NOVEL S. 31. The Hiftory of Lord Ashbourn and the bon. Mifs Howe; or the Reclaimed Libertine: 3 Vols. 12mo. 9s. Jewed. Rofon. If any thing can save these volumes from critical damnation, it must be the avowed defign with which they are written they are manufactured in fo flovenly a manner, that they deserve no praise as literary productions. 32. The fatal Effects of Deception. A Novel. 3 Vols. 12mo. 95. Jewed. Jones. This novel is every way fuperior to the foregoing, both with regard to the matter which it contains, and the manner in which it is fabricated. MEDICAL. 33. A Collection of authentic Cafes, proving the Practicability of recovering Perfons vifibly dead by Drowning, Suffocation, Sufling, Swooning, Convulfions, and other Accidents. By Alexander Johnfon, M. D. Svo. zs. Nourse. The cafes with which we are here prefented clearly evince the practicability of recovering perfons apparently dead, and afford the greatest encouragement for reducing to practice, on fimilar Occafions, the means which we are informed have been used with so much fuccefs. These are in general bleeding, frictions, ftimulating applications to the noftrils and temples, and glyfters of the fumes of tobacco. 34. Memoirs of the Society inftituted at Amfterdam in Favour of Drowned Perfons. For the Years 1767, 1768, 1769, 1770, and 1771. Tranflated from the Original by Thomas Cogan, M. D. 8vo. 25. Robinfon. The fituation of Holland renders the inhabitants peculiarly liable to fatal accidents from water; to remedy which inconvenience, a fociety was inftituted a few years ago at Amfterdam, for the laudable purpose of endeavouring to recover drowned perfons. To promote this falutary defign, they engaged to grant certain rewards to all fuch as could prove themselves to have been affifting in the recovery. Befides the Memoirs of the Society, this publication contains a great number of cafes confirming the fuccefs of the methods which had been used. It were certainly for the benefit of this country, that we should adopt the fame humane expedients, and encourage by public fubfcription every attempt to recover perfons apparently dead. To introduce fuch a fcheme appears to be the defign of this pamphlet. 35. New Sermons to Affes. By the Author of Sermons to Affes. 8.vo. 25. Jewed. Bladon. The text, which the author prefixes to thefe difcourfes, is this paffage in the book of Judges, ch. iii. 22: And the dirt came out the prefent age, in which the reader will find many valuable obfervations and examples, pointing out a great variety of inaccurate expreffions in the works of fome of our capital writers. Remarks of this nature cannot fail of being extremely useful to young ladies, in the course of a polite education, as it is very evident, that a grammatical knowledge of their own language is the foundation upon which all literature, properly so called, ought to be raised.” But it is much more furprifing, that Mr. Rice does not allow his pupils one fingle compofition of tolerable elegance, in prose. By what models are they to form their style?-We can hardly fuppofe, that they can learn to write with eafe and elegance by reading nothing but blank verfe, prefbyterian divinity, and the formal, pedantic language of Dr. Young. 44. The Travels of the Imagination; a true Journey from Newcaftle to London, in a Stage-Coach. With Objervations upon the Metropolis. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Dilly. In the preface to thefe Travels, the author has attempted to corrupt us in our critical capacity; but as he has done it in fo public a manner as not to provoke our refentment, we shall only beg that he will referve his Burgundy for the refreshment of himfelf and his fellow-travellers after his next journey to town; if, indeed, it would not have a happier effect upon the road, where the company feem to have stood much in need of a chearing glafs on this Journey from Newcastle. The author himself, however, cannot be accused of the want of facetiousness; for if he could not keep his readers awake with amufing incidents, he has endeavoured to compenfate for that defect, by drawing matter of entertainment even from fleep. 45. Oxonia Explicata & Ornata. Proposals for Difengaging and Beautifying the Univerfity and City of Oxford. 4to. 15. Wilkie. When cities are in their infancy, they probably consist of two or three paultry cottages. As the number of buildings increase, the streets and avenues are gradually formed, but in a mean, contracted, irregular manner. No plan is laid down, no elegance or magnificence intended. In a course of years, the little dirty village is converted into a town, and the town into a city. But it ftill bears the marks of its original poverty. The very centre of it is deformed with wretched hovels, huddled up together in little courts and allies. This is more particularly the cafe in cities of the highest antiquity. The great fire of London in 1666, though a dreadful calamity at that time, has been attended with advantages, of which our forefathers, perhaps, had no idea. It fwept away the rubbifh of antiquity; and, in its confequences, gave the city a greater luftre, than could otherwife have been derived from the improvements of many generations, Oxford, Oxford, more fortunate in one refpect, has never been swept by the befom of deftruction. It labours, therefore, under the fymptoms of its native meannefs. In many parts of the town the houses are wretchedly built, the streets narrow and irregular, and the more magnificent edifices crowded and obfcured by a confined fituation, dead walls, or a paultry neighbourhood. • The author of thefe Propofal's paints out fome very confiderable improvements; and amufes himself with a pleafing idea of the fplendor with which Oxford would difplay itself, if every difagreeable object in the city were removed, and every elegant ftructure laid open to an uninterrupted view. 46. A Letter to Sir Richard Hotham, Knight,” in Answer to his Reflections upon Eat-India Shipping. 8vo. 1s. Murray. 8.00. Subjects of this nature being liable to mifreprefentation and error, we must leave it to thofe who are converfant with the management of Eaft-India affairs, to determine of the allegations in difpute. A modeft Apology for the prevailing Practice of Adultery. 8vo. The idea of this pamphlet would feem to have been taken from a paper in Mr. Howard's Mifcellanies lately published. We cannot fay in favour of the author, that he has improved upon the original; for his arguments are not fufficiently marked. with that air of moral irony and indirect reprehenfion, which ought to diftinguifh the fatyrift from the avowed advocate for licentioufnefs. 48, CORRESPONDENCE. EUGENIUS, who complains that the work he mentions was pot fufficiently diftinguished in a former Number, ought to conder that it is not merely the fize of a book which should determine the length of the criticifm, as more remarks may be requifite to fet in a proper light the merits or defects of a small pamphlet, than to difplay thofe of a huge volume.-We do not, as he fays, make it a custom to pack Novels into our Monthly Catalogue, because we defpife that kind of writing, but because we rarely meet with any which merit a more distinguished place. The Hiftory of Don Sylvio de Rofalva we have seen in French but we have no reason to believe, that the tranflation we reviewed was not made from the German Original. MONITOR will find the book which is the fubject of his let ter, taken notice of in the Critical Review for Sept. 1771. THE CRITICAL REVIEW. For the Month of August, 1773. ARTICLE I. The Prefent State of Mufic in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces. Or, the Journal of a Tour through thofe Countries, undertaken to collect Materials for a General Hiftory of Mufic. By Charles Burney, Muf. D. 2 Vols. 8vo. 12. [Continued.] Becket, Robfon, and Robinfon. N our former Number having attended our musical traveller as far as Munich; we shall now refume our account of his journey from that city to Vienna, down the Danube. ‹ I went from Munich to Vienna, down the two rivers Ifer and Danube.-The Ifer upon which the city of Munich is fituated, and which empties itself into the Danube, about a hundred miles below, though very rapid, is too much fpread and fcattered into different channels, to be fufficiently deep for a bark or any kind of paffage boat, that has a bottom, to float upon it. The current of this river is even too rapid for any thing to be brought back against it; but Bavaria being a country abounding with wood, particularly fir, rafts, or floats made of thofe trees, lashed toge ther, are carried down the ftream at the rate of feventy or eighty miles a day. Upon these rafts, a booth is built for paffengers in common; but if any one chufes to have a cabin to himself, he may have it built for about four florins. I quitted Munich at two o'clock in the afternoon. The weather was intenfely hot, and I was furnished with no means of tempering it; a clear fky and burning fun, reflected from the water, having rendered my fir cabin as infupportable as the open air. It was constructed of green boards, which exuded as much turpentine, as would have vanquished all the aromatics of Arabia. In quitting Munich by water, the city is a beautiful object;' but the country we paffed through is a wretched one, to all appearance; there being nothing but willows, fedge, fand, and gravel in fight. The water was fo fhallow in feveral places, that I thought our float would have stuck faft. At fix o'clock we arrived VOL. XXXVI. August, 1773.G at at Freifing, the fee and fovereignty of a prince bishop; his palace is placed on a high hill at a little distance from the town, which is on another hill, and looks very pretty from the water fide. I would not go on fhore to pay for a bad bed and fupper, with which I was already furnished in my cabin; my fervant, however went with the common company, which amounted to upwards of fifty perfons, in order to get fome fresh bread, but which the place did not afford. There had been no rain in thefe parts of Germany for fix weeks; but when we arrived at Freifing, I-faw a little black cloud to the weftward, which in less than half an hour, produced the most violent form of thunder, lightning, rain, and wind, that I ever remember to have feen. I really expected every moment, that the lightning would have fet fire to my cabin; it continued all night with prodigious fury, fo that my man could not get back, and I was left on the water, fole inhabitant of the float, which was fecured by a hawfer to a wooden bridge. Two fquare holes were cut in the boards of my cabin, one on each fide, by way of window; the pieces were to ferve as cafements, one of thefe was loft, fo that I was forced to faften with pins, a handkerchief against the hole, to keep out wind and rain; but it anfwered the purpofe very ill, and, moreover, it rained in, at a hundred different places; drop, drip, drop, throughout my little habitation, fometimes on my face, fometimes on my legs, and always fomewhere or other. This, with the violent flashes of lightning and burfts of thunder, kept off drowfinefs; luckily, perhaps, for I might have caught cold, fleeping in the wet. I had been told, that the people of Bavaria were, at leaft, three hundred years behind the rest of Europe in philofophy, and ufeful knowledge. Nothing can cure them of the folly of ringing the bells whenever it thunders, or perfuade them to put up conductors to their public buildings; though the lightning here is fo mifchievous, that laft year, no less than thirteen churches were deftroyed by it in the electorate of Bavaria. The recollection of this, had not the effect of an opiate upon me; the bells in the town of Freifing were jingling the whole night, to remind me of their fears, and the real danger I was in. I lay on the mattress, as far as I could from my fword, piftols, watch-chain, and every thing that might ferve as a conductor. I never was much frightened by lightning before, but now I wished for one of Dr. Franklin's beds, fufpended by filk cords in the middle of a large room. I weathered it out till morning, without a wink of fleep; my fervant told me, that the inn on fhore was miferable; it rained into every room of the house," and no provision could be found for thefe fifty people, but black bread and beer, boiled up with two or or three eggs. At fix, we got into motion, the rain and wind continuing with great fury, and from violent heat, the air grew fo chill and cold, that I found it impoffible to keep myfelf warm with all the things I could put on. For though I added to my drefs a pair of thick fhoes, woollen ftockings, a flannel waistcoat, great-coat and nightcap, with all the warm garments in my poffeffion, yet I was benumbed with cold. • We advanced for four hours through a dreary country, as far as I was able to defcry, but the weather was fo bad, that I could not often examine it. At ten o'clock fome fir trees appeared, which enlivened the view, and at eleven, nothing elfe could be. feen on either fide. There was a very high and steep fhore on the fight, 2 |