06 
profufion and the elegance of her orna- 
ments, is truly edifying *! while they 
(our enemies) have impioufly denied his 
all-contrelling power, -we have prayed 
unto the Lord to give wifdom to our 
councils; fuccefs to our arms, and fteadi- 
nefs to cur people; and he has heard us.” 
The bifhop then proceeds, in a ftrain of 
appropriate piety, to inform his audience, 
that our conqucits are extenfive; that our 
fleets have been triumphant beyond the 
boaft of former times; that Lord Dun- 
CAN is not only a good offcer, but 2 very 
pious man; and that hiftory will cele- 
brate the glory of cur navy, and the 
fplendour of thofeé particular achieve- 
ments, which are the fubjeét of his pane- 
gyric. Another dignitary of the church, 
the Rev. EpmunD PouLTeER, preben- 
dary of Winchefter, preached a fermon, 
at the cathedral of that place, of which 
we reaily regret that we cannot give our 
readers a {peeimen ; a fhort {pecimen, too, 
would be fufficient, for 
Such laboured nothings in fo ftrange a ftyle 
Amaze the unlearn’d, and make the learned 
* fmile. 
Mr. HEWLET’s difcourfe on the “* Du- 
ty of Thank{x:ving,” is plain and appro- 
priate: it 1s written with the feclings of 
aman, and in the language of a gentle- 
man. ‘The fame remark, in@ moderated 
meafure, is applicable to a fermon of Dr. 
Munxkuouss, * preached in the church 
of St. John Baptift, Wakefield.”” The 
fermons of Mr. Ltoyp, Mr. Chapuam, 
Mr. AGUTTER, Mr. GooveE, cum mul- 
tis alts que nunc perferibere lenzum eft, 
are moft of them political declama- 
tions, rather diftinguifhed by violence 
than meeknefs, by intolerance than 
charity. 
fin anenymous writer of great acute- 
nefs has entered into ‘* An Examination of 
Bhe leading Principle of the New Syftemn of 
‘Morals, as that Principle is fated cnd cp- 
| pled in Mr. Gopwin’s Political Fujtice.” 
Mr. GoDWin’s morality, or rather his 
digeft of that fyftem of morals, the 
foundation of which was laid by 
Brown, Hume, Helvetiug, and Paley, 
conifts in making general utility the {ole 
principle of aftion. “¢ Nothing,” fays 
Mr. Hume, “ can furnith jut ground for 
moral diftinction ini any quality or a@ion 
but its beneficial or pernicious tenden- 

* No place fo facred fromy fuch fogs is 
barr’d, 
Nor is Paul’s church more fafe than Paul’s 
church-yard. Pepe. 
fi. alf-yearly Retrofpedt 
of Britifh Literature. 
cy: reafon informs us what thefe ten- 
dencies are.’ “ To a rational being,?” 
fays Mr. Gopwin, treating of the foun- 
daticn of virtue, ** there cam be but one 
> 
rule of conduct, juftice ; and one mode 
of afcertaining that rule, the exercife of 
his underftanding.”” In oppeiition, it 1s 
contended by the author of this examina-. 
tion, on the felid ground that man is a 
creature of fympathy (the fource whence - 
all his moral feelings arife}, and that 2 
fyftem of local relations is the only one 
adapted to his nature: it ts. contended, 
alfo, on the ground of his utter inability 
to purfue the refult of his a€tions to their 
remoteft ramifications, that general good 
ean never be an adequate motive of vi- 
gorous action; and that virtue is not to 
be defined that courfe of conduct which 
tends to promote this general good, but 
it is to be defined that cour{e the motive 
ot which js benevolence, or zzdividual geod. 
Mr. Ges antagonift meets him on very 
fair terms: ‘ if,’” fays he, “ the funda- 
mental principle be true, that morality 
confifts in doing all the good we can, f 
admit that all the confequences are clear, 
concatenated, and: of an irrefiftible 6cn- 
yiction; Arachne never wove a jufter 
web.”” This. acute reafoner, however, 
admits, in another place (and without 
expofnnge himfelf to the charge of incon- 
fiftency), that the evd of virtue is the ge- 
neral good. Mr. Gopyrn, then, differs 
from him in the means of attaining this 
end: Mr. G. feeks it at once and im- 
mediately ; to the negleét of thofe do- 
meftic endearments, thofe private affec- 
tions which his antagonift, in our opi- 
nion, very juftly confiders, though in 
themfelves as zndividual enjoyments, to be 
productive, from their number and ex- 
tent, of the largeft portion of human fe- 
licity t. Mr. G. has roufed another 
antagonift of equal ftrength and dexterity 
with the former, Mr. ProBy, who, ina 
pamphlet intitled, «* Modern Philofophy 
and Ancient Berberifm,? &c. has fuc- 
ceeded in identifying the theory of Mr. 
GopWIN with the practice of Lycurgus, 
Mr. Proxy, in very animated and glow- 
ing language, has expofed the abfurd, as 
wellas the deftru€tive confequences, which 
would refult to mankind, were the mon- 
ftrous fyftem- of Mr. G. carried into 
full unimpeded effet. To fuch readers 
as may have been feduced by the fpecious 


pa Pop: a : ahs 
+ The author of this pamphlet may fee 
fome of his own arguments in the fourth 
number of Dr. Envinzip’s  Enguirer.” See 
Monthly Mag. Vol. 1. p..273. 
Uluftrations 
