your death in an instant?' And before his Majesty understood what he would have, turn'd his horse round; upon which a word run through the troops, that they should march to the right hand;' which led them both from charging the enemy, and assisting their own men. Upon this they all turn'd their horses, and rode upon the spur, as if they were every man to shift for himself."-Clarendon's Hist. Vol. II. p. 657, 8vo. Edit. 1717.

The design and character of Dr, Whitaker's work will in some measure be seen from the foregoing extracts. He does not appear to have sought for (nor perhaps was it possible to collect) any new facts. In the relation of these he follows the common historians: he follows them too sometimes in their reasonings; as when he states how the unequal engagement at Culloden might have been avoided:

66

66 Jamque, licèt in arctissimo res versaretur, tria etiamnum salu"tis consilia inire perduellibus integrum erat. Primo, sibi quemque fugâ dilapsos consulere, loco ac tempore magis opportunis ad signa conventuros. Proximum erat, per cohortes ac clientelas "saltus inviaque proxima repetentes bellum trahere. Tertium, interjecto vicino fluvio, in edito simul et impedito loco, quem sa"tis exploratum haberent, regios opperiri. In perniciem suam "fato ruentibus, sana omnia displicuere; eaque sola ducibus sen. "tentia stetit, ut fessi integris, fugitivi insequentibus, pluribus pauciores, famelici saginatis, aperto Marte repugnarent."

So Smollett had reasoned before him,

P. 96, 97. "One would almost

imagine (says that historian) the conspirators of this desperate enterprise had conspired their own destruction, as they certainly neglected every step that might have contributed to their safety or success. They might have opposed the Duke of Cumberland at the passage of the Spey: they might, by proper conduc', have afterwards attacked his camp in the night, with a good prospect of success. As they were greatly inferior to him in number, and weakened with hunger and fatigue, they might have retired to the hills and fastnesses, where they would have found plenty of cattle for provision, recruited their regiments, and been joined by a strong reinforcement, which

was actually in full march to their assistance. But they were distracted by dissentions and jealousies: they obeyed the dictates of despair, and wilfully devoted themselves to ruin and death." Hist. of Eng. vol. iii. p. 181.

The Doctor seems to have had two objects in writing: one, to deliver a known history in a choice Latin style; and the other, to make it the vehicle of his various reflections. Now, although he who writes with the former of these views is likely to fall into what my Lord Bacon calls the first distemper of learning, which is to study words and not matter;' Dr. Whitaker cannot fairly be accused of this fault. He has selected and arranged his matter with as much care as such a subject deserves: it is nevertheless true, that his language is greatly laboured; it has every where a high polish, and his phrase (like the fine lady) is—

.....Still neat and drest,

'As if 't were going to a feast.

In truth, he is master of a very elegant style, and not backward to bestow upon his readers some little vanity of his art. To give an example of this. He has occasion, more than once, to express the idea of boldness. Now an ordinary writer of Latin would probably use the term audacia for this purpose, as Sallust, and other antient writers of indisputable authority, have done. But because audacia is capable of a bad meaning, for Cicero has somewhere slurred the term, and said audacia vitium est; therefore our author will have nothing to do with it whenever he translates boldness, it is by audentia, (see p. 73, 77, 114,) a much less usual word; but this is nicety, this is precision. Again; having occasion to mention the fondness of the antient Highlanders for hunting, he says, you may see a proof of it on their tombs, in some old sculptures of deer and hounds engraved there : his words are-" Sepulchra vetustis"sima cervis vertagisque, haud indecorè exculpta,” p. 19.-— It is true that some kind of a hound was called by the Romans vertagus; but unless Dr. Whitaker is sure it is the same kind

:

that he is speaking of, he should have been content to call his hounds by a more common name: on the other hand, if he has ascertained these carvings upon the Scotch grave-stones to be of that particular species, he should have published his discovery (at least in a note) for the satisfaction of the learned, who are not yet agreed what sort of a dog this vertagus was, nor whence he acquired the name. Another display which this author makes of his superior skill in Latin composition, is by a certain copiousness in some passages; where he seems to enlarge his description for the purpose of amusing his readers with sundry terms which they will seldom find elsewhere. Thus, when he means to inform you that the Highland chiefs fed on venison, he says they had "cervi et platucerotes," p. 19. When he describes the mountains of Scotland, he adds, that they still abound in fallow-deer which run wild there without any owner; and having told thus much, he introduces another circumstance; the words are, "nullo domino, "nullâ vacerra, spontè vagantibus, etiamnum scatent," p. 13. Now, if you are at a loss to know what is this vacerra, this thing which the deer might be supposed to have, though they had no owner; turn once more to Columella (who is the only antient writer, I believe, that has used the word,) and in B. ix. c. 1. of that author, you will learn, that vacerra is an inclosure of posts and rails. He says, (p. 14.) that in Scotland there is no trace of any thing older than the Celts. Not a trace-Vestigium is a word known, and adequate to this idea: he chooses to express himself thus-" Neque aut vola uspiam extat aut vestigium." It may be said, that, nec vola nec vestigium, is an established phrase: it is so; it is found in Varro: it is not, however, a common one. It seems the inhabitants of Edinburgh were thrown into great alarm by the approach of the Pretender; and our author represents, in the following manner, their general eagerness to suggest measures of defence :

Jamque institores, propolæ, juventus Academica, sacrificuli,*

"jurisprudentes, medici, omnes omnium ordinum ac locorum, "demptis duntaxat qui prudentià, militari rei trepida succurrere "possent, sua quisque ingerere, sibi credi, sibi obtemperari posrei gromaticæ, castrensis, architectonicæ, nullo magistro, "nullâ disciplinâ, periti extemplò evadere." P. 40, 41.

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cere;

When he was about to state, that people of all ranks and classes joined in the common cause, one would imagine that he had no occasion to specify the institores, the propola, and the sacrificuli; and as little reason to enumerate the several arts which they pretended to know, seeing their knowledge was of no more value. But, what is that res gromatica? I suspect the thing itself to be not so strange as the name. I cannot guess what classical authority Dr. Whitaker has for the expression; but I believe it relates to the surveying or reconnoitring of ground for military purposes. But now, to balance the censure upon the author for his use of these unusual terms, it must be observed, that he has introduced others of the same kind with great propriety: as, when he relates that some of the Scotch will eat that which dies of itself, "Quidam, dictu fœ"dum, à morticiná parùm abhorrent," p. *18. When he brings in Lord Lovat professing himself to be a decrepit old man," se merum jam silicernium profatus," p. 54.-when he calls the common men who joined the rebel army at Manchester, proletarii homines, p. 60. that is, men who were seldom enlisted; being poor, or otherwise unfit for the burden of war, and therefore left at home to increase the population: the word is appropriate to express this, which I conclude was his idea; though I am unacquainted with his reasons for describing the Manchester rebels as such.

But it is not only in this curious selection of phrases that Dr. Whitaker has manifested his command of the Latin tongue: he is a diligent observer of some of their best writers, especially Tacitus, whom he follows (and often with good success) both in style and manner. You may trace, in his pages, various expressions, and particular phrases of the Roman historian, which I notice not as a circumstance for blame, but rather

praise, on account of the propriety with which they are introduced. Nor do I think it necessary or proper that every half line, which one writer may adopt from another, should be marked as a quotation: because the seeming ostentation of referring to authors, for such trifles, will probably give more offence than taking them without acknowledgement. The most remarkable phrases for which Dr. Whitaker is indebted to Tacitus are the following. In describing the weapons of the Highlanders, he says, they had "præter enormes sine mucrone "gladios, pugiones, ad complexum inter pugnas corporum,' p. 17. They had the same kind of swords in Tacitus's time, but not the daggers: his account is this: Agricola, in the great battle with Galgacus, ordered a part of his troops to advance and engage hand to hand; which was (says he), et ' ipsis vetustate militiæ exercitatum et hostibus inhabile parva 'scuta ei enormes gladios gerentibus: nam Britannorum gladii, sine mucrone, complexum armorum et in aperto pug'nam non tolerabant.' Tac. Vit. Agric. § 36. Dr. Whitaker says, p. *18. the Highlanders lived so hard at home, that war was a relief to them : "Bellum inter remedia erat." So says Tacitus of Agricola, who had lost his son;

Casum,

neque ut plerique fortium virorum ambitiosè, neque per la'menta rursus ac moerorem muliebritèr tulit: et in luctu bel'lum inter remedia erat 2* Vit. Agric. § 28. Dr. Whitaker's account of certain Scotch mountains is this :-" Juga, "etiam per æstatem, gelida ac fida nivibus ;" p. 37. The same account is given by Tacitus of Mount Lebanon:

Liba

6 num, mirum dictu, tantos inter ardores opacum fidumque 'nivibus.' Hist. lib. 5. c. 6. At the battle of Culloden, Dr. Whitaker tells us, a charge of cavalry was made upon the

Dr. Whitaker is not the first modern writer who has borrowed this sentence of Tacitus. Lord Clarendon applied it to Lord Falkland in his character of that accomplished nobleman. See Hist. of the Rebell. Vol. II. p. 358. 8vo edit.