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in queft of riches? It is, that they may return to difplay their confequence, and to draw the attention and the fympathy of their countrymen, at laft. It is the focial principle which gives its chief value to wealth. Without a country, without a focial circle to observe and to join in our profperity, there would be no incitement to adventure, no motives to raife mankind from favage to polifhed life. But the love of their country, thofe charities, in the ftile of Milton, which, by the affociation of ideas, raife an affection for their native foil, at once excites a fpirit of enterprize, and calls home the fuccefsful adventurer, after all his wanderings, to the feat of his earliest and dearest connections. If thefe connections do not, as in general they do, fix men to their own country, they, for the most part, reclaim and attac' e fugitive.

To apply thefe obr jons to the queftion that led to them.— The focial habits and endearments of life will, for a long feries of years, either keep our capitals at home, or, by different channels, remit their produce..

Again. Either the intercourfe between England and Ireland, will increase, or it will decreafe for it cannot be ftationary. If it fhall increafe, a fimilarity of manners, habits, and sentiments will increase alfo. The two nations will more and more coalefce with one another, until at laft they fhall be joined, like England and Scotland, by a national union. The ftrength of the one kingdom will be the ftrength of the other, National antipathies will wear away; and the channel which feems deftined to divide, will, fuck is the power of art! ferve to facilitate both focial and commercial communications.

If, on the contrary, misunderstandings and jealoufies fhould grow between the fifter kingdoms; if the weaker fhould feek and find the favour and alliance of fome powerful neighbour on the continent, foreign connections and habits would gradually estrange the kingdoms from one another; antipathies would revive and multiply; a principle of difcord would repel the English from Ireland, and the Irish from England; and in this cafe there would be no room for complaints concerning the migration of capital. On the whole, if a good understanding with Ireland, shall strengthen into a political union, the jealoufy of trade will diminish and die away. If, which Heaven avert, a total feparation fhould enfue, the prefent commercial regulations would be, to all practical purposes, merely wafte paper. They would ferve indeed to convince the fpeculative politician, that animal antipathy is able, in some instances, to frustrate the moft liberal, falutary, and just defigns.

As we have confidered the queftion concerning the apprehended fluctuation of English capitals to Ireland, on the principles of general politicks, influenced by the general principles of human nature; fo we fhall now confider it on the more circumfcribed views of ma nufacturers and merchants.

It is a very difficult matter for a manufactuer of great and extenfive bufinefs to call in his debts, to wind up his affairs, to tranfport his raw materials, and inftruments of labour, from one coun try to another. On an average it is computed, that this cannot be done by men in trade, without a facrifice of a third part of their whole stock; not to mention the danger of altering in fome mea

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fure the firm, and varying the fituation of their houses; cir cumftances, intimately connected with the fale of goods, and that are far from being matters of indifference in the command of a ready market. If from reåfoning we feek light on this fubject from experience; we fhall find that it is difficult to form any general conclufions concerning the conduct of mankind from that of others placed in what we apprehend to be fimilar fituations.

As it is eafy for the mathematician to combine ad infinitum the various proportions, and to difcover new relations among lines and figures, but difficult even by the aid of geometry to penetrate into the nature and to measure the powers of matter and motion: fo it is eafy to fpeculate concerning the principles of human nature; but difficult to foresee the courfe of conduct that any man or fociety of men will purfue in any given circumstances. In Scotland, labour, provifions, houfe rent, and other articles are nearly ast cheap as they are in Ireland. Navigable rivers, bays, and inlets of the fea, render Scotland an inviting fcene for commercial enterprize; and the Scotch are more fitted for the various pursuits of industry than the generality of the Irifh. Yet, although Scotland has been united to England for near a century, how little of Engliffr capital has been laid out in the establishment of manufactures in that kingdom? The iron manufacture at Carron, established by ad venturers driven to try experiments from necefhty, and a concern held by fome Englishmen in the falmon fishery at Aberdeen, are the only inftances of any importance, of English capital being employed on the north fide of the Tweed. Reafoning, therefore, from this fact, we fhould be inclined to conclude, that there is no great chance of the English manufacturer croffing St. George's Channel, on account of the privileges of trade granted to Ireland.

But when we turn our eyes to the present state of Canada, we are tempted to draw a quite different conclufion. An almoft total exemption from taxes, allures to that extenfive region new fettlers from the new ftates of America, fmarting under impofitions ten times more fevere than thofe which, at the expence of a civil war, they fought to avoid. Perhaps the Americans have more of the fpirit of adventure than any other people. They are afloat, as it were, on the great ocean of the world. And, as it is easier to give a new direction to any body once in motion, than to move a body at reft, fo the fpirit of migration is perhaps stronger in the new than in any part of the old world.

CONTINENT OF EUROPE.

The depofition of the Grand Vifier, a man of great abilities, and though a friend to the arts that are best preparations for war, a conftant admirer of peace, together with the privileges accorded by the Porte to the French on the Black Sea, are circumitances which lead the reftlefs minds of politicians to prefage an attempt to expel the Ruffians from the Crimea. It is certain that the feeds of animofity between the courts of Petersburgh and Constantinople, are deeply planted; and that a war between these great powers cannot be delayed for any great length of time. It now appears, that if the late peace had not taken place between the Turks and Ruffians, the French would have been put in poffeffion

of

of the island of Candia. The alliance between the Porte and France, is now clofer than ever. It would be very difficult, and almost impoffible for the united arms of both Turkey and France, to drive the Ruffians from the Crimea.* But it is hot the intereft, and it will not be the inclination of the political court of Verfailles, to suffer the Ruffians to make farther incroachments on fo promifing an ally, It is evident, that under pretence of fupporting the falling empire of the Ottomans, the French will feck, and probably obtain, a firm establishment in the Turkish dominions.

A jealoufy of Turkey and France, with views on the territories of the former, unite, for the prefent, the Ruffians and the Austrians. Couriers, accordingly, very frequently pafs between Peterfburgh and Vienna. The great powers which at prefent divide Europe, and indeed govern the world, may be reduced to fix-the Houfe of Bourbon, the Auftrians, the, Ruffians, the Turks, the English, and a natural confederacy between the Dutch and the Houfe of Brandenburgh, at the head of an union among different princes of Germany.

The Scheldt, as we have uniformly thought, will undoubtedly be opened, with a few infignificant restrictions to the Auftrians. Peace will continue between that people and the Dutch. But the Emperor, more bufy and perfevering, than bold and decifive in action, will probably keep his great army on foot, and watch for an opportunity of reducing under his power, that early object of his ambition, the palatinate of Bavaria.

*The French could not transport troops to the Crimea, without an immense expence. The Ruffians can fend forces thither with the greatest ease, and in the greatest numbers.

THE

ENGLISH REVIEW.

For JUNE, 1785.

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ART. I. An Inquiry into the Fine Arts. By Thomas Robertfon, Minister of Dalmeny, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Vol. I. 4to. 18s. boards. Cadell. London. 1784. TO treat of the arts, whofe chief object is to please, as a philofopher and a man of tafte, to inveftigate their nature, to display their particular beauties, to fix their boundaries, and thus eftablish a rule by which the critic is to judge, muft furely be deemed an arduous undertaking.Many parts of the fubject are of a nature fo fhadowy, and unfubftantial, that they are not palpable, but to what may be termed the moft exquifite ideal feeling. And, fuppofing an author endowed with this uncommon gift of nature, yet much previous knowledge and reflection are neceffary to give certainty to its decifions. To judge of painting, for example, that we poffefs the feeds of tafte is not fufficient, the eye muft have been long accustomed to the various excellencies and defects of a multitude of artists, before we can determine as we ought. Without this, when we fpeak upon the fubject, though we may have read all that has been written from Pliny to the present day, we fhall only repeat the ideas of others; or, if in fuch unfavourable circumftances, we venture to give a judgment of our own, the refult will often be extravagance and abfurdity. We mean not by this to infinuate, that the prefent author has not prepared himENG. REV. June, 1785. C c

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felf with the moft anxious industry for the task he has undertaken. The arrangement of his work prevents us from deciding fully upon this at prefent. The volume that now appears, is entirely devoted to mufic, which, from its nature, may be as completely attained at Dalmeny as at Rome, for at both places the works of the great ma ers may be equally perufed. Upon this fubject he appears to have been fufficiently induftrious.

An introductory difcourfe "On the principle of the fine Arts, and a plan for treating of them," precedes the difcuf fion of his principal fubject. In examining the principle of the fine arts, he follows the idea of Sir William Jones, in oppofition to Ariftotle, and the common opinion; denying that they are imitative; but in treating this subject, he feems to be combating a phantom which he himself has raised. For thofe who maintain that the arts of poetry and painting, for example, are imitative, do by no means affert that their perfection confifts in a fervile imitation of nature. -The poet and the painter, on the contrary, may cull from that great ftore-houfe, may fuperadd ideal beauties or defects, may diminish, exaggerate, diftort; and thus call into exiftence fomething that never had a local habitation nor a name; but the philofopher will difcover the embryo of this child of the fine arts in the prolific womb of nature. It is afked with exultation by: our author, Upon what model "did Euripides and the old poets form the Cyclops?

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Shakespeare's Caliban a copy?" We have as little faith in the actual exiflence of, Caliban or the Cyclops as Mr. Robertson, and yet, according to our fenfe of imitation, we can fay that they are copies from nature. There the poets found deformity, malignity, cruelty, and the other materials which make up the form and character of these poetical beings, and molded them by the hand of fancy. It may likewife be obferved, with regard to the two inftances produced by our author, that, before the poetical birth of Caliban or the Cyclops, their prototypes exifted in the po pular opinion. The intercourfe of witches and evil fpirits, was believed to produce, though not the very monfter of the tempeft, yet beings of a milar kind long before the birth of our immortal bard. Shakespeare's Caliban is not therefore, in a strict fenfe, the child of fancy, . but a copy, not indeed of what really did, but of what was believed to exift, which, for the purpofe of our argument, is exactly the fame thing. To the fame caufe muft we attribute the origin of the Cyclops of Euripides and the old poets;" for there is no doubt that a popular belief in the existence of fuch a being, must be firft eftablished, before the being can be pro

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