715 Observations on Authors and Books. 716 nobility, and opulent gentry, can be | be read with pleasure and profit; but traced back to nearly the most remote there are none, I feel certain, recomperiod of our authentic history; which mended, from which neither can be shews, that the noble and exalted vir- derived. A few additions I have intues which first brought them into dis- cluded in (brackets) tinction have continued to influence IPOLPERROC. and animate their posterity, so as to bring them down to the present day with their fortunes and honours unimpaired: : so, on the other hand, from the encouraging and mild influence of British laws and manners, the temple of honour is not restricted to the ancient aristocracy, (as in many other countries in Europe,) but is open to the brave and the ingenious, in every department of life. It may be proper to remark, that similarity of surname, in those classes derived from the diminutive of proper names, and from trade and occupation, affords no ground to conclude a relationship between the parties, as multitudes totally unconnected with one another, would chuse to have imposed upon them some surname originally. For the same reason, such surnames as are derived from the diminutives of proper names, may have no affinity whatever with the proper name itself. Ex. There is no affinity between the surnames Jackson and Johnson; Dickson and Richardson; Wilson and Williamson, nor between Robinson and Robertson; although these two last are frequently, but very improperly, taken the one for the other. The arms of the respective names are completely different. G. R. From a Constant Reader of Bristol, similar observations have been received. Observations on several Authors and Books in the English and Foreign Languages, which are necessary for the formation of a select and small Library. Abridged from the Pamphleteer, No. 3. THE following account of books was written a few years since in a letter to a lady, for the purpose of pointing out to her those books that might be most proper for her closet. I could then have enlarged the plan without difficulty; a principal effort was, to keep it within due bounds. It was formed entirely from recollection, and, therefore, it is possible that there may be many authors omitted, which might Geography and Chronology are justly called the Eyes of History. For Ancient Geography, I would recommend Geographie Ancienne, abrégée par D'Anville, in 3 vols. 8vo. to read or refer to; the last Edition of Guthrie's Grammar will, I should suppose, be sufficient for modern, and the Maps of D'Anville for both; for Chronology, Blair's Chronological Tables. (The Biographical and Historical Charts, by Joseph Priestley, are useful.) Next comes 'Ancient History: I remember so little of the voluminous work of Rollin, as not to venture to decide whether it will quite pay you for the trouble of reading it. (Rollin's Ancient History is certainly à good work, and the little of Roman history that it contains causes us to regret that he had not taken the whole of it into his plan.) I am almost certain that Elémens D'Histoire, par L'Abbé Millot, will give you a sufficient sketch, which you may afterwards fill up and improve by reading (if you will be very learned in Greek history) Translations of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon; or perhaps, without these, 2 vols. 8vo. of Stanyan's Grecian History may gratify you. I would recommend, also, Spelman's Translation (2 vols. 8vo.) of Xenophon's Retreat of the 10,000; and some Translation, if there be any, of Xenophon's Cyropædia. The Lives of Plutarch: they are all admirable, but those of the Grecians are to be preferred. Hook's is the best Roman history: this will lead you to the History of the Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, par Montesquieu; and that, to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. If you choose to avoid the latter's sarcastic account of the rise and progress of Christianity, you must omit the 15th and 16th Chapters of the first volume. (Whitaker's Review of this work might follow the reading it. It is published in a separate octavo volume.) Middleton's Life of Cicero, though it inclines to panegyric, will give you a juster idea, on the whole, of that great man, than is to be met with elsewhere. 717 Observations on Authors and Books. Read also Melmoth's Translations of the Letters of Cicero, and of his Treatises on Friendship and Old Age, and of Pliny's Letters. Vertot's Revolutions Romaines is a book in some degree of estimation. Bossuet's Essai sur l'Histoire Universelle. The moral works of Plutarch must not be forgotten, nor the Memorable Sayings of Socrates by Xenophon, translated by Mr. Lennox. Among the ancient poets, must be read Pope's Homer, and Dryden's Virgil. If you wish to trouble yourself about the ancient drama, you may look into Theatre des Grees, par le Pere Brumoi, and Potter's Translation of Æschylus and Euripides; and read Colman's Translation of Terence. For English History, read Rapin, with Tindal's Continuation, in 5 vols. folio; and Hume, who, however, is not to be believed, when he would persuade you that the people of Eng- | land were wolves, and the princes of the house of Stuart, lambs: for just information there is no comparison between him and Rapin. Lord Clarendon is the first of English historians, and paints characters in colours that make them live and breathe. If he is partial to the cause of which he was the chief ornament, the support, and victim, who can blame him? he was a man liable to error, open to affection, but above corruption or wilful misrepresentation. Burnet's History of his Own Times is an authentic source of information for the period it embraces. Robertson's Histories, Melville's and Cary's Memoirs, possess much interest. Walpole's History of Noble Authors, and Anecdotes of Painting in England, are full of entertainment and information. The Biographia Britannica is worth having, to consult as a dictionary, if not to read through. Mémoires de Grammont may certainly be called English history: in them the gay court of Charles the Second will live for ever. Bacon's Essays in English, Algernon Sidney's Letters, and the Spectator, must not be neglected. For the sake of the style, Bolingbroke's Letters on the Study of History, and on the Spirit of Patriotism, and Idea of a Patriot King, are worth reading. Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful, and Junius's Letters, are valuable on the same account. Clarissa, as the first of novels, and Grandison (the inferior,) 718 claim a place in your library. Of English, and, indeed, of all other poets, Shakspeare is the first. Milton need not be praised. Spenser's Fairy Queen. Gray, before he composed poetry, always read some stanzas of Spenser. You should have Warton's Annotations on Spenser,2 vols. 12mo.;-Derrick's Edition of Dryden, 4 vols. 8vo.;-Gray's Poems, with Mason's Memoirs;-Swift, but rather for his prose than his poetry ;—Thomson ;— Goldsmith; the Histories which go by his name are said not to have proceeded from his pen ;-Churchill ;Mason's Caractacus and Elfrida;Beattie's Minstrel ;-(It must have been through oversight that Pope's works are omitted. Prior deserves to be read, if a new Edition were printed, with omissions. Cowper claims a place in every house.) French History:-Histoire de France, par l'Abbe de Velley et Les Continuateurs ;-Abrege de l'Histoire de France, par Henault, 2 vols. 8vo. This masterly outline comprehends more than many voluminous histories. Mémoires de Philip de Comines. Mémoires de Sully: an exact account of a great, though absolute monarch, given faithfully by his favourite minister, who was greater than himself, and proof against all the temptations of power and fortune, has been presented to the world but once. Mémoires de Cardinal de Rets. Mémoires de Madame de Motteville, relate many curious particulars, of which the dignity of graver historians would have left no memorial. Siècle de Louis XIV. par Voltaire. Mémoires de Gourville. Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, though not historical, are full of anecdotes of the times. Lettres du Comte Bussy Rabutin. Lettres et Memoires de Madame de Maintenon. Souvenirs de Madame de Caylus. Mémoires de Noailles. Memoires de Madame de Stael; not historical, but very entertaining. (To these must be added the same Lady's work on the French Revolution, 3 vols. 8vo.) Natural History, Moral Works, &c. in French: Histoire Naturelle, par Buffon: Without this work, no library can be complete. (This is a mistake: the whole theory of the Earth, and his speculations on Man, occupying a large portion of the work, are erroneous; many parts are highly indecent 719 Reflections on the Catholic Claims. and on Birds and Fishes he is extremely deficient. Goldsmith's Natural History will supply his place to the general reader; to which Pennant may be added. To the naturalist, Turton's edition of the System of Nature, by Linné, must be recommended.) Caractères par la Bruyère. Of all books of morality, this appears to be the best adapted to the uses of common life. Ouvres de J. J. Rousseau ;-Ouvres de Voltaire, principally his dramatic works, and histories. Lettres Persannes, par Montesquieu. Melanges et Eloges, par d'Alembert. All these works are to be read with judgment. (Contes Moraux, par Marmontel, are to be viewed as a picture of French manners before the Revolution.) Sermons par Bourdalone:-Sermons par Massillon:-Orasons Funèbres par Bossuet-Histoire Philosophique et Politique des établissemens des Europeens dans les deaux Indes, par l'Abbe Raynal:-Memoires de Petrarch, par l'Abbe de Sade. French Poetry:-Ouvres de Gresset;-Fables par la Fontaine ;-The Works of Boileau, Racine, Moliere, and Destouches. (The most modern Collections of Voyages and Travels are worthy of being studied. The author has said so little of the important subject of religion, that it is better to omit it altogether, and to substitute the following recommendation in its place: The Bible should be read in as many languages as the student is master of; by a comparison of the rendering of different translators, much light is obtained. The principal versions are, the Septuagint vulgate; that of Castalio, which is rather an elegant paraphrase than a translation; and that of Junius and Tremellius: the_folio edition of the latter contains a Latin translation of the Syriac Version of the New Testament, parallel with that of Beza from the Greek. Next is Paley's Natural Theology, and Evidences of Christianity; also Grotius on the Evidences of Christianity, and Doddridge's three Sermons on the same subject. Wesley's appeals-and, as practical works that supersede every other, the same author's Christian Library, now publishing in 30 volumes. There is no good history of the English Church; but Burnet's Abridgment of his own work on the 720 Reformation, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, and Neal's History of the Puritans, will afford valuable information. On the subject of metaphysics, Bishop Brown's Nature and Extent of Human Understanding deserves deep attention. Locke's Works.) Reflections on the Catholic Claims. TO THE EDITOR OF THE IMPERIAL MAGAZINE. Laudatur ab his, culpatur ab illis. As your correspondents generally seem to have taken up the Catholic question rather warmly against those to whom some great men wish to extend relief, I think it necessary to premise, that if I should happen to say something in favour of men who still adhere to the old national religion, it will be by accident only; as I do not profess to treat of any question of political and occasional import, but of human nature itself. Machiavel has formed the ablest theory of policy that ever was drawn up by any political writer, on the mixed character of every human being, as there never did exist a man who was completely bad or perfectly good. It is upon this principle, that all discord, and all parties, rest; national, local, and domestic. As we are well or ill inclined, we may with truth praise or censure every man living. Historical events are produced by human beings; and therefore, if the Tuscan be right, there must be something to praise and something to censure, in the conduct of every change that takes place in the course of our national revolutions. Society itself does invent, without any impulse of the legislature, some habitual way of discharging the bile that arises from this continual disputation, and the ferment of contending affections. Among country neighbours, it may be done by the abilities of two greyhounds or two horses. In a town, by the patronage of two pugilists; and in a district, by a brace of bull-dogs. We are not much governed by judgment in adopting the heat of party. We wait only to hear the opinion of somebody that we dislike, to be outrageously violent on the opposite side; and the idol of one party is often mistaken in supposing himself beloved, when in fact his flatterers 721 Reflections on the Catholic Claims. 722 are only the enemies of his opponents. the Church and the State, is not always When the legislature does interfere, an advantage to both of them; for the method acquires rather an imagi- the State is governed by convenience nary importance from that reflection, and propriety, and the principles of than any refinement in the mode of religion seem to be less flexible than proceeding. The Italian republics, in the occasional compliances and bendthe middle ages, had an annual day ings of the civil. Those, who before fixed for the discharge of their sedi- our own revolution had taken the tious bile, by allowing every citizen oath of abjuration, imagined that it to beat his adversary with fists, from applied as much to a renunciation of sun-rise to sun-set, without being the authority of the Prince of Orange subject to any legal penalty. A simi- in their kingdoms, as to the sovereignty lar effect is produced by our method of the Pope. They were, therefore, of electing members of parliament. divided into Jurors and Nonjurors, If this succeeded more frequently, and many were deposed from their I think it would serve to allay the bishoprics and cures. It was then habitual bitterness and ill-temper that that the lofty names of Tillotson and infests society, and converts convivial Sherlock were stained with the foul meetings into clubs of hostility. When spots of duplicity and falsehood; and a member is returned for so long a they seized, under the protection of time, he has gained too great an ad- their new principles, the high prefervantage over his adversary, who has ments which Dutch Protestants beno hope of being soon able to annoy him stowed upon them. The Archbishop again, and he torments himself with Sancroft died in retirement, objecting gloominess as well as envy. The dig- to the qualified doctrines of his sucnity of proceeding, however, is not cessor Tillotson; while Johnson, who greater upon these occasions than in had been the confessor and approver the bull-baitings and matches of foot- of Lord Russell, upbraided the new ball. Upon this principle, of praise metropolitans with having changed always generating abuse, though both the very essence of his religious pinmay be well founded, it is not only ciple, to comply with the prejudice extremely difficult to form a due es- of a parricide from Amsterdam. The timate of the leading characters who Bishop of Salisbury, a creature of the live in our time, but it is perhaps im- revolution, of which he became the possible to appreciate justly the me- historian, wrote an "Essay on the rits of any eminent figure in our his- Memory of the late Queen," in which tory. We are in the habit now, of he does not venture to discuss the speaking with respect of all those point of filial obedience. He cannot men, who brought about the British possibly find out that her persecution revolution; yet if we look a little more of her father might be the cause that narrowly into the history of those her days were not long in the land. times, we shall find imputations to Perhaps it was not. Religion must which a felon would not willingly be be under the control of the State, but truly liable. It was boldly stated at I think it both dangerous and imthat time by one party, that the crown moral to mingle them without necesis the gift of the people, and that the sity. It is the duty of every man to legal conveyance is by a bill of the obey the laws of the country in which two houses of parliament. By the he was born, and of the society to other, that William and Mary had which he belongs, and this principle conspired, for the paltry interest of is inculcated in all the detached preadvancing one step in dignity, against cepts of the Bible; yet the Bible has the life and peace of their father. some examples that cannot escape the Foreign authors do generally agree in most superficial reader, which might adopting the latter opinion, and think authorize injustice. The army of this king and queen not much more Moses under Joshua treated the nahonest than Reoan and the Bastard of tions of Palestine as the Spaniards Gloucester. But distinctions of this treated the Americans; yet the Spasort are only brought forward, when niards were cruel and unjust. And revolutions are in their beginning, for the clergy at present are wrong in they very soon "trust to power," and declaiming so violently against the violence dictates to reason. principle of reform on sacred authority, if one missionary from Heaven The alliance, as it is called, between 723 Reflections on the Catholic Claims. drowned his king with his whole army in the Red sea; and the very Being who sent him came afterwards in human form, to subvert all the religions in the world. I know that this was right; but exhortations from the pulpit should be given with more caution, and managed with more address. Mr. Burke passes over all the crimes of our own revolution, by considering the value of the thing we gained in exchange. But perhaps he thoughtlessly condemned the French revolution, when he could not possibly tell what they were to have in exchange. I mean only on his own principle, for it is my maxim that sins should never be voluntarily committed because good may possibly follow. There are some dark traits in the revolution of England. For the list of the voters in the house of Lords, on the question of giving to William the crown of England, was published under the title of the Black List, with a view of exciting the populace to murder all the dissentients; and it was proposed to clothe in bear-skins many of the nonjuring clergy, and amongst them the great Mr. Kettlewell, to amuse the people with putting them to death. But enough of this: "Spartam nactus es hanc orna." I take the government as I find it ; and as I am without influence even over the opinion of a single infant, I can only wish those who administer this government to make the people as happy and as virtuous as they can. The history of the Stuart dynasty in this kingdom might form a most interesting and instructive volume; but it will never be written with impartiality and truth, as long as our present religious bickerings shall endure. The accession of James I. took place under circumstances the most unfavourable to the tranquillity of the country that could well be imagined. He was received by that Cabinet and Parliament who had applauded the assassination of his mother, and who could never pardon him for the insults which they themselves had offered to his family. Cecil had two main objects to accomplish; to reduce the power of the crown for his own safety, and at the same time to persuade the king that he took the greatest personal interest in his happiness and security. For the first object, he 724 did (as I find in an interesting book not just now upon my table) employ his spies and agents to promote a conspiracy among the villains of the country, always known to the secretary of the home-department, who were to blow his majesty and his parliament into the air. The letter to Lord Mounteagle was written by Cecil himself, in skilful imitation of political oracular wisdom, which was to amuse the king with a display of his own sagacity. The rest of the history of the gunpowder plot is sufficiently known, except that all the ammunition was prepared by Cecil himself. This project was, too, intended to convince the king that the Roman Catholics ought not to be cherished by him. To lessen the power of the king, he contrived to dilapidate and alienate the crown lands; in which monstrous exhibition of prodigality, he usurped to his own share, as a reward for his zeal in the gunpowder plot, the mag nificent seat of Hatfield, now in the possession of Lord Salisbury. The king, however, was not totally deceived, for he always spoke of the fifth of November by the name of Cecil's holiday; and some spirited remonstrances of Sir Walter Raleigh on the subject of the crown lands, and Hatfield in particular, ended fatally for this gallant and honourable adventurer. The time and manner of his execution, 15 years after sentence was pronounced, with the general tenor of Sir Walter's memoirs, makes this conclusion probable. The excessive animosity of the nation against the Catholics, from whose conspiracy the Lords still pray to be delivered, (though the Chancellor thinks that they are praying to be saved from the hostility of one Titus Oates) being thus imbittered by a new and dreadful plot, became a standard drain of seditious humours for the people. Whenever the nation was discontented, a crusade against the Catholics was set on foot, which resembled the hunting parties that, Mr. Bruce tells us, are annually conducted by the Ethiopian princes, into the country of the Lhang-allahs. The London fire was, perhaps, kindled for the same purpose; and ever since, Englishmen have been obliged to swear a sort of hatred to the Catholics, about as humane as that which Jean de Brie swore to tyrants. I wish |