the writer every where fhows the most unlimited confidence in the effect of the information he has here given to the public. From the first of our extracts it appears that he thinks it fo demonftrative, that it will give a direction abfolutely new to the public opinion: and, that if the clergy fhall not fall in with it, they will become guilty of the "crimen læfæ majeftatis." We have feldom feen fuch violations of a decorum, due always to the public which is addreffed, to that refpectable order of men which is oppofed, and always rigidly to be exacted from individuals of that sphere of life, in which this writer moves, as are to be found in fome parts of thefe publications. We fhall give one prominent inftance, to fhow that we do not condemn but on full evidence. The law courts have deter tithe of agiftment to be due of common right, or common law. Concerning the clergy who have, under this fanction, advanced a claim to it, he thus expresses himself. "Neither could it enter into the honeft imagination of human beings, much lefs of chriftians, to conceive, that at any period of time, the profeffors of fanctity would do a deed in the face of day, fo profligate and fhameless" His. ftyle, though it has great faults in particular places, poffeffes vigour and fluency. Among its faults may be reckoned fome vulgar expreffions, which we did not expect to fee from the pen of a titled writer of this, the following is an example." But do not come over us with your jure divino's, and your other nonfenfical plea of common right. We are not now to be gulled with fuch pretences." But this low fall he expiates, fometimes, by flights as extraordinary, I'd garter round this island with a fleet: I'd ftation fhips from pole to pole to pay for this; I'd live upon the thing I hate the moft, an onion by the day for years to come." This latter paffage has another glaring fault: it runs into a kind of halting blank verfe; not an uncommon vice of ftyle, in those profe writers who affect cadence and harmony, without a correct ear and taste.

P. 242. It has been obferved, that Sir F. B. had recently loft a caufe of this kind, in the Exchequer; which he intends to carry by appeal into the Houfe of Lords. The appeal with notes, and an interpolated paffage, occupies fixty-one pages. He endeavoured to procure the extra-judicial affiftance of a county petition to parliament, on the principle of the appeal, when high fheriff of Northumberland, but failed.

ART.

ART. IV. Sermons on feveral evangelical and practical Subjects. By the late Rev. and learned Samuel Morton Savage, D. D. To which are prefixed Memoirs of the Life of the Author. Svo. 342 pp. 58. Johnson. 1796.

THE

HE author of thefe difcourfes, as appears from the memoirs prefixed, was a man of no ordinary eftimation among the Diffenters. His character, as well from the teftimonies of others as from the authority of his biographer, was that of an useful scholar and an exemplary chriftian; and the office he sustained for many years, as divinity-profeffor, in a confiderable feminary of Diflenting establishment, evinces the rank he held in his own particular community.

As a writer of Sermons, Dr. Savage is entitled to that species of praife, which an upright intention to promote religion and morals will ever deferve. His difcourfes are adorned by few of thofe ornaments which captivate the generality of readers; but folid fenfe, and unaffected piety, will be confidered by readers of difcernment, as qualities of a more useful and commendable character. How far the fe features prevail in the sermons before us, a fhort extract will enable the public to judge. We felect, without any particular regard to pre-.. ference, the following paffage from Sermon VII. on the Peace of Christ, and that of the World compared.

5thly, Worldly peace and comfort is very precarious and fhortlived; whereas, the peace of Chrift is ftable and eternal. The world gives and takes its bleffings; but the peace of Chrift is that good part that shall never be taken from us. All our prudence and industry are ineffectual to guard against the variety of means, by which we may be ftripped of our worldly comforts, or deprived of our enjoyment of them. And if both were continued through life, death, that muft make an end of them, is fo near, and the tenure of life is fo uncertain, that the person who confiders this, and at the fame time looks forward to his eternal ftate, can but look upon all the happiness to be had in the world as tranfitory and uncertain, light and momentary. What folid, fubftantial, and lasting enjoyment can the world afford us, when the fashion thereof paffeth away, and is continually changing? How great is their folly that truft in uncertain riches, that make themselves wings, and fly away, as an eagle towards heaven, or that are foon loft beyond recovery, and which are called the mammon of unrighteoufnefs or falfehood; because they fo constantly deceive people's expectations from them; and, if obtained by unrighteous mea-fures, do but bring thein into fnares and forrows? What a precarious thing is that comfort which depends upon popular applaufe and the favour of men, who are as variable as the wind, and pursue those with inveterate hatred to day, whom they careffed and admired yesterday ?

1

Or

Or what long date can we affign to, and what ftrefs can we lay upon, the comforts and fatisfaction we have in our friends and relations? What a fudden stroke may cut off the defire of our fouls, and the delight of our eyes, the partner of our youth, or the support of our age? How uncertain is all that happiness which depends upon the life of frail creatures, whofe breath is in their noftrils, who are crushed before the moth, and, like floating bubbles, that vanith when they are touched, fade away, while our raptured eyes are feasting themfelves upon them? How little can we build upon our own, or our friend's health and prefent comfort, when we fee sickness and death, and various diftreffes, enter every family; and, in the common courfe of things in this fallen world, may eafily learn, that God has not defigned there fhould be any certainty and ftability in its enjoyments, left we fhould mistake it for our home? Worldly things are, in their own nature, perishing and changeable; our poffeffion of them is very precarious, our capacity for enjoying them as much fo; and death will fo foon fweep us and our earthly comforts into the grave, that the peace we could ever expect from the world, muft appear very unworthy of comparifon, with that peace which Chrift gives his people.. For this is of certain tenure; what they fhall never lofe their right to; what, if their prefent enjoyment of it is fometimes impaired, fhall foon be reftored; for though grief may endure for a night, joy comes in the morning; what is in its own nature lafting and permanent, does not depend at all upon this changeable state of things, but alway's lies open, in outward profperity or adverfity, to the enjoyment of the lovers of Chrift; who give him their hearts, and live upon him, and keep up a conftant communication with him, in the exercises of faith and devotion; and what has in itfelf a tendency to improve and advance; and the more it is cultivated and exercifed, will be more confirmed and fettled; and which, in fhort, has the oath of God, the perfection of God, the fulness of God, the love of Chrift, the eternity of heaven, and the immortality of the foul, for the fecurity of its everlasting continuance and perfection," P. 157.

The whole feries confifts of fourteen difcourfes; 1. On God's univerfal Government; 2. On the Nature and Variety of the divine Benefits; 3. On the Wisdom of being Religious; 4. On fecret Prayer, or Chrift's Retirement; 5. The Cafe of the Leper confidered and applied; 6 and 7. The Peace of Chrift, and that of the World compared; 8. The Effects of Faith in the Gofpel; 9 and 10. The Wifdom of numbering our Days; 11. The Lord's Supper; 12. The Imitation of pious Chriftians; 13. Chrift glorified in his Difciples at his future Appearance; 14. The Duty of Subjects to Honour the King.

This laft difcourfe is ftrictly loyal, and expreffive of ftrong attachment to the perfonal character of the monarch and monarchical authority in general. The editor profeffes to have republithed this with a view to fhow how ungenerous, as

well

well as unjuft, are the reflections that have been lately caft on the Proteftant Diffenters, as inimical to the government, or to the monarchical part of our conftitution." For our own parts, whatever fufpicions we may have admitted of the Unitarian, we have ever excepted the majority of Orthodox Diffenters, to which number Dr. Savage decidedly belonged.

A charge delivered at a Diffenting ordination, clofes this volume, which undoubtedly contains much ufeful and practical matter, conveyed in language clear and unaffected, and enforced with candid earneftness and temperate zeal.

ART. V. An historical, geographical, commercial, and philofophical View of the American United States: and of the Eurepean Settlements in America and the Weft-Indies, By W Winterbotham. In Four Volumes. 8vo. 11. 16s. Ridgway. 1795.

AS

S America increases in population, wealth, and importance, the books intended to illuftrate the natural and topographical hiftory of the country will alfo increafe. Hitherto the refpectable quarto volume of Mr. Jedidiah Morfe, an American, has afforded the largest collective body of information refpecting the Thirteen United States; and one of the latest editions of that work was briefly noticed by us in our fixth volume, p. 563. The prefent compilation, founded in great measure upon that of Mr. Morfe, and proceeding frequently, for many pages, in the very fame words, contains alfo much original information, collected from various fources. It was compiled in extraordinary, and undoubtedly not advantageous circumstances, the author being then under confinement in Newgate, for public language which a jury had deemed feditious; and thus it appeared in numbers. For this reafon the author deprecates the feverity of criticifm, which we certainly fhall not infift upon exerting against him. For the adoption of the very words of the authors whom he follows, he has prepared us in his introduction, and errors both literary and typographical, may fairly demand excufe, on the plea that the due communication with the printer was not only difficult, but, in many cafes, impracticable. The opinions of Mr. W. may alfo, on many occafions, be expected to differ from those of the majority in this country; but where facts are the principal ob ject, opinions may be paffed over without much attention. Whether Mr. Jedidiah Morfe may not be inclined to criticize

the

the practice of taking whole fections and heads from a predeceffor, without any effort except that of reprinting, we will not pronounce. His friend has certainly made very free; if not more free than welcome, the liberality of the American author will deferve the highest commendation. Of the extent to which this liberty has been carried, it feems right to offer fome account. After two chapters on the hiftory of the difcovery, and the general defcription of America, in which Mr. W. gives an account a good deal more amplified than that of his predeceffor, he arrives (at p. 157) at a divifion of his book which is thus entitled, "A fummary Account of the firft Discoveries and Settlements of North America, arranged in chronological Order." The whole of this, as far as the bottom of p. 174, is copied verbatim from Morfe. He then omits, or rather referves for his fourth volume, that author's account of Greenland, and of British America. But in the very next page he takes up the account of the United States, from the fame book, which (with a fecond omiffion, for the fake of removing the natural history to vol. iv.) is purfued to the 224th page. At page 265, we again meet with the words of Mr. Morfe, which are ufed exactly to p. 285. The account of the religion of the United States is again copied from that author, from p. 366 to 394, with the infertion only of a fhort article on the Unitarians, introduced apparently for the fake of paying a compliment to Dr. Priestley. The clofe of this compliment is rather unfortunate, as it promifes to the Doctor what he has been far from finding realized. "America," it is faid, "will value what Britain defpifed, and will no doubt amply reward him for his paft fufferings." So far from this being the cafe, his antichriftian Christianity has given even more offence there than here; he has obtained neither influence nor popularity; and lives in a state of retirement which his ambition certainly had not pictured to itself, when his determination to cross the Atlantic was embraced. It is now reported that he is again removing into France.

This divifion of the prefent work is followed by a hiftory of the rife, progrefs, and establishment of the independence of the United States, much more detailed than we find in Morfe's book: and by no means ill compiled. From what source it is taken, we have not happened to discover. In the descriptions of the feveral ftates which occupy the fecond, and the chief part of the third volume, we find the ground-work furnished by the former author, whose words are generally used, with occafional infertions and tranfpofitions. On the whole, however, it feems equitable to allow, that though much has been copied, much alfo has been added, by the prefent publisher,

and