and mentions it in one of his notes, where he alters "When I was fometimes," to "When I am," on the authority of that copy. He fpeaks of it thus:

"The change of the tense feem'd neceffary here, before I faw the copy of 1652. The copy of 1652, which I fhall have occafion to mention more than once in the courfe of my notes upon the Wild goofe Chafe, is but that of this fingle play of Mr. Fletcher's, recovered from a defperate ftate (all the world giving it over for loft) by two players, Lowin and Taylor, who, by putting it to the prefs, took the only means of preferving this celebrated piece of our author, and confulted their own prefent emolument, as well as provided for the future delight of all lovers of true wit. The editor of the folio of 1679," he adds, "has been tolerably careful in collating this copy."

The edition of 1652 is afterwards mentioned five times, in Theobald's or Sympfon's notes.

The Dedication of Lowin and Taylor, which is addreffed to the honour'd Few, Lovers of Drammatick Poefte," is occupied entirely in the praises of the piece, and complaints of their hard lot, as players, in thofe inaufpicious times, which had compelled them to be Mutes; and gives no account how the play had been recovered. The title-page runs thus :

"The Wildgoofe Chafe, a Comedie. As it hath been acted with fingular Applaufe at the Black-Friers: being the noble, laft, and onely Remaines of thofe incomparable Drammatifts, Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher, Gent. Retriev'd for the publick Delight of all the Ingenious; and private Benefit of John Lowin, and Jofeph Taylor, Servants to his late Majeftie. By a Perfon of Honour. Ite bonis avibus. London, printed for Humphery Mofeley, and are to be fold at the Prince's Armes, in St. Paules Church Yard, 1652.”

Nothing more can be learned from that fource concerning the recovery of this play, on which Farquhar founded his lively comedy of the Inconftant. We fhall only add, that Taylor was the actor who had performed the part of Mirabell, and Lowin that of Belleur. There is nothing in Mr. Mafon's remarks on this play that is particularly worthy of notice; except that, in p. 196, he conje&ures that we should read "a glade to catch woodcocks," instead of a glode; which is thus completely confirmed by Willughby. We in England are wont to make great glades through the woods, and hang nets across them and fo the woodcocks shooting through the glades as their nature is, ftrike against the nets and are entangled in them." Ornithol. B. I. Ch. 3. The English tranflation of the Dictionnaire Oeconomique, ufually called "Bradley's Family Dictionary," fpeaks fimilarly of glades, under the article Woodcock.

:

ART. V. The Republican Judge; or the American Liberty of the Prefs, as exhibited, explained, and expofed, in the Cafe and • partial Profecution of William Cabbett, for a pretended Libel against the King of Spain and his Embajador, before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. With an Addrefs to the People of England. By Peter Porcupine. 8vo. 95 pp. Wright, Piccadilly. 1798.

25.

AS we had the fatisfaction of being the first perfons to in

troduce this very meritorious writer to the notice of the Englith public, we are by no means difpofed to lofe fight of him. They who chofe at that time to doubt of his existence, would be very glad, if they could, to difprove it now; but, to their annoyance, and to the vexation of all Jacobins, he undoubtedly exifts; and has done more towards the fubversion of the French intereft in America, and confequently toward reftoring the ancient cordiality between that country and Great Britain, than could poffibly have been expected from the efforts of any fingle writer. Truth,-Truth was with him; and what can long fubfift against the powers of Truth and Honesty?

As this pamphlet commences with an Addrefs to the People of England, it feems the indifpenfable duty of an English Reviewer to lay that Addrefs at large before his countrymen. What weight they will allow to it, they muft for themselves decide; but the literary reporter hould, by all means, give it as he finds it.

"Addrefs to the People of England.

"Gentlemen,

"Since your ancient and inveterate enemy, the French, have planned the destruction of your government, as the fure means of subjecting you to their power, their wicked and deteftable agents have used various arts to feduce you from that loyal attachment, which forms its principal bulwark. Amongst thefe arts, that of extolling the excellence of Republican Governments has not been omitted, and I wish I could fay, it had been used without effect. At first, France was held up as the model for you to imitate; but, there, facts foon gave the lye to the statements of her tools; facts which they could not disguise, which spoke to you in the cries of mifery, and in the fhrieks of torture and of death. But, America was a more distant fcene, and a fcene too which the pencil of partiality had already painted in the moft flattering colours. When, therefore, you were difgufted and fhocked at the horrid view exhibited in France, hither your eyes were directed for an example.

See our account of his Remarks on the Emigration of Dr. Priestley. Brit. Crit. vol. iv, p. 498.

"I have

I have often been aftonished, that those writers, who have fo ably food forth as the champions of your government and conftitution, have never made more than very flight attempts to undeceive you in this refpect. They have conftantly confined themfelves to France; but their opponents have replied (and with fome degree of plaufibility), that France is yet in an unfettled ftate; that America exhibited the happy effects of a finished revolution; that fuch France would be; and Britain alfo, if revolutionized into a republic. Here the parties were fairly at iffue, and the friends of your country had as good an oppor tunity as they could wish for, to beat their opponents on their own ground. But inftead of accepting the challenge thus offered, they have forborne to push their advantage, and declined the conteft, when certain of victory. Whence does this forbearance proceed? Is it from a fpurious liberality, alike remote from genuine fortitude and manly condefcenfion; alike hoftile to principle, and repugnant to duty? From whatever fource it proceeds, its confequences are much to be deplored; for it tends to nothing lefs than a tacit admiffion, that the people of America enjoy more liberty and happiness than those of Great Britain: a conceffion dangerous in the extreme, and not lefs dangerous than weak and unjuftifiable.

A long continued series of received and uncontradicted falfhoods cannot fail to produce an accumulation of prejudices, which it becomes extremely difficult to remove; and, as its removal can never be effected but by facts, it requires an affiduity and a toil, to which talents fcorn to fubmit, and at the very fight of which genius takes her flight. Yet, there now and then arifes, in our island, an obftinately perfevering mortal, favoured neither by nature nor by education, regardless alike of interest and of fame, and deftitute of every ftimulus to action, except that love of his country which every true-born Englishinan fucks in with his mother's milk :-fuch a man might undeceive you; and fuch a man am I.

"To prove to you, that your are happier and more free than the people of America, and to do it by uncontrovertible facts, is what, with the permiffion of God, I pledge myfelf to perform. But this must be a work of time. The pamphlet which I here prefent you is nothing more than a trifling effay: a fort of introduction to what you have to expect. I befeech you, however, to read it with attention, and, as you proceed, lay your hands upon your hearts and fay, if the proceedings it records had taken place in England, whether you would not have looked upon your king as a defpot, and yourselves as the most degraded of flaves.

"In nothing that I have faid, do I wifh to fatirize the people of this country in general. There is as great a proportion of good men here as in England, a much greater proportion than there is any where elfe; but, they are borne down by thousands of afpiring demagogues, who are continually troubling the fource, and interrupting the current, of their liberties and their happinefs. To guard you against this evil; to caution you against the adoption of a mifchief of fuch mighty magnitude, is the fole object I have in view. Were I a native American, to do this would be my duty. He who feels himfelf finking into an abyfs, and neglects to warn his neighbours of their dan

ger,

ger, is juftly accufed of felfifhnefs, if not of cruelty: but, he who is guilty of this neglect towards his friends and his family, is a rebel against nature, that merits the malediction of his parents, and the abhorrence of mankind.

Philadelphia, April 10th, 1798.}

PETER PORCUPINE."

The cafe of Peter was this. In his newfpaper, entitled the Porcupine, he published a fevere cenfure upon the King of Spain. This the Spanish Minifter, Don Carlos Martinez de Yrujo, reprefented as matter deferving profecution. Thus far all was regular, and no more than might have happened in England. But Peter was bound over to appear in the Federal Diftrict Court, and with this the Spanith minifter was not fatisfied. He delivered in a memorial to the Federal Government, requesting that the trial might come on before the Supreme Court of Pennfylvania.-This was brought about by means of a bill of indictment, prepared by the Attorney-General of Pennsylvania. Here commences the grievance. Of the Supreme Court of that province, the Chief-Juftice is one M'Kean; a man, according to the reprefentation of Peter, of a moft infamous character: undoubtedly a strong friend to the French intereft, which amounts nearly to the fame thing. This M'Kean, in his charge to the Grand Jury, thought proper not only to expatiate on the doctrine of libels, in a manner very unfavourable to the liberty of the prefs, as understood in America, but went fo far, as perfonally to point out Peter to the Grand Jury as an object of punishment. This part of his charge was conceived in the following terms.

"At a time when mifunderstandings prevail between the Republies of the United States and France, and when our general government have appointed public minifters to endeavour their removal, and restore the former harmony, fome of the journals or newspapers in the city of Philadelphia have teemed with the moft irritating invectives, couched in the most vulgar and opprobious language, not only against the French nation and their allies, but the very men in power with whom the minifters of our country are fent to negociate. Thefe publications have an evident tendency not only to fruftrate à reconciliation, but to create a rupture, and provoke a war between the fifter Republics, and feem calculated to vilify, nay, to fubvert all Republican governments whatsoever.

"Impreffed with the duties of my fiation, I have used fome endeavours for checking thefe evils, by binding over the editor and printer of one of them, licentious and virulent beyond all former example, to his good behaviour; but he ftill perfeveres in his nefarious publications; he has ranfacked our language for terms of reproach and infolt, and for the bafeft accufations against every ruler and diftinguished character in France and Spain, with whom we chance to have any intercourse,

which it is fcarce in nature to forgive; in brief, he braves his recog nizance and the laws. It is now with you, gentlemen of the grand jury, to animadvert on his conduct; without your aid it cannot be corrected. The government that will not discountenance, may be thought to adopt it, and be deemed justly chargeable with all the confe

quences.

"Every nation ought to avoid giving any real offence to another. Some medals and duli jefts are mentioned and reprefented as a ground of quarrel between the English and Dutch in 1672, and Ikewife caufed Lewis the 14th to make an expedition into the United Provinces of the Netherlands in the fame year, and nearly ruined the Commonwealth.

"We are forry to find that our endeavours in this way have not been attended with all the good effects that were expected from them; however we are determined to purfue the prevailing vice of the times with zeal and indignation that crimes may no longer appear lefs odious for being fashionable, nor the more fecure from punishment for being popular.' P. 45.

Notwithstanding this effort, not very laudable in a ChiefJuftice, the Grand Jury threw out the bill, by returning it Ignoramus. At this the Chief-Juftice was fo angry, that, the next day, in recommending an appeal to the law in case of libel, he faid, " you may fay indeed that Grand Juries will not now do their duty, we have had a recent inftance of that.” (p. 46) After ftating thefe facts, Peter Porcupine goes on to show, that libels infinitely more virulent than his own, on the oppofite fide, had paffed without any profecution, and, in every part, illuftrates his facts by his own very ftrong and pointed mode of reafoning.

Adverting to his old friend, Dr. Priestley, and an affertion of "Here the prefs is his, in a Letter to the People of England, free; here truth is not a libel;" he has the following remarkable note.

"The letter, of which I fpeak here, I have a copy of by me, in a Liverpool paper. But, fince the Doctor wrote that letter, it feems, experience has changed his opinion.-He has fuffered the juft punishment of his malignancy against his country; he has been cheated, neglected, and fcorned. He now is in an obfcurity hardly penetra ble; he is reduced to poverty, and is bursting with vexation. All this has had an effect; and I will state as a fact, which I call on him to deny, if he can; that he has lately declared, that "republican governments are the moft arbitrary in the world!!!" P. 78.

Having explained his own complaints with much very appofite fatire, and fome strong and fenfible opinions concerning publications in this country, (p. 86) Peter Porcupine con cludes, as he began, with an addrefs to his countrymen, which is thus worded.. i

"I have