him to the low condition of mankind, who are delighted with intreaty, folicitation, prefents, and flattery. Yet is this impiety the fmallest of which fuperftition is guilty. Commonly, it depreffes the Deity far below the condition of mankind; and reprefents him as a capricious demon, who exercises his power without reason, and without humanity. And were that divine Being difpofed to be offended at the vices and follies of filly mortals, who are his own workmanfhip; ill would it furely fare with the votaries of most popular fuperftitions. Nor would any of the human race merit his favour, but a very few, the philofophical theifts, who entertain, or rather indeed endeavour to entertain, fuitable notions of his divine perfections: as the only perfons, intitled to his compaffion and indulgence, would be the philofophical fceptics, a fect almost equally rare, who, from a natural diffidence of their own capacity, fufpend, or endeavour to fufpend, all judgment with regard to fuch fublime and fuch extraordinary fubjects.'

Such are the fentiments, fuch the doctrines contained in the Dialogues before us; and it is natural now, furely, to ask, what gratitude is due to Mr. Hume for this legacy to the public? If the principles which he has laboured with fo much zeal and earnestness to establish be true, the wicked are set free from every restraint but that of the laws; the virtuous are robbed of their most fubftantial comforts; every generous ardor of the human mind is damped; the world we live in is a fatherless world; we are chained down to a life full of wretchedness and mifery; and we have no hope beyond the grave.

Mr. Hume had been long floating on the boundless and pathlefs ocean of fcepticism; it is natural, therefore, to imagine that, in the evening of his day, he would have been defirous of getting into fome peaceful harbour; of breathing a pure air; of viewing a clear and unclouded fky, free from thofe unwholesome mifts that hang over the gloomy regions of darkness and uncertainty; and of paffing through the clofing scenes of life with tranquillity and pleafing hopes. But his love of paradox, his inordinate pursuit of literary fame, continued, whilft life continued; it is fcarce poffible, indeed, with the utmost fretch of candour and charity, to affign any other motives for publishing what must shock the fenfe and virtue of his fellowmortals, or to reconcile it with the character of a good citizen, and a friend to mankind.

We know it will be faid, that Mr. Hume, notwithstanding his principles, was a very benevolent and a very amiable man; we know he was, and are as ready to allow him all the praise he is intitled to, on account of his good qualities, as the warmest of his admirers. But, furely, it cannot be inferred from this, that principles have little or no effect on human conduct. A man, who is naturally of a cool difpaffionate turn of mind; of a ftudious difpofition; whose education, fortune, and other accidental

cidental circumftances, connect him with the upper ranks of life, may not only have fashionable manners, be an agreeable companion, but may, by the mere force of natural temper, be a benevolent, good-humoured man, and act his part in life with great decency. But fuppofe that Mr. Hume's principles are let loofe among mankind, and generally adopted, what will then be the confequence? Will thofe who think they are to die like brutes, ever act like men? Their language will be, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die. When men are once led to believe that death puts a final period to their exiftence, and are fet free from the idea of their being accountable creatures, what is left to restrain them from the gratification of their paffions but the authority of the laws? But the beft fyftem of laws that can be formed by human wildom, is far from being fufficient to prevent many of thofe evils which break in upon the peace, order, and welfare of fociety. A man may be a cruel husband, a cruel father, a domeftic tyrant; he may feduce his neighbour's wife or his daughter, without having any thing to fear from the law; and if he takes pleasure in the gratification of his irregular appetites, is it to be fuppofed that he will not gratify them? What, indeed, is to reftrain him?

But we leave it to our Readers to pursue these reflexions,— into which we were naturally led, and for which, we hope, we need make no apology.Mr. Hume's Dialogues cannot poffibly hurt any man of a philofophical turn, or, indeed, any man of common fenfe; and it is only the high reputation which the Author of them has fo juftly acquired by his other writings, and the influence of this reputation, that give them any claim to notice. They may ferve, indeed, to confirm the giddy, the profligate, and the unprincipled in their prejudices against religion and virtue, but must be defpifed by every man who has the smallest grain of ferioufnefs and reflection. No virtuous father will ever recommend them to the perufal of his fon, except in point of compofition; and every impartial judge muft pronounce them unworthy of a writer of such distinguished abilities as Mr. HUME.

PAMPHILUS, a young man, who relates to HERMIPPUS the conversation which paffed between Cleanthes, Philo, and Demea, concludes the Dialogues in the following manner.

Upon a ferious review of the whole, fays he, I cannot but think, that Philo's principles are more probable than Demea's; but that thofe of Cleanthes approach still nearer to the truth.'Our Readers will make their own comment upon this, and with them we leave it,

ART. IX. A Supplement to Dr. Swift's Works: Being a Collection of Miscellanies in Profe and Verfe; by the Dean, Dr. Delaney, Dr. Sheridan, Mrs. Johnfon, and others, his intimate Friends. Vol. II. with Notes, and an Index by the Editor. Large 8vo. 6 s. Printed for Nichols, and fold by H. Payne, &c. 1779.

Tis the province of true wit to cultivate the barren and beautify the deformed. Nor doth it ftop here. Its plaftic hand forms worlds of its own, and moulds them into whatever fhape it pleaseth. It commands the deep abyfs of vacuity itself; -calls up new and unknown creations, and (as the first Lord of this ideal empire beautifully expreffes it) gives to airy nothings a local habitation and a name.' Few writers have better illuftrated this remark than Swift. He was a man of native genius. His fancy was inexhaustible. His conceptions were lively and comprehenfive: and he had the peculiar felicity of conveying them in language equally correct, free, and perfpicuous. His penetration was as quick as intuition: and he was indeed the critic of nature. The high rank he holds in the republic of letters was owing, not to the indulgence of the times in which he wrote, but entirely to his own inconteftable merit. Nothing could fupprefs his genius. Nothing could hinder the world's feeing it. The oppofition of an unrelenting party in church and state, and the perfonal enmity that was borne him by several of high rank and great influence, could not eclipse the luftre of his name, nor fink in the fmallest degree, that authority in literature which he claimed, and the world granted, as his right. By fuch oppofers, a genius of lefs force would have been totally crufhed. But from him they were fhaken, "like dew-drops from a lion's mane."

As his genius was of the first clafs, fo were fome of his virtues. He hath been accused of avarice, but with the fame truth as he hath been accufed of infidelity. In detached views, no man was more liable to be mistaken. Even his genius and good fenfe might be queftioned, if we were only to read fome paffages of his writings. To judge fairly, and pronounce juftly of him, as a man, and as an author, we fhould examine the uniform tenor of his difpofition and conduct, and the general nature and defign of his productions. In the latter, he will appear great-and in the former, good-notwithstanding the puns and puerilities of the one, and the abfurdities and inconfiftencies of the other. We had before formed our opinion of Dean Swift. This Supplement to his works hath confirmed it. We have read it with particular fatisfaction: and though many things might have been omitted, yet, on the whole, we

For a fhort account of the first volume of this fupplemental collection, fee Review, vol. Iv. p. 163,

think it a curious and valuable repofitory of critical obfervations and biographical anecdotes.

The induftrious and ingenious Editor hath inferted several pieces in this collection, which, if not Swift's, bear fo near a refemblance to his pen, that they were generally afcribed to him at the time of their firft publication, or were at least fuppofed to have been written with his concurrence, and under his eye. The Narrative of the feveral Attempts which the Diffenters of Ireland have made for a Repeal of the Sacramental Teft,' bears ftrong internal marks of its author: Swift's hatred to the Dif fenters was indeed exceffive. Doubtlefs his indignation transported him too far in his invectives against them. But he could not difguife his fentiments: and when he conceived an averfion, he generally expreffed it in the most acrimonious terms. His perfonal and party prejudices made a capital part of his characteriftic infirmities. He confidered the Prefbyterians-especially in Ireland, as a very formidable fect: and he thought it his duty, as an avowed friend of the Church of England, to keep a ftrict eye over their measures, and warn his friends, and the nation in general, of any inroads, which his jealoufy conceived they might at any time make, on the prerogatives and conftitution of the hierarchy. Of their abilities he entertained the most defpicable opinion. But he thought they had a great deal of that low cunning which the wifeft are not at all times properly guarded againft. This idea was affociated in his mind, fo conftantly with Prefbyterianifin, that he never could fpeak or write about it, or whatever had connection with it, without a mixture of indignation and contempt. The perfon who is pointed out by name in this narrative, as the chief hero of the diffenting interest in Ireland, at the time when the pamphlet was written, was a celebrated preacher in Dublin, who distinguished himself by a Treatife on Epifcopacy, and a difpute with Archbishop King. He was called Boyfe, and was the father of Samuel Boyle, the poet-of unfortunate memory!

This Supplement derives its chief value from the anecdotes which the Editor hath collected, to illuftrate the character and writings of Dean Swift, and to throw light on fome circumftances that would have remained obfcure without them. We fhall felect fome that may be deemed the moft curious and entertaining-beginning with an anecdote of his filial piety.

His mother died in 1710, as appears by a memorandum in one of the account books, which Dr. Swift always made up yearly, and on each page entered minutely all his receipts and expences in every month, beginning his year from November 1. He obferved the fame method all his lifetime till his last illness. At the foot of that page, which includes his expences of the month of May, 1710, at the glebe houfe of Laracor, in the county of Meath, where he was then refident, are those remarkable words, which show, at the fame time, his filial piety, and the religious ufe which he thought it his

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duty to make of that melancholy event. "Mem. On Wednesday, between feven and eight in the evening, May 15, 1710, I received a letter in my chamber at Laracor (Mr. Percival and Jc. Beaumont being by) from Mrs. F— dated May 9, with one inclofed, fent by Mrs. Worral at Leicester to Mrs, F, giving an accoun that my dear mother, Mrs. Abigail Swift, died that morning, Monday, April 24, 1710, about ten o'clock, after a long fickness: being ill all winter, and lame; and extremely ill about a month or fix weeks before her death. I have now left my barrier between me and death. God grant I may live to be as well prepared for it as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to heaven be through piety, truth, ju tice, and charity, fhe is there. J. S."

"The

He always treated his mother, during her life, with the utmost duty and affection: and the fometimes came to Ireland to visit him after his fettlement at Laracor. She lodged at Mr. Brent's, the printer, in George's Lane, Dublin. She afked Mrs. Brent, the landlady, Whether the could keep a fecret?" She replied, could very well." Upon which the enjoined her not to make the matter public, which he was now going to communicate to her. "I have a fpark in this town, that I carried on a correfpondence with whilft I was in England. He will be here prefently to pay his addreffes, for he hath heard by this time of my arrival. But I would not have the matter known." Soon after this a rap was heard at the door, and Dr. Swift walked up ftairs. Mrs. Brent retired: but after a little time he was called, and then Mrs. Swift introduced her to her fon, and faid, "This is my fpark, I was telling you of. This is my lover and indeed the only one I thall ever admit to pay their addreffes to me." The Doctor failed at his mother's humour, and afterwards paid his duty to her every day, unfufpected by Mrs Brent, whom he invited fome years afterwards to take care of his family affairs, when he became Dean of St. Patrick's: and when Mrs. Brent died, he continued her daughter, a poor widow, in the fame office.'

Mr. Nichols hath preferved a curious letter, addrcled by Alderman Faulkner (the celebrated Peter Paragraph of one of Foote's comedies) to the late Earl of Chefterfield. It contains fome ftriking anecdotes of Dean Swift, which his former biographers were unacquainted with. One of them refpects Dr. Sacheverel, and feems to fhow in what light he was privately held by the perfons who, in public, were the warmeft partifans of his caufe. Dr. Sacheverel, in confequence of a most impudent and inflammatory fermon, preached before the Lord Mayor, on Nov. 5, 1709, was impeached at the bar of the House of Lords, in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, for high crimes and mifdemeanors, &c. Having been tried before the Lords, and found guilty, he was filenced for the space of three years, and his fermon was condemned to be burned by the hands of the common hangman, which sentence was rigidly executed.

• When this affair was over (fays Mr. Faulkner) the miniftry took very little notice of him, and treated him with great indifference: but upon the Rectory of St. Andrew's, Holborn, being vacant, the

Doctor