Now, he was so far from wishing for a rupture with the colonies, that he did more than most men would have done to prevent it. His constant advice to his countrymen, he always said, was "to bear everything from England, however unjust;" saying, that "it could not last long, as they would soon outgrow all their hardships." On this account, Dr. Price, who then corresponded with some of the principal persons in America, said, he began to be very unpopular there. He always said, "If there must be a war, it will be a war of ten years, and I shall not live to see the end of it." This I have heard him say many times. It was at his request, enforced by that of Dr. Fothergill, that I wrote an anonymous pamphlet, calculated to show the injustice and impolicy of a war with the colonies, previous to the meeting of a new parliament. As I then lived at Leeds, he corrected the press himself; and to a passage in which I lamented the attempt to establish arbitrary power in so large a part of the British empire, he added the following clause, to the imminent danger of our most valuable commerce, and of that national strength, security, and felicity which depend on union and on liberty." mour. By this he was the delight of a club, On the morning of the day on which the cause was to be heard, I met Mr. Burke in Parliament-street, accompanied by Dr. Douglas, afterwards bishop of Carlisle; and, after introducing us to each other, as men of letters, he asked me whither I was going. I said I could tell him where I wished to go. He then asked me where that was. I said to the privy-council, but that I was afraid I could not get admission. He then desired me to go along with him. Accordingly I did; but when we got into the ante-room we found it quite filled with persons as desirous of getting admittance as ourselves. Seeing this, I said we should never get through the crowd. He said, "Give me your arm ;" and locking it fast in his, he soon made his way to the door of the privy-council. I then said, "Mr. Burke, you are an excellent leader;" he replied, "I wish other persons thought so too." The unity of the British empire, in all its parts, was a favourite idea of his. He used to compare it to a beautiful China vase, which, if once broken, could never be put together again: and so great an admirer was he, at the time, of the British constitution, that he said he saw no inconvenience from its being extended over a great part of the globe. With these sentiments he left England; but when, on his arrival in America, he found the war begun, and that there was no receding, no man entered more warmly into the interests of what he then considered as his country, in opposition to that of Greatness was opened, it was sufficiently evident, Britain. Three of his letters to me, one written immediately on his landing, and published in the collection of his Miscellaneous Works, pp. 365, 552, and 555, will prove this. By many persons Dr. Franklin is considered as having been a cold-hearted man, so callous to every feeling of humanity, that the prospect of all the horrors of a civil war could not affect him. This was far from being the case. A great part of the day, above mentioned, that we spent together, he was looking over a number of American newspapers, directing me what to extract from them for the English ones; and in reading them, he was frequently not able to proceed for the tears literally running down his cheeks. To strangers he was cold and reserved; but where he was intimate, no man indulged in more pleasantry and good hu After waiting a short time, the door of the privy-council opened, and we entered the first; when Mr. Burke took his stand behind the first chair next to the president, and I behind that the next to his. When the busi from the speech of Mr. Wedderburn, who was counsel for the governor, that the real object of the court was to insult Dr. Franklin. All this time he stood in a corner of the room, not far from me, without the least apparent emotion. Mr. Dunning, who was the leading counsel on the part of the colony, was so hoarse that he could hardly make himself heard; and Mr. Lee, who was the second, spoke but feebly in reply; so that Mr. Wedderburn had a complete triumph. At the sallies of his sarcastic wit all the members of the council, the president himself (Lord Gower) not excepted, frequently laughed outright. No person belonging to the council behaved with decent gravity, except Lord North, who, coming late, took his stand behind the chair opposite to me. When the business was over, Dr. Frank lin, in going out, took me by the hand, in a manner that indicated some feeling. I soonfollowed him, and going through the anteroom, saw Mr. Wedderburn there surrounded with a circle of his friends and admirers. Being known to him, he stepped forwards as if to speak to me; but I turned aside, and inade what haste I could out of the place. The next morning I breakfasted with the doctor, when he said, "He had never before been so sensible of the power of a good conscience; for that, if he had not considered the thing for which he had been so much insulted as one of the best actions of his life, and what he should certainly do again in the same circumstances, he could not have supported it." He was accused of clandestinely procuring certain letters, containing complaints against the governor, and sending them to America with a view to excite their animosity against him, and thus to embroil the two countries. But he assured me that he did not even know that such letters existed till they were brought to him as agent for the colony, in order to be sent to his constituents; and the cover of the letters on which the direction had been written being lost, he only guessed at the person to whom they were addressed by the con tents. That Dr. Franklin, notwithstanding he did not show it at the time, was much impressed by the business of the privy-council, appeared from this circumstance: when he attended there, he was dressed in a suit of Manchester velvet; and Silas Deane told me that, when they met at Paris to sign the treaty between France and America he purposely put on that suit. Hoping that this communication will be of some service to the memory of Dr. Franklin, and gratify his friends, I am, sir, yours, J. PRIESTLEY. &c. Monthly Magazine, Feb. 1803. JAMES BEATTIE, LL.D., born 1735, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in Marischal College, Aberdeen, from 1760 until within a short time before his death in 1803, published in 1770 An Essay on Truth (7th edit., Lond., 1807, Svo), intended as an antidote to the sceptical philosophy of Hume; in 1771 Book First, and in 1774 Book Second (Book Third by Mr. Merivale, 1808, 4to), of The Minstrel (with other Poems, and Life by Alex. Chalmers, Lond., 1811, 12mo); in 1776, Edin., 4to, a new edition of An Essay on Truth, with Essays on Poetry and Music, etc.; in 1786, Lond., 2 vols. 8vo, Disserta tions Moral and Critical; in the same year, Lond., 2 vols. 12mo, Evidences of the Christian Religion, reprinted 1788, 2 vols., 1814, 1 vol.; in 1788, 8vo, Theory of Language (first published in his Dissertations, supra); in 1790-93, 2 vols. 8vo, Elements of Moral Science, reprinted, Edin., 1807, 2 vols. 8vo, and in 1817, 2 vols. 8vo; in 1779, Lond., 12mo, he published the Miscellanies of his son, James Hay Beattie. See Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie, LL.D., including many of his Original Letters, by Sir W. Forbes, Edin., 1806, 2 vols. 4to, some large paper; again, 1807, 3 vols. 8vo, and 1824, 2 vols. 8vo. "Beattie, the most agreeable and amiable writer I ever met with, the only author I have seen whose critical and philosophical researches are diversified and embellished by a poetical imagination, that makes even the driest subject and the leanest a feast for an epicure in books. He is so much at his ease, too, that his own character appears in every page, and, which is very rare, we see not only the writer, but the man; and the man so gentle, so well-tempered, so happy in his religion, and so humane in his philosophy, that it is necessary to love him if one has any sense of what is lovely."-CowPER. TO THE RIGHT HON. THE DOWAGER LADY FORBES. ABERDEEN, 12th October, 1772. I wish the merit of the "Minstrel" were such as would justify all the kind things you have said of it. That it has merit, every body would think me a hypocrite if I were to deny I am willing to believe that it has even considerable merit; and I acknowledge, with much gratitude, that it has obtained from the public a reception far more favourable than I expected. There are in it many passages, no doubt, which I admire more than others do; and, perhaps, there are some passages which others are more struck with than I am. In all poetry this, I believe, is the case, more or less; but it is much more the case in poems of a sentimental cast, such as the "Minstrel' is, than in those of the narrative species. In epic and dramatic poesy there is a standard acknowledged, by which we may estimate the merit of the piece: whether the narrative be prohable, and the characters well drawn and well preserved; whether all the events be conducive to the catastrophe; whether the action is unfolded in such a way as to command perpetual attention, and undiminished curiosity, these are points of which, in reading an epic poem, or tragedy, every reader possessed of good sense, or tolerable knowledge of the art, may hold himself to be a competent judge. Common life, and the general tenour of human affairs, is the standard to which these points may be referred, and according to which they may be estimated. But of sentimental poetry (if I may use the expression) there is no external standard. By it the heart of the reader must be touched at once, or it cannot be touched at all. Here the knowledge of critical rules, and a general acquaintance of human affairs, will not form a true critic: sensibility and a lively imagination are the qualities which alone constitute a true taste for sentimental poetry. Again, your ladyship must have observed that some sentiments are common to all men; others peculiar to persons of a certain character. Of the former sort are those which Gray has so elegantly expressed in his "Church-yard Elegy," a poem which is universally understood and admired, not only for its poetical beauties, but also, and perhaps chiefly, for its expressing sentiments in which every man thinks himself interested, and which, at certain times, are familiar to all men. Now the sentiments expressed in the "Minstrel," being not common to all men, but peculiar to persons of a certain cast, cannot possibly be interesting, because the generality of readers will not understand nor feel them so thoroughly as to think them natural. That a boy should take pleasure in darkness or a storm, in the noise of thunder, or the glare of lightning; should be more gratified with listening to music at a distance than with mixing in the merriment occasioned by it; should like better to see every bird happy and free than to exert his ingenuity in destroying or ensnaring them, these and such like sentiments, which, I think, would be natural to persons of a certain cast, will, I know, be condemned as unnatural by others who have never felt them in themselves, nor observed them in the generality of mankind. Of all this I was sufficiently aware before I published the "Minstrel," and, therefore, never expected that it would be a popular poem. Perhaps, too, the structure of the verse (which, though agrecable to some, is not to all) and the scarcity of incidents may contribute to make it less relished than it would have been if the plan had been different in these particulars. From the questions your ladyship is pleased to propose in the conclusion of your letter, as well as from some things I have had the honour to hear you advance in conversation, I find you are willing to suppose that in Edwin I have given only a picture of myself, as I was in my younger days. I confess the supposition is not groundless. I have made him take pleasure in the scenes in which I took pleasure, and entertain sentiments similar to those of which, even in my early youth, I had repeated experience. The scenery of a mountainous country, the ocean, the sky, thoughtfulness and retirement, and sometimes melancholy objects and ideas, had charms in my eyes, even when I was a school-boy; and at a time when I was so far from being able to express, that I did not understand, my own feelings, or perceive the tendency of such pursuits and amusements; and as to poetry and music, before I was ten years old I could play a little on the violin, and was as much master of Homer and Virgil as Pope's and Dryden's translations could make me. But I am ashamed to write so much on a subject so trifling as myself and my own works. Believe me, madam, nothing but your ladyship's comments could have induced me to do it. ON THE LOVE OF NATURE. Homer's beautiful description of the heavens and earth, as they appear in a calm evening by the light of the moon and stars, concludes with this circumstance," And the heart of the shepherd is glad." Madame Dacier, from the turn she gives to the pas sage in her version, seems to think, and Pope, in order perhaps to make out his couplet, insinuates, that the gladness of the shepherd is owing to his sense of the utility of those luminaries. And this may in part be the case; but this is not in Homer; nor is it a necessary consideration. It is true that, in contemplating the material universe, they who discern the causes and effects of things must be more rapturously entertained than those who perceive nothing but shape and size, colour and motion. Yet, in the mere outside of nature's works (if I may so express myself), there is a splendour and a magnificence which even untutored minds cannot attend without great delight. Not that all peasants or all philosophers are equally susceptible of these charming impressions. It is strange to observe the callousness of some men before whom all the glories of heaven and earth pass in daily succession, without touching their hearts, elevating their fancy, or leaving any durable remembrance. Even of those who pretend to sensibility how many are there to whom the lustre of the rising or setting sun, the sparkling concave of the midnight sky, the mountain forest tossing and roaring to the storm, or warbling with all the melodies of a summer evening; the sweet interchange of hill and dale, shade and sunshine, grove, lawn, and water, which an extensive landscape offers to the view; the scenery of the ocean, so lovely, so majestic, and so tremendous, and the many pleasing varieties of the animal and vegetable kingdom, could never afford so much real satisfaction as the steams and noise of a ball-room, the insipid fiddling and squeaking of an opera, or the vexations and wranglings of a card-table! But some minds there are of a different make, who, even in the early part of life, receive from the contemplation of nature a species of delight which they would hardly exchange for any other; and who, as avarice and ambition are not the infirmities of that period, would, with equal sincerity and rapture, exclaim,— "I care not, Fortune, what you me deny: You cannot rob me of free nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns by living streams at eve." Such minds have always in them the seeds of true taste, and frequently of imitative genius. At least, though their enthusiastic or visionary turn of mind, as the man of the world would call it, should not always incline them to practise poetry or painting, we need not scruple to affirm that, without some portion of this enthusiasm, no person ever became a true poet or painter. For he who would imitate the works of nature must first accurately observe them, and accurate observation is to be expected from those only who take great pleasure in it. An object of contempt and abomination. intimate acquaintance with the best descrip tive poets,-Spenser, Milton, and Thomson, but above all with the divine Georgies,joined to some practice in the art of drawing, will promote this amiable sensibility in early years; for then the face of nature has novelty superadded to its other charms, the passions are not pre-engaged, the heart is free from care, and the imagination is warm and romantic. But not to insist longer on those ardent emotions that are peculiar to the enthusiastic disciple of nature, may it not be affirmed of all men without exception, or at least of all the enlightened part of mankind, that they are gratified by the contemplation of things natural as opposed to unnatural? Monstrous sights please but for a moment, if they please at all; for they derive their charm from the beholder's amazement, which is quickly over. I have read, indeed, of a man of rank in Sicily who chooses to adorn his villa with pictures and statues of most unnatural deformity; but it is a singular instance; and one would not be much more surprised to hear of a person living without food, or growing fat by the use of poison. To say of anything that it is contrary to nature denotes censure and disgust on the part of the speaker; as the epithet natural intimates an agreeable quality, and seems for the most part to imply that a thing is as it ought to be, suitable to our own taste, and congenial with our own constitution. Think with what sentiments we should peruse a poem in which nature was totally misrepresented, and principles of thought and of operation supposed to take place repugnant to everything we had seen or heard of: in which. for example, avarice and coldness were ascribed to youth, and prodigality and passionate attachment to the old; in which men were made to act at random, sometimes according to character, and sometimes contrary to it; in which cruelty and envy were satis-productive of love, and beneficence and kind affection of hatred; in which beauty was invariably the object of dislike, and ugliness of desire; in which society was rendered happy by atheism and the promiscuous perpetration of crimes, and justice and fortitude were held in universal contempt. Or think how we should relish a painting where no regard was had to the proportions, colours, or any of the physical laws of nature; where the eyes and ears of animals were placed in their shoulders; where the sky was green and the grass crimson; where trees grew with their branches in the earth, and their roots in the air; where men were seen fighting after their heads were cut off, ships sailing on the lard, lions entangled To a mind thus disposed, no part of creation is indifferent. In the crowded city and howling wilderness, in the cultivated province and solitary isle, in the flowery lawn and craggy mountain, in the murmur of the rivulet and in the uproar of the ocean, in the radiance of summer and gloom of winter, in the thunder of heaven and in the whisper of the breeze, he still finds something to rouse or to soothe his imagination, to draw forth his affections, or to employ his understanding. And from every mental energy that is not attended with pain, and even from some of those that are, as moderate terror and pity, a sound mind derives faction: exercise being equally necessary to the body and the soul, and to both equally productive of health and pleasure. This happy sensibility to the beauties of nature should be cherished in young persons. It engages them to contemplate the Creator in his wonderful works; it purifies and harmonizes the soul, and prepares it for moral and intellectual discipline; it supplies a never-failing source of amusement; it contributes even to bodily health; and, as a strict analogy subsists between material and moral beauty, it leads the heart by an easy transition from the one to the other, and thus recommends virtue for its transcendent loveliness, and makes vice appear the in cobwebs, sheep preying on dead carcasses, fishes sporting in the woods, and elephants walking on the sea. Could such figures and combinations give pleasure, or merit the appellation of sublime or beautiful? Should we hesitate to pronounce their author mad? And are the absurdities of madmen proper subjects either of amusement or of imitation to reasonable beings? Essays. RICHARD WATSON, D.D., born 1737, Bishop of Llandaff, 1782, died 1816, published Institutionum Chemicarum, Pars Metallurgica, Camb., 1768, 8vo; Essay on the Subjects of Chemistry and their General Divisions, 1771, 8vo; An Apology for Christianity, in a Series of Letters to Edward Gibbon, 1776, 12mo, 6th edit., Lond., 1797, 12mo; Chemical Essays, 1781-87, 5 vols. 12mo, 7th edit., 1800, 5 vols. 12mo; Collection of Theological Tracts, Camb., 1785, 6 vols. 8vo, 2d edit., Lond., 1791. 6 vols. 8vo, large paper, royal 8vo; Sermons, Camb., 1788, 8vo; An Apology for the Bible, in a Series of Letters addressed to Thomas Paine, Lond., 1796, 12mo, 8th edit., 1799; Miscellaneous Tracts, 1815, 2 vols. 8vo; and other publications. See Anecdotes of his Life by Himself, 1817, 4to, 2d edit., 1818, 2 vols. 8vo, Phila., 1818, 8vo. "His autobiography affords a singular display of great talents, high independence, and disappointed pride."-ORME: Bibl. Bib., 460. CHRISTIANITY AND NATURAL RELIGION. GENTLEMEN,-Suppose the mighty work accomplished, the cross trampled upon, Christianity everywhere proscribed, and the religion of nature once more become the religion of Europe; what advantage will you have derived to your country, or to yourselves, from the exchange? I know your answer,-you will have freed the world from the hypocrisy of priests and the tyranny of superstition. No; you forget that Lycurgus, and Numa, and Odin, and MangoCopac, and all the great legislators of ancient or modern story, have been of the opinion that the affairs of civil society could not well be conducted without some religion; you must of necessity introduce a priesthood, with, probably, as much hypocrisy; a religion with, assuredly, more superstition than that which you now reprobate with such indecent and ill-grounded contempt. But I will tell you from what you will have freed the world: you will have freed it from its abhorrence of vice, and from every powerful incentive to virtue; you will, with the religion, have brought back the depraved mo rality of Paganism; you will have robbed mankind of their firm assurance of another life; and thereby you will have despoiled them of their patience, of their humility, of their charity, of their chastity, of all those mild and silent virtues which (however despicable they may appear in your eyes) are the only ones which meliorate and sublime our nature; which Paganism never knew, which spring from Christianity alone, which do or might constitute our comfort in this life, and without the possession of which, another life, if after all there should happon to be one, must be more vicious and more miserable than this is, unless a miracle be exerted in the alteration of our disposition. Perhaps you will contend that the univer sal light of religion, that the truth and fitness of things, are of themselves sufficient to exalt the nature and regulate the man ners of mankind. Shall we never have done ural law? Look into the first chapter of with this groundless commendation of natPaul's epistle to the Romans, and you will tiles of those days; or, if you dislike Paul's see the extent of its influence over the Genauthority and the manners of antiquity, look into the more admired accounts of modern voyagers, and examine its influence over the Pagans of our own times, over the sensual of New Zealand, or the remorseless savages inhabitants of Otaheite, over the cannibals of America. But these men are Barbarians. Your law of nature, notwithstanding, extends even to them,-but they have misused their reason, they have then the more need of, and would be more than thankful for, that revelation which you, with an ignorant and fastidious self-sufficiency, deem useless. But they might, of themselves, if they thought fit, become wise and virtuous. -I answer with Cicero, Ut nihil interest, utrum nemo valeat, au nemo valere possit; sic non intelligo quid intersit, utrum nemo sit sapiens, au nemo esse possit. These, however, you will think, are extraordinary instances; and that we ought not from these to take our measure of the excellency of the law of nature; but rather from the civilized states of China and Japan, or from the nations which flourished in learning and arts before Christianity was heard of in the world. You mean to say that by the law of nature, which you are desirous of substituting in the room of the gospel, you do not understand those rules of conduct which an individual, abstracted from the community, and deprived of the institution of mankind, could excogitate for himself; but such a system of precepts as the most enlightened men of the most enlightened ages have recommended to our observance. Where do you find this system? We cannot |