Youth at different Ages, and calcu lated to produce Correctness of Ear and Taste, iu reading and writing Poetry; the Whole interspersed with Occasional Remarks on Etymology, Syntax, and Pronunciation,"-and accompanied with a "Key," for the convenience of Teachers, or of those who wish to learn without a Teacher. The Rev. Dr. BELL, the venerable and respected Prebendary of Westminster, has, we are happy to com municate, transferred the sum of €15,200. Three per cent. Consols, to the University of Cambridge, for founding eight new Scholarships. "Historical Memorauda of the War in the Levant, during the Years 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, illustrated by Portraits, Picturesque Scenery, Topographical Plans; and an Essay towards an Improved Map of the Othman Empire; by JOHN SPENCER SMITH, D. C. L. F. R. S. F. S. A." are nearly ready for publication. The Catalogue of the Library of the Rev. Dr. HEATH has been republished, in an Svo volume, with the Prices at which the Books were sold, and the Purchasers' Names; and will, doubtless, prove a very useful guide to Collectors as to the present prices of the choicest and most valuable Works in all branches of Literature. * The Library of the late Mr. GovGn, which (with the exception of the Department of British Topography, bequeathed to the Bodleian Library) was sold by Messrs. Leigh and Sotheby in April last (see Vol. LXXX. p. 135) and produced £3552. 3s. The Prints, Drawings, Coins, and Curiosities, were sold in July, and produced £517. 68. 6d. The following were among the most important articles: Abbé Saint Non's Voyage Picturesque; ou, Description de Ames's Typographical Antiquities, Herbert's MS Notes, &c. Sir P. Sidney his Funeral Procession, by Lant-Typis Pom- A curious Collection of Pamphlets relating to Coins Sold for Purchasers' Names 45 3 0 32 0 0 Holford. 32 11 Gardiner. 20 O 0 Bagster. 11 11 0 Armstrong. Plates 26 150 Priestley. Roberti de Avesbury Historia, large paper Froissart's Chronicles, by Johnes, 4 vols. 4to, additional Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth; 3 vols. Biographia Britannica, 7 vols. with MS Notes by Mr. Gough Boetius de Consolatione Philosophia,translated into Englesse. **This Copy was first sold for 26 guineas; but, wanting a leaf, was put up a second time, and sold as imperfect. Ducarel's Anglo-Norman Antiquities, his own copy corrected 26 10 0 Constable. Patten's Expedicion into Scotlande of the most woorthely fortunate Prince Edward Duke of Soomerset, uncle unto Edw. VI R Grafton, 1548 Picart's Religious Ceremonies, 6 vols. 197 Narratives of Battles and Sieges in the Rebellion, 1640, &c. 18 18 Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting in England, and Catalogue of Engravers, 5 vols. with MS Notes, &c. Strawberry Hill, 1765 Titi Livii Historia Romana, MS. sac. XV. With numerous Strutt's Manners, Customs, &c. 3 vols. large paper Parkhurst's Life of Burkitt, 1704, 8vo. Constable. 0 Sturt. A remarkable Collection of Antient Cards, bought by Mr.Tutet 4 0 0 Triphook. -414 6 Bagster. 13. A Letter to the Rev. C. J. Blomfield, A. B. one of the junior Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge: containing Remarks on the Edinburgh Review of The Cambridge Eschylus, and incidental Observations on that of the Oxford Strabo. By the Rev. S. Butler, A. M. Head master of Shrewsbury School, &c. &c. Sold at London and Cambridge, 1810; 8vo. pp. 78. SE ELDOM have we found our literary expectations more woefully disappointed than they now are in the virulent Sargin immediately before us. We crave the attention and indulgence of our readers to a few plain remarks on a very delicate and, we presume to add, a very important topic. No gentleman, in the slightest degree entitled to the appellation and deference of a scholar, can have honoured the pages of our Magazine with his notice, and not have perceived our ardent devotion in the service of genuine literature. Whatever may have been the case for merly, these surely are not times for writers of any respectability to be negligent of duty; when sciolists of every description, and pedantic buffoons, and rhyming libertines, and philosophical jugglers, and slip-slop atheists,-heaven bless the mark!every where abound. At such a crisis, it becomes every good and loyal man much rather to exert his conciliatory powers among the jarring sons of Learning, and to try with winning assiduity to splice (as sailors use the term) and strengthen the cords of amity between them. Still, however, occasions may and do present themselves, of such an unhappy nature as to demand of us a somewhat different course of action: in all which cases we have deeply to regret the necessity by which we are bound; but-we must not flinch or shrink from the task. colours for the greater convenience of alternate piracy and smuggling, and (if we may be allowed to continue the allegory) has occasionally conveyed intelligence to our enemies, and sought to deceive our cruisers; her crew contains a gang of notorious and desperate freebooters, from almost all nations, commanded by a daring renegado, who has seen much hard service, and is aware of the fate that impends over his head, if taken in his irregular course and practices: he now, therefore, throws off all disguise, hoists a bloody flag at the main, and gives no quarter. By this tremendous adversary, it seems, the Rev. S. Butler, A. M. &c. &c. has been attacked and boarded by surprise; and his wrathful indignation is, at least, commensurate with the magnitude of the supposed injury. Of the Rev.gentleman's talents we entertain a very favourable opinion, on account of his academic honours and scholastic appointment; of his industry we have heard, and we believe, much commendation but of his wit, of his judgment, and of his temper, the comedie larmoyante recently addressed to the Rev. C. J. Blomfield, B. A. affords scarcely. a single specimen. The fact is mortifying, to be sure; but it is undeniable. Numerous are the instances, of late, in which the shrewd compilers of the Edinburgh Review have been accused strongly of unhandsome, and even unfair conduct. The accusation appears fully substantiated in the pamphlet under our present consideration. Indeed, the Edinburgh Review may not unaptly be compared to a well-built, neatly-rigged, formidable vessel, of the first-rate class of privateers, that too often sails under false GENT. MAG. September, 1810. Mr. Butler once stood on commanding ground, incalculably more advantageous than that of his stripling assailant. Like Walter Scott's fierce Roderic Dhu, however, in " The Lady of the Lake," our angry Divine has rashly descended from his heights; he has thrown down his ægis, and, in an evil hour, chosen to contend on equal terms with the weaker and nimbler foe: a foe of equivocal pretensions and dubious character, and one, too, whose real motives for rancorous hostility were darkly and ambiguously expressed. True it is, we grant, that Mr. Butler did hiniself know the humble name of his Tyro adversary; for to that young gentleman he most pointedly addresses his appeal: yet the world at large, the literary world,is still ignorant of the youth's proficiency and prowess beyond the present ill-matched contest. Be this as it may, we fear it will be generally thought that, as a gentleman, as a scholar, scholar, as an instructor of children, as a Christian minister, Mr. Butler has lamentably compromised his own personal dignity. Never should a man, so gifted and so placed, have sullied his private fame and his professional cloth, by standing on the same common stage with a mountebank's zany, and grinning through a collar" ad captandos risus." Thus, seriously considered, how indecorous are the following strange passages! how fiat, weary, stale, and unprofitable are the jokes! how void of true humour! how forced, and how unnatural! "Alas! I cannot describe to you how I became alternately pale and red, how I trembled, and started sometimes from my chair, sonetimes dashed the book against the wall, and then picked it up again; sometimes clasped my hands, and sometimes should have torn my hair, if my head had not luckily been shaved, as I proceeded to read that profound and elaborate critique.". Now, all this language may be the effusion of liveliness and gaiety of heart, the pert, flippant wantonness of contemptuous raillery: to us, nevertheless, who are in a grave mood ourselves, and perhaps not quite unacquainted with the gentleman's disposition and habits, Mr. Butler really appears to sneer and smile in agony; whilst his dire Sardonic laugh is hysterical, and uttered in paroxysms of convulsion. In all possible cases, suicide is horrible; but the suicide of a man of letters and a divine, is far the most dreadful of all family catastrophes. For instance, the sudden death of such a man (not long since) was felt like a violent shock greatly beyond the wide circle of his intimate friends. For this result, many good reasons may be discovered. Of him, to whom much wisdom and knowledge are given, much propriety of conduct and conversation will justly be required; and from him any careless intimation of even the bare possibility (much more the probability) of his countenancing SELF MURDER, comes with a mischievous force. What shall we say, then, to expres sions such as these? "Indeed, as the day was chill, the wind loud, and the clouds lowering, I should probably have set off in quest of the shade of Æschylus, by the help of a halter and a three-legged stool, had I not been comforted by the assurances of my eminently-learned friend, that he saw nothing in the remarks of the Edinburgh Reviewer," &c. &c. declarations, I ventured, with the assist"A little cheered by these flattering ance of hartshorn and lavender-drops, a bottle of port-wine, and a white pockethandkerchief, whilst my learned friend was amusing himself with his pipe and the newspaper of the day, once more to per use these formidable strictures. And never did I experience more satisfactorily, or more decisively, the truth of that proverb, which I need not tell you is to be found in a fragment of an antient Greek author quoted by Vauvilliers, who says, that μουχ φαμίλιαριτη βρηδε κοντεμπτ. For, as I read, I felt re-assured. I threw my physic to the dogs, and my port-wine down my own throat, which wonderfully contributed to raise my courage, and, by the time my much respected friend had finished his newspaper, I had laid aside all my fears, and all my intentions of setting off to visit the ghost of Æschylus." In this execrable and dolorous strain Mr. B. is pleased to amuse himself, and disgust his readers, throughout the major part of his let ter. The mummery already cited is sufficient to justify censure infinitely more severe than what we have reWhenever he luctantly expressed. pulls off his cap and bells, however, he fails not to command respect and indignant sympathy: the whole paragraph commencing at p. 18 and ending at p. 20, completely exposes Mr. Blomfield's "malicious misrepresentation," as our Author calls it, and with much propriety. We are sorry that Mr. B. was induced by any consideration to pen the apology in P. 25: it is very affecting; and also very unsatisfactory. The long, tedious note in p. 46, ought to have been omitted, for the same reason. In p. 63, Mr. B.'s passion for drollery soars with a vengeance, till it pierces the clouds. All is sublime; and, we must add, all is obscure. "I am very cautious in firing my cannons; but I think I can venture to discharge one with great advantage, as it will afford an unerring guide to all the doing this, I shall be more liberal than corruptions of the Greek MSS. And, in some of the graver doctors of the Hermetic art, who used to wrap up their alchemical arcana in mysterious and impenetrable obscurity. My receipt for the opus magnum carries its own recommen dation, dation, in its simplicity and perspicuity, cations, in contemptuous sarcasms, in and here it is; ΑΒΓΔΕΖΗΘΙΚΛΜΝΞΟΠΡΣΤΥΦΧΨΩ que Shake these letters altogether, transpose and transverse them secundum artem, coceleriter in cerebello asinino, adde Σφλεγμονδιλβερν, satis confidentia, doc trinæ parum, et sic facies QUIDLIBET ex QUOLIBET. Probatum est. "6 For instance, A SOW'S EAR. For O,W,'S, read 1,L,K, and for EAR read PURSE, and thus, with no trouble, you will have accomplished a greater labour than ever was ventured on by Hercules, and, in defiance of the wisdom of ages and the infallibility of the adage, you will have made A SILK PURSE OF A SOW'S EAR." What does the modest Mr. S. B. mean, when he writes, pp. 64, 65: "I have the highest veneration for my own abilities, and should be sorry not to write better Greek verses than ever came from the pen of Eschylus." is he not still jingling his bells? From p. 72 to p. 78 is a heavy note, gentle reader, on lice and fleas! And should trifling such as this occupy the attention of a learned Divine? Oh! shame, shame! where is thy blush? We conclude our observations with Mr. Butler's dignified and serious reproof of Mr. Blomfield*: if the young man can feel, it must touch him to the quick : "I had no jealousy lurking in my mind that your edition might possibly interfere with mine, which was just coming out; and had you, when I saw you, in a fair and manly way, said that you were about such a work, I should have told you that I thought the world quite wide enough for you and me, and should have been the last person living to have endeavoured, by insidious depreciation, by a sly, anonymous cavil in a Review, or by any other means whatever, to injure your feelings, or your reputation, or your advantages. If I had reviewed your book, and I very possibly might have done so, it would have been in the spirit of a scholar. I should not have contented myself with writing two numbers full of objections. I should, indeed, have objected to what appeared worthy of blame, but I should not have diligently sought for opportunities of blaming; I should not have distorted, misquoted, or misrepresented you. I should not have insinuated, in almost every sentence, something to my own credit, and to your disadvantage. should not have dealt in petulant provo I * Γνώμην ἔχοντα με της φυσις βιάζεται. O, si sic omnia! quibbling mistatements." Mr. Blomfield has, at least, one consolation; h. e. Æneæ magni dextrâ cadit.—VIRG. 14. THE PRINCE: translated from the ori ginal Italian of Niccolo Machiavelli. To which is prefixed an Introduction, showing the close Analogy between the Principles of Machiavelli and the Actions of Buonaparte. By J. Scott Byerley; 8vo.; pp. 306; Sherwood and Co.; 1810. FEW of our readers require to be told that Machiavelli's "Prince" has divided the opinions of the learned world; one party being of opinion that his object was an ironical exposure of the practices of unprincipled conquerors and tyrants; and the other, that he seriously meant to draw up a manual or book of instructions for the use of tyrants. As the latter opinion has been most prevalent, Machiavelli has been generally condemned, and his name applied as a term of reproach to treacherous or tyrannical rulers. We are not quite certain that this controversy has yet been decided. There are, indeed, many difficulties in the way of both opinions. If we consider him as ironical, we preserve the character of the man, but we lessen the merit of the writer; for his irony is certainly not, what irony ought to be, continued throughout the whole, nor, `in many instances, is it even preserved throughout a short chapter or paragraph. And if, on the other hand, he is serious in recommending those detestable maxims which are at variance with all principles of justice, humanity, and the civil rights of mankind, (besides many inconsistencies in the work itself,) how can we reconcile such an intention with the just and sound reasoning employed in his History of Florence? Our new Translator, however, finds none of these difficulties, but has endeavoured to establish a theory of which, we trust, he will be allowed. the exclusive possession. He appears to have read Machiavelli, until the book has produced the same effect on him as romances produced ou Don Quixote. Mr. Byerley sallies forth to prove, not only that Machiavelli has been the constant guide and instructor of Buonaparte, an excursion Perhaps, indeed, the following is not liable to much mistake. After quoting Machiavelli, p. 42: "A prince with less eminent qualities than his predecessors may enjoy all the fruits of his labours, his institutions, and the energies of his genius: but if his reign is of long duration, or his successor does not resume the genius and energies of the first, the ruin of the state is inevitable," To this Mr. B, subjoins the following note: 66 Let no one imagine that, in speaking of France, I intend England. for we have been blessed with a succession of wise princes. I do not hope that the heir-apparent will display all the virtues of his sie; but I can venture to predict that England's ruin will be more remote on his in which we should have had no objection to join him, but that Machia velli was a patriot in the true sense of the word; that his doctrines evince the soundest policy; and, consequently, that Buonaparte, under his instructions, is to be revered as the greatest practitioner of true patriot ism and sound policy now in the known world. Before we proceed to censure a proposition which we consider as equally monstrous and mischievous, we must notice the following among Mr. B.'s panegyrics on Machiavelli; Introduction, p. xi. "Our own Verulam says, we are indebted to Machiavelli; for in feigning to give lessons to princes, he has instructed the people." Now if Lord Bacon had really said so, it would have made rather against our Translator's opinion than for it. It could at least have been no authority for Mr. B. to assert that Machiavelli was a truc patriot by instructing the people, since the only pupil he can find that has ever profited by his instructions, is the present Tyrant of the Coutinent. But the fact is, that Mr. B. appears to have picked up this quotation at second hand, for Lord Bacon's words are: "Est quod gratias agamus Machiavello et hujus-modi scriptoribus qui aperte et indissimulanter proferunt quid homines facere soleant, non quod debeant." His Lordship's opinion plainly is, that Machiavelli depicts the maxims and practices of men as they are, and not as they ought to be. Mr. B.'s endeavour, on the contrary, is to prove, that the "Prince" is a system of true patriotism and sound policy. The whole plan, therefore, of his Introduction is to inspire his readers with the most exalted idea of the wisdom, policy, humanity, &c. of Buonaparte and his cabinet, and the utmost contempt for every other sovereign and cabinet, our own not excepted, as we shall presently prove. A few extracts will amply justify our considering the above as our Transla tor's intention, and as amply vindicate the censure with which we are compelled to treat such a publication. With respect to our beloved Sovereign, Mr. B.'s insinuations are sometimes poorly concealed under a veil of respect, and sometimes expressed beyond all chance of misrepresentation. accession to the throne." This is pretty plain; but, lest it should not be sufficient to prompt our wishes for a change, Mr. B. returns to the subject at the conclusion of this Introduction, and hints at some future period, "when we may not despair of seeing our beloved country not only mistress of the seas, but again assuming her elevated rank in the scale of nations; an event which, if incompatible with the declining years of our beloved sovereign, will, I am persuaded, mark the auspicious accession of his Royal High ness the heir-apparent, whose superior talents, to prove their superior transcendancy, only demand a field for action," In p. Ivi. after extravagant praise on the manner in which Buonaparte contrived to ascend the throre of the Bourbons, we find the following comparison and declaration : "Thus we see, agreeably to the position of our author (Machiavelli) that every difficulty Buonaparte experienced was in his progress to the throne, which he preserves without any molestation whatever. Once, indeed. the assassin's dagger was raised against his life, but that is no proof of a want of the general affection of the people towards him, as our own beloved sovereign would be liable to a similar censure, for more than one attempt have been made against his royal person. The truth is, and I do not scruple to declare it of my own knowledge, in the face of all the world, and as a positive contradiction of the senseless clamour of our journalists to the contrary, BUONAPARTE IS BELOVED AND ADORED BY THE FRENCH when |
