I cannot help thinking it would have been more decorous to have refrained wholly from touching upon his vices, or to have done it more explicitly than by dark hints and exclamations of horror. These only serve to awaken the imagination without satisfying the reason; and when conjecture is idly excited in its darkest colours, we all know that there is a propensity in man to push it to extremities.-A man will sooner lose his character by a shrug of the shoulder aptly performed at his appearance, or a smile of significant surprise when he talks of honesty, or a solemn shake of the head when another praises his integrity, than he will by any open and manifest attack, conducted either by truth or artifice; and, by a parity of reasoning, to record the merits of any one, to refer mysteriously, at the conclusion, to the contrast between those merits and certain defects, and then abruptly to quit the discussion as one too heart-rending, too shocking to be pursued, is the most certain, though not the most allowable method, to make the reader believe all that we wish, and more than is true' p. 154. In common with every man of principle, Cumberland was indignant at the iniquities of anonymous criticism, an evil which, as Mr. M. observes, it is not likely that any remonstrances will diminish'; for, as long as men can attack secure from retaliation, they will do it; for the leaven of malignity and envy is too intimately corporated with our nature, not to ferment into action when it may be done with impunity.' Mr. Cumberland however projected a periodical work, in which the rules of assigning the names of the writers should be a security against the usual abuses of criticism. And perhaps he flattered himself that this bold and ingenuous distinction of the London Review, would give it so powerful a rivalry with its anonymous contemporaries, as either to compel them to a little more decorum, or diminish their popularity. We will transcribe Mr. M.'s observations on the impracticability of conducting the work of critical censorship on this ingenuous plan, without incurring almost a necessity of deviating from strict honesty; while in the anonymous method such a deviation is a matter of free choice, If we could suppose that the most eminent names in modern literature would be found in the pages of a review, established upon a principle similar to Cumberland's, I do not think that any advantage would be gained beyond the abolition of some practices in anonymous criticism which are disgraceful to letters. The rigid integrity of a Brutus or a Cato must not be expected. Literary men constitute a sort of fraternity: they are usually acquainted with each other, or likely to be so; and the feelings of friendship and esteem would be perpetually clashing with the duties of the critic. Will the man who has dined at my table to day, and partaken of my hospitality and kindness, sit down to-morrow, and avowedly endeavour to sink my character in the public estimation? No: unless he would be hunted from society he cannot do this; if he would be received as a mentber of it he must conform to its duties; and though the book I have pub lished, may be bad, or vicious, or erroneous, yet the condemnation of it must not come publicly from the hand of my friend. The cause of sound literature would therefore be injured by such a scheme, and criticism would sink into a mere interchange of civilities and courtesies. Nor Let it be imagined that such a plan had been projected fifty years ago, and that Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Reynolds, Garrick, and other eminent men, had consented to lend it the authority of their names, would it have been possible for them to exercise their judgements with real impartiality? I can conceive that they might, perhaps, have imitated other critical professors in merciless severity towards the humble, the obscure and the unassuming delinquent, but we should surely have found them sufficiently polite, ceremonious, and affable towards each other. could it be otherwise, living, as they did, in splendid intimacy together: and the influence of this feeling would have extended beyond themselves and their respective productions. It would have taken in the circle of each man's acquaintance, and embraced, consequently, in its wide circumference, every writer who had risen only to such comparative distinction as might entitle him to their friendship and notice. What then would have been their situation? Between Scylla and Charybdis. If they praised, the world would have accused them of adulation; if they cen sured, an outcry would have been raised against them for envy and malignity. They would not have avoided self-condemnation on the one hand, or the world's condemnation on the other. And would they have found an adequate reward for such persecution and trial in the pecuniary remunerations of a bookseller? The answer is obvious. They would have spurned at the illusion which would mislead them under the guise of candour and honesty, and they would have left to venal and obdurate minds what only venal and obdurate minds could perform,' p. 570.. 1 The extracts we have made are a fair, and this last we think a favourable specimen, of the quality and style of the performance. There are a variety of pertinent moral remarks on facts, and points of character. Considerable discrimination. is sometimes shewn in estimating the individual articles in the heaped assemblage of Cumberlands's works; and the general estimate of his talents appears to us on the whole very just. It is but an extremely moderate language of admiration that Mr. Mudford is any where induced to express; on many of the enumerated literary performances he sets a low value; and he does not much spare the faults and weaknesses of Cumberland's character. At the same time, our author is not to be accused, we think, of being in any degree actuated by a spirit of malice and detraction.. Credit will be given him for having honestly intended to place the merits of the character and the writings in a correct light. But it will hardly be allowed that there was any great necessity for the undertaking, or that it is here executed with a vigour or an elegance adequate to impart an adventitious interest to a subject that was not very interesting in itself, A very few particulars are communicated concerning the short portion of Mr. Cumberland's life, from the publication of the supplement to his Memoirs to his death. His literary toils were exhausting and unremitted, and in so far as they were prosecuted as the indispensable means of subsistence they cannot be beheld without a pensive feeling. It may at the same time be doubted, whether the writer of so many successful works, especially as many of them were dramatic works, would have been in this situation in the last years of his life, if the virtue of prudence had not been rather loosely held in the former ones. The claim to sympathy arising from this unkindly state of his later fortunes, will, however, be instantly supplanted by a much stronger demand on compassion, in the mind of a religious reader, when he comes to the following passage. When the project for erecting a third theatre was vehemently pursued, Cumberland lent it the assistance of his name and talents. Most, if not all, of the addresses, statements, and advertisements which appeared, were by him. He interested himself in the success of the undertaking with great ardour; and was frequently heard to say that he only wished to live till its completion, when he could resign his last breath without ä desire ungratified.' p. 586. We never had read Cumberland's poem of "Calvary," and this short passage made us determine that we never would. If any thing had been necessary to corroborate the determination, it would have been found in the two pages of vile and vulgar profaneness, which Mr. M. has, we think very properly, extracted from a few of Cumberland's plays, in contradiction to Dr. Vincent's assertion, in his funeral oration for Cumberland, that his dramatic writings were of "strict moral tendency.' Art. XVIII. A serious Enquiry into the nature and effects of modern So cinianism; being an answer to the question, Why are you not a Socinian? By J. Freeston. price 1s. 6d. Longman and Co. 1812. THE standard treatises on the Socinian controversy are unfortunately too high in matter, and too volúminous in extent, to encounter with effect the cheap and plausible tracts which this party are actively engaged in dispersing. It is not a reference to Bull, or Magee that can most effectually defeat those subtle appeals to the popular mind. Their works, however excellent, are too learned and recondite. Our adversaries must be met on their own ground, and the best method, perhaps, of exposing the weakness and fallacy of their pretensions to be considered as the only true expositors of the word of God, will be found in the publication of a succession of pamphlets recapitulating the evidences of the orthodox doc trines, and proving the uniform failure, as well as the dangerous tendency of all attempts to shake them. This purpose, the present "serious enquiry". appears most admirably adapted to answer. It is written with an entire disregard of all the common artifices of composition. It states the points in dispute accurately, and meets them fairly and forcibly. In answer to the query, why are you not a Socinian? Mr. Freestor gives the following reasons. Because the Socinians depreciate the Bible.' Because they appear to idolize human reason.” Because they degrade the person and character of Jesus Christ.' Because the important doctrines of regeneration, justification, divine influence, &c. are rejected by them as enthusiastic.' Because I cannot see in what respects Jesus Christ is a Saviour, upon their scheme, any more than the Apostles were.' Because Jesus Christ is so little the subject of their public preaching, in which they so essentially differ from the practice of the Apostles.' Because they appear to lay another foundation for pardon and eternal life, than what the scriptures recommend.' Because 1 find the Church on earth, and the Church in heaven, ascribe their salvation to the blood of the Redeemer.' Because, as far as I am able to judge, the Socinians, in general, are more curious, critical, and speculative, than devotional, spiritual, and prac tical.',. Because the Divine Being appears to withhold the sanction of his blessing from them, in that their ministry is not succeeded to the conversion of the ungodly.' Because the wisest and best, the most prayerful and holy men, as well as the most learned in all ages of the church, have held very different views of Christian doctrines, and rejected theirs as dangerous errors.' Because they who hold evangelical opinions are men after mine own heart, whose devotional means, tastes, and habits, are congenial to my own.' Because I dare not risk my salvation on the foundation on which they hope for eternal life.' 6 Because, I fear, I should find no rest for the soles of my feet, till I sunk into absolute deism, and were finally lost.' Each of these positions is separately and distinctly argued, and unanswer bly established. If any of them be weak it is the thirteenth; a section which would, perhaps, have been more convincing, if instead of being stated as a specific argument, it had been introduced towards the close of the pamphlet. The paragraph is truly eloquent, but its subject is rather a matter of feeling and experience, than of dry reasoning. The whole composition we warmly recommend. It is fervent without asperity, and firm without dogmatism. Without any affectation of learning or fine writing, it is the genuine effusion of piety and good sense; intelligible to the lowest, and capable of being read with interest and advantage by the wisest. Art. XIX. A Monograph of the British Jungermannia; containing a coloured figure of every species, with its history and description. By William Jackson Hooker, F. R. S. and I. S. and Member of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh. 4to. No. 1. 7s. 6d, Longman and Co. 1812. IT T has been so often remarked that the division of intellectual labour contributes, in the most effectual way, to the perfection of knowledge, that the observation would not have been revived here, but for the very particular application which the fact has to the work before us. The confusion attaching to certain genera in natural history, has been disentangled by nothing so successfully as by monographic description. What a fund of botanical treasure is to be found in Hedwig's Monograph of Mosses, Swartz's Orchidiæ, Goodenough'sCarices, Acharius's Lichens, and Turner's Fuci! Like family history, but without its dulness, it developes the minutiae of character, and passes by no individual without recording its distinctive peculiarities. The work we are at present contemplating is one of very great promise, and intended to illustrate the genus Jungermannia, an obscure family in cryptogamic botany, which has received little attention from naturalists, until within these few years. They are a very beautiful tribe of vegetable, to those who have eyesight and research enough to discover such humble members of the great family of nature; and are rendered not a little interesting, from being the chief source of that delightful fragrance perceptible after a shower, and at even-tide. Dillenius, so successful in the study of mosses, was the first who undertook to describe them. Linnæus understood them very imperfectly, and confounded his own terms in his descriptions, calling the whole plant a frond, and yet describing the constituent parts as stem and leaves. In English Botany' we meet with the same confusion; and besides this, some species are placed among the Algæ, and others among the Hepaticæ. These objections, however, do not apply to the later volumes. This work of Mr. Hooker's, who is known to our readers by his "Tour in Iceland," will no doubt throw much light upon the subject: not only from the author's accuracy of observation, acuteness of research, and fidelity of delineation, but form the prompt assistance he is receiving from all quarters. This first number contains only four plates, in which are very beautifully figured and coloured, Jungermannia Hutchinsia, julacea, concin nata, et juniperina, each plate being accompanied by letter-press, in which the specific distinction is written in Latin, and a more enlarged description and history in our own tongue. The first plate is dedicated to the illustration of a new species, named in honour of a lady, who cultivates the study of botany in a remote corner of Ireland, with an ardour which has seldom been surpassed. There is something very peculiar in the habit and structure of this plant, which would almost lead us to suspect, without good authority, that it was not a real Jungermannia. J. julacea, and concinnata, discriminated by Lightfoot, but confounded by almost every other author, and not correctly described or figured even in English botany, are admirably elucidated. Those parts which Linnæus, terms frond, leailets, and scales, VOL. VIII. 4 A |