This perhaps may be an error of the press; but, even as such, it is an unpardonable neglect in a book of reference. In justice, however, we must say that this pocket volume contains a variety of information, which will be found entertaining and instructive to those who are fond of theatrical anecdote and biography. In one particular it is entitled to our warmest praise; namely, that it will not offend the chastest eye. It is a plain narrative of the lives of performers, &c. so far only as they have respect to their calling, and is totally silent upon that lewdness and immorality which too often blacken the history of those who have passed their time among actors and actresses. ART. 54.-New Instructions for playing, in all its Varieties, the Game of Billiards with Ease and Propriety. To which is prefixed an Historical Account of the Game, &c. By an Amateur. served. Hurst. 1801. 12mo. Is. 6d. We have been much disappointed on a perusal of this book. The title informs us that it contains instructions for playing;' and, in the description of a mathematical game, we reasonably expected, therefore, scientific principles. We hoped to have seen the angles of the different parts of the table pointed out, and to have heard somewhat of the laws of velocity and repulsion. But nothing of the sort occurs in the whole performance; nor is there the smallest information advanced by what means a hazard may be made from any one given point of the table: all that is laid down is the rules of the different games; yet of what use is a marker but to decide these at the time the parties are playing? ART. 55.-The Encyclopedia of Wit. 12mo. 6s. Boards. Phillips. This is one of the most witless productions we ever perused. There is less of Attic salt in these 558 pages than in almost any other work of the sort with which we are acquainted, although not containing the fourth part of that number. If our readers wish to see into what kennels the compiler has been raking in order to swell the bulk of his volume, they may read the following witty story. " DUTCH DELICACY. The Hollanders keep their apartments religiously clean, and, to prevent their being dirtied by the consequences of smoking, sit round the room in a circle, and he who has occasion to spit spits into his neighbour's mouth, who passes it on to another, and he to a third, until it gets into the mouth of the man who sits next the door, who passes it out of the room.' P. 8. ART. 56.-The Life and Campaigns of General Suworow, Conqueror of Italy. By an Officer. 12mo. 25. sewed. Hurst. 1801. The actions of this celebrated warrior are particularised, in the volume before us, from his birth to his death. It might naturally be expected that a work written by an officer should lean a little to the side of his own country; and whenever it becomes necessary to hint at parties, the author shows the direction of his bias; but in the main, the performance is extremely impartial, and the relations are given in a much better flow of language than is always to be met with from a soldier. The conclusion manifests the instability of every dependence upon, princes: Sic transit gloria mundi.' ART. 57.-The Science of Teaching, applied to Elocution, Poetry, the Sublime of Scripture, and History, with a novel and improved Arrangement of the latter, for the Use of classical Pupils. By David Morrice. 12mo. 3s. Boards. Lackington and Co. 1801. Some miscellaneous remarks on the art of speaking, poetry, &c. dignified with a title-page of too much expectation. The novel and improved arrangement of the latter is only a chronological table, which, by giving to one side of the column, containing dates, the sacred, and the other the profane history, leaves frequently half the page a blank space. The whole wears too much the appearance of mere book-making. ART. 58.-Observations on Mr. Dundas's Letter of the 30th of June, 1801, to the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the East-India Company. Svo. Is. Jordan. 1801. A reproof of Mr. Dundas, who in 1784 proposed that the commissioners of control should be persons already in office, and receive no new emolument; but who in 1793 secured for himself and the commissioners each 5000l. yearly, and in 1801 retired with a letter of good advice and a pension of 2000l. a-year. But such matters are now viewed with complete apathy by the nation at large, and this apathy extends to yet greater objects; for the contempt of the late ministry for the public opinion, and, yet more, the unhappy violence to which they subjected it, have produced effects which might easily have been foreseen; and, in case of real danger, the consequent palsy would be found highly dangerous. As even the weakest of the alarmists seem now to be satisfied that there is no interual jeopardy, every mean should be used gently to revive and stimulate the public opinion, which would be found favorable to pacific measures, and of course to the present ministry. ART. 59-A Dissertation on the Progress of the fine Arts. By John Robert Scott, D.D. 4to. 35. White. A trivial declamation in praise of the fine arts.-The only thing worth notice is a note on the fate of a young artist called Proctor, which we shall transcribe. The fate of this ingenious youth deserves to be distinctly recorded. Born of humble parentage in one of the more distant counties, he had early manifested an admiration of the arts, and, being admitted a student of the Royal Academy, eminently distinguished himself there by his abilities and his industry. Applying peculiarly to sculpture, soon after the termination of his studies in the academy he exhibited, at its annual exhibition in Somerset-place, two models of unrivaled excellence, which might, without fear of deterioration, have been placed in competition with the happiest productions of the best days of Grecian art, and which at the time met with their wellearned applause. But, alas! applause was his only reward: no wealthy patron took him by the hand, no affluent lover of the arts inquired into, or assisted, his circumstances; and his means being very confined, misery was his portion. He had however the soul of an artist, and for a length of time bore up with manly fortitude against his distresses. The present worthy president of the Royal Academy, suspecting his situation, with the aid of the council obtained for him from the Academy an annuity of 100l. a year, to enable him to go to Italy, and improve himself there: but the unhappy youth had unavoidably contracted some trifling debts, which he was utterly unable to discharge, and his mind was too delicately alive to every finer feeling to bear the thought of leaving this country without paying them. This circumstance, preying on his agitated spirits, and on a frame emaciated by the severest distress, caused his speedy dissolution, to the irreparable injury of the arts. After his death it was discovered that, for the last two years of his life, he had resided in a miserable cock-loft in the worst house in Clare-market, which he had rented for a shilling a week; and that his daily sustenance for that time had been only two dry biscuits, with a draft of water from the market pump.' P. 32. ART.60.-Morality united with Policy; or, Reflexions on the old and new 12mo. True policy cannot be separated from morality; but the different interests which sway the sovereign and the people in most countries have hitherto rendered the union rather a question to be discussed in the regions of Utopia, than a problem to be reduced into practice in real life. History, however, instructs us in the lamentable truth, that, from the want of this union, very disastrous are the constquences to every country. A corrupt government naturally corrupts the people; the corruption of the people re-acts upon the govern ment; the name of reform is treated with derision, till it is too late to introduce it, or till at length, the accumulation of abuses destroy. ing the connexion between the sovereign and the people, the destruc tion of the former, produced by the anarchy and sedition of the lat ter, removes an ancient system, to pave the way for follies perhaps in the opposite extreme. Our author endeavours to palliate the tyranny of the old French government. There were few victims indeed in its Bastille; but the terror of it was as grating to an enlightened people as the cruelties exercised in it to the grosser feelings of their ancestors. The despotism of the last monarch was exercised with great moderation; yet France lamented the destruction of its constitution, and panted for the restoration of its three estates. The French, agreeably to their natural levity, have rushed into the grossest absurdities, mingled with the most sanguinary atrocities; yet this ill conduct is rather a proof than an excuse of the crimes and follies of former reigns, in which, from neglect of the opportunities of correcting evils when every reform would have been accepted as a favout from the monarch, the power was thrown into hands incapable of exercising it with temper and discretion. The sovereignty of the people, which has been treated with so much folly and rancour among ourselves, is shown to be only an inno cuous sound. The phraseology honours the government at least as much as it flatters the people;' for It cannot be denied but that all governments, whether they be free or despotic, owe their strength and their security to the consent of the people. If they did not originate from their choice, they must be maintained by their consent. For no government can long stand if the people will its destruction. Their will, therefore, is sovereign; and is the real and essential base of all political sovereignty.' P. 41. This question being settled, the good of the people is maintained to be the end of government; and that good cannot be neglected by any ministry without a violation of justice and humanity. Hence the real sovereignty, to which both princes and people are bound to submit, consists in the laws of religion and morality; and when they are neglected, the days of St. Bartholomew or the days of Robespierre are the necessary punishments for the wickedness of those who break the higher laws of Providence. Our author, after such observations, proceeds to the important question of reform, particularly of a religious reform in his own country; on which head the scandalous advertisements for the sale of livings, and the stock-jobbing traffic in preferments, are reprobated with due severity. Some obnoxious parts in our otherwise excellent Liturgy are censured as deserving of erasure; and a tempe rate alteration in the Articles is recommended. Tithes are judiciously defended, and a church establishment praised. The reform in the representation of the people is made to rest upon property; and these various reforms are recommended with great propriety to the present minister. The following observation will show the impar tiality and sound sense of the writer. I am neither the foe nor the partisan, neither the panegyrist nor the calumniator, of the minister nor of the opposition; but truth compels me to declare, that there has been a great and prominent tendency in some late measures of taxation to depress the middle orders, and totally to extinguish mediocrity of fortune. Such mea sures accelerate the progress of a country towards slavery and wretchedness, and are ominous indications of wasting happiness and expiring freedom: for the middle classes are the only safe and solid rampart against arbitrary power on one side, and tumultuous disorder on the other. p. 98. APPENDIX ΤΟ THE THIRTY-FOURTH VOLUME OF THE NEW ARRANGEMENT OF THE CRITICAL REVIEW. ART. I.-Traité de Minéralogie, par le Citoyen Hauy, Membre de l'Institut National des Sciences et des Arts, &c. Publié par le Conseil des Mines, en Cinque Volumes, dont un contient 86 Planches. 8vo. Paris. 1801. Treatise on Mineralogy, by M. Hauy, stitute of Sciences and Arts, &c. Mines. 5 Vols. with 86 Plates. Member of the National InPublished by the Council of Imported by De Boffe. THIS work claims our attention on many accounts; and to examine its object and plan is more than sufficient for å single article. Should we not be prevented by an English translation, we shall return to it in another Appendix. Let us however observe, that, if such a version be in contemplation, we would recommend adding to it the Abstract of Werner's Orictognostic Classification of Minerals by M. Daubuisson. It is more clear and intelligible than the original, which, nevertheless, with more than common precision and minuteness of distinction, contains much valuable information, though in a style that must disgust and even repel a reader of common resolution. The abstract is not without its repellent powers; but they may be conquered by a little exertion*. To return however to M. Hauy's Treatise of Mineralogy. * At the moment of writing this part of our article, we received the first volume of an Elementary Treatise of Mineralogy, by M. Brochant, engineer of mines. We have looked it over cursorily, and think it possesses considerable meri.; and perceive that it is spoken of with great respect by M. Hauy. We now mention it not only to announce the publication, but to remark that it unites the precision of the school of Werner with M. Hauy's geometrical accuracy. It contains a more copious and correct view of Werner's language and manner of description than even the translation of Madame Picardet. It must indeed be remembered, that the translation which we noticed in a former volume of our journal was from APP. Vol. 34. 2 L |