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in the middle ages, having been all derived from, and counter, point firft cultivated in, the papal chapel and court of Rome], then in the Hanfeatic towns, next in the Netherlands; and, by tranfplantation, during the fixteenth century, when commerce became general, to have grown, flourished, matured, and diffu fed their influence in every part of Europe.'

The author, as we have obferved in the preceding article, fpeaks of the addition, at fome future time, of a third volume." We are happy to learn, that he has alreadly made a pretty confiderable progrefs in this truly defirable work; animated, we doubt not, by the increafing facility and agreeablenefs of the remaining part of his talk. The future fubjects, likewife, of his hiftory will naturally become more and more interefting to a confiderable majority of his readers, in proportion as he advances nearer to our own times.

ART. VII. A Metaphyfical Catechism; containing a Sum of the Doctrines of Materialifm and Neceffity, as at prefent profeffed. 8vo. Is. Johnfou. 1782.

TH

HE end of this publication is to reprefent the doctrines of Materialism and Neceffity in fo fimple and concife a manner, as to make them more eafily comprehended. Metaphyfical difquifitions are generally above the level of common underftandings; and those who have abilities for comprehending them, are feldom difpofed to give themselves, the trouble of becoming metaphyficians at the first hand. They are generally contented with elementary knowledge; and that they are averle to glean from a bulky mafs. It must be prepared by others who have more patience or more leifure. To gratify to indolent a difpofition is one object of the prefent writer. But it is not the fale object. No: while he illuftrates, he attempts to expofe: and, in abridging a fyftem, he labours to fix on it its own confutation. The defign is artful: and, to do the author justice, he conducts it with ingenuity and acuteness.

We will present the Reader with an extract from the con clufion.

2. Upon the principles of neceffity, how do you account for a fenfe of merit and demerit, of felf-applause and felf-reproach?

A. These are only popular terms, and the ideas belonging to them only popular ideas. The bulk of mankind are very short-fighted. For want of clear and extenfive views they refer their actions to themfelves. They confider themfelves as the caufes of them, But could they open their eyes fufficiently, they would refer them conftantly to the firft caufe. A true Neceffarian never applauds or reproaches himfelf; never has a fenfe of merit or demerit. He has a fenfe of great or fall value indeed; but it is fuch a fenfe as a hatchet, endowed with confcionfnefs, would have of its being a good hatchet if it cut well, and bad hatchet if it cut ill.

2. Do not all laws divine and human fuppofe men to be free agents?

A. Yes; but laws were made for the vulgar. They fuggeft a proof, however, of the truth of the doctrine of neceffity. They foppose men to be influenced by motives. They therefore prefent to them the two powerful motives of rewards and punishments. If all men were true Neceffarians there would be no occasion for laws.

2. But if men be not free agents, where is the juftice of punishing when they tranfgrefs?

4. Juftice is a popular word. A true philofopher calls it propriety or afefulness. Punithment is necefiry for the melioration of delinquents and of fociety. It is a motive which depends on a prior motive. It originates in the Deity, and tends to accomplish the great end of creation.

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2. Is there then no such thing as virtue and wice, innocence and

A. These are all popular names, and convey fallacious ideas. Inftead of them, a true philofopher, except when he speaks with the vulgar, fays, worth and wortbleffness, good and ill; and in applying them to human characters, he annexes no other idea to them than in applying them to his pen and penknife.

2. On the fyftem of neceffity, what is the ufe or propriety of the religious exercifes of repentance and prayer?

A. They are of great ufe; but they are only for the vulgar. God, foreseeing that the bulk of mankind would be blind, and that they would erroneously refer their own actions to themselves, has wifely adapted the fyftem of religion that he has prefented to them, and the modes of religious worship to their imperfect view of things. But a true Neceffarian has no occafion for these things. Unless he depart from his character, and think with the vulgar, it would be abfurd in him to use them. While his eye is clear, and he can trace every thing to the Deity, and fee every thing in him, he has no caufe to repent, no caufe to pray. He knows that whatever is, is right. All his religi ous worship, therefore, confists in praifing the Author of all things. He refolves every thing into the agency of the Deity, and is fatisfied.

2. Has not this doctrine a tendency to produce univerfal inactivity among mankind?

A. By no means. The true philofophers are the most active creatures in the world. The Deity has provided fufficient motives to activity.

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2. You refolve all things into the agency of the Deity,—is then God the author of fin?

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A." Of him, and to him, and through him, are all things."

• 2 Can you fwallow fuch a potion without fhuddering? A. Aye; and find it falutary.

2. Were your doctrines generally embraced and practifed, would they not destroy the peace, and even the existence of society? A. They are great and glorious doctrines.'

It is fufficiently obvious, that the main defign of this fhrewd pamphlet, is to expose what is deemed of a pernicious tendency,

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in the late difquifitions of that enterprifing writer in theology and metaphyfics, Dr. PRIESTLEY. His fyftem of materialism is reprefented as abfurd and inconfiftent; and his principles of neceffity as irreligious and immoral. As a mere fpeculatift, fecluded from fociety, and reafoning only on abftract and metaphyfical grounds, the writer of this article confeffes, that he has not been able to withstand the force of Dr. Prieftley's arguments on these subjects.

Hitherto he has not feen them answered fo fully and fatisfactorily, as not to leave the Doctor ample scope to turn every objection that hath been alleged againft him back on the oponent. The capital points, on which the moft popular objections fix, are by no means peculiar to his fyftem. Remove a few fpecious appearances, diveft the fubject of a few commodious forms, and the fyttem of immaterialism and liberty, generally efpoufed (by Chriftians at leaft), is liable ultimately to objections, equally infurmountable with those which attend the oppofite fyftem of materialism and neceffity. While certain data respecting the attributes and providence of the Deity are mutually acceded to, the latter is not more embarraffed with difficulties than the former; perhaps thefe difficulities may lefs affect it on the whole, though confidered in a detached view, fome parts of it may have the appearance of an immoral tendency; and it is these parts, brought forward in a strong light, and heightened with the colours of rhetoric, which principally affect the minds of common and fuperficial speculatifts; and when the imagination is terrified by a display of pretended confequences, reafon too frequently fubmits in filence; and because it is awed, it is thought to be convinced.

We acknowledge, however, that we do not fee the utility of the fyftem contended for by Dr. Priestley, when viewed in a moral and civil light. A few refined and philofophic minds may be capable of comprehending the full extent of this fyftem; and to understandings fo enlarged and fo cultivated, it may not prove detrimental. But when only partially understood (and it is only fo understood by the generality), it may prove highly prejudi.cial to the more fubftantial interefts of virtue and piety. Its good confequences lie very remote from the apprehenfion of common minds, and can only be perceived, after a long chain of reafoning, and never properly felt but by an affociation of ideas, which can only be acquired by a habit of close reflection, joined to a high degree of mental purity and devotion. In fhort, the fyftem of materialism and neceffity, if it be true, is not fit for common ufe; and, if it be falfe, its opponents will fay, that its pernicious tendency encreases and aggravates the error.

ART.

Tranf

ART. VIII. Hymn to the Sun; and the Tomb, an Elegy; in Poetic Profe. By the Abbé de Reyrac, Cenfor Regius, Correfpondent to the Royal Academy of Infcriptions and Belles Lettres of Paris. lated from the Fifth Edition of the Original French, by O B——————, Efq; of the Middle Temple. 12mo. 2s. Kearsley. 1782.

F

ENELON, the author of Telemachus, seems to have been the parent of that fpecies of writing which is called Poetic Profe. For that kind of rhythmus, in profaic compofitions, which was so much studied and admired by the antients, upon which Dionyfius Halicarnaffenfis has written a diftinct treatise, and which Cicero particularly infifts upon in feveral parts of his works, is of a very different nature. It was an object of great attention among the Greek and Roman writers, to chuse and arrange their words in fuch manner as to produce a certain melodious flow of founds, which conftitutes one principal excellence in their writings. But they do not appear to have had any idea of that motley fpecies of ftyle, in which all the peculiarities of poetical conception and diction are united with the loofe arrangement of profaic compofition. They would not have honoured, with the name of poetry, a kind of writing which wants one of its diftinguishing characters, measured verfification; they would probably have treated it with contempt, under the appellation of disjecti membra poëtæ.

It may, perhaps, be fome apology for the introduction of this kind of writing among the French, that their language is too foft and feeble to fuit the majefty of poetry in her fublimer elevations. But this can be no reafon for taking pains to tranfplant fuch heterogeneous productions into the English language, which is more capable of the ftrength and harmony of poetic compofition.

The original work here tranflated has doubtlefs fome merit, in the boldness of its conceptions, and the animated turn of its language. But, in its English drefs, the incongruous union of poetical images and fentiments, with an inharmonious and often inelegant profaic diétion, cannot but difguft every reader who poffeftes any fhare of claffical tafte.

Of this the reader will be fufficiently fenfible from perufing the following extract:

O Sun! The roly-finger'd morn fcarce opes the flaming doors of the east, when, like a proud conqueror, impatient to fignalize himself by new triumphs, thou tear ft from the heavenly vault thy fhining difk;-forthwith thou departeft, and doft magnificently raise thyfelf above the whole world; thou difplayett with pomp thy ardent fires, and dartcit them rapidly through the vast plains of air, to enlighten at once all the different parts of the world. Already every thing is on fires The Rars grow pale and are offufcated;-followed by the blaze of

day,

day, the night, affrighted, flies away-precipitates herself into the bottom of the deep, and involves in her dark veil, the god of filence and of fleep. The fleeting dreams fly before thy car of rubies and of adamant, and flide into the bottom of the fhades.

Thou gildeft the lofty fummit of the high mountains, and the majestic tops of haughty pines and oaks, neighbours of the thunder.. Thou fhineft in the most profound vallies. Amazed at thy lively. fplendour, all the universe rouses. A thousand birds flutter about on the boughs of the tender fhrubs, whofe flowers they shake off, and. come together in a choir, to celebrate thy fplendour by their melodious fongs.

Roufed by thefe charming concerts, the king of nature-man, raifes his noble countenance, that imperious countenance, made to contemplate the heavens, and command all beings. He awakes with joy, and goes forth to admire thy rifing and enjoy thy gifts.

The thunder, whofe redoubled claps, fhook, during the night, the foundations of the earth, the dreadful thunder-bolts, that were heard, at the clofe of day, to rush, with a bellowing noise, through that vaft chain of mountains, and refound in the neighbouring vallies, rumble no more in the air. The fky was never more ferene; nature. never appeared more beautiful.

Ah! how pleafing of a fine morning, to gather, in thofe meads, the flowers which the fun begets. How delightful! to refpire an air embalmed with the fweeteft perfumes, and to behold that enamelled plain, whofe tender and springing verdure gladdens the fight. Peaceable rivulet, I will follow the courfe of thy tranquil ftream, that meanders and flows gently through thofe happy plains, o'er which thou fheddeft freshness and fecundity. Delightful walks, what tranquillity you afford to my mind!

Here, bending o'er this limpid bafin, I behold the fports of the nimble inhabitants of the water, excited by the heat of the air, they swim, dive, and eagerly cross one another; they glide o'er each other a hundred times without corrupting the purity of the water.

There, I admire the beauty of a ftately fwan, who, proud of the whiteness of his plumage, clears its alabaster in the rays of the funextends his shining wings, and, fovereign of the flood, rides at plea fure on its surface; at one time yielding to the current-at another opposing it with a majestic haughtiness.

There, I hear with rapture a flock of birds, who falute the approach of spring, on the branches of that folitary poplar, that fhades those happy banks. The jealous nightingale fwells her flexible throat, and warbles forth her notes. Her rivals abashed, are filent ;-they feem to fufpend their fongs, to liften in filence to the melodious accents of the fylvan mufe-to her varied notes, prolonged and quavered with fo much art.

• Enchanting inhabitants of thofe lovely regions, who delight, by your concerts, heavenly minds, and foften the troubles of this tranhent life, alas! your fongs, your joys will foon be at an end: already the merciless bird-catcher advances haftily, and furveys with furtive eye that thorny bush, thofe hofpitable branches, that, by the thickBefs of their foliage, feemed to offer you an impenetrable shelter. Infenfible to your cries, already he steals his fingers into your neft, and

ravishing,

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