facrament at Eafter. The Queftion therefore between you and me is reduced to a few fingle points, fimple in themselves, and easy to be understood; viz. Whether Spain, with its prefent number of inhabitants (or if you pleafe, with double its prefent number) and alfo with vast and extenfive colonies in South-America, is richer and ftronger than it was, with its twenty millions formerly, and without any colonies at all? And 2dly. What prudential course ought Spain to take in its prefent fituation; viz. Whether to call off as many American fubjects as it can, and entirely to abandon all those immenfe and diftant regions, which it cannot govern, turning its cares wholly to the re-peopling and improving of old Spain? Or whether to go on ftill in its prefent mode, trucking and buckstering, and getting fuck an obedience as it can [which you fay is the cafe even with the Grand Turk] watching times, governing and fubmitting by turns, and complying with this American spirit as with a neceffary evil? Now, Sir, as thefe are the queftions to be decided; let the impartial world judge between, and determine for us. And after that decifion, let an application be made, mutato nomine, to Great Britain and her colonies."

As to the thirteen propofitions printed at the end of Mr. Burke's fpeech, including the particulars of Mr. Burke's "Heaven-born pacific scheme." What do they amount to? Why, truly, fays the Dean to this; "If we will grant the colonies all that they fhall require, and ftipulate for nothing in return; they will be at peace

with us."

"The fum total of which may be thus expreffed, bear and forbear. Bear with, and fubmit to the colonies in every thing, while they ⚫ continue to acknowledge the fame head of the empire, the fame king with ourselves:-But forbear to compel them, directly or in⚫ directly, to make any provifion either for the general defence of the empire, or for the particular ufes of their king, towards whom they ⚫ profeffed fuch loyalty, if they are not voluntarily difpofed to ⚫ make these grants. Mr. Burke may not approve of this comment on his doctrine, because it develops his meaning a little too plainly, and mal-apropos. But I appeal to the world, whether his fcheme of pacification can be understood, I mean practically understood, in any other fenfe? In thefe thirteen propofitions every demand of the colonies is complied with in effect, though not totidem verbis. And their compliance or conceffion is to be confidered, not as fome temporary indulgence, or matter of favour to be refumed at pleasure ;-but as a matter of right, and as the terms of the folemn league and covenant, which the two British nations of Europe and America are to enter into, and as a grand jocial compact to remain inviolable for ever. Therefore the natural queftion is, what is granted, or to be granted, to Great Britain in return for fuch conceffions?-Nothing at all. But is it not ftipulated, that the North Americans fhall, for the future, at least bear their own expences? No, by no means. They are to have the fole power either of granting, or of refufing to grant, any money even for their own eftablishments. Now, if they fhould refufe to make thefe neceffary grants, as they have frequently done, what courfe is to be taken with them? Are we to compel them to make provision for their own services? No, by no means: For this

is

is contrary to the exprefs words of the intended treaty. Are we then to abandon them, and give them up, telling them, that we will not be troubled any longer with fuch unreafonable people? Nor that; For, provided they fhall continue to acknowledge the fame king, the fame general head of the empire whom we acknowledge, they will have fulfilled all their engagements :-And Great Britain muft do the reft. Therefore the words of the orator, at page 58, are both just and emphatical:- Mine [my plan] is gratuitous, and unconditional, and not held out as a matter of bargain and fale.' Indignant reader, make thine own reflections! Had we been abfolutely con quered by the arms of America, what other terms of flavery could have been impofed upon us?"

On the whole, though the Dean may be thought by many to be on the wrong fide the queflion, he is, with regard to his antagonist, on the right fide of the argument. But, alas! the fword is now drawn, that ultima ratio regum, which, whether right or wrong will probably decide the difpute!

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ART. XV. Marmor Norfolcienfe: or an Effay on an ancient prophetical Infcription, in Monkish Rhyme, lately difcovered near Lynn in Norfolk. By Probus Britannicus. Printed and published in the year 1739. A new Edit on, with Notes and a Dedication to Samuel Jobnfon, LL.D. By Tribunus. See London Review for June. We place this pamphlet under the head of politics, leaft the curious antiquarian fhould meet with a ferious difappointment, in conceiving this Feu d'Esprit to be any real discovery of the remains of antiquity. The truth is, it is a mere production of the imagination, like the famous pamphlet entitled the Antiquities of Wheatfield though by no means fo laughable and innocent: On the other hand, we feldom meet with any thing written with fo much strength and virulence; it being a fatire or rather an invective against the house of Hanover, and particularly king George the Second. It is imė puted to the celebrated author of the Rambler, to whom it is dedicated in a humorous preface, and faid to be one of his earliest productions: The author, after giving an account of the pretended difcovery of the tone, in which the Prophecy is faid to have been engraved, gives the infcription itself with his own tranflation and

comments,

Whene'er this flone, now hid beneath the lake,
The horfe fhall trample, or the plough fhall

break,

Then, O my country! fhalt thou groan distrest,
Grief fwell thine eyes, and terror chill thy

breaft.

Thy streets with violence of woe fhall found,
Loud as the billows bursting on the ground.

Serpent

Serpent per Prata Colubri,
Gramina vaftantes,
Flores Fructufque vorantes,
Omnia fedantes,
Vitiantes, et fpoliantes';
Quanquam haud pugnaces,
Ibunt cuneta ininaces;
Fures abfque Timore,

per

Et pingues abfque Labore.
Horrida dementes
Rapirt Difcordia Gentes,
Plarima tunc Leges
Marabit, plurima Reges
Natio, converfa

In Rabiem tunc contremet Urfa
Cynthia, tunc latis
Florebont Lilia Pratis,
Nec fremere audebit
Leo, fed violare timebit,
Omnia confuetus
Populari Pafcua lætus.
Ante Oculos Natos
Calceatos et Cruciatos
Jam feret ignavus,
Vetitâque Libidine pravus.
En quoque quod mirum,
Quod dicas denique dirum,
Sanguinem Equus fugit,
Neque Bellua victa remugit.

Then through thy fields fhall fearlet reptiles
ftray,

And rapine and pollution mark their way.
Their hungry fwarms the peaceful vale thall
fright,

Still fierce to threaten, ftill afraid to fight;
The teeming year's whole product fhall devour,
Infatiate pluck the fruit, and crop the flow'r:
Sball glutton on the industrious pealants fpoil,
Rob without fear, and fatten without toil.
Then o'er the world thall difcord ftretch her
wings,

Kings change their laws, and kingdoms change
their kings.

The bear enrag'd th affrighted moon fhall dreads"
The lilies o'er the vales triumphant spread;
Nor thall the lion, wont of old to reign
Defpotic o'er the defolated plain,
Henceforth th' inviolable bloom invade,
Or dare to murmur in the flow'ry glade;
His tortur'd fons fhall die before his face,
While he lies melting in a lewd embracez.
And, yet more frange! his veins a horfe fhall
drain,

Not fhall the paffive coward once complain.

Of the Comment we may obferve in general, that it abounds with reflections, as injurious as hatred and malevolence could invent, against the houfe of Brunswick; or rather, as before obferved, against our late excellent king George the Second. Unluckily, however, for a penfioner of George the Third, many of thofe reflections may be thought to bear a more ftriking application to the present times than thofe in which this invective was written. Of this kind are the following,

"Our monarchs are furrounded with refined fpirits, fo penetrating that they frequently difcover in their masters great qualities invifible to vulgar eyes, and which, did not they publifh them to mankind, would be unobserved for ever.

"Nor is it eafy to find in the lives of our monarchs many inftances of a regard for pofterity. I have feldom in any of the gracions fpeeches delivered from the throne, and received with the highest gratitude and fatisfaction by both Houses of Parliament, difcovered any other concern than for the current year, for which fupplies are generally demanded in very preffing terms, and fometimes fuch as imply no remarkable folicitude for posterity.

Nothing indeed can be more unreasonable and abfurd, than to require that a monarch, diftracted with cares and furrounded with enemies, fhould involve himself in fuperfluous anxieties by an unneceffary concern about future generations. Are not mock-patriots, malquerades, operas, birth-nights, treaties, conventions, reviews, drawing-rooms, and the births of heirs, fufficient to overwhelm any capacity but that of a king? Surely he that acquits himself fuccefsfully of fuch affairs, may content himself with the glory he acquires, and leave pofterity to his fucceffors." " It

1

"It has always been obferved of those that frequent a court, thas they foon, by a kind of contagion, catch the regal spirit of neglecting futurity. The minifter forms an expedient to fufpend or perplex an enquiry into his measures for a few months, and applauds and triumphs in his own dexterity. The peer puts off his creditor for the prefent day, and forgets that he is ever to fee him more. The frown of a prince, and the lofs of a penfion, have indeed been found of wonderful efficacy, to abstract men's thoughts from the prefent time, and fill them with zeal for the liberty and welfare of ages to come."

Op this latter paffage, it has been judiciously obferved, that, as the frowns of a prince and the lofs of a penfion are of wonderful efficacy to turn men's thoughts to futurity; fo the files of a prince, and the enjoyment of a penfion have been found of wonderful efficacy to fix men's. thoughts on the prefent times and meafures, be they ever fo profligate and ruinous, and to fill them with zeal in fupport of them, regardless of ages to come.

Of this the doctor himself is adduced as an instance. We cannot fide, however, with those who affect to admire the doctor for the wonderful confiftency of his religious and moral principles, and the inconfiftency of his political ones. His theory of religion and morals is moft palpably inconfiftent; and in what is that of his politics more fo? The doctor was a rank Tory, in the reign of George the Second. Is he lefs fo now? His being a Jacobite then, and a Georgite now, proves only that he was and is a tory upon principle and not from party; that it was not the family of the Stuarts but their notions of defpotifin and divine right, to which he was attached; that he is one of those jubmiljive, tractable, fpirits born to fubjection and flavery, let who will impofe them, a James or a George. So far he is furely confiftent! Not but that we find one paffage, in his comment, that makes rather against him, even in this particular. The military, or standing army, whom he files red ferpents, are thus spoken of in the pretended prophecy,

Quanquam haud pugnaces,

Ibunt per cuncta minaces.

On which the commentator obferves: "these ferpents will threaten, indeed, and hifs, and terrify the weak, and timorous, and thoughtless, but have no real courage or ftrength. So that the mischief done by them, their ravages, devaftations, and robberies, must be only the confequences of cowardice in the fufferers, who are harraffed and oppreffed only because they fuffer it without refiftance. We are therefore to remember, whenever the peit here threatened shall invade us, that fubmiffion and tameness will be certain ruin; and that nothing but fpirit, vigilance, activity, and oppofition can preferve us from the most hateful and reproachful mifery, that of being plundered, farved, and devoured by Vermin and by [fcarlet] Reptiles."

This is hardly the advice, which the author of Taxation no Tyranny would give to the Americans! And yet his pretended prophecy feems to be more applicable to their fituation than to that of the prefent inhabitants of this country. Speaking of the above red ferpents, he fays, "I fhall content myself with collecting, into one view, the feveral pro

perties.

perties of this peftiferous brood, as hints to more fagacious' and fortanate readers; who when they fhall find any red animal that ranges: uncontrouled over the country, and devours the labours of the trader and the husbandman; that carries with it corruption, rapine, pollution, and devaftation; that threatens without courage, robs without fear, and is pampered without labour; they may know that the prediction is completed. Let me only remark farther, that if the tile of this, as of all other predictions is figurative, the ferpent, a wretched animal that crawls upon the earth, is a proper emblem of low views and felf-interefted bafe fubmiflion, as well as of cruelty, mifchief, and malevolence."

We conceive the gentlemen of the army will treat all fuch general infinuations with due contempt; reflecting that if there are fome fuch red ferpents, there are alfo black wipers as wretched animals and equally attatched to low views and felf-interested bafe fubmission.

ART. XVI. Confiderations on the Means of preventing fraudulent Practices on the Gold Coin Written at Geneva, in 1773. By Lord Viscount Mabon. F. R. S. Shropshire. See London Review for June.

After specifying the methods of defrauding the public in refpect to the coins by falfe coinage and the diminution of the weight of the true coin; Lord Mahon propofes, in order to prevent the former, to have. the most able workmen at the mint, and by forming all the parts of the coin which are the leaft expofed to wear, and, which at the fame time are not liable to fill with dirt, with the most scrupulous exactnefs: which, he conceives, would effectually prevent the fuccefs of imitators -To prevent the diminution of the coin, by clipping, milling, rubbing or fweating he propofes the following mode of coinage.

"Let the coin have but very little relief, like fome of the coin of Lewis XIV. of France; the head appears to ftand out very much, though it be almoft flat, and though the cheek be fcarcely higher than the nofe; they are lefs liable to wear this way, because there are nɔ' prominences particularly expofed to wear, and the rubbing becomes more equal on every part. I am perfuaded that our English coin might be brought to excel the very best coin ever yet feen in that country, or in our own.

"Let the letters of the infcriptions be very near the edge of the coin; or, what I believe is infinitely better, let there be a flat circle in relief, round the outfide of the letters, which circle must be broad enough to refift wearing, but not broad enough to be dimînished in its breadth, without this diminution becoming fenfible; and the better to attain this end, the inner edge of this circle ought to be indented nearly the whole breadth of it, as in the first and fecond' figures; and let the outer edge of this circle be either just within the

* Certain it is that the very flovenly manner, in which the new copper coinage is ere. uted at the tower, makes the difference between the true and the false frequently wiltinguishable.

edge.