expofing us to contempt; and many errors and bagatelles may chance to pass viva voce, without any ill confequence: levities and mistakes may flow unregarded from the tongue; but, tho' they would never have been remembered against the friend, or the companion, yet, in print, they will live, long enough, at leaft, to perpetuate the folly of the writer.

Among those who thus, for want of being better acquainted with their own abilities, have loft themselves in the pursuit of literary fame, is the author of Barbados, a poem; and we are forry to find him among the number of these erratics; as he appears, if we may judge from what he writes of himself, to be a youth of a well-difpofed mind, his vanity in fancying himself a favourite of the mufes excepted. A fpirit of piety towards his Creator, and of benevolence towards his fellowcreatures, breathes through a great many very ordinary verses, the defects of which continually check the rifing applause of the reader; who, while he approves the substance, will be apt to turn the form into ridicule. Yet fometimes his versifica tion is paffable enough; thus, when he invites

To meditation fweet, the ftudious mind,
Delighted with the luxury of thinking!

One might be tempted to accept the invitation, and take a walk with fo promifing a companion, in his thought-infpiring fhades; but, who would not be as ready to leave him to his own reveries, when he breaks into the following rhapfodical whine, courting knowledge as his mistress, tho' he elsewhere pays his adorations to a lady, whom he calls Sprinia.

Thou KNOWLEDGE! thou art ftill my ev'ry care!
My foul's best comforter, and bofom friend!
For thee I pant and fearch, and toil and live;
Let me not pant, and toil, and live in vain !-

But left the piteous languor of the two laft lines fhould not be thought a fufficient taffe of our author's luxury of thinking, let us fee what the following mixture of devout rapture and theatrical execration will do.

On ev'ry bough the birds harmonious chant,
And all in one glad merry concert join,
To hail the fun, and fing their maker's praife.

And am I mute? Shall I refufe to join

The grateful hymn? full of the praise of God
Himfelf? Blaf firft my pow'rs! and when I cease
To fing his praife, O may 1 ceafe to live!

Through all this extravagance our readers will perceive the author's well-meaning; and they will not diflike the man,

tho'

tho' they pity the poet. We are particularly pleased with his humanity in the following reprehenfion of the cruel taskmafters, set over the negroes by our American planters:

Close watch, ye Drivers, your work-hating gang,
And mark their labours with a careful eye;
But fpare your cruel and ungen'rous ftripes!
They fure are men, tho' flaves, and colour'd black;
And what is colour in the eye of heav'n ?
'Tis impious to fuppofe a diff'rence made;
Like you they boast found reason, feeling fenfe,
And virtues equally as great and good,
If leffon'd rightly, and inftructed well.
Spare then your tyranny, inhuman men!

And deal that mercy you expect from heav'n.

This (and fimilar paffages might be produced) will ferve to juftify our idea of Mr. Weekes, as a good fort of man. He might too have paffed, in private life, as an ingenious man, had he confined his talents within the sphere of common conversation, and kept clear of the Cacoethes. However, we hope that no worse confequence than his receiving a little mortification will follow his having expofed himself to public animadverfion; and if, as Pope fays,

He left no calling for this idle trade,

he may yet make a useful member of fociety in other refpects, tho' he fail as an Inftructor.

That our readers may not think these reflections too harsh, we must crave their further attention, while we produce another paffage or two from this poem, to fupport our cenfure, and give them a more adequate idea of the work.

We'fhall pass over our author's labour'd preface, which ferves only to convince us, that he is not more excellent in prose than in verse.-His design in this poem is to fing the praises of Barbados, his native country. He very gravely fets out thus:

Fir'd with the sense of filial gratitude,
Much due refpect, and reverential love,
For that induftrious venerable ISLE,

Which gave me birth, and rear'd me up to life,
In verfe once more + I humbly deign to fing.—
Hail, native land,

Bleft fpot, for ever hail !—

• White fervants, whofe province it is to fee that the flaves do

their work.

The reader will find a fpecimen of a former work of Mr. Weekes, vid. Choice of a husband, Review, vol. X. p. 302.

Y 4

But

But he foon falls into fuch a ftrain, as would almost perfuade us he had forgot the defign he fet out with, and was now about to entertain us with a burlesque, or mock-panegyric, For pickles, fweetmeats, cordials, and preferves,

The world refounds thy praife; without thefe gifts,
What figure would a British fide-board make?
Again,

Thy Sweetmeat's fame let entertainments tell

Of thy fam'd drams, (Barbados waters ftil'd)
Who has not heard? Let thofe who like, applaud.

After celebrating thefe drams and cordials, the author, however, condemns their use, and says,

I loath them all, and wifh they ne'er had been ;

The clear, pure, limpid ftream is all my drink,

And ever was, and is, and shall be still.

The laft line puts us in mind of Pope's ten low words, tho1 it confifts but of nine. Our author has another of eight not inferior to it, viz.

For ever, and for ever, and for ever.

His account of a turtle-feaft, and the manner of dreffing the turtle in the West-Indies, is equally worthy the dignity of he roic verfe.

The cook is call'd; from various mouths, earnest
Which first to fpeak, he learns their different tafles ;
And their laft word is ftill, to dress it well.

Their hungry ftomachs now demanding food,
The cook is teaz'd to death with frequent calls,
And frequent oaths to hafte; unthinking men!
When hunger rages, patience you have none,

And yet will dare, your meat well drefs'd, expect!
Our bard has the fame propenfity to this unconfcious, un-
meant kind of drollery, even in his moft extatic addresses to
his mistress, whom he more than once takes occafion to cele-
brate in this work. His exception, or caution, fo mal-apropos
expreffed in the laft line but one of the following paffage, is
merry enough.

Reader! fancy all you can!-of all
Whate'er is sweet, or beautiful, or fair,
And Sprinia will eclipfe the pictur'd form,
And on the ftricteft trial prave divine.
Such thy perfections are, thou pride of beauty,
And thou foul of virtue! Thee when I ceafe
To love, and praife, and honour, and adore,
Unless thou e'er fhould' forfeit my regard)
May grief, defpair, and guilt mark all my days!

The

The foregoing citations are fufficient to fhew, that however our author may flatter himself, the mufes have manifested no great inclination to rank him among the number of their fa vourites; and that they paid little regard to his invocation, in the beginning of his poem.

And you, celeftial maids, who ne'er disdain
To lend your facred aid to grateful lays,
Support my fong; no common firains I ask,
But fuch as worthy of the fubject chofe.

G

ART. XL. The Theological Works of the most rev. Dr. John Potter, late lord archbishop of Canterbury, containing his fermons, difcourfe of church-government, and divinity lectures, in three volumes. 8vo. Oxford, printed at the theatre, and fold by Mess. Rivington, in London, price 18s.

TH

HE eminent ftations in which the late primate was long fixed, may probably raise the expectations of many, with regard to those pieces which are now firft offered to the public. The editors obferve concerning them, that they need no other introduction, than to affure the reader, they are the works of that great and excellent prelate whofe name they bear. They confift of three parts. The first contains his fermons and charges; the fecond, his difcourfe of church-government, as printed before, only with fome few flight alterations: these, we are told, were prepared for the prefs by himself, and are printed by his exprefs order. The third contains his divinity-lectures, delivered at Oxford, when he was regius profeffor there: these are printed from his own manufcript, and with his permiffion, tho' not prepared for the prefs by himself; and all together form a complete collection of the theological works of Archbishop Potter. The difcourfe on church government, which was defigned as an answer to Tindal's rights of the christian church, and firft printed in 1707, is, in the judgment of the editors, a work fo well known, and hath been fo well received, that they think it unneceflary to fay any thing concerning it. The lectures, which are in Latin, they recommend as one continued treatife on the authority and infpiration of the fcriptures. As they decline to give any character of the author, they content themselves with applauding his writings, as well calculated to promote the practice of piety and true religion: and admirably fuited to the occafions of these present times; as exhibiting a clear, full, and accurate ftate of the most useful and important questions, and furnishing a sufficient answer

to

to most of the objections and cavils which have of late years been started against the chriftian faith.

Some may perhaps fuggeft, that the editors, who appear to have very strong attachments to our deceased metropolitan, ought to have affixed their names to the prefent collection of his works; that there might be no reasonable foundation to fufpect the authenticity of the new pieces, or to apprehend that the alterations made in the discourse on church-government, are not warranted by the author himself. We are the rather difpofed to mention the propriety of fome measure of this kind, having lately obferved the ill treatment a truly pious and venerable writer seems to have met with in this refpect. We mean the worthy Mr. John Kettlewell, for merly vicar of Cales-hill, in Warwickshire. By comparing the first edition of his Help and Exhortation to worthy communicating, with that treatise as it appears in the collection of his works in two volumes folio, the critical reader may perceive, that more than one whole page is entirely caftrated, befides various sentences which are mutilated and curtailed. The paffages which the editors have rejected, evidently contradict fome favourite fentiments which Dr. Hickes, Mr. Lefly, Dr. Brett, and other nonjurors have advanced upon the Lord's fupper; and tho' we cannot, at the distance of almost forty years, with certainty fay, who had the care of the folio edition, yet we think it not improper to obferve, that the life of Mr. Kettlewell prefixed to it, is declared to have been compiled from the collections of Dr. Hickes, and Robert Nelfon, efq;

In the first volume of Archbishop Potter's works, are fourteen fermons and eight charges. The two laft of the fermons, being on public occafions, were printed foon after they were preached; one before the house of lords, on the firft of August, 1715; the other at the coronation of King George II. and Queen Caroline, Oct. 11. 1727. The fubjects of the other difcourfes we shall briefly mention. The firft is defigned to fhew, wherein pleafing men is inconfiftent with the service of Chrift. And here our author obferves, that the expreffion of pleafing men, fhould be understood of gratifying them in fome way wherein it is unlawful for them to be pleased. And that this is done, when either our words and doctrines, or our actions, are fuited to the falfe apprehensions, or vicious defires of men tho' he confeffes, that the former of these feems principally defigned in the text, [Gal. i. 10.] wherein the apoftle vindicates the fincerity of his preaching to the Galatians. In this difcourfe there is a paffage, which feems peculiarly defigned by way of advice to the governors

and