Tegarded, by many, as a little library in itfelf: efpecially by readers whofe fituations in the country, lie too remote from other fources of literary information.

But as this compilement is, for the greatest part, drawn from preceding Authors, who fell into many errors which no collector, however diligent, could be equal to the task of wholly rectifying, fo the prefent multifarious affemblage of particulars, muft, in course, abound with fuch defects, as were, in a manner, infeparable from the materials of which it is compofed. Yet, whatever may be the imperfections of this performance, it is certainly to be numbered among the moft ufeful books of the kind in the English language.

The writer of the preface hath beftowed a warm encomium on the united labours of Mr. Entick and his induftrious affociates, in his preface; wherein, however partial, he has not perhaps very unjustly eftimated the merits of this large body of national defcription.-Part of what he fays is, in fubstance, as follows:

The principal aim of the work, he obferves, is public utility. The Authors, fays he, have attempted to lay before their Readers a political Chart of the BRITISH EMPIRE, with its territories and connexions in every quarter of the world. We are here prefented with a fuccinct account of the conftitution of the kingdoms, and other dominions, annexed by conqueft or otherwife, to the crown of Great Britain: the legislative and execu-' tive powers of the government are accurately diftinguished; the prerogatives of the crown are afcertained; the rights, immunities, and liberties of the fubject are elucidated and fupported by authorities, and the law of the land.-Here we fee the fhare of government alloted to each diftinct branch of the legislature, or in what hands the power of framing and executing our laws is invefted. The ftate of religion is minutely difcuffed; the feveral modes of worship, authorised by the act of toleration, are defcribed, from an accurate enquiry into their forms of ecclefiaftic regulations; the laws against papifts are collected and arranged under proper heads.

The nobility and gentry, it is added, may here trace their honours and privileges to their fources. The freeholders, merchants, tradesmen and manufacturers range under the description of yeomanry; and to his account of the naval department the Author has fubjoined the ftate of the British army and militia.

Those who wish to form fome acquaintance with the gentlemen of the long robe, will fee the origin and various divifions of the law into ftatute, civil, and common, explained; with a differtation on the utility, power, and duty of juries; and a defcription of the various forms of trying criminals.'

Infinite pains, we are told, have been taken in the researches into the nature, antiquity, jurifdiction, mode of proceeding, and

Hh3

power

power of parliament; the king is defcribed in his legislative and executive capacity; and of the revenue or means to fupport the flate and government, fome idea may be formed from the detail of the treafury, exchequer, cuftom-house, excifeoffice, ftamp-office, poft-office, &c.

Another part of the work is appropriated to the natural hiftory and topography of the three kingdoms; in which, however, we meet with no very important additions to what may be found in the old accounts, and later compilements, fuch as Camden's Britannia; the Tour through Great Britain, &c. &c. The great alteration, however, made in the face of the country, by the prevailing attention to inland navigations, fince the above-mentioned books were written, is not unnoticed in this publication. The Duke of Bridgewater's canal is defcribed; and the plan of the great Staffordshire navigation is inferted.

The British fettlements in North-America and the WeftIndies are likewise described, and their utility to and connexion with the mother country, are related and explained; with a view of their conftitution, government, charters, and laws; and fome accounts of the native Indians. Nor are our settlements and factories on the coaft of Africa, in Turkey, and in Perfia, omitted.

But, fays the Editor, what hath made a confiderable object in this work, is an account of our trade to the Eaft India company's fettlements in Afia. Here a particular attention has been paid to every circumftance of importance that could contribute to the information of the public on this head; the quantity of exports, the receipts, difbursements, and consumption of various articles; the nett profits arifing from the Afiatic branch of traffic, in fhort, every minute particular relative to the mercantile intercourse carried on between Great Britain and her different fettlements in China and the Eaft-Indies, is laid down with an accuracy feldom aimed at, and as feldom executed in works of this kind; nor are the relations confined to matters of merchandize merely: the late changes in the conftitution of the Company, the fource of thofe changes; the fubftance of the enquiries fet on foot by the late felect and fecret committees; an abstract of the late regulating act, together with the inftructions framed by a committee of directors for the guidance of the governor-general and council in their civil administration of justice in India; these have been related with fidelity and difcuffed with perfpicuity.'

In a word, we agree with the writer of the prefatory account here quoted, that an attempt has been made to compile this work in fuch a manner as to render it intelligible to the multitude, yet ferviceable to men of refinement. For the multitude, however, it seems chiefly calculated; and if they generally ac

cept

cept and refort to it, as their guide to a competent knowledge of the present ftate of the British empire, there is no doubt but that the main defign of the induftrious compilers will be fully answered.

G

ART. VII. A Defence of the "Confiderations on the Propriety of requiring a Subfcription to Articles of Faith." In Reply to a late Answer from the Clarendon Prefs. By a Friend of religious Liberty. 8vo. 1 s. Wilkie. 1774

TH

HIS Defence is manly, fpirited, and judicious; and the fuperiority, in point of argument, is fo evidently on the fide of the FRIEND OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, that he must be a prejudiced Reader indeed who does not clearly difcern it.

The fair way of conducting a difpute, fays our Author, is to exhibit one by one the arguments of your opponent, and with each argument the precife and fpecific anfwer you are able to give it. If this method be not fo common, nor found fo convenient as might be expected, the reafon is, because it fuits not always with the defigns of a writer, which are no more perhaps than to make a Book; to confound fome arguments, and keep others out of fight; to leave what is called an Impreffion upon the Reader, without any care to inform him of the proofs or principles by which his opinion fhould be governed. With fuch views, it may be confiftent to dispatch objections, by obferving of fome that they are old, and therefore like certain drugs have loft, we may fuppofe, their strength; of others, that they have long fince received an answer; which implies, to be fure, a confutation to attack straggling remarks, and decline the main reasoning, as mere declamation; to pass by one paffage because it is long-winded, another because the Anfwerer has neither leisure nor inclination to enter into the difcuffion of it; to produce exrtacts and quotations, which taken alone, imperfectly if at all exprefs their Author's meaning; to difmifs a stubborn difficulty with a reference, which ten to one the Reader never looks at: and laftly, in order to give the whole a certain fafhionable air of candour and moderation, to make a conceffion + or two which nobody thanks him for, or yield up a few points which it is no longer any credit to maintain.'

:

Leaving his Readers to judge how far the Anfwerer from the Clarendon Prefst is concerned in this defcription, he proceeds to ftate and examine his arguments fully and diftinctly.

After complaining, as is ufual on fuch occafions, of disappointment and diffatisfaction, the Anfwerer fet out with an argument, which, according to him, comprises, in a narrow compass, the whole merits of the question; and which is neither more nor less than this, that it is necessary that those who are to be ordained

50, confult

* For an account of the Confiderations, fee Review vol. the Table of Contents, under the letter C, viz. “ Carlisle, Bp. of." + Such as, that if people keep their opinions to themselves, no man will hurt them, and the like. Anfwer, p. 45.

See Review for July, 1774, P. 77. Art. 46.

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teachers

teachers in the church fhould be found in the faith, and confequently that they should give to those who ordain them fome proof and affurance that they are fo, and that the method of this proof should be fetiled by public authority.

Now the perfection, fays our Author, of this fort of reasoning is, that it comes as well from the mouth of the Pope's profeffor of divinity in the university of Bologna, as from the Clarendon prefs. A church has only with our Author to call her creed the faithful word, and it fellows from fcripture that we must hold it faft. Her diffatisfied fons, let her only denominate, as he does, vain talkers and deceivers, and St. Paul himfelf commands us to stop their mouths. Every one that queftions or oppofes her decifions the pronounces, with him, a heretic, and a man that is an heretic after the first and fecond admonition rejea. In like manner, calling her tenets found doctrine, or taking it for granted that they are fo (which the conclave at Rome can do as well as the convocation at London) and foundness in the faith being a neceffary qualification in a Chriftian teacher, there is no avoiding the conclufion, that every Chriflian teacher (in, and out of the church too, if you can catch him, foundness in the faith being alike neceffary in all) mull have thefe tenets ftrapped about his neck by oaths and fubfcriptions. An argument which thus fights in any caufe, or on either fide, deferves no quarter.-I have faid that this reafoning, and thefe applications of fcripture are equally competent to the defenders of popery-they are more fo. The Popes, when they affumed the power of the Apofles, laid claim alfo to their infallibility; and in this they were confiftent. Proteftant churches renounce with all their might this infallibility, whilft they apply to themfelves every expreffion that defcribes it, and will not part with a jot of the authority which is built upon it.

The Author of the Confiderations contends, and very properly too, that it is one of the firft duties a Chriftian owes to his Maiter to keep his mind open and unbiaffed in religious enquiries.

Can a man, fays our Author, be faid to do this, who must bring himself to affent to opinions, propofed by another? Who enters into a profeffion where both his fubfiftence and fuccefs depend upon his continuance in a particular perfuafion? In answer to this we are informed, that thefe articles are no rule of faith (what not to those who fubfcribe them?) that the church deprives no man of his right of private judgment (he cannot-fhe hangs however a dead weight upon it); that it is a very unfair state of the cafe to call fubfcription a declaration of our full and final perfuafion in matters of faith; though if it be not a full perfuafion, what is it? and ten to one it will be final, when such confequences attend a change.-That no man is hereby tied up from impartially examining the word of God, i. e. with the impartiality of a man who must eat or farve, according as the examination turns out; an impartiality fo fufpected, that a court of justice would not receive his evidence under half the fame influence-nor from altering bis opinion if he finds reafon fo to do; which few, I conceive, will find, when the alteration must coft them fo dear. If one could give credit to our Author in what he fays here, and in fome other paffages of his Answer, one would fuppofe that, in his judgment at least, fubfcription

fubfcription reftrained no man from adopting what opinion he pleased, provided he does not think himself bound openly to maintain it; that men may retain their preferments, if they will but keep their opinions to themselves. If this be what the church of England means, let her fay fo. This is indeed what our Author admits here, and yet from the outcry he has afterwards raised against all who continue in the church whilft they diffent from her articles, one would not fuppofe there was a pardon left for thofe, who keep even to themselves an opinion inconfiflent with any one propofition they have fubfcribed. The fact is, the gentleman has either fhifted his opinion in the course of writing the Anfwer, or had put down thefe affertions, not expecting that he should have occafion afterwards to contradict them.

It feemed to add ftrength to this objection that the judgment of most thinking men being in a progreffive ftate, their opinions of courfe muft many of them change; the evil and iniquity of which the Anfwerer fets forth with great pleafantry, but has forgot at the fame time to give us any remedy for the misfortune; except the old woman's receipt, to leave off thinking, for fear of thinking wrong.'

This may ferve as a fpecimen of our Author's manner of writing, and the fpirit of his Defence. We shall finish this article with a very juft and pertinent obfervation, wherewith he concludes his Defence: his words are as follows:

At the conclufion of his Pamphlet our Author is pleafed to ac• knowledge, what few, I find, care any longer to deny, that there are fome things in cur articles and liturgy which he should be glad to fee amended, many which he fhould be willing to give up to the jcruples of others, but that the heat and violence with which redrefs has been purfued, preclude all hope of accommodation and tranquillity-that we had better wait therefore for more peaceable times, and be contented with our prefent conftitution as it is, until a fairer profpect shall appear of changing it for the better.-After returning thanks, in the name of the fraternity, to him and to all who touch the burden of fubfcription with but one of their fingers, I would wish to leave with them this observation, that as the man who attacks a flourishing establishment writes with a halter round his neck, few ever will be found to attempt alterations but men of more spirit than prudence, of more fin cerity than caution, of warm, eager, and impetuous tempers; that, confequently, if we are to wait for improvement till the cool, the calm, the difcreet part of mankind begin it, till church governors folicit, or ministers of State propofe it--I will venture to pronounce, that (without his interpofition with whom nothing is impofsible) we may remain as we are, till the renovation of all things. R. ART. VIII. The Maid of the Oaks: a new Dramatic Entertainment As it is performed at the Theatre-royal, in Drury-lane. 8vo. 1 s. 6 d. Becket, 1774.

HIS Dramatic Entertainment is prefaced with fome fenfible

Tobfervations on the prefent ftate of our drama, and the

reigning taste of theatrical fpectators; and we truft that the Author juftly determines that "the middle clafs and bulk of the affembly, like that of the kingdom at large, will ever be on

★ Written by Gen. Burgoyne.

the