EACH DAY'S PRICE OF STOCKS IN JULY, 1785. Ditto India India | India | S. Sea Old 1778. Stock. Ann. Bonds. Stock. Ann. 136 2 s. dif. 74 74 74 3 Sunday New 3 per Ct New 5 per C3 per Ct4 per Cr Excheq] Lottery Ann. 1751 Navy. Navy. Scrip. Scrip Rlls. Tickets. 35% if 13 13 0 913 13 13 N. B. In the 3 per Cent, Confols. the higheft and lowest Price of each Day is given; in the other Stock the highest Price only. 13 5 8c 894 13 5 13 4 13 4 3 5 13 7 699960 666 89 894 89 90 90 1 6 13 7 13 3 13 6. 13 6 609 999 Weather. 2 56 62 56 56 56 58 59 50 W W W 47 gloomy and ftill. bright, warm, and still. fog, ftill, hot, hazy funshine.3 overcaft, ftill, and mild,6 bright, warm, and still. rain, mild, and still. bright, ftill, and cool. S 60 SE 59 S clouds and wind. clouds, fun, & wind, hafty show. clouds, fun, &wind, wm. air, rain. thin clouds and fun, brifk wind. overcaft and ftill. fair and ftill. fair, ftill, and cool. * Black grapes change colour.-2 Therm. at 1 o'clock 70-3 Therm. at 1 o'clock 76.4 Therm. at 1 o'clock 77.-5 Therm. at 1 o'clock 80.6 Therm. at 1 o'clock 76.7 Therm at I o'clock 74. Wheat in the fields, and fome unreaped.-8 Therm. at 4 o'clock 78. AVERAGE PRICES of CORN, London from August 15, to August 20, 1785. 330 630 Effex 480 012 812 I 4 Lincoln 5 5 Durham 8 23766 22 10 46 26 L579 THE Gentleman's Magazine; For AUGUST, 1785. BEING THE EIGHTH NUMBER OF VOL. LV. PART II. Meiffen in Saxony, July 20, 1785. "SIR, "I have found in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1784, your letter to Mr. Urban, with a drawing, about which you defire the opinion of his learned friends. As I have in my collection a diptychon made of ivory, and done, without doubt, by the fame hand, I will take the liberty of fending you a draught of it, if you chufe it. It contains eight hiftories from the New Teftament, viz. 1. the annunciation; 2. the vifitation; 3. the nativity; 4. the wife men; 5. the circumcifion; 6. the teaching in the temple; 7. the fuftigation; and 8. the crucifixion. The figures are not in the leaft mutilaled; and the nativity is almoft reprefented like yours, except that there is a fhepherd and fome fheep on an hill behind the Virgin to be feen; and, therefore, I fuppofe that yours is a fragment belonging to a little diptychon. This ancient piece I believe to be about 1000 years old, perhaps older, for that kind of sculpture is very correfpondent with that to be seen in the antient fabrics of that time. My diptychon confifts of two pieces of ivory, which can be shut and opened like a book. Every piece is four inches broad, and fix inches long, anfwering the defcription which Mr. Gefner gives of it in his "Thefaurus Linguæ et Eruditionis Romanæ;" fay ing, "Diptycha erant binæ tabellæ ebur neæ, ita fibi jun&tæ, ut instar libri aperientur clauderenturque, habentes fculptas pro ingenis facculi imagines, quales fub aufpicia magiftratuum dono mittere folebant. I am your moft obedient humble fervant, MR. URBAN, THE Letters of C. S. ERNEST. Literature, by Rob. Heron, efq. (which you have lately reviewed) have "let flip" fuch "dogs of hell," and have fo invidiously worried the most eftablished literary reputations, especially of the Latins, that in a great measure have ftained and difparaged his own confeffed learning and ingenuity, having miferably alloyed them by dogmatifm and conceit. A few of his paradoxes give me leave to transcribe, which fhall I entitle, in the fashionable phrafe, Beauties, or Deformities ? "Plautus is not original, except in one or two plays. Thole of Terence are mere tranflations. Lucretius was not altogether original. Cicero nor Cæfar CANNOT be original in any view. Salluft is an evident imitator of Thucydides, * Such a grammarian fhould furely have preferred "on" to "of." Rather, "Neither Cicero nor Cæfar can," &c. and Livy of Herodotus. Virgil is the moft pitiful imitator of the whole Roman writers (as our author difcuffes his merits, or rather demerits, in Lett. XVI. XXIII. and XXXIII.). Catullus is not original. Tibullus I fet down as original. Propertius is not. If Horace be original in any of his Odes, they are his worst work. From his grand works of the Satires and his Epiftles, put him as an original writer. But, like a Sabine puppy, he was impudent enough to prefcribe an abfolute rule of poetry (the du ration of the drama) from his own skull. Ovid was doubtlefs original in his Metamorphofes and Fafti. but his originality is futile, and of no value. Celfus hath high merit in every view; and may, I believe, be even entitled to the praise of originality upon the whole. To Phædrus the merit of being original cannot be denied. Juvenal and Perfius have each an original ftyle in their fatires. Lucan is original, but it is the originality of Ovid; an originality of no price; as a poet, I agree with Heinfius and Corneille, that he is infinitely fuperior to Virgil. The Natural Hiftory of Pliny is an original of vaft defign and mafterly execution. Quintilian is the only fenfible critic of antiquity, but he cannot be called original. Statius, Martial, Valerius Flaccus, Silius Italicus, have no claim to originality. To Tacitus let us bend the knee as the greateft of the original Roman writers; as the first hiftori an who wrote with philofophy for his guide; as one whofe judgement and taJents are infinite, and fhall never be rivalled. Boëtius, the laft Roman writer, has a fair claim to originality, and that not of the meaneft kind. Such is the lift of the more † eminent Latin writers. Among them we have only eight original (and in this order); namely, TACITUS, TIBULLUS, JUVENAL, HORACE, PLINY the Elder, CELSUS, PHÆDRUS, BOETIUS." Such indeed, fays Mr. Heron, are the few original Latin writers. Among the Englif authors the merit of be "A claffic edition of him is much wanted. The late Dr. Britbane of Middlefex Hofpital, author of the Anatomy of Painting, had made large MS. collections with this view; which I happened to purchase of a book felier, and, if you know any man of learning who would ufe them with their au thor's intention, they thould be at his fervice." Why not "moft &" ing original fhall be allowed to fome Letters of Literature. Now for modern writers. "Gray is the firft and greatest of modern Lyric writers; nay, I will venture to say, of all Lyric writers; his works, though few, (alas, how few!) uniting the perfections of every Lyric poet, both of prefent and former times." "Boileau, a writer of meaner talents, whofe genius was imitation, and whofe tafte was envy." "The Bafia of Secundus; two, or, at moft, three odes of Cafimir [fee my P. S. p. 581, and the Fable of Commire ‡, conftitute all the modern Latin poetry that merits prefervation." "The only writings of Mr. Addifon, worthy to be confidered as pieces of criticism, occur in the Spectator." This view of his critical errors, restricted to that work, is the fubject of Letter XLIX. By way of a bonne bouche, I will add one of Mr. Heron's political, and another of his religious, fentiments. With what decorum he hath treated both his fovereign and the facred fables, let his readers confider. "It is certainly fortunate that Scotland hath not been free above forty years; as to that circumflance we are indebted for its happy quiet, at a time when every province of the British empire evinces, in commotion, or in rebellion, the odious and most deplorable, but natural and unavoidable effects of those tory principles of government which have prevailed through this pitiful and miferable reign, and have made it one blot in the British annals." "Thofe innocents who call fuch [literary] forgery criminal, forget that they are blafpheming their Saviour and their religion; for the whole parables of Jefus Chrift, which are narrated with circumftances that moft ftrongly imply them to be true, yet are allowed fictitious, fall under this head." It may also be remarked, that he has given no more quarter to the facred than to the prophane writers. "Let there be light, and there was light," hath been fung upon ufque ad faftidium, owing to a forged addition to thunder," I will venture to pronounce Longinus....." Clothed his neck with the most confummate nonfenfe that ever was clothed with the thunder of bom batt," &c. &c. Sat fuperque. This writer fneers at fome Icriptural phrafes "L'Amour & la Flie," by the Pere Commire, published by Menage. extolled |