in five volumes in quarto; and the rest of his works collected by his nephew, Mr. Ayfcough, were printed in one large volume in quarto, in the fummer of 1774.

There have alfo been publifhed of his lordfhip's writing, though not reprinted in the collection of his works,

An epiftle to William Pitt,' (afterwards earl of Chatham) occafioned by an epiftle to the latter from the honourable Thomas Hervey. "Some papers in Common Senfe," but I do not know which; and fome political pamphlets, without his name.

Prologue to Thomfon's Coriolanus."

Hymn to Eliza," (his fecond wife) on their marriage; printed in the St. James's Magazine for march 1763.

"Letter to Mr. Bofwell," in the London Chronicle, May 11, 1769.

He wrote most of the " infcriptions" in the gardens at Stowe; "an epitaph on captain Henry Grenville;" another on "captain Cornwall," in Weftminster Abbey; and "poems to general Conway and the countess of Ailefbury, after their marriage," Mss.

THOMAS LORD LYTTELTON

Was a meteor, whofe rapid extinction could not be regretted. His dazzling eloquence had no folidity, and his poetry no graces that could atone for it's indelicacy.

"One of his fpeeches in the houfe of lords," and " a volume of his verses," have been printed; and "fome lines he wrote to his wife" were published in the Westminster magazine, No. v, 1773. The following perfonage, father to his prefent majesty, has an afterisk prefixed before his name, intending to denote, that it did not former edition: P. 278.

appear

in any

FREDERIC PRINCE OF WALES

Wrote french fongs, in imitation of the regent *, and did not mifcarry folely by writing in a language not his own.'

The appendix contains fome fpecimens of english poetry, by Charles, duke of Orleans, who was taken prifoner at the battle of Agincourt, and kept as a captive here for twenty-five years.

After a lapfe of four hundred years,' thofe performances, we are told, have emerged into notice on the merit of poetry which till within these three years had never obtained that very common honour of being transmitted to the press.'

The prince in question, I confefs,' adds Mr. Walpole, p. 562, was not of english blood royal; yet, as he paid us the fingular compliment of attempting to verfify in ourlanguage, fuch a pursuivant of poetic royal perfonages as I am, feels a fort of duty to enrol him in the college of arms on our mount Parnaffus. The gentle prince, it is true, 'is indebted for the affertion of his claim to a fair lady, who, zealous to record and illuftrate the writers of her own fex and country, delivered by the bye from the dungeon of a library a royal knight, who had long lain in durance among the manufcripts of the crown of France. The generofity of this fair champion is the greater reproach to the biographers of that nation, as the afferts, and feemingly with reason, that the royal prifoner whom he has fet free, was the first

purifier of french poetry, an honour hitherto unjustly afcribed to Villon.' The following verfes are by this prince: P. 564.

I.

"Myn hert (heart) hath fend glad hope thys meffage,
"Unto comfort pleafant joye and speed:
"I pray to God that grace may inleed,
"Without clenching or danger of paffage.

"All yat he come, myn hert yn hermitage
"Of thoght fhall dwell alone; God gyve him med ;
And of wifhing of tymis fhall him fed,
"Glad hope follyw, and fped wel this viage.

66

Myn hert, &c.

"Unto comfort, &c."

There is another, by the fame prince, called " Rondeau en An glois," and beginning thus:

I.

"When fhall thows come, glad hope, y viage?
"Thows haft tary'd fo long many a day;

"For all comfort is put fro my away,

"Till that y her tything of my meffage.

"Us hat that had, &c."

II.

It would be unpardonable to omit the following N. B. affixed to the appendix: P. 567.

N. B. This addition was written before the revolution in France in 1789; fince when the follies of that nation have foured and plunged into the moft execrable barbarity, immorality, injustice, ufurpation, and tyranny; have rejected God himself and deified human monsters, and have dared to call this mafs of unheard-of crimes "giving liberty to mankind-" by atheism and massacres.'

Vol. II commences with the Caftle of Otranto, a gothic story.' This is evidently an attempt to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern; accordingly, the terrific of the one, and the probability of the other, are endeavoured to be united in the fame ftory. We ftill, however, find the former preponderating in the fcene, the age, and the agents. We behold the triumphs of fuperftition, the horrours of the moated caftle, and the flethlefs jaws and empty fockets of a skeleton, wrapt in a hermit's cowl.'

The numerous imitations poffefs, however, but a small portion of the merit of the original, and yet, after crowding the circulating li braries, they have at length taken poffeffion of, and vitiated the stage!

The fecond article is an account of the giants lately difcover ed: in a letter to a friend in the country.' This, which was printed in 1766, is an humourous letter from a perfon in town to his corref

pondent

pondent in the country, in which the existence of the patagonians is ridiculed, and put on a level with the Cock-lane ghost.

In short, my good friend,' observes he, at the conclufion, P. 102, here is ample room for fpeculation: but I hope we fhall go calmly and fyftematically to work: that we shall not exterminate these poor monfters till we are fully acquainted with their hiftory, laws, opinions, police, &c. that we fhall not convert them to chriftianity, only to cut their throats afterwards; that nobody will beg a million of acres of giant-land, till we have determined what to do with the prefent occupiers; and that we fhall not throw away fifteen or twenty thousand men, in conquering their country, as we did at the Havannah, only to reftore it to the spaniards.

• Yours,

S. T.'

Hiftoric doubts on the life and reign of king Richard the third' form the next article; and lord Orford feems to have been led to this difcuffion, by the pureft and moft honourable motives.

It occurred to me fome years ago,' fays he, page 109, that the picture of Richard the third, as drawn by hiftorians, was a character drawn by prejudice and invention. I did not take Shakefpeare's tragedy for a genuine reprefentation, but I did take the ftory of that reign for a tragedy of imagination. Many of the crimes imputed to Richard feemed improbable; and, what was ftronger, contrary to his intereft. A few incidental circumstances corroborated my opinion; an original and important inftrument was pointed out to me last winter, which gave rife to the following sheets; and as it was easy to perceive, under all the glare of encomiums which hiftorians have heaped on the wisdom of Henry the feventh, that he was a mean and unfeeling tyrant, I fufpected that they had blackened his rival, till Henry, by the contraft, fhould appear in a kind of amiable light.

The more I examined their ftory, the more I was confirmed in my opinion: and with regard to Henry, one confequence I could not help drawing; that we have either no authentic memorials of Richard's crimes, or, at moft, no account of them but from lancaftrian historians; whereas the vices and injuftice of Henry are, though palliated, avowed by the concurrent teftimony of his panegyriits. Sufpicions and calumny were fastened on Richard as fo many affaffinations. The murders committed by Henry were indeed executions and executions pafs for prudence with prudent hiftorians; for when a fuccefsful king is chief-justice, hiftorians become a voluntary jury.'

In a paper entitled a poftfcript to my historic doubts, written in february, 1793,' Mr. W. moft feelingly obferves, P. 251*, fuch horrors, fuch unparalleled crimes have been difplayed on the moft confpicuous theatre in Europe, in Paris the rival of Athens and Rome, that I am forced to allow that a multiplicity of crimes, which I had weakly fuppofed were too manifold and too abfurd to have been perpetrated even in a very dark age, and in a northern island not only not commencing to be polished, but enured to barbarous manners, and hardened by long and barbarous civil wars amongst princes and nobility ftrictly related.

Yes, I must now believe,' continues he, that any atrocity may have been attempted or practifed by an ambitious prince of the blood,

aiming at the crown in the fifteenth century. I can believe, (I do not fay I do), that Richard duke of Gloucefter dipped his hand in the blood of the faint-like Henry the fixth, though fo revolting and injudicious an act as to excite the indignation of mankind against him. I can now believe that he contrived the death of his own brother Ca rence--and I can think it poffible, inconceivable as it was, that he afperfed the chaflity of his own mother, in order to baftardize the offspring of his eldest brother; for all these extravagant exceffes have been exhibited in the compafs of five years by a monster, by a royal duke, who has actually furpaffed all the guilt imputed to Richard the third, and who, devoid of Richard's courage, has acted his enormities openly, and will leave it impoffible to any future writer, however difpofed to candour, to entertain one biftoric doubt on the abominable actions of Philip duke of Orleans.

After long plotting the death of his fovereign, a victim as holy as, and infinitely fuperior in fenfe and manly virtues to, Henry vi. Orleans has dragged that fovereign to the block, and purchafed his crecution in public, as in public he voted for it.

If to the affaffination of a brother (like the fuppofed complicity of Gloucester to that of Clarence) Orleans has not yet concurred; EI, when early in the revolution he was plotting the murder of the king, being warned by an affociate that he would be detected, he faid, “ No; for I will have my (natural) brother the Abbé de St. Far ftabbed too, and then nobody will fufpect me of being concerned in the murder of my own brother."-So ably can the affaflins of an enlightened age refine on and furpafs the atrocious deeds of goths and barbarians!

Shade of Richard of Gloucester! if my weak pen has been able to wafh one bloody fpeck, one incredible charge from your character, can 1 but acknowledge that Philip of Orleans has fullied my varnish, and at leaft has weakened all the arguments that I drew from the improbability of your having waded fo deeply into wickednefs and impudence that recoiled on yourfelf, as to calunniate your own mother with adultery. If you did, it was to injure the children of your brother-fill y Fad not the fenfelefs, fhamelets effrontery to shake your own legitimacy. --Philip of Orleans mocks your pitiful felf-partiality-He in perfon, and not by proxy, has declared his own mother a ftrumpet, has baftardized himfelf, and for ever degraded his children as progeny defcended from a coachman!-For what glory, for what object, far be it from me to conjecture!-Who would have a mind congenial enough to that of fuch a monfter, as to be able to guess at his motives?"

After this poftfcript, which is curious in every point of view, follows des Walpolianæ, or a defcription of the collection of pictures ar Houghton-hall in Norfolk, the feat of the right hon. fir Robert Walpole, earl of Orford.' This is fucceeded, with peculiar propriety, by a fermon on painting;' both of these were published many years

ago.

Nature will prevail' is a moral entertainment, in one aft, and the dramatis perfona confift of only two men, Current' and ⚫ Padlock,' and two women, if a fairy may be called a woman, Almadine,' and Finette, a country girl.' The fcene is a defert ifland. The three letters entitled thoughts on tragedy' contain many compliments to Mr. Jephfon's Braganza;' and this gentleman is told, that

་

he

he poffeffes the art of defcribing the tender,' which is far more difficult than the terrible.'

The thoughts on comedy' exhibit fome very juft remarks, and difplay great knowledge of the fubject. Among other things, Mr. W. obferves in this Thapfodical effay,' that comedy is far more difficult to an englishman than a frenchman,' and he supports the po. fition with admirable reafons, arifing from the language, manners, &c. of the french nation.

The detection of a late forgery, called Teftament Politique du chevalier Robert Walpoole,' is a pofthumous work, and affords an additional proof of the filial piety of the author.

66

Ergo age, chare pater, cervici imponere noftræ :

Ipfe fubibo humeris, nec me labor ifte gravabit."-Æneid. II.

The original was never tranflated into our language, and was so grofs an impofture, that nothing, but Mr. W.'s attachment to the memory of a beloved father, could have induced him to fet down the numerous fallacies contained in it.

In the life of Mr. Thomas Baker,' inftead of wishing, as ufual, to enhance the value of his fubject, Mr. W. begins by obferving, p. 341, that the deep or extenfive learning of a man of letters is but a barren field for biography. His notions are fpeculation; his adventures, enquiry. If his ftudies,' adds he fermented or confolidated into compofitions, the history of his life commonly proves but a register of the fquabbles occafioned by his works, of the patrons he flattered, of the preferments he obtained or miffed. The dates of his publications and their editions form the outlines of his ftory; and frequently the plans or projects of works he meditated are taken to aid the account; the day of his death is fcrupuloufly afcertained :-and thus, to compofe the life of a man who did very little, his biographer acquaints us with what he did not do, and when he ceafed to do any thing.

Nor are authors fuch benefactors to the world, that the trifling incidents of their lives deferve to be recorded. The moft shining of the clafs have not been the most useful members of the community. If Newton unravelled fome arcana of nature, and exalted our ideas of the Divinity by the inveftigation of his works; what benefactions has Homer or Virgil conferred on mankind but a fund of harmonious amusement? Barren literati, who produce nothing, are innocent drones,

&c,'

Surely this introduction must have been written while the noble author was not only in a fplenetic but a capricious humour, for he here affects to undervalue what it was the pride of his life to attain.

Before we quit this piece of biography, we fhall transcribe the firft paragraph of Mr. Baker's will: P. 360.

"In the name of God, Amen. I Thomas Baker, ejected fellow of St. John's college in Cambridge, &e.”

[To be continued.]

POETRY. THE DRAMA.

ART. XII, Poems, by Jofeph Fawcett. Small 8vo. 183 pa. Pr. 4s.

boards. Johnfon. 1798.

We have before had the opportunity of complimenting Mr. Fawcett's mufe. Much may, undoubtedly, be expected from the poet, who

fung