exhibit before their eyes an entire and authentic representation of his hero. Au uniform mass of colouring, without shade, and with dubious outline, standing less forward on the canvass than a groupe of ill-chosen and subsidiary forms, can exhibit neither a faithful nor suitable portrait; and if in applying this illustration to the piece before us, we could inspire an abler artist with the desire of executing a more finished work, we should no longer hesitate to pronounce it perfectly correct. Compelled therefore, as we now are, to leave the character of the amiable and learned Professor in that obscurity which his biographer has thrown over it, we have only to notice the lainented termination of his life in the year 1769, after a long scene of sickness and despondency.

Of the three volumes under review, the Life of Gellert occupies the greater part of the first; whilst the two others comprehend The Course of Moral Lessons delivered by him in the University of Leipsic.' The general character and merits of these moral lessons are so well known, that we cannot detain our readers by a formal annunciation or them. Purity and even tenderness of sentiment, sobriety of thought, a chaste and elevated piety, are the precious qualifications which adapt them to inform and delight. The wisest of men may be instructed by them in the most essential branch of wisdom, the knowledge of himself; the best of men may be improved by them in the only department of virtue practical excellence. It may be well, however, to warn those who expect extraordinary vigour of thought, or brilliancy of wit, that they must not look for them in the pages of a correct and sober philosopher. The refined gratifications which literary epicures sometimes exclusively seek, are indeed rarely furnished by such writers, many of whom, along with our author, have boldly declared that they write rather for the unlearned than the learned.

ART. IV.-ETEX #reposta; or, the Diversions of Purley. (Concluded from p. 28,5.)

IF we had continued our journey through this volume in the manner we began it, we should have inflicted on our readers the weariness which we have often ourselves experienced.

We shall therefore only select such passages as refer to principles of importance, either in grammar or philosophy, and conclude with our general sentiments of the work.

The fifth chapter is thus opened:

F. I STILL wish for an explanation of one word more; which, on account of its extreme importance, ought not to be omitted. What is TRUTH?

"You know, when Pilate had asked the same question, he went out and would not stay for the answer. And from that time to this, no answer has been given. And from that time to this, mankind have been wrangling and tearing each other to pieces for the TRUTH, without once considering the meaning of the word.

H. In the Gospel of John, it is as you have stated. But in the gospel of Nichodemus (which, I doubt not, had originally its full share in the conversion of the world to christianity +) Pilate awaits the answer, and has it." Thou sayest that I am a kynge, and to that I was borne, and for to declare to the worlde that who soo be of TROUTH Wyll here my worde. Than sayd Pylate, What is TROUTH, by thy worde there is but lytell TROUTH in the worlde. Our lorde sayd to Pylate, Understande TROUTH how that it is judged in erth of them that dwell therein."

Nychodemus Gospell. chap. 2.

"F. Well, What say you to it? 'H. That the story is better told by John: for the answer was not worth the staying for.'

Then why swell out your book by inserting it? Oh! but there is an indirect blow at the canonical gospels. He however recollects himself And yet there is something in it, perhaps; for it declares that Truth is judged in erth of them that dwell therein.' He then derives True from an Anglo-Saxon word, meaning confidere, to think, to believe firmly, to be thoroughly persuaded of, To Trow. P. 40%, &c. Marke it, Nuncle.

Haue more then thou showest,
Speake lesse then thou knowest,
Lend lesse then thou owest,

Ride more then thou goest,

Leaine more then thou TROWEST.'

Lear. pag. 288.

This past participle was antiently written TREW; which is the regular past tense of TROW. As the verbs To Blow, to Crow, to

*See John xviii, 38. What is Truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer.' Bacon's Essays.

Nichodemus was the Patron Apostle of our ancestors the Anglosaxons and their immediate descendants: his gospel was their favourite authority and it was translated for their use, both into Anglosaxon and into old English; which translations still remain, and the latter of them was one amongst the first books printed. By Wynkyn de Worde. Anno. 1511.

Grow, to Know, to Throw, give us in the past tense, Blew, Crew, Grew, Knew, Threw. Of which had the learned Dr. Gil been aware, he would not, in his Logonomia Anglica, pag. 64, have told us that TRU, ratus, was "verbale anomalum of I TROU, reor."

"Of this I need not give you any instances; because the word is perpetually written TREW, by all our ancient authors in prose and verse, from the time of Edward the third to Edward the sixth. 'TRUE, as we now write it; or TREW, as it was formerly written, means simply and merely-That which is TROWED. And, instead of its being a rare commodity upon earth, except only in words, there is nothing but TRUTH in the world.'

In this paragraph, Mr. Tooke decides on bis own philoso phical pretensions. TRUTH is not what any one may trowe, for in that case no man can ever have trowed falsehood but TRUTH, in the abstract; a term which we must endeavour to rescue from the sophistical barbarison of Mr. Tooke's philosophy, is the exact AFFINITY of intellectual and moral, as well as of natural circumstances. Men have trowed the grossest errors concerning the phenomena of nature, until experiments have ascertained the TRUTH, i. e. their causes and effects, and the relations of those causes and effects; and the TRUTH has been very different from what has been trowed. It is so in the intellectual and moral world. Propositions and maxims have been trowed, which are extremely different from the intellectual and moral truth, when ascertained by a just experience. It is this ACCORDANCE of principles and actions with the construction of our natures, and with the constitutions and laws of our countries, to which the general and abstract idea of TRUTH is annexed; and the word is the sign of the general idea, not of the particular persuasion, fancy, or imagination of the individual. Mr. Tooke therefore speaks like a mere grammarian, when giving the definition of truth; as indeed he does on all occasions, even when he assumes the most decisive and dogmatic tone of the profound philosopher.

That every man, in his communication with others, should speak that which he TROWETH, is of so great importance to mankind; that it ought not to surprize us, if we find the most extravagant and exaggerated praises bestowed upon TRUTH. But TRUTH supposes mankind: for whom and by whom alone the word is formed and to whom only it is applicable. If no man, no TRUTH. There is therefore no such thing as eternal, immutable, everlasting TRUTH; unless mankind, such as they are at present, be also eternal, immu

*Ier. Casaubon derives TRUE from the Greek arpauns; and arpens from arging, impavidus.

table, and everlasting. Two persons may contradict each other, and yet both speak TRUTH: for the TRUTH of one person may be opposite to the TRUTH of another. To speak TRUTH may be a vice as well as a virtue: for there are many occasions where it ought not to be spoken.'

There is something like philosophy in this passage, but it is an imitation of that Scottish scepticism and quibbling which have of late degraded and corrupted all our principles and morals. To affirm that we speak truth when we speak error, because we trowe error to be truth, may serve as a witticism in Joe Miller, or it may ornament the ribaldry which is now hailed as oratory in parliaments and se nates; but in a philosophical inquiry conducted by a genuine disciple of Locke, it will excite only disgust and contempt. Moral principles and actions are as correctly suited to our nature as food to our stomachs, and pleasures to our senses, and moral truth is but another word for that aptitude; it is as fixed and permanent as that nature, and if that nature be eternal, truth must be eternal. It may be mistaken, perverted, and depraved; and as the human stomach may be brought to substitute brandy for milk, the human mind may be brought to substitute moral evil for moral good, and to trow error for TRUTH. Still the general relations of mind, principle, and action, are the same; and though ninety-nine in a hundred may trowe error, TRUTH remains unaffected in its just claim to preference, though it be discerned only by one.

This is another instance in which a verbal quibble is unavailing against the feeling, experience, and determina tion of the human mind.

Our author deigns to bestow on Mr. Locke something like praise in the following note: (P. 406)

'Mr. Locke, in the second book of his Essay, chap. xxxii. treats of True and False ideas: and is much distressed throughout the whole chapter; because he had not in his mind any determinate meaning of the word TRUE.

In section 2, he says

"Both ideas and words may be said to be true in a metaphysical sense of the word TRUTH; as all other THINGS, that any way EXIST, are said to be true; i. e. REALLY to EE such as they EXIST."

In section 26, he says- "Upon the whole matter, I think that our ideas, as they are considered by the mind, either in reference to the proper signification of their names, or in reference to the REALITY OF THINGS, may very fitly be call'd RIGHT OF WRONG ideas. But if any one had rather call them TRUE OR FALSE, 'tis fit he use a liberty, which every one has, to call things by those names he thinks best."

• If that excellent man had himself followed here the advice which, in the ninth chapter of his third book, sect. 16. he gave to his disputing friends concerning the word Liquor. If he had followed his own rule, previously to writing about TRUE and FALSE ideas; and had determined what meaning he applied to TRUE, BEING, THING, REAL, RIGHT, WRONG; he could not have written the above quoted sentences: which exceedingly distress the reader, who searches for a meaning where there is none to be found.'

This is what may be called civil impudence. We will venture to affirm that no sober inquirer, no truly philosophical mind, has ever been distressed by the passages quoted from the Essay of Mr. Locke. They are caudid apologies for the imperfection of languages, as containing the signs of our ideas; which ideas he rightly states to be true or false in relation to their objects.

But Mr. Tooke thinks that if Mr. Locke had traced Truth into TROWE, and determined it to be what any man or every man imagined it to be, he would have saved himself and the reader trouble. That WE TROWE: for there would have been no subject of inquiry.

Mr. Tooke sometimes affirms words to be representations of ideas; and yet treats the inquiry into the truth and falsehood of ideas, as frivolous.

This is mere sophistry, and the object is to give importance to the art of etymology.

The convenient Dialogist ventures to object, as we do.

"Be it so. But you have not answered my original question. I asked the meaning of the abstract TRUTH; and you have attempted to explain the concrete TRUE. IS TRUTH also a participle?

'H. No. Like North (which I mentioned before) it is the third person singular of the indicative T Row. It was formerly written Troweth, Trowth, Trouht, and Troth. And it means (aliquid, any thing, something,) that which one TROWETH. i. e. thinketh, or firmly be lieveth.'

This is the sort of etymological garbage which the author would substitute for philosophy. And he has the impudence to add in a note, If Mr. Wollaston had first settled the meaning of the word, he would not have made TRUTH the basis of his system.'

Mr. Tooke must be extremely ignorant as a philosopher, if he does not know that TRUTH in the abstract, not the troweth of an individual, is the basis of all systems, physical, moral, and political, and that the treatise of Wollaston would have had no subject if he had not made the assumption. But he seems disposed to bring us back not only into