the reach of his common-place and circumscribed intelligence. He weighs the matter carefully, but gives false weight, because he knows not what standard to use. Tardus is a critic in spite of igno. rance, and would be a good judge of literature if he were not too du" to comprehend: Tardus has nevertheless all the inclination to be one. Tardus affixes vast consequence to every affair, and makes himself the great mover. He proceeds with caution when it is unnecessary, and is careless when a matter is of cousequence. Tardus is correct when it is inpossible to mistake, and blinders when it is material to be correct. Tardus moves majestically; not any thing turns him out of his woad; and he never begins to make reasonable haste to get a matter finished, until after it is too late. Tardus has not the festina lente; his is the fes I SIR, AM desirous to offer a few opinions to the town, through the medium of your intelligent publication, respecting a class of people who have hitherto been treated with great severity, of whose character many erroneous opinions have been formed, and to whose fraternity I had formerly the good fortune to belong; I mean, those intelligent persons who are practisers of the sciences of astrology and palmistry, and of which I was myself a professor. If it may not be considered obtruding upon the more useful materials of your Magazine, I might, perhaps, be able to afford your readers some entertainment from my adventures while acting in the capacity of a Fortune-teller. I shall, however, for the present, do little else than enter into an illustration or defence of the sublime art of astrology, which has been so justly proscribed by the Legislature, from the abuses that have prevailed among its occult professors.. On the subject of the antiquity of the art of fortune-telling, it is known, that it originated with the Chaldeans and Egyptians; that the profound PYTHAGORAS was a professor of palmistry; and that JULIUS CAESAR was also a proficient. Then we have HEREs, the INDIAN ZOPHIRUS, PTOLOMEUS, GALEN; and of later times, ALBERT THE TEUTONIC, MICHAEL SCOTUS, ANTIOCuts BarTHOLOMEUS, CARDAN, and ANDREAS CORvus: all great masters of the art, and who never disgraced it by the quackeries of modern conjurors. Taking, therefore, the origin of the science, I shall subunit that it does not deserve so much obloquy as has been thrown upon it; and I shall endeavour to show, that, properly regulated, it might be made subservient to the purposes of morality; and it must be adinitted to be a refined policy which could make vagabonds beneficial to society, and the genius of gypsies a stimulus to virtue. The superior intelligence of these dingy disposers of good and bad fortune is very well known; and if a police equal to that of the celebrated Mons. de Sartine was meant to be established in the metropolis, by the Home Minister, he could not do better towards effecting it,than by a correspondence with these wandering Egyptian tribes, whose information is always correet. How many a poor creature would be convinced of the superior intelligence of their science, if they did but recollect that what the gipsey told her was what every body in the neighbourhood knew already. But that I may the better show the bencficial effects of fortune-telling to society, I will give a concise account of my own initiation into the profession, and of my conduct while a professor. To be brief, Sir, I began telling other people's fortunes with the necessity occasioned by my own misfortunes, aŭd promised riches to the gentlemen, and husbands to the ladies, that I might get bread for myself, and raiment for ny wife. I was, Sir, brought up a gentleman; and having no useful occupation to apply to for a living, "when house and land was gone and spent," I found myself compelled to live by my wils. I understood very little of chance; and therefore, as I could not calculate the ODDS with these who were used to that sort of arithmetic more than myself, I took it into my head that I would calculate nativities. I had just emerged from the Fleet, and was therefore at up loss to find a man my equal in misfortunes, though, perhaps, inferior in talent; that is, he might never have passed the asses' bridge in Euclid. This man, so "out of suits with fortune," was, nevertheless, destined, as well as myself, to get a living by borrowing her name; and as a certain great Barrister once said of the law, that the best stock in tride for that learned profession was necessity, so it might be said of astrology, and of our case. gown was all that was wanting, which I borrowed of a friend, one of the vergers of a chapel of ease, and which was only wanted by him on a Sunday. I had cash in hand sufficient to purchase a celestial and terrestrial globe, with no signs of the zodiac remaining on the one, nor of the quarters of the world on the other. The romance of Parismus and Parisminps, in black letter, served for the oracle of fate. A I raised a sum of money (from my landlord, to whom I owed a quarter's rent, and without which fortunate failure of payment I could not have obtained my object,) suflicient to get a few hand-bills printed: besides which, he very generously consented that i should use any means of raising money that might lower his claim; he allowed me, therefore, to turn my lodging into an office for bettering the condition of the poor. So with this equipment, and with these properties, I set up business, assisted by my man Gabriel, who never got drunk until the afternoon, and was just muddled enough in the morning to be as unintelligible as I could wish. It is not within the scope and meaning of this letter for me to go at length into the particulars of the numerous visits had from women of fashion, discarded lovers, old maids, ladies' maids, mik maids, and young apprentices: but one thing I must mention, Sir, to you, who know the world, as an extraordinary fact, that the only class of people who never came near me were-fortune hunters. I increased in reputation and in business, until the penetrating eye of the magistracy explored the mysteries of some of the cabinets of some of my cotemporaries, and until I was informed against, by a buxom lady to whom I had. neglected to promise a second husband, although she had absolutely told me that her first was alive. Such are the superior destinies of the law above our art, that my brothers in the profession were placed in durance vife, which my superior intelligence with the police enabled me to escape; when luckily, and without my calculation, my wife's uncle went off in an apoplexy, and my fortune was mended by the talisman of a transfer of a thousand pounds three per cent consolidated. I mean, however, Sir, to establish, that during the time I was a fortuneteller, I was of use to my country and to the community. I can prove that I married seventeen old maids, and obtained innumerable young ones their sweethearts, several apprentices their masters' daughters, and actually saved the lives of several women of fashion, who would otherwise have probably died before their husbands, and who by my art were comforted into a trial of survivrship. My apartments were, in truth, an insurance office, where the value of a life might be easily ascertained, and my tables have been more approved of than those of either the Phoenix or Westmin ster Offices. In short, Sir, although I may have done a little mischief in the world, I have, nevertheless, done great good. I have had more confessions made to me than were ever made to a Franciscan friar; have pleased all ages and all rauks; and, what is more, unless in the instance of the lady who would be `a widow, have satisfied all my customers. But, Sir, neither your space nor my time will allow of my going further If, howinto my history at prosent. ever, you should happen to think my adventures, while a Fortune-teller, may be likely to allord amusement for half an hour to the elegant readers of your Magazine, I will, at a future time, furish you with an account of some of the visits I have received in the course of my practice, with the causes and consequences. I am, Sir, Yours, &c. THE LONDON REVIEW, AND LITERARY JOURNAL, FOR JANUARY 1807. QUID BIT PULCHRUM, QUID TURPE, QUID UTILE,` quid` NON. Biographical Memoirs of the late Rev. Joseph Warton, D.D., Master of St. Mary Winton College, Preben dary of Winchester Cathedral, and Rector of the Parishes of Wickham and Upham, Hants. To which are added, A Selection from his Works, and a Literary Correspondence between eminent Persons; reserved by him for Publication. By the Rev. John Wooll, A.M., late Fellow of New College, Oxford, Rector of Blackford, Somerset, and Master of the Free Grammar School, Midhurst, Sussex. Vol. I. 4to. 1806. A LTHOUGH we have, in our introduction to our review of the life of Cumberland, stated our opinions of the class of literature which is termed biography; yet as many of our observations applied to that species of it in which a man told his own story, and became the recorder of his own actions, whereby the world learned what he chose to say of himself from himself, it is necessary here to state, that the volume now under consideration is of a different complexion. This, although it may, with regard to the writings of the individual whose life it includes, be termed a posthumous publication; yet the record of that life is the respectful tribute of a friend, and consequently the spontaneous effusions of an elegant mind, tenderly commemorating a very excellent, and, in literature, a very elevated character. There is something so pleasing, nay so pious, in these kind of testimonials to the virtues of the wise and good, that they have always met with our highest approbation. In drawing the character of a man during his existence, the delineator might, perhaps, be liable to suspicion with respect to the purity of his motives: his praise might be deemed flattery, his censure malignity; he might be supposed to court patronage, or to envy abilities: but when the eternal fiat has past, every propensity or passion which may be supposed to have guided his pen, is believed to be buried in the grave of the subject of his history: therefore his colours will hardly be deemed too brilliant, or his shades too fleeting, so that they are properly and judiciously blended. This observation more correctly applies to those biographers who record the lives of men distinguished for their political talents; men who have been deeply immersed in the government of their country, and, as they have directed or opposed, have trimmed the seuatorial balance; but can operate little upon the writer of the life of a scholar. The author of the present work had a much more pleasing task to perform. In the contemplation of picty, genius, and learning, he had to record the virtues of a friend, who, in the calm pursuits of literature, the efforts of imagination, and the labour of instruction, had been, perhaps, a more useful, certainly a more innocent character than many politicians, however splendid their talents, however general their celebrity, Let us, therefore, gather from his own words his motive for undertaking it, at the same time that we shal! observe the stile in which it is executed. "A period of more than six years," says Mr. Wooll, "having elapsed since the death of Dr. WARTON, and no pen yet employed in rescuing from oblivion his moral and intel lectual attainments, the Editor feels himself acquitted of presumption of attempting what many others might have more successfully accomplished: of these, some have been probably deterred by a dread of committing ter. 'their own fame in the endeavour to perpetuate that of their author; and this fear should, perhaps, have weighed with the present wriBut if he has succeeded in displaying the extensive and highly endowed mind; if he has given to the world an ampler knowledge and juster ideas of the lively imagina tion, the classical taste, the didactic qualifications, so peculiarly calculated to foster the dawn of juvenile talent, and the thousand warm and benevolent traits which characterized his revered friend and master, he will rest contented with having performed a duty, though he may not have entitled himself to a reward: in a word, if he has not tarnished the reputation and lowered the name of WARTON, he will quietly, submit to the imputation of not having exalted his own." It appears, that Dr. WARTON was born in the house of his maternal grandfather, the Rev. JOSEPH RICHARDSON, Rector of Dunsfold, in the county of Surry, and baptised in the church of that parish 22d April, 1722. His father, "a man of considerable scholarship and sound orthodoxy, had been Professor of Poetry in the university of Oxford." To him we find that young Warton was, until he entered into his fourteenth year, chiefly indebted for knowledge and instruction. On the 2d of August, 1736, having been for a short time at New College school, he was admitted on the foundation of Winchester College, and 'whilst under the discipline and tuition of that school, "Where Bigg presided, and where Burton taught," exhibited the most evident marks of strong intellectual powers. " During his Wykehamical education, he, in conjunction with his friend Collins *," (of the derangement of whose strong, elegant, and elevated mind, several melancholy hints are given in the subsequent letters of Dr. Johnson, upon whom the fate of this ingenious man seems to have made an indelible im'pression,)" sent to the Gentleman's Magazine three poetical pieces of such sterling value as called forth a most flattering cn ̧tique” from the author just mentioned. Mr. Wooll, in corroboration of the early efforts of his genius, introduces a letter from him when under fifteen to his sister, which is certainly very creditable to the talents of the writer. In the month of September, 1740, *The author of the Ode on the Passions," Europ. Mag. Vol. LI. Jan. 1807. being superannuated, he was removed from Winchester, and commenced his residence at Oriel College, Oxford. A pretty extraordinary sentence occurs in this period of the work for so young a stoic, even writing to his father. "I shall read Longinus as long as I live: it is impossible not to catch fire and raptures from his glowing stile. The noble causes he gives (at the conclusion) for the decay of the sublime among men, to wit-the love of pleasure, riches, and idleness, would almost make one look down upon the world with contempt, and wish for toils, dangers, and poverty to combat with." During his residence at Oxford, we find that he composed the ENTHUSIAST, or Lover of Nature; "a poem," says Mr. W., "replete with the happiest efforts of the imagination." "His eminently characteristic piece, entitled The Dying Indian,' and the elegant satire of Ranelagh House,' after the mauner of le Sage, also made their appearance about that time." "On taking his Bachelor's degree, for which he determined in Lent 1744, he was ordained on his father's curacy, and officiated in the church till February 1746." "In the year 1747-8, he was presented by the Duke of Bolton to the rectory of WynDaman, of that neighbourhood, to whom he slade: when he immediately married Miss had long been most enthusiastically at tached." indulgence of connubial happiness, and the "In the year 1751 he was called from the luxury of literary retirement, to attend his patroa to the South of France; for which invitation the Duke had two motives, the Society of a man of learning and taste, and the accommodation of a Protestant Clergyman, who, immediately on the death of his Duchess, then in a confirmed dropsy, could marry him to the lady with whom he lived, and who was universally known and distinguished by the name of POLLY PEACJUM." This same Duke of B. was, we think, the most provident person that ever lived. We have, indeed, sometimes heard of a second wife having been in contemplation during the life-time of the first: such ideas have, we believe, entered into the human mind; but then there i as generally been a little pause betwixt the solemnity and the celebration. His Grace, on the contrary, with a foresight worthy of his elevated rank, it appears, had every thing, even to the very Clergyman, in readiness; and we may suppose, contrary to the idea of Second Master of Winchester School, Shakspeare, with the management and advantages of a boarding-house. "All things that were ordained funeral Turn'd from their office to bright festival;" though there had been a somewhat more than Platonic affection betwixt these parties for three and twenty years *. The laudable motives which induced Dr. Warton to accompany his patron in this continental tour, and the intellectual advantages resulting to i.im from it, are tenderly and ably descanted on by our author. It appears to have terminated, on the part of the Doctor, rather abruptly; although upon the death of the Duchess, as Mr. Devisme, Chaplain to the Embassy at Turin, had been sent for, and was upon the wing to perform the marriage ceremony +, the necessity for his attendance was certainly superseded. He now dedicated the whole of his attention to the editing of Virgil in Latin and English, the Eneid translated by Pitt, the Eclogues and Georgics, with notes on the whole, by himself. In this publication, (though we wonder at his preference of Pitt to Dryden, whose errors, which arose from exuberance of genius, might easily have been corrected,) he introduced Warburton's Dissertation on the sixth Eneid; a commentary on the character of lapis, by Atterbury: to which is added, by himself, three essays on pastoral, didactic, and epic poetry. "It was now his lot," says Mr. W., "to assume a new character, and turn his ideas principally to a very useful but dry channel of literature. He had engaged in a profes and mortification, and capable of bestowing sion to the highest degree productive of pride on a feeling mind the utmost excess of pleasure and of pain; a profession, the anxious responsibility of which nothing but the consciousness of duty willingly discharged can alleviate, and whose labour is softened only by the success of its exertions, and the almost parental attachments inseparable from an in tercourse with youth." Mr. W. here details Dr. Warton's mode of instruction; which seems well calculated for the improvement of his pupils. We are of his opinion of the use of translation: but we carry it still further, as we think it is not only of importance as a general system, but that it comparatively furnishes the mind of the pupil with ideas that are not, perhaps, by other means to be acquired. In the year 1756, Sir George Lyttleton was advanced to a Peerage, and one of his first acts was to confer a scarf upon Dr. Warton. "To him were submitted his Lordship's proposed alterations of Thomson; and under his critical eye was revised a part of his Life of Henry the Ild." In the spring of this year he published his first volume of his Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope;' entertaining and useful miscellany of "which," says Mr. Wooll," is a most literary knowledge and candid criticisin, containing censure without acrimony, and praise without flattery; and abounding with incidents little known, relating to celebrated writers, and instructive remarks upon their characters and works." It is needless here to enter into a detail of a work so well known as ject, but that we are of opinion that this, or to say more upon the subMr. W. appears too anxious to combat the objections of Ruffhead, which seem to have been raised to give him an opportunity to lay them. Yet there is one which we must mention, as it introit does no great honour to a celebrated duces a circumstance which, although painter, is a curious anecdote. "I cannot," says Mr. W., "quit this part of the work, without alluding to another 1 |