round which the guests were feated, whilft the different dithes were floating on the furface of its water, af fording the most delicious coolnefs, and the whole forming a kind of private Vauxhall for the luxurious Romans. *

Such were their fummer villas, adapted to every change of that happy feafon. The villas for the winter were also fitted up in the fame appropriate manner of which the younger Pliny has left us an interefting memoir, in his defcription of Laurentinum. An agreeable contraft was formed in their winter villas:-The porch in the front surrounded a covered area, forming a commodious retreat in inclement weather, and leading to a fpacious enclosed hall, looking towards the fea, with a fouthern afpect where it was poffible. This hall was formed with folding doors, fo as to open to the fea on one fide, and the other looking to the interior of the villa and the covered area. On one fide of it was a large drawingroom, forming a kind of recefs, open to the fouth-whilft the lofty walls, reverberating the beams of a winter fun, produced a genial warmth, and rendered the place proper for the athletic exercifes in which the Romans delighted. Leading from this was a femicircular apartment, with windows fo contrived as to receive the fun at all hours of the day;-between the windows were receffes containing the library, fo enlivening of a winter's day, and which feems to have been entirely neglected in the fummer villa. The bed-chamber was the next apartment, heated by ftoves underneath, and joining to the baths, which confifted of a fweating-room, and even a bath of bot water fufficiently large to fwim in. In these baths, the Romans difyed their greatest magnificence:

e walls were formed of the richest marble, the edges of the bafons ornamented with precious ftones, and the Boots inlaid with the most coftly mo, July, 1808.

faïc-whilft the colonnades, interfperfed with ftatues, and lofty painted ceilings, prefented ideas of great fublimity. Pliny, in his Laurentinum, had a bed chamber adjoining his baths, where, as he defcribes it, neither the voice of his fervants, the murmur of the fea, nor even the roaring of a tempett could reach-nor lightning, nor the day itfelf could penetrate, unless the windows were opened; in short, it appeared to be a fanctum fanétorum from every thing but a fcolding wife, whofe mellifluous tones muft have enlivened even this place of repose, unlefs the philofopher had chofen feparate beds.

This extreme filence was preserved by means of double walls, with a wide paffage between—and which also afforded a facility of warming the bedBechamber by means of stoves. yond all this was an anti chamber, which opening into the garden, afforded the mafter a separate entrance, free from the noise and the bustle of the house-particularly at the feast of the faturnalia, when the fervants and flaves were as noify as ours during the chriftmas holidays.

At the villa of Laurentinum, the charms of good neighbourhood were not wanting: as the philofopher tells us that the furrounding forefts afforded him good supply of fuel-whilst every convenience of life could be had from Oftia;-to a moderate man, indeed, even the next village would fupply every neceffary, particularly as in it there were three public baths. The whole coast, indeed, was a chain of villas, which, viewed from the fea, had a moft enchanting appearance. The fea fupplied them with excellent foles and prawns; and as to provi fions of other kinds, his villa excelled even the more inland countries, particularly in milk, as the cattle came in great numbers from the meadows in the fearch of fhade and water. In thort, a London Alderman could not be more comfortable at Putney or 2 H

Erith

Erith, than our voluptuous Roman The work before us, (exclufive

was at Laurentinum. Such was the villa of the elegant Pliny; but he also describes one on a fmaller fcale, which he wishes for his friend Tranquillus, whom he speaks of as withing to purchase a fmall farm, fufficient to relieve the mind and divert the eyewhere he might faunter round his grounds, traverfe his fingle walk, grow familiar with his fmall vineyard, and even count his little plantations. Here he might employ his idle as well as his ftudious hours, whilft literature was not only his bufinefs but alfo his amufement.

Thus we have flightly fketched the domeftic arrangements of thefe lords of the world; but want of room obliges us to defer the illuftration of their domestic manners until the next number.

(To be continued.)

The early Part of the Reign of James the Second; by the Right Hon. Charles James Fox.

THERE have been few works, for many years, which have excited greater curiofity than the prefent; a curiofity which-arofe, perhaps, more from the circumftances and character of its author, than from any thing of intrinfic intereft in the fubject chofen for his hiftory.

In truth, the hiftory of James the fecond neither required, nor perhaps admitted much of novelty or illuftration. But it must be confeffed that there was an intereft univerfally excited, to obferve mr. Fox ftepping upon the ftage of literature in the character of an author; to admire the great champion of Whig politics in a new career, the most appropriate perhaps for the genius of a ftatefman and a political philofopher of any in the whole republic of letters.

N 0 T E.

of a chapter of preface, by far the beft executed part of the work) comprehends, in the way of ftrict hiftory, little more than five months of the reign of James the fecond.

Our purpose is not to give a formal criticism of the work, or to examine it with the leifure and gravity of a profeffed critic; we fhall make an analyfis of it, expound its plan and branches, and fubmit to our readers fpecimens of ftyle and execution, borrowed from the most striking parts; at the fame time candour obliges us to confefs, that it is not a work which was expected from the genius and learning of mr. Fox. It is the performance, at least such are its vifible characteristics, of a mean name in literature. It has neither a ftyle nor dignity of narration fuitable to hiftory.

The facts are doubtlefs fincere ; and the merit of blunt truth, it may per

haps be entitled to in fpite of criticifm; but to the more beautiful and ufeful parts of hiftory, the abounding fagacity of political maxims, reflections drawn from the great drama of hiftorical life, the cafy and unlaboured decoration of ftyle, the dexte rity of method and arrangement; to none of thete recommendations, in which our hiftorical elaffics have fo confpicuously excelled, can the prefent work afpire.

Before we proceed to the analys of that portion of this volume which proceeded from the pen of mr. Fox, our readers will not be difpleafed if we firft call their attention to the preface, in which his nephew, lord Holland, has given many interesting particulars refpecting the origin and progrefs of this performance, and the literary purfuits in general of his dif tinguished relative.

The precife period,' fays his It was a fubject upon which prejudice formed the defign of writing a hiftolordship, at which mr. Fox first and faction had written their pens to the ftumps, and on which history had faid all that was worth faying.

Ty, cannot now be afcertained. In

the

the year 1797, he publicly announced he was then leading; and I am per. his intention of devoting a greater fuaded that if he had confulted his portion of his time to his private pur- own gratifications only, it would fuits.' He was even on the point of have continued to be so. relinquishing his feat in parliament, His notion of engaging in fome and retiring altogether from public life literary undertaking was adopted dur-a plan which he had formed many ing his retirement, and with the profyears before, and to the execution of pect of long and uninterrupted leifure which he always looked forward with before him. When he had determinthe greatest delight. The remonftran- ed upon employing fome part of it in ces, however, of those friends for writing, he was, no doubt, actuated whofe judgment he had the greatest by a variety of confiderations, in the deference, ultimately prevailed. He choice of the task he fhould underconfequently confined his fcheme of take. His philofophy had never renretreat to a more uninterrupted refi- dered him infenible to the gratificadence in the country than he had hi- tion which the hope of pofthumous therto permitted himself to enjoy. fame fo often produces in great During his retirement, that love of li- minds; and though criticism might be terature, and fondness for poetry, more congenial to the habits and which neither pleasure nor bufinefs amufements of his retreat, an hiftori had ever extinguished, revived with cal work feemed more of a piece with an ardour, fuch as few, in the cager- the tenor of his former life, and might nefs of youth, or in the purfuit of fame prove of greater benefit to the public or advantage, are capable of feeling. and to pofterity. Thefe motives, toFor fome time, however, his ftudies were not directed to any particular object. Such was the happy difpotion of his mind, that his own reflections, whether fupplied by converfation, defultory reading, or the common occurrences of a life in the country, were always fufficient to call forth the vigour and exertion of his faculties. Intercourfe with the world had fo little deadened in him the fenfe of the fimplett enjoyments, that even in the hours of apparent leifure and inactivity, he retained that keen relifh of existence which, fal of the latter part of mr. Hume's after the first impreffions of life, is fo hiftory. An apprehention of the rarely excited but by great interefts falfe impreffions which that great hifand ftrong paffions. Here it was that in the interval between his active attendance in parliament and the undertaking of his hiftory, he never felt the tedium of a vacant day. A verfe in Cowper, which he frequently repeated,

How various his employments whom the world

Calls idle !

was an accurate description of the life

gether with his intimate knowledge of the Englith conftitution, naturally led him to prefer the hiftory of his own country, and to felect a period favourable to the illuftration of the great general principles of freedom on which it is founded.

With these views it was almost impoffible that he fhould not fix on the revolution of 1688. According to the fuft crude conceptions of the work, it would, as far as I recollect, have begun at the revolution; but he altered his mind, after a careful peru

torian's partiality might have left on the minds of his readers, induced him to go back to the acceffion of King James the fecond, and even to prefix an introductory chapter on the character and leading events of the times immediately preceding.

From the moment his labour commenced he generally fpoke of his plan as extending no farther than the fettlement at the revolution. His friends, however, were not without

hopes,

hopes, that the habit of compofition he was very cautious of promifing might engage him more deeply in lite- too much; for he was aware, that m rary undertakings, or that the diffe- whatever he undertook, his progrefst rent views which his enquiries would in it would neceffarily be extremely open, might ultimately allure him on flow. He could not but forefse that, farther in the history of his country. as new events arofe, his friends would r Some cafual expreffions both in con- urge him to return to politics; and verfation and correfpondence feemed though his own inclinations might to imply that the poffibility of fucha enable him to refift their entreaties, refult was not entirely out of his own the very difcuffion on the propriety of contemplation. As his work advanc- yielding would produce an attention ed, his allutions to various literary to the ftate of public affairs, and divert projects, fuch as an edition of Dry him in fome degree from the purfuit den, a defence of Racine and the in which he was engaged. But it French ftage, effay on the Beauties was yet more difficult to fortify himof Euripides, &c. &c. became more felf against the feduction of his own frequent and even more confidently inclination, which was continually expreffed. In a letter written to me drawing him aff from his hiftorical in 1803, after obferving that a modern refearches to critical inquiries, to the writer did not fufficiently admire Ra- ftudy of the claffics, and to works of eine, he adds, It puts me quite in imagination and poetry. A huna paffion. Je veux contre eux faire dant proofs exift of the effect of thefe un jour un gros livre, as Voltaire interruptions, both on his, labours favs. Even Dryden, who fpeaks and on his mind. His letters are filled with proper refpe&t of Corneille, vi- with complaints of fuch as arose from ipends Racine. If ever I publish politics, while he speaks with delight my edition of his works, I will give it and complacency of whole days dehim for it, you may depend. Oh! voted to Euripides and Virgil.', how I wish I could make up my mind to think it right to devote all the remaining part of my life to fuch fubjects, and fuch only !'

6

The following letter is given as a fpecimen of his familiar correfpondence, and affords an idea of the nature of the researches in which his mind was accustomed to unbend it

6

DEAR GREY,

About the fame time he talked of writing either in the form of a dedica- felf:~ tion or dialogue, a treatife on the three arts of poetry, hiftory, and In defence of my opinion about oratory; which, to my furprife, he the nightingales, Innd Chaucer, claffed in the order I have related. The plan of fuch a work feemed, in a great measure, to be digefted in his head, and from the fketch he drew of his defigu to me, it would, if completed, have been an invaluable monument of the great originality of thought, and fingular philofophical acuteness, with which he was accustomed to treat of fuch fubjects in his molt carelets converfations. But though a variety of literary projects might occafionally come acrots him, N O T E.

• Mr. Fox often used this word in ridicule of pedantic expreffons.

who of all poets feems to have been the fondett of the finging of birds, calls it a merry note; and though Theocritus mentions nightingales fix or feven times, he never mentions their note as plaintive or melancholy. It is true, he does not call it any where merry, as Chaucer does; but by mentioning it with the fong of the black-bird, and as enfwering it, he feems to imply that it was a cheerful note. Sophocles is against us; but even whathe fays, lamenting Itys, and the comparison of her to Electra, is ra ther as to perfeverance day and night

than