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benefactors, by a particular application of the hand of mercy, there will arise the best hope and assurance that God will bless the work, and that he will establish the rich reversions of eternal recompence upon those who enrich and promote it."

*A letter to the Rev Richard Farmer, D. D. Master of Emanuel College, Cambridge; relative to the Edition of Shakespeare, published in 1790, and some late criticisms on that Work. By Edmond Malone, Esq. 1s. 8vo. Robinsons.*

This is a very lofty and angry performance. The author seems not to like the contest in which he is engaged. He thinks it beneath him: that the nameless champion who has dared him to stand forth in his own defence is impertinent, is ignorant and is every way below contempt. But how then are we to account for the letter-writers peevishness and asperity. Surely there is nothing so very interesting or important in the matter in question as that he should lose his temper in the discussion, or inest ad of fair argument or found reatoning call names, and for elegant fatire or handsome ridicule, give us only petulence and ribaldry. Indeed there is so much superciliousness and literary pride in this doughty letter, that in our opinion, Mr. Malone has laid himself very open to animadversion. May he fall into such hands as are able to apply what he seems to want, and to teach him what is better than all his tafte and learning—humility, and decency.

Am. 1792

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the state of human society requires the existence of so mortifying a profession, it must be supported. This pamphlet is intended to console the *privates* under the various hardships to which the duties of their dependent situation subjects them. We are sorry the author has not been able to fulfill his own intentions more effectually. For to say the truth he may be a good man and mean well, but he is a bad writer, has no taste, and can le of no real service as an advocate for any case. And we sincerely wish to see the case of the poor fellows here mentioned urged in such a manner as to command efficient attention where only they can expect adequate and permanent redress.

*Essays on the Lives and Writings of Fletcher of Saltoun, and the Poet Thomson, Biographical, Critical and Political; with some pieces of Thomson never before published.* By D. S. Earl of Buchan. Debrett.

The two characters associated and brought forward by this learned and patriotic nobleman were endowed with the fame enthusiasm for the liberty of society. It is a very odd circumstance in the history of man that among some of those countries which have been least blessed with political freedom, the most enlightened advocates for it should take their rise. Voltaire, Rousseau and the numerous classes of wits who grouped about them were bred for the most part and lived among people in the habit of being implicit in defnpitify. Scotland, in like manner

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