board fome articles of real ufe to his country; I expected it likewife, but was difappointed. However, though his country will not receive a citizen from us much improved, or fraught with valuable acquifitions, which might have made him the benefactor, and perhaps the law-giver of his people, ftill I am happy to reflect, that the ships which are once more fent out upon difcovery, are destined to carry the harmlefs natives of Taheitee a prefent of new domestic animals. The introduction of black cattle and sheep on that fertile island, will doubtless increase the happiness of its inhabitants; and this gift may hereafter be conducive, by many intermediate caufes, to, the improvement of their intellectual faculties."

We must defer the extract refpecting New Zealand, with the remainder of this article, to a future Review.

S.

The Order of Confirmation; or, Laying on of Hands upon thofe that are baptized, and come to Years of Difcretion, as improved by the Commiffioners appointed to review the Common Prayer, Anno 1689. 12mo. Price 3d. Sewel.

We cannot speak with more propriety or truth of this little publication than in the words of the preface.

"The Order of Confirmation is here fo improved and enlarged, that nothing can well be conceived more complete and perfect. It is fo judicioufly drawn up, as to fuperfede in a good degree every thing elfe that has been written on the fubject. The great uie and benefit which the Editor apprehends it may be of, as well to the parochial Clergy, as to the younger part of the Laity, was the fole motive that induced him to make it publick."

Obfervations on a fourney to Paris, by Way of Flanders, in the Month of Auguft, 1776, in two Volumes, fmall Octavo, price 5s. Robinson.

If any reader (fays the fenfible author of these observations) should be offended with him, before he enters upon the perufal of his story, for throwing out one more Journey to Paris when we have so many , already, he has this apology to offer, that the attention of different perfons frequently falls upon different objects in the fame place; and we fee even the fame things with different eyes, according to our feveral interests and difpofitions. This new Journey then, howfover indifferent in other refpects, will in all probability have fome little variety to recommend it: and if after all it should prefent nothing remarkable, the price is fmall, and the time to be spent in reading it not much more than what is bestowed on a common news-paper; fo that the publication can be an error of no great magnitude. The author however is willing to hope, that as he was very well entertained himself in his vifit to France, he may be able to communicate fome accounts, which, while they afford amusement to the fedentary, may alfo be ●f some little service to the practical traveller.”

Το

To a writer of fuch modeft pretenfions, it were difficult to refuse the moderate encomiums that are juftly his due. The truth is, that, though different objects do ftrike different people, and different accidents happen to them in the fame places, the obfervations fo frequently made on a route fo common as that from Dover to Paris, even by the way of Flanders, are fo trite and familiar, that the traveller might probably make as many equally important and interefting if he had staid at home.-Not but that we meet with fome novel remarks and incidents, in the little narrative before us, that may both amufe and inform the reader. The following is a concife relation of a concife and curfory method of dispatching a mililitary mafs, at St. Omer's.

"My wanderings on the Sunday terminated at last in a church where there was a military mafs, or facrament for the foldiers; a battalion of whom attended the church for this purpose. The ceremony was this. In a gallery at the west end of the church the muficians of the regiment were placed, with clarinets, French-horns, and baffoons. They opened the affair with a fymphony, in all refpects like a modern concerto of Bach or Abel, or one of the new periodical overtures. The chaplain of the regiment, in the habiliments of a priest, officiated at the altar, and all the drummers of the regiment kneeled down before the rails, attended by their drum-major, with his staff and taffel. As foon as the hoft was elevated, the drums all struck up in a moment with a flourish which went through my head, and all the foldiery who filled the church bowed their heads, to fignify that they joined in the adoration. Then the mufic played as before, with a common jig for one of the firains; and after the remaining part of the office the priest gave the benediction, at which the foldiers all bowed as before; then the mufic concluded, and thus the whole ceremony was ended in little more than half an hour. In this fervice of the mafs, the congregation only attended as the Jews did of old at their facrifices: they received nothing, they faid nothing; but were altogether paffive: on which account fome of the laity among themselves fay that by this operation they are maffified."

Our traveller's reflections, upon what he faw, are in general pretty juft, although he admits that he was fometimes mif

taken.

"In three instances of which I took particular notice, I found myfelf very much out of luck, by judging too hastily of what I faw. A French counters was fitting at the window of her dreffing-room, under the hands of her waiting-woman, and by her fide one of her footmen was ftanding, with his arms folded, perfectly free and eafy, as if he had accefs, when he pleafed, to his lady's dreifing-room, there to fpend as much of his time as he thought proper, and leave the work of the house to shift for itself. So it appeared to me; and I could not but conclude that the French ladies were very eafy of accefs, and not at all delicate in the choice of their company. But, on more mature obfervation, the figure I took for a footman, proved to be a profeffed

Gg 2

hair

1

hair-dreffer, and the waiting-woman was the fcholar, taking a lecture from the profeffor, who stood by delivering his inftructions. However, I will not retract the judgment I had fo haftily passed, with out reserving thus much of it, that the ladies of this age, both in France and England, put themselves into the hands of the other fex, with much lefs fcruple than their grandmothers did.

At another time I tormed a very wrong judgment on the road, between Cambray and Paris. At a house of entertainment, in a town where we changed horfes, fome very handfome temales made their appearance, one of whom, in particular, was elegantly dreffed and powdered, and displayed fuch fuperior beauty at a window, that I pronounced her to be English. But of what country foever the might be, I was clearly of opinion fhe was part of the furniture of the house. Some time afterwards, I accufed myfelf for this groundlefs fufpicion, when it appeared fhe was an English young lady of quality, on the road to Paris, who occurred to us there among the best company, and left France about the fame time with ourselves.

On a third occafion, I made an unhappy mistake in the cell of a monk. The walls were furnished with feveral prints, fome of which were facred: but I efpied one of a convivial turn, which seemed rather fit for the dreffing-room of a profligate; and I mentioned this, as a ftrange thing, in a letter to England. On a fecond vifit to the fame cell, when I took a nearer view of the fame pictures, I found a feries of tolerable good prints, expreffing the whole hiftory of the Prodigal Son in the gofpel: and the print, which had given me offence, was that which reprefented him in his worst ftate, revelling and rioting in the company of harlots. I was very glad to clear this civil monk of the fufpicions I had harboured concerning his judgment; and, at the fame time, very well entertained with obferving the peculiar style, in which this evangelical hiftory of the prodigal was reprefented. The whole was after the French mode, from the beginning to the end. In the first picture, the prodigal takes leave of his father's houfe, in the drefs of a French marquis; and his valet appears, mounted on horfeback, in a pig-tail wig, riding off with the portmanteau behind him; as if the whole had been tranfacted within the environs of Paris. This humour of turning a prodigal Jew into a French marquis, does not come up to what I law in another French picture, which exhibits an appearance of heaven itself, with angels kneeling at their devotions. on cushions embroidered with the arms of France.

We cannot take leave of thefe obfervations, without citing an apparently-authentic account of a theological writer, not long fince deceased, who made fome eclat in the polemical dif putes between the churches of England and Rome. "

"Father Courayer was once a canon of St. Genevieve, who came over to England, and wrote a defence of the English ordinations in the French language, maintaining the fucceffion of the English epifcopacy against all the objections from the church of Rome. His book made a great noife at the time; it is now in the hands of many curious people, and has never been refuted.

I have been fo fortunate as to collect feveral anecdotes concerning this extraordinary perfon, from a worthy gentleman who lived in

intimacy

intimacy with him for feveral years; and I shall beg leave to in terrupt, for a while, the thread of my narrative by inferting them in this place.

He was born at Rouen in the year 1681. When he was a canon regular and librarian at the church of St. Genevieve, he applied to archbishop Wake for the refolution of fome doubts, concerning the epifcopal fucceffion in England, and the validity of our ordinations; being encouraged thereto by the friendly correfpondence which had paffed between the archbishop and the late Dr. Du Pin of the Sorbonne. The archbishop fent him exact copies of the proper records, attested by a notary public; and on thefe he built his defence of the English ordinations, which was published in Holland in the year 1727. For this book the univerfity of Oxford gave him a doctor's degree; and, I am informed, there is a Latin fpeech, preferved at Oxford, which he either fent or spoke, in return for the honour conferred upon him. The original papers, which the archbishop fent over to Courayer, toge ther with feveral letters which paffed concerning the terms of a pro jected reconciliation between the churches of France and England, are extant in private hands†, and some of them are published in the Biographia Britannica .

The cardinal De Noailles being highly offended with the book, the marthal De Noailles, his brother, endeavoured to pacify him and restore Courayer to his favour; but without fuccefs. While the danger of a profecution, or rather a perfecution, was depending, it was thought most advisable that he fhould take refuge in England: but he was in fo little hafte on this occafion, that he made a flow journey to Calais in a ftage coach, and was detained there fome time by a contrary wind, fo that he might eafily have been apprehended. However, he got fafe to England, where he was well received: but he complained to archbishop Wake, that it was a bad country for a religious man to refide in, on account of the unhappy differences in religion, by which mutual charity is deftroyed; and the liberty which many take of blafpheming against the doctrines of christianity, and corrupting the minds of the people. The marquis of Blandford foon made him a present of fifty pounds by the hands of Nicholas Mann, Efq, who was afterwards matter of the Charter-house. With fome difficulty he obtained a penfion of one hundred pounds a year from the court; and having translated father Paul's Hiftory of the Council of Trent into French, he dedicated

James Smyth, Efq. of Upper Grofvenor-street.

They are now in the poffeffion of the reverend Ofmund Beauvoir, mafter of the King's school at Canterbury, whofe father was concerned with archbishop Wake in the correfpondence. The author of The Confeffional, who took up his pen with the pious purpose of making rogues and hypocrites of all the best men, that have adorned the church, fince the reformation, falls foul upon the memory of the archbishop for his charitable treaty with the divines of the Sorbonne, as if he had formed a scheme for yielding up the proteftant doctrines to the church of Rome: though this whole affair, on the part of the archbishop, was conducted with all poffible fidelity and refolution; fuch as will do him honour with the lateft pofterity. The reader may fee him well vindicated against the malicious afperfions of that author, in Dr. Ridley's firft Letter, p. 80. &c.

See the Life of Archbishop Wake.

it to queen Caroline, who encreased his pension to two hundred pounds; and, by the fale of the work, he raised fifteen hundred pounds* more. He gave fixteen hundred pounds to lord Feversham for an annuity of one hundred pounds per annum, which he enjoyed for fifty years. Thus he rofe, by degrees, to very eafy circumitances, which were made ftill more fo by the reception which his agreeable and edifying converfation procured him among great people, with many of whom it was his custom to live for feveral months at a time. He was occafionally generous to fome of his relations in France. He had two fifters who were nuns; and to this day has a brother living at Paris in the profeffion of the law, to whom he gave a handsome gold fnuff-box, which had been prefented to him by queen Caroline. His works were many, and all in French. He tranflated Sleidan's Hiftory of the Reformation; and wrote a fecond defence in fupport of his first, against the arguments of the Jefuits, father Harduin, cardinal Tencin, &e. In difcourfing about religious fubjects, he was referved and cautious, avoiding controverfy as much as poffible. He never had any good opinion of Bower, who came over hither to write his Hiftory of the Popes: he accufed him of pretending to collect from books which he had never feen; and said he was a dark mysterious man, of a very fufpicious character. He was taken ill on Tuesday the 15th day of October, and died on the Thurfday following; finking naturally under the burden of his years, which were beyond the common age of man. He declares in his will that he dies a catholic, but not according to all the modern doctrines of the church of Rome. Soon after his retirement to England he went to a priest, of the Romish church, for confellion, and told him who he was. The priest dared not take his confeffion, because he was excommunicated; but advised him to confult his fuperior of St. Geneviere. What was the flue of this application, we know not; but it is certain that, when in London, he made it his practice to go to mafs; and when in the country at Ealing, he conitantly attended the fervice of the parish church, declaring, at all times, that he had great fatisfaction in the prayers of the church of England. The Jefuits were his worst enemies; yet when that order was fupprefled, his great humanity lamented the fate of many poor men, who were thrown out of their bread, and cast, in a helpless ftate, upon the wide world. At his own defire he was buried in the cloyfter of WB_ minfter abbey, by Dr. Bell, chaplain to the princefs Amelia. He left 500l. to St. Martin's parish, and 200l. to the parish of St. Margaret's, Weftminfier, in which he died; with many other private legacies to his friends in England."

"

It may not be amifs to refer our readers to a letter, printed in the poftfcript, giving a further account of the character and writings of this extraordinary perfon.

Our obferving traveller is extremely fevere both on the moral and literary character of M. de Voltaire, a caricaturaetching of whom, in the attitude of inftructing the players to act, he has prefixed to his obfervations.

S.

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