The metal produced was neither pure, nor gold, nor filver; it was brass; but it was Corinthian brass.

But Voltaire's quantity aftonishes. It never aftonished me. He made verses at twelve years old. By eighteen he had publifhed works, and was introduced by Ninon de L'Enclos to the moft polished people of Paris. From eighteen to eighty-four he never ceafed to labour; and is it aftonishing that in fixty-two years he produced about fix good volumes? Will any impartial man fay, that there are more than fix volumes of his forty which are really worth mentioning? Is there an advantage that an author can have that this man wanted? Born independent; fituated at Paris; protected by the great; courted, I may fay, by fovereigns; his works purchafed with avidity by bookfellers; devoured with greater avidity by the Public; the advantages of learning, travel, and fo long a life; what an affemblage of happy circumstances! Is it prodigious that one-fixth part of his works is worthy of praife? I think Dryden was a man of better parts than Voltaire. But how different their fituations in life! The one never obliged to enter his cabinet, till to enter it gave him pleafure; the other fat fhivering at the table, with famine ftaring him in the face if he did not produce his four plays at the end of a year: one enjoying every luxury of life; the other in want of all its neceffaries: Dryden living in a climate unfavourable to fancy, and certainly forced to live upon malt liquors, which almost kill the imagination: the meat and manner of dreffing it, the milk, cheese, and butter, and every other article of life, decidedly conducing to thicken the blood, clog its motion, and confequently to deaden the fancy. Voltaire breathing a pure and vivifying air; no heavy liquors; no grofs nourishment; every article of life the very reverse of what it is in England. The French poet living on the theatre of Europe (a moft important circumftance): the English poet confined to the British dominions. If Voltaire, at a fupper, produced four happy lines, in fix weeks they had gone farther than Dryden's fame will poffibly ever reach: his language univerfally understood; his merit of confequence univerfally felt. Every thing that tends to raise and quicken the fpirits is of use to a man who works from fancy; and what raifes the spirits higher than the idea of univerfal admiration? Every circumstance in France is favourable to talents: every circumftance is against them in England, except one. They are recompenfed here in a manner unknown to any other nation. The Earl of Southampton gave Shakspeare more in one prefent, than Voltaire ever received from all the nobility of France. Dr. Robertson received, I dare say, fix times as much for his History of Charles V. as he could have got for it in any other capital in Europe, fuppofing the book had been written in the language of the country.

Rewards

Rewards like thefe conquer climate and every other difadvantage. But poor Dryden lived in a worthlefs reign, and was too happy not to die literally by hunger, as his contemporary Otway did.

s;

The Henriade is a finer epic poem than the Iliad, the "Eneid, the Jerufalem Delivered, or than the Paradife Loft." Well faid, Lord Chesterfield. I like a man that has an opinion of his own: and this opinion was pofitively his Lordship's, unless, as I have more than once been tempted to fufpect, he ftole it from Voltaire. To fupport this fingular judgment, he fays, "It is all good fenfe from beginning to end." So it is; and fo is the Hiftory of Lewis the Fourteenth; but that does not make it an epic poem. Lord Chesterfield might have said a great deal more in its favour without annihilating poor Ho mer, Virgil, Milton, and Taffo. But he feems to me to have loved Greek as little as a Frenchman does ; and I am not fure that he had quite talents enough to praife well. Richardfon remarks very justly, that poverty of genius is the reafon that men can't praile one woman but by robbing the reft. The noble writer might have courted this author much better, because more truly, by faying, The Henriade is a fine poem, written with elegance, correctnefs, and dignity. The diction is rich and fplendid, the thoughts are juft, the fentiments noble, and the verfification as harmonious as French verfification can be. He might have told him; Your poem, notwithstanding its points and antithefes, has lefs defects than either the Eneid or the Iliad ;-and (this he need not have told him, but he fhould have thought it)-its only material faults are want of intereft, want of enthusiasm, and want of original beauties. Some of his * portraits are brilliant and bold. The death of † Coligny, the description of the maffacre, and of the § Temple of Love, deferve the warmest praife.

These are the best paffages in this poem; and they are truly excellent. However, I cannot think they are fufficient to ecliple the greatest works that England, Italy, and Greece can boast of. Indeed, my Lord Chefterfield feems to have doubted himself of the truth of his affertion; for, forgetting his wonted good breeding, he has recourfe to fome of Lord Peter's arguments, and abufes grofsly every one who prefumes to differ from him in opinion.'

The following obfervations on tafte are just and elegant;

Particularly that of the Duke of Guife, Chant 3.

+ lbid.

B 4

§ Chant 9.

though

though the chief of them have been anticipated by Mr. Burke *.

Many people have a kind of happy inftinct in matters of tafte, and determine often rightly upon difficult fubjects, without having any principles to direct their judgments. It is evident, that if thofe perfons natural faculties were cultivated, they would have better tafte than others. But tafte being a combina tion of a man's judgment and feelings, there never can be any certainty in the determination of a man whofe judgment is not formed. To form the judgment there is but one method, it is by making comparifons. To compare two objects perfectly, one muft understand them both. And hence it follows, that the first step towards acquiring a good tafte is knowledge. Without knowledge no comparifon can be formed; without comparifons the judgment cannot be chaftened; without judgment there can be no fure tafte. I fhall explain myself by an example, which I fhall take from fculpture; because, as it appears to me to be the fimpleft of all the arts, I fhall have lefs trouble to make myself understood. A young man wants to acquire a tafte for fculpture. If nature has not given him feeling, he feeks an impoffibility. If fhe has given him feeling, he must then acquire knowledge to form his judgment, and this knowledge is to be acquired but by feeing ftatues. imitation of a man or a woman. A ftatue is the be able to fay, whether it refembles a woman or a man; but The fift one he fees, he will he will not be able to fay, whether or no it is a good ftatue. Good is a relative: it is only by comparing that statue with a number of others, he can be able to afcertain its value. Apollo is always reprefented as a beautiful youth. A hundred fculptors, ancient and modern, have executed this fubject. very indifferent one to a young man; and another very capital Shew a one to another young man ; let them be the firft ftatues that either of them have feen; and their judgments upon the two will be probably the fame. They will both fay that these two statues are fine. He who has feen the indifferent Apollo, will be as much charmed as he who has feen the other; and his tafte will be equally good. This ftatue is the beft he has ever feen; and he is not to be blamed for admiring it. It is evident now, that this man's tafte is not fure; and it is evident that he is born with the means of making it fo. Let him then fee the Apollo of Girardon, that of Bernini, feveral others ancient and modern, and let him finifh with the Apollo Belvedere. He will then have seen all that is most perfect in the art. If he examines each of thefe ftatues feparately with attention, and afterwards

piful.

See his Introduction to his Inquiry into the Sublime and Beau

compares

compares them together, he will acquire the power of afcertaining the value of each, and of affigning to it its true rank. The knowledge that he has obtained will form his judgment; his judgment will then direct his feelings; and that man will acquire a fure and perfect tafte. This reafoning appears to me to be juft, when applied to poetry, painting, eloquence, and all the other arts. The English education, bad as it is, is the best in Europe. It is effentially bad in one point; and effentially ftupid in another: bad, in not paying the fmalleft attention to the cultivation of the English language, one of the fineft, in every point of view, that ever exifted: ftupid, in making a youth pafs fourteen important years of his life, in learning as much Greek, Latin, and fcience, as might very eafily be acquired in fix. However, there is none fo good any where else. Every man of birth in England goes through a course of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, fcience, and makes the tour of Europe. Thofe advantages are aftonishingly great, and fuch as fcarce any Frenchman has. The profit that a lad derives from this depends upon himself, and upon the perfons to whom he is entrufted. He may read Cicero and Demofthenes, Taffo and Milton, Racine and Moliere, and fee the Transfiguration and the Apollo, without an atom of improvement. If he has parts and feeling, the understanding several languages, and feeing different countries, are prodigious advantages. By multiplying thus the stock of his ideas, he is enabled to make a multitude of comparisons; thofe comparisons refine his judgment; and thus, if, as I faid, he has naturally parts and feeling, he becomes a man of perfect tafle. A Frenchman has not thofe advantages. He poffeffes only two languages, and he does not travel; and this is the true and real caufe, why the few in England have a greater number of taftes, and more perfect taftes, than the few in France.'

We must now take leave of this fprightly, fenfible, and entertaining Writer. We have often been informed by him; but more frequently amufed: and though fometimes difgufted with his vanity, he has never fatigued us by dullneís.

ART. II. Phyfiological Difquifitions; or Difcourfes on the Natural bilofophy of the Elements, c. By William Jones, F. R. S. &c. Author of an Effuy on the fift Principles of Natural i bilofophy. 4to. 11. I s. Boards. Rivington. 1781.

I

N our 27th volume, page 122, our Readers will meet with an account of the Elay mentioned at the end of the title of the prefent work; which may be confidered as a continuation of the Author's fyftem, to which he was led very early in life,' as he now informs us, by his having obferved,

that great effects are produced in nature by the action of the elements on each other; and that all philosophy might be reduced to one fimple and univerfal law, -the natural agency of the elements."

Such Readers as with only for new philofophical facts or experiments, will not be much gratified by the perufal of this very bulky volume. The Author may be faid rather to reason on what is already well known, than to contribute much new matter to the philofophical ftock of experiments. The nature of his work, may indeed, in a great meature, be inferred from what he himfelf fays in the Introduction:

We have a ftrange propenfity to be looking either before us or behind us for variety, instead of cultivating the fruitful fpot we stand upon. If we are already in poffeffion of many great things, reafon demands that we fhould be making our use of them, rather than be fearching for novelties, which may be either of little value, or the fame for fubftance with what is already known. I have therefore preferred the profits of culture, to the pleafures of the chace; and would rather pass for a labourer than a fportfman upon philofophical ground.'

All this is very proper. A man of genius certainly may contribute very greatly to the extenfion of philofophical knowledge, merely by taking a comprehenfive furvey, or making a happy application, of the difcoveries of others. We cannot however fay, that we meet with any fuch luminous expofition of natural phenomena, or of philofophical experiments, in the theoretical part of this work. Nevertheless, in juftice to the Author, we fhall add his fubfequent obfervation; where he fays, that he has reason to think many things new will occur to the reader, if he has the patience to look for them; and that the new things he will meet with, are fuch as will lead to a new train of experiments. We fhould obferve likewife, that the Author does not treat his fubjects merely as a philofophical theorift, or expe→ rimenter; but alfo confiders them philologically, and with a view to the heathen mythology, as well as to the philofophical doctrines fuppofed to be found in the facred writings. In these the Author fhews himself to be a man of letters, and completely orthodox; whatever may be thought of his theoretical notions refpecting philofophy.

In the three firft of the nine difcourfes which conftitute this volume, the Author treats- Of Matter, and the feveral Kinds of Bodies Of the Nature and Caufes of Motion;'and of the Nature and Uses of the Elements.' We willingly pass over thefe difcourfes, partly as containing matters already very well known, and partly as they relate to the particular doctrines maintained by the Author in this and his former volume, refpecting a vacuum, and the reciprocal action of the elements; which do not appear to us, to be of that importance which he is in