ers or literary attainments, when we consider the condition of poor Collins. I knew him a few years ago full of hopes and full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and strong in retention. This busy and forcible mind is now under the government of those who lately would not have been able to comprehend the least and most narrow of its designs. What do you hear of him? are there hopes of his recovery? or is he to pass the remainder of his life in misery and degradation? perhaps with complete consciousness of his calamity.'

Again:

'What becomes of poor dear Collins? I wrote him a letter which he never answered. I suppose writing is very troublesome to him. That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncer tainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change, that understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire.'

Chancellor Hoadly's letters are lively, and one of them gives us an anecdote of Hogarth, which adds something to our knowledge of that strange and eccentric character. There are two or three of Horace Walpole's epistles to Tom Warton that are not void of interest, and a jeu d'esprit full of vivacity from Mrs. Montague to the doctor. scraps of correspondence with Toup, Morell and Merrick contain a little that may be acceptable to men of learning. Harris, Warburton, Lowth, Mickle, and Dr. Young, are also among the actors in this languid epistolary drama.

The

Such are the principal contents of Mr. Wooll's publication. But what could have induced him to foist a pedigree into it we are at a loss to guess. We do not recollect to have met with this artifice to increase the size of a volume before, and heartily hope that the ingenious Mr. Dallaway' will have no farther concerns of this kind on his hands, since we cannot calculate the extent to which the evil may proceed, and there will be always this excuse for editors and biographers who adopt it, that their materials for memoir-writing are so dry and scanty as to oblige them to resort to the more amusing details of the Herald's office in order to render their work readable. The only attempt at all similar that we recollect any where to have seen, is in the frontispiece to the Rolliad, but there the importance of the subject, and the interesting diversity of Susp per Coll:"s and Mulctat "s form an ample apology, which we cannot discover in the dull and respectable genealogy of Dr. Warton.

The concluding note of the biographer threatens us with the appearance of a second volume in November, which, as far as the republication of some of the doctor's own perform

78 Jefferys's Review of the Conduct of the Prince of Wales.

ances is concerned, may be. very allowable and proper; but we tremble at the menaced continuation of the correspondence.' He apologizes for the imperfect state in which this volume is sent into the world;' in consequence of his laborious and uniformly busy avocation as a schoolmaster;" but we cannot help expressing our opinion that, had he committed the inspection of his proof sheets to any boy in his school, we should hardly have had to complain of such numerous and gross errors as now deform the publication.

We are sorry to have treated so roughly a gentleman who seems to have proceeded on very laudable intentions; but a duty is owing from us to the public which we could not otherwise have performed; and we shall think ourselves well repaid if a single well-meaning gentleman is deterred by usi from putting forth the dull memoirs of a literary friend, or a single executor from raking out a correspondence' among the papers of his testator.

ART. IX.-A Review of the Conduct of the Prince of Wales in his various Transactions with Mr. Jefferys, during a Period of more than twenty Years, containing a Detail of many Circumstances relative to the Prince and Princess of Wales, Mrs. Fitzherbert, &c. &c. &c. To which is added a Letter to Mrs. Fitzherbert, upon the Influence of Example, &c. &c. &c. By Nathaniel Jefferys, lare M. P. for the City of Coventry. Printed for and published, by Mr. Jellery's, No. 20, Fall, Blatt. sco. 3s. Od. 1806.

WITH the prospect of an attempt by a formidable enemy to subdue this country in war, or to revolutionize it in peace, it is extremely to be lamented, that those who direct its administration are not better judges of all the effects of all the species of its literature.

They do not recollect that the evils of the French revolu tion commenced with the most abominable libels, written by the vilest miscreant; that the neglect and contempt with which the government aflected to treat them, heightened their audacity, and gave them credit with the populace.

It is true the present writer has not the talents of either a Marat or a Hebert; but he has one advantage over his predecessors, that he co-operates with a fiction which has jong directed its efforts to twist and torture every word and action of the Prince of Wales, to the disadvantage of his general character. Ting has been considered by

men of sense, as a Ruse de Guerre in a late administration, because the Prince protected their opponents; but like many of the measures of a late minister, it had an effect beyond his calculation and inteution, for we cannot think the merest scavengers of scandal and libel should traduce and insult with impunity the heir of the British throne.

This pamphlet gives an artful, but unfair relation of pretended services rendered to the Prince of Wales by a Mr. Jefferys, who received the Prince's acknowledgments as assurances of patronage and preferment ; expended his capital as a goldsmith in procuring a seat in parliament; and by prematurely becoming a gentleman, becane a bankrupt; and he vents his spleen and disappointment by every inuendo which he imagines may hurt the feelings of the Prince, whose only crime is not to have procured him some place or pension, to enable him to live on the industry of a public already too much burdened with such vermin.

If there be any hardship in his case, as he states himself, it has been occasioned by the commissioners for settling the Prince's accounts, at the head of whom was Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Jefferys should have addressed the ghost of the departed minister, and not the Prince of Wales, who had not the slightest concern in the business after it had been undertaken by parliament.

To deduct 10 per cent. on his claims, after they had been sanctioned by a jury, was an extraordinary proceeding in the commissioners, and we have no doubt the late minister had a meaning in the transaction," as he had in every thing relating to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

This pamphlet may mislead the inattentive and ill-affected; but we hope the general good sense of the public will revolt at it.

ART. X-A Letter to Nathaniel Jefferys, Late Goldsmith and Jeweller to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, late Member of Parliament for the City of Coventry, on the Subject of his extraordinary Pamphlet, entitled, A Review of the Conduct of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, &c. &c. &c. with an Ei nination into the Motives of his Publication and its probable consequen

ces. 8vo. 28. Mawman. 1805.

THIS is a decent answer; but it is destitute of spirit, and of that cunning and malignity, which are the scusoning of Jefferys's pamphlet.

ART. XI-Diamond cut Diamond; or Observations on a Pamphlet, entitled " A Review of the Conduct of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales;" comprising a free and impartial View of Mr. Jefferys, as a Tradesman, Politician, and Courtier, during a Period of Twenty Years, By Philo-Veritas. Second edition. 8vo. Chapple. 1806. THE author of this answer to Mr. Jefferys's Inquiry comes forward as the most redoubted champion of the Prince of Wales; but we humbly think, that in the great and houourable extent of the Prince's patronage, numbers might have been selected more worthy of the distinction.

The author is said to be a Jew, industrious and keen in the discovery of literary jobs, either from booksellers, or the agents of parties; and he advertises the possession of the actual correspondence between Jefferys and Lord Moira, to be published in a second part. Though the correspondence can be of little consequence, it shews the literary controversy is a battle in Fleet ditch, and no author of talents or reputation would willingly dip his pen into it.

This is an error; it is an error of ministers which they may see, when they think themselves so fixed in their places, as to be at leisure to look about them. Mr. Jefferys should bave been answered by the attorney general, or the Prince's conduct should have been strongly and clearly stated by some masterly writer, who would have instructed and fixed the public opinion. This will never be done by a thousand such writers as the author of Diamond cut Diamond; but the Prince's friends in this business do not seem to be happy in their choice of advocates and protegés.

ART. XII.-An Antidote to Poison: or a full Reply to Mr. Jefferys' Attack upon the Character and Conduct of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales: containing several important Particulars derived from authentic Sources of Information. By Claudio. Mathews and Leigh.

8vo. 3s. 1806.

THE writer of this pamphlet is not content with refuting the calumnies of Jefferys,he carries the war into the enemy's country, and brings matters to light, which Mr. Jefferys would be glad were forgotten.

The materials here are good, but the author is not a good

writer. It is however the best pamphlet we have yet seen on the subject, and the author should imitate the indeco. rous example of Jefferys in the manner of advertising it.

ART. XIII.-England's Egis; or the Military Energies of the Constitution. By John Cartwright, Esq. Vol. II. Third Edition. Svo. Johnson. 1806.

IN the course of a long and rather active life, Major Cart wright has with a virtuous uniformity of zeal, with a constancy which nothing could shake, and which could never be deterred from its purpose by any minor considerations of personal emolument or distinction, pursued that conduct which appeared to him to be most favourable to real liberty, and most consonant to the genuine principles of the English constitution. There may have been, and there probably are, political opinions in which we have differed and may still differ from Major Cartwright; but no difference of opinion will ever induce us to swerve from that honest and unbiassed impartiality which we hold to be the most sacred duty of every reviewor; and though we may combat what we deem the errors of some or the prejudices of others, we will never pour out any coarse and unmanly invective against any man because he does not happen to think as we do, o because we do not think as he does. We respect the right of private judgment both in politics and in religion; and we deem the unrestrained liberty of the press to be the best safeguard of the liberties of the British nation and of every nation under heaven. Where the freedom of the press is unrestrained, the power of public opinion will of itself be sufficient to restrain the arbitrary measures of any government; and Buonaparte is so well aware of this, that he seems to dread more than any thing else the free discussions of the press, not only in his own dominions, but in those countries which are still exempted from the influence of his tyranny and the ravage of his sword. The attempts which the despot made during the last peace to shackle the freedom of the British press are too well known to need any recapitulation; his pride was mortified and his resentment provoked by the just and well merited indignation of his tyranny which was expressed by the writers of this country; and probably in any future peace which we may make with it is very sensitive oppressor of mankind, he will endeavour to introduce a stipulation that in our newspapers and other publications we shall abstain from any discussions respecting the measures of his government. But CRIT. REV. Vol. 9. September, 1806.

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