Thefe Roman fouls, like Rome's great fons, are known To live in cells on labours of their own. Thus Milo, could we fee the noble chief, Yet fights the public battles twice a day: The account which follows, of our unfledged rhymefters, who feek au afylum for their perishable works in the Poet's Corner,' A fatal nursery for an infant muse.' is equally laughable and juft. leave the unprofitable trade, and The author advises them to Follow their calling, think the Mufes foes, Nor lean upon the pestle and compofe.' He exhorts thofe who are placed in a more elevated rank, to ftudy their country's laws; Her court, her fenate, and her arms adorn :'— and concludes with a compliment to the lord chancellor, to whom the Poem is dedicated.-Though this performance does not appear fo highly finished as THE VILLAGE, it is certainly entitled to rank in the firft clafs of modern productions. IN Letters to a Young Nobleman, upon various Subjects, particularly on Government and Civil Liberty. 8vo. 6s. in Boards. Sewell. N the Introduction to thefe Letters, we are told that they were written without the moft diftant view of being fubmitted to the perufal of the public; and that they are indebted for their origin entirely to a compliance with the defire of a young gentleman of diftinguished rank, who had a taste for the investigation of fuch political fubjects as civil liberty and government. Indeed without this declaration, we should have concluded that the author's defign was the fame which he has thought proper to acknowlege. For we could not imagine that any writer would otherwife be induced, after a lapfe of nine years, to lay before the public any remarks on Dr. Price's Obfervations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, &c. Hardly any other pamphlet ever gave rife to more numerous Critical Review, vol. lvi. P. 60. com comments than that celebrated production, an account of which appeared in our Review for February 1776*. We find however that most of thefe Letters were written in 1777; from which time they have lain almost forgotten, and, we are informed, would have remained fo, had not fome late publications, and the correspondence of fome political writers with the volunteers of Ireland, but particularly Dr. Price's Letter to the Secretary of the Committee of the Citizens of Edinburgh, occasioned a revision of them. If, as our author feems to imagine, Dr. Price's doctrines continue to exert any influence on the minds of the people, it will doubtless be admitted by all those who entertain different political fentiments, that every thing which can refift their tendency fhould be called into operation. In this view of the subject, we must own that we know not any antidote more likely to prove efficacious than the Letters before us. They difcover acute difcèrnment, close investigation, and found and difpaffionate argument. The first feven Letters in this collection are wholly employed on Dr. Price's Obfervations; and after the general character we have given of them, it will be fufficient that we prefent our readers with a fpecimen, in confirmation of our opinion. In his fecond fection, the author (Dr. Price) pursues the fubject of civil liberty, and the principles of government; but appears to beg the questions from which he argues. "Every free government," fays he, "is the creature of the people.". "In every free ftate every man is his own legislator." Confirm, and allow him his own conceptions of freedom, and this may be true; but where can this government, this ftate be found; and where this freedom exercifed confiftently with either?-He confeffes, indeed, that "it is obvious that civil liberty in its most perfect degree, can be enjoyed only in small states, where every member is capable of giving his fuffrage in perfon, and of being chofen into public offices."-If the author, in any part of the map, can put his finger upon fuch a state, is it that for the fake, and for the correction of which he is taking fo much pains?" A great ftate, notwithstanding, may be still free, and felf-governed," fays he, if, if, and if." Now thefe ifs are very frequently begging what reafon and experience cannot grant: it is, however, a very pleasant Utopian manner of writing, et hanc veniam petimufque damufque viciffim. If, then, the doctor will new model human nature; if, in his free ftate, he will give difcernment, difinterestedness, magnanimity, patriotifm, and a few other virtues, as well to the * Crit. Rev. vol. xli. p. 90.` electors, electors, as the elected if he will be anfwerable that the firkt fhall choose their reprefentatives freely, honeftly, and prudently; and that the latter will difcharge their truft with virtue and wifdom;-then all his ifs may be granted, and little doubt will remain of the happinefs, the profperity, and the liberty of his imaginary state. To a fair and free reprefentation of the people, he adds, to render the government complete, an hereditary council, and a fupreme executive magiftrate at the head of it; and then fays, with a fneer," we make it our boat in this country, that this is our own conftitution." It is fo; and little elfe, if any thing, is wanting to make it perfect, but that perfection, which the doctor will not furely expect, the perfection of human nature. As far as the wifdom and power of man can effect, this government is exquifitely constituted; as far as the frailty and imperfection of humanity will admit, it has, in general, been well adminiftered. This is a truth to which candour will fubfcribe, notwithtanding all that turbulent, impatient, and difappointed fpirits will urge to the contrary.-It muft, indeed, be confeffed, that the reprefentation of the people might, and ought to be more fairly, and equally ordered, if any alteration could at this time be fafely attempted; but that every individual should be an elector, and every elector his own legiflator; that every reprefentative fhould be fubject to the controul of all his electors, and be actuated by as many opinions as he has of constituents; that, in fhort, every meafure of government fhould be a meafure of common confent, and every act, the act of three or four millions of legislators, is a plan, which, if the doctor has really conceived in his clofet, he will find difficult to execute in the air. • Whether he fucceeds or not, he will furely grant, that no nation can fubfift without a government of fome kind; and what government can exift, if the governed have" the power to model it as they pleafe," and to change its form as often as they, in their fuperior wifdom, fhall fee occafion? If the fupporters of this fashionable doctrine have alfo, on their parts, the power to new model the ideas of mankind, and to affix to long eftablished terms, fignifications they never were conceived to bear, it is abfurd to contend with them; but if they will only admit that what is called government implies a relative fubjection, that these two words have oppofite imports, and that the latter can never be understood to fignify the former, the abfurdity of the conteft mult reit with them. In what fenfe is any man, or fet of men governed, if they have a right, whenever they pleafe, to abolish that government, or, in other words, to become governors themfelves? And how is government an inftitution for the benefit of the people governed," when, at their pleasure, they have a right to reduce it to no government at áll, and to introduce anarchy, the work of calamities ?' In the eighth Letter the author delivers general obfervations pon government and obedience, refulting from the American difpute; accompanied with Thoughts concerning an accommodation with America, in 1777. But this fubject being now uninterefling, we fhall quit it for the confideration of what follows, in the ninth Letter, which contains Thoughts on the English Conftitution. However unpopular the affertion may be, in these times, the author hefitates not to affirm, that it is influence alone which directs all political government. This doctrine leads him to take a fhort view of our own conftitution. He observes, that with respect to the three estates, it is hardly poffible not to confider them under two very diAint predicaments. In their functions, it is neceffary that they fhould be perfectly independent of each other. general interests, however, he remarks, are not independent, but mutual; and as these must naturally influence their functions, thefe great conftituent parts of the ftate, when operating wholesomely, are not drawing in contrary directions, according to the general opinion, but pointing to one and the fame falutary end, namely, the good of the whole. This is a propofition which, in our opinion, cannot be denied, without admitting the abfurdity that the good of the whole community is not the end for which government was originally inftituted. In the tenth Letter, the author examines the political theo rems, that all human government proceeds from the people; and that there fubfifts a perfect equality between every individual of the human fpecies. When I took my leave of your lordship, I was going to obferve, that there is one great fundamental maxim of the utmoft confequence to be perfectly and diftinctly comprehended→→→ that all human government proceeds from the people. This important truth has, like all others, been abominably perverted, by the weaknefs, the vanity, the ambition, and other evil difpofitions of men. The truly wife, temperate, and real friends of humanity have taken from it the most interesting and inftructive leffons for the conduct of mankind, in the great concern of fociety and civilization; and, on the other hand, their pretended protectors, the favourers of independent and fuperlative democratical privileges, have deduced from the fame fource, tenets and principles utterly deftructive of that welfare and profperity, and even of thofe very ends they profefs to eftablish. 6 The first have learned and taught, that man, a focial creature, cannot naturally fubfift without fociety, nor fociety without order, nor order without laws, nor laws without government that the government of men, by those of their own fpecies, fpecies, muft neceffarily have arifen from themfelves, by their own act, and for the general good-that the axiom "that government is indifpenfibly requifite to that general good," cannot be difputed; and, confequently, that it is both the duty, and the intereft of the people to fupport it-that to be governed, and, at the fame time, to govern, is a grofs abfurdity -and that to perfuade men to refift what they have neceffarily established, under the pretence that they poffefs the right to abrogate that establishment, and to refume at their pleasure, and without the moft evident caufe, that power, which originated from them, is to excite them to inconfequence, to rebellion against themfelves, and to felf-deftruction It is, on the other hand, to this very pitch of anarchy and ruin, to this felf-deftruction, that the people would be driven by the precepts and principles of the latter, thefe zealots in the mistaken caufe of democracy. Their fundamental doctrine is that of the perfect equality of mankind, than which nothing can be more dangerous, more impoffible to reduce to practice, or more immediately fubverfive of all government. A doctrine, the fallacy of which is proved by the experience of every day, by the concurrence of all hiftory, from the earliest times, and, above all, by the contemplation of all the works of the Creator, whether animate, or inanimate; the very effence of which ap pears to be gradation, or inequality. This flattering doctrine once established, its pernicious but inevitable confequences may eafily be deduced; confufion, anarchy, lawlefs broils, and bloody contels for that very fuperiority, which the fyftem itself rejects. These are the fruits of the benign labours of thefe friends to the natural rights of mankind; it is thus they teach that all government originates from the people, and these are the blefings they announce by divine appointment!' Our author, in this Letter, appears to confider the fubject of government with a degree of prejudice not eafily shaken off by a found politician, who has in his eye the pernicious effect of those doctrines which tend towards public licentioufnefs. And, probably for the fame reason, we think that he inclines too much to an extinction of that jealoufy of the crown, which, though liable to abufe, in a limited monarchy, is nevertheless a falutary principle. The three remaining Letters relate to a plan of parliamentary reform, on which fubject the author delivered his fentiments last year, in A Letter to the Right Hon. William Pitt, upon the Nature of Parliamentary Representation; its Ufe and Abufe *.' * See Crit. Rev, vol. Irii. p. 213. Memoirs |