been entirely different from those which you afcribe to him; and where you fuppofe him impelled by bad defign, he may have been prompted by confcience and miftaken principle. Admitting the action to have been in every view criminal, he may have been hurried into it through inadvertency and furprife. He may have fincerely repented; and the virtuous principle may have now regained its full vigour. Perhaps this was the corner of frailty; the quarter on which he lay open to the incurfions of temptation; while the other avenues of his heart were firmly guarded by conscience. No error is more palpable than to look for uniformity from human nature; though it is commonly on this fuppofition that our general conclufions concerning character are formed. Mankind are confiftent neither in good, nor in evil. In the prefent ftate of frailty, all is mixed and blended. The strongest contrarieties of piety and hypocrify, of generosity and avarice, of truth and duplicity, often meet in one character. The pureft human virtue is confiftent with fome vice; and in the midst of much vice and diforder, amiable, nay refpectable, qualities may be found. There are few cafes in which we have ground to conclude that all goodness is loft. At the bottom of the character there may lie fome fparks of piety and virtue, fuppreffed, but not extinguished; which kept alive by the breath of heaven, and gathering ftrength in fecret from reflection, may, on the first favourable opening which is afforded them, be ready to break forth with fplendour and force.-Placed, then, in a fituation of fo much uncertainty and darkness, where our knowledge of the hearts and characters of men is fo limited, and our judgments concerning them are so apt to err, what a continual call do we receive either to fufpend our judgment, or to give it on the favourable fide? especially when we confider that, as through imperfect information we are unqualified for deciding foundly, fo through want of impartiality we are often tempted to decide wrong.' We could with pleafure extend this article to a much greater length, and prefent our readers with many beautiful and striking paflages from this volume of Dr. Blair's Sermons; but the extracts here given, are fufficient, we are perfuaded, to justify our character of the difcourfes contained in it. The fubjects of the fermons not yet mentioned are, the proper Eftimate of Human Life-the Happiness of a Future State -Death-the Character of Jofeph-the Character of Hazaelthe Benefits to be derived from the Houfe of Mourning-the Divine Government of the Paffions of Men-and the Importance of religious Knowledge to Mankind. ART. VI. The Hiftory of the Town of Thetford, in the Counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, from the earliest Accounts to the prefent Time. By the late Mr. Thomas Martin, of Palgrave, Suffolk, F. A. S.. 4:0. 11. 4s. fewed. Payne. 1779. HONE ONEST Tom Martin, of Palgrave"-by which denomination he was diftinguished by his friends, as well as in the lift of fubfcribers to Grey's Hudibras in 1744-did not not owe that appellation merely to his love of good fellowship, and contempt of money; but likewife to his moral conduct, as an honest attorney:-a profeffion to which he was reluctantly brought up, under the care of an elder brother. Some of his objections to this employment, contained in a paper written when he was about the age of nineteen, are worth tranfcribing, as marking his character at that early period of his life. OBJECTIONS. 1. First, my mind and inclinations are wholly to Cambridge, having already found by experience, that I can never fettle to my prefent employment. 3. I always wished that I might lead a private retired life, which can never happen if I be an attorney. I must have the care and concern of feveral people's bufinefs befides mine own, &c. 5. It was always counted ruination for young perfons to be brought up at home, and I am fure there's no worfe town under the fun for breeding or converfation than this. 6. Though I should ferve my time out with my brother, I fhould never fancy the ftudy of the law; having got a taste of a more noble and pleafant fludy.—I have ftaid thus long, thinking continual ufe might have made it eafy to me; but the longer tay, the worse I like it.' The more noble and pleasant ftudy, to which he alludes above, was undoubtedly that of antiquities, to which he fhewed an early predilection; appearing among the contributors to Mr. Le Neve's Monumenta Anglicana, when he was only twenty-two years of age. His tafte for ancient lore must have been increased as well as gratified by the confequences following the death of Peter le Neve, Norroy king at arms; whose widow, as well as his valuable collection of British topogra phical antiquities, came into his poffeffion. We are forry to close this short account of his life and cha racter by adding, that his diftreffes obliged him to difpofe of many of his books a fhort time before his death; and that his very large collection of antiquities, as well as scarce books, deeds, drawings, prints, and other curiofities, appears, from a relation here given, to have been in a regular course of dif perfion, by various fales that have taken place, from the time of his death in 1771, to that of the fale of Mr. Ives's collec tion in 1777; who had been a principal purchaser at all the preceding fales. Few of our readers would be gratified by a transcript of any paffages that we could felect from this history of a particular town;-though a fenced and royal city, from the unfortunate overthrow of Boadicea, till the cftablishment of the heptarchy;' and and afterwards the metropolis of the Eaft Angles; it will be fufficient to obferve, that our topographical Hiftorian has here collected together all that time has fpared of its uneventful hiftory, during the fucceffive governments of the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, in this ifland. He then proceeds to give a minute hiftorical account of the various ecclefiaftical and civil eftablishments that have anciently been formed, or still subsist, in this place; particularly the bishopric, the va→ rious churches, priories, hofpitals, manors, together with an account of Writers that have been natives of this town, ancient coins, natural hiftory, &c. Under this laft head, very little occurs, if we except a latin Thefis on a mineral water at this place, published in 1746 by the late Dr. Manning. In an Appendix, are fubjoined copies of various original papers relating to this borough, thirty-nine in number. We hall only extract a few particulars from the twenty-third; which contains the account of John le Forrester, Mayor of the borough, in the tenth year of Edward III. A. 1336. It is fo far curious, as it exhibits an authentic account of the value of many articles at that time; being a bill, inferted in the townbook, of the expences attending the fending two light horfemen from Thetford, to the army which was to march against the. Scots that year. To two men chofen to go into the army against -- 'For cloth, and to the taylor for making it into two 1. 5. d. I 0 6 11 gowns For two pair of gloves, and a stick or staff For fhoeing these horses For two pair of boots for the light horfemen Paid to a lad for going with the Mayor' (to Lenn) 'to take care of the horfes * To a boy for a letter at Lenn.' (viz. carrying it * The distance between Thetford and Lynn is about 33 miles. ART, ART. VII. An Efay towards attaining a true State of the Character and Reign of King Charles the Firft, and the Causes of the Civil War. Extracted from and delivered in the very Words of fome of the most authentic and celebrated Hiftorians; viz. Clarendon, Whitelock, Burnet, Coke, Echard, Rapin, Tindal, Neal, &c. Printed for W. Parker, Printer of the General Advertiser. 8vo. 3 s. 6d. 1780. THIS HIS Effay was certainly written many years fince; and, poffibly, it may have been published before; though it is now introduced to the world as a performance entirely new. To us indeed it is new and if it fhould chance to be an old thing, we hope the candid Reader will put down our ́total ignorance of it to its true account. This performance is almoft wholly made up of extracts from the hiftories of the feveral writers quoted in the title-page, and of others whose names can throw no great luftre on quotation, and will give but little authority to affertion. In the Preface, the Collector gives a fhort account of the principal authors from whom he profeffes to derive his information refpecting the character and reign of King Charles. Lord Clarendon, with great propriety, takes the lead: but in the account of this noble hiftorian, our Effayift, either from great ignorance, or great malice, hath attempted to revive a calumny, long fince refuted, refpecting the authenticity of the Hiftory of the Rebellion. This celebrated hiftory, fays the prefent Writer, lies under ftrong fufpicion, if not evident proof, of being further foftened and garbled in favour of that cause (viz. the royal caufe) by many grofs interpolations and alterations of the Editors. One of them, the learned Mr. Smith of Christ Church, Oxon, acknowledged upon his death-bed, that himfelf had been concerned in it. "There was (faid he-and they were some of his laft words, of whose truth there can be no doubt) a fine hiftory written by Lord Clarendon; but what was published under his name was only patch-work, and might as properly be called the Hiftory ofand for to his knowledge it was altered; nay, that he himself was employed by them to interpolate and alter the original.” and This infamous flander, thrown on the characters of three very diftinguished churchmen (viz. Dean Aldrich, Bifhop Smaldridge, and Bishop Atterbury) fo haftily caught at by the writer of the present Effay, was first published to the world by Oldmixon in his Preface to the Hiftory of the Stuarts. The letter which relates this precious anecdote is without a name though * Commonly called Rag Smith, or Captain Rag, on account of his flovenlinefs, owing to fottifhnefs. Rev. it afterwards turned out to be the production of a certain † Mr. Ducket, one of the leffer heroes of Pope's Dunciad. What is more to be wondered at than the letter itself, is a circumftance which Mr. Oldmixon (whofe truth was always fuppofed to be equal to his candour and judgment !) relates concerning the time when he was fo fortunate as to receive the letter. "I have, (fays this grave hiftorian) in more than one place of my history, mentioned the great reafon there is to fufpect that the Hiftory of the Rebellion, as it was published at Oxford, was not entirely the work of the Lord Clarendon; who did indeed write a history of those times, and I doubt not a very good one: wherein, as I have been told (and I believe truly) the characters of the kings, whofe reigns are here written, were very different from what they appear in the Oxford hiftory, and its copy, Mr. Echard's. I fpeak this by hearsay: but hearsay from a perfon fuperior to all fufpicion, and too illuftrious to be named without leave." Mr. Oldmixon goes on to prefs the matter very hard on an honourable perfon, and a reverend doctor, who, for aught we know, may be gentlemen in the clouds; for, entrenched behind his fingular modefty, or fomething elfe, he fecures himself by calling on no name, except the name of Mr. Smith, who had been dead near twenty years!" There is now (fays he) in the cuftody of a gentleman of diftinction both for merit and quality, a Hiftory of the Rebellion, of the firft folio edition, fcored in many places by Mr. Edmund Smith of Chrift Church, Oxon, author of that excellent tragedy Phadra and Hippolitus, who himself altered the MS. hiftory, and added what he has there marked, as he confeffed with fome of his laft words before his death. These alterations, written with his own hand, and to be seen by any one that knows it, may be published on another occafion, with a farther account of this discovery. "In the mean time, for the fatisfaction of the Public, I infert a letter entire, which I received fince the last paragraph was written." Could any thing be more opportune? In a moment the point was brought to a decifive iffue! In one paragraph the hiftorian was fpeculating on bearfay. In the other, he was enabled to determine on pofitive evidence. Conjecture was reduced to certainty of a fudden. Surely there was fomething like conjuration in this! . But Dr. Johnson hath given us the beft account of this matter; and we will tranfcribe what he hath faid on the subject, from his Remarks on the Life and Character of Smith, in his late admired edition of the English Poets. + One of the authors of a moft contemptible thing against Pope, entitled, Homerides, by Sir Iliad Doggrel. Rev. "Having |