great interregnum in 1264,) which joined in the confederacy for their mutual defence and fupport. The feveral cities that entered into this affociation were at a diftance from each other, and fubject to different governments; but as the confederacy firft took rife on that part of the Baltic fhore, which had been formerly inhabited by the Vandals, the fix commercial towns within that tract were connected by a stricter alliance: these were Lubeck, Hamburg, Roftock, Wifmar, Stralfund, and Luneburg, diftinguished in the middle ages by the appellation of the Vandalic cities. Two of thefe, viz. Roftock and Wifmar, were fubject to the princes of Mecklenburg. The fituation of the fix Vandalic cities, being to the east of England, France, and the Netherlands, the inhabitants of the above cities were generally ftiled in these countries Ofterlingi, or Eafterlings. The number of cities that entered into this affociation gradually increased, till at length they amounted to fourfcore. Befides the towns on the Baltic, and in other parts of Germany, the Hanfeatic league was extended to Antwerp, Dort, Amfterdam, Bruges, Oftend, and Dunkirk in the Netherlands; London in England; Calais, Rouen, St. Maloes, Bourdeaux, Bayonne, and Marfeilles in France; Barcelona, Seville, and Cadiz, in Spain; Lifbon in Portugal; Leghorn and Naples in Italy; and Meffina in Sicily. During the most flourishing period of their affociation, they had four general comptoirs for the direction of their affairs, and the fale of their commodities; one at London, another at Berghen in Norway, a third at Novogrod in Ruffia, and a fourth at Bruges in Flanders. This alliance, which was formed at firft with no other view than to fecure commerce against the depredations of robbers and pirates, in procefs of time gave rife to a formidable republic, which, intoxicated with profperity, filled the north of Europe with the terror of its arms, and ventured to wage war with the greatest potentates. But when the kings of England, France, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, &c. began to erect trading companies in their respective dominions in the fifteenth and fixteenth centuries, they forbad their fubjects to enter any longer into this confederacy; and in confequence of this prohibition, the power of the Hanfe towns was confiderably diminished. They, however, ftill continued to keep up their alliance;

*It is faid, that in the reign of king John, fome of thofe Eafterlings were invited into England, in order to reduce the money to its due ftandard, in which they were more skilful than the English; and that the money they coined, was diftinguished by the name of Eafterling or Sterling, that is, made by the Eafterlings, and therefore purer than the former coin.'

and to their ancient laws added fome new regulations; by one of which they excluded from their fociety all towns but those of Germany, or fuch as depended upon the empire. They then ranged themselves under four metropolitans, Lubeck, Cologne, Brunswick, and Dantzick. Since that period, the confederacy has been conftantly upon the decline, and is now reduced to the cities of Lubeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Roftock, Dantzick, and Cologne. At the head of thefe is Lubeck; the general affemblies are fummoned in that city, which is alfo entrusted with the treasures deftined for the public fervice. The ordinary affemblies are held once in three years, and the extraordinary upon emergent occafions. Such was the rife and decline of the Hanfeatic alliance, which, like moft human inftitutions, owed its fall to that pride which grandeur and fuccefs fcarce ever fail to infpire.

It may be hinted that the Dr. had juft before given a better reafon for the decline of this famous confederacy, from the operation of external caufes, than the laft, from the pride of the members of which it was compofed. The riches collected by trade and industry would naturally be coveted by the immediate fovereigns and neighbouring prin es, the oppofition to whose dams is what our Author ftigmatizes. When the potentates of Europe, then, began from thefe examples to fee the advantag of patronizing commerce in their refpective dominions, it is natural to fuppofe they would detach their subjects from foreign connexions, that they might cultivate their national interts more affiduoufly; the members of the league were thus reduced, while their rivals in commerce multiplied.

We fhall conclude this article with the following extraordinary ftory:

About this time [1322] happened an event among the Venedic peafants, in the duchy of Luneburg, which ftrongly proves the barbarity of that ignorant age. The count of Mansfeld's lady, who was daughter to the count of Luchow, had occafion to pay a visit to her relations. In her way through the country of Luneburg, as he was upon the extremity of a wood, the heard the cries of a person who feemed to be imploring mercy. Startled at the difmal found, fhe ordered one of her domeitics to inquire into the caufe of thofe lamentations. But her humanity rendering her too impatient to wait his retuin. the ordered her coachman to drive to the place from whence the voice iffued; when lo! to her great aftonishment, the beheld a decrepit old man, with his hands tied, begging hard for mercy, and entreating a perfon that was digging a grave, to fpare his life. Struck with this moving fpectacle, the gentle counters afked the grave-digger what he meant by fing fuch violence to the helpless old man. The digger, not

at

at all alarmed at the fight of the lady and her retinue, but thinking himself engaged in an action no way criminal, and even agreeable to juftice and reafon, told the countess, that the old man was his own father, but now past labour, and unable to earn his bread; he therefore was going to commit him to the earth from whence he came, as a burden and a nuifance. The lady, fhocked at a fpeech which he thought fo unnatural, reproved the man for his impiety, and reprefented to him how contrary fuch an action was to the divine law, by which we are forbid to kill any man, much lefs our parent, whom we are bound to refpect and honour. The man looking at her earneftly, faid, What must I do, good lady, I have a house full of children, and I muft work hard to maintain them all, and fearce is my labour fufficient; now I cannot take the bread out of the mouths of my little babes, and fuffer them to ftarve, to give it to this old man, whofe life is no longer of any ufe, either to himself, or to my family. The countefs, fetching a deep figh, turned about to her attendants, "Behold, faid he, the miferable condition of thefe poor peasants, how lamentable their cafe, how hard their diftrefs, to be obliged to kill thofe who give them life, to prevent their offspring from ftarving! Yet the opulent and the great are infenfible to the misery of these poor objects, and inftead of relieving their neceffities, every day aggravate their diftrefs, by new tyranny and oppreffion." Saying this, the generous lady drew out her purfe, and giving the man a confiderable fum, defired him to (pare his aged fa ther's life. The man returned her thanks, and promised to provide for him as long as the money lafted. The lady declared he fhould have a further fupply when neceffary.'

This volume is embellished with the heads of Adolphus Frederic IV. the reigning duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz; and of Frederic II. duke of Mecklenburg Schwerin.

Dr. Nugent promifes the remaining volume next winter.

The Roman Hiftory, from the Foundation of the City of Rome, to the Defruction of the western Empire. By Dr. Goldsmith. 8vo. 2 Vols. 12 s. Davies, &c. 1769.

TH

HE only aim of Dr. Goldfmith, in this work, as he acknowledges in the Preface, is to fupply a concife, plain, and unaffected narrative of the rife and decline of a well-known empire, the history of which has been so often written both in ancient and modern languages, that it would be impofture to -pretend new difcoveries, or to offer any thing which other works of the fame kind have not given.

The reasons that determined him to this undertaking were, that notwithstanding many Roman hiftories have been already

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written,

written, there is none in our language that is not either too voluminous for common ufe, or too meanly written to please. He juftly obferves, that our tranflation of Catrou and Rouille, in fix volumes folio, by Bundy, is intirely unfuited to the time and expence that mankind ufually chufe to beflow upon this fubject; and that Rollin's Hiftory, continued by Crevier in thirty volomes 8vo, is liable to the fame objection, as well as Hook's, who has spent three quartos upon the republic alone. Echard, he fays, is the only author whofe plan feems to have coincided with his own, but that though he has comprised his work in five volumes octavo, it is poorly written, the facts are fo crouded, the narration is fo fpiritlefs, and the characters are fo indiftinctly marked, that the moft ardent curiofity must cool in the perufal, and the nobleft tranfactions that ever warmed the human heart, as defcribed by him, must cease to intereft.'

I have endeavoured, fays Dr. Goldsmith, to obviate the inconveniencies arifing from exuberance on one hand, and inelegance on the other. It was fuppofed that two volumes might be made to comprise all that was requifite to be known, or pleafing to be read, by fuch as examined hiftory only to prepare them for more important studies.'

He has felected, he fays, the most important facts, instead of relating all with a minutenefs that has rendered the larger works of this kind languid; and he has endeavoured, in the relation of those that he has felected, to avoid fuch conciseness as has rendered other epitomes dry and unentertaining.

It is common for men who read more than they think, to lay up in their minds oppofite opinions, without noting their incongruity, and to be betrayed into perpetual contradiction by expreffing fometimes one, and fometimes the other, as different occations revive them separately in the memory. So Dr. Goldsmith, a ving fomewhere read that a dull narrative of the most importanţ events would raife no intereft, and fomewhere elfe that important events would produce an intereft in the dulleft narrative, has adopted and applied both thefe opinions in the preface to this work, which confifts of no more than five pages.

When he is to depreciate Echard's Hiftory, he fays, it is fo poorly written, that the noblest transactions which ever warmed the human heart ceafe to intereft. When he is to apologize for his own, he fays, the subject, instead of requiring the Writer's aid, will even fupport him with its fplendor; and, mentioning the principal events which this history records, he fays it forms a picture which must affect us, however it be difpofed, and materials that must have their value under the band of the meanest work

man.

He profeffes to take every thing as he found it, yet he should not have told us what others have written without diftinguif

ing what must be falfe, from what may be true; this however he has frequently done, and what is yet lefs excufable, he fometimes reafons from fabulous facts. What an implicit obedience the Romans placed in their pontiffs, fays he, will evidently appear from the behaviour of Curtius, who, upon the opening of a gulph in the Forum, which the gods indicated would never close up, till the most precious thing in Rome was thrown into it, leaped with his horfe and armour inftantly into the midft, faying, that nothing was more truly valuable than patriotism and military virtue."

Upon this paffage it may be observed, ift, that the fact brought to prove what the compiler calls "an implicit obedience placed in their priests' never happened, nor can, even by him, be believed to have happened; 2dly, that to place obedience in a priest, is a barbarous phrafe without a meaning. 3dly, that the fact, if it had happened, would not have been a test of obedience, for nothing was enjoined: 4thly, that although it would have proved an implicit belief of the prieft's declaration of the will of the gods, it is not here brought to prove fuch belief, at leaft if obedience and belief are not fynonymous terms; and fifthly, that the event itself is not properly related: Curtius is mentioned as already known to the Reader, though he is not before named in this hiftory, and the fuppofed facts which fhould have been distinctly and directly ftated, are introduced in a cafual and oblique manner.

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Neither muft it be concealed, that many parts of the narrative are confused, contradictory, and unintelligible. Having told us that Remus was taken prifoner as a plunderer, and that Romulus affembled a number of his fellow-fhepherds to rescue him from prison, and force the kingdom from the hands of an ufurper, he adds, Yet being too feeble to act openly, he directed his followers to affemble near the place by different ways, while Remus with equal vigilance gained upon the citizens within.' The words place and within, according to all rules of conftruction, muft refer to the prifon in which Remus was confined; the citizens within therefore must have been his fellow-prifoners, who were certainly well inclined towards any attempt to force the place of their confinement without the folicitation of Remus, but cannot be supposed to have had any power to affift it; for he that is confined against his will is neceffarily deprived of power to escape, or to act in concert with any who fhould attempt his deliverance from without. The obfcurity, and indeed abfurdity, of this paffage arifes from the Author's having mentioned an attempt to effect two purposes, and then having adapted what follows only to one of them; he fays Romulus affembled a number of his fellow-fhepherds to rescue Remus. from prison, and force the kingdom from the hands of an ufurp

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