Tithe Mik, between the Rev. Dr. Bofworth, Limbrick, and others, as taken in Short Hand by Mr. Gurney. With an Appendix from the fame Decree, refpecting the Payment of Agiftment Tithes for Cattle kept in one Parish and used in another; and the Manner of tything Potatoes and Apples. To which is added, the Form of a Notice proper to be delivered to the Payers of TitheMilk in Kind. 8vo. I s. Baldwin. 1779.

The farmers, it seems, fet out Dr. Bofworth's tithe-milk every fifth evening, as being the tenth meal; the Doctor complained that he was injured by the evening milk not being fo much in quantity as that given in the morrg; and pleaded, that he ought to have a morning and evening n.c alternately, or the whole meal every tenth day. No, Doctor, fay the fly farmers, you are intitled to the tenth meal; if we give it you alternately, morning and evening, we give. you alternately the ninth and eleventh; and if we give you the tenth day's milk altogether, you will then have the nineteenth and twentieth meals, inftead of the tenth and either way is a departure from the rule laid down, that the parfon is entitled to the tenth meal! Indeed the reverend Doctor appears to bave had fome reafon to grumble at receiving fhort meafure; for it is impoffible to avoid remarking, that the graceless husbandmen were not complaifant enough to alter the evening portion to the morning! The Barons, however, overroled the wicked quibbles, and established the Doctor's right to the tenth day's produce; which, if the cows are fairly milked, and do not take part with their refractory maters, by now and then kicking down the pail, may end this interefting conteft. How cordiality is to be restored, depends greaily on the quality and measure of the Doctor's milk of the word; of which we hope the farmers will take their due fhare in return.

Doctor Bofworth alfo complained, that his tithe of potatoes, apples, &c. was unfairly fet out; in which he was alfo decreed fatiffaction. How can fpirituals mingle with fuch carnal fquabbles? Art. 43. The Statutes at Large: from the Sixteenth Year of the Reign of King George the Third to the Twentieth Year of the Reign of King George the Third, inclufive. To which is prefixed, A Table of the Titles of all the Public and Private Statutes 4to.

during that Time. With a copious Index. Vol. XIII. 11. 7s. bound. King's Printers. 1780.

Our Readers will fee, by the above date, that this volume of the Statutes ought to have been announced fome time ago,—but our Collector was negligent.-With respect to the character and utility of this quarto edition, the Public ftand in need of no information. Our opinion of it has been repeatedly given. See Review, Vols. XXVIII. XXXII. XLV. XLIX. and LV. For the first account, confult the Table of Contents, Article RUFFHEAD.

RELIGIOUS. Art. 44. The Scriptural Prefervative of Women from Ruin by Seduction and Projtitution, as revealed in the Divine Law. In a Letter to a Friend, defignedly written for the particular ufe of young unmarried Perfons. By the Rev. John Riland, M. A. Chaplain of St. Mary's Birmingham. 8vo. I s. Hogg. 1782. Seduction and protitution,' fays Mr. Riland, with adultery at

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their fide, are monsters that stalk abroad. Devil-like, they go up and down, feeking whom they may devour. And they have devoured thousands already; and, unless taken and destroyed, will devour thousands more; fo that tens of thousands bave fallen, are falling, and will fall before them.' The Author having declaimed on thefe GRIEVANCES, makes his motion, viz. That the power of these monfters hath increased, is increafing, and OUGHT TO BE DIMINISHED. We are afraid, that if the motion be carried by the majority, in words, the grievance complained of will still remain !—and as the Author fays a numberless number of men and women in this land will live like brute beafts; men, like bulls, horfes, and dogs; and women, like cows, mares, and bitches. So beaftly'- -but this is too beastly!-no more of Mr. Riland, at this time!

SERMON

Occafioned by the Death of the Rev. Mr. Francis Spilsbury, who departed this Life, March 3, 1782 in the 77th Year of his Age: Preached at Salter's Hall, March 17th. To which is added, the Oration delivered at his Interment. By Hugh Worthington, Jun. 8vo. 6d. Buckland, &c.

A juft tribute of refpect to a very refpectable character; and a proper improvement of the folemn occafion.

CORRESPONDENCE.

W. M.'s Letter, relative to a Foreign Article in our laft Appendix, is fent to THE CONTINENT,-where the Gentleman who drew up that Article refides; and to whom the matter propofed by W. M. must be ultimately referred. In the mean time, our Correfpondent may reft affured, that we embrace, with pleafure, every opportunity of obliging and ferving our Readers, to the utmost of our ability. We only lament, that our power is not, on all occafions, as boundless

as are our wishes.

ttt The Gage d'Amitié cannot be accepted on the terms on which it is offered. The Writer of the Articles in queftion, fubject, like other mortals, to the failings of humanity, is not conscious of having fubmitted his pen to the guidance of flattery or refentment, and means to pursue the line of honeft and impartial criticism, untouched by compliment, and unmoved by invective.

* A Letter, figned Incognita, expoftulates with us for having overlooked a publication entitled "The Hiftory of the Holy Bible, by a Lady;" printed at Ipfwich.-This letter has given us the first notice we ever received concerning the work to which it refers. We have never feen the Lady's Hiftory of the Bible; having no Correfpondent at Ipfwich.

Nor any advertisement of it.

In our next we fhall give an account of the curious and very interefing Letters from an American Farmer.

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For JUN E, 1782.

ART. I. Letters from an American Farmer; defcribing certain provincial Situations, Manners, and Customs, not generally known; and conveying fome Idea of the late and prefent interior Circumftances of the British Colonies in North America. Written for the Information of a Friend in England, by J. Hector St. John, a Farmer in Pennsylvania. 8vo. 5 s. Boards. Davis. 1782.

A

S the long wifhed-for period is not, it is imagined, far diftant, when the animofities between this country and America will be terminated, thefe authentic and curious Letters from an American Farmer are publifhed at a time when they cannot fail of being interefting to every one who wishes to be acquainted with a country that will fo foon, it is to be hoped, become an object not only of general attention, but of fraternal regard.

Were it poffible to entertain any doubts of the authenticity of this publication, its internal evidence would alone be fufficient to remove them. The Writer profeffs himself to be a fimple cultivator of the earth, with little other pretenfion to literary attainments than what he derives from a few mifcellaneous volumes, that were carried over from England by his grandfather. Nature, however, feems to have made up to him. the defects of education: he pofleflès a strong and enlightened understanding, a perception quick and intuitive, and a philofophical fpirit of reflection, that has not only furnished his mind. with many new and original ideas, but may have, poffibly, eradicated from it thofe prejudices which books as often contribute to confirm as to remove.

Of thefe Letters, which are twelve in number, the first is merely introductory. The fituation, feelings, and pleasures of VOL. LXVI.

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an American farmer make the fubject of the second. The next is an anfver to the queftion, What is an American? The fix fubfequent Letters are more particular and local. In these we have a very curious and interefting account of the islands of Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard. In which are confidered the manners, trade, customs, education and employments of the inhabitants. They contain alfo fome particulars respecting Charlestown in South Carolina. The tenth Letter, which is folely appropriated to Natural Hiftory, will be fingularly acceptable to the lovers of that science. As will also the next Jetter from a Ruffian gentleman, a correfpondent of Mr. St. John's, defcribing his vifit to Mr. John Bertram, the celebrated Pennsylvanian botanist. The twelfth and laft Letter cannot fail of fuggefting, to those who are not totally loft to the tender fympathies of humanity, fome of the most pathetic and affecting ideas by which the human heart is capable of being impreffed. The diftreffes of a frontier-man' muft have been actually felt in all their novel and aggravating circumftances, or Mr. St. John could not poffibly have painted them with fuch exquifite fenfibility! But we shall turn (for the present at least) from this melancholy picture, to contemplate the more pleafing one of the Author's fituation and feelings, previous to the commencement of an unfortunate war, which, while it has deluged the one country with blood, has (in the opinion of many wife and good men) ftained the other with the guilt of it:

As you are the first enlightened European I have ever had the pleasure of being acquainted with, you will not be furprifed that I fhould, according to your earnest defire and my promife, appear anxious of preferving your friendship and correfpondence. By your accounts, I obferve a material difference fubfifts between your hufbandry, modes, and cuftoms, and ours; every thing is local; could we enjoy the advantages of the English farmer, we fhould be much happier, indeed, but this wish, like many others, implies a contratradiction; and could the English farmer have fome of those privileges we poffefs, they would be the first of their clafs in the world. Good and evil I fee is to be found in all focieties, and it is in vain to feek for any spot where thofe ingredients are not mixed. I therefore reft fatisfied, and thank God that my lot is to be an American farmer, instead of a Ruffian boor, or an Hungarian peafant. I thank you kindly for the idea, however dreadful, which you Bave given me of their lot and condition; your obfervations have confirmed me in the julness of my ideas, and I am happier now than I thought myfelf before. It is ftrange, that mifery, when viewed in others, fhould become to us a fort of real good, though I am far from rejoicing to hear that there are in the world men fo thoroughly wretched; they are no doubt as harmless, induftrious, and willing to work as we are. Hard is their fate to be thus condemned to a flavery worse than that of our negroes. Yet when young I entertained fome thoughts of felling my farm. I thought it afforded but a dull repetition of the

fame

fame labours and pleafures. I thought the former tedious and heavy, the latter few and infipid; but when I came to confider myself as divefted of my farm, I then found the world fo wide, and every place fo full, that I began to fear left there would be no room for me. My farm, my house, my barn, prefented to my imagination, objects from which I adduced quite new ideas; they were more forcible than before. Why should not I find myself happy, faid I, where my fa ther was before? He left me no good books it is true, he gave me no other education than the art of reading and writing; but he left me a good farm, and his experience; he left me free from debts, and no kind of difficulties to ftruggle with.-I married, and this perfectly reconciled me to my fituation; my wife rendered my houfe all at once chearful and pleafing; it no longer appeared gloomy and folitary as before; when I went to work in my fields I worked with more alacrity and sprightlinefs; I felt that I did not work for myself alone, and this encouraged me much. My wife would often come with her knitting in her hand, and fit under the fhady trees, praifing the ftraightness of my furrows, and the docility of my horfes; this fwelled my heart and made every thing light and pleasant, and I regretted that I had not married before. I felt myself happy in my new fituation, and where is that ftation which can confer a more fubftantial fyftem of felicity than that of an American farmer, poffeffing freedom of action, freedom of thoughts, ruled by a mode of government which requires but little from us? I owe nothing, but a pepper-corn to my country, a fmall tribute to my King, with loyalty and due refpect; I know no other landlord than the Lord of all land, to whom I owe the moft fincere gratitude. My father left me three hundred and feventy-one acres of land, forty-feven of which are good timothy meadow, an excellent orchard, a good house, and a fubftantial barn. It is my duty to think how happy I am that he lived to build and to pay for all these improvements; what are the labours which I have to undergo, what are my fatigues when compared to his, who had every thing to do, from the first tree he felled to the finishing of his houfe? Every year I kill from 1500 to 2000 weight of pork, 1200 of beeef, half a dozen of good wethers in harveft: of fowls my wife has always a great stock: what can I wish more? My negroes are tolerably faithful and healthy; by a long feries of industry and honeft dealings, my father left behind him the name of a good man; I have but to tread his paths to be happy and a good man like him. I know enough of the law to regulate my little concerns with propriety, nor do I dread its power; thefe are the grand outlines of my fituation, but as I can feel much more than I am able to exprefs, I hardly know how to proceed. When my first fon was born, the whole train of my ideas was fuddenly altered; never was there a charm that acted fo quickly and powerfully; I ceafed to ramble in imagination through the wide world; my excufions fince have not exceeded the bounds of my farm, and all my principal pleafures are now centered within its feanty limits: but at the fame time there is not an operation belonging to it in which I do not find fome food for useful reflections. This is the reafon, I fuppofe, that when you was here, you ufed, in your refined ftile, to denominate me the farmer of feelings; how rude muft thofe feelings be in him who daily

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holds