next to the fovereign. Sejanus was executed without juftice and deprived of burial, many of the first characters in the ftate have they degraded to the most fervile indignities. He then proceeds to relate how thefe men got into power. undone by a party which he had predeftined to deftruction: Robespierre by the faction which he had doomed to the guillotine. When the first accufation was brought againft Sejanus, the fenate fearing fome ftratagem of the minifters of their oppreffor, were afraid of voting. When Tallien moved for enquiring into the fyftem of Efpionage and defpotifm introduced by Robefpierre, the convention fearing fome ftratagem, applauded the fpeech of Robefpierre, and paffed to the order of the day. When he fell, like Sejanus, his memory was fet up to univerfal execration: both lived to torture mankind, and both died by the fame engines of cruelty which they had employed against their country. Barrere now tells us, that all the past acts of the convention were the work of twenty-five or thirty men of the committee of general fafety. Let us hear from Lyfias the ftory of the thirty tyrants, and then confider whether one might not think him fpeaking in Auguft 1794 But as foon as the thirty, men without virtue, and calumniators by trade, arrived at domination by violence, by telling every one, that they muft regenerate the state and organize the citizens to virtue and equality; though with all this boafting, they had no intention, nor juftice for doing fuch a work Theognis and Pifo denounced to the committee the foreigners, that there were fome of them difaffected to the revolution, fo a very fair opportunity was offered of feeming to do an act of justice, while they could in reality make money; for to kill people with them was a matter of recreation, and to grow rich was a devout and important object. They paffed a vote to put ten into a flate of arreft, and to infert the names of two poor men, that in the cafe of the others it might ferve to fhew their feverity was not from avarice, but from patriotifm. So dividing the houfes between them, they proceeded to make the domiciliary vifit.... Many of your countrymen have they compelled to emigrate to the enemy, many have they While your government was yet free, they began as follows to dif organize the ftate. There was a fet of men who called themselves the club, (or xahsur ago) these appointed five men into a committee of vigilance (εPag¤1) and public infpection, to wheedle the common people into their fedition, to be prefidents of the confraternities, and to counteract the general good in every measure. Of these two, named the officers of all fortified towns, your iffued their inftructions what was to be ballotted for, and who were to be returned municipal officers, and whatever elfe they thought proper, they would compel you to do. And of Theramenes. and This man feeing that Pifander and Callæfchrus and fome others were more inclined to moderatifm than he, nd that the mob did not like any moderation, he, partly from fear, partly from jealoufy, joined with Ariftocrates, and to fhew his inflexible attachment to you, he denounced his own intimate friends and had them executed. If in the whole we read not the progrefs of the Jacobin focieties, their arts to gain the poor, their committees of furveillance, their oppreffion of the elec tive franchife, the treachery of Barrere in deferting the moderates, in forming a coalition with Robespierre against his own friends Fauchet and Hebert, in denouncing them and procuring their execution, I do not fee what copy can refemble an original. A word more from Ifocrates and I have done: these men who have destroyed every thing for liberty, equality and republicanifm, have attained only to the freedom of doing all that is unjuft: they have expelled their nobles, and have fallen under the fubjection of the vileft of all tyrants, their own bad countrymen. LITERARY LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. "Elegia Grayiana Græcè, Interprete, St. Weflon, &c." London, Nichols. Dublin, Mercier and Co. T often exaggerated or depreffed the mean- HE famous Elegy of Gray, to which Doctor Johnfon himself paid the unwilling tribute of applaufe, has conftantly occupied the labours of all the learned in Europe for more than forty years. Befides the verfions mentioned by Mr. Mafon, we have feen it lately tranflated into Italian and Latin elegiacs, by a Florentine gentleman. The prefent tranflator, the Rev. Stephen is too heroical. Bis aufg Wefton, rector of Little Hempfton, and is not the stubborn but the ill-natur fellow of the Royal Society, has in- ed glebe. xgonus Beaxoo is profaic, fcribed his verfion to Lord Loughbc- vegans is only pride with treachery. rough, High Chancellor of England. His tombs in the magnificent temple In his introduction, he pleads with great is unintelligible to a Grecian and unnemodesty the difficulty of his enterprize, ceffary for the fenfe. BachevETY A2010 εμβασιλεύειν λαοισι and fhews in brief the great care and onafw, to rule nations with royal fway, accuracy required for rendering faith is not to be fit for fwaying the rod of fully the fpirit of a noble original. We empires. The fpoils of ages he has fhall candidly examine this compofition rendered vaga aww, this is not Greek. on its own merits, we fhall not with- Queens yeraliens exprefs not the genial hold the hard-earned fhare of praife, turn of the foul: to fhut the gates of nor diffemble the truth, which it is our mercy, he has to push from the threshold bufinefs and our duty to declare. The of pity: this is a fault of Syntax, it first line is certainly fpirited and beauti- means from pitying, not from being piful, and the whole of the fixth flanza, tied; implores the paffing tribute of a the fifteenth, the xx, and the epi figh, inftead of his verfion he had ready taph. The objections we have against at his hand the original verfe in Villa the whole are as follows: firft, the Borghefe, from which Gray probably metre, which is heroic throughout, borrowed his line, order awo Brepagur against the nature of elegy and the con- δακρυ αποιχομένοις. Even in our alles live ftant practife of the ancients: fecondly, their wonted fires, is an elegant alluthe invariable and monotonous cadence fion to the ancient custom of funerals, and with the end of each line, which breaks to the concealed fire, the ignis fopitus of the whole into feparate gnomai: thirdly, Virgil. Our author makes this a blaze, the impropriety of imitation, which has an impetuous fire, like that of Diomed. His liftlefs length he would stretch, has a double error, he fays, in the language of Homer's Giant, and ftretched along to immenfe length. This is overcharged. Again, Tavob is paffive, and fhould be middle; it is ftretching himself, not ftretched by another. Babbling brook is the lympha loquaces of Horace; he makes it a mufical noife; to pore is to look with long and liftlefs gaze; he has ομμάλα αυξας, οι looking attentively and keenly. Or crazed with care, is not faithfully tranflated by the application of Antenor's words to Homer, to be crazed is not to be a fimpleton; befides, the disjunctive is not marked. In the epitaph μελαγχολια is outrageous madnefs, but melancholy in English is fixed and contemplative forrow ; εν θεών γενάσι λιθεναι ον ετσιλιθεναι is a folecifm, it fhould beyavala; but this in Greek fignifies to render a thing uncertain or doubtful to human fenfe, not to confide it to heaven. Now fmiling as in fcorn, our author has σαρδόνιος δὲ γελως επι ξινὶ καθητο, a Sardinian laugh was on his faceHere we have erudition, but a manifeft counterfenfe. The Sardinian laugh was a proverb amongst the Greeks for a malignant and fatal convulfion; it is in the Milleloquium, and ufed by Cicero. Diofcorides explains it as follows: in the mountains of Sardinia this poifon is found, it is moft deleterious, and kills the unhappy, sufferer in a convulfive mo tion, as if of laughter. IRISH LITERATURE. to those who cultivate the ftudies either of nature, of elegance, or of abitrufe refearch; and the refpectability of the authors of the inferted effays, must at firft view ftrike the reader with an idea of the fterling merit of their compofitions. To fay more would be useless, and it would be unjuft to fay lefs; we fhall, therefore, proceed to give an account of the contents. SCIENCE. "I. A comparative view of meteorolo This celebrated philofopher is well known amongst the learned of Europe: they who perufe his writings must be the best judges of the merited extent of his reputation. This is an admirable paper, but cannot be abridged. "II. Reflections on meteorological tables, afcertaining the precife fignification of the terms wet, dry and veriable." By the fame. III. State of the weather in Dublin, from the first of June 1791 to the firit of June 1793." By the fame. The two foregoing effays will be found of infinite utility to the agriculturift. They who read them for improvement will find profit, and for a "The Tranfactions of the Royal Irish mufement, will find pleasure. Academy." Vol. 5th. WE announce the prefent publica tion to the world with that fatisfaction which every one must feel upon a new and valuable acquifition being added to the literature of his country. The three important heads under which thefe tranfactions are claffed; Science, Polite Literature and Antiquities, are admirably fuited to the different propensities of the enlightened; IV. Examination of the fuppofed igneous origin of ftony fubftances." By the fame. This very elaborate effay is an examination of Doctor Hutton's theory; "That previous to the prefent state of the globe, these fubftances were utterly deprived of folidity, and have fince acquired it by fufion and fubfequent congelation." V. A This effay is divided into two parts, both equally elegant for the neatness of their diction, regularity of conduct and judicious obfervation. The author feems to be well acquainted with the beauties of compofition, and in his own perform ance has enjoined precepts which his own practice illuftrates. To the dif ciples of Doctor Blair, and young students in rhetoric, he will be found of infinite utility in forming the style and improving the taste. From fuch prodections we may in time expect to find in our own language a complete fyftem of rules for thinking and writing, and the laborious refearches into Aristotle and Quintilian of confequence be superfeded by modern instruction. ANTIQUITIES. "I. Some confiderations on a controverted paffage in Herodotus." By the Right Honourable the Earl of Charlemont, prefident of the Royal Irish Academy, and F. R. S. His lordship is well known to be an admirable fcholar and an excellent antiquarian; and from his judicious inveitigation, the reader may expect to find a new ray of information reflected upon the gloom of perplexity, in which the venerable father of history is too often enveloped. " II. An account of the game of chefs, as played by the Chinese, in a letter from Eyles Irwin, Efq; to the Right Honourable Earl of Charlemont, prefident of the Royal Irish Academy." The game of chefs has always been regarded as intricate and interesting, and whatever ferves to illuftrate it, muít raise an equal portion of curiofity. The account is tranfmitted from Canton, and the game fuppofed by the author to be the indifputable invention of the Chinese, two hundred years before the Christian æra. "The |