LONDON, Printed by NICHOLS and SON, where LETTERS are particularly requested to be fent, PosT PAID. the Corner of St. Paul's Church Yard, Ludgate-Street. 1800 ON THE COMPLETION OF HIS SEVENTIETH VOLUME. W HATEVER Poets Laureate fay, While a few more years laft. To it a different term can give. Wherein fo many former have been loft; Few have been maik'd with more events than this; Then, famous period, what haft thou to What Century has not, in its middle time, The CENTURY 'S PAST, and we have At leak its half; but who believ'd We fcarce know what they mean. Extend from ftrand to strand. What have they left instead? A mob without a head. OLD What of the age, that just expiring lies, Our BRITAIN'S happiness we must con- Th' unnumber'd hofts of Frenchmen daily And let a ten years' war aloud proclaim Our deathless glories on the Continent; Tho' fhort-liv'd peace difgrac'd our Anna's reign; Her realms and councils into faction rent. And hall we now,. when injur'dEurope calls Aloud for aid, our friendly aid refuse? Though foes prevail, and injur'd Europe falls, Britain alone infpires th' Hiftoric Mufe. Th' enraptur'd Mufe her feats of arms shall fing [train ; Learning and Commerce in expanded Patron of Arts her most religious King, She prays may live, nor yet has pray'd in vain. The trueft freedom ftill is Albion's boaft; What SeoTIA tafted ninety years before, Her new confolidated realm And fav the public weal. R. G. *Battle at Oudenarde, alluding to Spenfer's Fairy Queen, II. 10. 24. THE UNION. JAN. 1, 1801. LD England's Rofe and Scotland's So oft her knights 'gainst Scotia's fought, * Motto of the Garter. Motto of St. Patrick. The pungent motto Scotland brought For TRIA JUNCTA's verified. unite Their fupporters ftill refting on GOD AND PREFACE. Jan 1, 1801. HE Conductor of a miscellaneous work like the GENTLEMAN'S TM Constanno accompany his readers into the opening Century without leading their recollectious, as well as his own, to a fummary furvey of the many and fingular events which have diftinguished the Century which has just clofed upon them, and in the larger half of which his life has been pent. Though the undertaking began before he came into being, and only the continuation of it for one quarter of the Century devolved on him, he cannot but feel a fecret fatisfaction that he has been made the happy inftrument of recording alike events, of which he has only heard, and thofe of which himself was conscious; Quæque ipfe vidit, & quorum pars magna fuit ; as well as of preferving the deductions and improvements made on thefe events by his many valuable Correfpondents. The occurrences through the greater part of the laft Century may be deemed only a fucceffion of events that are common to every fimilar period. Men of eminence in every department have clofed their career in the Eighteenth, as in all preceding Centuries; battles have been fought; fieges carried or raifed; empires won and loft; territories transferred to new and unexpected owners; ftorms and earthquakes, plague, peftilence, and famine, have ravaged and deftroyed; comets have blazed; exhalations have glided meteorous; the greater luminaries have been eclipfed; new difcoveries have been made in Arts, Sciences, and Commerce; new fects and notions have fprung up in Religion; in fhort, events great and fmall proceeded in their general courfe of fucceffion for ninety years out of the hundred, which we have as firm a perfuafion go to the conftitution of a Century ftrictly fo called, as 20s. to a pound, or 218. to a guinea. The Century opened with a confirmation of the bleffings which this Country gained by the Revolution, and which it was intended Europe fhould have participated, by the train of victories gained by that hero of our own, Marlborough, during a ten years war; till the religious fcruples of a fovereign and the turbulent bigotry of an unworthy fon of the church difturbed the public tranquillity, and hafiened a peace,which only the death of the ambitious Louis maintained. The war was changed into domeftic rebellion, fuppreffed, indeed, in a few weeks from its firft appearance. The tranquillity of Spain fuffered a longer interruption. A more exalted member of the Church of England fell a victim to his own rettlefs ambition; and George I. did not live to fee negotiation reftoring peace to Europe for a fhort period, and interrupted by a series of battles and another rebellion, after his immediate fucceffor had been near twenty years in poffeffion of his throne. The government of Holland was vefted in a Stadtholder, and other alterations and partitions made in other ftates of Europe. The differences in the calculation of time were obviated by the introduction of a new ftyle among us. The defence of our territories in both the Indies demanded our utmost exertions; and our acquifitions in both were confirmed by the peace of Paris, 1763. VOL. LXX. b Here |