THE BRITISH CRITIC, FOR JULY, AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER, PRINTED FOR F. AND C. RIVINGTON, 1800, PRINTED BY 1. RICKABY, PETERBOROUGH-COURT, FLEET-STREET. PREFACE. WE E have reached at length a folemn period in our literary labours. We have seen a century elofe, the last years of which have been fuch as hardly any century has produced. At a time of gloom and apprehenfion, when Faction and Impiety had grown infolent and menacing, and thofe principles which our Church and Conftitution fupport, however numerous their private friends, had fcarcely any public advocates;-among thofe who revifed new publications, not even one; at that moment of real, not of feigned alarm, when they who avowed themfelves loyal were tauntingly accused of forming lifts of condemnation for themselves; at that period, though little inclined to affume a public fituation, we ftrongly felt, that duty bid us quit our private walk, to do our utmost for the general caufe. The talk which we then undertook, we can truly fay we have performed, as far as human frailty allows, without favour or partiality. Not indeed without affection and peculiar regard for thofe fentiments which we confider as excellent and facred; or without abhorrence and indignation against those which we believe to be fubverfive of all focial happinefs and mental goodnefs; for that would be unnatural, and was no part of our profeffion;-but without unfair partiality, fuch as fhould lead us to extol a work in other refpects becaufe we approved its tendency, or to deny the lite rary merit which, alas! we have fometimes found. united with the worft of fentiments. The language of civility and polished life our own feelings have led us to prefer to harth and offenfive cenfure, which neither amends the perfon reproved, nor does any honour to the critic: yet fuch reproof, as is confiflent with dignified feeling of propriety, we have not hefitated to make as ftrong as circumftances appeared to demand. We have fhunned, with equal care, the language of adulation; and, by our refufal of indifcriminate praife, and our firm determination not to transfer our private efteem for a writer to all the works he may happen to produce, we have loft fome valuable friends. But as the partiality of authors for their own productions is no new complaint, for this event we were prepared, and fteeled against it. If, by a conduct of this kind, we have gained, (as we truft it is no felf-flattery to hope) the public confidence, we may undoubtedly rely on its continuance. In our plan, we hall invariably perfevere. The great effort is paft; and duties the most difficult become, by practice, comparatively eafy. For our critical powers, they are of courfe as various as the multiplied aids which we from time to time obtain; but our honefty is, we may venture to fay, what the French Republic is not, one and indivifible. This pervades the whole; and it must be fome fatisfaction to the reader to know, whether he adopt our opinions or not, that they are fairly and truly what we think, and not devised to ferve a fecret purpose. From all influence of trade we are, and will be, as free as if no trade of felling books exifted: and of any other influence, except the defire of doing good, we are equally unconfcious. Such is our compact with the public; which, at the clofe of feven years' labour, and of the century, we think it proper to renew. The feafon of gloom is not yet paft! Britain, after exhaufting her firength to |