perhaps Mr. Locke, Dr. Clarke, and fome few other moderns, have furpaffed him in the way of argument. Of repetition and amplification, however, we have enough. Tales too there are, and fome of them very lame ftories indeed! To these if we add a few fibs, which, perhaps, he thinks may pafs with the ladies for fables, the entertainment our Author gives us, is not inconfiftent with his bill of fare.

What very cogent reafons there might be, why the publication of this poem fhould be no longer deferred, we know not: and though we fhould allow (for our Author fays, it must be allowed) that a work of this kind could never be more feafonable and ferviceable to the public, than at this present juncture; yet, in what manner the public will be benefited by it, at all, or at any time, is to us, not very apparent.

In juftification of his attempt to verify, Mr. Marriott says, No critic, but one totally ignorant of the original office of the muse, or one who is fo unhappy as to have no taste of poetry, will object to his having performed this work in verfe.' Doubtlefs, however, our Author will permit one to object to his having not performed it in verfe. We hope he will allow there is fonie difference between rhiming and writing verfes; and betide, he is not always fo fortunate even as to rhyme.

Very few, he acquaints us, have touched this fubject in profe; and none in verfe, that he remembers, excepting fome few fmall sketches; none having, before him, drawn the piece at full length. He has, indeed, drawn out his piece to a length more than fufficient, unles he had fhewn a more mafterly hand in the defign or colouring; of both which, fuch as they are, we fhall prefent our readers with a fpecimen. Before we enter on the work itself however, we meet with an ode on the death of the late duke of Marlborough, whom he familiarly calls his friend, and of whom he fays, (for finging it is not)

Than him, there never liv'd, nor ever can,
A more ingenuous, candid, honest man.

This being true, the reader will think, with us, that nothing more need be faid, to heighten fo excellent a character: our Author flourishes away, nevertheless, with his other fine things, through thirty fuch ftanzas, as by no means difgrace the foregoing incomparable couplet. He gives us next the eighth ode of the fourth book of Horace, modernized and then appears

*Our Author has alfo, in fome parts of his work, chriftianized, as he calls it, many paffages out of the Roman poets. We could with, however, for the honour of the chitian mufe, he had left them ftill pagan, fince they have loft, as he himicif lays of Fufta, even the baman form, in their converfion,

Female

Female Conduct itfelf, divided into two books; the one teach-, ing young ladies how to deferve, and to get hufbands; and the other how to manage, and behave to the faid hufbands, after they have got them. On thefe heads, our Author fays fome good things, and interfperfes many others, that have little to do with the ladies, or the ladies with them. They are all, however, oddly jumbled together, and very indifferently expreffed. His general plan of female conduct, we are afraid alfo, is not likely to take. He advifes the fair fex to abandon drums, routs, and hurricanes, and go to church; to throw away their cards, and read Bacon, Locke, and Newton, in order to become adepts in the fcience of getting well married; for, by the way, he does as good as tell them, that, unless they are verfed in divinity, philofophy, and metaphyfics, be they ever fo handfome, they will never get good hufbands. He tells us, that a fine lady may find more entertainment in looking through a microscope, than in going to a rout; and that when the has once become a phifiologist, and has acquired a tafte for the wonders of the creation,

Beyond a Hoyle, a Newton fhe will prize,

And while fhe views new worlds, the old defpife.
Dull cards no longer will her life employ,
When the gains knowledge, that can never cloy;
Tales, and romances, will delight no more,
To themes fublimer, female talte will foar;
Tom Jones no longer will enchant the fair,
Nor Betfy Thoughtlefs fafcinate the ear.
The magic charm of fcience can fubdue
The love of mafquerades, and gaming too.

Our Author advifes his fair pupils to read alfo our best poets; particularly Shakespear and Milton. Speaking of the latter, he fays,

Who reads Loft Paradife, all knowledge gains,

That book of Milton ev'ry thing contains.

Here, however, we muft beg leave, notwithstanding our veneration for the great Milton, to diffent from our Author; for, if by Loft Paradife he means, as we fuppofe, the poem called Paradife Loft, we can fafely aver, that, to the best of our remembrance, it contains nothing fatisfactory, relating to the explication of electrical phænomena, the nature of the nervous fluid, the variation of the needle, and indeed many other points of natural knowledge; of which, if the ladies defire information, in order to their getting good hufbands, as Mr. Marriot counfels them, we fhould rather advife them to confult Chambers's dictionary.

We

We heartily join, nevertheless, with Mr. Marriott, in recommending to them the perufal of the fcriptures, and the practice of religion; fincerely wifhing his advice on this head were more likely to be taken than, in this age, we fear, it will be:—and yet his zeal, even with refpect to fo commendable a point as this, is very exceptionable, in that it feems not to be conducted according to knowledge; for he tells us, the late calamity, which befel Lisbon, was an immediate judgment from heaven, on the profligacy and impiety of the Portugueze, Nay, he goes fo far as to aflure his country women, that,

-to lofs of piety we owe

Lofs of Minorca and Oswego too,

We confefs, our Author appears to us here a little extravagant; but if the public fhould think him in the right, they may learn, from this fagacious difcovery, how much all our politicians have been out, and how ftrangely the good people of old England have, all this while, been miftaken in the causes of that ill-fuccefs in the Mediterranean and America, about which they were, not long ago, fo very clamorous; fome attributing it to the want of courage and conduct in our commanders; some to the want of prudence and application in the miniftry; and others to the want of common fenfe and common honesty in both. How fatisfactory therefore muft it be to find, after all thefe idle conjectures, that it was owing merely to the want of piety in the nation! fince, by the fame rule, it should seem the nation is grown very pious of late; as our capture of Louisbourg, with our fuccefs on the Ohio, and on the coaft of Africa, may abundantly testify.

We think, however, Mr. Marriott cafts a very injurious imputation on his fair difciples, by laying the fault at their door; which, however craftily he manages it, he actually does : for, if they might have prevented our impiety, and did not, we may certainly thank them for the confequence: or, as in the elegant manner of our poet, (fince a poet he will be) we might verfify,

Alas! eventually, to them we owe

The lofs of Port-mahon and Ofwe-go.

And that the ladies might have made us all pious, if they would, there will not remain a loop to hang a doubt on, if what he tells them, in the following lines, be actually true.

If you will never, on the vicious, fmile,
There will not be a centaur in our inle;
Tho' now the centaurs on religion tread,
Tho' trampled, foon again fhe'll rear her head:

The

The Deifts will their Bolingbroke forfake,
And earthquakes will no niore our island shake;
Triumphant victory fall peace reflore,

And France invafions meditate no more.

We have heard of a lover's pretending to die by the frowns, and to revive at the fmiles, of his mistress; but to pretend that the converfion of infidels, that conqueft, that earthquakes, and French invafions, depend on the fmiles of the fair, is certainly the ne plus ultra of gallantry. It is, indeed, the very concentrated quinteffence of modern politenefs; and we make no doubt, but the ladies, confidering the inference already drawn from it, will return our Author's compliment with a very particular smile, adapted to the occafion.

With respect to thofe inferior arts, by which the fair sex endeavour to difplay their charms to advantage, Mr. Marriott fays very little. He juft hints to them, indeed, to throw away their washes, pafte, and paint; and, of all things, not to neglect their teeth; which indeed, they would be much to blame to neglect, if what our Author affures them be fact, viz. that

White teeth will make amends for each defect.

As for the reft; having murdered a few lines, ftolen from Mr. Whitehead's fong for Ranelagh, he adds,

To drefs the foul, be that my mufe's part!
There all her skill and force fhe muft exert.
The arts of beauty fhe dares not reveal,
Nor the hid toilet's mysteries unvail;
A decent poet will not there intrude,
Left he be deem'd indelicate and rude.

Under the head of inftructions concerning behaviour, our decent poet says,

In public places let no nymph appear,
Till fhe has learnt a fit behaviour there.

This is almost as good counsel as the Irishman gave to his friend, whom he advifed never to go into the water till he had learned to swim. But this is nothing of an abfurdity with Mr. Marriott, who tells us, of lord Bolingbroke's having charged Mr. Pope's ghoft with theft; and of the probability that the inhabitants of fome of the planets have discovered the longitude. O lepidum caput!

In his fecond book Mr. Marriott comes to the married ladies, to whom he gives very good advice; inftructing the wife to be neat, and filent; to avoid contradiction; and, in cafes of difpute, or, as it should seem, of a pitch'd battle,

T.

To leave her husband master of the field.

He proceeds next to give us some severe strictures on the articles of pin-money and curtain-lectures. With respect to the former he declares,

Some lawyer damn'd, or some old beldam curft,

The name of pin-money invented first.

As to the latter; after laying many frict injunctions on the ladies to submit, he tells a moft horrible ftory indeed, of his being almost frightened out of his wits, one night, by the noise of a hobgoblin, which proved a woman's tongue. Our readers will please to accept part of this ftory, as a proof of our Author's poetical abilities, and of his being able to excite in us, at least, one paffion, though not that of terror.

Once I, thro' thin partition, chanc'd to hear
A curtain-lecture, with aftonifh'd ear;
It wak'd, and fcar'd me, in the dead of night,
Ere I my fenfes could recover quite;
It founded, like a fpirit's plaintive voice,
So dire the found, fo folemn was the noise ;
Trembling I heard, nor dar'd to ope my eyes,
Left I might view a horrid spectre rise ;
Soon I perceiv'd, it was a woman's tongue,
Rehearing, to her mate, each nuptial wrong;
Obdurate he, and ftupid, as a dunce,

Heard unconcern'd, nor interrupted once.

A very ftupid dunce of a hufband, indeed! We cannot but admire alfo, with what peculiar propriety the charge of ftupidity is brought against him, by the fuperlative genius of our Author!

After many other matters of little moment, the ladies are advifed to give fuck to their children; being told the dangerous confequence of putting them out, or employing a wet nurse.

The venal nurfe's milk, fome fages fay,
May her distempers to the child convey;
Thro' that juice alimental, they aver,
She may the vices of her mind transfer;
'Thro' that conveyance if her vice can flow,
She may, by that, tranfmit her folly too.

Doubtlefs! if we fubfcribe to the opinion of the fages, as to the article of vice, we fee nothing that fhould hinder us from agreeing to that of our poet (in this cafe apparently a fage too) as to that of folly. And here, perhaps, our readers will be curious to enquire, whether or not this Preceptor himself was ever put out to nurfe? but, in this particular, we cannot fatisfy them.

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