The concluding letter contains a plan for a general pacification; to which indeed the whole of the author's arguments have an obvious tendency. In those letters, the Dean of Glocefter treats his subject with his ufual vivacity, moderation,, and acutenefs. He certainly may, in a peculiar manner, claim the privilege of being exempted from national or political prejudices; and though he cannot hope to fee his arguments prove effectual against the ratio ultima regum, he yet may enjoy the fatisfaction to reflect, that he has fincerely urged the cause of mutual benevolence, and endeavoured to extinguish every fpark of animofity be tween the contending nations. Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica. No. II. Part II. Containing Reliquie Galeanæ, or, Mifcellaneous Pieces by the late learned Brothers Roger and Samuel Gale. 4to. 55. Jewed. Nichols. THE The fubjects are Roman roads, camps, ftations, coins, ruins, urns, fepulchres, infcriptions, &c. From these letters we shall give our readers two or three fhort extracts. Sir John Clerk's obfervations on the British language. I muft obferve, were it doubtful, that the Saxons were not fuch strangers in Britain as the generality of our hiftoriansbelieve, fince they had made us many vifits, and the language of the Britons, according to Cæfar and Tacitus, differed very little from the German, and was originally the fame, namely, the Celtic. This language was about 17 or 1800 years ago fpoken uniformly by five nations, the Germans, Illyrians, Gauls, Spaniards, and Britons; they had very near the fame characters, fo that what moft of our writers call Saxon characters are truly old British characters, and those which were ufed in the language spoken from the South parts of Britain to the Murray frith in Scotland; that very language, with gradual alterations and mixtures, which we fpeak at this day. • I know that a Welshman will laugh at this doctrine; for the people of Wales commonly believe, that, upon the inva fions of the Romans and Saxons, moft of the true Britons retired into their country with their language, which continues among them at this time; but this I can demonftrate to be a mistake, for the language fpoken in Wales and the Highlands in Scotland came from Ireland, and has no affinity with the old Celtic, of which I could give you hundreds of proofs from the ancient remains of the Celtic: in the mean time, I will not fay but that the Irish language may be as old, and poffibly older, than the Celtic, but fure I am the latter was quite different from the former.? What does this writer mean by faying, 'the Saxons had made us many vifits? Every one knows, that they came into Britain in the year 449. But neither the Saxon Chronicle, Bede, nor any other writer, give us the least intimation of any earlier vifit.-As there are feveral notions, which feem to be a little problematical, in this extract, it is to be wished, that the author had entered into the fubject, and delivered his fentiments with more precision. A remarkable circumftance relative to natural hiftory, or the incredible number of hedgehogs in Lincolnshire, in a letter from Mr. M. Johnfon, jun. to Dr. Stukeley, Oct. 14, 1719. Your own parish, Holbeach, affords one remarkable article in the parochial charge, where the last year the churchwardens paid 41. 6s for the deftruction of urchins or hedgehogs, at but one fingle penny a-piece; and the present officers have paid above 30l. on the fame account already. The vaft ftocks of cattle in this noble parish, and fome coney. burroughs, have drawn thofe creatures from all parts hither, as one would think *.' According to this account, the number of these animals, destroyed in two years, muft have amounted to 8232! Poffibly there might be an overcharge of two or three thoufand in the churchwardens rate. Dr. Stukeley to Mr. R. Gale, on Sir Ifaac Newton's Chronology. Mr. Conduit has fent me fir Ifaac Newton's Chronology. I do not admire his contracting the spaces of time; he has pursued that fancy too far. I am fatisfied he has made feveral names of different perfons one, who really lived many. * See a Vindication of the Hedgehog, Gent. Mag. vol. xlix. P: 3959 ages ages afunder. He has come pretty near my ground-plot of the Temple of Solomon, but he gives us no uprights. He runs into the common error of making Sefac and Sefoftris oneperfon, with Marsham, and many others: the confequence of which is, that the Egyptians borrowed architecture from the Jews, when I am fatisfied all architecture was originally invented by the Ægyptians; and I can deduce all the members and particulars of it from their facred delineations, and Vitruvius himself was as far to seek in the origin of the Corinthian capital, and other matters of that fort, as a Campbell or Gibbs would be. I judge the late bishop of Peterborough (Cumberland), in his two pofthumous pieces, has gone further in reftoring ancient chronology. Weft-thorp, where fir Ifaac Newton was born, is a hamlet of Colsterworth. Sir Ifaac's ancestors are buried in Colfterworth church. We have got the finest original picture of fir Ifaac by Kneller, at Mr. Newton Smith's, his nephew, at Barrowby, a mile from us.' Extract of a letter from Mr. T. Blackwell, author of An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer, to Mr. R. Gale, concerning Dr. Bentley, dated, Grantham, October 2, 1735. • Dr. Mead having been fo good as to write to his friend Dr. Bentley, that I intended to vifit Cambridge, the old gentleman, who never ftirs abroad, fent for, us, and did us, I am told, unufual honours. We spent fome hours with him, had a deal of converfation about himself, and fome about Manilius and Homer. He spoke very freely; fo I found his emendations of the latter folely to relate the quantity of the verse, and fupplying the lines, where the cafura cuts off a vowel, which the ancient critics called Μεικρὸν or Λαζαρόν, as it was in the end or middle of the verfe. This he does by inferting, or, as he fays, by refloring the Eolic Digamma F, which ferves as a double confonant, and which he pronounces like our W; thus, αυτὸς δὲ ἑλώρια τεύχε κυνέσσιν, he reads, αυτός δὲ Γελώρια τεύχε κυνέσιν, and pronounces autcus de Whe loria, &c. So dire, Fire, avoinos, wine, -is, Fis, is, which has likewife the found of the Latin vis; fo they faid, according to him, Wirgilius, Warro, Owidius, wah! Yet, if you please to look into the firft or fecond Book of Dionyfius Halicarnaffeus's Antiquities, you will find the Digamma explained by a in Greek, and a V in Latin, and the other Greeks faid indifferently Βιργιλιθ and Ο ίριλ, Βαρών and Ovapper. But the doctor fays, he, and Ariftarchus, and Demetrius were all dunces, who knew nothing of the Di Gg 4 gamma, gamma, which he himself restored the ufe of, after it had been loft 2000 years.' Though there are fome remarks, in thefe Letters, which have been thrown out in hafte, and in the latitude of conjecture, yet there is also a variety of hints, anecdotes, and obfervations, which are certainly just, and cannot fail of being acceptable to the curious reader, but more especially to the antiquary. The Count of Narbonne, a Tragedy. As it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. By Robert Jephfon, Efq. 8vo. 15. 6d. Cadell. THIS Tragedy, undoubtedly one of the best that has appeared for fome years, is founded on Mr. Horace Walpole's celebrated novel, or romance, called the Castle of Otranto, from whence the ingenious Mr. Jephfon has drawn almost all the interefting circumstances and events that compofe his drama, very judiciously omitting the marvellous part of it, as well knowing that nodding helmets, waving plumes, and walking pictures, would have made but a ridiculous figure on an English ftage. The Fable is artfully conducted throughout; the characters well fuftained, and difcriminated; the fentiments, for the moft part, natural, unaffected, and fuitable to the perfons by whom they are delivered; the ftyle and diction remarkably correct, elegant, and harmonious; fufficiently raifed above vulgar language to became the dignity of the tragic mufe, and at the fame time without affectation, bombaft, or puerility. The firft, third, and fifth acts have some fcenes that are mafterly and pathetic, in which good actors may always appear to great advantage; the fecond and fourth are rather heavy and uninterefting: every picture however must have light and fhade, and we do not recollect any modern tragedy which has fewer faults and imperfections than the Count of Narbonne. The following extracts may ferve to convince our readers that what we have faid, with regard to Mr. Jephfon's ftyle and manner, in this applauded performance, is not more than he deferves; and will, we doubt not, invite them to a perufal of the whole drama. • Count.] ACT I. SCENE VI. My all of comfort now, my Adelaide ? Countes.] Dear as fhe is, I would not have her all; For 1 hould then be nothing. Time has been, When, When, after three long days of abfence from you, Then, fatisfied at last that all were well, Count.] This is the nature still of womankind; All grave-complexion'd thought, and turn our fouls Vary with all their humours, take their hues, Our bofoms are their paffive instruments; Vibrate their strain, or all our notes are discord. Countefs.] O why this new unkindness? From thy lips Never till now fell fuch ungentle words, Nor ever lefs was I prepar'd to meet them. Count.] Never till now was I fo urg'd, beset, Hemm'd round with perils. Countess.] Ay, but not by me. Count. By thee, and all the world. But yefterday, I rul'd this province, was the unqueftion'd lord Countefs.] Heaven guard thy life! His dreadful fummons reach'd me, This urg'd me hither, On my knees I beg, And leave its gloomy grandeur to your kinfman. Count.] Rife, fearful woman, What! renounce my birth-right? Go forth, like a poor friendlefs banifh'd man, To gnaw my heart in cold obfcurity! Thou weak advifer! Should I take thy counsel, Thy tongue would first upbraid, thy fpirit fcorn me. Countefs.] No, on my foul!-Is Narbonne all the world? My country is where thou art; place is little The fun will fhine, the earth produce its fruits, Nor heave one figh for these proud battlements. |