aqueduits. The winding road; the woody valley, and broken ground below; the mountain beyond; the form of the bridge, which gave a classic air to the scene; and the obscurity which melted the whole into one harmonious mass; made all together a very pleasing view.

"But it foon grew too dark even for the imagination to roam. It was now ten o'clock; and tho' in this northern climate, the twilight of a clear fummer-evening af. fords even at that late hour a bright efful. gence, yet now all was dark.

A faint, erroneous ray Glanced from th' imperfect surface of things, Threw half an image on the straining eye. While wayering woods, and villages, and streams

And rocks, and mountain tops, that long

retained

Th' afcending gleam, were all one swimming scene,

Uncertain if beheld

"We could just difcern, through the dim. ness of the night, the shadowy forms of the mountains, sometimes blotting out half the sky, on one fide; and sometimes winding round, as a gloomy barrier on the other.

" Often too the road would appear to dive into fome dark abyss, a cataract roaring at the bottom: while the mountain-torrents on every fide rushed down the hills in notes of various cadence, as their quantities of water, the declivities of their fall, their distances, or the intermission of the blast, brought the found fuller or fainter to the ear; which organ became now more alert, as the imagination depended rather on it, than on the eye for information.

"Tiefe various potes of water music, an Iwering each other from hill to hill, were a kind of tranflation of that passage in the Pfalms, in which one deep is represented calling another because of the naise of the water pipes.

"Among other images of the night, a lake (for the lake of Baffenthwait was now in view) appeared through the uncertainty of the gloom, like something of ambiguous texture, spreading a lengthened gleam of wan dead light under the dark shade of the incumbent mountains: but whether this light was owing to yapours arifing from the valley; or whether it was water and if water, whether it was an arm of the fea, a lake, or a river to the uninformed traveller would appear matter of great uncertainty. Whatever it was, it would feem fufficient to alarm

his apprehenfions; and to raife in his fancy, (now in quest of dangers) the idea of fomething that might flop his farther progress,

Speaking of the village of Patterdale, he says, "Among the cottages of this village, there is a houfe, belonging to a perfon of somewhat better condition; whose little eftate, which he occupies himfeif, lies in the neighbourhood. As his property, inconfiderable as it is, is better than that of any of his neighbours, it has gained him the title of King of Patterdale, in which his family name is loft, His ancestors have long enjoyed the title before him, We had the honour of feeing this Prince, as he took the dis verfion of fishing on the lake; and I could not help thinking, that if I were inclined to envy the fituation of any potentate in Europe, it would be that of the King of Patterdale. The pride of Windfor and Versailles would shrink in a comparison with the magnificence of his dominions."

Having described the component parts of a view of the LAKE OF ULLESWATER, Mr. G. continues: "Such were the outlines, and compositions of the view before us; but it's colouring was still more exquifite.

"The fun was now defcending low, and

caft the broad shades of evening athwart the landscape: while his beams, gleaming with yellow lustre through the vallies, spread over the enlightened fummits of the mountains, a thousand lovely tints-in fober harmony, where some deep recess was faintly shadowed-in splendid hue, where jutting knolls or promontories received the fuller radiance of the diverging ray. The air was still: the lake, one valt expanfe of crystal mirror, The mountain-fhadows, which fometimes give the water a deep, black hue (in many circumstances, extremely picturesque) were softened here into a mild, blue tint, which swept over half the furface, The other half received the fair impreffion of every radiant form that glowed around. The inverted landscape was touched in faint er colours than the real one. Yet it was more than laid in. It was almost finithed. The last touches alone were wanting.

"What an admirable study for the pallet is fuch a scene as this! infinitely beyond the camera's contracted bounds. Here you fee nature in her full dimensious. You are let into the very mystery-into every artifice of her pencil. In the reflected picture, you ce the ground she lays in the great effects prefer ved and that veil of expreffive obfcurity thrown over all, in which what is done is f exquifitely, that if you with the fi nishing touches, you with them only by the fame inimitable hand that gave the fketch. Turn

Turn from the shadow to the reality, and you have them. There the obscurity is detailed. The picture and the sketch reflect motual graces on each other."

Of a view from HACKFALL (an ap. pendage of Studley Park in YORKSHIRE) our Author gives the following animated description.

It is a circumftance of great advantage, when you are carried to this grand exhibition (as you always fhould be through the close lanes of the Rippon road. You have not the lean intimation of a defign upon you; nor any fuggeftion, that you are on high grounds; till the folding-doors of the build. ing at Mowbray-point being thrown open, you are ftruck with one of the grandest and most beautiful bursts of country, that the imagination can form.

Your eye is first carried many fathoms precipitately down a hold, woody steep, to the river Ewer, which forms a large femicircular curve below; winding to the very foot of the precipice on which you hand, The trees of the precipice over-hang the central part of the curve."

"In other parts too the river is intercepted by woods; but enough of it is discovered to leave the eye at no uncertainty in tracing its course, At the two oppofite points of the curve, two promontories shoot into the river, in contraft with each other that on the right is woody, faced with rock, and crowned with a castle: that on the

left, rises smooth from the water, and is fcattered over with a few clumps. The peninfular part, and the grounds alfo at fome distance beyond the ifthmus, confift of one intire woody scene; which advancing boldly to the front of the precipice, voites ipfelf with it.

"This woody scenery on the banks of the river may be called the first distance. Beyoud this lies a rich, extensive countrybroken into large parts-decorated with all the objects, and diversified with all the tints of diftant landscape-retiring from the eye scene after scene-till at length every vivid hue fading gradually away, and all diftinc, tion of parts being loft, the country imperceptibly melts into the horizon; except in fome parts, where the blue hills of Hambledon close the view.

Through the whole extent of this grand scene-this delightful gradation of light and colours nature bas wrought with her broadest and freest pencil. The parts are ample; the composition perfectly correct. She hath admitted nothing disgusting, or even trivial. I scarce remember any where an extensive view fo full of beauties, and so free from faults. The fore-ground is as pleasing as the back-ground; which it never can be, when plots of cultivation approach the eye: and it is rare to finu so large an extent of near-ground covered by wood, or other surface, whose parts are alike grand, and beautiful."

we

NOTWITHST COTWITHSTANDING the classical allution in the title, have not often perufed a work with less pretension to clafficality in expression, candour in manner, or judgment in matter, than this gloomy pamphlet. The Author is, we understand, a Mr. Paine, heretofore ceJebrated for his work entitled Common Serie, which was published early in the pofortunate American conteit. He appears to us a moody difcontented spirit, Ever ver boding evil and ruinous misfortune, and labours with all his ability to perfrade the Nation that her final deftrucfion is juft at hand. But we have heard 100 much of this senselets croaking for many years, to be at this day the dupes of it; and, netwithstanding the good-natured prophecy of Mr. Paine, we do not defpair but England may yet furvive even to, what he seems to think the will never reach, the end of the year 1788.

It is much easier to pull down than to

build-A labourer with a mattock may demolith a palace, but it requires an Inigo Jones to erecta Whitehall.-Mr. Paine wields his pickaxe in a defperate manner indeed. " The Minister is a young Minister, fond of himself and deficient in experience." "The manage ment of Lord Chatham muit have been bad indeed, to have done less in the war of 1763 than he did, confidering the force and money employed; belides, he took the French teamen in multitudes before the declaration of war, which was very unfair, because it was like a man a lminiftering a difabling dose over-night to the perfon rubom be intends to challenge in the morning." This is one of the flowers of rhetoric of which there is an infinite number through the work; in short, no matter what is the subject, Mr. Paine is still one of those unfortunate Genii that would not baye it fo.

The

1

The Author appears to labour under a kind of Taxophobia: Taxes, Taxes, nothing but Taxes, is his cry. "A Tax is to be laid on shoes and boots, for the service of the Stadtholder of Holland : this will undoubtedly do honour to the nation by verifying the old English proverb, Over shoes, over boots." If a Tax were laid upon all blundering politicians and miferable pamphleteers, poor Mr. Paine might with justice raise this outcry; but we apprehend, that while measures are carried on with the decision and energy, and the confequent success, to which we have lately been witness, our countrymen will not murmur at purchafing an addition of honour and muchwanted respectability, even at the expence of accumulated taxation.

But what becomes of the prophetic wisdom of this discontented speculift, when we have feen the dignity of Great Britain afferted, the peace of Holland restored, the friendship of Rufiia and Prussia secured, the pride of France humbled to the duft, and all this without a fixpence of additional taxes? Mr. Paine may, it appears, still wear his shoes in peace, undisturbed by the terror of a three-penny stamp, notwithstanding that the Minifter is a young Minifter, and England a defperate and a ruined nation.

But it is not to our pockets only that this Genius in politics appeals; he mounts the flack-rope of fentiment, and exhibits at a most prodigious rate.

"Ye gentle Graces, if any fuch there be, who prefide over human actions, how must ye weep at the vicionsness of man!

"When we confider, for the feelings of Nature cannot be difmified, the calamities of war, and the miferies it inflicts upon the human species, the thousands and tens of thousands of every age and fex who are rendered wretched by the event, surely there is fomething in the heart of man that calls upon him to think! furely there is fome tender cord, tuned by the hand of its Creator, that ftill ftruggles to emit in the hearing of the foul a note of forrowing sympathy. Let it then be heard, and let them too feel, that the true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity; and

that to avoid a war when her own existence is not endangered, and wherein the happiness of man must be wantonly facrificed, is a higher principle of true honour than madly to engage in it."

After this pathetic effusion of philan thropic wifdoin, we hope, that henceforward Contention shall be dumb, grimvisaged War shall smooth his wrinkled front, our fwords be hammered into ploughshares, what gunpowder is now in the kingdom be only used to blow up the mills, and one universal scene of peace and harmony reign over this diftracted globe'; for lo! at the word of this prophetic peace-maker, Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna." But as this world must be peopled by men, and as where there are men there will be diffenfion, we fear that all this fine writing is thrown away. Let it be therefore our policy to be prepared for the wortt; to face with cool but steady resolution, the threatening brow of our infidious adversaries, nor for a pitiful saving in the beginning of a contest, involve ourfelves in the lofs of eventual millions; but above all, let us be cautious of the treacherous advice of ostensible friends, who feel for us so much more than we do for ourselves; who "hear a voice we cannot hear, and cry out on every emergency, "There is a Lion in the way, a Lion in the streets." Let us not listen to the gloomy suggestions of discontented malevolence, even though vented through the refpectable medium of an eighteenpenny pamphlet, but as an irrefragable demolition of their affertions, and more particularly those of our present fulsje look to the fact. Three-fourths of Mr. Paine's pamphlet are spent croaking over the national debt of England, and contrafting it with the powerful finances of France; yet a loan of 120,000,000 livres has been open these three months in Paris, for which by no exertion can he procured more than 7,000,000. that be the cafe in London? and if not, why is the common fenfe of Englishmen to be thus attempted by impudent affertion, or delufive fophiftication.

Could

THIS Comedy is the production of Miss Harriet Lee, fifter to Miss Lee, author of the Chapter of Accidents, the Recess, and other works of reputation, and by her present work she has

shewn that they are "fifters every way:" the plot is extremely intricate indeed, too much fo for Dramatic representation. A young Nobieman and the fon of a Banker, on returning from their travels, exchange

change characters. The Banker of courte obtains a "New Peerage," and the Nobieman, by impofing himself as his fon on the father of his friend, proves that "Our Eyes may Deceive Us." Such a deception is however in our fober judgment utterly too improbable. That a fatber should in a few years so far forget the lineaments of his fon, is very unlikely. That a Peer of Great Britain should be so little known, that a stranger returning and calling himself by his name should deceive all the world, even his very guardian, is still more fo; yet on these impoffibilities the whole plot turns. The obfervations on life are the obfervations of one who has read more than She has feen, and whose reading has not been the most judiciously directed: they favour, as fome one has observed, more of the circulating library than of human nature. The principal characters constantly suggest something to us we have heard or read before; they are elegant but not natural sketches, and we are fre

quently able to anticipate their fentiments and their actions. Novelty in character, Mifs Lee has not, save in one instance, attempted; we mean old Vandercrab, the Banker, about whom hangs an air of originality which the other personages of the Drama are devoid of. The sentiments are in general well applied; the dialogue sprightly, polished, and elegant; the wit, what there is of it, pure. We mention this, because the pens of female authors are, by fome strange perversion, more apt to run riot than thofe of male fcribblers; it is therefore to the credit of Miss Lee's delicacy, that there is not the smallest shadow of impurity or double entendre all through her piece. But the charins of diction however polished, or fentiment however pure, will never in dramatic composition compenfate for the abfence of what in the New Peerage we heavily miss; an accurate difcrimination of character, and a thorough knowledge of human nature.

THIS is like all the French petites pieces, a lively intricate buttling Farce. The fituations are monstrous, but whim fical: the characters unnatural, but ludicrous. The story, in few words, is, A Marquis wishes to carry off the daughter of an old General, who promises his confent to their marriage, provided he can produce the Lady in his custody before iwelve at night: the Marquis lays divers

plots; the General like a good officer countermines him, but is at last outwitted; and before the "Midnight Hour" strikes, the young Lady is happy with her lover.

The dialogue is sprightly, and rather fuperior to the ordinary language of Farce; and, on the whole, we think it a piece not destitute of merit.

VOL, XIII,

E