reflected na lefs honour on the rectitude of his underftanding, than it hath recommended that of his heart at least to those who have ftill charity enough to believe, that amidst a multitude of apoflate patriots, there may be yet one faithful Abdiel to be found.

From the greatest abilities, engaged in the best of causes, it is natural to expect an end proportional to the means; and that every point must be carried that was once authorized by reafon, and enforced by rhetoric. But, in a country governed by parties, the best of caufes ftands equally in need of the best support with the worst, and even with all the advantages on its fide is often given up against reason, and abandoned without regret.

It is not our defign to write a panegyric on the at-. thor of the following letters: the reception they have already met with in the world, hath anticipated that defign, and rendered a more formal execution of it unnecessary. To this general sketch of the bright. fide of the picture, we fhall therefore proceed to point out fome of those particular and distinguishing touches of character; which, if they do not serve to foften the colouring, and heighten the beauty of the portrait, will tend at leaf to give it a more ftriking likeness, and afford a true and natural refemblance of the original.

We fhall do this alfo without fear of giving offence to the author; as no man of his fenfe and experience would wish to be flatteringly and fallaciously represented as one of thofe

-faultlefs monsters which the world ne'er faw."

It

It is with the author as with his works:

"Whoever thinks a perfect piece to fee,

"Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.”

Were we difpofed, in imitation of Plutarch, to draw a parallel, the writer, whose talents thofe of Junius feem moft to refemble, is the late Lord Bolingbroke. It was probably this congeniality of mental abilities, rather than any error in judgment, that led our author, in one of the earliest pieces with which he obliged the world, to copy the ftile and fentiments of that noble writer fo exactly, that the performance paffed, for some time, even with the critics and connoiffeurs as a posthumous production of his Lordship.

This piece was entitled, "A Vindication of Natural "Society; or, a View of the Miseries and Evils arifing "to Mankind, from every Species of Artificial So66 ciety." If the title of this tract carried with it the air of irony, its contents were perfectly conformable ; experience, however, on this, as on many other occafions, ferves fadly to confirm the veracity of that trite though pertinent proverb, that "Truth is often spoken " in jest."

This little performance may be regarded as a certamen ingenii, a kind of exercise of his literary and logical abilities; and affords no mean proof of the proficiency he had made in the rhetorical and dialectic arts.

Of

Written in the character of the noble writer above-men

tioned, and in the form of a letter to Lord

was first printed in the year 1756, and has been very defervedly repeated in Dodfley's collection of fugitive pieces.

Of the fame kind are those little critiques on political publications, with which our author, about that time, occafionally favoured those well-known far agoes of literary and political criticism, the Reviews: thofe very heterogenous works, that, during a course of upwards of twenty years, have worn a very different face at different times, and have been very unequally executed by different authors, gentle and fimple, whigs and tories, learned and unlearned, fceptical and credulous; compofing the most motley groupe of writers that ever at once informed and infefted fociety.

Had Junius the vanity of a certain rival politician, now feated at the board of treafury, he would probably wish to have it forgotten that he ever acted the part of an obscure and anonymous reviewer; but when he reflects that they were both labourers in the fame vineyard with men, who, like themselves, have fince risen to confideration and eminence, both in church and state, he muft reflect alfo, with fome complacency, on the means by which they whetted their wits to qualify them for the posts and offices they fo well do, or so ardently wish to, fuftain *.

The

The reader will poffibly be not a little diverted at the diversity of the following specimen of a lift of fucceffive Re

The reputation our author acquired by his ironical vindication of natural fociety, received a confiderable ad dition by his celebrated treatise on "the origin of our "ideas of the fublime and beautiful :" a work that made its first appearance with great eclat, and obtained the writer the distinguishing appellation of the English Longinus. There is most undoubtedly great merit in this performance; in which the author's ingenuity is, however, more conspicuous than either the extent of his know

Lawyers,

Judge Blackstone,

Barristers, Arthur Murphy, Esq;
Dr. Owen Ruffhead,

{

Charles Jenkinfon, Efq; a Lord of Treasury,
Edmund Burke, Efq; M. P.

David Hume, Efq; P. P.

Athenian Stuart, Serjeant Painter,

Guthrie,

Placemen,

Ralph,

Penfioners,

To which may be added, the celebrated John Wilkes, Peter Annet, and a long lift of nameless pedagogues, parfons, poe tafters, publishers, printers, prefs-men, and printers devils!

Shaw,

Hiffernan, &c.

knowledge, or the profundity of his judgment. The affectation of treating fubjects philofophically, whofe philofophical principles he should have first discovered, hath induced him frequently to amuse us with the shadow of an argument inftead of its fubftance. Hence he bewilders his readers in the fearch after the origin of abstract and abftruse ideas, by directing them to confult their imagination rather than their perceptions; their conceptions, which are ever misleading them, instead of their fenfations; which, while they are trufted no farther than they reach, cannot deceive. Had he made Lord Bacon his philofophical guide, instead of imitating Lord Bolingbroke, he would have confidered that, like many other modern fophifts, he begun at the wrong end of investigation, by running rafhly into the maze of metaphyfical fpeculation, without taking with him the clue of phyfical experiment. Even Locke might have taught him what he did not always practife himself, to distinguish between complex notions and fimple ideas, and to admit only thofe of the latter, which are evidently deducible from fenfe.

The fimilarity of genius, already obferved, which our author poffi ffed, to that of the noble author laft mentioned, is, in this tract, peculiarly confpicuous. Splendid in his diction, and specious in his argument, he commanded the attention, and captivated the fancy of the reader; but, more florid than perfpicuous, more fuperficial than folid, however the flowers of his rhetoric might dazzle and perfuade, the force of his reasoning was ineffectual either to inftruct or convince. In foaring up to the fublime, he foared out of fight, and