into peals of laughter, plucked the beards, and committed various perfonal indignities upon their guefts and allies, to demonftrate their own fuperior elegance of manners, and gratify the childish petulance of their mafter. Such were the tempers and understandings, that were to regulate the affairs of a difordered kingdom, to protect their adherents, to conciliate the unfriendly, and to reduce the difobedient.

The Irish Lords, amidst all this difgufting plainnefs and novelty of appearance, were fpirited and proud; tenacious of their state, and of all men moft impatient of the flightest mark of contempt. They turned their backs upon the court, boiling with indignation; they met others of their countrymen haftening to the prince; they related the manner of their own reception; they inflamed them to the highest pitch of refentment; they returned to their habitations, collected their families and fubftance, and repairing, fome to the chiefs of Connaught, others to thofe of Thomond and Defmond, enlarged on the indignities they had fuftained, expreffed their own. determined purpose of revenge, entreated the more powerful lords to unite bravely against an enemy, poffeffed with an obftinate and implacable averfion to their whole nation, in despite of every conceffion or fubmiffion; requefting them feriously to confider what treatment they were to expect who had difcovered any reluctance in yielding to the English invaders, when thofe who had been the firft to fubmit, found their fervices repaid with contemptuous infolence and outrage. The flame was readily caught.

The chieftains agreed, inftead of proceeding to do homage to prince John, to forget their private animofities, to unite in fupport of their independence, and to bind themfelves in folemn league to exert their utmoft endeavours to free their country from these imperious foreigners.

To inflame this dangerous fpirit yet further, the attendants of prince John thought themfelves every where privileged to harrafs and opprefs. Even in the maritime towns, which King Henry had peculiarly referved to him elf, new grants were pretended, and new claims advanced, against the citizens, to deprive them of their poffeffions; fo that, instead of doing martial fervice, thefe veterans were wholly engaged in vexatious litigation, to guard against the attempts of rapacioufnefs and fraud. The Irifhmen who had peaceably fubmitted to live under English lords. and held the lands affigned to them for their fervices by English tenures, were treated with ftill lefs reserve. They were at once driven from their fettlements with the moft difdainful infolence, to make way for thefe luxurious courtiers, or their minions. They fled to the enemy with the most rancorous averfion to their oppreffors; informed them of the fituation and circumftances of the English fettlements; taught them thofe arts of war which they had learned by a long intercourfe with the foreigners, and directed where their attacks might be most effectual and diftreffing.

While the form of war was thus collecting, John kept his ftate in idle pomp, and his attendants indulged in their afual exceffes,

.The

The clergy folicited for grants to the church; the foldiers urged the neceffity of defence. The religious house of Saint Thomas the Martyr received additional donations, and three cailles were ordered to be raised at Tipperary, Ardfinnin, and Lifmore, as a kind of barrier to the English province. But the noife of infurrection foon became terrible to this young Prince and his luxurious train. The alarm of hoftilities and difafters poured in from every quarter. The lately erected caftles, and other places of ftrength occupied by the English, were fuddenly attacked. At Lifmore, Robert Barry was furprised and flain with his whole troop; Ardfinnin was attacked by the Prince of Limerick; the garrifon feduced into an ambush by the hopes of prey, and put to the fword without mercy. The brave Robert de la Poer was furprised and flain in Offory. Canton and Fitz-Hugh, two other English lords. of diftinguished valour, met with the fame fate in their different quarters. Mac-Arthy of Desmond marched against Cork; but was boldly oppofed by Theobald FitzWalter, who had accompanied Fitz-Andelm into Ireland, and proved the founder of the noble houfe of Ormond. He is faid to have fuddenly attacked the Irish prince, while in conference with certain men of Cork at fome distance from the town, and to have flain him with his whole party. Such multiplied incurfions could not but aftonish and confound the English government. The land was laid wafte; lamentations were every where heard, and affecting reports every day received of fome carnage or commotion. Even in Meath,

which the wife precautions of de Lacy had apparently fecured from danger, a defperate inroad threatened to lay waite the whole diftrict, and was with difficulty repelled by William Petit, a brave commander, who fent the heads of one hundred of the invaders to Dublin. The only vigorous oppofition to these incurfions was made by the original adventurers; for the English forces, which had lately arrived, were little accustomed to fuch kind of war; nor were the heavy arms of a Norman knight well calculated to repel thefe fudden and defultory attacks, much lefs to purfue an enemy into their woods and moraffes, who disappeared as foon as they had executed their immediate purpose. After fome uníuccessful attempts against their invaders, thefe gay foldiers, fmarting with lofs and difgrace, fhrunk into their fortified towns, where they lived in, riot, while the open country was a fcene of havock and confufion. Tillage and cultivation were entirely at an end. The improvident young prince had lavished the sums appointed to pay his army; fo that a dreadful dearth of provision threatened to follow clote upon profufenefs, war, and luxury."

I

John Hawkefworth, LL D. 3 vols. quarto.

T is not without fome apprehenfion, that we venture upon an account of the work of Dr. Hawkefworth. The refpectable light in which this gentleman ftood in the literary world, and the manner in which this work was patronized, naturally raised the public expectation to a greater height, than can perhaps be for the advantage of any literary performance, as all fuch works muft naturally undergo the teft of fome. what ftronger than unprejudiced criticism.

It was undoubtedly a great honour to Dr. Hawkefworth, that, from the number of learned men, in which we are happy to say, our country abounds, he fhould have been felected for the hiftorian of exploits, undertaken upon the two nobleft principles, the extenfion of fcience and of national glory.

We think it natural and laudable, that the learned writer's heart should have beat with more than common gratitude to his fovereign; we are, however, not allowed to diffent from the general opinion of the world, that it is rather too ftrong an affertion, that under his Majefty's aufpices, in little more than "" feven years, difcoveries "have been made far greater than "thofe of all the navigators in the "world collectively, from the ex

pedition of Columbus to the "present time.” The affertion is too palpably ill-founded to need a particular confutation: it exceeds the licence of dedicatory compliment. Whatever is done towards difcovery, does credit to the prince under whofe aufpices it is under

taken; and the real merit of these voyages was too folid, to make it at all neceffary to tranfgrefs the bounds of truth. We could with too, that fpeculative opinions of dark and difficult fubjects had been omitted; whatever their merit may be, we may truly fay, non erat his locus. Such is the differtation upon, and denial of, a particular provi dence.

The very nature of expeditions, full of rifque and danger, affords the ampleft room for thankfulness and gratitude to the providence of God, without its being at all neceffary to explain in what way that acts: and we accordingly find, that in this very work, Capt. Cooke, whofe fpirit was no way abashed in the most critical inftant of his danger, thinks it no difparagement to his courage or his understanding, to give the denomination of Providential Channel to that paffage which opened to his delivery, almoft in the moment of despair.

We cannot help thinking too, that in a work, written as it were under the fanction of public au-' thority, there was the utmost deference due to the religious opinions that are received in the country; and we could therefore with the learned writer had refrained on this occafion from promulgating an opinion, that feems ill calculated to infpire religious fentiments.

Neither are we quite convinced by the Doctor's reafons, that it was altogether neceffary to narrate in the first perfon; and when in the preface we find the Doctor letting us into the fecret, and difcuffing the point with us, it is not fo ealy afterwards immediately to fall into the deception, and believe that the Doctor was a party in the voyage,

or

or that any of the captains, or voyagers, are the writers. This deception is prevented by our feeing in the title page, that the work was compofed by Dr. Hawkefworth.

In other respects, the work has confiderable merit in the execution as well as in the interefting nature of the fubject. It confifts of 3 volumes, and four voyages, the three Ert of which under Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, and Captain Carteret, are comprized in

the first volume.

Very early accounts have been given of a race of giants on the coaft of Patagonia, but the veracity of the accounts had become doubtful, from the contradictory affertions of many later navigators who had been on that coaft, and never had met any men of an extraordimary ftature. Commodore Byron had, however, the good fortune to re-establish the credit of the old navigators, by meeting with a large party of them, and Capt. Wallis allo met them afterwards, though he feems rather to lower the account of the Commodore: yet they both ellablish the certainty of the existence of a race of men of a greater height, than is known in any other part of the world.

This circumftance naturally engaged the Commodore's attention to this coaft, of which he gives the beft account that has, we believe, ever been published, as alfo of his paffage through the Streights of Magellan. The reader will not be difpleafed with the account of the Patagonians.

This is the place where the Crew of the Wager, as they were palling the Streight in their boat, alter the lots of the veffel, faw a number of horfemen, who waved

what appeared to be white handkerchiefs, inviting them to come on thore, which they were very defirous to have done, but it blew fo hard that they were obliged to ftand out to sea. Bulkeley, the gunner of the Wager, who has published fome account of her voyage, fays, that they were in doubt whether thefe people were Europeans who had been flipwrecked upon the coaft, or native inhabitants of the country about the river Gall goes. Juft as we came to an anchor, I faw with my glafs exactly what was feen by the people in the Wager, a number of horfemen riding backward and forward, directly abreast of the ship, and waving fomewhat white, as an invitation to us to come on fhore. As I was very defirous to know what thefe people were, I ordered out my twelve-oared boat, and went towards the beach, with Mr. Marfhall, my fecond lieutenant, and a party of men, very well armed; Mr. Cumming, my first lieutenant, following in the fixoared cutter. When we came within a little distance of the shore, we faw, as near as I can guess, about five hundred people, fome on foot, but the greater part on horseback: they drew up upon a ftony fpic which ran a good way into the fea. and upon which it was very bad landing, for the water was shallow, and the ftones very large. The people on fhore, kept waving and hallocing, which, as we understood, were invitations to land; I could not perceive, that they had any weapons among them; however, I made figns that they fhould retire to a little diftance, with which they immediately complied: they continued to thout with great vo ciferation,