out hovering over the gloomy abyss of scepticism; and a friend to free inquiry, without roving into the dreary and pathless wilds of latitudinarianism. He had a heart, which never disgraced the powers of his understanding. With a lively imagination, an elegant taste, and a judgement most masculine and most correct, he united the artless and amiable negligence of a school-boy. Wit without ill-nature, and sense without effort, he could at will scatter upon every subject; and, in every book, the writer presents us with a near and distinct view of the real man: -ut omnis Votivá pateat tanquam descripta tabellâ Vita senis. "His stile, though inartificial, is sometimes elevated: though familiar, it is never mean; and though employed upon various topics of theology, ethics, and criticism, it is not arrayed in any delusive resemblance, either of solemnity from fanatical cant, of profoundness from scholastic jargon, of precision from the crabbed formalities of cloudy philologists, or of refinement from the technical babble of frivolous connoisseurs. "At the shadowy and fleeting reputation, which is sometimes gained by the petty frolics of literary vanity or the mischievous struggles of controversial rage, Jortin never grasped. Truth, which some men are ambitious of seizing by surprise in the trackless and dark recess, he was content to overtake in the broad and beaten path; and in the pursuit of it, if he does not excite our astonishment by the rapidity of his strides, he at least secures our confidence by the firmness of his step. To the examination of positions advanced by other men, he always brought a mind, which neither prepossession had seduced nor malevolence polluted. He imposed not his own conjectures as infallible and irresistible truths, nor endeavoured to give an air of importance to trifles by dogmatical vehemence. He could support his more serious opinions without the versatility of a sophist, the fierceness of a disputant, or the impertinence of a buffoon-more than this-he could relinquish or correct them with the calm and steady dignity of a writer who, while he yielded something to the arguments of his antagonists, was conscious of retaining enough to command their respect. He had too much discernment to confound difference of opinion with malignity or dulness, and too much candor to insult, where he could not persuade. Though his sensibilities were neither coarse nor sluggish, he yet was exempt from those fickle humours, those rankling jealousies, and that restless waywardness, which men of the brightest talents are too prone to indulge. He carried with him into every station in which he was placed, and every subject which he explored, a solid greatness of soul, which could spare an inferior though in the offensive form of an adversary, and endure an equal with or without the sacred name of friend. The importance of commendation, as well to him who bestows, as to him who claims it, he estimated not only with justice, but with delicacy; and, therefore, he neither wantonly lavished it, nor withheld it austerely. But invective he neither provoked, nor feared; and, as to the severities of contempt, he reserved them for occasions where alone they could be employed with propriety, and where by himself they always were employed with effect— for the chastisement of arrogant dunces, of censorious sciolists, of intolerant bigots in every sect, and unprincipled impostors in every profession. Distinguished in various forms of literary composition, engaged in various duties of his ecclesiastical profession, and blessed with a long and honourable life, he nobly exemplified that rare and illustrious virtue of Charity, which Leland in his Reply to the LetterWriter' thus eloquently describes: "CHARITY never misrepresents, never ascribes obnoxious principles or mistaken opinions to an opponent, which he himself disavows; is not so earnest in refuting, as to fancy positions never asserted, and to extend it's censure to opinions which will perhaps be delivered. Charity is utterly averse to sneering, the most despicable species of ridicule, that most despicable subterfuge of an impotent objector. Charity never supposes, that all sense and knowledge are confined to a particular circle, to a district, or to a country. Charity never condemns, and embraces, principles in the same breath; never professes to confute what it acknowledges to be just; never presumes to bear down an adversary with confident assertions. Charity does not call dissent insolence, or the want of implicit submission a want of common respect." QVAE TE SVB. TENERA RAPVERVNT. PAETA. IVVENTA O. VTINAM ME CRVDELIA. FATA VOCENT * Upon this appeared, in the Anthologia Veterum Latinorum Epigrammatum et Poematum,' Amstel. 1773. (II. 138. Epig. clxxxvii.) by Petrus Burmanus Secundus a serious and elaborate Commentary! in which however, to do the learned gentleman justice, he says, Antiquum dubito, speaks of the recentioris ætatis artificium, and winds up with Quicunque fumos nobis vendidit. But he might have expressed himself with more certainty; IMITATED. 'O Pæta, would the Fates, whose cruel doom And, placed by thy dear side, once more be thine! F. W. as his uncle and D'Orville had jointly published at Amsterdam the Miscellanea Observationes of Jortin, in which this inscription was first offered Eruditorum examini, being often reprinted afterward in the Lusus Poetici.' The elegant and happier criticism of the present learned and excellent Bishop of St. David's, on the same subject, may be found in his Essay on the Study of Antiquities,' Oxford, 1782; where he recommends a transposition of the two last distichs (a measure, which has also been suggested as an improvement upon the conclusion of the Paradise Lost') in order to approximate the composition more closely to the Greek inscription in the Anthologia, whence part of the ideas appear to have been borrowed. |