Religion. His ideas of the British Constitution are defective and indistinct, some of them erroneous. His French vaingloriousness is sometimes ridiculous and disgusting. His prophetic Visions are not inspiration from Heaven. The character and conduct of his Countrymen but ill accord with his fond wishes and too partial prognostics. Happy had it been for them, and for the World, if his moderate, wise, and virtuous suggestions had received the attention which they merit, and produced the effect at which they aim. But like Cassandra, in the Iliad, he has had the pleasing consciousness of having declared the truth, and the mortification of seeing it entirely disregarded. We must therefore respect the Man, even while we smile at the Visionary, and sympathize with a sensibility sensibility and benevolence constantly directed toward the instruction of the ignorant, the reformation of the vicious, and the relief of the miserable. The Author having promised an improved Edition of his first Work, a Voyage to the Isle of France, which has not yet appeared in English, this, with several other valuable pieces, posterior to the date of Wishes of a Recluse, I mean likewise to translate; aiming with him at enlarging the stock of human knowledge, virtue and happiness, and at gradually di minishing the sum of human wo. HOXTON, Feb. 21, 1799. HENRY HUNTER. |