tics in Great Britain, who do not think in their hearts, that Fielding has outdone his master *. While the literary world can beast of fuch imitators as Virgil and Taffo, Boileau and Pope, it has no great reason to lament the scarcity of original writers." In reply to the fourth and laft objection to the study of Latin and Greek, "That the Claffic authors contain defcriptions and doctrines, that tend to feduce the understanding, and corrupt the heart," our author ingenuously owns, that it is unhappily founded in truth. At the fame time, he is truly affirms that modern writings are equally pernicious in the fame refpect. He has not a word to fay in vindication of the indecency of the ancient poets, of Ariftophanes, Catullus, Ovid, Martial, Petronius, Perfius, Juvenal, or Horace. "I abandon, fays he, every thing of that fort, whether modern or ancient, to the utmost vengeance of Satire and Criticifm; and should rejoice to hear, that from the monuments of human wit all indecency were expunged for ever. Nor is there any circumstance that could attend fuch a purification, that would make me regret it. The immoral paffages in most of the authors now mentioned are but few, and have neither elegance nor harmony to recommend them to any but profligates-fo ftrict is the connexion between virtue and good taste; and fo true it is, that want of decency will always in one degree or other betray want of fenfe. Horace, Perfius, Martial, Catullus, and Ovid himfelf, might give up all their immoralities, without losing any of their wit:and as to Ariftophanes and Petronius, I have never been able to difcover any thing in either, that might not be configned to eternal oblivion, without the least detriment to literature. The latter, notwithstanding the name which he has, I know not how, acquired, is in every refpect (with the referve of a few tolerable vertes fcattered through his book) a vile writer; his style harsh and affected; and his argument fuch as can excite no emotion, in any mind not utterly depraved, but contempt and abhorrence." Alas! alas! how terribly our author runs retrograde here to the complacency we just now reproached him with!-Does he not know that most of the authors of late years, encouraged by the bon ton (another word for public folly), are of the ftamp of Ariftophanes and Petronius? Dr. Beattie, in the goodneis of his tafte, and the rectitude of his judgement, may call the latter a difgrace to antiquity, and declare it is impoffible to read him without intenfe difguft;" but he only proves, by this, that he knows nothing of artificial impoffibilities. He knows not that Petronius's abominations are fill affirmed to be the *The Reviewers, without meaning to detract from Fielding, whofe genius they hold in high admiration, cannot altogether fubfcribe to this. There is an cafe, a joviality, a feftivity, in Cervantes, well aimed at by the author of Gil Blas, which is not quite hit by Fielding, though poffibly bet ter fupplied by a humour and fhrewdness that may equally please a mere English reader. Rev. delicia deliciarum of fome of the most popular characters in polite literature. For the expediency of ftudying Greek and Latin, our author brings an argument, from the changibility of living languages. "All living languages are liable to change. The Greek and Latin, though compofed of more durable materials than ours, were fubject to perpetual viciffitude, till they ceafed to be spoken. The former is, with reafon, believed to have been more stationary than any other; and indeed a very particular attention was paid to the prefer. vation of it yet between Spenfer and Pope, Hooker and Sherlock, Raleigh and Smollet, a difference of dialect is not more perceptible, than between Homer and Apollonius, Xenophon and Plutarch, Ariftotle and Antonius. In the Roman authors the change of language is ftill more remarkable. How different, in this refpect, is Ennius from Virgil, Lucilius from Horace, Cato from Columella, and even Catullus from Ovid! The laws of the Twelve Tables, though ftudied by every Roman of condition, were not perfectly understood even by antiquarians, in the time of Cicero, when they were not quite four hundred years old. Cicero himfelf, as well as Lucretius, made feveral improvements in the Latin tongue; Virgil introduced some new words; and Horace afferts his right to the fame privilege; and from his remarks upon it, appears to have confidered the immutability of living language as an impoffible thing. It were vain then to flatter ourfelves with the hope of permanency to any of the modern tongues of Europe; which, being more ungrammatical than the Latin and Greek, are exposed to more dangerous, becaufe lefs difcernible, innovations. Our want of tenfes and cafes makes a multitude of auxiliary words neceffary; and to thefe the unlearned are not attentive, becaurle they look upon them as the leaft important parts of language; and hence they come to be omitted or mifapplied in conversation, and afterwards in writing. Befides, the fpirit of commerce, manufacture, and naval enterprife, fo honourable to modern Europe, and to Great Britain in particular, and the free circulation of arts, fciences, and opinions, owing in part to the ufe of printing, and to our improvements in navigation, cannot fail to render the modern tongues, and efpecially the English, more variable than the Greek or Latin. Much indeed has been done of late to afcertain and fix the English tongue. Johnson's Dictionary is a molt important, and, confidered as the work of one man, a moft wonderful performance. It does honour to Eng land, and to human genius; and proves, that there is ftill left among us a force of mind equal to that which formerly diftinguished a Stephanus or a Varro. Its influence in diffufing the knowledge of the language, and retarding its decline, is already obfervable: Si Pergama dextra Hor. Ar. Poet. ver. 46-72. And And yet, within thefe last twenty years, and fince this great work was published, a mulitude of new words have found their way into the English tongue, and, though both unauthorifed and unneceffary, fcem likely to remain in it.” To take advantage of an errour of the prefs, to make a pun, may feem beneath the dignity of Reviewers; but we own ourfelves not infenfible to the influence of an accidental playfulness of words. Inftead of faying a multitude of new words, the typographer has aptly enough made it a mulitude of new words; fignificantly infinuating that they are mere mules, incapable of propagation; and fo in general we find them. In the wonderful dictionary of Johnton's he may find fome thouf: nds of the like old mules, that can neither propagate their fpecies nor fupport their own exiftence, notwithstanding the legitimacy of their derivation from the Greek and Latin.-If Dr. Beattie confiders Johnfon's Dictionary as the Work of ene man*, and at the fame time as an honour to his genius, he betrays his having perufed that work (if ever he did perufe it) with very little attention; or, of his having facrificed, in this inftance alfo, his better judgement, at the fhrine of Public Ignorance. We fhall here take our prefent leave, nevertheless, of Dr. Beattie, as one of the beft Scotch writers of English that we are acquainted with. W.. The Life of David Hume, Efq. Written by Himself. Small Octavo, 1s. 6d. Cadell. In an advertisement, prefixed to this little performance, we are told that, "Mr. Hume, a few months before his death, wrote the following fhort account of his own Life; and, in a codicil to his will, defired that it might be prefixed to the next edition of his Works. That edition cannot be publifhed for a confiderable time. The Editor, in the mean while, in order to ferve the purchafers of the former editions; and, at the fame time, to gratify the impatience of the public curia"fity; has thought proper to publish it feparately, without altering even the title or fuperfcription, which was written in Mr. Hume's own hand on the cover of the manufcript." 爨 After a fhort apology for being his own biographer, Mr. Hume proceeds to give an account of his family and outset in life. * It was most undoubtedly the work of many; as might be proved from external evidence, did not its own inconfiftencies and contradictions fufficiently prove it from that internal evidence, which is inconteftible, unless we condemn the author very feverely indeed. Rev. "I was "I was born," fays he," the 26th of April 1711, old style, at Edinburgh. I was of a good family, both by father and mother: my father's family is a branch of the Earl of Home's. or Hume's; and my ancestors had been proprietors of the eftate, which my brother poffeties, for feveral generations. My mother was daughter of Sir David Falconer, Prefident of the College of Juftice: the title of Lord Halkerton came by fucceffion to her brother. My family, however, was not rich; and being myself a younger brother, my patrimony, according to the mode of my country, was of courfe very fiender. My father, who paffed for a man of parts, died when I was an infant, leaving me, with an elder brother and a fifter, under the care of our mother, a woman of fingular merit, who, though young and handfome, devoted herself entirely to the rearing and edu cating of her children. I paffed through the ordinary courfe of education with fuccefs, and was feized very early with a paffion for literature, which has been the ruling pathon of my life, and the great fource of my enjoyments. My ftudious difpofition, my fobriety, and my industry, gave my family a notion that the law was a proper profellion for me; but I found an unfurmountable averfion to every thing but the purfuits of philofophy and general learning; and while they fancied I was poring upon Voet and Vinnius, Cicero and Virgil were the authors which I was fecretly devouring. I "My very flender fortune, however, being unfuitable to this plan of life, and my health being a little broken by my ardent application, was tempted, or rather forced, to make a very feeble trial for entering into a more active fcene of life. In 1734, I went to Bristol, with fome recommendations to eminent merchants, but in a few months found that fcene totally unfuitable to me, I went over to France, with a view of profecuting my ftudies in a country retreat; and I there laid that plan of lite, which I have feadily and fuccefsfully pursued. I refolved to make a very rigid frugality fupply my deficiency of fortune, to maintain unimpaired my independency, and to regard every object as contemptible, except the improvement of my talents in lite rature. 66 During my retreat in France, first at Reims, but chiefly at La Fleche, in Anjou, I compoted my Treatise of Human Nature." After paffing three years very agreeably in that country, I came over to London in 1737. In the end of 1738, I published my Treatife, and immediately went down to my mother and my brother, who lived at his country-house, and was employing himself very judiciously and fuccessfully in the improvement of his fortune." This narrative of Mr. Hume's life contains, as he himself obferves, little more than the hiftory of his writings; which, as it is fhort, we fhall cite without interruption; fubjoining fuch remarks as fuggeft theinfelves, by way of note, at the bottom of the page. "Never literary attempt was more unfortunate than my Treatife of Human Nature. It fell dead-born from the prefs, without reaching fuch diftinction, as even to excite a murmur among the zealots. But being naturally naturally of a cheerful and fanguine temper, I very foon recovered the blow, and profecuted with great ardour my studies in the country. In 1742, I printed at Edinburgh the first part of my Effays: the work was favourably received, and foon made me entirely forget my former disappointment. I continued with my mother and brother in the country, and in that time recovered the knowledge of the Greek language, which I had too much neglected in my early youth. "In 1745, I received a letter from the Marquis of Annandale, inviting me to come and live with him in England; I found also, that the friends and family of that young nobleman were defirous of putting him under my care and direction, for the state of his mind and health required it.-I lived with him a twelvemonth. My appointments during that time made a confiderable acceffion to my fmall fortune. I then received an invitation from General St. Clair to attend him as a fecretary to his expedition, which was at first meant against Canada, but ended in an incurfion on the coast of France. Next year, to wit, 1747, I received an invitation from the general to attend him in the fame ftation in his military embaffy to the courts of Vienna and Turin. I then wore the uniform of an officer, and was introduced at thefe courts as aid-de-camp to the general, along with Sir Harry Erkine and Captain Grant, now General Grant. These two years were almoft the only interruptions which my studies have received during the course of my life: I paffed them agreeably, and in good company; and my appointments, with my frugality, had made me reach a fortune, which I called independent, though most of my friends were inclined to finile when I faid fo; in short, I was now master of near a thousand pounds. "I had always entertained a notion, that my want of fuccefs in publishing the Treatife of Human Nature, had proceeded more from the manner than the matter, and that I had been guilty of a very ufual indifcretion, in going to the prefs too early. I, therefore, caft the first part of that work anew in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, which was published while I was at Turin. But this piece was at firft little more fuccessful than the Treatife of Human Nature. On my return from Italy, I had the mortification to find all England in a ferment, on account of Dr. Middleton's Free Enquiry, while my per formance was entirely overlooked and neglected. A new edition, which had been published at London of my Effays, moral and political, met not with a much better reception. So fanguine that it does not appear our author had acquired at this period of his life that command over his paffions, of which he afterwards makes his boaft. His difappointment at the public reception of his Effay on Human Nature had indeed a violent effect on his paffions in a particular inftance: it not having dropped fo dead-born from the prefs but that it was feverely handled by the Reviewers of thofe times, in a publication, entitled, "The Works of the Learned." A circumftance this which fo highly provoked our young philofopher, that he flew in a violent rage, to demand fatisfaction of Jacob Robinfon, the publifher; whom he kept, during the paroxyfm of his anger, at his fword's point, trembling behind the counter left a period hould be put to the life of a fober critic by a raving philofopher. Rev. Such |