their countenance in terms of the highest approbation. Others there were, who, though they could not openly, and with any fhow of principle, condemn it, yet affected to treat it with contempt and ridicule, both in private converfation, and in fome of the periodical papers. But whatever finister interpretations may be put upon our Bifhops taking fuch a part in this bufineis, they are fully fatisfied of the purity and uprightnefs of their own intentions; and while they look back with pleasure to the pious and grateful fentiments of which the clergy of Connecticut, on receiv ing their new Bishop, gave public and unanimous teftimony, they will reft themselves on the well-grounded hope of the accomplishment of that affectionate with, which thefe clergy expreffed, in the overflowing of their hearts on that occafion, "That whereever the American Epifcopal Church fhall be mentioned in the world, this alfo, that the Bishops of Scotland have done for her, may be spoken of for a memorial of them." Elegy by Mir Muhammed Hufain. Tranflated by Sir William Jones *. N' TEVER, oh! never shall I forget the fair one, who came to my tent with timid circumspection: 2. Sleep fat heavy on her eyelids, and her heart fluttered with fear. 3. She had marked the dragons of her tribe, (the centinels) and had difmiffed all dread of danger from them : 4. She had laid afide the rings, which used to grace her ankles; left the found of them thould expofe her to calamity: 5. She deplored the darknefs of the way, which hid from her the morning ftar. 6. It was a night, when the eyelafhes of the moon were tinged with the black powder of the gloom; 7. A night, when thou mighteft have feen the clouds, like camels, eagerly gazing on the ftars; 8. While the eyes of heaven wept on the bright borders of the sky; 9. The lightning displayed his fhining teeth, with wonder at this change in the firmament; 10. And the thunder almost burft the ears of the deafened rocks. 11. She was defirous of embracing me, but, through modefty, declined my embrace. 12. Tears bedewed her cheeks, and, to my eyes, watered a bower of rofes. 13. When the fpake, her panting, fighs blew flames into my heart. 14. She continued expoftulating with me on my exceffive defire of travel. 15. Thou hast melted my heart, fhe faid, and made it feel inexpref-. fible anguish. 16. Thou art perverfe in thy conduct to her who loves thee, and obfequious to thy guileful advi-, fer. 17. Thou goeft round from country to country, and art never pleased with a fixed refidence. 18. One while the feas roll with thee, and, another while, thou art agitated on the fhore. 19. What fruit, but painful far tigue, can arife from rambling over foreign regions? 20. Haft thou affociated thy felf with the wild antelopes of the defert, and forgotten the tame deer? 21. • Extracted from his third Anniversary Difcourfe in the Afiatic Researches. 21. Art thou weary then of our neighbourhood? O, wo to him, who flies from his beloved! 22. Have pity at length on my afflicted heart, which feeks relief and cannot obtain it. Some particulars refpecting the Hindus. By Sir William Jones *. THE five principal nations, who have in different ages divided among themselves, as a kind of inheritance, the vast continent of Afia, with the many islands depending on it, are the Indians, the Chinefe, the Tartars, the Arabs, and the Perfians: who they severally were, whence, and when they came, where they are now fettled, and what advantage a more perfect knowledge of them all may bring to our European world, will be fhewn, I trust, in five distinct effays; the laft of which will demonftrate the connection or diverfity between them, and folve the great problem, whether they had any common origin, and whether that origin was the fame which we generally afcribe to them. India, on its moft enlarged fcale, in which the ancients appear to have understood it, comprizes an area of hear forty degrees on each fide, including a space almoft as large as all Europe, being divided on the weft from Perfia by the Arachofian mountains, limited on the east by the Chinefe part of the farther peninfula, confined on the north by the wilds of Tartary, and extending to the fouth as far as the ifles of Java. This trapezium, therefore, comprehends the ftupendous hills of Potyid, or Tibet, the beautiful valley of Cashmir, and all the domains of the old Iadofcythians, the countries of Nepal and Butant, Camrup or Afam, together with Sciam, Âva, Racan, and the bordering kingdoms, as far as the China of the Hindus, or Sin of the Arabian geographers; not to men tion the whole western peninfula, with the celebrated island of Sinhala, or Lion like Men, at its fouthern extremity: by India, in fhort, I mean that whole extent of country, in which the primitive religion and lan-guages of the Hindus prevail at this day with more or less of their ancient purity, and in which the Nagari letters are ftill used with more or lefs deviation from their original form. The Hindus themfelves believe their own country to have been the. portion of Bharat, one of nine brothers, whofe father had the dominion of the whole earth. The inhabitants of this extenfive tract are described by Mr Lord with great exactness, and with a picturefque elegance peculiar to our ancient language. "A people, fays he, prefented themfelves to mine eyes, cloath-ed in linen garments fomewhat low defcending, of a gefture and garb, as I may fay, maidenly and wellnigh effeminate, of a countenance fhy, and fomewhat eftranged, yet fmiling out a glozed and bafhful familiarity." With respect to Letters, Sir William obferves, that the pure Hindi language was primæval in Upper India; and that the Sanfcrit was introduced by conquerors from other kingdoms in fome very remote age. "The Sanfcrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquifitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a ftrong * From the fame. er er affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could poffibly have been produced by accident; fo ftrong indeed that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have fprung from one common fource, which, perhaps, no longer exifts: there is a fimilar reafon, though not quite fo forcible, for fuppofing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the fame origin with the Sanferit: and the old Perfian might be added to the fame family, if this were the place for difcuffing any queftion concerning the antiquities of Perfia. ! The characters, in which the languages of India were originally writ ten, are called Nagari, from Nagara, a city, with the word Deva fometimes prefixed, because they are believed to have been taught by the Divinity himself, who prefcribed the artificial order of them in a voice from heaven.' The Hindus were in early ages a commercial people; and in the firft of their facred law-tracts, which they suppose to have been revealed by Menu. many millions of years ago, we find a curious paffage on the legal intereft of money, and the limited rate of it in different cafes, with an exception in regard to adventures at fea; an exception, which the fenfe of mankind approves, and which commerce abfolutely requires, though it was not before the reign of Charles I. that our own jurifprudence fully admitted it in refpect of maritime contracts. We are told by the Grecian writers, that the Indians were the wifest of nations; and in moral wifdom, they were certainly eminent: their Niti Saftra, or System of Ethics, is yet preferved, and the Fables of Vishnuferman, whom we ridiculously call Pilpay, are the most beautiful, if not the most ancient, collection of apologues in the world: they were first tranflated from the Sanfcrit in the fixth century, by the order of Buzerchumihz, or Bright as the fun, the chief phyfician, and afterwards Vezir of the great Anushirevan, and are extant under various names in more than twenty languages; but their original title is Hitopadefa, or Amicable Instruction; and as the very exiftence of Efop, whom the Arabs believe to have been an Abyffinian, appears rather doubtful, I am not difinclined to fuppofe, that the firit mo-, ral fables, which appeared in Europe, were of Indian or Ethiopian origin. The Hindus are faid to have boafted of three inventions, all of which, indeed, are admirable, the method of inftructing by apologues, the decimal fcale adopted now by all civilized nations, and the game of chefs, on which they have fome curious treatifes; but if their numerous works on grammar, logic, rhetoric, mufic, all which are extant and acceffible, were explained in fome language generally known, it would be found that they had yet higher pretenfions to the praife of a fertile and inventive genius. Their lighter poems are lively and elegant; their epic, magnificent and fublime in the highest degree; their Puranas comprise a series of mythological hiftories in blank verfe from the creation to the fuppofed incarnation of Buddha; and their Vidas, as far as we can judge from that compendium of them, which is called Upanishut, abound with noble speculations in metaphyfics, and fine difcourfes on the being and attributes of God. Their moft ancient medical book, entitled. Chereca, is believed to be the work of Siva; for each of the divinities in their triad has at least one facred compofition afcribed to him; but as to mere human works on hiftory and geography, though they are faid to be extant in Cafhmir, it has not been yet in my power to procure them. What their aftronomical and mathematical writings contain, will not, I trust, re main main long a fecret; they are easily procured, and their importance cannot be doubted. The philofopher, whofe works are faid to include a Tystem of the univerfe founded on the principle of attraction, and the central pofition of the fun, is named Yavan Achaiya, becaufe he had travelled, we are told, into Ionia; if this be true, he might have been one of thofe who converfed with Pythago ras; this, at least, is undeniable, that a book on aftronomy in Sanfcrit bears the title of Yavana latica, which may fignify the Ionic fect; nor is it im probable, that the names of the pla. nets and zodiacal stars, which the Atabs borrowed from the Greeks, but which we find in the oldest Indian records, were originally devifed by the fame ingenious and enterprising race, from whom both Greece and India were peopled; the race, who, as Dionyfius describes them, "firft affay'd the deep, And wafted merchandise to coasts unknown, Review of New Publications. Sermons by the late Rev. Mr Logan, one of the Minifters of Leith. Edinburgh. Bell and Bradfute. 1790. THESE Sermons now published, though unequal upon the whole, are the moft fplendid compofitions of that defcription which have appeared. More regular difcourfes may have been written, and as elegant ones compiled; but in vain fhall we feek for Sermons where the flashes of genius fo much aftouifh and delight. The author's talent for defcription is of a very fuperior kind. Some paffages are remarkably fublime. In every page we perceive the pen of a man of genius. In his Prayers and Addreffes to Communicants, the majefty of devotion and the fire of eloquence are alike confpicuous.-At the fame time it is to be regretted that too much freedom is generally ufed with pofthumous publications. We always with to fee the author; but are frequently difappointed to find only the cold corrections of the editor. "What are the lays of Addifon, Cold and correct to Shakespeare's warbling wild?" In fine, the volume now delivered to the Public will be a permanent memorial of the author's piety and literary fame. The Cuckoo's Note, and the Complaint of Nature; the Field of Runnamede, and the Roar of Yarrow, will alfo perpetuate the name of LOGAN. This general character might be juftified by the critical examination of paffages in detail. The I. Sermon is lefs animated than many of the following ones; yet the influence of religious inftitutions on domeftic life is illuftrated in a beautiful, concife, and lively manner; and the two laft paragraphs are far from being deftitute of animątion. In one paffage in the II. Sermon, our ardour in temporal concerns, and indifference in what relates to religion, is eloquently defcribed. The III. On Early Piety, furnishes many examples of beautiful and picturefque defcription. In the IV. Sermon on Redeeming the Time, we perceive the workings of a fuperior mind. Indulging the ardour and impetuofity of a generous nature, nature, the author carries the reader along with him on the tide of high emotion. In one paffage, he thus expreffes himself." When the mind is ftruck with the grand and the subline of human life, it difdains inferior things, and kindling with the occafion, rejoices to put forth all its trength. Obstacles in the way, only give additional ardour to the purfuit; and the prize appears then the moft tempting to the view, when the afcent is arduous, and when the path is marked with blood. Hence that life is chofen, where incentives to action abound; hence ferious engagements are the preferable objects of purfuit; hence the most animating occafions of life, are calls to danger and hardship, not invitations to fafety and ease; and hence man himself, in his higheft excellence, is found to pine in the lap of repose, and to exult in the midst of alarms that feem to threaten his being. All the faculties of his frame, engage him to action; the higher powers of the foul, as well as the fofter feelings of the heart; wifdom and magnanimity, as well as pity and tenderness, carry 'a manifeft reference to the arduous career he has to run; the difficulties with which he is deftined to ftruggle, and the forrows he is appointed to bear. Happiness to him is an exertion of foul. They know not what they fay, who cry out, "Let us build tabernacles of reft." They miflake very much the nature of man, and go in queft of felicity to no purpose, who feek for it in what are called enjoyments of life, who feek for it in a termination of labour and a period of repofe. It is not in the calm fcene; it is in the tempeft; it is in the whirlwind; it is in the thunder that this Genius refides. When once you have discovered the bias of the mind; when once you have recognifed your path in life; when once you have found out the object of the foul, you will bend to it alone, like VOL. XI. No. 64. M m. an eagle when he has tafted the blood of his prey, who difdains the objects of his former purfuit, and follows on in his path through the heavens." The following extract from the V. Sermon is truly brilliant : "Who knoweth what awaits him in life? Who knoweth the changes thro' which he is destined to pals? Son of profperity! Thou now looket forth from thy high tower; thou now glorieft in thine excellence; thou fayeft that thy mountain ftands ftrong, and that thou art firm as the cedar of Lebanon,—But ftand in awe. Before the mighty God of Jacob, and by the blaft of the breath of his noftrils, the mountain hath been overturned, and the cedar in Lebanon hath fallen like the leaf before the whirlwind. At this ver moment of time, the wheel is in motion that reverfes the lot of men ; that brings the profperous to the duft, and lays the mighty low. Now, O man! thou rejoiceft in thy ftrength, but know, that for thee the bed of la guifhing is fpread; pale, ghaftly, and ftretched on thy couch, thou shalt number the tedious hours, the rest-lefs days, the wearifome nights that are appointed to thee, till thy foul: fhall be ready to "chufe death rather than life." Thou now removeft from thee the evil day, and fayeft, in thy heart, thou fhalt never fee forrow, but remember the changes of this mortal life; for thee the " cup of trembling" is prepared, and the "wine of aftonishment is poured out." How often, in an inftant, doth a hand unfeen fhift the fcene of the world! The calmeft and the stilleft hour precedes the whirlwind, and it hath thundered in the fereneft sky. The monarch hath drawn the chariot' of ftate in which he was wont to ride in triumph, and the greatest who ever awed the world, have moralifed at the turn of the wheel." 3 |