to his family, and wifhing at the fame time to know fomething of my own, I took that opportunity of fearching, to find out, if poffible, whether there were any armorial bearings annexed to my name; from a conception then, that my father's ancestors were of this country. No fuch name as mine was to be found in their books, nor any name like it, a kind of corroboration of our foreign extraction. Seeming furprifed at this, and afking the Herald (a youth) what he thought of it, his reply favoured of his profeflion, that is, enobling or difenobling: however, whether his anfwer was profeffional or not, it was not the retort courteous. He faid I was probably of the mushroom tribe: confcious that I am the offspring of a day, I felt no refentment. In order to make fome atonement for his rough reply, this fprig of heraldry told me that it was in his power to enoble me, and that at much lefs expence, than if done by the Sovereign. For the small fum of forty pounds, continued he, I can make you out a coat of arms, and ally you to fome of the first families in this kingdom. I fmiled and faid, that not being ambitious of adfcititious honors, I would neither give forty pounds nor forty pence for the best and moft honourable diftinctions which the College of Heralds could beftow; and that when I wanted a coat of arms, I could make one myself. He gave me to understand that the College had furnished arms for many perfons of late, and though there are numbers who ranfack all their connections for court.intereft, and expend confiderable fums to be dubbed gentlemen; the Heralds, on the firft application, always conferred that honor for about forty pounds. Let me tell you, faid he, it is forty pounds well laid out a good coat of arms is a warm covering, and adds more to a man's confequence than any coat he wears. Forming a coat yourself, continued he, and wearing any arms not fanctioned by the College, is punishable in the Marshall's court. The Earl Marshall formerly held vifitations, from time to time, throughout the kingdom, when an enquiry was made into affumed arms, and other borrowed badges of diftinction, and if any perfon was found, that ufed armorial bearings which did not belong to him, or affumed a title he had no pretenfions to, he was brought forth into the market-place, on market-day, placed upon a ftool, and there made to difclaim all title to gentility :What has been, faid this man of office, may be again, and if you are wife, you will never attempt to take any fhield or arms, that is not first authorifed by this College. "I heard of a Burgo-mafter, in Holland, who wore all the English orders by turns, confidering them as ornamental drefs; was an Englishman to do the fame, who is to punish him for his folly, if his own mind does not? Though I believe there is fome punishment annexed to it,poffibly it may be confidered as a mifdemeanor. When Mingotti, the Italian finger, was in this 'country, the frequently performed the parts of men, and, after the opera was over, used to meet many of the mufical performers, at at the Prince of Orange's Coffee-Houfe, in the Haymarket. She then and there inftituted, what she called the Order of the Lyre, confined it to twelve members of that club, prefented each with a gold lyre to hang at the button-hole, and fwore them in, in her way, always to wear it. Giardini was one; Pafquali, another; and Storace, the father of the late compofer, a third. To fhew its ufe, in one refpect, I was in company with the latter at Harrow, when the arrow was fhot for, and the croud was fo great, that I could no way get within the ring, but the inftant Storace came forward, who was an Italian, and his order discovered,— Make way there,' was the word, they took him for a foreign minifter; the people opened right and left, and we had free admiffion :-fo much for appearances ! "The State now has, in fome measure, put a negative upon affumed arms, by obliging thofe, who ufe any armorial bearings, to pay annually for a licence fo to do; availing itfelf of the pride and folly of the wealthy. But, as in the act for licencing perfons to fport, the licence does not exempt a man from the penalty of the game-laws, who is unqualified to carry a gun; fo the licence to use armorial bearings does not authorise any one to wear fuch as are not fanctioned by the College of Heralds. There cannot, I conceive, be a more proper tax. Was a tax likewife to be put upon fealing wax, thefe men of arms would still use it, with the greatest profufion; for their letters are often half blazoned over, with their mantles and fields impreffed upon wax. "I did not diflike the oddity of this king at arms, and asked him what mode was generally purfucd, to make out a new coat. He answered, various; fuch as taking part of the efcutcheon of any family, whofe name had one fyllable the fame as, or fimilar to, that of the gentleman that was to be; or by giving fome device emblematical of any thing, either he or or his ancestors were renowned for. In fhort, this converfation brought to my recollection the following ftory, which will illucidate the plan at once. "A man applies to the College for a coat of arms, and was afked if any of his ancestors had been renowned for any fingular atchievement?—The man paufed and confidered-but could recollect nothing. Your father? faid the herald, aiding his memory, Your grand-father? Your great grand-father?''No,' returns the applicant,' I never knew that I had a great grand-father, or a grand-father.' Of yourself?' afks this creator of dignity. I know nothing remarkable of myself," returned the man, only that being once locked up in Ludgate prifon for debt, I found means to escape from an upper window; and that you know is no honor in a man's 'scutcheon.'---' And how did you get down?' faid the herald, Odd enough, retorts P BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XXXI. FEB. 1808. the the man, I procured a cord, fixed it round the neck of the ftatue of King Lud, on the outside of the building, and thus le myfelf down.'-' I have it’—faid the herald- No honor ?'---Lineally defcended from King Lud!—and his coat of arms will do for you. I wish many of our great men were as well defcended.' "I must not be afked where I met with this ftory, or with any other that may be found in thefe pages: fome are new, fome are old. I have committed them to paper as they occurred, and whether they are to be found in Joe Miller, or any other facetious recorder, is immaterial, fo they enliven and illucidate the fubje& I am upon. My reader must confider this work as the compofition of a dramatic poet, whieh, as Dryden obferves, is like that of a gunfmith or a watchmaker; the iron and filver is not his own, but thefe are the left part of that which gives the value, it lying wholly in the workmanship, and making up.-And he who works dully on a ftory, is no more to be accounted a good poet, than a gunfmith of Birmingham, or a watchmaker of Sheffield, are to be compared to the beft workmen in town.” From this extract our readers will be able to form a tolerable eftimate of the materials and execution of the prefent work; and of the curious manner in which it is put together. As we do not greatly admire this exceffive fpirit of digreffion, we fhall not copy it, nor do we think the Memoirs of the author of fufficient importance to make any abridgement of them. Along with his biographical records, the author has intermixed a heterogeneous mafs of anecdotes, opinions, and difquifitions. Some of which are amufing, fome extremely dull, fome rather praifeworthy, and fome reprehenfible. We have, in rapid fucceffion, differtations on armorial bearings and titles of honour, on univerfity education, on duel. ling, on female manners, on law-fuits, and on the nature and effects of chance. Among the anecdotes, many are of amature little tending to edification, and altogether unfuitable to the pages of a moralift and divine. Dr. Trufler is indeed, when he writes in his own perfon, the fteady advocate of virtue; but certainly the cause of virtue will not be promoted by detailing flories of intrigues and immorality; or recording the memorabilia of debauchees, freethinkers, and kept mistrelles. If he is indeed the wellwifher to purity of conduct that he always reprefents himfelf, let him confign to their native darknefs fuch records of vice; or drag them into light, only to brand them with the reprobation which they juftly deferve. We We think Dr. Trufler not lefs reprehenfible for the dif refpectful manner in which he talks of the conftitution and practices of the church of which he is a member. It ill becomes a priest of the Church of England to inveigh against the law of tithes, or the unequal diftribution of church preferment and emoluments; thefe are incidents infeparable from the form of our ecclefiaftical conftitution, and the man who difapproves them ought never to have made a folemn profeffion of attachment to its ordinances. It is fcarcely lefs indecent in this author to fneer, as he occafionally does, at the practices in the ecclefiaftical courts to which he is amenable, and to hold up to ridicule the falutary acts of difcipline to which they find it neceffary to refort. This is defeating the very intention of the facred office to which he has devoted himself, and encouraging rebellion rather than fubmiffion to the church, which he has vowed to fupport to the utmost of his power. Among the digreffive articles in this volume, we were best pleased with fome remarks on the abfurdity and immorality of duelling: a practice which, to the reproach of the age, feems rather to be gaining ground than diminishing among us. The abfurdity of this practice is admitted by all; and yet all continue to fanction it by acquiefcence. An officer of the army is exculpated if he refufe a challenge, nay, by the articles of war, he is liable to be broke if he accepts it; yet if he should actually decline fuch a rencontre, he is treated with contempt by his brother officers, and even totally excluded from their fociety. Nothing can be more monitrous or abfurd; and while fuch continues to be the public fentiment upon the fubject, it is in vain to enact prohibitory regu lations, or to try a man capitally for the violation of a law, which public opinion will not permit him to comply with Nothing therefore, we apprehend, can ever put a stop to this pernicious practice but a change in the fentiments of the nation refpecting it. When the public come to view the duellift in his proper light, as the murderer of his friend, the dif turber of the peace of fociety, or the fool-hardy deftroyer of himself, then, and not till then, will the abettors of this practice be put to the blufh, and be more inclined to apo logize for an unintentional offence, than to risk their lives, or the commiffion of murder, from their devotion to the inandates of a fictitious honour. Our readers will perceive, from the fpecimen we have given above, that the style of Dr. Trufler is not, any more than his arrangement, or choice of materials, a fit object of criticism. The whole performance, indeed, is precifely what he himself denominates it, in his last page, a defultory farrago. P 2 BRITISH BRITISH CATALOGUE. 1 POETRY. ART. 13. The Refurrection, a Poem, by John Stewart, EfçAuthor of the Pleasures of Love. 12mo. Price 6s. Longman. 1808. We have no hesitation to pronounce this a very fine Poem; and if it has not a place among our principal articles, it well deferves it, and is only excluded from its feat by the pressure of multitudes. It opens with thefe fine lines: "When the lone pilgrim by Loretto's shore, As day's last funfhine gilds the heavens no more; And hail the taper's ray, and toil to gain A paufe from woc, a fabbath from his pain." The Poem is divided into five books. The first treats of the Wrath of God, and the Atonement; the fecond, Chrift's Birth, Life, and Sacrifice; the third, the Refurrection and Afcenfion, with remarks on Chriftianity, doctrines of Socrates, Duelling, &c. Book 4. The intermediate ftate-Heaven: The abode of the unhappy Spirits, &c. Book 5. The Resurrection. It is hardly enough to fay, that the perufal of this volume has afforded us gratification of the pureft kind. We would recom mend it to all who love poetry, and who delight to have before them the purest doctrines of our Religion in beautiful language. We could give abundance of fpecimens of fine compofition; but we think the following, which is the exordium of the third book, will justify to the reader the commendation we have given. Daughters of Zion, when oppreft with woe, |