to her, do not ask her for them any more; you are too indulgent you are not sufficiently acquainted with her character: she is an untractable spirit with whom it is impossible to succeed but by proceeding to extremities; she compels you to embrace that alternative," and she must suffer for it. Give us orders to strip her, and let her be consigned to the place destined for those who pursue a similar conduct. My dear mother, I swear I have done nothing which can of fend either God or man. That is not the oath which I exact.--She may have written against us, against you, some memorial to the Grand Vicar, or to the Archbishop; God knows the description she may have given of the internal state of the house; accusation easily obtains credit. Madam, you must dispose of this creature, unless you would have our fall to be determined by her.-The Superior added: Sister Susan, consider. . . . . I rose abruptly, and said to her: Madam, I have considered every consequence. I feel that I am undone, but a moment sooner or later is not worth the trouble of a thought. Do with me whatever you please, yield to their fury, consummate your injustice.-Immediately I held out my hands to them; they were seized by her companions, who tore away my veil, and stripped me without shame. They found in my bosom a miniature picture of my old Superior; they seized it: I entreated permission to kiss it once more, but the favour was refused. They threw me a shift, they took off my stockings, they covered me with a sack, and they led me, with my head and feet uncovered, along the passages. I cried, I called for help; but they had sounded the bell, to give warning that nobody should appear. I invoked Heaven: I sunk to the carth, and they dragged me along. When I had reached the bottom of the stairs, my feet were bloody, my limbs were bruised; my situation would have softened hearts of flint. With large keys, however, they opened the door of a little gloomy subterraneous cell, where they threw me upon a mat half rotted by the damp. I found there a slice of black bread, and a pitcher of water, with some coarse necessary utensils. The mat, when rolled up, formed a pillow. Upon a stone lay a death's head, and a wooden crucifix. My first impulse was to put a period to my existence. I applied my hands to my throat, I tore my clothes with my teeth; I uttered hideous cries; I howled like a wild beast, I dashed my head against the walls; I covered myself over with blood; I endeavoured to take away my life till my strength failed, which very soon happened. In this place I passed three days; I imagined myself condemned to it for life. Every morning one of my executioners visited me, and said: Obey our Superior, and you shall be liberated from this place.-I have done nothing, I know not what I am required to perform: Ah! Sister Saint Clement, there is a God in heaven.

The third day, about nine o'clock at night, the door was opened by the same nuns who had conducted me to the dungeon. After a panegyric upon the goodness of the Superior, they announced to me her forgiveness, and that they were going to set me at liberty.-It is too late, said I, leave me; here I wish to die.-Nevertheless they raised me up, and dragged me away; they led me back to a cell where I found the Superior. I have consulted God, said she, upon

your situation; he has touched my heart; it is his will that I should take pity upon you, and I obey. Fall upon your knees, and ask his pardon..... I fell upon my knees, and said, My God, I entreat your forgiveness for the faults I have committed, as upon the cross you asked forgiveness for me.-What presumption! exclaimed they; she compares herself to Jesus Christ, and us she compares to the Jews by whom he was crucified. Do not consider my conduct, said I, but consider yourselves, and judge.This is not all, said the Superior to me; swear by the sacred obedience you have vowed, that you will not speak of what has happened.What you have done, then, is certainly very criminal, since you exact from me an oath that I shall never reveal it. None but your own conscience shall ever know it, 1 swear. You swear?-Yes, I swear.... This being concluded, they stripped me of the clothes they had given me, and left me again to dress myself in my own.'

This original and impressive novel will probably have a great effect in rendering it disreputable for catholic parents to immure their children in convents.

Art. 46. James the Fatalist and his Master.
French of Diderot.

$797.

Translated from the 12mo. 3 Vols. 12s. sewed. Robinsons.

We have twice* mentioned this novel, and have only to add to our stated opinion that the translation is executed with great vivacity and propriety, and is far superior to most of those handicraft compositions, in which foreign wares are usually retailed to a British public. This work is, on many accounts, an excellent study for those who write books of fancy.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Art. 47. Novum Testamentum Vulgata Editionis, juxta Exemplum Parisiis editum apud Fratres Barbou. Sumptibus Academia Oxoniensis in usum Cleri Gallicani in Anglia exulantis. Curâ et Studio rundam ex eodem Clero Wintonia commorantium. 8vo. Oxonii: e Typegrapheo Clarendoniano, 1796.

quo

One of the most pleasing pictures in the Iliad is that in which Homer describes Jupiter turning from the carnage and confusion on the plains of Troy, to the peaceful fields of Thrace. The reader feels the change of the scene with delight, and returns to the battle with unwillingness. We experience an emotion of a similar kind, whenever, in the history of a murtherous and ruinous war, we meet with an account of acts of humanity, or the exercise of any of the milder virtues. We dwell on them with pleasure; and, however splendid or interesting the description of the war may be, we are sorry when the episode which interrupted it is at an end.

With these sensations we have considered the publication now be fore us. We have long been engaged in a war the most bloody and destructive of any in which the nation was ever involved. In the course of it, a very numerous body of inoffensive and respectable ecclesiastics, driven from their homes by the calamity of the times, have found a secure and hospitable retreat in this country. Within a

* See M. Rev. N. S. vol. xiii. p. 518, and vol. xxi. p. 578.

few

few months after their arrival, a sum of 40,000l. was collected for them by the subscription of individuals:-when this was exhausted, another subscription was set on foot, under the patronage of the sovereign, and another sum of 40,000l. was raised when this also was expended, Government took the sufferers under its own protec tion, and has ever since supported them with kindness and liberality. This is an act of true benevolence. To the latest times, it will reflect honour on the English nation; and perhaps the annals of the world do not record an instance of national humanity, that can be put in competition with it.

Such was the suddenness of the calamity, and such the dread of the poor exiles of being discovered in their flight, that the greatest part of them arrived here without any books of their religious worship or devotion. This circumstance gave rise to the present publication. The University of Oxford printed 4000 copies of it at the Clarendon press, and had them distributed among the French ecclesiastics, who were in want of them, under the direction of the Bishop of St. Pol de Leon. To make them a more welcome present, they were printed from the edition which was most in favour among the French clergy, that of the Barbous; and the care of the impression was committed to some French priests, who were appointed for that purpose by the Bishop of St. Pol de Leon himself.—It is a very handsome edition.

Art. 48. Observations on the late A& for augmenting the Salaries of Curates. In Four Letters to a Friend. By Eusebius, Vicar of Lilliput. 8vo. Is. 6d. Cadell jun. and Davies. 1797. This Vicar of Lilliput has produced only Lilliputian objections against the general principle of the Curates' Act. He supposes that poor rectors and vicars may, in consequence of the power given to the Bishop by this act, be exceedingly distressed by an episcopal mandate, appointing the Curate's salary. He professes, however, to have an high opinion of our present ecclesiastical governor, and pretends only to be sorry that any future diocesan should have such power vested in him. How does this comport with his assertion that hardships, particularly in the case of old incumbents, who are forced to part with three-fourths of their incomes to young curates, actually exist? He could not think highly of the present Bench of Bishops, if they ordered an incumbent on a vicarage of no more than 801. per annum, who from advanced age was past service, to pay to a young curate 60l. If there be a case of this kind, he should have stated the fact with the names of the parties, and boldly signed his.own; which would have produced more effect, than his complaining that "the act has a tendency to deprive the beneficed clergy of a privilege, which persons in every class of the community have a right to enjoy, the liberty of fixing the salary, which they themselves are to pay to their immediate assistants.'

The Vicar of Lilliput should have recollected that the Curate is generally not so much the assistant, as the representative, or locum tenens, of the rector or vicar; that he performs the whole duty; and that, in reason, when the living will afford it, he should be allowed sufficient to support with credit his clerical profession.

Art.

Art. 49. Dialogues in a Library. Crown 8vo. pp. 278. 55. Boards. Robinsons. 1797.

Truth, like religion, has been a greater sufferer by the impotent defences of its friends, than by the most vigorous attacks of its opposers; and in cases in which a greater or less degree of probability is all that can be obtained, a single false step has occasioned irreparable mischief. We do not in the least doubt the good intentions of the author of the publication before us, and on that very account we regret that he has exposed the cause which he defends to serious objec tions, on the score of his want of candor, his deficiency in argument, and his little caution with regard to facts.

The writer's intention is to establish Theism, and the principles of natural and revealed religion, from an inquiry into the phænomena of nature; a subject that has often employed the pens of ingenious men, and which scarcely needed farther illustration.

It will not be expected that we should give an analysis of a desultory publication, that, within the short space of less than 300 pages, professes to treat of the constitution of the human mind,-of the proofs of design and benevolence in the formation of the solar system, and the animal, vegetable, and mineral orders,-of Atheism, of Christianity, of the Antiquity of the World, of the Deluge, of Greek and Roman Poetry, of Religion, Philosophy, Oratory, and Medicine, and of the history of the early ages anterior to the invention of writing, and at the very dawn of civilization.

The author's remarks on the momentous question of Christianity we shall quote as a specimen of his mode of arguing:

Polymetis. Parmenio, do you belief in historical evidence?

• Parmenio. Yes, when the narrative appears to be founded upon authentic documents, and the character of the historian, in point of veracity, is not impeached.

Polymetis. But by what rule shall we judge of ancient documents, the authenticity of which it is impossible now to ascertain ?

• Parmenio. I know not any other method of judging, than by the credit in which they appear to have been held during the time of their existence.

Polymetis. Should you be satisfied with the evidence of three or four men, concurring in the recital of certain facts; men who could be actuated by no motive of interest to impose upon mankind, and who should even lay down their lives in confirmation of their veracity?

Parmenio. Of all evidence that can be produced of remote transactions, I should consider the kind you mention as the most convincing.

Polymetis. Then the authenticity of the New Testament, and the truth of the Christian religion, rest exactly upon that foundation. The history of Jesus Christ is separately related by the four Evange lists, with a little inconsiderable variation, as their memory was more or less impressed by particular circumstances, but without any incon sistency.

• Parmenio. So far as their evidence relates to credible occurrences, it would be unreasonable to question their veracity; but they have re

corded

corded likewise a variety of transactions contrary to the course of nature, and which therefore are difficult of belief.

Polymetis. The recital of those miraculous transactions, so far from reflecting any discredit on their testimony, affords, in my opinion, the strongest proof of its veracity. Nothing less than personal conviction, and a notoriety of the facts, could have induced them to record events of so extraordinary and miraculous a nature, which, if not well founded, would have been effectually disproved by the inhabitants of the country. But the miracles of Jesus Christ cease to be incredible, when we reflect by whom they were performed. They were the work of such a person as never before, nor since, has ap peared in the world; the promised Messiah of the Jews, predicted by a number of Prophets of Him whose divine nature was manifested both at his birth and crucifixion, by extraordinary incidents, and whose precepts and example transcend in moral purity the most celebrated patterns of excellence recorded in the annals of mankind.

:

Parmenio. I must own that your observations impress my mind with irresistible conviction.'

On Atheism, which is the subject of the 13th Dialogue, the author has not deigned to bestow a single argument ;- the manner in which it is treated will appear from the following extract :

• Parmenio. Such men (i. e. Atheists) are disturbers of society, and seem as much objects of public cognizance as rioters, who are committed to close custody, or the felons who are sent into banish

ment.

7.

Polymetis. They are indeed objects of reprobation, if not more properly of contempt: but beware of calling them disturbers of society, in their own hearing.

Parmenio. Do you imagine that they are extremely susceptible of such reproach?

Polymetis. By no means: but it would gratify them with a notion of their own importance, which is the object they have principally in view. Call them rather a nuisance to society: such an appellation, by mortifying their pride, may serve to reclaim them from absurdity. It was the opinion of Aristotle, that such men ought to be treated not with arguments, but punishments.'

The mention, as facts in natural history, of the idle tales of the halcyon's nest, of poisonous animals containing within them the antidote to their venom, and others of equal authority, shews how far this writer is qualified to set forth "the wisdom of God in the works of creation."

Art. 50. An Account of the Origin and Progress of the Society for the Promotion of Industry, in the Hundreds of Ongar and Harlow, and the Half Hundred of Waltham, in the County of Essex. Printed for the Benefit of the Society. 8vo. Is. Cadell jun. and Davies, &c. 1797.

There are no undertakings which more justly deserve the approba tion and thanks of society, than those which are intended, like the plan before us, not merely to relieve but to prevent indigence.' The association of which the present tract gives an account is REY. JULY, 1797.

Bb

founded