that he had been in any fignal diftrefs, or acquainted with any weight of forrow, or calamity in life. Thus difcharged from the difcipline of the feverer virtues, he had the greater range for imagination and pleafure, and was converfant and familiar with ideas the most gay and feftive in nature. A ftranger to the wants, the drudgery and business of life, he gave full play to his genius and conftitution; to wit, to frolic, to delicacy, to the taste and fashion of the world; and mistakes pleafure for happinefs, pomp for greatnefs, fplendour for glory, and popular eftimation for real good fame. Thus difpofed, he devoted, he facrificed himself to the Graces, and to the attainment of fuch qualities and accomplishments as were beft fitted to please, to attract, and raise the admiration of mankind, and to gratify his own vanity and selfishness. Hence, he who confidered this world as his all, was lead to deal as much as poffible, in the pleafurable, the brilliant, the fhewy and pompous tracts of life; to study pleafure as a science; and to practife it as others do the ordinary occupations of life. His heart, his head, the whole man was infected with this enchanting forcerefs. His ftile in writing naturally contracted a caft and colour from his habit of thinking and acting: and from the man of pleasure, of tafte and elegance, we expect, what we find, in Lord Chesterfield, ideas, and a diction gay, refined and elegant. His lyre anfwered to the pulfe of his heart, and the enchantrefs pleasure attunes the notes, and harmonizes the periods of his compofition. With delight we listen to the fyren fong, though we reject the fubject and matter with fcorn, contempt and indignation.

"He took, and advifed his friend to take the gentle, the favourable, the indulgent fide of moit questions, and confequently avoided as much as poffible all occafion of difquiet and difguft. This world was his paradife; and he made the mott of it. This despicable clod, this wilderness, barren and imperfect as it is, affords many a fertile fpot, refreshing stream, happy fhade and delightful prospect: he obferved, he collected, he enjoyed them; and if, from thence, he contracted no moral, no manly, no rational, or religious joy and complacency; yet, he derived from them a natural, a fenfitive and animal pleafure; which fupported and recruited his fpirits, and enlarged and enlivened his imagination."

It is a pretty portrait, fave the black patches, that our author has here drawn of his hero. But, alas! Mr. Hunter knew not Lord Chefterfield. Content as he ought to have been with his reputation, it was not till long after his writing the letters in queftion, that he was tired of the trouble of fupporting it. Furious, as he declared himself at firft to acquire it, he was not less anxious long to maintain it and, witty as hewas, for which Mr. H. fetting too great a value on wit, pays him a higher compliment than perhaps he may deferve; it is certain that he exerted more low cunning in the artifices ufed to fupport his credit, as a man of wit and literature, than ufually falls to the fhare of either men of wit or literature. And this will ever be the cafe with men whofe vanity is equal to their merit, and think the world is never better employed than in proclaiming their praife. Like the beauty,

to repeat the comparifon, who imagines every one should make her the toast, they are jealous of competitors, and make ufe of every artifice to filence the name of others, and refound their own. In the latter part of his life, Lord Chesterfield behaved fo much more like a man and a christian, that there is reason to believe, nothing but the long and habitual exercife of fimulation to which he had been accuftomed, occafioned his dying in diffimulation with those, who thought they had reafon to think they. knew him beft. Mr. Hunter feems to have drawn Lord C's charafter merely from his fituation in life, his writings, his bon-mots, and thofe imputed to him: in which cafe he might, with equal propriety, have ftiled his reflections, The Earl of Chesterfield, a literary Romance; which might have figured, if not in matters of fact, in matters of ideal excellence with thofe of Caffandra Clelia, or any other hero or heroine of modern antiquity. The fame fpirit of amplification, the fame forgetfulness of repetition, would have eafily fwelled his fingle volume into numerous tomes, equally acceptable to readers, who can be amused with the mufic of ftyle, or the ringing the changes on words, to exprefs in different modes the fame meaning. From this amplification and repetition it is, that the writer is inadvertently betrayed into fuch apparent contradictions, that an ordinary reader would be ftrangely puzzled to reconcile many of those which prefent themselves in the course of thefe reflections. Thus, when he is told, "No child of this world was ever wiser in his generation than Lord Chesterfield," and that his "Obfervations on men and manners fpeak great fagacity; are just and clear and profound," how will he reconcile it to being told, in the fame page, that his "Obfervations are fuch as the common-fenfe of every one, who bas been but moderately acquainted with the world, muft dictate." Can obfervations be very fagacious and profound that are obvious to common-fenfe and moderate experience? In the very next page, however, he again obferves, that "Some of his lordship's remarks are fo trite and obvious to common obfervation, that they betray a fimplicity of paternal fondnefs, and fome feeming defect of understanding in a fon who could want fuch admonitions. Our author is perhaps the only one of this age who could fufpect Lord C. of fimplicity. As to his fon, indeed, he happens to have hit the right nail on the head. tinues Mr. Hunter, we must remember that the father was, here, fpeaking to the fon, and not to the public;" a circumftance which, as before hinted, he sometimes feems to forget.

"But, con

As Lord Chesterfield's letters were published before the commencement of our Review, we take this opportunity of subscribing to their general merit, by agreeing with our author, that

His obfervations on books and reading, on the use and abuse of time, on the end and advantage of travel,-on compofition in general,

and

and the epiftolary in particular, are all perfectly juft and truly va

luable.

"His advice to his fon recommending truth, virtue, honour, and the purity of his moral character, we fhould have valued the more, had we not feen them afterwards explained away by court-caufuiftry, by the documents of politenefs, by political logic, by an indulgence to pleasure and paffion, to avarice and ambition, which the preceptor recommends elsewhere to his pupil: as the just contempt which the noble Lord pours upon the infidel tribe among us, had been of more weight, had he been lefs lavish of his compliments to fome of the most eminent infidel writers,"

On this head, however, we have this to fay, that the best recommendations of the general precepts of truth, virtue, and religion, by those who live in the particular practice of hypocrify, vice, and deceit, is of no weight at all. His lordship's advice, therefore above-quoted, is only a proof that writers frequently talk in general terms of what they have no particular idea, and raise themselves a character as advocates for religion and virtue, of which they have neither fyftem ncr principle.

Our author proceeds to compare Lord Chesterfield's letters with thofe of Tully and Pliny; giving the preference however, to both the latter.-Comparing his Lordship with Seneca, Mr. Hunter expreffes himself with much force and propriety.

"If Seneca is a beau, as Lord Bolingbroke, I think, has ftyled him, he is of a different order to the noble Lord under our confideration. The philofopher's foppery arifes from a greatnefs and fplendor of thought. If his unnatural rant is madness, it is virtue run mad. If the philofopher is ambitious, his ambition appears in the many and excellent things which he has faid in favour not of vice but virtue in defcribing a perfection and sublimity of truth and morality, which mere human nature was never capable of; and in recommending ftoical abfurdity as a practical principle. This was certainly a much more venial fault than what our noble Author is guilty of, in the exceffive care and cultivation of external grace and outward accomplishments, which he has prescribed, and in the relaxations which he has indulged, to the appetites and paffions of vitiated nature. For, furely, it is better to fay fine things, that tend to purify and exalt, than fuch as are fitted to debafe and corrupt. In the eye of truth and reason, of GOD and his Angels, one Seneca is of much more value than a hundred Chefterfields; and there is many a fingle letter in Seneca, that, in point of truth and virtue, out-weighs the whole mafs of this prolix collection; whofe real merit, in contributing to the fincere virtue and happiness of mankind, amounts not to the weight of a grain, or the value of a cypher."

After faying this, in the firft fection of his book, our author might have fpared himself the labour of particularifing the articles of its reprobation in the eight fucceeding fections. But as the topic is popular, and the writer has a pleafing manner, we must follow him; though, for the prefent, we hail only cite

9

two or three fhort paffages more; with which the painter has blurred the prettieft part of his picture.

"Lord Chesterfield generally preferves the tone of the great man, at leaft as much as could be expected in this familiar correspondence ; yet, fometimes, he forgets himself, and falls below his proper dignity: he is not only too lavish of, but has too much levity in, his wit and in the perufal of thefe Letters we cannot always feclude the idea of the itinerant doctor, with that arch wag his buffoon, united in one perfon, acting, at the fame time, the fage and the droll, and difpenfing by turns his jokes and his pacquets,

"In the letters before us we are tired and difgufted with the fame fpirit and meannefs and selfishness, which dictates every letter, I had almoft faid every line of this correfpondence, between the father and his fon, whom he inftructs in the practice of humanity and benevo lence, not as a duty, but an art or profeffion which he was to live and thrive by; and who is taught to please and oblige mankind, not for their own fakes, but to engage them to fecond his own views, and to promote his intereft or ambition.

"Notwithstanding all the dignity which Lord Chesterfield affects and prescribes, there is a confpicuous littleness in his general fentiments and directions, confined as they are, in their fubject, to the mere intereft of the two correfponding parties; as if Lord Chefterfield and his fon were the only two perfons worthy note; or as if others were only confiderable in proportion to their capacity of ferving and obliging the father and the fon. Mankind must be fomewhat mortified in confidering themfelves in the light, in which Lord Chefterfield has confidered them; as puppets and machines, which thefe two political jugglers are to manage and play off, as beft fuits their own interefts and occafions. He who exacts fo much attention to others, may feem to have no faculties, but for this his other felf: and we are hurt by an anxiety, as intenfely and ardently conceived and expreffed, for one beardlefs boy, as if the whole univerfe was concerned, or at ftake, on the advancement or miscarriage of his future figure and fortune.

"Notwithstanding his great abilities and affectation to difplay his wit, Lord Chesterfield has many common place reflections, which had made a very indifferent figure in a writer of lefs name and note. You read many a page, I had almost faid a volume together, particularly the last or fourth, with very little improvement or information; except of fome private anecdotes and the news of the day, obvious to every obferver as well as his lordship, who confeffes that he was not in the fecret. As a man of tafte, he difapproves trite fayings and vulgar obfervations; and warns his pupil to avoid them in converfation. They are as tedious, his lordship might have known, in books, as in difcourfe. Yet, many of his maxims and moral documents are fuch as have been hackneyed and handed down, from father to fon, for two thoufand years paft. His own frequent repetition of them tires us: but we grow fick of them, when we fee them hashed over again, and ferved up anew, by a reverend Doctor, whether for his own advantage, or for the benefit of the public, he knows beft,"

This

This oblique farcafm on that induftrious labourer in the literary vineyard, Dr. Trufler, may be thought a little uncharitable in a brother of the cloth; efpecially as we are told, the Dr. has left many of thofe exceptionable ingredients, of which our author complains, out of the mefs. Why, therefore, the hafh fhould make him fo fick, we know not; having much too good an opinion of Mr. H. to think he envies the Dr. the profits he makes of Lord C-'s principles of politeness. It is a little cruel of him, however, on this account to infinuate, that Dr. T-'s book is not quite fo clever as that of the Duc de Rochefaucault. Comparing the maxims of the latter with the paternal precepts of Chesterfield, our author fays,

"The Duke de Rochefaucault's maxims are generallly founded in the corruption of human nature, and deducible from that corruption. This is, in many inftances, but not univerfally, true; for, this would not only difcredit, but deftroy all the nobleft efforts, both of the divine and humane virtues. Yet the Lord Chefterfield has carried it ftill farther than this, and he would make vanity, felf-love, and the other immoral paffions, not only the real effects of the corruption of human nature, but the legitimate principles of human conduct. He profeffes, that he himself acted upon, and advises his fon to act upon thofe principles. What may be confidered, in the Duke de Rochefaucault, as a mere Jeux d' efprit, the effort and pride of genius, is embraced by our author as fober and philofophical truth:-or, if Rochefaucault is, perhaps, as licentious in his principles, he is more chafte and lefs offenfive in his expreffion, and offers lefs outrage to decency and the common fenfe of mankind.

So much for the bright fide of the picture; for the dark spots, on which we shall apologize in the words of our author.

"Perhaps, we have digreffed too far in bringing into view the general character of Lord Chesterfield, when the profeffed defign of this fection was to exhibit the fairer fide of it. But, fo obnoxious is his moral character, that it is difficult to view him in any light without fome degree of cenfure or prejudice."

The dark fide of this celebrated picture shall be exhibited in our next Review.

ART. II. The Lufiad; or the Discovery of India. Concluded from page 19.

Having given fo ample an account of Mr. Mickle's introduction, in which is included the hiftory of the fubject, with a defence of the piece, from the mifreprefentations of the critics, we have only to give a specimen or two of the tranflation itself, with the notes accompanying it; from which our poetical readers may form an idea of the entertainment this fpirited and elegant verfion will afford them. Of its fidelity to the original, the English

reader