rarely to reafon or to the heart. It is a juft and judicious re mark of Mr. Sherlock's, that the very nobleft productions of the Italian poets have contributed to perpetuate this deviation from fimplicity and nature, by the admiration they have excited through fucceeding ages; an admiration that renders their very defects refpectable, and objects of imitation. The young Italian poets, accustomed to confider Dante, Petrarch, Aristo, and others approaching to that clafs, as models of perfection, beyond which the poetic art can make no farther progrefs, confine their imitation to thefe dangerous guides, and walk with a fervile admiration in the paths which they have opened. Mr. SHERLOCK combats with good fenfe, taste, and fpirit, this way of proceeding: he estimates the refpective merits of thefe immortal bards; but though he does this, for the most part, in a mafterly manner, there is, nevertheless, fometimes more wit than truth in his decifions. For example, after having defcribed Petrarch with accuracy, tafte, and sensibility, as an inventive genius, who created a new kind of poetry, who from a harp, which had but few ftrings, drew celeftial founds, and whofe tender heart spoke to hearts of the fame mold the language of nature, he adds, that Petrarch exhausted the fpecies of poetry which he had invented, and therefore could not form fucceffors.'-We question much, whether Petrarch invented this kind of poetry: but we are fure he did not exhauft it, for true love and genuine nature are inexhaustible.

Mr. SHERLOCK is fevere on Ariofto: he confiders him, notwithstanding his beautiful defcriptions, brilliant thoughts, and ftriking comparisons, as the great corrupter of tafte in Italy: becaufe beauty is infeparable from truth, and nothing is more inconfiftent with the latter, than the abfurd relations, the fantastic prodigies, and the gigantic ideas and images, that are ever proceeding, like the explofions of a Volcano, fram the fermenting brain of Ariofto. We fubfcribe to this judgment of Mr. SHERLOCK's, but we are somewhat surprised to see him draw❤ ing a paralel between two fuch writers as Ariofto and Metaltafio. He will justify the comparifon, perhaps, by obferving, that he only meant to exprefs the preference which he gives to the kind of poetry cultivated by the latter, above that which diftinguishes the former. In this cafe, however, he ought not to have faid, at the end of his parallel, that Metaftafio is fuperior to Ariofto, but that he liked the one better than the other: Superiority and Inferiority are gradations of diverfity that belong to objects of the fame kind.

After pointing out the imperfection of the models which are imitated in Italy, our Author advises the young poet to turn his enthufiaftic eye from thefe fallacious guides, and to raife them

to

to the Greeks, Latins, and French. We think it liberal in Mr. SHERLOCK, to throw off the fhackles of political reftraint in his literary judgments; and we are perfectly difpofed to render juftice to the confiderable number of eminent writers in literature and philofophy, that do honour to the French nation at this day; but we think he overfhot the proper bounds of civility, when he held out the French as models in poetryand above all, when he placed them immediately after the Greeks and Romans, without drawing between them an horizontal line like this as who would fay-pray keep your diftance. The French themfelves (we mean the founder part of them) acknowledge, that, however harmonious their language may be in profe (and fuch we ourselves think it to be, in a high degree), yet it has not that kind of harmony which is adapted to mufic and poetry.

GENE V A.

III. Lettres d'un Voyageur Anglois, i. e. Letters of an English Traveller. Geneva. 1779.-Here we have again Mr. SHERLOCK, who, from a great number of letters written during his travels, has felected twenty-feven of the beft, to regale the public. He has written two hundred-of which, we fuppofe, these are the quinteffence: they are dedicated (as is the preceding work) to the present Bishop of Derry, in whom are united all the qualities and powers of an elegant a ndlearned Mæcenas; and they are published in French, that the connoiffeurs on the Continent might not be deprived of the pleasure of perusing them.

The first of these letters, which is dated from Berlin, contains a very magnificent eulogy of the King of Pruffia, and from the two first pages the reader will form fome notion of the tone and manner that reign in these letters.

The King of Pruffia is univerfally known as a great prince, a great warrior, and a great politician ;-but he is less generally known as a great poet, and a good-natured man*. Marcus Antoninus, Machiavel, (well paired, Mr. Sherlock !) Horace, and Cafar, have been his models; and he has almost furpaffed them all. I never heard of a human being who was perfect; but in a general point of view, the King of Pruffia is the greatest man that ever exifted.

In the early part of his life, he publifhed his Anti-Machiavel; and this was one of the moft dextrous ftrokes of Machiavelian policy that he ever exhibited. It was a letter of re

Mr, SHERLOCK's expreflion is bon homme, which, in French, fignifies a filly, open-hearted, good natured man. How the French came to affociate the idea of lly with the term good, we shall not enquire: the affociation does them little honour. But as Mr. Sherlock could not apply the word good in this complex fenfe to the King of Pruffia, we have taken the liberty to tranflate it as above.

commendation,

commendation, which he wrote in favour of himself, to all the powers and people of Europe, while he was forming the project of making himself matter of Silefia.

With respect to his fubjects, he is the jufteft of monarchs; but in the eye of his neighbours, he is the most dangerous hero: he excites adoration in the former, and ftrikes terror into the latter. The Pruffians are proud of their Frederic the Great, as they always call bim. They speak of him with the utmost freedom: and while they keenly cenfure his taste with refpect to certain objects, they bestow upon him the greatest encomiums.

There is no character in modern times, concerning which men are so much deceived, as that of this monarch; and the reafon of this miftake is, their not confidering feparately two parts of his character, which require each a diftinet eftimation, but of which, nevertheless, they judge in the lump.' (Let us bear Mr. SHERLOCK out, for he is really a curious cafuift) The King of Pruffia has caused the deftruction of thousands of men. -The King of Pruffia is, at the fame time, tender-hearted, humane, and full of clemency:-This appears a contradiction Nevertheless, it is a certain truth.' (Here now comes the proof) We must first confider him (continues Mr. SHERLOCK) as a conqueror, in which character, it is not allowable to liften to the voice of humanity:' (No-indeed?) But when heroism is out of the question, we muft examine the man. This, perhaps, (fays our Author) will be called a fubtilty:' &c. No, Mr. SHERLOCK, for our part, we will give it no fuch appellation; for it is the very groffeft and most palpable paralogism that could enter into the head of a fenfible man, or into the imagination of a humane man. If you feparate the hero from the man, the former becomes an affaffin, and the latter loses much of his dignity, more especially if he be a prince. Befideit is not using the word hero in the fenfe it commonly bears, to make it exprefs the character of a bloody conqueror.-Your feparation of the blood-breathing hero from the good-natured man, puts us in mind of a Curate in Ireland, who affirmed, fubtly, over a bowl of punch, that Judas Iscariot, though a bad man, was a good clergyman. The diftinction dazzled a great part of the company, when a plain fenfible man, who fat at table, addressed to the Curate this puzzling question—“. Vhen the bad man goes to hell, Mr. Curate, where will the good clergyman go?"

Befide-what is a mere conqueror, a character which Mr. SHERLOCK fo injudiciously confounds with that of a hero? A mere conqueror is a man who robs and murders, and is above the reach of human laws; we do not, then, think, that our Author could have paid a worfe compliment to the King of Pruffia, than to call him a conqueror. .

4

Mr.

Mr. SHERLOCK's letters from Vienna are amufing :-they talk much of Beaux and Belles, good eating, and pleasure in all its forms. The objects, fays he, that peculiarly strike a ftranger in that city, are the affability of the court, the magnificence of the entertainments, and the beauty of the fex. This is the fum and fubftance of his three letters from Vienna, which are fhort, and would have been reduced to nothing, had it not been for the three pretty faces of the Counteffes Disheim and Wurmbrand, and the Princefs Lichtenftein; and for the two excellent tables of Prince Kaunitz, and the Baron de Breteuil: these descriptions receive a fmall feafoning of a more intellectual flavour, by fome very curfory accounts of Metastasio, of the Pope's Nuncio, and of Sir Robert Keith.

But that which furpaffes any thing of the kind we have ever feen, is his letter from the Hague. By his account of the climate, of the manners, and of the ftate of the arts in Holland, we conclude, for his honour, that he has paffed but a few hours in that country. He talks of the Flemish painters with a degree of ignorance, that we pardon in an enthusiast for the Italian schools: but we cannot fo easily lavish our indulgence on the decifive and imperious tone with which this ignorance is accompanied.-It happens often, indeed, (and no great marvel!) that a true Dilletanti, who comes from the Vatican, Bologna, and Parma (and meets in Holland with the ignoble reprefentations of degraded nature, that we find in a Brower, an Oftade, and a Jan Steen, and the infipid ones that are exhibited in the pictures of a Teniers), may be prejudiced against the Flemish and Belgic artists, and be little curious to see their productions. All this is tolerable; though it be rather a kind of bigotry in virtú: But it is intolerably rafh in Mr. Sherlock to fay, in print, of the Flemish painters in general, that they fervilely copy nature in her unpleafing afpects,-that none of their pictures excites a defire of feeing it a fecond time,-that the antique is in their efteem a ridiculous thing,-and that an artist, who followed its tone and manner in Holland, would die of hunger. All this is exaggerated, and favours of illiberal prejudice-it is not true. The real connoiffeurs, who have feen the reprefentations of rural nature by Adrian Van de Velde, Bot, Carle de Jardin, Wynants,-thofe of private and domeftic life. by Gerard, Dow, Metzu, and many others of that class-not to fpeak of Rubens and Van Dyke, who were born only in the next neighbourhood of the Seven Provinces, will find the decifions of Mr. SHERLOCK neither juft nor candid.

Mr. SHERLOCK's panegyric on the English Ambaffador at the Hague is warm and juft; and it would have loft none of its merit and truth by being lefs exclufive. It leaves the reader to form conclufions with refpect to the Dutch nation. We know

I

little

little of Holland in its prefent ftate: its profperity feems to be of a more obfcure kind than in former times, when its rulers and ministers were as magnanimous and high-fpirited as its merchants were active and induftrious.-As to its prefent ftate, Mr. SHERLOCK tells his correfpondent, that there is only one object in that country, that will pleafe him, and that is Sir Fofeph Yorke.' We have the highest idea of the merit of Sir Jofeph, who is the worthy branch of a family illuftrioufly diftinguished by capacity, genius, talent, and virtue, and who (as we know from good information) does honour to his family and country, by his eminent abilities as a minifter, and his humane and upright character as a man. Nevertheless, we cannot but fuppofe, that our Author is chargeable with injuftice and exaggeration in the exclufive terms only one object. We fhould be as forry, as we are unwilling to believe, that a country, whofe hiftory, in time paft, exhibits fuch fhining examples of pa-triotifm, of valour, and of public and private virtue, fhould at prefent have nothing worthy to attract the eye of an observer. We do not like to fee a whole people wantontly annihilated in a fingle phrafe, by a man whofe information feems to be very imperfect.

The letters from Rome are the most interefting part of this collection they contain several strokes of elegant criticifm, and a very good defence of Shakespear againft the farcafms of fome Frenchmen. The letters from Naples are not totally infipid, though they are very far from being inftructive. In thofe dated from Ferney, we picked the, almoft, bare bones of Voltaire's converfation with the men of learning, tafte, or curiofity, that vifit him in their tours. Of thefe pickings we fhall give here only the following, which we think favoury and found: HUME (faid Voltaire to Mr. Sherlock) wrote his Hiftory that he might be praised; RAPIN, that he might inftruct; and both gained their ends. Lord BOLINGBROKE had fomething commanding in his air and voice: In his works there are many LEAVES, but little FRUIT, they are full of wire-drawn and intricate fentences, and phrafes, that one defpairs of getting at the end of.

Upon the whole, from feveral fplendid pieces, that strike us in the patch-work of thefe letters (which are more miscellaneous in their contents than thofe of any other traveller known to us), we conclude, that Mr. SHERLOCK is a lively, fingular, fenfible man, who has a good taste and a warm fancy. At the fame time, it must be owned, that these letters convey very little inftruction; and we do not believe, that among the generality of those who perufe them, the Author will obtain the end he feems to have propofed to himfelf, by felecting a fmall number from two hundred, viz-that they might be read twice.

REV. Dec. 1779.

Hh

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