The fubjects, which he treats of are the following: Virtue the Foundation of success (preached after the taking of St. Lucia); the Duty of exerting ourselves in the Caufe of our Country; the Sinfulness of Mutiny, of Desertion, Drunkennefs, and common Swearing; on the Value of the Soul; our Duty to God, to ourselves, to our Neighbour, and to our Country; and, laftly, of Man's Duty, as laid down in the Gospel.

To these discourses the author has prefixed an Addrefs to the Seamen ferving in the Royal Navy. In this introduction, as well as in the subsequent Sermons, he very properly confiders them as fustaining the most respectable characters. Having reprefented to them the neceffity of fubordination, and of moral and religious reftraints, he thus proceeds:

When you are confidered as being loofed from obligations that bind other men, by that fuppofition you are degraded below the rank of other men. And does this fuit your ambition? Can you, who are the inftruments of your country's wealth, the guardians of her laws, the avengers of her wrongs, bear to be confidered in fuch an humiliating light, to be fet below the lowest of the helpless people, whom you protect, defend, and enrich?

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And as doubtlefs you will conclude with me, that nothing your station debafes you below the rank of other men, fo there is nothing in your customs or way of life that should produce the effect. Travelling is a great means of acquiring knowlege; but you are travellers by profeffion. Your art draws its principles from the knowlege of nature, an acquaintance with aftronomy, the winds, the seasons, the produce of the various countries, the wonders of the deep, the peculiarities of climates and kingdoms. You cannot therefore plead ignorance; for by only keeping open your eyes and ears, you must draw in knowlege and information beyond the bulk of mankind. You want nothing but a little dif creet reflection to fet you above the greater part of your brethren in the scale of reafon and improvement. To produce that is the defign of the following difcourfes.

And, my brethren, ought reflection to be wanting among you, whofe way of life is one scene of filent attention and fober obfervation? When that noble machine which you direct in your country's fervice is once fitted by your industry, and put in motion by your skill, your employment becomes then confined to an obfervation of the heavens, and an attendance on their movements. This must naturally be accompanied with a reference to, and a dependence on that Being, in whofe hands the winds and feafons are, who alone can forward or protect you. And fhall we, notwithstanding, find a greater neglect of God, and a more univerfal profanation of his name among you than other men? For fhame, brethren, this ought not so to be,

Again,

Again, the conducting of the fhip depends on the vigour and ftrength which you are able to exert in working her. But these are not to be acquired in the ways of drunkenness or debauchery, or to be preferved in the arms of a ftrumpet. Health and strength are the property only of the chaste and fober. As you therefore value your profeffion, you will guard against excess of every kind, and lead fober regular lives.

You and your comrades are brought together for one purpose of mutual affistance and exertion. Your fuccefs depends on your joint efforts. Your brother's intereft and welfare then become your's. You rife and fall together. And here far be it from me to fix indifcriminate cenfure. You are an open, free-hearted people, and only need to have your generofity directed to its proper object. When therefore you indulge the natural benevolence of your hearts in doing good offices to your neighbour, confider God as commanding the duty, and prescribing his love to you as the measure of it.

Laftly, the purpose of your profeffion is a public purpose: it is either to enrich, or to protect your country. Hence the unlawfulness of mutiny, desertion, drunkenness, and disobedience of orders, as deftructive of the very end of your profeffion. Hence diligence, affiduity, ready obedience, and their foundation induftry and fobriety, become neceffary qualifications in the public fervice.'

At fea oaths having been confidered as a necessary appendage to command, the author takes fome pains to answer this and every other argument in defence of common-fwearing, in three fermons.

In the Sermon on Desertion he gives his auditors this interesting view of the deferter, and the faithful feaman.

From fome capricious diflike to fome officer, or the service, or more frequently a capricious defire of roving, the inconfiderate man has refolved to defert, to abandon the service, to leave behind him his pretenfions to preferment, to a retreat in Greenwich, perhaps to two or three years hard earned wages. In order to get an opportunity to steal away, he muft feign an hypocritical affiduity in his duty, that he may be trufted in a boat; or he forges fome lie of a friend, or bufinefs that requires his prefence on fhore; or he takes advantage of a dark night, like a coward to abandon his station, in fwimming to land at the risk of his life. Thus the very act of desertion is not only an act of base perfidy, a breach of duty to our country, but it is a mean, pitiful lie before God, the God of truth: and the circumstance in which the lie is framed or acted, will enhance its criminality, and heighten its punishment,

When he goes afhore he dares not fhew his face as an honeft man; he lurks in corners afhamed of himself, blushing for his conduct; he is obliged to affociate with the moft worthlefs dif

eafed

eafed wretches of both fexes, from whom he catches every profligate habit, and contracts every loathfome difeafe; while he is forced to live on unwholefome fcraps, or to rifk his life in stealing to fatisfy his hunger. But he foon meets with fome kidnapper who fells him to a cruel favage of a fhipmafter, perhaps a foreigner, perhaps the enemy of his country, who works him beyond his ftrength, and then turns him afhore in a strange country, cheated of his wages, unable to work for fubfiftence. Perhaps a loathfome ditch receives his emaciated carcafe, or he wanders a bloated, difeafed vagabond, kept from day to day alive. by the reluctant hand of modern charity, an out-caft from fociety. Thus (for this is no feigned cafe) the deferter is equally a compound of iniquity and folly he is falfe to his country, cruel to himself, miferable while he lives from dread of detection, and abandoned in his diftrefs by that fociety which he refused to ferve.

Set against him the fober man, who chearfully ferves his country, and fee if the different conditions will bear a comparifon. First, the feaman's duty in a king's fhip is in general eafier and better timed than in the merchant fervice, for which the public is deferted. In the navy, officers take a pride in exerting themfelves to get an healthy, vigorous fhip's company. Your health is confulted, your ficknefs is provided for. Though your wages be nominally fmaller than in the merchant fervice, yet you fave moft for your families in the public fervice. If you have any ambition to raise yourselves in your profeffion, there are various offices to which, according to your qualifications, you may be preferred, which give you eafe in your duty, and confideration among your fellows: particularly a fober, diligent conduct recommends you to the confidence and good-will of your officers; and from my acquaintance with the fervice, I think I can with hardly a fingle exception fay, that I never knew a quiet, diligent feaman, who was ill treated by any officer, or who indeed was not a favourite with the officers in general. We now and then meet with a crabbed, implacable officer: but it must be confeffed, that generally there are turbulent, disobedient, ́ ́ worthless men, fufficient for the exercise of their ill-nature, to be found in every fhip, whom that love of juftice that is inherent in even the most unfeeling hearts, points out as objects of their severity: as if both were brought together by Providence, for the mutual punishment and plague of each other's reftlefs, difagreeable qualities.

If we take into account that very noble retreat which is provided for you in Greenwich Hospital, a chearful perfeverance in the fervice of your country is equally your intereft and your duty. You have applied yourselves to a fea-life. To pafs by the confideration of your country's having a claim to your fervice which cannot be extinguifhed, and of your obligation when called on to defend her caufe. The merchant fervice can

not

not contend with the navy in eafinefs of duty, in opportunity of preferment, in real profit, in care when fick, in a retreat for old age. Therefore the feaman who chearfully perfeveres in ferving his country, is both prudent and virtuous: in his country he has fecured a protector and nurfe for his latter days; he has made good men his benefactors, and God his friend.

We have confidered the deferter's guilt as a crime against thofe fundamental laws of fociety, which have God for their author, and certainly will have him for their avenger. But he who withdraws from the fervice of his country, as far as in him lies, abandons her to the violence of the enemy, and is anfwerable in equity for every lofs and defeat which he might have helped to have prevented. He therefore is to be fhunned, to be held in abhorrence by every honest man, as the destroyer of his country. The laws of every state make his punishment death, and juftly; for in him you punish an enemy to his country, a disobedient child, an unnatural parent, an unfeeling relation, a cruel neighbour and fuch a man's preparation to meet his God in judgment, shall be left to your own reflections."

We have been more particular in our account of these difcourfes, than we otherwife fhould have been, as they are the firft we have feen upon the subject, and have a confiderable fhare of merit. We are forry however to reflect, that they certainly had more efficacy, when delivered by the preacher, than they are likely to have, when they are only submitted to the perufal of feamen.

Runic Odes. Imitated from the Norfe Tongue. In the manner of Mr. Gray. By Thomas James Mathias. 4to. Is. 6d. T. Payne.

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O thofe who are deeply fkilled in the Norfe tongue, those who prefer Offian to Homer, and Telieffin to Milton, to those who love Runic odes because they are Runic, to all those who are fond of the marvellous, the romantic, and the unintelligible, we recommend thefe poems, which, we doubt not, will give them the greatest pleasure, and afford the highest entertainment; at the fame time we acknowlege ourselves totally incapable of relifhing fuch fublime beauties. The firft Ode which we meet with in this collection carries us beyond the vifible diurnal sphere, into regions, ideas, and manners far removed from this world and all that belongs to it. It is called the Twilight of the Gods, which, it feems, in the northern mythology is that period when the evil being shall break his confinement; the human race, the flars, and the fun fhall disappear; the earth fink in the feas, and fire confume the skies; even Odin himself and all his kindred goda fhall perish.'

To fupport this ftrange mythology, ftrange perfonages and frange ideas are introduced by the poet.

From the regions of the fouth
Surtur bursts with fiery mouth :
High o'er yonder black'ning fhade
Gleams the hallow'd fun-bright blade,
Which, in ftar-befpangled field,
Warrior gods encount'ring wield.
From vengeance' red celeftial store,
Minifters of ruin pour;

Caverns yawning, mountains rending:
Confcious of the fate impending,
Ydrafils prophetic afh

Nods to the air with fudden crash :
Monstrous female forms advance,
Stride the steed, and couch the lance;
Armed heroes throng the road,
All from Hela's dark abode ;

And fee, from either verge of heav'n,
That concave vast asunder riv'n.

Why does beauteous Lina weep?
Whence those lorn notes in accent deep?
For battle Odin 'gins prepare;

Aloft in distant realms of air,

Mark the murd'rous monster stalk,

In printless majesty of walk.
Odin kens his well-known tread ;
The fatal fifters clip the thread :
To the mansion cold he creeps-
In vain the beauteous Lina weeps.'

The printless majefty of walk appears, at least to a mere English ear, rather uncouth; but we do not understand Norse, from which it may, for aught we know, be a literal tranflation, as well as creeping to the cold manfion, which, we fuppofe is meant as a new phrafe for dying.

The firit Ode ends thus,

•No more this penfile mundane ball
Rolls thro' the wide aereal hall;
Ingulphed finks the vast machine.
Who fhall fay, the things have been?
For lo! the curtain close and murk
Veils creation's ruin'd work.'

Here the tranflator muft again have recourfe to the Norfe tongue, and plead his ftrict attachment to, and close imitation of the original, as he will not otherwife reconcile us to his penfile mundane balls, and murk curtains. The fecond Ode is called the Renovation of the World: the third, a Dialogue at the Tomb

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