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then introduced, and with them their concomitant virtues, humanity and a regard for the welfare of others. What eafe and inactivity began, the warmth of climate accomplished; and a keen fenfibility took place unknown to former ages. The modern Italians then became totally unlike their progenitor Fabricius, who, it is faid, could bear the most unexpected and terrifying objects without the leaft fhock or emotion. The irritableness and delicate mobility of their nerves was confiderably heightened and increafed, and the rough fpirit of valour gave place to the finer feelings of fympathetic tendernefs. To this great revolution, it may be doubted, whether the change in the political fyftem or of climate contributed moft. That the climate of Italy is very much altered from what it was in former times, we have the ftrongest reasons to believe, if we compare the accounts given of it by ancient writers, with the real ftate of it at this day. Horace and Pliny frequently mention the feverity of the cold during the winter: Elian teaches us the art of catching eels, when the rivers were frozen and Virgil in his Georgics, inftructs his countrymen to protect their sheep against the cold.

Incipiens, ftabulis edico in mollibus herbam

Carpere oves, dum mox frondofa reducitur æftas;
Et multa duram ftipula filicumque maniplis

Sternere fubter bumum, glacies ne frigida lædat

Molle pecus, fcabiemque ferat turpefque podagras. Georg. 3.

Speaking of the goats, a much hardier animal, he fays,

Poft, bine digreffus, jubeo frondentia capris
Arbuta fufficere et fluvios præbere recentes ;
Et ftabula a ventis hyberno opponere Soli
Ad medium conversa diem.

And concludes with this general precept in regard to them

Ergo omni ftudio glaciem ventofque nivales,
Avertes.

Ibid.

Ibid.

At prefent all fuch precautions are unneceffary, the winters in general being extremely mild, excepting in the mountains, where, even to the fouth of Naples, the cold is very intenfe: but we are not to fuppofe that Virgil meant his inftructions for the benefit of the inha'bitants of the upland countries only, for the text will not warrant fuch a restriction.

From what has been already faid we may infer, that to determine the merit of the compofitions of foreign nations, it is not fufficient to be masters of their languages, even in the most perfect degree; but to be competent judges of them, as it is not poffible to poffefs their notions and fenfations, we fhould at least experimentally know in what degree and on what occafions they are moved and affected. Yet fuch is the felf-conceit of many a critic, that without any knowledge of their difpofitions, and whilft he himself ftruggles against the inclemency of feafons by means of the exhilarating blaze or the convivial bowl, whilft he feeks by artificial methods to give a livelier energy and more active current to the half frozen blood, that lethargically creeps in his veins, he will prefume to condemn what he cannot understand, and to depreciate beauties that he cannot feel. The blind, unless their understanding alfo is obfcured, do not from

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their own imperfect ideas pretend to judge of colours; yet how many are there ever forward to fettle the ftandard of fenfibility from their own benumbed faculties, and becaufe their nerves require to be roufed and ftimulated by more pungent fmells, pronounce the rofe to be without fragrance. There is befides another cause, why we are not fo enamoured with the charms of Italian poetry, as of the Latin and Greek, and which is to be imputed to the general method of our education. From our infancy we are taught to read and admire the works of the Grecian and Roman poets: and it is well known that a tafte, as well as a habit, is to be acquired. Thus it fares with our opinions, as with our principles, imbibed in the early part of our life, which if good are not foon to be perverted, or if bad, not eafily eradicated Stricken in our youthful days with a glimmering of beauty in the author at that time before us, in our riper years we purfue it, as the traveller follows the diftant and unfteady taper the little difficulties and obfcurities once removed, and ourfelves once arrived at the fource of light, we then, like him, fit down contented. Captivated with the profpects presented to us in our journey, we view with pleasure the fame fcenes again and again, nor wish to extend our progrefs beyond the claffic pale; as if the pure fountains that watered the ancient Latium had ceased to flow in the modern Italy, or the flowers that decked their margins had now forgotten to bloom. Initiated too betimes in the mysteries of the heathen mythology, we are induced to look upon other fyftems as ill adapted to poetry, and to regard as trivial and abfurd the feats of magicians, fprites, and fairies, whilst we hear with pleasure of a drunken Silenus, or a libidinous Jove. Some indeed there are, to whom the knowledge of the Italian language forms a part of their education; but thefe are men of bufinefs, who purfue the path that leads to the temple of fortune, not of fcience. Others in the politer world are in general fatisfied with a fmattering fufficient to qualify them for the tour of Europe; but few, very few, endeavour to obtain a critical knowledge of it. Nor will this alone, as has been obferved before, enable us to judge of the merit of an author, for there are national, there are local beauties to be perceived by those only, to whom his country, and the difpofition of his countrymen, are not wholly unknown. Not to confine ourselves to modern, there might be many inftances given in the ancient languages to prove the ruth of this affertion. We read in Horace of the

Præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda
Mobilibus pomaria rivis.

It has puzzled many to find out the true meaning of the word mobiles, and Dacier, the French critic, has in its place adopted the word ductiles; but had Dacier been placed but for a moment on the banks of the Teverone a little below Tivoli, he would have rejected with difdain his own alteration, and felt, with Mr. Addifon, the Angular beauty and propriety of the expreffion as it stands in Horace, Again in Martial;

O nemus, o fontes, folidumque madentis arenë

Littus, et æquoreis fplendidus Anxur aquis! common reader will find nothing very ftriking in the quoreis

Splendidus

Splendidus Anxur aquis; but let him take a view of Terracina and its white impending cliffs in a ferene evening, the fun verging towards the wet, his beams as yet entire, and the fcene before his eyes will, I am certain, illuftrate the foregoing paffage, more than the moft laboured and learned comment, and point out to him a beauty that he never dreamt of.

And here I cannot help expreffing my furprize, that a perfon of Mr. Addifon's refined taste and claffical knowledge, fhould not only have been infenfible to the beauty of a defcription fo juft and at the fame time fo picturefque, but that he should likewile have totally mifunderstood the paffage quoted above. Thus it is that he has rendered it into English:

Ye warbling fountains, and ye fhady trees,
Where Anxur feels the cool refreshing breeze
Blown off the fea, and all the dewy ftrand
Lies cover'd with a smooth unfinking fand.

That Anxur from its fituation was refreshed with breezes from the fea, and that it was chofen on that account by the Romans for a fummer retirement, I do not intend by any means to difpute: nay further I am ready to allow, that the word fplendidus is fometimes ufed metaphorically by the beft claffical writers to fignify famous; and can therefore eafily conceive that a perfon unacquainted with the Roman poets, and who had never feen Anxur, might have translated the lines above in the fame manner as Mr. Addifon has done, and celebrated the place as being famous for its grateful coolnefs. But the word fplendidus is here undoubtedly ufed in its moft fimple and original meaning, and fignifies fhining. I have attempted the following tranflation, or rather paraphrafe, not prefuming that it will rival Mr. Addifon's in poetical merit, but becaufe I think it may ferve to fhew the true meaning of Martial, which to me Mr. Addison feems to have wholly mistaken :

O woods! o ftreams! o moist yet printlefs ftrand!
Anxur, that doft the fmiling deep command,
From whence reflected, quivering fun-beams play,
And on thy glittering rocks refume the parting day.

Not to confirm what I fay from the following line of Horace,
Impofitum faxis latè candentibus Anxur;

I will content myfelf with explaining the paffage in question from another of Martial himself. In his dedication to his fifth book of Epigrams we find the following lines,

Seu placet Enea nutrix, feu filia folis,

Sive falutiferis candidus Anxur aquis.

In which the word candidus has precifely the fame meaning as Splendidus, both fignifying bright or fhining.'

The Reader will recognife in the above extract not only a fplendor of language, but of tafte and erudition.

This volume contains remarks likewife on fome of the dramatic works of Racine and Voltaire, on the Sophonisba of Triffino, the Torrifmondo of Taffo, on the Clemenza di Tito of Metaftafio, and other entertaining particulars.

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1774.

ART. VII. An Examination of Mr. Henry's Strictures on Glafs's Magnefia. By Thomas Glafs, M. D. 8vo. 6d. Baldwin. ART. VIII. A Letter to Dr. Glafs, containing a Reply to his Examination, &c. By Thomas Henry, Apothecary. 8vo. 6d. Johnfon. 1774.

ART. IX. A Refutation of Mr. Henry's Strictures &c. By the present Proprietor of Glafs's Magnefia. Svo. 6d. Davis. 1774

MR

R. Henry's communicating to the Public a process for preparing pure magnesia, and an account of certain calcareous impurities which he had detected in fome parcels of the magnefia fold under the name of the late Mr. Glass, on subjecting it to calcination, has drawn upon him the fevere animadverfions of Dr. Glafs, re-enforced with thofe of the prefent Proprietor of that medicine; who, it seems, about two years ago, bought the fecret of the original preparer, at the enormous price of 1500 pounds. For the fubftance of Mr. Henry's Strictures, and for the circumftances which gave occafion to his publication of them, we must refer our Readers to the 49th volume of our Review; [November 1773, page 332, &c.] and fhall proceed to confider, in a collective view, the more effential particulars of this controverfy as contained in the three pieces now before us.

In the firft of thefe pamphlets, Dr Glafs undertakes to vindicate the purity of Glafs's magnesia, with a view as he profeffes, though not in the most decent terms, to prevent the Public from being deceived and impofed upon-and the Proprietor from being injured in his reputation and property,' by Mr. Henry's falfe affertions, and illiberal practices.'-This paffage is a fpecimen of the urbanity with which the Examiner accofts Mr. Henry in the very firft fentence of his performance!

The falfity of Mr. Henry's affertions with refpect to the calcareous impregnation alleged by him to have been communicated to water, by fome parcels of Glafs's calcined magnefia which he had examined, is here attempted to be fhewn by fome proofs of a negative kind, or by experiments made on other parcels of that medicine; the refults of which are faid to have been totally different from those given by Mr. Henry. They were made on part of the contents of one box of Glafs's magnefia, prepared by the prefent Proprietor before Mr. Henry's Strictures on it were published;' and on twenty-one other fpecimens, which may have been prepared fince the publication of Mr. Henry's critique: for the Author is not fufficiently explicit on this head, though it is a point of fome confequence to his ar gument. We are only told that eleven of them were fent to him by the perfon who prepared them,' who warrants them to be all of different makings;' and that the remaining ten ⚫ were collected from the like number of perfons, who bought

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it fince Mr. Glafs difpofed of his procefs.' All these fpecimens are faid to have been perfectly diffolved in water acidulated with oil of vitriol; and the Author thence infers that no calcareous earth was contained in any one of them.

With respect to the other mode of trial, or that by the fiery ordeal,' as Mr. Henry fomewhere terms it, the Author does not fay that any one of thefe twenty one fpecimens were fubjected to it: but he maintains this fingular doctrine ;-that if Glafs's magnefia were really rendered acrid by calcination, fo as to impregnate water with the difagreeable pungent taste of quicklime, we are not from thence to conclude, with Mr. Henry, that it contained a calcareous earth. The more fubtilifed particles of the magnelia, fi ft purified and refined to a certain degree, and afterwards deprived of their fixed air by calcination, may,' he fut pofes, unite with and be fufpended by the particles of water,' in the fame manner as the more fubtilifed and finer particles of calcined calcareous earths are known to be diffolved in that fluid: and he further fuppofes that the difagreeable taste of lime, complained of by Mr. Henry in his experiments on Glafs's magnefia calcined, was produced by a volatile alcali extricated from his faliva, by the action of the pure calcined magnefia upon it; in the fame manner as a pungent vapour is raised from that and other animal juices by quicklime, or lime water.'

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Mr. Henry might have fcreened his veracity, at least, under the shelter of this new hypothefis: on the contrary, in the fecond of these publications, fo far from availing himself of it, he treats it with an air of jocularity. Palling over his ironical remarks upon it, we fhall obferve that, according to this fingular theory, magnefia, first purified and refined to a certain degree,' and then perfectly calcined, ought conftantly, we apprehend, to impart to water a limy tafte; but few chemifts, we imagine, have obferved this effect; and indeed the Author himfelf afterwards evidently gives up this novel doctrine; declaring that there is no proof that Glafs's magnefia becomes pungent and difagreeable in the mouth after calcination, except the teftimony of one interested perfon, who-may have affirmed a thing that is not.'-So that Mr. Henry's veracity is questioned, only for obferving that in fix trials Glafs's calcined magnefia gave water a pungent tafte, which, according to Dr. Glafs's own theory, it ought to communicate to it in every instance. But even fuppofing this theory to be juft, the Author feems to forget that Mr. Henry does not reft his proof folely on the fle of the magnesia, but pretends to have exhibited the calcareous earth contained in it, in a vifile and palpable form, by throwing fixed air into the water.

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