor, and a very speedy oblivion feems to threaten the unfortunate author.

VII. The Mufe's Bloffoms; or Juvenile Poems. 8vo. Is. Robinfon and Roberts.

Thefe poems are faid to be the prodection of a very young gentleman. If they are, we venture to pronounce, from the fpirit and elegance which he already displays, that the world may reafonably form confiderable, expectations from the maturer exertion of his abilities. The following paftoral ballad, which has much tenderness, we prefent as a fpecimen, to the reader.

III.

May

Soon, foon fhall fhe quit the gay scene-
Sing poets in fanciful lay,

How her abfence has darken'd the plain,
How the fhrubs and the flow'rets decay :
How the fweet gufhing riv'let is dry,
That murmur'd fo foftly along-

And I too will join you- but I
Will give truth to the fabulous fong.
IV.

For, ah! with what truth may I fing
How the flow'r of my hope is decay'd:
And how, in life's earlieft fpring,
My bloffems of happiness fade!
And how the sweet fountains of joy,
That water'd my fancy all o'er,
Thefe fountains, eternally dry,

Shall flow, and fhall murmur no more!

VIII. Another Eftimate of the Manners and Principles of the prefent Times. 8vo. 25. Kearly.

This is a very flimfey attack upon the prefent times, which the author pronounces infinitely more profligate, than any preceding æra in the annals of our country, though from the hourly increafe of our charities, as well as the hourly reformation in our literature, which must be confidered as pretty tolerable criterions of our morality, there is every reafon to fuppofe that we are entitled much lefs to cenfure, than to compliment.—The effitimator's dull ftrictures are followed by fome ftill duller verses, for which he endeavours to apologize, by pleading his youth as an excufe for his inability.

IX. A Letter to the Right Hon. the Earl of Hillsborough on the prefent fituation of Affairs in America, &c. 117 pages 8vo. Kearly.

This pamphlet is written in favour of the Americans, and endeavours to defend their rights upon conftitutional principles.-The author's reafoning is in many places forcible, and our fellow fubjects beyond the Atlantic have had many lefs able advocates than the Letter-Writer to Lord Hillsborough.

-X. Stanzas facred to Liberty, &c. By I, Pottinger. 4to. I s.

Thefe ftanzas are dedicated to Mr. George Bellas, a common councilman for the city of London; the author is a broken bookfeller, who was fome time ago confined in Bedlam, and now like the barber in the farce, is nobly folicitous for the welfare of old England-after this account, it is not neceffary to fay any thing on the merit of his performance.

XI. The prefent fate of Liberty in Great Britain and the Colonies. By an Englishmas. Johnfon. 8vo. 1..

This pamphlet is printed by way of queftion and anfwer, and contains nothing more than trite definitions of government gleaned up from the common newfpapers.-The end is to prove that though England has the perver of forcing laws upon the colonies, the har nevertheless

269

Anne D-abroad. one vol. 12mo. Johnfon. The author of this work is so very small a talker, that it is of little confequence if he fhould never again fpeak to the public.

[fex:

[was fair

Bat the confident thing had attack'd the whole
Her charms then for conqueft the bade to pre-
pare,
And fail'd when he heard him fay Phillis
To learning for refuge and comfort he ran :
To learning the bufinefs and pleasure of man!
But Paillis difturb'd all the authors he read,
When the glanc'd by his study and nodded her
head;

The labours of ages foon vanish'd to air,
No idea remain'd fave that Phillis was fair.
To glory he fancied the paffion must yield,
And, a vot'ry of glory, he fprung to the field:
But under his breaft-plate the little God's dart
Convey'd ev'ry moment a hint to his heart,
And forc'd him to own, in a fit of de pair,
That he bled but to prove that his Phillis was
fair.

To Bacchus, at laft, he fubmitted his claim; But foon was convinc'd that wine cherish'd the flame:

Then to Phillie he came, all his errors confest, He knelt at her feet and begg'd to be bleft! The maid gave her hand with a negligent air, And own'd the was kind, fince he faid fhe was fair.

Favourate SONGS in the EPHESIAN MATRON, performed at RANELAGH. AIR.

FI was a wife, and my dearest dear life

I Took it into his noddle to die,

E'er I took the whim to be buried with him,
I think I'd know very well why.
If poignant my grief, I'd fearch for relief,
Not link with the weight of my care;
A falve might be found no doubt above ground,
And I think I know very well where.
Another kind mate fhou'd give me what fate
Wou'd not from the former allow :
With him I'd amuse the hours you abuse,
And I think I know very well how.

'Tis true I'm a maid, and fo't may be faid No judge of the conjugal lot;

Yet marriage, I ween, has a cure for the spleen,
And I think I know very well what.
AIR.

Lovely dame, what, ho! what ho!
From the depths of pain and woe,
A foldier calls your beauty.
And can bravery do lefs?
To fuccour ladies in distress,
Is fill the foldier's duty.
Cupid whispers in your ear,

And will you retufe to hear
Accents form'd to move?
Oh! lovely dame,
For fhame, for shame!

Shall one fo fair

Be kill'a by care?
Rife to life and love,
AIR.

Men talk of their prudence and sense,
And make a strange pother.
With this, that, and t'other,
But 'gad, it is all a pretence.
Their genius is trivial and common;
And for a fhift,

At a dead lift,

There's nought like the wit of a woman.
To that every fpring is obedient;
And for ways and for means,
If to meddle the deigns,
No premier of ftate

Like her can create,
Or find you out an expedient.

AIR and CHORUS.
FATHER.

Thus old wits, in wicked fatires,
Formerly the fair' malign'd;
Call'd them light, vain, falfe, affected,
And unfteady as the wind.
If they copy'd after nature,
Blefs'd are English dames I trow,
So much alter'd from what ladies
Were two thousand years ago.
MATRON.

Falfe and mean the accufation.
Men our fex unjustly blame;
They are flaves to little paffions,
And would brand us with the fame.
Struck with native imperfection,
As their minds the object fours;
From themselves they draw a picture,
From themselves they draw a picture,
Then cry out the face is ours.

270

MAID.

Says a traveller to a lion,
Upon yonder fign-poft fee
How a lion like your worship's
Torn by a man like me.
Says the lion to the traveller,
'Twas a man the daubing drew,
Had a lion been the painter,
I had been a tearing you.

CENTURION.

No excufes, nor allufions:
Here's the burden of my song;
Women fovereigns are of nature,
And as fuch can ne'er be wrong.
Sent to rule, to blefs, to charm us,
Spite of wit, in rancour's fpite,
Ev'ry-thing they fay is proper,
Ev'ry-thing they do is right.

RESOLUTION.

Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum ferient ruina.

HOR.

Anderfon, Charles Baker, Sir William Barrré, Ifaac

way,

And looks thro' nature in his wide furvey ; His port fublime; and his undaunted eyes Heav'n-ward erect, his head amidst the fkies; The mountains levell'd, fink beneath his tread,

And the aw'd ocean bares its watery bed; Unmov'd he marches o'er the lifted plain, While Death, dread archer! breathes his

threats in vain?

His name is Refolution! on he comes,
O'er earth in queft of happiness he roams;
In diftant lands he fees the goddess (mile,
(The fweet reward of all his former toil)
He fees, with mental eye, her glories roll,
Beyond the limits of the ftarry pole ;
He boldly to her facred fane,
Where crown'd with blifs, forever he remains.
Fix firm thy heart, O man! in what is right,
And guide thy actions by interior light,
Then know this truth (the object of my lays)
That changeless virtue is highest praise.
Shipton upon Stour,
May 8.

N

Brickdale, Matthew
Bridges, Sir Brooke
Bullock, John
Barrow, Charles
Beauclerck, Aubrey
Beckford, William
Blacket, Sir Walter
Buller, John
Burke, Edmund
Burke, William

Bridgman, Sir Henry
Byng, George
Calcraft, John
Calvert, Nicolfon

Carnac, John

Durant, Thomas
Fletcher, Henry
Fitzmaurice, Thomas
Foley, Thomas, fen.
Foley, Thomas, jus.
Frankland, Sir Tho.
Frankland, William
Fife, Lord
Garth, Charles
Glynn, Serjeant
Grey, Booth
Grenville, George
Grenville, Henry
Grove, Wil. Chaffin
Gregory, Robert
Gordon, William
Grosvenor, Thomas
Hunt, George

Hampden, Thomas

Hamilton, Wil. Ger.

Huffey, William

MEMENTO MORI,
EAR to the grave's devouring brink
See yonder helpless mortal fink,
Few hours are yet between;
And thofe Time haftens quick away,
They're paft; and now his lifelefa clay
Lies rotting and unfeen.

Vain was his pow'r, his riches, pride,
A ftone now tells us that he dy'd

That, mould'ring wears away,
And leaves, alas! behind no trace
To find the dead man's refting place,
Or fhew us, where he lay.
5.

Clevering, Sir Tho. Cholmley, Nathaniel Conolly, Thomas

Cornish, Sir Samuel

Hanbury, John
Hay, Thomas
Harley, Thomas
Honywood, General
Hobart, Hon George
Houghton, Sir Henry
Johnftone, Governor
Jennings, Philip
Irwin, John

Keck, Anthony J.

Cornewall, C. Wolfran Keppel, William

Coventry, Thomas

Crosby, Brafs

Curwen, Henry
Clarke, Godf. Bagnal
Damer, John
Damer, John
Damer, George
Davers, Sir Charles
Delaval, George
Dering, Sir Edward

Lafcelles, Edwin