other ingenious gentlemen, refident in Exeter, or its environs. Each produced, in his turn, an effay in profe or verfe, which was read at the regular meeting of the fociety. An octavo volume of these was printed, in 1796, and reflects great honour upon this inftitution.

Mr. Jackfon poffeffes the advantage of a chafte, correct, and even elegant ftyle. The reader will not flumber over his pages, or when he has perufed any one of his volumes, will he wish to lay it by in peace : he will recur to it often with new avidity, and receive from it fresh pleasure. The fame may be faid of his mufical as of his literary compofitions, that they will always charm with the force of novelty and delight, though repeated a thousand and a thousand times.

In temper and converfation he is what he appears in his writings, pleafant, focial, communicative, and abounding with judicious remarks and entertaining anecdotes. Here follows a lift of his works :

HIS LITERARY PUBLICATIONS ARE AS FOLLOW:

1 Thirty Letters, three editions.

2 On the present State of Mufic, two editions; and
3 The Four Ages, &c.

To the above he has fet his name. He has alfo published a First Book for Performers on Keyed Inftruments, and various Letters and Effays in periodical publications-anonymous.

LORD MALMSBURY.

THIS diftinguished nobleman, whofe name will frequently occur in the hiftory of George the Third, would have inherited philofophy as well as fortune from his ancestors, could the one have been as easily tranfmitted as the other.

His father, James Harris, Efq. the celebrated author of HERMES, was the fon of Elizabeth, fifter to Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, the immortal author of the CHARACTERISTICS. He was born at Salisbury, in 1708, and after receiving a claffical education in that city, was removed to Wadham College, Oxford, which he left without taking a degree.

He represented the borough of Chrift-church, in Hampshire, in several parliaments; but did not obtain any public office till the year 1763, when he was preferred to a feat at the Admiralty-board, which he refigned foon after, on being appointed to another on the Treafury-bench. In July, 1765, he was deprived

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prived of his place, and continued out of office until 1774, when he became Secretary and Comptroller to the Queen, which poft he held till his death, December 21ft, 1780.*

His only fon, JAMES HARRIS, now Lord Malmfbury, was born April 20th, 1746, and. being carly defigned for a public life, received an education accordingly.

Under fo profound and elegant a fcholar as Mr. Harris, the fon could not but. derive every affiftance calculated to render him an ornament to his family. His education, prior to his removal to Oxford, was conducted chiefly under the eye of his father. He left college, however, without taking a degree, and was very carly employed as fecretary to an embaffy at one of the Northern courts.

In 1772, he appeared in the character of Envoyextraordinary at Berlin; and in the following year, both he and his father were returned members of parliament for Chrift-church, a borough which has, for many years, been under the patronage of the family. His diplomatic conduct gave fo much fatis+ faction to the government which he reprefented, that, in 1775, he was made Knight of the Bath, and foon after appointed Envoy-extraordinary to the court of Ruffia.

After refiding a confiderable time at Petersburgh, he was employed as Ambaffador at the Hague; which important ftation was occupied by him in the

* A life of Mr. Harris is about to be published, under the patronage and infpection of his fon.

year

year 1787, when Holland was threatened with a revolution, averted for fome time by a humiliating recourse to the affiftance of Pruffian bayonets. The conduct of Sir James Harris on that occafion was peculiarly offenfive to the patriots'; but it was fo highly fatisfactory to the Prince of Orange, and the King of Pruffia, that they beftowed upon him the privilege of bearing the Pruffian eagle in his arms, with the motto appertaining to the Houfe of Naffau, in confideration of the fignal fervices" which he had rendered them.

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Thefe diftinctions were confirmed by his own fovereign, in 1789, and Sir James' was' created a peer, September 15th, 1788, by the title of Lord Malmfbury, Baron of Malmsbury, in the county of Wilts.

His lordship remained out of employinent from that time till the government found it expedient, at the end of 1796, to comply with the wifh of the people, in endeavouring to obtain the reftoration of peace. No man, at that period, appeared more fit to be entrusted with fuch an important charge than Lord Malmbury; and we believe that his first appointment to this flation was with the entire approbation of all parties. His lordship's negociation, however, failed; and he was enjoined to quit Paris,' by a peremptory order of the French Directory, in forty-eight hours, December, 1796.*

Whatever opinions may be entertained respecting the conduct of the two powers, in this negociation,

*The Directory conceived that he had been tampering as a partisan, rather than treating like a diplomatic agent.

or the views with which they were actuated, it must be allowed that his lordship evinced the moft confummate knowledge of diplomatic business.

A fecond attempt to put an end to this long and fanguinary conteft was thought proper to be made by our minifters, in June, 1797, and Lord Malmsbury was again appointed to the office of negociator. The neceffary preliminaries having been accordingly fettled with the Directory, his lordship and fuite fet out, on the 30th of that month, for Lifle, the place fixed upon as the feat of bufinefs; and the French government immediately extended a chain of telegraphs between that city and Paris.

It would be foreign to our purpose to enter into the merits of the political manoeuvres practifed in this diplomatic game. The French Commiffioners fhewed themselves adroit enough for his lordship, though an old practitioner fully verfed in all the arts of modern intrigue. Their demands, as far as they avowed them, were abundantly extravagant; and the care with which they concealed their objects, was particularly dextrous. After playing with each other till the patience of all Europe was exhausted, and fufpicions began to take place, on the score of fincerity, the Commiffioners had recourfe to their old method of putting an end to the negociation, and actually difmiffed his lordship, upon the plea that he was not vefted with full powers to refign the whole of the conquefts made by this country from France and her allies during the war.

The English minifter accordingly quitted Lifle,

and