will be easily supplied by the alacrity of the nation, which is always eager for war.

It is unpleafing to reprefent our affairs to our own disadvantage; yet it is neceffary to fhow the evils which we defire to be removed; and, therefore, fome account may very properly be given of the measures which have given them their prefent fuperiority.

They are faid to be fupplied from France with better governours than our colonies have the fate to obtain from England. A French governour is feldom chofen for any other reafon than his qualifications for his truft. To be a bankrupt at home, or to be fo infamoufly vicious that he cannot be decently protected in his own country, feldom recommends any man to the government of a French colony. Their officers are commonly fkilful either in war or commerce, and are taught to have no expectation of honour or preferment, but from the juftice and vigour of their adminiftration.

Their great fecurity is the friendship of the natives, and to this advantage they have certainly an indubitable right; because it is the confequence of their virtue. It is ridiculous to imagine, that the friendship of nations, whether civil or barbarous, can be gained and kept but by kind treatment; and furely they who intrude, uncalled, upon the country of a diftant people, ought to confider the natives as worthy of common kindness, and content themfelves to rob without infulting them. The French, as has been already obferved, admit the Indians, by intermarriage, to an equality with themfelves; and those nations, with which they have no fuch near intercourse, they gain over to their intereft by honefty in

their dealings. Our factors and traders, having no other purpofe in view than immediate profit, use all the arts of an European counting-houfe, to defraud the fimple hunter of his furs.

Thefe are fome of the caufes of our prefent weaknefs; our planters are always quarrelling with their governour, whom they confider as lefs to be trufted than the French; and our traders hourly alienate the Indians by their tricks and oppreffions, and we continue every day to fhow by new proofs, that no people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.

MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.

REVIEW*

OF

"MEMOIRS of the Court of AUGUSTUS;

"By THOMAS BLACKWELL, J. U. D.

Principal of MARISHAL-COLLEGE in the University of ABERDEEN."

HE firft effect which this book has upon the

THE

reader is that of disgusting him with the Author's vanity. He endeavours to perfuade the world, that here are fome new treasures of literature spread before his eyes; that something is difcovered, which to this happy day had been concealed in darkness; that by his diligence time had been robbed of fome valuable monument which he was on the point of devouring; and that names and facts doomed to oblivion are now reftored to fame.

How muft the unlearned reader be surprised, when he fhall be told that Mr. Blackwell has neither digged in the ruins of any demolished city, nor found out the way to the library of Fes; nor had a fingle book in his hands, that has not been in the poffeffion of every man that was inclined to read it, for years and ages; and that his book relates to a people who above all others have furnished employment to the * Literary Magazine, Vol. I. p. 41.

ftudious, and amufements to the idle, who have fcarcely left behind them a coin or a stone which has not been examined and explained a thou fand times, and whofe drefs, and food, and houfhold ftuff, it has been the pride of learning tɔ understand.

A man need not fear to incur the imputation of vicious diffidence or affected humility, who fhould have forborn to promise many novelties, when he perceived fuch multitudes of writers poffeffed of the fame materials, and intent upon the fame purpose. Mr. Blackwell knows well the opinion of Horace, concerning thofe that open their undertakings with magnificent promifes; and he knows likewife the dictates of common fenfe and common honefty, names of greater authority than that of Horace, who direct that no man fhould promise what he cannot perform.

I do not mean to declare that this volume has nothing new, or that the labours of thofe who have gone before our author, have made his performance an ufelefs addition to the burden of literature. New works may be conftructed with old materials, the difpofition of the parts may fhow contrivance, the ornaments interfperfed may difcover elegance.

It is not always without good effect that men of proper qualifications write in fucceffion on the fame fubject, even when the latter add nothing to the information given by the former; for the fame ideas may be delivered more intelligibly or more delightfully by one than by another, or with attractions that may lure minds of a different form. No writer pleafes all, and every writer may please fome.

But after all, to inherit is not to acquire; to deco

rate

rate is not to make; and the man who had nothing to do but to read the ancient authors, who mention the Roman affairs, and reduce them to common-places, ought not to boaft himself as a great benefactor to the ftudious world.

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After a preface of boast, and a letter of flattery, in which he feems to imitate the addrefs of Horace in his vile potabis modicis Sabinum--he opens his book with telling us, that the "Roman republic, "after the horrible profcription, was no more at bleeding Rome. The regal power of her confuls, the authority of her fenate, and the majefty of "her people, were now trampled under foot; thefe [for thofe] divine laws and hallowed cuftoms, "that had been the effence of her conftitutionwere fet at nought, and her beft friends were lying expofed in their blood.”

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Thefe were furely very difmal times to thofe who fuffered; but I know not why any one but a fchoolboy in his declamation should whine over the commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the mifery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as foon as they grew rich grew corrupt, and, in their corruption, fold the lives and freedoms of themfelves, and of one another.

"About this time Brutus had his patience put "to the highest trial: he had been married to Clo"dia; but whether the family did not please him, "or whether he was diffatisfied with the lady's be"haviour during his abfence, he foon entertained thoughts of a feparation. This raifed a good deal "of talk, and the women of the Clodian family inveighed bitterly againft Brutus-but he married

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"Portia,