III. Converfation. A Poem. By E. Lloyd. 4to. Pr. 2s. 6d. Richardfon and Urquhart.

N a company of ladies and gentlemen, met together for the

Ievening, the converfation ufually runs upon the weather,

news, plays, fashions, and other public topics; but it is generally fo frivolous and infipid, that, though we are no advocates for diffipation, we have often thought the card-table a happy expedient to drive away the spleen, and relieve the company from their formality, languor, and embarraffment. In clubs, and focieties of gentlemen, politeness and delicacy are seldom obferved. Nonfenfe and noise supply the place of sense and reafon; and horfes or dogs are fome of the most important topics of their difcourfe. Man is indeed a focial being; but to support an entertaining and inftructive conversation, requires great vivacity, good fenfe, and a confiderable share of knowledge, in which many fashionable people are lamentably déficient. Here therefore is a copious fubject for fatire.-In what manner it is treated by this writer we shall now enquire.

The author begins with reprefenting the ufe and effect of education in forming the manners of mankind.

A Hottentot might wear a claffic air,
If you but plant another Oxford there;
Yaboos themselves might learn to be polite,
And shine the wonder of Cornelys' night,
If to French barbers you their heads confign,
And fend for Hart their feet to discipline;
Hibernia's fons might without brogue harangue,
And Sawney, with his country, leave his twang;
Plain honeft Taff with modifh phrase concur,
And periods speak without a single hur ;
Monfieur might find where Speech by nature's hung,
Nor, fhrugging, make his fcapula his tongue;
If (for we need not call back spirits fled,
Nor feek to raise Quintilian from the dead)
If, in our modern rhetorician's school,

Their infant lips were taught to speak by rule;

Steep'd in the goffip air of Pewt'rers' hall,

Their tongues had moved as pewt'rers' hammers fall.'

From the graces of the tongue, the author proceeds to the accomplishments of the mind. Were thefe united, he says,

Then might we see Athenian days display'd,

In all their claffic elegance array'd;

The tongue of Science might again be heard
At focial boards, nor deem'd the Taste abfurd;

Z3

Philofophy

Philofophy, that antiquated maid,

Might fit at table though without brocade;
Reafon, altho' in Greek, were no offence,
Nor were it pedantry to love good fenfe.
The Park the walk of fcience might be made,
And the Mall boaft an academic fhade;
Parnaffus then would lose its high renown,
And Phabus lead the Mufes all to town.
Knights then would rove their graceful fteps to trace,
As now to fhew their far, and fuit of lace;
And nobles to the man of letters bow,

As courteous, as to pimps and sharpers now.
Exteriors fhould give up ufurp'd controul,
And body give precedence to the soul.

A Socrates had then in thread-bare cloaths,
Been notic'd more than troops of tinfel beaux ;
Language had MAN's distinguish'd praise become,
Nor Critics wifh'd the fpecies had been dumb;
Rich as Padiolus, then, had converse roll'd,
The stream all chrystal, and the sand all gold.'

This would indeed be the cafe, if all men were fenfible, eloquent, and polite. But the old adage, ex quovis LIGNO non fit Mercurius, is founded on univerfal experience; and, according to this writer's account, the generality of men are mere brutes in converfation.

View the world's converfe as it is-you'll swear

Man is a worfe companion than a bear,→

Bulls roar more fenfe, and wolves more knowledge howl,

Savage hyanas more politely growl;

More reafon may be found 'mong prattling daws,
And fofter language fcreaming from macaws;
More wit among Campeachy's grinning race,
More humour in an ape's balf-buman face."

Our gallant bard very politely supposes, that in the ladies, excepting fome old women, there is no defect; and therefore he does not attempt to expose their converfation; but confines his reflections more particularly to focieties of men.-The first object of his fatire is a club of citizens.

First tow'rd the city lay the mufe's flight,
And reach'd to Cornhill with the fall of night.
Curious to know how city-wights converfe,
If coarse the ftyle, or claffical and terfe;
If good the matter, elegant the dress,
And if their Speech is feafon'd like their mess;

Silent as ghofts enwrapp'd in winding-fheet,
She glided in where cits each evening meet.
Amaz'd, altho' fhe faw fome fign of lungs,

She found much room to doubt if they had tongues.—
Molaffes humm'd and haw'd his so's and ifs,
Mundungus anfwer'd with protracted whiffs;
Bumbo his neighbour's elbow bobs, and hems,
Rumbo refponds, with fcraping up fome phlegms;
Strafburgius fimiles, and takes a pinch of Snuff,
Glyfterus answers with a serious puff.
Ocellus winks a patriot piece of wit,
And drinks to magna charta and to Pitt;
When lo! unpledg'd he fees his fav'rite toaft;
Acetus archly cries, "D'ye mean his ghoft?
C

will ne'er make P, nor twenty fuch,
For all that's left's-a coronet and crutch.”
Loud laughs approve the joke—and now begin
Their boift'rous joys, with more than Babel's din
Politics, fnuff, tobacco, pipes, and Smoak,
The fenfelefs argument, and heavy joke,
Falfe concord, phrase that wounds a claffic ear,
It do not argufy, that there, this here,
Jumble fo ftrangely, that, at all that's faid,
Poor Prifcian well may tremble for his head.'

1

From the city we are carried to the theatre, to a junto of politicians, to a drawing-room, a lady's rout, a company of goffips, and a fociety of choice fpirits; and the conversation which ufually paffes in thofe places is described.

In the following lines, a trite fentiment is worked up with fome humour and poetical imagination:

'Herculean labour were it to describe

The various prattle of the coffee-tribe ;
This were to write the chaos-heap of news,
Which in the public journals we perufe ;
Where, as if chance had held the writer's hand,
Contending oppofites together ftand,

So croffly purpos'd, and fo much perplext,
Papyrius' reading beft reftores the text.
Things of no kin are jumbled in a breath,
A kiti'ning coupled with a monarch's death;
Monkeys and minifters together cling,

And Buckhorfe ftands by Pruffia's warrior king;
Here bishops make the orphan's cause their care,
Next Mrs, Philips recommends her ware;

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There

There a maid's ravish'd by a neighb'ring Squire,
Next Love for love is acted by defire;
Here the Afylum guards from vicious men,
Ill-coupled neighbour stands the Magdalen,
(For had propriety been kept, I ween,
The purgatory Lock had ftood between);
This patriot page condemns the venal bribe,
And Probus d-ns th' electioneering tribe ;
A Cornifh member, with a purfe annext,
Shall court your vote and intreft, in the next;
Then ADVERTISEMENT comes, and with her brings
A random concourfe of difcordant things.
Noftrums with poisons, quacks with murd❜rers meet,
And chancellors with pris'ners in the Fleet ;
Authors ill neighbour'd here inceffant jarr,
And all the alphabet is up in war,

Pray'rs next to novels stand, by sermons plays,
And Swift by Burnet, Tillotson by Bayes ;
HERE Shakespeare flashes with all Phœbus' fire ;
THERE Mafon tinkles on his wooden lyre ;
HERE, cheek by jowl, as if no more at odds,
O-f--d and Gl---t-r fhake their critic rods,
And pull up Rachel's cloaths-for fmuggled gods;
HERE gospel truths in Sherlock's cenfer blaze,
THERE glimmer in a weekly paraphrase;
HERE Shandy revels in falacious wit,

THERE Wesley ifiues out DAMNATION's writ;

HERE Foote at Squintum Squints-THERE (dire to tell!)
Squintum fends Foote into the PIT of hell;

HERE Johnson rolls old Shakespeare in the mud,
And by fubfcription fheds his facred blood;
THERE Kenrick, to revenge the poet's fate,
Pelts Johnson with the dirt of Billinsgate.'

In the latter part of this production, the author defcends to fome particular characters; among which he ridicules the punfter and the fop; and bestows a proper chastisement on those who jeft obfcenely, or talk impertinently at church.

Though this writer has not treated the subject with that elegance of ftile, and poignancy of wit, with which, we may fuppofe, it would have been treated by Dean Swift, yet he is no contemptible fatirift. He poffeffes a warm imagination, and draws his chara&ers with fpirit.

This gentleman is the author of three other pieces, published the last year, entitled, The Powers of the Pen, The Curate, and The Methodift.

IV. The

IV. The Adventures of a Kidnapped Orphan. 12mo. Pr. 2s. 6d. Jewed. Thrush.

WE

E fhould have difmiffed this publication with a very indifferent character, had not certain recent proceedings in our courts of law furnished us with the melancholy certainty, that the more than infamous practice of kidnapping young perfons to be fent as foldiers to the East Indies, is, or very lately was, frequent in this metropolis. We are not fufficiently acquainted with the laws of the land, to pronounce whether the punishment they inflict is adequate to the offence: but we will venture to fay, from the principles of humanity, that it is a crime which (if any crime could) justifies the introduction of some feverer punishment than the mildness of the English laws at prefent admits of in our courts of juftice.

The unfortunate hero of this performance, who is called Page, is supposed to be a promising young man, virtuously and tenderly educated, with comfortable profpects in life, and fent up to London, after his father's death, to study the law. He is trepanned near Iflington by a vile fellow dreft in an officer's uniform, who proves afterwards to be an East-India crimp, and who, after carrying him to Sadler's-Wells, decoys him to a diftant part of the town, where he is made drunk, and shut up among a number of other kidnapped perfons like himself. They are carried on board an Eaft-India fhip, where our orphan fuffers all the diftreffes, mortifications, and infults, which can be inflicted upon humanity. He meets, however, with one or two worthy characters, particularly a midshipman, whom he calls Manly, and a furgeon's mate named Syringe.

Though there is very little variety in this performance, which is filled with fcenes of horror, cruelty, and infolence, only fomewhat diverfified, yet we apprehend the following treatment of Manly, and the character of his officers, may prove of fome public utility.

In the course of their conversation one evening during the dog watch, from fix to eight, Manly gave it as his opinion, that the commander of a merchant man had no manner of right to bring the most menial of the crew to a court-martial, for any misbehaviour whatever; nor had the articles of war the most distant reference to perfons in the merchant fervice. He further added, that it appeared to him highly abfurd and unreasonable, that the power of life and death fhould be lodged in the breast of perfons, who poffibly might neither have capacity to judge concerning the merits of a caufe, nor probity fufficient to pronounce an equitable sentence in cafe of delinquency; and that it was fhocking above all, to fee this im

portant