RELIGIOUS. Art. 33. Sermons on the following Subjects. I. The Advantages of national Repentance. i. The ruinous Effects of Civil War. II. The Coming of the Son of Man. IV. The Hope of meeting, knowing, and rejoicing with virtuous Friends in a future World. By William Steel Dick fon. 12mo. Is. Belfast, printed. The publication of the two first of these fermons, we are told, had been refufed to the warm folicitation of many friends; but the circulation of fome reports concerning political fentiments, faid to be contained in them, obliged the Author to expofe them in his own vindication. They were each preached on a Faft Day, one in December 1776, the other in Feb. 1778. They are plain, fenfible, and calculated to be ufeful. The former recommends national repentance and the recovery of national virtue, in which every individual fhould unite, as the probable means of averting calamities, and reftoring tranquillity. The fecond gives a just and affecting defcription of the evils and miferies which attend civil difcords and commotions. Here it may be fuppofed he is led to fpeak of the flate of our own nation, and from hence it is probable difadvantageous reports were circulated. It is plain, that he difapproves and laments the war with America. He condemns it as unnatural and inhuman; at the fame time he does not vindicate the conduct of America, but, allowing her offences to be great, he afks, Are we to facrifice our all to a point of honour? Or, to use a favourite mode of expreffion, does authority require that a parent fhould rifque his own perdition in an attempt to chaftife the ingratitude of a child, when experience fhews that he is unequal to the task?' The third difcourfe contains a very ferious and affecting, as well as fenfible admonition to the diligent improvement of life, and preparation for that eternity on the brink of which we ftand. The fourth, is on a curious fubject, and offers feveral confiderations from natural reafon, as well as from revelation, to establish the belief, that pious and virtuous friends will know each other, and be the more happy in the renewal of former friendships, in a future state of felicity. SERMONS. H. J. On the Propriety and Advantages of acquiring the Knowledge and The immediate purpose of this difcourfe, is, to enquire what particular happiness the fpirits of the juft fhall derive from Chrift, who is their life, when they fhall appear with him in glory; and what fupport the caufe of virtue may derive from the hope of this happinefs amidst the troubles and temptations of the prefent world.' This fermon, H. fermon, like the former, does credit to the piety and good fenfe of the Author. 11. St. Paul's Senfe of Soundness and Religion. Before an Affembly of Proteftant Diffenting Minifters, at Halifax in the County of York, May 30, 1781. By William Turner. 8vo. 6 d. Johnfon. 1781. The account given, in this plain and ufeful difcourfe, of foundness in matters of religion, is as follows:- A fincere and steadfast belief in the Gofpel, and a faithful reprefentation of it to others, as a divine inftitution of the grace of God, by the mediation of Jefus Christ, for reforming mankind from fin, and engaging them diligently to praclife all holiness, or to conduct their lives in fincere obedience to the precepts of the Gofpel, requiring piety towards God, purity in ourselves, and righteoufnefs and goodnefs to all men; animated hereto by a firm belief in the promites which God hath made us by Jefus Chrift, a fteadfast expectation of a future judgment at Chrift's appearing in glory, and an efficacious hope of eternal life from him. Thus to believe, and thus to practile, is to be found in the faith; and to teach and exhort others to believe these things, and thereupon to practise their proper duties, is to teach found doctrine-according to the Apoftle's fenfe of the words. On the contrary to amufe ourfelves with difficult quellions, fpeculative notions, and zealous contentions about high and myflerious points, of little or no tendency to improve the heart or amend the practice; or to adopt and place a dependance on the precepts, obfervances, and ordinances of men, or on any external rites, privileges, and practices, to the neglect and prejudice of real goodness-is to be unfound in the faith-And to pervert the attention and abufe the credulity of others by teaching them fuch unprofitable and vain matters, and thereby to take them off from the fubftantial and indispensable duties of holiness in heart and life, is to teach unfound doctrine.' Such is the reprefentation here made, and we must add, that this reprefentation is fully fupported by the authority, and the exprefs declarations, of St. Paul. The Preacher's text is Titus ii. 1. But Speak thou the things which become found deftrine. All the paffages in which the terms found or unfound in refpect to faith or doctrine are ufed, are brought under a review; and it appears in a manner fufficiently plain, we fhould fuppofe, for the conviction of any fair and unprejudiced reader, that the above explication contains their true intent and meaning. Nay, we should apprehend that fuch readers might infer this from the paffages themselves, carefully confidered in their connection, without any comment or paraphrafe at all. CORRESPONDENCE. [TO OUR READERS.] Our infertion of Mr. Roberts's Letter concerning the rot in fheep, at the end of our Review for November, has procured us the favour of the following remarks on the fame fubject, from another Gentleman. -Perhaps we ought to make an apology to our Readers, for having, by the admiffion of fuch difcuffions, departed from the immediate purpose and plan of a literary journal; but when the importance of the inquiry is confidered, we, furely, may hope for abfolution. Should H. H. Should the little room we have fpared to our Correfpondents on this occafion, pave the way to a difcovery of an effectual remedy for the very great evil they have fo laudably inveftigated, the Monthly Reviewers will have rendered more good to mankind, than ever was done before, by all the Journalists upon earth. Our prefent Correfpondent, after an introductory paragraph, which we have taken the liberty of omitting, thus proceeds: I found the blood-veffels of the liver of many fheep, which were infected with the rot, efpecially about the biliary duct, very dark and turgid. On diffe&ting them, and examining their contents, not with the naked eye only, but also with a compound reflecting microscope, I obferved, among a mass of grumous blood, in all thofe veffels, a great number of infects, with evident figns of animation, which appeared to the naked eye, of different fizes; but many of them about an eighth of an inch broad, and a fourth of an inch long, very much flatted, and in fhape refembling a flounder. Indeed the resemblance is fo ftrong, and the infect fo well known, that the butchers and farmers diftinguish it by that appellation. Examining many of them, attentively, by the microfcope, I found an aperture in the narrow extremity of the body, which may, with evident propriety, be called the head; which aperture was undoubtedly the mouth of the infect; and another aperture, of the fame fhape and dimenfions, nearly, about the junction of the thorax and abdomen. There appeared no other aperture in the body, either in the extreme part of the abdomen or elsewhere. They had no appearance of eyes, for the all-wife Author of nature lavishes no parts or members uselessly, and they can have no occafion for organs of fight in their dark and cellular fituations. Many veffels were difperfed through the body in a regular and fyftematic order, filled with a fluid, refembling blood, and all their parts and veffels, while living, had evidently a mufcular motion. I made a flight drawing of them at the time of obfervation, but I cannot now refer to it. Thefe obfervations evidently prove that your correfpondent, Mr. R. is quite mistaken in his theory, however ingenious; and that the Member of the Bath fociety has given a plaufible, if not the true hypothefis. I mult beg leave, likewise, to observe, that, if ewes do not contract the diforder, while they give fuck, this I know from woeful experience, that they frequently die with this complaint, while their lambs depend upon them for food; and indeed, in every stage of geftation. I leave it to the medical faculty to prefcribe a cure; at the fame time obferving, that Dr. Withering, an ingenious physician in Birmingham, fays, in his "botanical arrangement" that the bark of elder is a cure for this disorder. Portman Square, Dec. 23, 1781. I am, Gentlemen, Yours, Mr. Nixon's publication came too late for this Month's Review. Some notice will be taken of it in our next. +++ Lindsay's Catechift is not forgotten. See p. 424, of our Review for June, laft, Art. Letters and Papers published by the Bath Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture, &c. THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For FEBRUARY, 1782. ART. I. The History of English Poetry, from the Close of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century. To which are prefixed Two Differtations. 1. On the Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe. II. On the Introduction of Learning into England. Vol. III. To this Volume is prefixed a Third Differtation on the Gefta Romanorum. By Thomas Warton, B. D. Fellow of Trinity College Oxford, and of the Society of Antiquaries, and late Profeffor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. 4to. 11. 1s. Boards. Dodley, &c. 1781. MR R. Warton is now arrived at that period of his History in which the poetry of England begins to affume a more cultivated and claffical appearance. An intercourse with Italy had laid open to our countrymen the treasures of ancient literature; and the estimation in which poetry was held by the Italians, who at that time led the fashions in Europe, naturally excited an ambition to rival them. Our first claffical poet was Surrey, the Granville of a former age. Mr. Warton juftly remarks, that his life throws fo much light on the character and fubjects of his poetry, that it is almost impoffible to confider the one, without exhibiting a few anecdotes of the other. Not only for the reafon affigned by Mr. Warton, but also for the fake of giving a curious fpecimen of the romantic manners of the age in which he lived, we fhall lay what Mr. W. fays on this fubject before our Readers: While a boy, he was habituated to the modes of a court at Windfor-caftle; where he refided, yet under the care of proper inftructors, in the quality of a companion to Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, a natural fon of King Henry the Eighth, and of the highest expectations. • This VOL. LXVI. G This young nobleman, who alfo bore other titles and honours, was the child of Henry's affection: not fo much on account of his hopeful abilities, as for a reafon infinuated by Lord Herbert, and at which thofe who know Henry's history and character will not be furprised, because he equally and strongly resembled both his father and mother. A friendship of the clofeft kind commencing between these two illuftrious youths, about the year 1530, they were both removed to Cardinal Wolfey's College at Oxford, then univerfally frequented, as well for the excellence as the novelty of its inftitution; for it was one of the first feminaries of an English University, that profeffed to explode the pedantries of the old barbarous philofophy, and to cultivate the graces of polite literature. Two years afterwards, for the purpose of acquiring every accomplishment of an elegant education, the Earl accompanied his noble friend and fellow-pupil into France, where they received King Henry, on his arrival at Calais to vit Francis the First, with a moft magnificent retinue. The friendship of these two young noblemen was foon ftrengthened by a new tie; for Richmond married the Lady Mary Howard, Surrey's fifter. Richmond, however, appears to have died in the year 1536, about the age of feventeen, having never cohabited with his wife *. It was long before Surrey forgot the untimely lofs of this amiable youth, the friend and affociate of his childhood, and who nearly resembled himself in genius, refinement of manners, and liberal acquifitions. The FAIR GERALDINE, the general object of Lord Surrey's paffionate fonnets, is commonly faid to have lived at Florence, and to have been of the family of the Geraldi of that city. This is a mistake, yet not entirely without grounds, propagated by an eafy mifapprehenfion of an expreffion in one of our poet's odes, and a paffage in Drayton's heroic epifles. She was undoubtedly one of the daughters of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare.' The reafons for this fuppofition were originally fuggefted by Mr. Walpole +, whofe key to the genealogy of the matchlefs Geraldine Mr. Warton has adopted. It is not precifely known at what period the Earl of Surrey began his travels. They have the air of a romance. He made the tour of Europe in the true spirit of chivalry, and with the ideas of an Amadis; proclaiming the unparalleled charms of his mistress, and prepared to defend the caufe of her beauty with the weapons of knighterrantry. Nor was this adventurous journey performed without the intervention of an enchanter. The first city in Italy which he propofed to vifit was Florence, the capital of Tufcany, and the original feat of the ancestors of his Geraldine. In his way thither, he paffed a few days at the Emperor's court; where he became acquainted with Cornelius Agrippa, a celebrated adept in natural magic. This visionary philofopher fhewed our hero, in a mirror of glafs, a living image of Geraldine, reclining on a couch, fick, and reading one of Wood, Ath. Oxon. i. 68. + Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, vol. i. p. 15 edit. 1759. |