money, for at prefent I am much more ufed to the Roman. If you glean up any of our country news, be fo kind as to forward it this way. Pray give Mr. Dafhwood's and my very humble fervice to Sir Thomas Alfton; and accept of the fame yourself, from, dear Sir, your moft affectionate humble fervant, J.ADDISON. My Lord Bernard, &c. give their humble fervice. N Mr. URBAN, Bermuda, June 11. OTWITHSTANDING much commendation is moft justly due to the taste and liberality of thofe who are eftablishing fo magnificent a memorial of our incomparable poet, Shakspeare, I flatter myself fome of your readers will agree with me, that a fubject of more general utility, as it includes the whole human race, might be propofed, that would do fuperior credit to the genius and generofity of our feveral artifts, and have a more forcible claim on the patronage of the publick; I mean a general revifion of the Bible, adorned with al! the embellishments that print, paper, and engravings, can furnish, in editions fuitable to the prince and the peafant. Though thefe fubjects have been attempted by many capital artifts of other countries; for the honour of our own, we may hope that proper encouragement might furnish performances of which none would be afhamed; and we can boast a Church capable of receiving the nobleft. It would argue an unwarrantable prefumption to doubt the most cordial concurrence of that Royal Pair, who have experienced fuch fignal inftances of the mercy of the Moft High, and whofe conduct hath evinced how forcibly they are affected by it. Our Bishops are defervedly held in very general efteem; and he, who at prefent fills the fee of London, has too much liberality of fentiment to require any part of the old woman to be fhaken from him. Many of the fenators, both of the upper and lower ftory, I am well perfuaded, had much rather view a grand difplay of the beneficent acts of the Prince of Peace faithfully reprefented on canvas, than be prefent at any real exhibition where the Wards, Big Ben, or any of the virtuous fraternity of pugilifts, are affembled to knock each other's eyes out. Reprefentations, fuch as are here recommended, may have a tendency to meliorate the ferocity of our drovers and draymen, our carmen and our butchers, and have a happy effect, under the influence of a very laudable fociety, on the morals of a rifing generation. The acknowledged moderation of the modern Diffenters bids fair to the expectations of their liberal asfiftance. Thofe who attended the performance of the Meffiah in Westminster Abbey, or heard 5,000 children praifing their Creator with the melody of the or gan, returned divefted of every idea con cerning the found of the devil's bagpipes. To fee thefe crude hints catch the attention of fore, whofe leifure and abilities are more equal to a proper elucidation of the fubject, will give p'eafure to Mr URBAN, W.. July 16. THE following wife and prudent plan for the cultivation of timbertrees was written by a fenfible American gentleman and undone Loyalift, who has been obliged to feparate from his family, having loft a large fortune, and who is now gone to feek his bread on the plains of Afia. If it can be of any fervice to the kingdom 1 alfo have been obliged to forfake, tant mieux. P. T. A Plan for growing Locuft Trees, &c. for the Ufe of the Royal Navy. IT is propofed that an act of parliament be obtained, apportioning about ten thoufand acres, or fuch a quantity of the lands in the New Foreft and the Foreft of Dean as may be judged fufficient for the purpoles of Government, to be fet apart for growing Locuft-trees, Liveoak, and White-oak, for the ufe of the royal navy of this country. The Locuft is a wood of remarkably quick growth, fo much fo, that twenty-five or thirty years will produce a large tree, fit for the ufes commonly made of it. Its ftrength is equal to that of the Oak, and of fo durable a nature, that a stake driven into the ground has been known to ftand expofed to the weather for the space of eighty or an hundred years before it be gan to decay. This wood is found, by the American fhipwrights, to be fingu larly ufeful in making the upper-works of large fhips, and fuch particular parts of veffels as are likely to decay foon. The Live-oak and White-oak are made ufe of for the fame purpofes as the Locuft tree; and, although they are of a lefs durable nature than the Locust, they are still more durable than the common Oak of this country, but do not grow fo large. The Locuft is also used for making of tunnels or pins for fhips; and twelve or fifteen years will produce a tree large enough for that particular purpote. The Locuit-tree grows well in this coun-, try; and my Loid Amherf, to whom I had 700 Plan for growing Locust Trees, &c. for the Royal Navy. [Auguft, had the honour of fuggefting my ideas on this fubje&t, informed me, that he has Locuft trees now growing in his gardens. It is alfo beyond a doubt that the Liveoak will grow well in this country, as the climate is fo nearly alike to that of the Carolinas. The Locuft-tree grows beft in poor land, a dry, fandy, or gravelly foil, and fuch as will produce fcarcely any thing elfe; of which quality (as well as of good land) there is a fufficient quantity already furveyed in the New Foreft: but no other than good, rich land will grow large White-oak trees. The Locuft, Live-oak, and White-oak trees fhould be planted at the diftance of about 16 feet apart; confequently, an acre will produce 160 trees of about 14 ton each. The Locuft-tree of twenty five, Live-oak forty, and White-oak fixty years growth. In order to prevent any confiderable expence arifing to Government from carrying this plan into execution, it is propofed, that a fufficient number of proper perfons be felected from among the out. penfioners who enjoy the benefit of Chelfea, and that that number be conftantly employed on this fervice, receivable an nually, or every fix months, as fhall be judged moft expedient; that a houfe be built for their accommodation on a part of the Foreft adjoining the lands parceled out for the above purpofe; and a piece of ground allotted to them for a garden. ftances fhall be judged neceffary, be fet apart as a nursery for growing timber for the royal navy; and that fo much of the wood as can from time to time be fpared, be difpofed of to the publick for the benefit of Government. That the whole be under the care and management of commiffioners to be appointed for that purpofe, with fuch regulations as fhall appear moft likely to prove conducive in future to the public good. EBEN. JESSUP. Mr. URBAN, July 13. AFTER the many caricaturas of the late Dr. Samuel Johnfon that have been exhibited to the publick through the media of his friends and enemies, you have at length obliged us with what feems to me a true portrait of him, fee p. 500. The writer of this knew Dr. J, is acquainted with Mrs. Knowles, and loved and refpected Jenny H; and cannot help withing that fome of the company would let the world know who formed the whole group, and whether any other perfon among them took part in the converfation. But as, perhaps, none of them may chufe to ftand forth in fuch a bufinefs, I fhall give my reasons for the expreffions made ufe of above, in calling this dialogue a true portrait. How does the Doctor appear in it? A mixture of arrogance and dogmatism, poffeffed, or willing to make his auditors believe he was poffeffed, of fuperior And it is further propofed, that the knowledge, by a kind of intuition; for, faid act hall oblige every freeholder, co-in the difpute, he controverts the opipyholder, or other proprietor of lands, in this kingdom, to plant a certain quantity of trees, of durable wood, fuch as Locuft, the different fpecies of Oak, Afh, Elm, Beech, Birch, Maple, Lime, Acacia, &c. &c. to be particularly fpecified in the faid act, along his grounds, facing any public or bye road, the fame being a carriage-road, and on each fide thereof, at the aforefaid distance of 163 feet apart, or at a farther or nearer diftance, as the foil may be found capable of growing large trees; that every te nant be obliged to plant trees along the front of all his grounds, facing a carriage-road, that he may hold upon a leafe for feven years or upwards, fuch tenant to be allowed a reasonable price for his labour, and reimbursement of his necefLary expences, by his landlord. It is alfo fubmitted, that it would be of great public utility to plant trees a round the commons throughout this kingdom; and that a certain quantity of ground, fo much as from local circum nion of his adversary, not by reafon and argument, but by ill-manners and infolence; and freely owns, that he condemns Quakerifm, and its profeffors, whom he ftyles little better than Deifts, without having ever looked into the best writers on the subject, or, indeed, without knowing any thing of their tenets. Now, Sir, if this is not a true portrait of the Doctor, I know not where we fhall find one; I can, at least, aver it correfponds exactly with whatever I have met in his company, though I was not prefent when the dialogue took place between Mrs. K. and him. I deny not that, occafionally, the Doctor was a man of pleafant converfation; but it was when the ftream ran according to his mind, and he met with no oppofition; for the leaft impediment threw him into that ftrain of overbearing language in the dialogue now alluded to, and which was continually increased by the adulating compliments paid him by thofe perfons * A word not in his Dictionary. who who hung about him, and feemed to imagine their own merits rofe in proportion as they puffed up thofe of the Doctor. Your prefent correfpondent is no Quaker, and condemns their forms, though in many inftances he approves their tenets; but why the name of J. H. fhould have been branded with epithets of wench and flat, when the Doctor knew her to be of excellent morals, and virtuous character, is not easily comprehended, unless it be to fhew his detefiarion of every perfon and thing that differed from him: a temper not very philanthropic or philofophical, but which exactly agrees with him, and proves the verifimilitude of the portrait. That Mrs. K. was the means of converting (1 do not fay perverting) the mind of J. H. to Quakerifm, can hardly be doubted by thofe who knew all circumstances of that time, and not much to be wondered at, when the abilities of the one, and the easy, good-natured difpofition of the other, are confidered; but this I can fay, to the day of her death the little convert (for fhe is now no more) continually expreffed the high fatisfaction the felt in the religious opinions he had embraced, though the often regretted the anxiety that change in her fentiments has cauled among fome of her good friends. I little thought the wife of a furgeon in a country town (for fuch J. H. at length became) would have been brought thus into public view; but this pen was taken up to defend her memory from any reflexions that may be caft upon it, and to fhew that no learning or abilities can juftify obloquy or ill-manners. Yours, &c. Mr. URBAN, M M. S. July 19. Y ftate of health being perfectly immaterial to your readers, who can have no anxiety to learn whether I am fubject to fits of fpleen or jaundice, I fhall waive all reply to your correfpondent Vindex on that fubject, and take into immediate confideration what my let ters have induced B. L. A. and him to fay of Lord Clarendon, Dr. Prieftley, and Mr. Burke. The guilt imputed by Wood to Lord Clarendon was by no means my ground for reprefenting him as a corrupt Minifter; but his ignominious flight, and the fubfequent decifion of his Feers, are the arguments I urged in behalf of the honeft Oxford Annalift. The Chancellor's fon defying his accufers to prove any one article of the charge against him true, is equally idle and unworthy of our notice, whether fuch challenge was given before or after his father's efcape. If before, the utmost stretch of candour can only infer, that he had at that moment serious thoughts of making his defence, but fuddenly changed his mind when he found the Managers of the Impeachment determined to proceed. If after, no bravado could be more ridiculous; as it is univerfally known, that, in England, profecutions are never carried on by examination of evidence against absent men, for the fake of punishing them in effigy, if convicted. What if the Sovereign was privy to his tranfactions in the fale of Dunkirk ? what if he urged the de graded Minifter to retire to the Continent? These are no pleas in his favour. By the Conftitution of England, the King can do no wrong: but Heaven forbid that the Statefman who, under the fanction of any Monarch whatever, proves, a traitor to his country, fhould efcape the ftrong arm of the law, which has at all times authority to drag forth and bring him to condign punishment, as it did Lord Strafford, the minion of the first Charles, the inftrument of his deteftable oppreffions! The Brutum Fulmen of an Univerfity, whofe flatteries Lord Clarendon purchafed by bestowing on it a portion of his ill-gotten treafures, moves not me. To the tranfcendant abilities of that Noble Hiftorian I bow with the utmoft deference; but cannot avoid laying fome ftrefs on his perpetual affectation of. piety, his remarks on Lord Brooke's falling a victim to St. Chad, and his configning Cromwell to “damnation and hell-fire;" when contrasted with his fuggefting the affaffination of Defborough, which, though not actually perpetrated, deferves to be recorded in the fame scroll with the murders of Doriflaus and Ascham. If Wood was "foul-mouthed," the chief objects of his abuse are the Puritans; and his friends, the High Church party, might furely have forgiven his now and then blurting out a home-truth extremely unacceptable to them. Sir C. Wogan, a Jacobite correfpondent of Swift's, fpeaks of Lord Clarendon in full as harsh a ftrain: "He fled his country and his mafter, because he durft not stand his trial; he vanished, and left a horrible fench behind him to this day." 702 Lord Clarendon, Dr. Priestley, and Mr. Burke. [Auguft, fain retort on a writer at least equal to the whole fquad put together; but furely" frantic" was as ill-chofen a word as could have been found in the whole vo'cabulary, when applied to Dr. Prieffley, the characteriflick of whose works is clear, manly fenfe, which borrows no aid from the decorations of eloquence. I can have no caufe for being "greatly provoked" at firictures on that gentleman, with whom I have not the honour of being connected, either from perfonal intercourse, or as a profelyte to his te nets. On the two great fources of his fame, his difcoveries in experimental philofophy, and the ability with which he treats intricate metaphyfical fubjects, it behoves me, who have by no means fufficient knowledge in either department to appreciate his merits, to be wholly filent. The only motive which can authorize my coming forward to avow my refpect for Dr. Priestley, is that invariable firm nefs with which he has, even in these days, afferted the caufe of religious liberty. I view him, not as an Unitarian, but as the ftrenuous advocate for thofe rights of confcience which the Reformation has tranfmitted to us as its beft inheritance, and can have no fcruple in yielding this unworthy tribute of applaufe to him, who, animated by the pureft motives, has for a long feries of years ftood unbaken against a whole legion of the molt virulent and inveterate affailants; at a time when the "raging red-hot fpirit of Sacheverell, which has long been conjuring up from the fhades (not to quote Shakfpeare too verbally), and is now let flip, with Até at his fide, cries havock !" The timid and fpeculative will lay but too great ftrefs on the caution in Ecclefiaftes, "be not righteous over-much." My choice marks out a middle road between the two extremes of Athanafianifm and Socinianifm. Afpiring to no title beyond that of a confiftent Proteftant, I have bounded my views to the outlines of those two religious establishments which divide this ifland: and if I have been ambitious of fo far adapting myfelf to both, as to found my orthodoxy on a bafis one degree wider than that of our modern Scribes and Pharifees, let it not be imputed to any bafe motives. No tempe rate man (and of fuch only is the good opinion to be valued) will blame my hav ing fo far copied the fentiments of Sir James Johnftone, as, in drawing comparilons between our two modes of worfhip, to own myfelf fully convinced, that the Kirk of Scotland is as ftraight a road to Heayen, and certainly by far the most economical. With a confcience less pliable, it would have been highly incumbent on me many years ago to have quitted England, which is evidently no country for a Diffenter to live in. From Mr. Bofwell's Memoirs we have the pleasure of learning, that Dr. Sa-. muel Johnson reprobated Mr. Fox as a wicked Whig, but had penetration enough to difcover a kindred spirit in Mr. Burke, even while they were both tugging hard for two mafters directly oppofite in their political interefts, Lord North and the Marquis of Rockingham: for this I give him due credit. Johnfon was the most abject of ali bigots; not to mention his intolerant difpofition, we are affured by his Biographers, that he prayed for the dead, and that he declared he would face a battery of cannon to reflore the Convocation to its loft authority: while Mr. Burke, fcarcely behind-hand with him, dotes on every Monkish cowl, and quite idolizes the red hat of a Cardinal; for Catholic Diffenters he is anxious to obtain every poffible indulgence, while he raves with the utmost virulence againft fimilar applications from Presbyterians, whofe religion is "the true one" among our Northern brethren: both per fectly accord in holding Kings, Priefts, and Peers, a fuperior order of beings, and the Plebeian Laiety mere beafts of burthen. Here my parallel breaks fhort; the Oxonians made Johnson a Doctor, not on account of his Dictionary or moral works, but for his "Taxation no Tyranny" while they fcouted the Right Honourable Pamphleteer, who wrote more diffufively on the French Revolution. Here would I close my letter but, being reflected on by Vindex, for praifing the Oxford Caput, (fo hard is it to pleate!) I must add a few thoughts on Mr. Burke's "loyalty and zeal for Epifcopacy," not fo much from an anxiety to make my own peace with the gentleman who comes in the character of his champion, as for the fake of justifying by authentic vouchers the praifes I have already beftowed, and fhall yet again be flow, on the Rulers of that learned Seminary, for having refused a Degree to Mr. Burke. Mr. Burke, the profeffed admirer of Chivalry, may probably recollect a pasfage in Butler's Hudibras, (the words do not immediately occur to me,) where either that Knight or his 'Squire Ralpho compares loyalty to a dial which never deviates, whether the fun fhine upon it or no. If a Parliamentary Orator, juft at We now come to the article Epifcopacy; and furely no compliments to the Nonjuring Popish Ecclefiafticks of France can found acceptably in the ears of those meek, holy, venerable men, the English Bibops, whofe immediate defcent from the Apoftles ftares us in the face at every turo, and, like a long Welth pedigree, fills up fo many pages in our most applauded devotional performances. We are habituated to read fine things whenever the Hierarchy is fpoken of. With what fublime exertions of genius does the author of an Ode, published about three years ago as one of Swift's earliest juvenile effutions, defcribe an Upper Houfe of Convocation in the next world! Where bigh Patrician fouls, drejs'd heav'nly gay, Sit clad in laton of purer-woven day: Humana ante oculos fædè cum vita jaceret Long time men lay opprefs'd with fervile fear, And, being plac'd in Heav'n look'd proudly down, And frighted abject fpirits with her frown. Mr. Burke fays: "Religion is to exalt her mitred front in Courts and Parliaments, in order that he may pay a medicinal attention to the mental blotches and running fores, the arrogance and prefumption, of the miferable great." The most humorous paffages in Garth's Difpenfary, where he fatirizes Quacks, afford nothing either half fo grofs, or half fo burlesque; and where fuch images, not sketched with hafte, but expreffed in laboured phrafeology, disfigure the work of a man celebrated for his taste and vigorous imagination, it is vifible with half an eye, that his only aim could be, to expofe the Right Re verend Bench to the derifion of his readers. MR. URBAN, ONE L. L. Newcafle, Staffordfire, July 17. NE of your biographical correfpondents, p. 536, defired to be acquainted with the time of the birth of feveral authors therein named; and, amongst others, of Mr. Elijah Fenton. Your correfpondent may depend on the following information refpecting the birth of Mr. Fenton, which comes from a near relation of that gentleman. Mr. Elijah Fenton was born at Shelton, on the 20th of May, 1683, and died at Easthampftead, in Berk fhire, the feat of Sir William Trumbull, the 16th of July, 1730. He was the youngest of eleven children of John Fenton, of Shelton, near Newcattle, in Staffordfhire, who was an attorney at law, and one of the coroners for that county. Obferving that another correfpondent, vol. LI. p. 512, wifhed to be informed whether any portrait of Mr. Fenton is now extant; that correfpondent is hereby informed, that there is a good portrait of him, painted by Richardfon, now in the poffeffion of one of his relations*. One or two copies of it have been taken; but no engravings of it have, I believe ever been made. On a tombstone, placed over the grave of Mr. Fenton's father, in the churchyard of Stoke upon Trent, is the following elegant Latin infeription; which, as it was written by Mr. Elijah Fenton, and has, I believe, not been before publifhed, may perhaps be acceptable to fome of your readers. If you think fo, you are at liberty to infert it. H. S. E. JOANNES FENTON de Shelton antiquâ ftirpe generofus; CATHARINE formâ, moribus, pietate, Which we should readily engrave. EDIT. |