greatly complained of, especially by young students in these

sciences.'

The plan of a course of mathematics is not new. In England, we have treatises which contain most of the branches of mathematical science. In France, there are several: two, well known, entitled Cours complet de Mathematiques, have been published by l'Abbé Sauri and M. Bezout; the first in three volumes 8vo., the second in six volumes 8vo. These do not comprehend such a variety of subjects as the present Cursus, but they more fully and minutely treat particular subjects. Works of this kind undoubtedly have their use; there are many who, from situation or inclination, wish to leave the quest of mere speculative truth, in order to be busy in the fruitful and operative parts of science. The character of the performance, and of its execution, is fairly given by Dr. H. in his preface: there is nothing exaggerated; nor have we discovered any excellencies which his modesty forbore to mention. We could have wished, however, that the author had quietly enjoyed the conscious satisfaction of having designed and executed a work of public utility, and had not been impelled to make an irreverent attack on the great father of geometry. A charge is brought against Euclid which it will be difficult to establish; and, if his method be faulty, it is vain to look for its correction in the present volumes. Those who admire the elements of Euclid, for the luminous arrangement and close connection of his truths, complain not of his tediousness, when, in the chain of his reasoning, they can find no unnecessary link; and those who are strenuous for mathematical rigour will not deem the want of it compensated by illusive facility and conciseness. If Euclid's doctrine of proportionality presents many difficulties to the learner, let it be recollected that the subject is intricate: and, when the length of his steps is reprobated, his adversaries should produce a treatise which unites equal precision and evidence with greater conciseness. The doctrine of proportion might easily be expedited, if there were no such things as incommensurable quantities: Dr. Hutton, in deviating from Euclid, has lost sight of these quantities altogether; and the facility, proposed in the preface, is accomplished by the omis sion of those parts which alone render the subject difficult.

The greatest portion of the contents of these volumes is extracted, with occasional alterations, from the "Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary" of Dr. H.; which we reviewed in the months of February and April 1798. We cannot, therefore, with any propriety, exercise particular criticism on the subjects of the present volumes. Our judgment has been already given, and we find no reason to alter it.

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Whatever

Whatever be our opinion, however, of the ability with which the several distinct parts of mathematical science are here treated, an estimate of the publication, considered as a whole, is easily formed, and may be given without scruple. There is á description of students (as we have already said) to whom a work on a plan like that of the present can be properly adapted: á description which includes those who love science to be rather familiarized than logically discussed, and seek concise, practical, and commodious rules, without being solicitous concerning the exactness of the principles, and the rigour of demonstration, on which the rules are established. To such, then, the present Cursus Mathematicus may be recommended; for it is executed in a manner which, when we refer to the original design, deserves to be called able and judicious. If we have not found frequent opportunities of praising the mode in which a particular science has been treated, we have recollected that each science could not have been accurately and fully considered, without frustrating the plan of the whole. Within no very extended compass, the student may here find great variety of matter; may acquire much practical knowlege; and may form general notions of the grounds and methods of the several sciences: but let him not be disappointed if he should perceive that, in the present volumes, there is neither curious inquiry, nor deep disquisition; no new invention of truth, nor detection of long-received error; and that neither are doubtful principles scrupulously weighed, nor wavering systems firmly established.

TH

Imitated from the ThirLewis, Esq. M. P. author 2d Edit. 4to. PP. 51. 1799.

ART. IV. The Love of Gain: a Poem.
teenth Satire of Juvenal. By M. G.
of the Monk, Castle-Spectre, &c.
3s. 6d. sewed. Bell, Oxford-street.
HIS imitation of one of Juvenal's best compositions opens
in a style very different from that of the celebrated original.
Instead of the forcible perspicuity and compactness of the
Roman poet, we are here presented with a confused mass of
figures and expressions, in which it is difficult to discover even
the writer's meaning. This unpromising outset is succeeded,
however, by some vigorous lines, which a severer degree of
labour might have rendered strongly impressive. The Roman
Satirist thus commences:

Exemplo quodcunque malo committitur, ipsi

Displicet auctori. Prima est hæc ultio, quod, se
Judice, nemo nocens absolvitur, improba quamvis
Gratia fallaci Prætoris vicerit araa.

Wood.....

Mr.

Mr. Lewis's imitation opens thus:

Though oft, the heart when raging passions storm,
To Vice we kneel, and fain would veil her form,
Her native darkness ever mocks disguise,

And crimes look foul, e'en in their author's eyes.
Here the first mark of heav'nly vengeance view,
Vice, false to others, to herself is true!
When the pack'd jury, and the quibbled flaw
Delude the eye, and lame the arm of law,
When Erskine's wit the culprit-client saves,
And fraud unscourged offended justice braves;
Still is the wretch in private doom'd to hear
From his own heart a verdict more severe.
There dwells a judge, whose voice no bribe can pay,
No party silence, and no flattery sway;
The sinner shrinks, before himself arraign'd,
And almost sorrows, that his cause is gain'd.'

We observe that Mr. Lewis sometimes avoids a direct imitation of the strong images of his original: thus, that passage which characterizes, with so much energy and truth, the internal sensation of agonizing regret, spumantibus ardens visceribus, is turned to a display of the external marks of that feeling: While, then, we mark your breast with passion rise,

Your trembling lips, clench'd hands, and flashing eyes.' Though we think that this passage is unequal to Juvenal, we must allow the four following lines, lofty as they are, to be very happily dilated by the imitator.

"Magna quidem, sacris que dat præcepta libellis,
Victrix Fortuna Sapientia. Ducimus autem
Hos quoque felices, qui ferre incommoda vite,
Nec jactare jugum vitá didicere magistrá."
Blest is the man, whom philosophic lore

Beyond proud Fortune's reach has taught to soar;
Who, when she frowns, her falshood not reviles,

Nor boasts her favour when the harlot smiles.

Nor him less happy count, whose years have bought
Precious experience, and deep-searching thought,
Wisdom to know all bliss is insecure,

Courage to hope, and patience to endure.'

A great part of the remaining lines is easily, but we think somewhat carelessly, turned. The following passage, however, is spirited and judicious :-for Juvenal's lines,

"Multi

Committunt eadem diverso crimina fato.

Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hic diadema:"

Mr. Lewis gives us these:

"Here see with honours crown'd, there whelm'd with grief, The Indian spoiler, and the English thief;

C 4

And

And mark what varying fates their plunders stop,
Who robb'd a nation, and who robb'd a shop.
Rascals alike, by Fortune's wayward sport
One goes to Tyburn, t'other goes to Court;
And while this rogue is doom'd in air to swing,
That for a peerage kneels to thank the King."

We should greatly exceed our limits, were we to extract all the lines which have pleased us, in turning over these pages. Happy passages rise unexpectedly from the general level of the performance: but we also remark occasionally the luxuriance of language which distinguished some of the author's former productions, and which exceeds in our opinion, the limits of just taste. Such is that line in the description of the inward pangs of the guilty:

His burning tears fall inwards on his soul.'

In the whole of this delineation, the original appears again unattainable; particularly in these fine lines;

"Perpetua anxietas nec mensa tempore cessat,

Faucibus ut morbo siccis, INTERQUE MOLARES

DIFFICILI CRESCENTE CIBO:"

Mr. Lewis has here introduced, with very bad effect, a Harpy to tear the untasted food away;' and we think that he has been still more unsuccessful in his imitation of the noble description of the dreams of a delinquent; for the puerile machinery of ghosts and dæmons is far inferior to the sublime and appropriate spectre of Juvenal:

"Nocte brevem si fortè indulsit cura soporem,
Et toto versata toro jam membra quiescunt,
Continuò templum, & violati Numinis arás,
Et (quod pracipuis mentem sudoribus urget)

Te videt in somnis. TUA SACRA ET MAJOR IMAGO
HUMANA turbat pavidum, cogitque fateri.”

Next mark, my friend, his slumbers !—If Repose
Lists to his suit, and bids his eye-lids close,
Mark what convulsions heave, his martyr'd breast,
And frequent starts, and heart-drawn sighs attest,

Though Nature grants him sleep, that Guilt denies him rest.
Now groans of tortur'd ghosts his ear affright;
Now ghastly phantoms dance before his sight;
And now he sees (and screams in frantic fear)
To size gigantic swell'd thy angry shade appear.
Swift at thy summons rush with hideous yell
Their prey to seize the Denizens of hell!
Headlong they hurl him on some ice-rock's point,
Mangle cach limb, and dislocate each joint;
Or plunge him deep in blue sulphureous lakes;
Or lash his quivering flesh with twisted snakes;

}

Of

Or in his brain their burning talons dart;
Or from his bosom rend his panting heart,
To bathe their fiery lips in guilty gore!

Then starts he from his couch, while dews of horror pour
Down his dank forehead-wrings his hands, and prays to
sleep no more.'

We cried out with Polonius, " this is too long," before we had run through half of these lines. The licentious use of the Alexandrines, and the unmeasured quantity of the concluding line, certainly weaken where they were meant to invigorate, Lest the reader, however, should apply our exclamation to this review of the poem, we shall here close our remarks; having fully exemplified the beauties as well as the defects of Mr. Lewis's poetry.

ART. V. Letters of a Traveller, on the various Countries of Eu. rope, Asia, and Africa; containing Sketches of their present State, Government, Religion, Manners, and Customs, with some original Pieces of Poetry: edited by Alexander Thomson, M.D. 8vo. pp. 520.. 78. Boards. Wallis, &c. 1798.

THE

HE editor, or author, of this publication has chosen for his lucubrations a field not less extensive than the whole of the antient continent: but we must remark that the subjects mentioned in the title-page attract very little of his attention, which is much more frequently engaged in describing palaces, tham in delineating the manners and politics of their inhabitants. Some of the countries described, he informs us, he visited in person; and, in treating of the others, he professes to adopt the latest accounts of the most intelligent travellers.

To read again what it is sufficient to read once; to view a brief and unsatisfactory representation of what had previously been exhibited with clearness and vivacity; to be told, with sententious gravity, that of which nobody is ignorant; form part of the lot of a reviewer; and to that lot we have submitted on this as on many other occasions. With the most patient obsequiousness, we have followed this traveller from the inhospitable shores of Greenland, to the southern extremity of Africa: we have again been amused with the well-known process of whale-fishery; again have stared at enormous Krakens disporting in the Norwegian ocean; and again have shuddered at the fatal vortex of Malestrom. With the devotion of a pilgrim, we have once more visited the principal buildings consecrated to religious worship; the church of St. Peter's, and even St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, have again been brought under our inspection; and, if we have not counted the pillars, we have at least verified the dimensions. The mo

numents

Fer!