PASTORA. The reed difports upon the founding thorn, But ah! my virgin fwain is chafter far GALATEA. What found was that, which dawn'd a bleating hue, Your notes sweet maid, this proverb still shall foil, PASTORA. Ah, no! whate'er thou art, or figh, or word, GALATEA. Thy dazzling harmony affects me fo, PASTORA. When night pellucid warbles into day, GALATEA. Magnetic thunders now illume the air, Ev'n Ev'n Thetis fmooths her brow, and laughs to fee PASTORA. This young conundrum let me firft propose, GALATEA.. Expound me this, and I'll difclaim the prize, PASTORA. But fee, Aquarius fills his ample vafe, An Ironical Eulogium on IGNORANCE. By Dr. CLANCY, of Durrow, in Ireland. And keeps them ever by delufion The fureft calm that can allay O Ignorance! thou darling child From love, the choiceft boon that Heav'n Knowledge! withdraw thy hated rays; The effence of one grain of fand. The TH An Account of Books for 1767. HE Hiftory of the Life of King Henry the Second, and of the Age in which he lived, in five Books: to which is prefixed, a Hiftory of the Re volutions of England from the Death Edward the Confeffor to the Birth of Henry the Second. By George Lord Lyttelton. [3 vols. 4to.] A S there is, perhaps, no study fo delightful as that of hi ftory, fo there is no hiftory foufe ful as that of our own country. The very early accounts of England, as of all other antient nations, being founded on fable, the reading of any thing relating to thofe dark ages, may be confidered merely as an amusement. But from the time that the different king doms of the heptarchy were united under one government; that the Anglo Saxon conftitution began to be compleatly formed; and that many facts became properly afcertained; every part of the hiftory of England becomes an object of confideration. The noble author of the excellent work before us, has chofen one of the moft critical, the most diftinguished, and the most interefting periods, for the fubject of his history. To his age of Henry the fecond he has prefixed a history of the revolutions which happened in England from the death of Edward the Confeffor to the birth of that prince. And as the hiftory of King Stephen is in 3 cluded in the first book of the age of Henry the fecond, we have thereby a compleat history of England and of its continental connections, for that interefting period of above an hundred years. In this period we fee the conqueft of one mighty nation by another; the union and incorporation of both nations; the manner how by flow degrees they were melted into one; and their urited acts under fome of the greateft monarchs that ever lived. The noble writer traces out with the greatest accuracy, the degrees by which the Norman feudal system was engrafted upon, and interwoven with the Anglo Saxon constitution; from whence, through various modifications, proceeds that excellent form which we enjoy at present. This is a part of our history, which requires the greateft labour, judgment, and knowledge, to inveftigate; and which, though effentially requifite to be known by every Englishman of confideration in his country, is the most involved in obfcurity, the leaft generally understood, and the part as to which modern writers differ moft in opinion. For this, many caufes may be affigned; most of our writers have been influenced by fome or other of the parties into which we have been fo frequently divided, and which are perhaps fo neceffary for the prefervation of a free ftate. From hence it has proceeded, that too many |