added that of a long lift of writers, formed to embellish even an Auguftan age; Hume, Smith and Gibbon, Robertfon, Gray and Melmoth: while Beattie, Blair, and Johnson, strove to amend it. The last, denfus et brevis, femper fibi conftans, like Thucydides; fixing at length the limits of that language, in which he taught a pure morality drawn from its facred fource, the fount of truth. Ferguson fpurning our low spot called earth, sent his fublimer contemplations to the sky, where he had the felicity to fee, in 1761, the repetition of that beautiful phenomenon, a tranfit of Venus, promised by Kepler when he first conftructed the Rudolphine tables* 1598, and obferved by Horrox, our ingenious countryman, in 1639, whofe latin letter to Crabtree on the fubject is particularly elegant. Bryant meantime brought to the best caufe fupport from the best learning; and Jones, like the white stone of the apocalypfe, the gnostick abrafax, leaving his white mind abrafa tabula carte blanche; carried to India a foul clear from prejudice, prompt to receive thofe truly facred impreffions he fince has been defirous to reproduce as truths engraved by oriental eloquence. Yet were the thirty years we are reviewing, oddly polluted by unnatural falfehoods, and people not contented to tell lies, lived in them. George Pfalmanazar, who had eaten raw flesh and worfhipped the fun, to make men fancy him a native of Formofa, was fcarce cold in earth before new fictions, new fables perplexed us. An obfcure girl, by a meanly conftructed tale, fet London in a fever of difcordant opinions; and the mayor, who wished to punish what he deemed perjury, scarcely escaped with life from her adherents. A boy counterfeiting nephritick pains he never felt, fuffered in Guy's hospital the first incision of lithotomy, before he would confefs 'twas all a trick; and fome years after that, the Douglas caufe drawn to difgraceful length, showed that high birth was no fecurity against suspicion of a black imposture. Strange literary fraudulence was found in Lauder, charged on Macpherson, and proved clear on Chatterton. Junius, *The Rudolphine tables were fo called from the emperor Rodolphus, mentioned in this Retrospect. clad clad in complete darkness, darted malignant, and yet undetected flashes of wit and anger through the gloom, hitting fome virtuous and well meaning paffengers; but chiefly directing his air-guns against the throne, and taking up attention in a town where no man read for instruction, but every one for curiofity. A pleafing writer, Brown, in his estimate had given a true picture of our falfehoods and follies fome years before; as his book was but fhort, it was read, quoted, and forgotten in twelve months, having run through twelve editions: but even he was not aware of the changes which literature was about to experience, when thofe who profeffed and called themselves Chriftian scholars, confined their studies of divinity to two little pocket volumes; written with much spirit and acutenefs by Soame Jenyns, a gentleman who made the delight of his particular circle, but who had never I fuppofe entertained a notion of seeing himself rated as a polemick of fixfcore duodecimo pages. Yet when the Bishop of London before ordination asked a young gentleman whether he confidered himself as grounded in theology, "My Lord, I have read Jenyns's Evidence quite through," was the reply. The Unbeliever's Creed, printed in a weekly paper called Connoiffeur, had likewise its momentary effect, and deserved lasting remembrance, as the sprightliest and most compendious answer to the Dubieties of Hume, and his contradictory affertions concerning every thing visible as invisible. Example.-I believe that there is no God, but that matter is God, and God is matter, and that it is no matter whether there God or no. be any I believe that the world was not made, that the world made itself, that it had no beginning, and yet that it will laft for ever, world without end. I believe that there is no fuch thing as religion, that natural religion is the beft of all religions, and that all religion is perfectly unnatural. There There are other articles, but for fresh proof of that uucertainty which we were mentioning, and which found itself able to lurk among the common connections of life in a thronged capital for twenty years, d'Eon, dreffed up in women's clothes, must be produced; laughing at the grave men who had endured difputes about diplomacy, as at the gay men who had accepted challenges to fight, from one, who though diftinguished in the field for bravery, and in the cabinet for fineffe, meant not as it appears to end life uno tenore, the expreffion of duc de Nivernois in their long correspondence. To this. extraordinary deceit, all Europe now is deemed to have been the dupe, except le Prince de Conti: although the name might have put people upon their guard, it was affumed by an impoftor from the fame country five centuries ago, the perfon then defired to pafs for the Meffiah; and when I read that he was called d'Eon, it struck me that such an appellation was well chofen to express a dubious undetermined character. But Retrospection has to do only with realities. CHAP CHAP. XX. IN SKETCH OF THE SITUATION OF PORTUGAL, SPAIN, FROM 1750 TO 1780. N the first volume of this general Retrospect, ages were exhibited in which no private vices of a prince or pontiff had much effect towards throwing down the honoured feat he fate on. Our glafs takes in its prefent field moments in which no private virtues, either of civil or ecclesiastical rulers, could be found of power to fupport it. Don Jofeph de Brazil fucceeded his good father, John the fifth, upon the last day of July, 1750. Though he had no fons by his confort, a Spanish princess, he lived well with her; and though he confidered the treaty with her native country as fomewhat disadvantageous to his own, he ratified it, saying, "That no interested confiderations should ever lead a king to break his word." They could not lead him ever to love Great Britain, or confent, fave by connivance or compulfion, at our receiving Portugal gold in change for corn, of which his nation ftood in no small need about the year 1754. Jofeph's attachment to the pomp of a church, whose power he was by no means unwilling to controul, caused his cold looks on England which had left it: yet when the dreadful first of November, 1755, fhook his whole kingdom in a frightful manner, and nearly devoured his finely-fituated capital, 'twas from the English that he first received thofe complimentary addreffes and civilities, which his own fubjects feemed fullenly difinclined to pay, during the horrors of that dreadful week, when amid the hideous prof pect pect of ninety-fix thoufand human creatures fuddenly destroyed by fire, famine and earthquake, their fovereign had the additional mortification to obferve friars haranguing the terrified furvivors, and imputing this. general defolation to their king, queen, and minifters. Much encrease of evil was by this folly added to the endurance of a court, whofe orders being little regarded, only produced more confufion; and whose perfonal danger from madness of a frenzied multitude, was best counteracted by the activity of our ambaflador, and the foft voice of Lambertini's nuncio. That of the English factory, so numerous and wealthy, only nineteen fouls were loft in this diftrefs, ftruck not the senseless inhabitants; who, grown delirious with terror, and superstitious rage, feized a young clerk to fome Proteftant house, hurried him about fhricking, heretick! heretick! in his ears, and refolved, amidst dead and dying, to re-baptize him by force. The youth, newly arrived at Lisbon, ignorant of their language, and incapable of comprehending why he was fingled out for this extraordinary transaction, loft his wits; and remained many months (what wonder?) a confined lunatick. Meanwhile, Stoquelaar, the Hamburgh conful, who lived at Colares, twenty miles out of town, had, on the 31st of October, made observation of a strange fog rifing from the fea in form of a tree, not unlike that Sir William Hamilton has fince described, preceding an eruption of Vefuvius; and, ere the first concuffion came next morning, being alone in the fields, near his own country feat, he perceived electrick sparks ftrike from the mountains round, with noife incredible; and, ftill advancing homeward,. plainly faw the strong vibration of his firm-built house rocking from weft to caft, but not thrown down: while he, amidst the open plain, could fcarce fupport himself from falling, or keep his fenfes clear to view what past: fuch was the deafening clamour that arofe in a calm sunshine day, and fuch the horrors that overwhelmed his heart, at fight of a diftant village all at once confumed, and in its place a lake. Thefe fhocks went on, with fometimes more, fometimes lefs violence, till the next Christmas-day, when all was ftill; but the inhabi tants |