No one who is at all acquainted with the character of Lord C. will fuppofe him to be one of thofe fevere and rigid preceptors who would make the "delightful tafk" of education both toilfome to himfelf, and difguftful to his pupil. Some wrongheaded pedants have imagined it to be a part of their bufinefs to eradicate every paffion, except the love of books, from the student's breaft, and to fix his virtue in that state of apathy which Pope compares to a froft. Not fo this wiser tutor, this mafter of the human heart. Hear what he fays on the subject of bufinefs, relaxation, and pleasure : I hope you reflect how much you have to do, and that you are determined to employ every moment of your time accordingly. You have your claffical and feverer ftudies to continue, with Mr. Harte; you have your exercifes to learn; the turn and manners of a Court to acquire referving always fome time for the decent amufements and pleasures of a gentleman. You fee that I am never against pleasures; I loved them myfelf, when I was of your age; and it is as reasonable that you should love them now. But I'infift upon it, that pleasures are very combinable with both business and studies, and have a much better relish from the mixture. The man who cannot join business and pleasure, is either a formal coxcomb in the one, or a fenfual beaft in the other. Your evenings I therefore allot for company, af femblies, balls, and fuch fort of amufements; as I look upon those to be the best schools for the manners of a gentleman; which nothing can give but ufe, obfervation, and experience.' The above paragraph is extracted from a letter dated in 174% when Mr. Stanhope was in his eighteenth year. As the noble Preceptor had, to ufe his own feeling expreffion, fet his heart,' on his pupil's making a good figure in the House of Commons (of which, he affures him, he will be a member as foon as he is of age) he chiefly appropriates a number of letters to the important purpose of completely fitting Mr. Stanhope for that refpectable station. He is especially folicitous that his fon fhould be an able, and, above all, an agreeable fpeaker; he strongly urges the utility and neceffity of attaining this popular qualification; and he endeavours to prove that it is to be acquired with very little difficulty, by any man of good common fenfe, who reasons juftly, and expreffes his meaning in fuch language as every gentleman ought to ufe. He maintains that a profound depth of thinking, or a great extent of knowledge, are lefs neceffary than a graceful and pleafing manner of delivering and enforcing common fentiments. This doctrine he illuftrates by a few inftances: The late Lord Chancellor Cowper's ftrength, fays he, as an Orator, lay by no means in his reafonings, for he often hazarded very weak ones. But fuch was the purity and elegancy of his style, * This Letter is dated in 1749. fuck fuch the propriety and charms of his elocution, and fuch the gracefulness of his action, that he never spoke without univerfal applaufe: the ears and the eyes gave him up the hearts and the underflandings. of the audience. On the contrary, the late Lord Townshend always fpoke materially, with argument and knowledge, but never pleased. Why? His diction was not only inelegant, but frequently ungrammatical, always vulgar; his cadences falfe, his voice unharmonious, and his action ungraceful. No body heard him with patience; and the young fellows used to joke upon him, and repeat his inaccuracies. The late Duke of Argyle, though the weakest reafoner, was the most pleasing speaker I ever knew in my life. He charmed, he warmed, he forcibly ravished the audience; not by his matter cer tainly, but by his manner of delivering it. A most genteel figure, a graceful noble air, an harmonious voice, an elegancy of ftyle, and a ftrength of emphafis, confpired to make him the most affecting, perfuafive, and applauded speaker, I ever faw. I was captivated like others; but when I came home, and coolly confidered what he had faid, ftripped of all those ornaments in which he had dressed it, I often found the matter flimzy, the arguments weak, and I was convinced of the power of thofe adventitious concurring circumstances, which ignorance of mankind only, calls trifling ones. Cicero in his book de Oratore, in order to raise the dignity of that profeffion, which he well knew himself to be at the head of, afferts that a compleat Orator must be a compleat every thing, Lawyer, Philofopher, Divine, &c. That would be extremely well, if it were poffible: but man's life is not long enough; and I hold him to be the compleatest Orator, who fpeaks the beft upon that fubject which occurs; whofe happy choice of words, whofe lively imagination, whofe elocution and action adorn and grace his matter; at the fame time that they excite the attention, and engage the paffions of his audience.' In farther illuftrating this fubject, in a fubfequent letter, the noble and accomplished Writer introduces the following account of the famous Lord Bolingbroke; a tranfcript of which cannot fail of proving acceptable to fuch of our Readers as are not in poffeffion of the book: I have fent you Lord Bolingbroke's book, which he published about a year ago. I defire that you will read it over and over again, with particular attention to the ftyle, and to all those beauties of Oratory with which it is adorned. Till I read that book, I confefs Į did not know all the extent and powers of the English language. Lord Bolingbroke has both a tongue and a pen to perfuade; his manner of peaking in private converfation, is full as elegant as his writings; whatever fubject he either fpeaks or writes upon, he adorns with the moft fplendid eloquence; not a ftudied or laboured eloquence, but fuch a flowing happinefs of diction, which (from care perhaps at firft) is become fo habitual to him, that even his most familiar converfations, if taken down in writing, would bear the prefs, without the least correction either as to method or style. If his conduct, in' the former part of his life, had been equal to all his natural and acquired talents, he would moft justly have merited the epithet of all Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, &c. Riv. May 1774. Bb accom accomplished. He is himself fenfible of his past errors: thofe vio lent paflions, which feduced him in his youth, have now fubfided by age; and, take him as he is now, the character of all-accomplished is more his due, than any man's I ever knew in my life. But he has been a moft mortifying inftance of the violence of human paffions, and of the weakness of the most exalted human reason. His virtues and his vices, his reafon and his paffions, did not blend themselves by a gradation of tints, but formed a fhining and fudden contraft. Here the darkeft, there the moft fplendid colours, and both rendered more shining from their proximity. Impetuofity, excefs, and almost extravagancy, characterifed not only his paffions, but even his fenfes. His youth was diftinguished by all the tumult and ftorm of pleasures, in which he moft licentioufly triumphed, difdaining all decorum. His fine imagination has often been heated and exhaufted with his body, in celebrating and deifying the proftitute of the night; and his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagancy of frantic Bacchanals. Those paffions were interrupted but by a ftronger, Ambition. The former impaired both his conftitution and his character, but the latter deftroyed both his fortune and his reputation. He has noble and generous fentiments, rather than fixed reflected principles of good-nature and friendship; but they are more violent than lafting, and fuddenly and often varied to their opposite extremes, with regard even to the fame perfons. He receives the common attentions of civility as obligations, which he returns with intereft; and refents with paffion the little inadvertencies of human nature, which he repays with intereft too. Even a difference of opinion upon a Philofophical fabject, would provoke, and prove him no prac tical Philofopher, at least. Notwithstanding the diffipation of his youth, and the tumultuous agitation of his middle age, he has an infinite fund of various and almost univerfal knowledge, which, from the cleareft and quickest conception, and happiest memory, that ever man was blessed with, he always carries about him. It is his pocket-money, and he never has occafion to draw upon a book for any fum. He excels more particularly in Hiftory, as his hiftorical works plainly prove. The relative Political and Commercial interefts of every country in Europe, particularly of his own, are better known to him, than perhaps to any man in it; but how fteadily he has purfued the latter, in his public conduct, his enemies, of all parties and denominations, tell with joy. "He engaged young, and diftinguished himself in bufinefs; and his penetration was almoft intuition. I am old enough to have heared him fpeak in Parliament. And I remember, that, though prejudiced against him by party, I felt all the force and charms of his eloquence. Like Belial, in Milton," he made the worfe appear the better caufe." All the internal and external advantages and talents of an Orator are undoubtedly his. Figure, voice, elocution, knowledge; and, above all, the purest and moft florid diction, with the jufteft metaphors, and happiest images, had raised him to the post of Secretary at War, at four-and-twenty years old; an age at which others are hardly thought fit for the fmaileft employments. • During During his long exile in France, he applied himself to ftudy with his characteristical ardour; and there he formed, and chiefly executed the plan of a great philofophical work. The common bounds of human knowledge are too narrow for his warm and aspiring imagination. He must go, extra flamantia mania Mundi, and explore the unknown and unknowable regions of Metaphyfics; which open an unbounded field for the excurfions of an ardent imagination; where endless conjectures fupply the defect of unattainable knowledge, and too often ufurp both its name and its influence. He has had a very handsome person, with a moft engaging addrefs in his air and manners: he has all the dignity and good-breeding which a man of quality fhould or can have, and which so few, in this country, at least, really have. He profeffes himself a Deift; believing in a general Providence, but doubting of, though by no means rejecting (as is commonly fuppofed) the immortality of the foul, and a future ftate. Upon the whole, of this extraordinary man, what can we fay, but alas, poor human nature!' In our review of the fecond volume we may have a fair occafion for retorting, on the part of Lord B. this reflection on the frailty of human nature. What will our fober Readers fay, if it fhould appear that the wife; the moral, the fatherly Lord C. is feriously, what Mrs. Bull was politically, an advocate for the "indifpenfible duty of Cuckoldom?" Something like this, we are afraid, really occurs in the farther continuation of these Letters; but we have hitherto regarded them only as they occur in the regular feries of publication. We are now arrived at the clofe of the first volume. The fecond will be the subject of an article in our next Review. Hift. of John Bull, in Swift's Mifcellanies. ART. VII. The Bermudian; a Poem. By Nathaniel Tucker. 4to. I s. 6d. Cadell. 1774. T HE rocky fhores of the little iflands known by the name of the Bermudas, and which confift of little more than fhores, are not a very fruitful fubject for celebration; but the prepoffeffions of a young man, in favour of his native foil, the scene of his earlieft plealures, and where, perhaps, he has spent his happiest days, will find charms in almost any place, which may escape the obfervation of, or be imperceptible to, others. Waller wrote verfes in praife of Bermudas; and he was too good a poet not to magnify the beauties which he fung. He fo highly extolled the "Happy Island," that half the world were on tip-toe to fly to the enchanting fcene. The good Dean Berkeley + wanted to erect a college there; and government was not backward to countenance the piously romantic defign. His plan, however, was too ill founded to fucceed; the Dean † Afterward Bishop of Cloyne. Bb 2 fet fet fail for the intended new feat of learning; but the vessel carried him to New England; where he had time and opportunity for better information; and he returned to Old England somewhat wiser than he went out. But though the curious traveller may look in vain for the numberless beauties that Waller defcribes in his panegyric on the Summer Iflands, as they have been vulgarly styled, it must, in juftice to that poet, be obferved, that their charms are greatly impaired fince Waller's time. Bermudas then abounded with noble cedars, most of which have been fince cut down for fhiptimber; and under the shelter of those delightful trees flourished a variety of pleafing but tender plants, which, now, wanting those comfortable screens from the feverity of the ungenial north, have deserted the foil. The climate is, however, fo mild, the air fo temperate, and the land fo prolific, that the inhabitants enjoy plenty of almoft all kinds of vegetables for food, with variety of trees, and fhrubs, both for ufe and ornament. The Author of the poem now before us, is, we learn, a very young candidate for literary fame. His performance, indeed, bears the marks of juvenility; but it likewife evinces the promifing genius of the Writer; who, if he continues to cultivate, with ardour, his poetical powers, will probably foon grow into confiderable favour with the Mufes. Our youthful Bard, with filial and fraternal affection, laments his abfence from his parent country; and thus defcribes the tender and picturefque ideas which arife in his mind, in his hours of recollection, when all the fcenery of his native foil appears before him: ་ Oft, when in fhades envelop'd, Night defcends, When gloomy Silence hufhes ev'ry, found, Swift at the thought, and for enjoyment keen, E'en now, tranfported to my native land, Stupendous |