defended for him, the laws and the religion of liberty; the well-being, the enjoyments, the advantages and endearments of civilized life; the juft ambition, the afpiring virtue, the pious hope, the fanctity of his nature! That they have kept alive the facred fpark, the particle of the breath divine, the dignity of life and the facred fuftaining hope of immortality!" P. 25.

With respect to the change of fentiments in many who had formerly enpofed government, he fays:

"Need I mention circumstances not lefs fortunate nor lefs aufpicious to the fafety and final triumph of the kingdom? the converfion I will not fay of all that was virtuous, in our parties, but of all that was not loft to virtue and tired of her; of all that was not fick and weary of the dregs of reputation; all that was not mad as well as wicked, all that was not prepared and refolute to throw off even the hypocrify that gave them power to do mifchief, and to difarm their treachery by profeffing their malevolence. Confpiracies were detected, clubs defpifed and ridiculed, a new light broke in upon the people, and thewed in their native colours of depravity, thofe pretended friends, whofe only fervices had been to invite the enemy into the country, to weaken our force and difcourage our efforts, and expofe and betray us to the enemy they invited. The country was faved. A fpirit had gone forth, and it breathed fresh health and vigour on the Jand. Every breaft beat high, and every hand was armed; and though the tempeft howled from the oppofite fhore, and every wind wafted the din of preparation, the kingdom never fhewed a more ferene and untroubled afpect." P. 33:

But as the part in which this author fpeaks of the operation of time in our favour is most important as well as new, from that we will take our principal felections. The enemy that he most fears, he tells us, is expenditure. The power of France is much lefs formidable in his eyes. Yet he allows her phyfical strength.

"I shall again be told that I under-rate and decry the enemy: and again unjufily, France I know it, is a great nation. Who, more than myself have fhewn the danger of her greatnefs? But fhe is a great nation, as a giant is a great man.-The confciaufnefs of her force is her courage, and the relies upon her bulk for fuccefs.-She poffeffes no moral fuperiority to other nations; fhe has no arts unknown to us, no fuperiority of talents and addrefs, no arms that we do not wield, no fcience that we do not employ. Her weight is her fole preponderance. Her phyfical ftrength is her only boat. Why then confider her prepofterous menace of invafion, even fuppofe our navy out of the way, with all this terror and apprehenfion, are we no more than naked natives of fome new-discovered ifle, who know no empire but our own, who had never seen the waters ploughed, nor heard the cannon's thun der, nor beheld the features of another race of men? Or have our troops fled before this giant on the continent? Or has he never landed on our foil and been conquered there? Has he never aided our rebels

in other times? Are these the first threats he has made, or the firft iajuries he has inflicted? And when he has perifhed on our flores or in our feas, will it be any thing new in the history of his defeats and calamities?" P. . 42.

But on the fubject of time, he argues both with reference to the enemy and to ourselves,

"I do not, however, compute the war upon the continent as one of thefe circumftances which are neceifary to enable us to endure. I am fure, that with economy, and attention to the public fpirit, we can endure without any collateral aid and affiftance; and while we do so, if no war fhould take place at all, what is the confequence for France? The continent will refpire, while fhe is exhaufted and confumes; her enemy recovers, while the pants and bleeds; every hour takes fomething from her ftrength, and adds it to her danger; while fhe wattes and decays, and tends to diffolution, the power of Auftria inhales a new youth, and a new health, and a new vigour. Her new dominions are confolidated and coalefced, her defences are prepared, her communications opened, her troops recruited, her revenues repaired. But what revenue has France if there is peace on the continent? or can fhe plunder afresh, without creating war? What finance has the at home? what juft and permanent fources of income? Let us fuppofe her to forbear her vexations in foreign ftates, the war muft then be supported by her credit or by taxation. Her credit is nothing without the bayonette; her taxation too requires an army.-But fuppofe her taxation peaceable; is it not here that I expect her? is it not here that the will regret her commerce, her induftry, her confumption? will she not at laft perceive the lofs of her nobles and her merchants? but she will make her impofitions direct and numerical; fhe will excife every house and every head! will fhe not mifs then at length her population? will the not deplore her castles burned and her cities razed and ploughed over? will the not laiment her empty villages and her untilled fields ?

"I know of no alternative under which time is not unfavourable to France, as well as favourable to her enemies If the cannot or dare not tax herself, the muft plunder and ufurp. In that case, unless I much misjudge the ftate of Europe, new wars await her. If the taxes, I think there is fome danger for her government, and a certain period of debility and phyfical exhaufture for the nation. If the efcapes both of thefe, I do not ftill perceive the danger which M. de Calonne apprehends for England. I cannot fear from the "expedition with which he may conftruct fhips, nor the interval fhe may confume without putting them to fea." Without peace the never can poffefs a body of feamen; with this caution and delay fhe will not poffefs a failor, fhe will lofe her art along with her artificers. This formidable marine, prepared but unemployed, equipped with all it's mafts and blocks, it's canvafs and it's cordage, perfect in ribs of oak and iron, but unmanned or manned with requifitions of landmen, I will dread as I do a carcase without a foul,

TIME, however, I am told not only is and will be, but has been our enemy-upon matter of fact it is not expected that I fhould

bow

how to any authority.-There is no prefumption in contending for the paft. The past is most properly our own. The paft, from which providence has taken his Almighty hand, upon which he has exhausted his eternal power. Here I may contend with M. de Calonne, as if I were his equal, and I will vindicate, at least with a grateful mind, the benefits we have derived from time. To do this at length would be to fet down the hiftory of the war and the revolution; I confine myfelf to narrower bounds. If the war with all it's errors and all it's calamities, with all it's misconduct, and all it's misfortunes, with all it's prodigality and wafte, with it's defeats and furrenders, with it's wrecks and its fevers, unbalanced by any fuffering or difafter of the enemy, uncompenfated by any victory or any acquifition of our own. -If the war with all it's real and imputed evils, with all those from ourfelves, from our enemies, and from above, exaggerated to the very height and pitch of malice and detraction, has obtained but this one naked folitary benefit of time, for Europe, I think it has been cheaply purchafed with our bravett blood, and our pureft tears-If it has only kept back our people from the medicated bowl and treacherous banquet, while thofe who had feafted on them had time to perifh and transform, and make known by their blotches and their cries the poifons they had fwallowed-If it has only given time to the world to wait the event and contemplate the example, I can regret only with private forrows it's particular facrifices and the generous victims it has exacted as a public man, as a member of the great commonwealth of humanity, I muft applaud and be grateful.

"Is time our enemy? Is time the ally and friend of our enemy, which has not only detected and unmasked his plots, but made himfelf abjure and renounce and execrate the barbarous principles he let loofe upon mankind? Is time our enemy,which has punished Pethion by Robefpierre, and Robespierre by Tallien? Which has thrown Tallien at the foot of Reubell and Barras? Which has made Barras and Reubell overthrow the regicide republic, and depend for impunity and existence, upon a prepotterous and ridiculous ufurpation? An ufurpation which has neither dinafty nor antiquity, nor reverence, nor enthuGafm, nor fuperftition, nor law, nor utility, nor favour, nor any thing but redoubling accumulating evil, and perpetual growing tyranny to fupport it? Is time our enemy, which has expofed the crimes and confumed the refources of our enemy? Which has fwallowed up his navy and his commerce, which has exhaufted his plunder and recruits, which has confumed his trades, his arts, his banks, his capitals, his credit, his mechanifm, and manufactures? Which has spent his forests and demefnes? Which has abforbed his cities and his people? Or is time our enemy, which has fupplanted Dumouriez, Pichegru, Carnot, and Bartlélémi, and raised up his Merlins and Maflenas? Which has difcovered his fordid avarice and peculation, and armed the ftates of America? Which has difplayed his faithlefs flag in the pacified capital of Germany? Which has opened the eyes of our people, detected our clubs, converted our oppofition, and defeated our rebellions? Is time our enemy which has made our government repentant and ashamed of their projects and conferences, and abject petitions for peace? Which

has

has awakened our understanding, and confirmed our fpirit, and dis covered our resources ?"

"Time then, I dare to reaffert, is the enemy of every falfe and vi cious fyftem, and the best friend of Britain and her caufe, and of Europe, because the caufe of Britain is her own. But Time without economy, without a juft and provident combination of exertion and refource, I confefs is pregnant of every danger and every evil. Time, like other friends, may be turned against us by our own neglect, mifconduct, or abufe." P. 79.

The apology for his free and unrestrained diffenfion on fome public meafures, feems to be included by the author in the following paffage.

"There is no oppofition in our kingdom, and if the friends of government fhould never prefume to differ from them, there would be no liberty of opinion in the first place, and in the result no benefit from difcuffion and collifion. Whether there will ever again arife another parliamentary oppofition in this country, or whether our practical contitution fhall fettle upon fome new arch or pillar, is a queftion that I have not leifure to difcufs under the preffure and critis of ftill greater affairs. But I have no difficulty in faving, that it is now the most ferious and incumbent duty of the real friends of government to fupply in fome degree that important chafm and defect; and giving them upon the one hand every aid and fupport which the general caufe demands, and which the profligacy of the laft oppofition, which (to ufe their own jargon) has identified the minifters with the conftitution, renders urgent and indifpenfible, to affume fome care and vigilance over the authority, fhall I fay? or the unbounded power which the neceflity of the ftate has confided to their hands. The enemies of government have forfeited the powers of good and harm; they have Icft alike the means of utility and of mifchief: and if it's friends will not or may not fpeak, there is neither liberty nor candour, nor inte grity; and there will not be, very long or very certainly, any fixed or any public policy in the management of the ftate." P. 89.

After giving thefe fpecimens, we will not pay our readers fo ill a compliment as to tell them, what they muft of themfelves perceive, that this author writes with energy and fpirit. The great quality which diftinguifhes him, in our opinion, from all writers who have fallen under our notice, is a general and juft and clear comprehenfion of political tendencies and interests, not only in this kingdom, but throughout Europe. His line of policy is generous and bold; his view penetrating; his judgment rarely erroneous: and, if erroneous, only made fo by excefs of eagernefs in the right. If he makes too frequent and too wide excurfions into the field of metaphor, it is a fault from which his mafter, Burke, was not exempt: and though he must be deemed an imitator of that original, his

imagination lefs frequently misleads his judgment, and he imitates like a man who could have formed an original style, if he had not met with one which he very greatly approved.

ART. IX. Poems by the late George Monck Berkeley, Efq. LL. B. F. S. S. A. with a Preface, by the Editor, confifting of fome Anecdotes of Mr. Monck Berkeley and several of his Friends. 4to. 1. 11s. d. Leigh and Sotheby. 1797.

THE editor is Mrs. Berkeley, the mother of the author, in

whofe fingular, but, in many inftances, entertaining preface, we meet with what would difarm any critic of feverity.

"In Mr. Monck Berkeley's benevolent vindication, in the Author's Preface to the Poems, he exhorts to remember that the Reviewers are but MEN. If thofe Gentlemen condefcend to review a few pages written by a feminine pen, the Editor wishes them to remember, that fhe is a Woman, a fuffering OLD Woman, with most of the accomplishments at threescore that molt females have at the age of man," ten years later that the ferved an apprenticeship to extreme anxiety and anguish for very near feven years-feeing daily the declining state of health of the two nearest and deareft connections in life, obliged to affect cafe, and often shearfulness, whilst her heart bled at every vein. Unfortunately for her, both Father and Son, through their lives, declared, that if the Editor's conftant, even cheerfulnefs, never high, never low, failed, both would give themselves up to abfolute defpair. The ftrong exertions neceffary to act the part to their fatisfaction have certainly brought on a premature old age; and the Editor, according to the witty, wife, pious, Bishop Taylor," is quite ready-dreffed for the grave," whither the feems hafting apace. The Bishop, in his "Holy Dying," fays, "dim eyes, gray hairs, ftiff joints," &c. &c. are all fo many dreffings for the grave." He does not add dulled faculties; I am fure he might, although perhaps, HE might not feel it; his own wit being too well tempered to have the keenness of its edge blunted by aught but death itself. That is the lot of but very few. P. cclxiv.

We certainly meet with much that might well be fpared in these introductory pages; but there are many curious anecdotes and pleasant tales. For example:

"Mr. Berkeley having been always told by his Father, that Dean Swift was the introducer of his Grandfather when he came young into England, to the learned and the great, occafioned his, from a boy, being a great admirer of that wonderful man, and his fo zealousy labouring to vindicate his fame in the Preface to his Literary relics

from