ART.X. Lives of Edward and John Philips, Nephews and Pu pils of Milton, &c. By William Godwin P. 485 XI. 1. Examen Rapide du Gouvernement des Bourbons en de Maio 1915 Gordonstoun Libary. ROBERT'S native country, the Library embraces a large assemblage of the Theológical, Historical, Poetical, and Political Tracts, of his own time. Many of these are of the very rarest occurrence, and several are not to be traced in any similar Collections of which Catalogues have been Published. This Library has the singular merit of descending, nearly in its original state, with very few subsequent additions, to a late Proprietor, from whom whom it was acquired by purchase, Catalogues will be ready before the end of next month, when due notice will be given of the exact Period and Place of Sale. London, 1st December 1815. Mr COCHRANE most respectfully begs leave to acquaint his Friends and the Public, that he is about to open an Establishment for the Sale by Auction of Books, Prints, Pictures, and Objects connected with Literature and the Fine Arts. Confining his attention to these departments, he is led to flatter himself, that the experience and knowledge he has acquired in them, in the course of his business as a Bookseller, and a determination to pay the strictest attention to the Commissions with which he may be honoured, will entitle him to a share of the public patronage, and to a continuance of the favours of his old Friends in the line he has now embraced. Mr C. will be happy to attend to any Communication or Commission, addressed to him at No. 63, Judd Street, Brunswick Square. London, 1st December 1815. ART. I. Remains of the late JOHN TWEDDELL, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; being a Selection of his Letters, written from various parts of the Continent; together with a Republication of his Prolusiones Juveniles. To which is added, an Ap pendix, containing some Account of the Author's Journals, MSS., Collections, Drawings, &c. and of their extraordinary disappearance. Prefixed is a brief Biographical Memoir by the Editor, the Reverend Robert Tweddell, A. M. Illustrated with Portraits, Picturesque Views, and Maps. London, Mawman. 1815. 4to. pp. 660. THIS minute and prolix title-page may convey to the reader as much information of the nature of the work as a table of contents usually supplies; and, in so far, it abridges the labour of analyzing the volume, and enables us at once to enter upon the discussion of its merits. The name of Mr Tweddell stands very high on the melancholy list of those scholars, whose untimely fate has disappointed expectations formed from their premature attainments. His admirers have regarded him as the Marcellus of English literature; and the strong testimony which the publication of his Prolusiones bore to his extraordinary progress before he left college, was perhaps sufficient to justify, in the eyes of the world, the partial decision of private friendship. The letters contained in this volume, and now for the first time given to the publick, are rather to be considered as sustaining those hopes which the Prolusiones had raised, than as proving their fulfilment. They abound in traces of the same uncommon industry which had distinguished him from his childhood, and are filled with proofs that he had an almost equal talent for the acquisition of modern as of ancient languages. They indicate a great accumulation of knowledge upon the countries in which he travelled; and afford the clearest evidence of his having collected valuable stores for illustrating their history and description. But they are the effusions of private friendship, dictated by the feelings of the moment, and written without the most remote idea of publicátion; and if they contain a reference to his more severe occupations, it is only because, next to the duties and affections of the heart, these studies always filled his mind. If, indeed, his journals shall at length be found, and given to the world, there is e very reason to believe that we may regard his memory with gratitude as an important benefactor to letters, instead of only viewing it with the interest excited by an early promise of excellence. The Memoir of Mr Tweddell, the only part of his task which the Editor has performed with any degree of selection or conciseness, informs us that he was born in 1769, near Hexham; and was the son of a very respectable country gentleman in that district. His earliest years were passed under the care of a pious and affectionate mother, of whose great merit, as well as of her son's unceasing and tender attachment to her, the correspondence in this work contains ample evidence. At the age of nine years, he was sent to the excellent school near Richmond, in Yorkshire, then kept by the Reverend Mr Raine, father of the late Dr Raine of the Charter-house, a man to be praised as often as he is named, for his extraordinary learning and integrity, and who, like Paley, has been suffered to die unmitred, because his political principles were too liberal for the governing faction of the day. From thence he was taken to Cambridge, after having spent some time under the tuition of the celebrated Dr Parr, who, as might be expected, assiduously and successfully cultivated his rising talents. At Cambridge he received, in a succession we believe unprecedented, all the honours with which the system of that University encourages and rewards literary excellence; and his Prolusiones (a collection of prize essays) have enabled the publick at large to judge how superior his productions were to the common run of Academical effusions. A German professor, we apprehend, how prone soever to dole out his superlatives among authors of folios and quartos-men who have run the established course, and lived the regular time for attaining celebrity-is not apt to bestow much commendation upon the incursions of youth into the sacred field of literary fame. Yet Heyné, a man of undoubted taste as well as the greatest learning, says, in a letter to the venerable Bishop BurgessEruditionem ejus exquisitam ex prolusionibus juvenilibus perspexi; and he then lauds that generous love of liberty which breathes through these and all his other writings. We cannot refrain from quoting a passage or two from one of the essays, not so much upon account of the accuracy of the opinions stated in them, as of the remarkable fact of their having been tolerated, and even crowned with the highest honours, by the illustrious University before whom they were delivered. The dissertation from which these passages are taken, was thus distinguished, not at the beginning of the French Revolution, but in July 1792; and one of them contains a vehement, and, we certainly think, in many respects, an unmeasured and unfounded attack upon the celebrated work of Mr Burke, sounding the alarm against Jacobinism. It alludes, too, very plainly to the writings of Mr Burke's adversaries, including, of course, his most formidable antagonist Paine, as having successfully attacked him. • Quibuscunqe tandem fatis Galli dimicaverint, qualiscunque fuerit exitus militiæ non satis pro voto meo auspicat, illud tamen mordicus teneo, facinus illos fuisse ausos, quod sit maximum et pul cherrimum, carosque semper animæ meæ intimis in præcordiis gestabo, quod æquæ omnium libertati acceptissimum munus consecrarint. • Animus mihi in dies incandescit, quoties plebis in aures insusurrari audio falsos nescio quos rumusculos earum rerum, quæ in Gallia geruntur, quo scilicet ab æquæ libertatis patrocinio cæteri homines absterreantur. Cur autem hi latius percrebuerint, præcipua causa stetit magni olim nominis orator, qui, animo ad causam tyrannidis adjecto, mirabiles quasdam excitavit tragoedias, et putidis ampullis somnia mentis suæ decoravit. Grandi pagina turgescens, et læsam antiquitatis majestatem specioso verborum exercitu gestiens ulcisci, quantum erat in ulla unquam lingua intemperiarum et conviciorum, omne virus acerbitatis suæ, in gentem de iis omnibus, quia buscumque cordi est libertas, optime meritam, evomuit ac penitus exantlavit. Quippe spes de se pridem conceptas nihil reveritum, non illum puduit regium tanquam buccinatorem videri, et consceleratæ illi tyrannorum colluvioni, quæ bellum atrocissimum in Gallos jam nunc movet, classicum inhumaniter præcinuisse. Gaudeat sane et gratuletur sibi, si potest, de diris illis et imprecationibus, quibus populum laudatissimum devovit. Gaudeat, si potest, emendicasse luctum illum, quem non commoverit, et tyrannos plus vice simplici vociferationibus suis unos demeruisse. Est interea et nobis, turba quanquam simus suilla, unde gaudeamus, siquidem hominibus jam tandem innotuerit, ea quæ scripserit, non integrorum fide testium scripsisse, sed fide exalum, fide perfugarum, fide perditissimi et exoleti peregrinantium monachorum gregis, fide patriæ perduellium suæ. Et nos quoque ei gratulamur, quod furorem ei et insaniam Deus injecisse videatur, hoc utique consilio, ut a partibus suis sanos omnes abigeret, et conculcata a se libertati invitus ipse opitulareiar. Formidolosissimum enim provocavit in se scriptorum agmen, qui exilia ejus argumenta turpissimam in fugam verterunt, fregerunt, trucidarunt. Macti igitur estote, cives Gallici, O digni nomine revera civium, macti novis virtutibus, conservatores civitatis vestræ, universæ libertatis vindices! Si enim foedum illud teterrimumque gemituum et lachrymarum domicilium expugnastis, ac solo æquastis: Si litteras illas exitiabili auctoritate consignatas penitus delevistis: Si æquabilitatem juris propter perdices, leporesque, et id genus omne, periclitari noluistis, &c. &c. Si sint hæc, uti sunt, peracta a vobis omnia, hominibus ad servitutem paratissimis tuto licebit concedatis, desipere et ringi. Pasilli isti obtrectatores glorie vestræ strepitu magis numeroque sunt, quam dignitate et eloquentia reformidandi." Prolusiones, p. 148-50. Whatever opinion men may form of this passage, judging by the event, and allowing their sense of the horrors afterwards perpetrated in France, and by the French in foreign countries, to recall or modify their decisions, with respect to the earlier and purer stages of the Revolutionary story, all must, we think, admit that the liberality shown by the University towards so stout a defence of doctrines, from the very first unpopular at Court, is highly honourable to this learned Body. The following remarks upon the partition of Poland, must, at all times, have been favourably received, by every man whose opinion was worth considering:-But, undoubtedly, we have seen times, in which the expressions would have been reckoned dangerously strong and pointed for a prize dissertation. 'Hinc adversum seditiones et clandestinam vim firmissime munitum. Adde, quod magno imperio id insitum est robur, ut ægrius opprimatur ab hoste extero, minusque igitur libertati illius sit periculum ex iis calamitatibus, quæ te, miseranda Polonia, tuaque jura omnino omnia, vereor ne brevi infringant, penitusque gravissimo interitu subvertant. Enimvero, a teterrimis istis Russiæ et Borussiæ tyrannis, istis versutis veteratoribus, istis, pene dixerim, efferis carnificibus, in æquam libertatem, in omne quicquid est jus gentium, in ipsum denique humanum genus, incredibili atque immani more et modo sævitum est. Pavet interea, totaque mente ac totis artibus contremiscit ipsa Polonia. Obstupescunt, mista cum dolore et metu indigna. tione, gentes vicinæ. Quin Britannia, libertatis illa quondam violatæ et quidem periclitantis ultrix et acerrima vindex, tyrannorum inter minas et strepitum horrendorum armorum silet torpetque.- ' Prol. p. 173, 174. In 1792, he was elected Fellow of Trinity College; and soon after, in compliance with his father's wishes, rather than from any taste for the profession of the law, he was entered of the Middle Temple, and for some time continued to pursue that study, notwithstanding his repugnance to it. But the natural bent of his |