with the tenets of philosophy, we cannot help thinking that the domain which Mr. De Lille has chosen for the range of his poetical talent, is by far too extensive. The consequence has been, that whilst he is evidently labouring to circumscribe his subject within due limits, he is guilty of unpardonable omissions, or hasty and superficial accounts of important topics, such as the thermometer, aërial navigation, earthquakes, tropical plants, cataracts, and others. We could wish that Mr. De Lille, in imitation of Du Morestier's Epitres à Emilie sur la Mythologie, and Dr. J. Aikin's Calendar of Nature, had thrown the notes into the work, and given those didactic details which require accuracy and clearness of expression, in prose, and that these scientific details had been occasionally enlivened by poetical description. His style has often all the ease and familiarity of epistolary correspondence, and he is never greater than when he is describing domestic scenes and occurrences, which in letters might have been more frequently introduced. DE MOTU PER BRITANNIAM CIVICO, ANNIS MDCCXLV. ET MDCCXLVI. LIBER UNICUS. AUCTORE T.D. WHITAKERÒ, LL.D. S.S.4. Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme. Londini, &c. 8vo. 1809. In the annals of painting, it is related of a certain practitioner, that he had acquired a singular method of executing his pictures, which was by laying on the colours with his fingers: when this was mentioned to Michael Angelo as a curious circumstance, that great artist replied, " The simpleton! why does not he use pencils 2" "Tis perverse to go round about, when the direct way to your end is known, and open: and to contrive difficulties for the sake of surmounting them, is a preposterous abuse of the faculty of invention. The absurdity is greater, when you choose a circuitous path which will not conduct you to the end proposed, and when you create to yourself difficulties which cannot be surmounted. Such more especially is the case of those writers, who, having undertaken to exhibit a modern subject to the public, are ambitions of dressing it up in an antient garb of Greek or Latin. In certain circumstances indeed this practice may be approved of; as when something of general concern to mankind is to be published to the world; for instance, some discovery in medicine; upon which account, treatises of that science have been usually composed in Latin. But that a piece of British history, in which few beside the inhabitants of the Island can be interested, (and such is the book before us,) should be written in Latin by an Englishman, shews a wrong judgment in the very frame and conception of the work. It shews that information, which is the chief end of history, is not the chief object of the author: for undoubtedly he could have explain●d himself better, and more clearly to the understanding of his readers, in his native language: but this was a propriety which he neglected, while in pursuit of something else. Among the objections to composing in a dead language, it is unnecessary to mention the impossibility of expressing modern inventions with propriety. A battle fought with cannon, musquetry, and bayonets, is particularly unfit for Latin description. Here Dr. W. is unfortunate: his subject involved him in the relation of fights, and skirmishes, and the various operations of modern warfare. But there are other objections, though perhaps not so obvious, or strong. He who writes in a dead, and therefore unknown tongue, is ignorant of the propriety (and even the import) of every phrase that is not established by antient authority: but as such authorized phrases are by no means numerous enough for every purpose, he is sometimes obliged, for want of a phrase that will accurately express his idea, to content himself with one that comes near to it. Sometimes, for the same reason, he is forced to adopt a general term, when, if he had been writing in his native language, he would be particular and distinct. Hence will arise a frequent repetition, or a sameness of phraseology. The pamphlet under review, contains but 145 small octavo pages; yet how often recurs the phrase "sub pellibus esse, haberi,&c.” to signify being encamped: see p. 70, 89. Nor less often do we meet with incerta fluminis, or somewhat like it; as, paludum incerta, p. 17; incerta palus, p. 47; fluvii incerti cada, p. 90; the same word to express the various dangers and difficulties of fording a river, and marching over a bog. So again, common ideas are repeatedly exhibited under metaphors, uncouth and strange to modern readers: for example, danger by res aleœ plena, p. 24, 115; the central place of an island, or country, by umbilicus, p. 60, 111; an advanced season, by adulta* œstas, p. 10, 127; ver adultum, p. 130. * Primo mense veris, dicitur novum ver; secundo, ver adultum ; tertio, præceps: sicut etiam Sallustius dicit ubique nova æstas, adulta, These are some few of the objections which lie against modern writers of Latin in general: what is peculiar to this author shall be noticed hereafter. His work contains an account of the Rebellion, in the years 1745, 1746. The plan of it is regular, and well arranged. It comprises an exordium, a short introduction to the subject, taken from the extraordinary calamities of the royal house of Stuart; a preliminary digression upon the geography, natural productions, and inhabitants of Scotland: then comes the proper business of the history, from the first landing of the Pretender in North Britain, to his final escape into France; afterwards are related, the punishments inflicted on the Rebels, the confiscations, the laws passed in consequence of the rebellion, and the effects produced by them; and in conclusion of the whole, we are carried on to the death of the Pretender, and even to the extinction of his family, by the subsequent decease of Cardinal York, the last male heir of that house. This is a comprehensive design, and complete; it leaves nothing behind but now, to see more particularly how it is executed. : The first paragraph of the book runs thus: "Si cui eorum, qui hunc libellum manibus contrectaverint, mi. "rari fortasse subeat, quam potissimùm ob caussam, non tam bel"lum, quàm belli accessionem & quasi particulam conscripserim, "in initio opusculi, quo, perlecto fortasse eo, haud opus fuerit, "hoc habeat responsum, Exili ingenio parem convenire materiam : "modò ea res omnino exilis dici possit, in quâ, licèt ab exiguis profectâ initiis, & maximi, & nostri imperii religiones, jura, "libertates, omnia denique divina humanaque haud ita pridem "vertebantur." P. 1. This is setting out unluckily. He suspects that some of his readers may think it strange that he should choose for his præceps. So says Servius; but he is not correct: for in Sallust. Bell. Jugurth, this phrase occurs: Eâ tempestate (nam æstatis extremum erat;) p. 108. Ed. Lon. 1714. subject such a bit of a war, (as he calls it:) and indeed it is, as if a writer, some 60 years hence, should select from the present war, the campaign of the Duke of Brunswic Oels. But whatever his choice be, the reason he alledges for it is strange enough; exili ingenio parem convenire materiam. If the work had been imposed upon him, a task not to be avoided, this plea would have been good and proper; but when the undertaking is voluntary, is it any excuse for publishing an insignificant trifle, to say, that it is suitable to the author's genius, that it is as much as he has abilities to perform? Besides, how does the excuse agree with his title-page? Is it for an author who assumes the titles of LL. D. and S. S. A., "who may write himself LL. D. in any bill, bond, quittance, or obligation;" LL. D. to pretend that his slender capacity is equal to trifles only? He does not believe so himself, nor would he have you believe so; for, lest you should take him at his word, in the next sentence he tells you the importance of his subject: viz. to record a transaction, in the event of which, your laws, your liberty, your religion, every thing, in short, was concerned. The second paragraph discovers somewhat more of his design. "Stuartæ Gentis clades ac calamitates altiùs repetere,-prudens "omitto. Pauca tamen, quasi labris primoribus, degustanda cen. "sui, quo, nomine, jamjam interituro, certamen regni vitæque 66 postremum, florentibus regiæ adhuc familiæ opibus conlatum, "documentum posteris daret, non decantatum illud & pueris de. "clamitantibus ablegandum, nempè summum fastigium summum 66 esse fortunæ ludibrium, 'sed, quod homines parùm insipientes, in "ipso vitæ stadio & curriculo, subinde fugisse videatur, nimirùm, "umbram ipsam ac memoriam principatûs, extorri, inopi, pere"grino, circumdatas, imperio optimè constituto hostem ex con"tempto pænitendum identidem peperisse." P. 2. Here he professes to moralize: and having (as it were) forgotten, or shook off his weakness, he rises with the port of a more than ordinary teacher: for he disdains to inculcate the |