To this Pope returns: "To answer your question as to Mr. Hughes; what he wanted in genius, he made up as an honest man; but he was of the class you think him."

As it was thought neceffary to admit men of such slender pretenfions into fuch very reputable fociety, it feems natural to expect that some reason had been given for fhewing them a diftinction which has been denied to Sedley, Marvel, and above all to the immortal Spenfer.

To the foregoing extracts we fhall add a paffage or two relating to Butler, from the fecond volume. This author was, by fome accident, omitted in our former Articles.

BUTLE R.

Of the great author of Hudibras few anecdotes are handed down to us, and of thofe few not many are authentic. We learn from his prefent biographer, that a life prefixed to the later edition of his poems by an unknown writer, and the account which is incidentally given by Wood, who confeffes the uncertainty of his own narrative, are all the materials that are now to be collected for compofing the hiftory of this fingular poet. Curiofity naturally withes for fome farther knowledge of him and yet, were curiofity to be gratified, it is to be feared there would be little to relate that humanity could look upon with pleasure. For what could be expected, even from the moft circumftantial narrative of the life of this unfortunate writer, but a more faithful exhibition of genius ftruggling with penury and dependence, an ampler detail of the pangs of difappointed expectation, joined to the melancholy difplay of unrewarded labours and royal ingratitude? Let us turn off our attention from the author to his work.

The poem of Hudibras is one of those compofitions of which a nation may justly boat; as the images which it exhibits are domeftic, the fentiments unborrowed and unexpected, and the ftrain of diction original and peculiar. We muft no, however, fuffer the pride which we affume as the country men of Butler to make any encroachment upon juftice, nor appropriate thofe honours which others have a right to fhare. The poem of Hudibras is not wholly English; the original idea is to be found in the hiftory of Don Quixote; a book to which a mind of the greatest powers may be indebted with cut difgrace.'

Dr. Johnfon very juftly accounts for much of that humour which tranfported the laft century with merriment being loft upon us, who do not know the four folemnity, the fullen fuperftition, the gloomy morofenefs, and the ftubborn fcruples of the ancient Puritans; or, if we know them, derive our information only from books or from tradition.

We have never, fays he, been witneffes of animofities excited by the ufe of minced pies and plum porridge; nor feen with what ab horrence

horrence those who could eat them at all other times of the year would fhrink from them in December. An old Puritan, who was alive in my childhood, being at one of the feats of the church invited by a neighbour to partake his cheer, told him, that, if he would treat him at an alehouse with beer, brewed for all times and featons, he fhould accept his kindness, but would have none of his fuperftitious meats or drinks.

One of the puritanical tenets was the illegality of all games of chance; and he that reads Gataker upon Lots, may fee how much learning and reafon one of the firft fcholars of his age thought neceffary, to prove that it was no crime to throw a die, or play at cards, or to hide a fhilling for the reckoning.'

The arguments he produces to prove that were another Butler to arife, another Hudibras would not obtain the fame regard, feem to be conclufive:

Burlesque, fays he, confifls in a difproportion between the ftyle and the fentiments, or between the adventitious fentiments and the fundamental fubject. It therefore, like all bodies compounded of heterogeneous parts, contains in it a principle of corruption. All difproportion is unnatural, and from what is unnatural we can derive only the pleafure which novelty produces. We admire it awhile as a ftrange thing; but, when it is no longer frange, we perceive its deformity. It is a kind of artifice, which by frequent repetition detects itself; and the reader, learning in time what he is to expect, lays down his book, as the fpectator turns away from a fecond exhibition of thofe tricks, of which the only use is to shew that they can be played.'

ART. V. Ancient Metaphyfics; or, the Science of Univerfals. With an Appendix, containing an Examination of the Principles of Sir Ifaac Newton's Philofophy. Vol. I. 4to. 15 s. Boards. Edinburgh printed, for Cadell, &c. 1779.

As

S to the defign of this work, the Author fays in his preface, I frankly own that it was for my own fake that I compofed it. I lay up like the bee for the winter of old age, which is coming faft upon me, when I could not have made fuch a collection as this; but even then I hope to enjoy it, and to spend the last years of my life in the ftudy of all others the moft befitting a man who is foon to enter into the world of Spirits,' &c.

6

In this paffage there is a little ambiguity of expreffion, the Author having mentioned the winter of old age as coming faft upon him, and then adding in the paft tenfe, when I could not have made fuch a collection as this,' which supposes it already come. This much however we may decipher, by comparing the Author with himfelf, that it is not for the benefit of the prefent age, for which he uniformly profeffes the most fovereign contempt, that he has published the present work. He is indeed fo little anxious that his book fhould be generally

read

read or known, that he has given it a title which he believes will not be properly understood. Thofe, fays he*, who ridicule the nobleft of all sciences under the name of metaphyfic, not only do not know the nature of the fcience, but appear to me not to understand even the title of Ariftotle's books which treat of it, but to imagine that it has fome connection with what we call in English phyfic.' We are apprehensive that the prefent performance of Lord Monboddo's will add confiderable force to this erroneous opinion; and that the ignorance of the age may at length become fo great, that our experimental men †, as his Lordship calls them, who judge of things by their effects, may prescribe a fheet of Ariftotle on the Categories, or Monboddo on Ancient Metaphyfics, instead of a dose of senna or rhubarb.

The part of his Lordship's work which has any connection with the title, appears to us, after a moft attentive perufal, a very confused and inaccurate explanation of the fcience taught at all our universities under the name of metaphyfics; of which there are feveral very good accounts in Latin, French, and English. As to the grand idea of his Lordship, that stones and earths have fouls, as well as plants and animals, it appears at first fight too ridiculous to deferve a ferious examination. But after he has spent fome hundred pages (in quarto) in confirming this doctrine, it turns out that all he contends for is the introducing of a new mode of expreffion equally unknown to the ancients and moderns. For the foul or mind which animates the rock of Gibraltar and the peak of Teneriff, poffeffes neither intelligence nor consciousness, nor any of the principal qualities which are generally afcribed to mind, and means nothing more than the properties of gravitation, corpufcular attraction, &c. which we know from experience to belong to matter. Left we should be accused of miftaking the Author's meaning, which, from his careless and incorrect manner of writing is very liable to be misunderstood, we fhall give the paffage at large, in his own words:

Having faid fo much of mind in general, and the human mind in particular, I will, in this chapter, explain more particularly the difference that I apprehend there is betwixt the feveral minds I have mentioned, beginning with the loweft kind, but which is abfolutely neceffary for carrying on the bufinefs of nature, and even for the existence of a material world.

And, first, this fo powerful principle is that which unites and keeps together all the feveral bodies; in fo much that, without it, there would be no fuch thing as body in the universe. It is therefore the principle of union in body; and, as it is only mind that unites, or is active in any way, it is for that reafon, I think, if there

• P. 5.

See p. 8, preface.

were

were no other. to be claffed under mind. It is by it that bodies are difcriminated from one another, and receive different appellations, fuch as earth, stone, wood, &c.; for, without this principle, nothing could be called any thing, but all things would be mixed with all, according to the philofophy of Anaxagoras.

Secondly, It is this principle which gives the feveral motions to body, by which it may be faid to live, and to be animated. Of thefe motions Ariftotle has made a general divifion, and which I think full and compleat, into fuch as are in a straight line, fuch as are in a curve revolving into itself, and fuch as are mixed of these two; or, as I would rather chufe to express it, are neither the one nor the other. But I will divide them more particularly, beginning with those that are in a straight line.

And, firfi, there is that motion well known under the name of gravitation, by which bodies here below tend towards the centre of the earth. This motion, as I have observed, cannot be accounted for from any material impulfe. It cannot be, as I think I have demonftrated, the matter itself which moves itfelf; and, therefore, it only remains, that it must be produced by mind. And, indeed, as gravitation does not operate in proportion to the furface of bodies, but to their mass or folid contents, it is impoffible to conceive how it fhould be produced by any material power, as matter acts only upon the furface of matter. The only question, then, is, Whether it be mind operating externally upon the body, or internally, that is, refiding in the body, and animating it? And I find that appears to have been a doubt concerning the motion of the celestial bodies in the days of Plat; for, though all the philofophers of thofe days, who were not Atheists, believed the motion of these bodies to be carried on by mind, fome appear to have thought, that it was by mind externally operating upon them, and, as it were, pushing them on, while others thought that it was mind internal animating them, and moving them, as our minds move our bodies t. And, among the modern philofophers, I find one that has written an excellent book upon the human foul, viz. Mr. Baxter, who afcribes this motion of gravitation, as well as every other natural motion of body, to the immediate agency of the Deity. But, though I am forry to differ from an author whom I think the most perfect Theift of any that has written in this century, i cannot help thinking it more agreeable to the analogy of nature, that the motive principles of thefe bodies fhould be internal. It is fo undoubtedly in our bodies; and every philofopher, in Britain at least, believes it to be fo likewife in the bodies of the brutes. Neither do I fee that there is any good reafon for stopping at the vegetable, betwixt which and the brutes there is no other difference but what fen

See this argument very well enforced by Dr. Clarke, in his Demonttration of the Being and Attributes of God, p. 8%.'

+ Plato, in the 10th Book of Laws (p. 954. edit. Ficini), propofes three opinions upon this fubject. Two of them are thofe mentioned in the text; the third is, that mind external to the celeftial body did not immediately move it, and push it on, but did it by the intervention of another body of fire or air, which it affumed to i:felf, and fo moved body by body.'

Rev. Sept. 1779.

fation

fation and progreffive motion make.. Thus far Ariftotle, and all the ancients who were not Atheists, have clearly gone. And, further, Arilotle lays it down as the foundation of his natural philofophy, that there is an internal principle of motion in all phyfical bodies, though he does not call it by the name of Jux, or mind; and only fays it is like a mind. But Plato is more explicit upon this fubject; for, he fays exprefsly, in the paffage quoted in the beginning of this work, that it is mind that moves, and body that is moved. And the later Platonifts, and particularly Proclus, is still more explicit upon this fubject; for he blames Ariftotle for animating the celestial fpheres, and putting them under the direction and fuperintendency of mind, but leaving all the lower elements dead and inanimate t. And this appears to be likewife the opinion of the most ancient phiJofopher of Greece, Thales; and I doubt not, but that he brought it from Egypt with him; for he faid that the whole univerfe was full of gods, that is, of minds; and, particularly, he faid, that it was mind in the loadstone which attracted iron.

And, I think, this hypothefis of mine is agreeable, not only to ancient philofophy, but to religion; for our fcripture tells us, that the Deity, in his intercourfe with men, employs fubaltern minds or angels, as they are called, to execute his will. And I fee no reason why we may not fuppofe, that, by the fame miniftry, he carries on the operations of nature: and, I think, it gives a much higher idea of the Supreme Mind, than if we were to fuppofe him performing all natural operations, fuch as the formation of plants and animals in their fucceffive generations, and the movement of every the leaft body, or concretion of matter, by his own immediate agency, and, as it were by his own hand. If it be true, as I fuppofe, that there is as great a variety of minds in the univerfe as of bodies, it is evident, that, if all the bufinefs of nature was to be the immediate work of the Supreme Mind, those inferior minds which, as I fuppofe, defcend below the Supreme, in infinite gradation, and, in that way, fill up the fcale of nature, would want employment, and "be useless for any thing that appears in the creation."-Further, the progrefs in the generation, as well as the corruption of all things here below, is very flow, nature proceeding ftep by flep, from one fate of the thing to another. Now, it feems more worthy of the Divine Majefty, that this operofe procefs should be gone through by inferior agents of limited power, to whom it is prefcribed to act only in a certain way, than that it should be the immediate work of Omnipotence, who could do the work all at once, and by a fiat, without going fo much round about.-And, lastly, this hypothefis will account for Nature fometimes being difappointed of her end, and making what we may call imperfect and bungling work. This may happen through the inaptitude or stubbornnels of the matter not

'P. 9.'

+ Proclus in Timæum, p. 286 et 287. See alfo Cudworth's Intellectual Syftem, p. 236, 237."

I See the book de Mundo, afcribed to Ariftotle, cap. 7.-See alfo Cudworth's Intellectual Syftem, p. 149, where this matter is very well treated.'

yielding