216 Cautions on Slave Trade.-Errors in Johnson's Works. feveral letters have appeared in the public papers, and refolutions have been entered into by committees; and facts, highly coloured and falfely varnished by one writer, become authorities when quoted by another. By thefe means the queftion is likely From the conduct of the great inftru- cefs and reformation quickly followed his steps. Whatever may be his fentiments up on this important question, his diligence to acquire truth, and his cool difpaflionate conduct, cannot be too much or too ftrongly recummended to all who with well to this good caufe, let them be either the champions of abolition or reform. To hear all parties without prejudice or violence, and to feck dili gently for truth, are the only methods of knowing what may be expected from Parliament; and to afk right is the fureft ftep to infure fuccefs. The fubject is worthy the attention of your valuable Mifcellany; and if the well-meant advice, now offered, is thought proper for infertion, it would give me pleafure to fee it followed by the fentiments of your correfpondents, fufficiently to form a conftant article in your monthly arrangement. For my own part, I will, if it is defired, enter into a detail of the queftion, as far as my ability extends, and will be happy by recommending a cool inveftigation, or by furnishing particulars to ferve the caufe of rational and practicable reform. Yours, &c. GUSTAVUS, Mr. URBAN, F the world is not weary of Sir John me, not in the vein of levity which has diftinguished fome of thefe cenfurers, but in fober seriousnefs, to afk him this plain queftion through the channel of your interefting publication: why he edition of Johnfon's Works to be printhas fuffered the Greek quotations in his nearly as many faults as there are ed fo very inaccurately, that there are words? I have now his fixth volume before me. In p. 130, there is one line and a half of Greek, in which are four errata; in p. 131, fix lines of Greek yet more groffly faulty. The two lines in p. 145 I will quote for the amufequotation; errata, thirteen. P. 364 is Νύμφας δ ̓ ἐκ θαλάμων, διαδων ὑπολαμ ment of your readersπομενάων, Ηγίνεον ἀνὰ ἀσυ, πολὺς δ ̓ ὑμένανος ὀρώρει; where there are feven, if not eight, er-, rata, in the fpelling and accenting. This is no wanton and arbitrary allegation; it is fupported on the ftubborn evidence of fact. PHILOMUSOs. Mr. URBAN, March 20. YOU have favoured the publick (p. the celebrated Athenian Stuart, which 95) with a well-written account of has given great fatisfaction to his numerous friends and acquaintance; but ought to be corrected, to prevent future there are a few mistakes in it, that biographers from being led aftray, should they happen to confult, as they certainly will, the account given by your corre fpondent. H. A. fets out with informing us, that Mr. Stuart was the fon of country, nor what year, gave birth to a mariner; but he does not tell us what acquainted with him foon after his rethis ingenious man. turn from Grecce, have often heard him who became mention that he was born in London in 1713; that his parents lived in Creedlane, Ludgate-fireet; that his father was of Scotland, and his mother from Wales. Though poor, they were honeft and worthy people, and fon the best education in their power. gave their Mr. S. made himself known to Meffis. Your correfpondent mentions, that Dawkins and Bouverie at Rome; but I believe this is a mistake. Mr. S. told me that he fift met with thofe gentlemen at Athens; and I believe it was there that he received the first proofs of enterprifing Dawkins, who was glad to regard from the generous-fpirited and encourage a brother in fcientific invefti gation, Further Particulars of the late Athenian Stuart. gation, who poffeffed equal ardour with himself, but with very unequal means, for profecuting thofe enquiries, in which both were engaged, with fo much fimilarity of difpofition, and eagerness of pur fuit. Your correfpondent, I think, makes ro mention of Mr. Rever, who w. Mr. Stuart's companion at Athens, and who was jointly concerned with him m compiling and publishing that great work, "The Antiquities," &c. of which the first volume only has yet made its appearance. I am happy, hoever, in this opportunity of contuming to you the report, that the focond vo I ime has been left by Mr. S. in a state nearly ready for publication, and that the Dilettanti Society propofe to give it to the publick very foon; under better aufpices it could not appear. Mr. Revett was, by profeffion, an archite&t; and it was from him that Mr. S. firft caught his ideas of that foi. ence, in which (quitting the painter's art) he afterwards made fo confpicuous a figure. It was at Rome that Meffis. Stuart and Revett firft became acquainted, and from whence they travelled together to Athens, for the purpose of inveftigating the remains of ancient grandeur ftill to be found in the ruins of that celebrated metropolis of the most polished of the Crecian ftates. Your correfpondent makes Mr. S. confiderably older than he was at the time of his death. He appears, like wife, to have been very ill-informed with refpect to the circumitances of his matrimonial engagements, for he was twice married, though H. A. mentions only one connection of that kind. It was (as nearly as I can recollect) about the year 1760 when Mr. S. was firft married: his choice then fell upon his houlekeeper, a very good woman, by whom he had a fon, who died at the age of four or five years. His fecond wife, now his widow, was a Mifs Blackftone, whole father was a farmer in Kent; and to this very young lady he was united when he was about the age of fixty-feven. By her he had four children; one of whom, a boy, was the very image and fuperfcription" of himself, both in body and mind; he manifested a moft aitonithing turn for drawing, even before he was three years old; and would imitate, with pen or pencil, every thing he faw lying on his father's table. This child (his father's darling) died of the fmall-pox to GENT. MAG. March, 1783. 217 wards the latter end of the year 1787; and poor Mr. S's health was obferved to decline very rapidly from that time. Mr. S's eldeft fou is ftill living; a fine boy, about feven years old, and is at Mr. Barney's boarding school at Hammersmith. In the fame village alfo are placed, at Mifs Scott's, Mr. S's two daughters, the c'deft of whom is about eight years of age. It is happy for thefe that they are fo properly fitacted; and it is fill more happy for them that they are alt under the careful eye of a pradent and affectionate mother, to whom this farther teftimony of refpe&t is due, that, notwitRanding the difparity of years between her and Mr. S. The made his latter day: as comfortable and happy as the affiduity and tendernefs of an affectionate wife can possibly render thofe of a fond and truly domefticated hulband. Thus you fee, Mr. Urban, that the he.o of our tale was not to far advanced in yours as he is made to have been by the account of your correfpondent. According to H. A. he must have been 81 or 82; but, as a collateral proof of the account which I have now given, I can refer any enquirer to the plate on his coffin, which I faw depofited in the vault of the church of St. Martin in the Fields, on which he is faid to have died, Feb. 2, 1788, in the 76th year of his age. And now, Sir, with your good leave, a word or two, in conclufion, concerning an illiberal paragraph which lately appeared in a news-paper, reflecting, very unjustly, on the ingenious and learned Athenian, for fpending much of his time in alehoufes with low company, &c. The person who wrote that paragraph was not in the fecret of Mr. S's true character. He was a great humotift in the most agreeable fenfe of the word; an attentive obferver of men and manners; and having learned that there were clubs of artifis, &c. held at certain porter-houfes in his neighbourhood, belonging to which were fome odd geniufes, men of an original turn of thinking and converfation, he would, occafionally, when.his evenings were not otherwife engaged, refort for variety to fuch places, in order to fioke his darling pipe, and liften to their curious debates, &c. At thefe places he was received with much refpect by the company, who thought themfelves highly honoured by his prefence and often, on the next day, would he entertain his friends friends of the bigber orders with his pleafant details of what ufually paffed at fuch droll affemblies. And where, Mr. Urban, was the harm of all this? Dean Swift and Hogarth often did the fame; and, to the ideas which they acquired on fuch occafions, the world is indebted for many of thofe admirable ftrokes of humour which have diftinguished the pen of the one and the pencil of the other. Yours, &c. A. H. Strictures on Mr. HARMER's Obfervations. (Continued from p. 115.) Obf. STRETCHING out the hand, 95. clearly means holding them up, or out, in a pofture of prayer. Obf. 96. Setting idol thresholds and pofts, may mean, introducing their fhrines, altars, and other marks of idol worthip, into the temple and fanctuary of the true God. but Obf. 97. True it is that David kept Goliah's armour in his tent at the time he brought his head to Jerufalem ; this is not prefumptive evidence that be prefented his word afterwards to the Tabernacle at all, or when he was in circumftances to do it with the requifite magnificence. The letter of Queen Catherine about the piece of James IV's coat, to be difpiayed in the banners of Henry VIII. in France, is a ridiculous mifapprehenfion of the words of her Majesty's letter. "Sending you for your baners a king's cote," means only a trophy, or token of the victory, for which purpofe the would have fent James's dead body, but our Englife mens barts would not fuffer it. Here again much criticifm is thrown away on the English word cloth, without telling us what the original word means. The LXX render it abov, and the Vulgate, pallium, which means more than a common covering, perhaps the Scabbard, or a wrapper, or it may be the tunic or mantle of Goliah himfelf-if he wore one. Obf 100. Great ftrefs is here laid on the apparent triviality of the prefents given by the monarch of Ireland to the King of Ulfter, that with fhips, cups, horfes, fwords, robes, coats of mail, mantles, knives, and greyhounds, should be joined leeks and fans eggs. The laughability of thefe unequal prefents arifes from a falfe comparifon of ancient with modern times. But let us fee what were the ridiculous things which were faid to be prefented to the of England. Hugh Ofel was to Mr. give King John two robes of a good green colour for his intereft with the Flemish merchants to recover a debt; and, if he did not deliver the robes at Candlemas, he was to deliver four pair of like robes at Lent. The fecond claufe of this fine or obligation fhews these green robes (roba) were fo valuable, there was fome difficulty in procuring them in a given time. Madox, and Mr. Hume implicitly following him, ftates, that Andrew Nevelun was to give three Flemish caps; but the record favs, " cappas pluviales de Flandria," which may have been caps of a particular conftruction or material, rain-proof. All the lampreys the fuitor could get was no fuch inconfiderable thing, when we reflect in how high demand that fish was among our forefathers. So late as the reign of Henry V. we find, in Rymer, X. 175, a fpecific power was granted to two perfons to buy, take, and provide, all the live lampreys they could, in or out of the Seine, between Rouen and Haifleur; and to two others the like power between Liflebon and Harfleur; fo that it should feein Henry V. was not afraid of the ill effect of eating this fish, which coft Henry I. his life. The three mewed ar trained hawks (aufluri mutarii), in an age when hawking was in high vogue, and carrying a hawk on the fift was a mark of nobility, would be no infignificant addition to the ten marks to obtain the king's favour. Ten hawks are joined with ten horfes, and one fore hawk with one horfe, in other inftances. Surely the being excufed going to conduct the King of Scotland to the King of England, in John's reign, was well bought off by ten bulls and ten cows! Many a good woman would give 200 hens to have access to her husband who was in confinement. The words of the record are," eo quod poffit jacere una node cum domino fuo Hugone de Nevill." (Madox, 326). Mr. Hume prefumes he was in confinement. Elias the dean fined in 100 marks that his miftrefs (amica), his fons, and fervants, might be bailed to anfwer in the king's courts." (Madox, 342). Many women paid fines to be excufed marriage, or to be at liberty to marry whom they pleafed. Ridiculous as this may feem at first fight, the leaft knowledge of our ancient customs fhews the reafon of it; that, being in ward to the king, they could not marry without his leave, and frequently were difpofed of by him to partners whom they would not have cholen Strictures on Mr. Harmer's Obfervations. chofen of their own free will. A little attention to the manners of different ages and nations will remove all despicable ideas. The different value of articles and money in the 16th and 18th centuries will fhew, that rol. given to Q. Elizabeth was not fo trifling a present even from a bishop, and that too annually; or fiveet meats and orange-flowers from her phyfician, or a rich cake or pie from her mafter-cook. Great stress has been laid on her Majefty's pocketing an agatehandled knife and fork after dinner, at a house where he was vifiting. The ftory is quoted from the beginning of the Sidney papers. I fufpect it is that told by Rowland White there, p. 376, that, after the Lord Keeper had given a nofegay of jewels to the amount of 4001. and other things, to grace his Lordship the more the of berfelf took from him a falt, (poone, and a forcke of fair agate." I confefs the words do not Strike me in fo difhonourable a fenfe as is here put upon them. To gratify him still more, the, without much preffing, took at his band a falt, &c. At worst, we can only fuppofe the begged them. Mr. Hume's reflection on the practice of our kings in taking prefents, which Mr. Harmer thinks extremely fenfible, is, in my humble opinion, juft the reverfe; for it is not peculiar to barbarous Eaftern princes to fell their good offices, and intrude themfelves into every bufinefs, that they may have an opportunity of extorting money." Every prince, in Europe or Afia, who has an exchequer, has a fimilar mode of filling it by fines, reliefs, and other eftablished receipts. No kings on earth were fonder of free-gifts than the Stuarts; and the only difference between free-gifts or fubfidies and taxes is, that the former depended more on the will of the fovereign, while the latter are impofed by the reprefentative body, and frequently not more equally. Neither is Mr. Hume juftified in calling the Eastern princes barbarous. The Ro. mans, in their pride of conqueft, beflowed that odious epithet, as the Chinefe do now, on all the reft of the world. But let not Britons, who were formerly of that number, beflow it now on any part of the world. Obf. 101. In Norden's Voyage up the Nile, nobodody was afhamed of taking the bacfbfb, or prefent, which was a perpetual fubject of importunity. Is it clear that prefents are not made by Vifitors in Europe? Obf. 102. Have we any authority for 219 fuppofing that Jephtha's daughter and her companions went up and down the mountains bewailing her hard fate with mufic, any more than Mr. Biddulph in faying mufic is ufed in other places in times of mirth, and not in times of mourning ? what then are dead marcher, and other mufical compofitions at funerals? The mufic and dancing at the Ghinnah murder, p. 393, may be deemed tragic and vengeful but pipers were hired to mourn the facking of Jotapata, p. 397; nor is it worth contending whether rightly tranflated minStrels, Matt, ix. 23. Compare Obf. 109: Mourning the abfent dead is a custom all over the world. Obf. 103, applies to a Grecian, not an Oriental cuftom. The mourning of Ifrael at the doors of their tents, Numb. xi. 10, expreffed a general difcontent, in as public a manner as poffible, by coming out of their tents. Obf. 106. The habit of Ezekiel, in contradiftinction to mourning, was, among other things, to bind the tire of his head upon bim; which the LXX. tranfate plaiting bis hair ; το τριχώματα circumligata fit: not a word of pleafσυμπεπλεγμένον ; the Vulgare corona tua ingly adjusted, but only dreffed. In our verfion, the tire of the head means the dreffing of the hair. And thus, wearing the hair is oppofed to Job's having been misled by the pointing of the LXX; it off. Mr. Harmer feems to have x belongs to the first member of the fentence, not to the fecond, for then it would extend to the putting on the fhoes. The comparison of Egyptian - and Perfian fculls is in Herodotus. III. c. 12. Obf. 108 Matth. xi. 17, only means to exprefs the perverfenefs of the Jews, who acted juft the contrary to what they ought to have done, juft like perfons, at funerals or feftivals, not making the proper plamtive or chearful retarn to those who led or challenged them. I Obf. 109. St. Paul's words, 1 Cor. xiv. 7, want no explanation from allufion to particular cufiom; they only mean, in general, that, if any inftrument is played upon, out of time, it can produce no effect. I may poffibly continue thefe frictures on the fecond volume. But if, after all that has been faid in the outlet of them last month, any undue severity fhould feem to have been used in them, the writer of them would rather defift than proceed. HIEROCRITICUS. Mr. A Mr. URBAN, S I do not recolle to have seen an C3ount of the following fogular experiment in any writer on electricity, nor can find, within the reach of my enquiry, that it hath been performed before, I fend the particulars. It fhould not, however, be concealed, that Mr. Brydone feems to have had it in his power to have done the fame, when he fet fire to fpirits of wine by a method nearly fimilar. During a froft this winter, I prevailed on a young lady to ftand on an infulating fool, and comb her fitter's ha.r brifkly, by which means, in ten minutes, fo much electric fluid was collected, that on applying the electrical piftol, charged with inflammable air, fo near to the naked arm of the lady who combed as to draw a fpark, it was inftantly fired off, to the astonishment of the attending company. Since this extraordinary phenomenon may add to the amufements of many who are confined within by the feverity of froft, I fubjoin, for thofe who are unacquainted with electricity, the fucceeding inftructions. Where columns of glafs cannot be procured, an infulating ftool may be cafily conftructed, by faftening tour tall quart bottles, as legs, on a board. This fool, placed on a quire of brown paper, will infulate fufficiently. The head of hair must be ftrong, and perfectly clean; and whoever flands on the ftool fhould take great care not to touch, either with their hands or cloaths, any thing but the hair which is comoed. The perfon whofe hair is combed should land on the floor, that fresh fupplies of electric matter may be obtained from it. To make the gas, or inflammable air, the fame as that by which balloons afcend, take a few ounces of the filings of iron, if of caft-iron they are preferable; pour on them a fmall quantity of oil of vitriol (lulphureous acid) fomewhat di. luted with water; immediately invert an empty bottle clofely over the mouth of the other, to receive the inflammable an as it rifes. When this bottle is filled, 7 which will be in a few minutes, directly ftop it well, and replace it by others, till the fermentation ceales. The elec trical piftol, firft dried and warmed, is charged by holding it for three or four minutes fimly upon the nofe of one of thefe filled botile, and then let it be corked tight. If this air be made abroad, much of its nofome fmell is avoided; and, if carefully fecured, it will keep for months. The wonderful properties exhibited by electricity will doublefs induce future proficients in natural philofophy to be Jef. confident than their predeceffors. They will be referved in their reafoning on caules, and diffident in their folution of effects. when it is confidered with what entire fatisfaction to the authors feitems have in all a es been brought forward explaining the various operations of nature, though at the time they were totally ignorant even of the exittence of one of its molt powerful and active agents. How readily did each of them, from Arifto:le to Lucretius, from Seneca to Boerhaave, perfuade himself that he had completely accounted for the ftroke and found of thunder? and in what contempt are thefe delufions holden fince the great Franklin fucceeded in his Promethean theft! How would Newton himfelf have contracted his brow, on being thown lightning inclofed in a Leyden phit! It is highly probable, that, had no fuch fubftance as amber been difcovered, electricity would have fill remained wholly unknown; and it may reafonably be fuppofed, that many fuch attendant dels conftantly hover around us, though we do not at prefent poffefs an art jo potent as to call them into appearance, or to command them. wide-extending profpect which hath o pened to us in our days, alone fully juttities our all difcerning bard, when he fays, The |