While, confcious ev'ry ftep we tread, O'er all to weild the thund'rer's rod, Ev'n here, my friend, in nature's plan Mean while, through all the modes of fenie, From From the foregoing abstract of our Author's moral and philofophical principles, we may venture to conclude, that however fingular and miftaken he may be in fome particulars of his credenda, his system, nevertheless, upon the whole, is by no means derogatory from religion and virtue: and he appears to us to have treated metaphyfical fubjects with a laudable freedom of enquiry; though it must be owned that in fome instances he has, unwarily perhaps, approached too near the borders of infidelity. We must not omit to inform the Reader, that this work is embellished with head-pieces and tail-pieces elegantly engraved, and representing emblematical figures, which bear ftriking allufions to the subject of the poem. When engravings thus ferve both for entertainment and illuftration, the engraver is not called in vain to the affiftance of the poet. The Vifitations of the Almighty. A Poem. Grace the Duchefs of Queensberry and Dover. 4to. Is. Robinfon, &c. Infcribed to her HIS anonymous Writer informs us, that the entire Poem, which is now to confift of four parts, had been fo planned originally, as to be published in one; which he intended to have infcribed to the late earl of Drumlanrig. But that young nobleman's deceafe occafioning a melancholy pause, set the Author on reconfidering his work; the confequence of which was a divifion of his subject, and a more diftinét arrangement of it. The particular topics of the prefent publication are, Famine and Peftilence. The fubfequent ones are to pourtray Infurrections, War, Land-Hurricanes, Sea-Storms, Inundations, fiery Eruptions from Volcanos, Earthquakes and Conflagrations; whence our Readers may readily infer the diftinct fubjects of each in this dreadful bill of fare, of which the human race have, at different periods, already partaken, and must hereafter partake, until the termination of the scene and fubjects of them. Befides the general and manifest intention of detaching the group of our fhort-lived generations from their extreme if not fole attention to an old and decaying world, to a contemplation of the temporary horrors and phyfical evils inflicted by the Omnipotent, our Author acknowleges, in addreffing his noble patroness, a particular inclination to divert her from too preying an attention to a private, though moft interefting affliction, by tranfporting her imagination To regions where, amidst furrounding woes, Sits TERROR thron'd where ev'ry private ill C Indeed Indeed thefe fubjects do not seem to have been selected by our Poet, without previously estimating his abilities to display them. He is generally happy in defcription; his figures and their atti tudes are striking and juft, and his colours fufficiently glowing. Having obferved, that a famine, (by which he means a general one, a total want of herbage and all provifion) attacks the brute creation firft, he thus delineates, as it were, the famithing ftate of fome of them. Along the mountain-flopes, Stripp'd of their verdant honours, feeble flocks, The prifon'd courfer frequent turns his head, Dies almof unrepining, Such melancholy fituations of the moft ufeful animals very naturally induce the not wholly unpleafing emotions of humane concern and fympathy: but in the most extreme inftances of human diftrefs from famine, we think a few of the reprefentations are full ftrong, if not rather horrid, as in the following. where children, friends, Suck the congealing blood of those they weep. He clofes the scene of famine by an irruption of the beasts of prey into cities already depopulated by it, and by their devouring each other at laft, after a confumption of all fuch other food as fhocks the imagination. The impoffibility of this laft inftance, however, occurring among ourselves, affords fome fuch confolation to an English Reader, as Lucretius fuppofes a man on fhore may have, in contemplating the danger of a fhip in a violent ftorm-quibus ipfe malis careas quia cernere fuave eft. The inftances of particular mifery from the peftilence are not ill imagined, nor unfeelingly expreffed. That of the father of a family furviving them all, and dying at last from the force of contagion aggravated by grief, is perhaps the most affecting. Oppreft with woes, Upheaving all for vent, the houshold lord, Their gafping mother; whole impaffion'd eyes Look Look terror, agony, defpair, and love! He finks, embraces, hivers, groans and dies. Having thus cited fuch paffages from this poem, as appear to us not the leaft affecting, we fhall fubmit a flight exception or two to the judgment of our readers, and to the ingenious Author's confideration.-In detailing the miferies of famine, he fays, Where preffing crouds with eager fingers feize The fetid flesh of fouleft carcaffes, And ev'ry filth edaciously devour. Here we fuppofe the well known word voraciously avoided as too fynonymous, and, as we may fay, too fymphonous, with devour; and this probably was not amifs: but edaciously, which we conceive this gentleman has first coin'd, feems to add little or no force to the verb it precedes here, as it was intended to do, which may be partly owing to its entire novelty; fince, like Virgil's fame, it may gather ftrength from a further progrefs. But while it is acknowledged to be neither unpoetical, rough, nor form'd contrary to analogy, perhaps a coarfer found might be more proper and energic in the expreffion of this indelicate image. We are by no means for cenfuring the poetical liberty of the word itself, being fufficiently mindful of the liberal conceffions of Horace + on fuch points; befides which, it seems as if the very genius of our language delighted both in deriving and compounding boldly, and, like the fpeakers of it, exulted in liberty. It is only upon fuch a principle, that the expreffion of liftless limbs, p. 24. can be difpenfed with, as it is not form'd ftrictly according to the plain analogy of our language. The final monofyllable lefs in compofition is very rarely, if ever, annexed to verbs, but entirely perhaps to fubftantives, which it converts into adjectives, with a negative or privative conftruction, as in Sublimates are the medicines produced from the fublances which Chemistry, whence this metaphor is taken, fublimes: and though the former may have been inattentively admitted as a verb, by fome decent Writer, yet if it was not originally a meer vulgarifm, it is certa.nly more corrupt than elegant. Could analogy fuffer it, it mult be as a frequentative of the verb, to fublime. lifeless, deathlefs, motionless, thoughtless, (not moveless nor thinklefs) and a multitude of fuch other words. The following line, p. 24. In ev'ry form diftemper can affume, was probably intended as an elegant conftruction or extenfion of the verb to affume, but it reads a little hard to us, and more exceptionable here with in than invade would have been. The hyfteric disease may be faid to affume many forms, but to invade in many. Stagnate occurs twice or thrice as a participle (the common way of forming them beyond the Tweed) for flagnated or flagnant, one of which we think fhould be preferred, if it were only to diftinguish it from the verb. Many fuch little circumftances of our language, which occafion no obfcurity among ourselves, produce no fmall perplexity to foreigners; and the literal famenefs of our fpelling different parts of fpeech, from the fame root, proves a confiderable fund of difficulties to them. Now as a difpofition to learn English feems to increase on the continent, it would be but polite, and cannot be impolitic, to encourage the diffufion of it, as our enemics have done of theirs fome centuries paít. We have been the more particular, and perhaps even fomewhat minute in thefe few, and not unfriendly ftrictures, from the Author's having promifed three fubfequent parts to compleat his poem and as we have no formal academy for the cultivation or standard of our tongue, we think every learned and ingenious writer fhould be rather the more attentive to obferve, for his own part, and for the fake of his readers, the elegance, the purity, and the perfpicuity of it. The Art of Land-meafuring explained, In five parts, viz. 1. Taking dimenfions. 2. Finding contents. 3. Laying out ground. 4. Dividing. And 5. Planning. With an Appendix concerning inftruments. By John Gray, teacher of the mathemathics at Greenock, and land-measurer. 8vo. 5s. Glaf gow printed, and fold by Wilion and Durham, London. NE ECESSITY, according to the common proverb, is the mother of invention, and to this the art of furveying, in particular, owed its origin. The annual inundations of the Nile, deftroying the marks which bounded the lands of different perfons, the ancient Egyptians were under a neceffity of measuring to every perfon his refpective quantity of land every year; but how far they improved the art of furveying cannot now be known. Perhaps, as it owed its origin to neceffity, fo it was never carried by them to any |