"Whoever makes the fewest persons uneafy is the best bred in the company.

As the best law is founded upon reason, so are the best man⚫ners. And as fome lawyers have introduced unreasonable things <into common law; fo likewise many teachers have intro• duced abfurd things into common good-manners.

-I infift that good-fenfe is the principal foundation of good-manners: but becaufe the former is a gift which very ⚫ few among mankind are poflefled of, therefore all the civi •lized nations of the world have agreed upon fixing fome rules for common behaviour, beft fuited to their general ⚫ cuftoms, or fancies, as a kind of artificial good fenfe to fupply the defects of reafon. Without which, the gentlemenly part of dunces would be peretually at cuffs, as they feldom fail when they happen to be drunk, or engaged in • fquabbles about women, or play, and God be thanked, there hardly happens a duel in a year, which may not be imputed to one of thofe three motives. Upon which account I should be exceedingly forry to find the legislature make any new laws against the practice of duelling; because the methods are easy, and many, for a wife man to avoid a • quarrel with honour, or engage in it with innocence. And I can discover no political evil in fuffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an ex⚫ pedient.

As the common forms of good-manners were intended for regulating the conduct of those who have weak underftandings; fo they have been corrupted by the perfons for whofe ufe they were contrived. For thefe people have fallen into a needlefs and endless way of multiplying ceremonies, which have been extremely troublesome to those who practise them; and infupportable to every body else.

I have feen a duchefs fairly knock'd down by the precipitancy of an officious coxcomb, running to fave her the trouble of opening the door. I remember, upon a birth-day, at court, a great lady was utterly defperate by a difh of fauce let fall by a page directly upon her head-dress, and brocade; while fhe gave a fudden turn to her elbow upon • fome point of ceremony with the perfon who fat next her, Monfieur Buys, the Dutch envoy, whofe politics and manners were much of a fize, brought a fon with him, about thirteen years old, to a great table at court; the boy and his father, whatever they put on their plates, they firft offered round, in order, to every perfon in the company; fo

that

that we could not get a minute's quiet during the whole dinner. At laft, their two plates happened to encounter, and ⚫ with fo much violence, that, being china, they broke in twen ty pieces; and ftained half the company with wet fweet⚫ meats and cream.'

• I remember a paffage my Lord Bolingbroke told me, that going to receive Prince Eugene of Savoy at his landing, in • order to conduct him immediately to the queen; the prince faid, he was much concerned that he could not fee her majefty that night; for Monf. Hoffman (who was then by) had • affured his highness, that he could not be admitted into her ⚫ prefence with a tied-up periwig: that his equipage was not

arrived, and that he had endeavoured in vain to borrow a ⚫ long one among all his valets and pages. My lord turned the ⚫ matter to a jeft, and brought the prince to her majesty: for

which he was highly cenfured by the whole tribe of gen⚫tlemen-ufhers: among whom Monf. Hoffman, an old dull ⚫ refident of the emperor's, had picked up this material point of ceremony; and which, I believe, was the beft leffon he had learned in five and twenty years refidence.'

This piece holds a page or two farther. We have given enough to fhew that the piece is Swift's; or one as valuable, if not more fo, for being fo just a copy of fo great an original.

The Verfes to a friend, &c. we do not think fit to infert here; were it for no other reason, than to excite our readers to confult the agreeable performance we have dwelt upon fo largely.

It may not, however, be amifs to obferve, that this author has omitted one point of decency to his lordship, by not putting his name to his obfervations, as my lord has done to his

remarks.

P.

ART. VII. The Immortality of the Soul, a poem. Book I. Tranf lated from the Latin. 4to. Is. Owen.

A

Laboured preface is prefixed to this tranflation (the third we have had from the fame original) which feems to be introduced chiefly for the fake of quoting fome paffages from an English poem upon the fame fubject, written by Sir John Davies, attorney-general to Queen Elizabeth, entitled, Nofce te ipfum; or, The Delphic oracle expounded, as a looking-glafs for the foul*. These paffages our tranflator, not unjustly, * See his life in Mr. Cibber's lives of the poets.

thinks analogous to fome in Mr. Brown's Latin poem; whether the infertion of them here is intended as a compliment or a reflection upon the last mentioned author, we shall not take upon ourselves to determine; but be content with fubmitting to our readers an extract from this tranflation, correspor-, ding with those we gave from the former ones +; tho' it may not be amifs to premife, that the tranflator's profeffed attention to render his English verfion nearly equal in the number. of lines to thofe in the Latin copy, may have fometimes obfcured his fenfe, as well as injured the harmony of his ver fification.

If fkill'd celeftial motions how to folve,
How the huge planets round the fun revolve;
Thro' the vast void to trace the comets line,
Where other funs on other planets shine;

Is not this high, this heav'n-pervading mind,
Come down from heav'n, for heav'n again defign'd?
Plain in thefe efforts of the mind to fee

A force innate, from dregs material free :
Self-conscious will too, love and hatred shown,
Fear, hope, joy, grief, are plainly all her own;
No lumpio properties; fhe can compare,
Or fep'rate things, by merely mental care ;
Can gather diftant truths, and re-unite
The fcatter'd portions in one friendly light:
Draw hence the cause of things, and the defign;
And, in fair order, arts with arts combine:
More near to truth fill rifing and more near,
Till the whole caufal feries appear;

The chain defcending from th' Almighty's throne,
From heav'n to earth---ideas too her own
She can infpect, aud inward notice take

Whence, how, they rife,---and almost know her make.
Is pow'r corporeal fuch? Machines, do they

Know their own ftrength, or on what food to prey?

Ceafe then to wonder, when the body's gone,

That living mind continues to live on.
What death, I rather wonder, with what darts,
Can e'er deftroy it, fince it has no parts;

It cannot perish by external blow;

It is the mover of itself, we know ;

And that which motion to itself can give,
Leaves not itfelf-it muft for ever live.

+ In the Review for laft March, p. 218.

T.L.

MONTHLY

I.

MONTHLY CATALOGUE for July, 1754.

MISCELLANEOUS.

IBERTY, in two parts. 8vo. Is. 6d. Bouquet.

part a of liberty,

against the encroachments and impofitions of popery in the Second, the author afferts the principles of whiggifm; but tho' his fentiments are, in general, pretty juft, yet he writes in a manner fo rambling, and ftile fo unpolifhed, that we cannot but difmifs him without further compliment on his perfor

mance.

II. A Letter from a Clergyman, giving his reafons for refufing to adminifter baptifm in private, by the public form; as defired by a gentleman of his parish. 8vo. 1s. Griffiths.

Those who defire to be furnifhed with arguments, against the practice here juftly condemned, will, we believe, meet with every thing in this pamphlet that can be urged on the subject, on the negative fide, both from law and from confcience; the pious author appearing to us, to have amply confidered, and worthily determined, with regard to his own conduct, in this branch of his function.

III. The Mafon's Creed. To which is fubjoined, a curious letter, written by Mr. Locke, author of the Essay on underStanding. 4to. 6d. Owen.

On this occafion we can only repeat what we have formerly confefied, viz. That we are not initiated into the mysteries of mafonry.

IV. Memoirs of the Count du Beauval, including fome curious particulars relating to the dukes of Wharton and Ormond, during their exiles. With anecdotes of feveral other illuftrious and unfortunate noblemen of the prefent age. Tranflated from the French of the Marquis d'Argens, author of the Jewish Letters. By Mr. Derrick. 12mo. 3s. Cooper.

P.

The value of memoirs of this ftamp is pretty well known. Thefe, however, are far from being the worft of the kind. The ftile is eafy; but the particulars relating to the two Dukes not over curious.

V. The Hiftory of the Moravians, from their firft fettlement at Hernhaag, in the county of Budingen, down to the present time; with a view chiefly to their political intrigues. Collect.ed from the public acts of Budingen, and from other authentic vouchers, all along accompanied with the neceflary illuftratations and remarks. The whole intended to give the world fome knowledge of the extraordinary fyftem of the Moravians,

and

and to fhew how it may affect both the religious and civil interefts of the ftate. Tranflated from the German. 8vo. 2s. Robinson.

The Moravian policy (at least that of the leading-men) does not appear from this piece much to their credit. The perfor→ mance, however, is fo dry, fo barren, and fo tedious, that, from experience, we forewarn fuch as intend to read it, to fet out with a good stock of patience.

P.

VI. Critical, hiftorical, and explanatory notes on Shakespeare, with emendations of the text and metre. By Zachary Grey, L. L. D. In two volumes. 8vo. 10s. Manby.

This work must have stood the author in a great deal of time and pains. I have,' fays he in his preface, with tolerable < care collated the two firft folio editions of 1623, and 1632, especially the latter, with Mr. Theobald's, Sir Thomas Hanmer's, and Mr. Warburton's (whose text I have generally <made use of): by which, I think, it will appear, that there < are many alterations for the worse, in these modern editions. < I have read over the works of Chaucer, Skelton, and Spencer,

and have endeavoured to point out thofe paffages, which • Shakespeare probably borrowed from thence,and to fhew what things have been copied from him by the dramatic writers, • who lived in or near his own time.

I have compared his hiftorical plays with thofe hiftories, from whence he certainly took them, and find him ufually < very exact, (fome few points of chronology excepted). The < emendations which I have attempted in the text, are put in <the way of quare; and I have not taken upon me dogmatically to affert any thing, without a fufficient warrant for fo < doing.'

What extraordinary advantage has accrued to Shakespeare from fo much affiduity, we muft leave to be determined by readers of greater critical acumen : not being able, upon perufal of the work, to find it out ourselves.

ASTRONOMICAL.

P.

VII. An Idea of the Material Universe, deduced from a furvey of the folar fyftem. By James Ferguson. 8vo. 1s. Printed for the Author.

Mr. Ferguson fupposes, with moft modern aftronomers, that the fixed stars are funs, having planets and comets moving round them; but as we gave a fuccinct account of a treatise on the fame fubject, written by Mr. Wright, it will be fufficient for us to refer the reader thither, Mr. Wright having carried this thought much farther than our author. See Review, vol. III, page 216.

B.