linquish and defert the duties of civil fociety, and abandon themselves to an effeminate and inglorious repose.

In few words, as we have all along endeavoured to prove, to mix in fociety, to put our talents to the proof, to act in the fight of our fellow-citizens, is the only foundation of enjoy ment, of real and continued felicity. To this temper and habit of mind, we owe whatever is excellent in letters, in arts, and in arms. Had not Socrates frequented, in his daily intercourfe, the fhops, the work-houfes, the public walks, the places of exercise of Athens, fhould we ever have had the divine writings of Plato and Xenophon? Had Themistocles and Ariftides affected a life of obfcurity and repofe, perhaps Greece would in their time have become a petty province of that enormous empire, which but thirty thousand of her citizens were afterwards deftined to over-run and fubdue. Or had Epaminondas preferred the gratifications of fenfe and appetite to the fatigues, the dangers, and hazards of war, would his country been victorious at Leuctra, at Mantinea, and aspired in her turn to the fovereignty of Greece ?'

In the fucceeding Memoir the author enquires, Whether the multiplicity of books and increase of knowledge be favourable to piety and love of public good. For determining this queftion, he takes a general view of mankind, both in a state of barbarifm and civilization; and infers from the whole, that, perhaps, very extensive knowlege, and the multiplicity of books and readers, are not fo favourable to piety, virtue, and the love of our country, as is generally imagined.

In the feventh Memoir he treats at great length of the Love of Glory and of our Country, which from innumerable examples he fhews to have been the ruling paffion in the antient republics of Greece and Rome, and to have derived its origin from their forms of government.

The influence of government on the human mind, fays he, is even greater and more extenfive than that of foil and climate. It can correct the vices of both, and roufe to exertions of induftry, genius, valour, and magnanimity, the natives of the barren rock, the fnowy mountain, or the unwholfome marsh. Witness the foil of Attica in the times of Greece, of Holland and Switzerland, in our own. Very few examples and reflections feem neceffary to prove this affertion.

As men fubmit to government for their own convenience and benefit, not of the few individuals whom they are pleafed to intruft and dignify with the adminiftration of their affairs, and folely to fecure their lives, properties, and rights, and to exercise those taletits, and to practise those virtues without impediment, on which depend their happiness and merit, as beings endowed with fentiment and understanding, they will confequently be most attached to thofe forms of civil policy, and give the most illuftrious inftances of their veneration for them, in thofe countries where these great ends and purposes are beft

attained

attained and fecured. Where defpotifm prevails, none of thefe purposes can be faid to be attained, and all of them in a very inferior and limited degree in the various modes of regal government. In the first, men have no fecurity for them but a fort of cuftom, and the will of the prince and his fubftitutes. In the other, the poffeffion and enjoyment of them feem greatly to depend on the character of the fovereign, his ambition, or love of peace, his profufion, or laudable expence, his difcernment and humanity. Can we then expect inftances of patriotifm, where the properties and enjoyments of the generality are at the difpofal, and depend on the caprice, the ignorance, folly, or wickedness, of one or a few? Of intrepidity and valour, when men fight for tyrants and oppreffors, not for their lands, their rights, the prefent and future happiness of themselves and their pofterity Of talents and virtue, when prostitution, incapacity, venality, are the belt pretenfions to favour and emolument? Of difinterestedness, moderation, integrity, frugality, when wealth, however acquired, however expended, is the only foundation of refpe, influence, confideration? Hence, indeed, the true caufe of the unfrequency of virtue, talents, love of glory and of our country, in the lefs equal governments of ancient or modern times. Under thefe barbarous and irrational forms and inftitutions of civil government; under thefe depreffing and debafing circumstances, the human character appears to have relinquished, and abandoned all its native honours; no ambition worthily to excel, no contempt of hardships, of pain, and of death itself, when placed in competition with duty or with fame; no ardent and glowing attachment to a beloved community; no indignant fuperiority, or generous indifference to the refinements of fuperfluity; no true fenfe of honour and of character. In this forlorn and abject condition, man feems nearly debased to the level of animal nature, he appears to have loft all sense of dignity of character, his gratifications are folely fenfual, he has no idea, no comprehenfion of pleasures and enjoyments, derived from a purer and nobler fource.

In how fuperior a light does he rife to our view under conftitutions more favourable to the expanfion, developement and exercise of his virtues and talents? Where the foil, the laws, the government, are in a manner his own? Where his confideration depends on himself alone, where obfcurity is the penalty and infliction of nature, not of the forms of the fociety? To what other caufe but this difference of government, do we read of no Themistocles's, no Thrafybulus's, no Phocions, in the contemporary monarchies of Afia; no Valerius's, no Scipios, no Catos, in the regal annals of modern Europe?'

After illuftrating these remarks by many appofite inftances from ancient hiftory, the author concludes in the following benevolent, generous, and animated strain.

• Would to God I could contribute to revive, and restore to credit, these noble and generous fentiments in the breasts of my

fellow

fellow-citizens! Whatever the fuccefs of this feeble effort may be, I have made it with the moft upright and beft intentions. Indeed I have collected this treatife, to preferve myself as well as others from the contagion of the manners in which we live. To revive a spirit of exertion, and a defire of national esteem. To make us afhamed of the indolence, the diffipation, the effeminacy of the prefent times; of pretending to refpect and confideration, without merit or talents, to offices of trust and emolument, without knowlege, application, experience, or public confidence; to a boundless and ruinous paffion for all the works of tafte, elegance, and magnificence, with very faint and languid defires for the reputation of private generofity, public difinterestedness and integrity, humanity, magnanimity, contempt of frivolous enjoyments of oftentatious advantages. To roufe us to prefer the pleasures and enjoyments of the mind, and of the heart, to thofe of fenfe and appetite, the palate, the touch, the eye, the ear. Alas! deluded, miftaken voluptuaries, can ye be fo weak, fo ignorant, as to imagine that the momentary, the feverish gratifications of diffipation, vanity, refinement, luxury, are to be compared, and put in competition with that expanfion and elevation of foul, that glows in the veins, in the nerves, and in the minds of the benevolent, the active, the difinterested, the upright? Can ye not perfuade yourselves, that the fum of happiness, of true enjoyment and fatisfaction, contained in the lives of any of the illuftrious characters we have been paffing in review, was not infinitely greater, more genuine, more continued, and conftant, more valuable and defirable in every refpect, than that of all the fenfualifts, of the flaves of their lufts and vices, of ancient or modern times, of all the felfish, the effeminate, the indolent, the mercenary, the vain and oftentatious creatures, or pageants, that have infefted and dishonoured, or continue to infest and dishonour both reason and human nature?'

The eighth Memoir contains pertinent obfervations on Marriage and Polygamy; and the ninth fome Remarks on Converfation; the tenth treats of Rifing in Life; the eleventh, of the Deity; the twelfth, of the Education of a Prince; and the thirteenth, of the Frugality and Difinterestedness of the Ancients in Office.

These Memoirs difcover a philofophical turn of fentiment, a lively imagination, and the effufions of a heart actuated by humane and benevolent principles. They tend in general to the improvement both of public and private virtue, which they not only paint in the faireft forms, but illuftrate by a train of the moft ftriking examples in hiftory. Instruction and entertainment, are equally blended through all; and each memoir is fucceeded by a number of annotations, to which references are made in the text.

The

The Plays of William Shakspeare. In Ten Volumes. With the Corrections and Illuftrations of various Commentators; to which are added Notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens. The Second Edition, Revifed and Augmented. 8vo. 31. ios. bound. Bathurst.

IN

N our review of the former edition of this work, we obferved that it was the most elaborate and explanatory of any that had ever been publifhed, and that it afforded an inftance of the happy fuccefs refulting from the united efforts of commentators of diftinguished abilities. Dr. Johnfon there difplayed fuch ingenuity, and accuracy of just conception, as rendered the annotations a valuable addition to his former remarks on the fubject; while Mr. Steevens had elucidated the fenfe of the poet by the clearest collateral evidence that investigation could fupply. Extenfive reading, and a judicious application of the intelligence thence derived, were equally confpicuous through the whole of his obfervations, which being generally founded upon the firmeft bafis of criticism, were almoft always decifive *.

The prefent edition is introduced to the world with yet fuperior advantages, in point of curiofity as well as of critical illuftration. In the beginning of the first volume are fucceffively ranged, the Preface of Dr. Johnfon; Mr. Steevens's Ad vertisement to the reader; a Lift of ancient tranflations from claffic authors; Appendix to Mr. Colman's translation of Terence, octavo edition; the Dedication of the players to William Earl of Pembroke, and Philip Earl of Montgomery; the Preface of the players to the great variety of readers; Mr. Pope's Preface; Mr. Theobald's Preface; fir T. Hanmer's Preface; Dr. Warburton's Preface; Advertisement to the reader, prefixed to Mr. Steevens's edition of twenty of the old quarto Copies of Shakspeare; fome Account of the Life, &c. of Mr. William Shakspeare, by Mr. Rowe; the Copy of an Inftrument, containing a Grant or Confirmation of Arms to John Shakspeare, Father of the Poet; the Licence for acting, granted by James I. to the Company at the Globe, extracted from Rymer's Fædera; Shakspeare's Will, extracted from the Registry of the Archbishop of Canterbury; an Anecdote of Shakspeare, by Dr. Johnfon, with others by Mr. Steevens, and an Extract from the rev. Dr. Farmer's Effay on the Learning of Shakspeare; a Lift of Baptifms, Marriages, and Burials of the Shakspeare Family, tranfcribed from the Register

*See Crit. Rev. vol. xxxvi. p. 416.

VOL. XLVII. Feb. 1779.

K

book

book of the Parish of Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire Extracts from the rev. Mr. Granger's Biographical Hiftory of England, containing an Account of the Prints and Monuments of Shakspeare; ancient and modern commendatory Verfes on Shakspeare; Names of the original Actors in the Plays of Shakspeare; a Lift of fuch ancient Editions of Shakefpeare's Plays as have hitherto been met with; his different Editors; Lift of Plays altered from Shakspeare; Lift of detached Pieces of Criticifm on Shakspeare, his Editors, &c. Extracts of Entries on the Books of the Stationers' Company, by Mr. Steevens.

Thefe various prolegomena, in which are interspersed several plates, with a fac-fimile of Shakspear's hand-writing, evincing the orthography of his name, are fucceeded by An Attempt to afcertain the Order in which the Plays attributed to Shakespeare were written.' This difficult investigation is the work of Mr. Malone, who by the exertion of uncommon fagacity and research, seems to have fixed the chronological order of Shakfpeare's dramatic writings, with as great a degree of apparent exactness as now it is poffible to attain. Every reader mu agree with Mr. Malone, that it is no incurious fpeculation, to mark the gradations by which he (Shakspeare) rofe from mediocrity to the fummit of excellence; from artlefs and uninterefting dialogues to thofe unparalleled compofitions, which have rendered him the delight and wonder of fucceffive ages.'

The method by which Mr. Malone conducts this enquiry, is to collect into one view, from Shakspeare's feveral dramas, and from the ancient tracts in which they are mentioned, or alluded to, all the circumftances that can throw any light on the fubject. From thefe circumftances, and the abovementioned entries in the books of the Stationers' company, he thinks it probable that they were written nearly in the following fucceffion; though he is not inclined to confider Titus Andronicus, and the other pieces printed in Italics, as the compofitions of Shakspeare.