the followers of such vain pretenders, if the French revolu tion should not have satisfied them. We can assure them, however, that the partizans and pretended apostles which have lately appeared in the cause of liberty, are not of God: that the will of Thomas Paine, of William Godwin, and John Horne Tooke, is not the will of God; that the RIGHTS of every member of every community are not to be ascertained by a grammar or by a dictionary, or by a meaning affixed to words in remote antiquity, but by the laws, the customs, and the manners of their own country; and that those demagogues and orators who would seduce them to disobey those laws and customs, to follow their directions' and their will, on a presumption that they are more agree able to the laws of God and nature, are either wild enthusi asts, or designing and mischievous impostors.

We should not have entered so fully to the political views of this writer, if we had not considered the work before us, though professedly grammatical, as the vehicle of his political creed; intended to propagate his particular principles, and to justify his public conduct.

Mr. Tooke has quitted the duties of his original profession to become a public man; and he is indebted to that circumstance for most of the observations we make on his work. Public men are responsible to their country, sometimes to the universe, for the professions they disseminate, and for the obstacles they may create, intentionally or unintentionally, to the general happiness. The missioned Tooke, like every other missioned sectary, or declared reformer, must expect on all occasions to have his language analysed, and his purposes examined. How audacious is the sophistry of the following declaration!

'I revere the constitution and the constitutional Laws of England, because they are in conformity with the laws of God and nature; and upon these are founded the rational RIGHTS of Englishmen. If princes or ministers, or the corrupted sham representatives of a people, order, command, or lay down any thing contrary to that which is ordered, commanded, or laid down by God, human nature, or the constitution of this government, I will still hold fast by the higher authorities. If the meaner authorities are offended, they can only destroy the body of the individual, but never can affect the RIGHT, or that which is ordered by their superiors.'

If this sophism were to be a rule of action, papists and non-jurors in religion might plead it in full justification. Nay, Mr. Tooke's neighbour (Abershaw), dangling in irons, must be considered as a martyr. The papists and non

jurors openly plead their consciences and the word of God'; and Abershaw might have pleaded that the law on which he was condemned and executed, was enacted by a parliament not reputed incorrupt.

When Lord North was informed that Mr. Tooke meant to plead the invalidity of law enacted against reason, he wittily observed, 'A man of that opinion will be convinced of his errors when he is going to be hanged, on one of them.'

They may kill my body, says Mr. Tooke, but they cannot kill the RIGHT.' They are not incommoded with the abstracted idea of the RIGHT. It was the body maintaining that RIGHT, which they deemed WRONG, which incommoded them and injured the community, and of that body they think fit to dispose.

But these circumstances leading to abstractions, we must defer our observations to another article.

(To be continued).

ART. III.-A Northern Summer; or, Travels round the Baltic, through Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, and Part of Germany, in the Year 1804. By John Carr, Esq. Author of the Stranger in France, &c. &c. 4to. Phillips. 1805.

'I WRITE from my feelings,' exclaims Mr. Carr in the beginning of his book; and as I propose that my reader shall travel with me, it is reasonable that he should share some of the inconveniences as well as enjoyments of the excursion. If he will not commence the tour upon these terms, it will be best for both parties that we should not wander together over another page.' Best indeed; as the one will thereby escape disgust, and the other reprobation.

Mr. Carr, from the above extract, will appear not only to be a sentimental, but a peevish traveller. If his reader will not bear with his unmeaning rhapsodies, he must be dismissed from a perusal of Mr. Carr's valuable Travels. We heartily advise our readers to take him at his word. We, alas! are compelled by our office to wade with him through regions, where he is ridiculous enough, as an author of travels, to say, that he has endeavoured to form a nosegay of Polar flowers!

Were we not credibly informed that there does exist in rerum naturâ such a person as Mr. John Carr, we should conceive, from the particular sort of infantile absurdity CRIT. REV. Vol. 7. February, 1806.

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exemplified in this phrase, nosegay of Polar flowers, that we were reviewing a work of the gentleman who usually denominates himself the Gleaner,* under some new addition to the numerous false titles which that author already has assumed.

'I cannot quit England,' says Mr. Carr-would that he never had! or at least been silent upon his return-I cannot quit England, without casting a lingering look upon my favourite little town of-Totness.'-We are persuaded that the alliteration of town and Totness,' was the chief cause of Mr. Carr's affection; for as he proceeds, we shall find that he has no attachment to one place more than to another, but to every place all over the globe in an equally rapturous degree. He is a cosmopolite and a philanthropist, that is, as a cosmopolite, he loves that spot best which he himself is in at the moment; and, as a philanthropist, he loves himself better than any other creature in the world, Here indeed he is not singular; but his pretensions to universal benevolence are hyprocritical. Let us to the proof...

The angry decrees of renovated war had closed the gates of the south, vociferates Mr. Carr; the north alone lay expanded before me.'To the north accordingly he went; or, rather, they went: that is, Mr. Carr, and his companion, as he delicately expresses himself. We shall pass over his idle effusions in the churchyard at Harwich. It was after dinner that he walked among the tombstones, and observed the ridiculous epitaphs, written, as he says, 'by the village schoolmaster and the sexton, those prolific mortuary laureates :' we will therefore in charity suppose him and his companion to have been fuddled with Harwich ale. We will even forgive him his verses upon the man who died by the bite of a mad dog, although they really are the very foolishness of folly,' to use a strong expression of the wisest of men.

As I am one of those unhappy beings,' proceeds Mr. Carr, who,' (are all nerve,' we expected) like Gonzalo in the Tempest, would at any time give one thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground-and as there may be many more who may find the rocking of the ocean somewhat unfriendly to the regularity of appetite, let me advise them to lay in some anchovies, lemons, oranges, and a little brandy.

We should not have noticed the offensive stupidity of this passage, had it not been for the martyrdom which Shakespeare

Mr. Pratt. See Critical Review for June, 1805.

suffers in it. It is the curse of genius to have unworthy ad mirers; persons, who really do not deserve to feel the energy of a poet's language. Mr. Carris one of these; we have sufficiently proved out of his own mouth, that his panegyric is the grossest insult. Yet in every page of his Northern Summer, (can our readers endure even the title ?) does he bespat ter Shakespeare with his degrading praises!

ilelogoland,' says Mr. Carr, is a vast, lofty, perpendicular rock rising out of the ocean, and distant about forty-five miles from the ncarest shore: it is only one mile in circumference: yet upon its bleak and bladeless top, not less than three thousand people live in health, prosperity, and happiness.'

"Its bleak and bladeless top! This is the sublime of alliteration- no less than three thousand people!'-a good round number, larger, we have every reason to believe, by much, than that at which the Helogoland poll tax estimates its inhabitants-but the three alliterative words were irresistible. Our readers will begin to be tired of Mr. Carr, if we do not more rapidly discuss his merits.

Fortunately this author has furnished us with a clue for more quickly dispatching him, by the extreme imbccillity displayed in the contents of his chapters. Knowing that the world loves variety, he fancied it would be pleased with a continual change of subjects, however dull in themselves, or totally unfit to follow each other in close succession. At the head therefore of every page, he places an epitome of the weak nonsense which is to be found in it. For instance, 'The Village Wonder-Musical Postillions-Snaps-FarmHouses and Inn-The Post delivered-(a long quotation from Cowper, that most inharmonious of poets) A Conspi racy,'

The conspiracy' is too strikingly childish not to be mentioned.

"When I had retired to my chamber at Hensborg,' says Mr. Carr, the constant dashing of the fountain in the court-yard, the frequent crowing of a little hoarse bantam cock, two cats making violent love, and a party of foraging fleas, united their powers most successfully to keep tired nature's sweet restorer' from my lids the greater part of the night.'

This passage almost induces us to believe that we are again mistaking our object, in attacking Mr. Carr's tour; we do not mean that we still suspect him to be the Gleaner, but that we'really fear we have been levelling our shafts at a work which should excite our pity rather than our

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reprehension: with this idea prevailing over our indigna tion at the size and splendor of an useless and unentertaining volume, we shall accompany Mr. Carr good humouredly through his journey.

Not that we can in common decency pay him the compliment of tracing his steps, and retailing his observations through every petty town which he visited; but we shall waste afew moments of commiseration and laughter with him at the metropolis of each kingdom, that he cursorily surveyed in his Northern Summer.

At Copenhagen he tantalizes his readers, with an account of a most luxurious dinner.

Soups, top and bottom; Norwegian beef boiled, ham strongly salted, fish, pigeons, fowls, stewed spinnage, and asparagus. Creams, confectionary, and dried fruits followed the wines were various and excellent. Our party were composed of English, Norwegians, Flemish, Swiss, Russians, Danish, and French: would to heaven that their respective nations could for ever be as cordial and joyous as was this checkered collection of their merry natives!"

Here we see the pure philanthropist. But mark what follows in the very next page. The battle of the second of April.

Then,' says the benevolent Mr. Carr, the invoked vengeance of the British nation, with the fury and velocity of lightning, fell with terrible desolation upon a race of gallant people, in their very capital,' &c. &c.

Here we see the philanthropist exulting in bloodshed.

But it is superfluous to prove inconsistency, where we have presupposed a very adequate cause for something still less reasonable. Let us rather smile, without gall, at VaJour facetious,' which is the opening title of one of the chapters. It means, that Lord Nelson, by the same ship which carried the dispatches containing an account of his victory at Copenhagen, wrote to his wine-merchants, trusting they would pardon his not having sooner sent a checque for his bill, on account of his having been lately much engaged' We do not quite give credit to Mr. Carr's authority for this anecdote; and should have omitted it entirely, did it not elucidate the very sensible expression above of Valour facetious,' which is in this writer's happiest style.

I was much disappointed,' asserts our author, 'in not having the honour of being introduced to the Crown Prince, who at this time was in Holstein.' It will be right to apprize the reader, that Mr. Carr is always acquainted with the very first