above the impeachment of a blind or fupine inveftigator. The portrait which he exhibits, of the noble philofopher, is drawn with a masterly hand, while, at the fame time, it may be fufpected, that his imagination has either difcovered, or exaggerated blemishes, which might not have exifted in the mind of the great original; and that the reverend critic has often dipped his pen in the fame gall, for both the liberal and illiberal ufe of which his lordship is cenfured with so much feverity. Warmth and vigour of imagination, elegance of diction, political learning and fagacity; these are the fhining qualifications which our author allows to be indifputably confpicuous in the genius of Bolingbroke, and they were certainly the fortes of that noble lord.

6

His ftyle, fays he, will fcarce admit the character of humble profe; it is not compofed of mere fimple terms, which ferve to no other ends, in the hands of an ordinary writer, than barely to exprefs his meaning: it has a graceful harmony in the construction, is enlivened by wit and fatire, ennobled by eloquence, decently decorated by pertinent quotations from the learned, and enriched by the most appofite and illuftrious examples from hiftory, ancient and modern.-His cenfures and free raillery on the impertinencies of fcholars, and the impofitions of fchoolmen, are not only juft, but weighty, animated, and striking he is the fartheft from what you may call a dull or heavy writer, the common character of his tribe. He has much vigour of fpirit, and fire in his conftitution, which transfufed into his compofition, keep his reader sufficiently alive, awake, and attentive.

Nor is there any thing of force or constraint in his language all is free, unlaboured and copious, and feems more the product of nature and genius, than of art or study. Other authors, in refpect of imagination and eloquence, you may compare to waters drilling flowly, drop by drop, from fome penurious fountain, or forced by art into unnatural derivations, diftortions, and a partial and fparing diftribution: but lord Bolingbroke is natural and unexhaufted, always full and overflowing, on fubjects, the one the bafeft, the other the most barren that can fall to the fhare of a writer, viz. infidelity and abstract ideas he is copious as if he derived from a divine fountain; and though baneful in his contents, yet beauteous in his flow, as if he ftrayed through the groves of Paradife : the Syren's voice charms, though deftruction is the subject of the fong.

Lively and copious, accurate and elegant, though he is all thefe, yet all are too low to exprefs his manner and diction: gracefulness without art, and dignity without affecta

tion;

tion ;-eloquence unlaboured, and not tricked up or debased by the meretricious ornaments of rhetoric, nor formed by the established rules of compofition, but natural and original, like distinguished strength and beauty in other men, are characteristic of his lordship's language; and he may seem born to give laws to oratory, rather than to have borrowed any from the art-his capacity very easily comprehended, his memory retained, his imagination combined, and his judgment selected the propereft and brightest images, which the book of nature, in its various appearances, and the history of man in its various revolutions, prefented to his reading and obfervation. All thefe ftood ready at his call, to embody his conceptions, to illuftrate his opinions, to enliven his defcriptions, and to give the fairest appearance to his reasoning. He is happy in the use he has made of travels and history, and of his various and immenfe reading; and in the application of it, to the illuftration and embellishment, though not to the proof, as he fhould feem to intend, of any prefent argument and opinion. We admire his eloquence, and are struck with his wit, while we reject and despise his reasoning. His exotic importations, as I would call them, appear in their new fituation both natural and charming to the eye; but they intoxicate the brain, and are poison to the taste. There is befides an order and arrangement of his words; a grateful variety, yet happy coincidence in the turn, a graceful redundance in their length, and a masculine vigour in the whole ftructure of his periods: thefe are fo full, fo rounded, and fo tempered with the juft proportion of fenfe and found, that we are at once informed and charmed by an accuracy without method, and an elegancé without art nature ftill fuggefting, from her unexhausted ftore, variety to his conceptions, copioufnefs to his diction, and order, ftrength, and splendor to both: and where the fubject favours, as when public virtue, liberty, and national happinefs, the effects of the fpirit of patriotifim, and of the conduct of a patriot prince, come under his obfervation, his eloquence rifes with the rifing glory of his country; we are charmed with the defcription; the profpect is lovely, the colours are anfwerable, and we behold with delight and admiration, the painter and the pencil, both the peculiar lot, and unrivalled honours of Britain. So that we may allow him the praise of a fine writer, fo far as he has not debafed his wit with fcurrility, and his eloquence with fome affectation and laboured pomp: that is, where his pride does not betray him, or his paffion transport him to ribaldry, and a licence becoming a flave rather than the lord viscount Bolingbroke. His own obfervations on the conduct and fentiments of others, especially

when he is cool and difpaffionate, as on the fubjects of history and politics, his proper province, are not only just, but refined; and though many of them had been made by others, yet they have in his hands a novel air, and the stamp of originals, with a fuperior dignity and delicacy.

The political world and its fyftem was indeed the fphere, in which he spread his faculties to moft advantage, and as a theorist moved with most eafe, moft gracefulness and dignity: here he triumphs over the rest of mankind, and even over himfelf.'

After exhibiting a view of lord Bolingbroke's genius as a writer, the author proceeds to the confideration of his principles as a philofopher. The idea of the First Philofophy, as reftricted by his lordship to the contemplation of phyfical caufes, and as exclufive of the fuperintendency of an intelligent Being over the univerfe, and of the doctrine of the immortality of the foul, is certainly fuch as can meet with no quarter from the author of the prefent inquiry; and, indeed, were it poffible that it could be established on the most undeniable principles, yet a regard for the interest and happiness of mankind would induce us to explode it for ever from the objects of human fpeculation. In this part of the work, however, our author acknowledges the fuperiority of the noble inveftigator over every other writer who had preceded him on the fubject.

But what furprifes us moft, fays he, is, that lord Bolingbroke, a spirit fo high, and genius fo fublime, fhould fubject himself for a courfe of years to the fervile drudgery of ranfack ing the writings, and compiling and producing to the world the crude and flimfy obfervations and objections of men, whom on any other fubject he would have treated, in point of knowledge, literature, and criticism, as the most contemptible of their kind. Here you fee the arm of Hercules employed, not to cleanse the stable of Augæus, but to gather up the rankeft ordure, left by former occupants, and to prefent it as the most precious ointment, for the refection of his readers. Yet ftill a Bolingbroke appears even in this dirty work: his philofophical labours contain a compleat bedy of infidelity ancient and modern and if the arms he has employed against religion, are borrowed, they have received from his hands a new polish and splendor: and if he has not always managed them with more dexterity, he has pushed them with more hardiness, intrepidity, and vigour, than was ever done by any preceding champions. They were indeed but dwarfs or pygmies; and compared with him in refpect of genius and eloquence, Morgan is pert, Tindal is laboured, languid and

heavy, Middleton is only not infipid, and Shaftesbury cold, ftiff and affected. And if the arms of infidelity, combined and conducted under the banners of lord Bolingbroke, are not fuccessful and victorious, it is for this reafon alone, that they are directed against Heaven.'

There appears lefs candour in the author's account of his lordship's moral character, and his motives for rejecting Chriftianity, than in any other part of the work.

It was impoffible that he should be a believer, with all his paflions about him. The pride of wit, of genius, and eloquence, which he was fond to display, could be never reconciled to Christian humility, no more than the rancour he has betrayed towards the general body of mankind, could be to Christian charity. How, or why fhould he love God, who denied his goodness and mercy? What faith could be expected from one, who refolved to believe nothing but what he fees? What spiritual conviction from the man, who denied all exiftence of his own fpirit? What effects or returns of prayer from him, who thought this duty no part of devotion? As far as the reasonableness of the letter led him, he admitted, in words at least, the reasonableness of Chriftianity: but as he had no experience of its happy effects upon his foul and confcience, he might, confiftently with his own doctrine, and the great principle of the First Philofophy, "That feeing is believing," deny thefe effects. How should a felf denying, an humble, and an holy Jefus;-no naturalift, no patriot, no politician, no prince of this world-adorned with no arts, and poffeffed of no empire-but over himself;-how should fuch a teacher, meet with the esteem, or merit the acceptance of a man, who had adopted Nature for the object of his knowledge, and the measure of his enjoyments; and' whose life had been, for the most part, fpent in the chace of pleasure or power, or in canvaffing the measures of minifters, and weighing the balance and interefts of ftates? The treaty of Utrecht, and the covenant of grace, were of fo different a nature and complexion, that it would not be eafy or agreeable for one, who had his thoughts engroffed as it were by the former, to have any tolerable tafte for the latter.'

The grea eft part of the author's labour is employed in detecting and amaffing the inconfiftencies, rather than expofing the errors of the philofopher on whom he comments; and on this fubject, he difcovers extraordinary induftry. We shall here present our readers with a few paffages, as fpecimens of thefe obfervations.

He catches at appearances, and rarely enters into a thorough examination and difcuffion of things: fuch is the power

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of

fifth year of his reign, was in France, and that he did not hold a parliament at Edinburgh till eight years after the date of the fuppofed inftrument. After this flagrant detection, it would mifpend the reader's time, fhould I defcend to other proofs of this counterfeit deed.'

It would lead us into too minute a detail, to exemplify the feveral important obfervations which are made on preceding writers by this learned author, whofe hiftorical information is no less accurate and extenfive, than his judgment is clear, and unbiaffed éven by the greatest authorities. The legitimacy of the elder fons of Robert II. however, is a matter of fo great confequence to the honour of the British crown, that we should be guilty of a fort of mifprifion of treason, if we did not exhibit the arguments which are adduced by our author for the eftablifhment of that fact, in oppofition to the injurious reprefentations of the celebrated Buchanan.

a parliament met Robert had a nufirst marriage had His daughters had

On the fourth of April this year (1373), at Scone upon a very momentous occafion. merous iffue, but his fon and heir by his none, and was of a fickly conftitution. been married into feveral powerful families, who had remote pretenfions to the crown: and, upon his death, his younger fons might afpire to the royal dignity during the life-time of their elder brother. It was therefore by this parliament enacted, "That the fons begotten of his first and fecond wives, and their heirs, fhould in order fucceed to him, the faid king, in the kingdom and right of reigning; that is, that his eldeft fon, the lord John, earl of Carric, and fteward of Scotland, procreated betwixt him and his first wife, Elizabeth More, conformably to the declaration made in the last parliament, fhould fucceed to him; and failing him and the heirs of his body (which God forbid), the lord Robert earl of Fife and Menteith, fecond fon of the faid lord the king by his faid first wife; and the faid lord Robert and his heirs alfo failing, Alexander lord of Badenoch (afterwards earl of Buchan), the third fon of the faid lord the king by the fame wife; and the faid lord Alexander and his heirs failing alfo, the lord David earl of Strathern, fon of the faid lord the king, begotten of his fecond wife, Euphame Rofs; and the faid lord David and his heirs in like manner perchance failing, Walter, fon of the faid lord the king, bro her-german of the faid lord David (afterwards earl of Athol); and that the aforefaid five brothers, and the heirs from them defcending, failing perchance in like manner, and wholly (which God forbid), the true and lawful heirs of the blood and ftock-royal from thenceforward should fucceed in the kingdom and the right of reigning."