Mr. URBAN,

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Jan. 1. NOTHER year is gone! and, if our hearts be not devoid of that gratitude to the Almighty which ***** fhould ever fill the breaft of a mortal, can we fuffer the remembrance of the bleffings which we, as individuals, and as a collected people, have received at his beneficent hands, to pats without due reflection? Whilft we behold the other nations of Europe groaning beneath the mercilefs hands of their conquerors, or labouring under the horrors of the devouring fword, whilft bravely encountering an unprincipled and inveterate foe; Britain remains tranquil bleft with all that a mortal holds dear, in an equal adminiftration of juftice and liberty; a Monarch on her throne, beloved by his people; equally faithful to his Creator, as tenderly affiduous for the welfare of his meaneft fubject; Religion reviving under his fmiles; the arts and fciences flourishing; commerce extending her wings to the remoteft corners of the globe; and a navy triumphant throughout the world!

I conceive, that it is not only the bleffings of the paft year, which demand our confideration; but, as another Century is now about to clofe upon us, it may not be unprofitable to take a retrospect view of the fame; for it has undoubtedly been unequalled, not only in the annals of Europe, but of the world; and I fhould fuppofe that recapitulation of fome of the monentous tranfactions which have occurred within that circle of time may not only be entertaining, but

ferve as a memento to revive our drooping gratitude to that gracious: Being, who hath, amid the wreck of kingdoms, nations, and empires, preferved unfullied the liberty, glory, and religion, of cur native land.

To prove that this Centaryis unparalleled by any of the pieceding ones, efpecially as it refpects Eng-> land; we need but remark, that its has to boaft the exiftence of a Newton, a Locke, a Johníon, a Handel, a Wren, a Chambers, a Reynolds, a Hanway, a Howard, and many other worthies, who have paid the debt of Nature; as well as nuinbers who ftill furvive, to purine the fame path, which led their predeceffors to honour and fame. Blended with thefe, we have to enrol, in the annals of this Century, a number of patriotic ftatefimen, intrepid and fuccessful warriors, and of learned and pious divines.

But the confideration of the labours of thefe eminent men, ex-, clufive of the momentous concerns in which this nation of ours has been moft deeply interefied during the period alluded to, would fo very far exceed the limits of a letter, that (with your leave, Mr. Urban,) it thall forma feries of effays; whofe object fhall be, to comprife within a fmall compafs fome of the most prominent occurrences which have tranfpired during that lapte of time.

Leaving, then, the, commencement of thefe effays to your next number, I fhall conclude this introducion with a few reflexions on the past year. And who of us but has feen the fuperintending providence of the Mail High, wonderfully dif

played.

too well do they juftify its author's exclamation:

Re-perufing this very fine compofition of Johnfon's, and obferving how it teems with epithets, from which not one could be judiciously fubftracted, I fmile that our critics fhould attribute what they term feebleness of modern poetry to its re

We meet with one line in Johnfon's Vanity of Human Withes, where, perhaps, the inftance felected to exemplify the betraying tendency of beauty might have been appier. It is the fecond of the following couplet:

Yet Yane can tell what ills from beauty [pring,

And Sedley curs'd the Form that pleas'da King I never could learn who was meant by Sedley, not even from Dr. Johnfon himfelf, of whom I enquired, when he was at Lichfield, a few months before his death. He replied, "I knew at the time I wrote the poem; but the history has now efcaped my recollection*"

By the anfwer it appears, that no great notoriety attaches to that fecond inftance of the dangers of loveliness. It appears to me that Madam le Valiere's deftiny would have formed a more judicious illuftration; fince it is well known that the expiated her criminal compliance with the wishes of Louis XIV. by devoting herself to the rigours of the Carmelite monaftery, while her youth was yet in its flower; that, when informed of the death of her fon by the King, fhe faid, "I will not mourn his death, whose

poetry they mean that fwarto of indifferent verifiers, which are the ephemera of every period, the deficiency of fuch writers lies much deeper than in their abundance of epithets; even in that poverty of ideas which obliges them to eke out their measure by feeble adjectives. Abridge thofe adjectives, and the radically meagre compofition would not be improved by that abridgement: but what able critic would give to the poetry of his age the water-mark of fuch verfifiers, rich as it is, and has been through the whole century, in genuine poetic writing of every fpecies, the dramatic alone excepted? and even in that we boast a Sheridan and a Jephfon.

Every epithet which gives neither life, nor ftrength, nor grace, nor appropriation to its noun, will be rejected by an author of judgement, while all that poffefs any one of thofe properties he will accept; and recollecting how liberally they are found in the works of Homer, Virgil, Spenfer, Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Mafon, Collins, Chatterton, and Samuel Johnfon, contemn the charge of exuberance. ANNA SEWARD.

Mr. URBAN, Chisholme, Roxburgh'fhire, Nov. 20, 1799.

Inftead therefore of Sedley's more obfeure fate, the verfe had been of lefs doubtful allufion had it run thus, And Valiere mourn'd the Form that pleas'd a King.""

kind, of large fize and long standing, upon the fide of my face, immediately before and below my right ear, I was informed by different people that, if

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I would apply falt and water to it, Ihould get rid of it. In Auguft 1798, I put a quantity of falt and water into a faucepan, and boiled it for 4 minutes' with which I bathed the whole fun face frequently while it continued warm, as alfo after it bêcarse cold, fo often as 10 or 12 tilnes daily, always firring up the falt depofited at the bottom of the bifon, and incórporating it again with the water, before I applied it. On the 11th day from the first application, while fhaving, I obferved a fall difcharge; which allting by a gentle preffure, the whole contents were foon emptied, without the fmallet pain, and without blood.' Being informed of fome others who had been benefited in like manner from the fame application, and knowing myself of fome late inftances under my own immediate direction, I feel it a duty thus to make it public; being convinced it can produce no bad effect, and every perfon having it in their power to make the trial. At the fame time, I beg leave to caution that no one should be disheartened from the Jength of time it may be neceffary to continue the application; as, in fome cafes, it has required 3 or 4 months, though in the laft only 30 days; but in all, without pain or inconveniences of any kind, or any previous notice of the difcharge, till it actually took place."

WILLIAM CHISHOLME.,

T

fray the expences of publication, appears, however, to be a matter of confiderable doubt: becaufe, on the one hand, Novels are not regarded as objects of fo much importance. as moft feriously belongs to them; and, on the other, it is notorious that with right-earneft Novel-readers "every rank fool goes down." K. Mr. URBAN, Jan. 14. THE Afiatics have a faying, that "it is not good to jeft with God;" and it was enjoined by Plato and other heathen authors, that the Name of GOD be not ufed lightly, rafhly, irreverently, or without weighty and fufficient caufe. Under the Mofaic law (which the Founder of Chriftianity came not to destroy, but to fulfil) a folemn ordinance was delivered to all generations, that "the Name of the LORD their Gon thould not be taken in vain." It appears, notwithftanding this, that we cherifh lefs vencration for what was commanded to be held facred, than did the Oriental or the Pagan philofophers; or, how could we fit in crowds to hear the Name of the Most HIGHEST profaned in our public affemblies? We cannot (to ufe the late expreffion of a Britith critic,) we cannot evince a ftronger fymptom of a want of habitual and due reverence for the Deity,' than by this quiefcent endurance of what we know, nay, of what we feel to be wrong. For I am perfuaded,, that numbers who mingle in the audience of our Theatres, for the purpofe of harmlefs recrcation, are touched with fecret compunction, when they hear that ballowed Name, at which angels tremble while they utter, familiarly put into the mouths, of our mimic heroes and heroines.

In the age of Elizabeth, this grofs impropriety was loudly cenfured by contemporary writers; and, in the reign of Janies, a prohibitory ftatute was enacted, which impofed proper penalties on all who thould profanely ufc the Name of GoD in

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