tisfaction, and circulated with a certain degree of avidity. Soon after their appearance, he confided the care of arranging his posthumous works to Messrs. Rogers* and Sharpe, together with Sir James Bland Burgess. It is with sorrow we are obliged to remark, that Mr. Cumberland towards the latter part of his life, experienced a variety of misfortunes. One of his grandsons, having at an early period of life been sent to sea as a midshipman, had received a corporeal punishment for some trifling fault; this circumstance, which we believe is unusual on the part of a midshipman, preyed on his mind, more especially as the young man died soon after. He wrote for, and, we have heard, obtained a court-martial for the trial of the officer in question; but although he was acquitted, yet the circumstances of the case rankled in his mind, and rendered him at times uneasy. His favourite daughter also was far from enjoying a good state of health, while her husband, a foreign officer, who had served abroad with credit, appeared to be afflicted with a mortal distemper. His own affairs too, were far from being flourishing, and his late literary pursuits had not been attended with that flattering success which he experienced during his earlier years. It was in this situation, at some distance from his own beloved house, and from Tunbridge Wells, a residence to which he was so much and so long attached, that Richard Cumberland resigned his breath, at the house of Mr. Henry Fry, in Bedford Place, Russel Square, in the 80th year of his age, on the 7th of May, 1811. The author of this article; who had known him for some years, beheld his grave on the day of his interment,† in Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey, with a considerable degree of emotion. A procession was formed on the occasion, and his mortal remains being deposited in a spot, nearly at an equal distance from Dryden and Addison, Dr. Vincent, the Dean of Westminster, and himself an author, pronounced the following funeral discourse over the remains of his old schoolfellow: "The person you now see deposited here, is Richard Cumberland, an author of no small merit: his writings were chiefly intended for the stage, but of a tendency strictly moral; they were not destitute of faults, but cannot be charged with grossness; nor did they abound with oaths, or libidinous expressions, as I am shocked to observe is the case with many of such compositions of the present day. He wrote as much as any; few excelled more; and his works must be holden in the highest estimation so long as the English language will be understood. He considered the theatre as a school for moral improvement, and his remains are truly worthy of mingling with the illustrious dead which surround us. Mr. R. is author of the "Pleasures of Memory.” May 14th. "Read his prose subjects on divinity! there you will find the true christian spirit of the man who trusted in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; so may God forgive him his sins, and at the resurrection of the just, receive him into everlasting glory!" Mr. Cumberland in person, appeared rather below the middle size, with a countenance, from which the vermilion flow of health was not banished, until the last and most afflicting period of his existence. He usually dressed in blue or black, was always neat in his apparel, and when he so chose, could be both pleasing and instructive in his conversation. In respect to the world, he affected to possess a critical knowledge of it, yet he, to adopt his own language, "In its fair promises reposed more trust Than wiser heads, and older hearts, would risque." We most sincerely hope, that his wishes may be fully verified, and that the following apostrophe has not been addressed by him in vain : "Some tokens of a life not wholly pass'd In selfish strivings or ignoble sloth, Haply there may be found when I am gone, Mr. C. has left, we believe, five children, and about sixteen grand-children, to bewail his loss, and respect his memory. Of four boys, two perished in the service of their country, and two still remain; one of these, Richard, educated at Cambridge, is a captain in the navy, and another a barrack-master. One of his daughters, as has already been said, married the brother of the Duke of Portland; another became the wife of a man of fortune, and a third, with whom he lived, was united to a German officer. Here follows a catalogue of his works, inaccurate, perhaps, in some particulars, but probably the best hitherto published. I. THEOLOGY. 1. Sermons; 2. Evidences of the Christian Religion; 3. Transla tions of the Psalms. II. HEROIC POETRY. 1. Calvary, or the Death of Christ; a poem in blank verse. 2. The Exodiad; written, we believe, in conjunction with Sir J. B Burges. III. DRAMATIC WORKS. 1. The Banishment of Cicero; a dramatic poem in five acts, printed in 1761. 2. Caractacus. 3. The Summer's Tale; a comedy. 4. The Brothers; a comedy. 5. The Fashionable Lover; a comedy. 6. The West Indian; a comedy, which was got up in a great style by Gar rick, and, in the language of the theatres, had a " long run." 7. The Choleric Man; a comedy, to which Garrick wrote the Epilogue, 8. Timon of Athens; altered from Shakspeare. 9. The Fashionable Lover; 1772. 10. Note of Hand, or a Trip to New-market: 1776. 11. Mysterious Husband; 1783. 12. The Battle of Hastings; a tragedy, in which Henderson played the character of Edgar Atheling. 13. Box Lobby Challenge. 14. The Opera of Calypso. 15. The Impostors; a comedy. 16. The Widow of Delphi, or Descent of the Deities. 17. False Impressions. 18. The Carmelite; said to be his best tragedy, 1785. 19. The Natural Son; a comedy. 20. The Dependant. 21. Days of Yore. 22. Ward of Nature. 23. First Love. 24. The Jew. 25. Country Attorney. 26. Walloons. 27. Wat Tyler. 28. The Clouds. 29. The Sailor's Daughter. IV. UNPUBLISHED DRAMAS. 1. The Elder Brutus; a tragedy. 2. The False Demetrius. 3. Tiberius in Caprea. 4. Torrendal; a tragedy. V. FUGITIVE PIECES. 1. Verses on the Accession of his present Majesty. 2. A Poem after the manner of Goldsmith's "Retaliation." 3. Verses on the Bust of the present Prince of Wales. 4. An irregular Ode, addressed to the Sun, composed at Keswick, and published in 1775-6. 5. Ode to the late Dr. Robert James; suggested by the recovery of the author's second son from a fever, in consequence of the prescriptions of that physician. 6. Lines to the late Earl of Mansfield. 7. Epilogue to the Arab. 8. Verses Complimentary of Romney, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. 9. Verses to Richard Sharpe, esq. who first suggested the idea of Mr. C.'s Memoirs. 10. Verses presented to the late Princess Amelia, by the author's daughter-in-law, Lady Albinia Cumberland. 11. Verses to Nelson. 12. Affectation. 13. Avarice. 14. Verses to the Prince of Wales. 15. Verses to Mr. Pitt. 16. Chorusses in the Appraiser, 1795. VI. MISCELLANEOUS. 1. Translations from the Troades of Seneca. 2. Curtius in the Gulph. 3. A short Sketch of Lord Sackville's Character, dedicated to the Earl of Dorchester, 1785. 4. The Observer: two editions published in the two first years. The work now extends to five volumes, and displays great learning, and good morals. 5. An accurate Catalogue of the Paintings in the King of Spain's Palace at Madrid. 6. Anecdotes of eminent Painters in Spain. 7. Memoirs, 2 vols. 4to. 8. Preface to Tipper's Review. VII. NOVELS. 1. Arundel, 2 vols. 2. John de Lancaster. S. Henry, 4 vols. VIII. CONTROVERSIAL. 1. A letter to the right Rev. Bishop of Ox-d; containing some animadversions made by him upon a character given by the late Dr. Bently, in a letter from a late Professor in the University of Oxford, to the Right Rev. Author of the Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated. This passed through two editions. 2. A Pamphlet in Opposition to the Bishop of Landaff's Proposal for equalizing the revenues of the English Hierarchy. FROM THE ANNUAL REGISTER. RELIGION, MORALS, AND MANNERS OF THE TURKS. THE Turks are of a grave and saturnine cast; they are in general well made and robust; patient of hunger and privations; capable of enduring the hardships of military service, but not much inclined to habits of industry. The early hours and regular lives of their mothers, their own habitual temperance, and general freedom from violent passions, give them good health and undistorted features. Their way of living is simple and domestic: they prefer apathy and indolence to active enjoyments; but when moved by a powerful stimulus they sometimes indulge in pleasures to excess. The moral character is fundamentally formed in infancy and childhood, not by precept, so much as by the absence of evil; for the Turks receive their early education under the care of their mothers and their female attendants, who are secluded from the promiscuous society of men, and removed from the contagion of corrupt example. Their religion, which is simple, is taught them by their parents in the harem. The minds of the children, as in other countries, are instructed in the dogmas of a particular system: they are inflated with the superiority of their own situation, in a religious sense; and they are taught to indulge in the contemplation of it, and in a contempt bordering on hatred, for the professors of every other religion. The revelations of heaven, and the precepts of the prophet, equally inculcate on the minds of Mussulmans, this exalted idea of themselves, and this sentiment of disdain and aversion for strangers to their faith. "The prayers of the infidels are not prayer, but wanderings," says the Koran. "I withdraw my foot, and turn away my face," says Mahomet, "from a society in which the faithful are mixed with the ungodly." Nor is the uncharitableness of the sentiment extinguished, or even weakened, by the death of its object. "Pray not for those whose death is eternal," is a precept of the Mahometan church, "and defile not thy feet by passing over the graves of men, the enemies of God and his prophet." These commandments are precise and positive they regulate the principles and the conduct of all classes of Mussulmans. It is vain to suppose their pernicious and uncharitable tendency counteracted by passages of scripture which breathe a milder spirit, or by the example of the prophet, who is known to have frequented the society of unbelievers and pagans. The Mahometan, who has risen above the prevailing prejudices of his religion and country, will alone appeal to these more tolerant precepts, in order to justify his conduct to his own heart, or to sanction it in the eyes of the public: but the vulgar mind, the great majority of the nation in every class of society, will always be chained down to the observance of the most intolerant precepts of religion. The namaz, the prayer the most obligatory on Mussulmans, and the most pleasing to the Supreme Being, is chiefly a confession of the divine attributes, and of the nothingness of man; a solemn act of homage and gratitude to the eternal majesty. The faithful are forbidden to ask of God the temporal blessings of this frail and perishable life: the only legitimate object of the namaz is to adore the Supreme Being, by praying for spiritual gifts and the ineffable advantages of eternal felicity. Confident in the efficacy of belief, and the virtue of prayer, and legal purification, the Mussulmans feel no humility because of the imperfections of human nature, and no repentance because of actual transgressions. The unity of the Supreme Being, and the divine mission of the prophet, are all that are insisted on as necessary to justification with God; and as these imply no contradiction, and involve no mystery, the mind seems to comprehend both points without an effort, and to hold them with steadiness. Hence their consciences are never alarmed at the weakness or insufficiency of their faith; nor can they ever doubt of their acceptance with God. Their religion consoles and elevates them through life, and never disturbs their dying moments. Many of the learned Turks are said to refuse an implicit belief to all the miracles recorded in the Koran; but none of them so far contradict the national prejudices, as publicly to withhold their assent. An effendi, skilled in mathematics, was asked, how he could believe, that Mahomet broke the star of the moon, and caught half of it falling from heaven, in his sleeve. He replied, that indeed in the course of nature it could not be done, nay, was contrary to it; but as the miracle is in the Koran affirmed to be wrought, he resigned his reason, and embraced the miracle; for, added he, God can do whatever he pleases. They |