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cases a vindication, of the Jews. It examines the conduct they have evinced, and the sufferings they have sustained from the period of the destruction of the temple. It palliates the charge of usury, which has so often, and at times so absurdly, been urged against this people and it exhibits them as free from the vices of lukewarmness in the religion they profess, of hypocrisy, dishonesty, idolatry, idleness, and debauchery. It affirms, in consequence, that they are entitled to far more political favour than they have hitherto possessed in any Christian country; and, lastly, that the Christian church itself will ultimately become in a very considerable degree judaized, and that its professors will esteem it an honour to make pilgrimages

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more to Jerusalem, which will re-ascend it all its pristine glory. The work is written in the dialogue form; it exhibits much candour and good intention; but a variety of untenable arguments, a diction unornamented, and a style diffuse and desultory. The Jewish community have now no reason to complain: the asylum and equality of privileges offered and secured to them by law in the Russian empire, will render it for the future their own fault if they submit to undue degradation and extortion in any other countries.

In noticing the bishop of Landaff's sermon preached before the Society for the Suppresion of Vice, we entered in some measure into a survey of the conduct of this institution; and asserted that we had some hopes that in the course of the present winter it intended to direct its anathemas towards the great and the fashionable, as well as the poor and the miserable. On perusing the "Address to the Pub

lic" which it has presented in the course of the current year, we have more reason than ever to wish that such intention may be realized. For amidst the six hundred and twenty persons whom we are here told it has brought to conviction for profanation of the sabbath-day, we do not find a single instance of persons of this description; al though it is well known that the higher orders are quite as guilty as the lower, the characters punished exclusively consisting of publicans, and petty shopkeepers.

As the system of reward is generally as influencial, and infinitely more beneficial than that of terror, we have far more pleasure, we confess, in accompanying in their transactions, the "Society for bettering the Conditions of the Poor," whose fourth volume of Reports is now before us. We perceive in these reports some small degree of unnecessary deviation from their professed object, butnevertheless many valuable communications, and a steady and ardent desire to communicate comfort and happiness.

Education, considered as 3 science, has been less lavish of productions in the course of the year before us, than in the course of several that immediaitely preceded it. The most valuable and impressive volume we have met with, and which we recommend to be put into the hands of every boy who is designed for public or polished life, is "The late Lord Chatham's Letters to his Nephew, the Father of the late Lord Camelford." These letters display the skill of a master; of one well versed in human life; and who knew how to prize what is truly estimable before what is merely glittering and brilliant There is in them a soundness of judgment, a purity of heart, a man.

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liness of piety, a familiarity, but at the same time an elegance, of style which we have seldom met with in the same equality of union; and which were well entitled to the success with which they were originally attended, They are edi ted by lord Grenville, dedicated to Mr. Pitt, and introduced by an excellent and highly finished preface. -Mrs. Charlotte Smith has published, in two small volumes octavo, "Conversations for the use of Children and Young Persons;"

which may be perused with plea sure and profit: they are chiefly devoted to subjects of natural history, and are occasionally enlivened by specimens of beautiful poetry. Miss Edgeworth, in three volumes duodecimo, has also made an acceptable present to the public in her "Popular Tales" "intended principally for the benefit of persons in middle life, and hence consisting of characters drawn almost solely from that class of society.

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CHAP. IV.

LITERATURE AND POLITE ARTS.

Containing the Transactions of Literary Societies, Biography, Antiquities,
Philology, Classics, Poetry, Drama, Novels, Tales, and Romances.

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E begin, as usual, with a notice of the current volume of Philosophical Transactions published by the Royal Society of London: and feel peculiarly happy in having to repeat every part of the encomium upon the aggregate articles before us, which we advanced from a sense of duty in our last retrospect. The spirit of the preceding year has extended, in its full quintessence, to the present: there is an ardour of pursuit, a depth and comprehension of inquiry, an importance of matter, and a success of result exhibited in both parts of the volume before us, which have never, to our knowledge, been surpassed, and seldom equalled by any similar institution., Like the volume of the past year, the present consists of seventeen articles including the Bakerian or opening lecture of these, eight are contained in its first part, independently of the Meteorologic Journal, 1804.

and the remainding nine in the second part. 1. The Bakerian lecture is the production of Dr. Young, and as usual, is highly ingenious and recondite. It consists of experiments and calculations relative to phy sical objects: the writer's aim is to confirm, from additional experi ments and observations on the fringes of colours accompanying shadows, his prior law of the inter ference of two portions of light. We do not think that sir Isaac Newton receives in this paper all the respect to which he is entitled, nor that the experiments of Mr. Ritt are sufficiently consulted or referred to. And still less do we believe that, admitting the facts here advanced in their fullest extent, the specific aura of light falls necessarily to Euler's system of an undulating medium II. Continuation of an Account of a peculiar Arrangement in the Arteries distri buted on the Muscles of slow-mov

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ing Animals, &c.; in a Letter from Mr. Anthony Carlisle to John Symmons, esq. F.R S.; a prosecution of a former paper by the same ingenious w..ter. The arteries in stanced are the seminal, intercostal, and diaphragmatic, together with those of the swimming bladder in certain fishes of a peculiarity of construction. III. An Account of a curious Phænomenon observed on the Glacieres of Chamouny; together with some occasional Observations concerning the Propagation of Heat in Fluids; by Benjamin count of Rumford, V.P.R.S. The author's object is to corroborate a former assertion-that fluids are not conductors of heat or caloric: and he appears a little incensed as well as surprised that this assertion has not been generally admitted by modern chemists. It does not strike us that the present appeal is by any means decisive; or that the phænomenon is satisfactorily explained by the proposed system. IV, Description of a triple Sulphuret, of Lead, Antimony, and Copper, from Cornwall: with some Observations upon the various Modes of Attraction which influence the Formation of Mineral Substances, and upon the different Kinds of Sulphuret of Copper; by the Count de Bournon, F.R.S. This paper is of great importance in the science of mineralogy, and we regret that we cannot pay it the detailed attention it deserves. The author's inquiry is ably and perspicuously pursued: the sulphuret to which he refers, howover, is rare, and in the whole extent of Cornwall has only been found in the Huel Boys, a mine which has never been regularly worked, though we have just learned that it is now on the point of being so. V. Analysis of a triple Sulpuret of Lead, Antimony, and

Copper, from Cornwall; by Charles Hatchett, esq. F.R.S. The sulphuret is that described in the preceding article: its analysis, which was carefully conducted, discovered it to consist of antimony, lead, copper, a small quantity of iron, and a still smaller of sulphur. VI. Observations on the Orifices found in certain poisonous Snakes, situated between the Nostril and the Eye; by Patrick Russell, M.D. F.R.S.: with some Remarks on the Structure of those Orifices and the Description of a Bag connected with the Eye, met with in the same Snakes; by Everard Home, esq. F.R.S. The direct object of these orifices and bags is by no means clearly ascertained. In snakes they seem to be peculiar to those that are poisonous; and have been actually traced in the rattle-snake, in fifteen or sixteen species of colu ber, and in three box. But they are also found in several deer and antelopes, probably in all of them. VII. An Inquiry concerning the nature of Heat, and the Mode of its Communication; by Benjamin Count of Rumford, V.P. F.R.S. This inquiry is ingeniously and operosely conducted. Its object is to prove the existence of frigorific as well as calorific rays; the former of which are supposed to proceed from the heavens, to produce the extreme chill on the summits of lofty mountains, and to regulate the temperature of the earth. In this case, the old doctrine of the Greek schools, that cold as well as heat is a body sui generis, would be com pletely re-established. The subject is to be pursued; and we shail hence have an opportunity of ex amining it more fully hereafter. VIII. Experiments and Observations on the Motion of the Sap in Trees. In a letter from Thomas Andrew Knight, esq. to Sir Joseph

Banks,

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Banks, Bart. &c. &c. Some additional facts are here adduced in support of an opinion antecedently advanced by Mr. Knight-that the vessels of the bark which pass from the leaves to the extremities of the roots are, from their organization, better calculated to convey the fluids they contain towards the roots, than in any other direction. The first part of the volume here concludes with the Meteorologi cal Journal, by which we perceive that the rain was not more than 17.922. Part II. opens with IX. Analytical Experiments and Observations on Lac; by Charles Hatchett, Esq. The different nature and kinds of lac are here minutely investigated; as also the best method of dissolving it, which Mr. Hatchett, pursuing the mode in common use among the Hindûs, found to be water with which a small quantity of borax has been previously commixed. X. On the Integration of certain differential Expressions with which Problems in Physical Astronomy are connected; by R. Woodhouse, M.A. F.R.S. From the recondite nature of this paper we cannot enter into the idea intended to be conveyed. XI. Observations on Basalt, and on the Transition from the vitreous to the stony Texture which occurs in the Refrigeration of melted Basalt in a Letter from Gregory Watt, Esq. This elaborate paper contains experiments of very considerable importance, and which amply confirm those of sir James Hall, designed to prove the conversion of basalt from a vitreous to a stony texture, by the operation of slow cooling alone. We are sincerely concerned to find that the ingenious author of this excellent article has some time since paid the debt of nature, and fallen in

the full maturity of life. XII. An Analysis of the magnetical Pyrites, with Remarks on some of the other Sulphurets, of Iron; by Charles Hatchett, Esq. F.R.S. The pyrites analysed was brought from the base of Mount Moel Elia, in Carnarvonshire; and the result of the experiments was, that sulphur and carbon appear to have an equal, or at least a similar power in rendering iron magnetic: the magnetic saturation, when sulphur is employed, lies between metallic iron with forty-six per cent. of sulphur and fifty-two of carbon. XIII.Account of the voluntary Expansion of the Skin in the Neck of the Cobra de Capello, or Hooded Snake of the East Indies; by Patrick Russell, M.D. F.R.S.: with a Description of the Structure of the Parts that perform that Office; by Everard Home, Esq. F.R.S. We cannot explain this singular apparatus of nature without the plate: its use is not yet accounted for. XIV. Continuation of an Account of the Changes that have happened in the relative Situation of double Stars ; by William Herschell, LL.D. F.R.S. This paper, which is truly curious and valuable, exhibits the changes which have occurred in a variety of stars. These changes extend from an angle of ten degrees in some, to an angle of not less than a hundred and thirty degrees in others. The observations must soon be productive of various important conclusions; at present they are rather too much accompanied with hypothetical reasoning. XV. Observations on the change of some of the proximate Principles of Vegetables into Bitumen; with analytical Experiments on a peculiar Substance, which is found with the Bovey Coal; by Charles Hatchett, Esq. F.R.S. These ob. servations

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servations are decisive in proving the transmutation of vegetable matter to a mineral substance, through the medium of the coal referred to. XVI. On two Metals found in the black Powder remaining after the Solution of Platina; by S. Tennant, Esq. F.R.S. This black powder was at first supposed to be, plumbago: Descotils and Vauquelin detected in it a new metallic substance and Mr. Tennant has discovered that this metallic substance is composed of two distinct metals, each obtained by a different process; to the one, from the variations of its hues, he has given the name of iridium; to the other, from its peculiar odour, esmium. XVII. On a new Metal found in crude Platina, by William Hyde Wollaston, M.D. F.R.S. This metal bears much affinity to the iridium of Mr. Tennant; and is perhaps the same. Dr. Wollaston, however, denominates it rhodium. It is probable also that both are the same substance as the palladium of Mr. Chevenix, which we noticed in our last year's retrospect.

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We announced in our last year's retrospect, also, that an "Abridgment" of the truly valuable labours of the Royal Society had been commenced, in a form, and under the auspices of talents, that promised a most desirable issue. This Abridgment is so far persevered in, that the current year has produced vols. 2 and 3, which extend to the close of the thirteenth volume of the original. We have no reason to complain of any relaxation in the powers or spirit of the compilers.

The Society of Antiquaries of -London have published the fourteenth volume of their "Archaiologia, or Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Antiquity." The tracts

are in number thirty-four, the en gravings are fifty-eight, and in an appendix are subjoined a list of presents to the society, a catalogue of the works it has published, and an useful index. The articles are introduced without any pretension to arrangement, and it is hence impossible to follow them with any kind of specific epitome or charac ter. In several instances we trace papers scarcely worthy of admis sion; but, upon the whole, the fourteenth volume is the best of the series. There is much ingenuity and learning in the seventh article, by Mr. Western, offering an illus tration of the second Arundelian marble; in the twenty-third, by Mr. Lysons, on some of the tombs in the abbey church of Tewkesbury, in Gloucestershire; in the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh, by Mr. Sharon Turner, on the early use of rime; and in the twenty-eighth, by Mr. Henley, on the inscription found on certain bricks asserted by Dr. Hulme, in article ten, to be of Babylonian construction.

The ninth volume of the "Transactions of the Royal Irish Acade my," which we expected in the course of 1803, has at length reached us. It consists of twelve articles, of which the most im portant are two mathematical pa pers, by the professor in the Dub in University, Mr. Brinkley. Mr. Preston, the translator of the Argonautics, has contributed three papers, of which the last only is entitled to individual notice. It offers considerations on antient amatory writers, and on the comparative merit of Ovid, Tibullus, and Propertius. Mr. Dunne has presented some valuable notices relative to several of the native tribes of North America; and Dr. Richardson

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