that it argues extreme narrowness of mind, unworthy of the fpirit of philofophy, not to extend our views and enquiries beyond the circle of thofe objects about which natural philofophy is converfant, which terminate in gaining a knowledge of the vifible fyftem of nature; and that it behoves us to confider whether the great Author of nature has not afforded us fufficient data for knowledge infinitely more interefting to us, more immediately respecting our relation to himself, and his gracious provifion for our improvement and happiness, not only in this infancy of our being, but to a period which has no bounds." We cannot help taking the liberty to obferve, that the above and fubfequent paffages of Dr. Priestley's preface do, by no means, tend to clear him of the imputation of which he complains, and about which he seems so folicitous to be freed. His declaration that he has more hopes of unbelievers than of bigots might not appear exceptionable, if it were not well known that Dr. P. looks upon a rigid attachment to orthodoxy as bigotry. Believers in the doctrines, which the established church hold to be effential to christianity, are, with Dr. P. and his brother philofophers, bigots: what his unbelievers can be, it is hard to guefs, if they stop short of downright atheifm. And yet of fuch he has more hopes than of bigots. While Dr. Priestley "fatters himself, yet doubts if it be any flattery, that there is not, in the whole compafs of philofophical writing, a history of experiments fo truly ingenuous as his own," it would be well if he would, without flattery, be as ingenuous a divine as he flatters himself he is a philofopher. Or perhaps we are wrong; the Doctor is more prudential and knows better; it might not be fo well for him, to be as ingenuous in theological matters as in philosophical. Seriously, if he be tenacious of ingenuoufness of character, it behoves him, after fo frank and full a declaration of his belief of the natural mortality of the foul, to make a formal recantation of many things he has afferted in various parts of his other writings. In his Inftitutes of Religion, for instance, he has an intire volume on the evidences of chriftianity, in which he again tells us, "he flatters himself he has placed several parts of it in a new and stronger light, and this from inclination only, without a fhadow of intereft to biafs him.-Ah! Doctor! Doctor! it may not be the shadow of intereft that can biass many men, who prudently push on, right forward, in purfuit of the fubftance. Even the temporal value of a religious reputation is in fome circumftances too great to be facrificed to fpiritual fpeculations. In your prefent more fecular situation you might venture, as you it has been moft ably supported by the prefent excellent bishop of Carlisle, and is now generally adopted by rational chriftians. The opinion of the natural immortality of the foul, had its origin in the heathen philofophy; and having, with other pagan notions, infinuated itself into christianity (which has been miferably depraved by this means) has been the great fupport of the popish doctrines of purgatory, and the worship of the dead. have, * have, to go greater lengths: but you must think believers credulous indeed, who can conceive you serious in fuppofing unbelievers may be converted to chriftianity by fuch flimfy arguments as the following. "Let philofophers, as certainly becomes their character, confider fats, and the phenomena of the human mind, as influenced by facts, and it muft appear to them to be utterly incredible, that chriftianity fhould have arifen, have been propagated, and have established itself in the world, in the circumftances in which all history fhews that it did arise, and was propagated, if it had not been founded on truth and fact; fuch facts as are strictly the subject of historical investigation. "The common objection against religion among philofophers is, that it was invented by artful interested priests, or wife magiftrates : but it is not fact that chriftianity had any fuch origin. No prieft was concerned in the invention of it, nor did any civil magiftrate fofter it : but, on the contrary, it was violently oppofed by all priefls, and all magiftrates, wherever it appeared, and by its own evidence it triumphed over both. These are facts worthy the attention of philofophers, as fuch." They are so, and yet there is another fact that will puzzle a man of as much tommon fense as is in the poffeffion of any philofopher. This is, that an ingenious writer fhall pretend to confiftency, while he gives up the natutal immortality of the foul, and with it every philofophical argument in favour of a future state, and yet, without calling in the aid or even admitting the neceffity of the operation of divine grace, will fuppofe philofophical confiderations alone fufficient to induce an infidel to believe the truth of revelation, and its teftimony in favour of futurity. But to take leave of our author's preface, and come to his work itfelf; which confifts, as well of new experiments and obfervations on various kinds of air, as of feveral before published in the philofophical tranfactions. As an introduction to the whole, he has prepared an account of an additional apparatus for making fuch experiments, and of the precautions proper to be attended to in the use of it. The subjects particularly in the first fourteen fections are as thus laid down in the table of contents. "Section 1. Of vitriolic acid air.-Sect. 2. Of vegetable acid air. -Sec. 3. Of dephlogisticated air, and of the constitution of the atmofphere.-Sect. 4. A more particular account of fome proceffes for the production of dephlogisticated air.-Sect. 5. Mifcellaneous obfervations on the properties of dephlogisticated air.-Sect. 6. Of air procured from various fubftances by means of heat only.-Sect. 7. "Of air produced by the folution of vegetable fubftances in spirit of nitre. Sect. 8. Ofair procured by the folution of animal fubftances in fpirit of nitre.-Sect. 9. Mifcellaneous experiments relating to nitre, the nitrous acid and nitrous air.-Se&t. 10. Some obfervations on common air.-Sect. 11. Of the fluor acid air.-Sect. 12. Experiments and obfervations relating to fixed air.-Sect. 13. Miscellaneous VOL. III. с obferva obfervations.-Sect. 14. Experiments and obfervations on charcoal, first published in the philofophical tranfactions, vol. LX. p. 211. In the fifteenth fection introduces the substance of his pamphlet before printed, on the impregnation of water with fixed air. This he divides into three parts. In the firft, giving an history of the discovery, in which among other important circumstances, we are made acquainted with the discoverer's intimacy with the duke of Northumberland, Sir George Saville, &c. with the great deference and civility fhewn him by Lord Sandwich, the board of admiralty, and the college of phyficians. "In the fecond part are given directions for impregnating water with fixed air.-Sect. 1. The preface to the directions as first published. Sect. 2. The directions, preparations, process and obferva tions." In part III. are given Dr, Noorth's objections to the preceding method of impregnating water with fixed air, and a comparison of it with his own method, both as published by himself and improved by Mr. Parker. "In the fixteenth and feventeenth fections are given an account of fome mifreprefentations of the author's fentiments, and of fome differences of opinion with refpect to the fubject of air, and experiments relating to fome of the preceding fections, made fince, they were printed off." An appendix contains the following papers. "Number I. Experiments and obfervations relating to fome of the chemical properties of the fluid, commonly called fixed air; and tending to prove, that it is merely the vapour of a particular acid. In two letters to the rev. Dr. Priestley. By William Bewly. "Numb. II. A letter from Dr. Percival, F. R. S. and S. A. to the rev. Dr. Priestley, on the folution of ftones of urinary and of the gall bladder, by water impregnated with fixed air. "Numb. III. A letter from Dr. Dobfon of Liverpool, to Dr. Priestley. "Numb. IV. Extract of a letter from John Warren, M. D. of Taunton, to Dr. Priestley, with a medical cafe, proving the use of glyfters of fixed air in a putrid disease." We To the whole is added, a general index to the two volumes of experiments, which Dr. Priestley has published on this curious fubject. Our readers will, we dare fay, readily excufe us from quoting any of the particular experiments, as it would afford the generality of them little inftruction and lefs amusement. cannot difmifs these volumes however, without most earnestly recommending them to fuch as make philofophical enquiries their purfuit, and are qualified to judge of improvements in the knowedge of nature. ART. 1 ART. III. The Lufiad; or the Discovery of India. An Epic Poem. Tranflated from the Original Portuguese of Luis de Camoens. By William Julius Mickle, 4to. Continued from page 513. Vol. II. To the life of the author, given in our laft appendix, the tranflator, in his introduction adds the following facts and reflections. Soon after the death of Camoens, fo neglected during his life, a number of epitaphs were written in honour of his memory. "The greatnefs of his merit, fays he, was univerfally confeffed, and his Lufiad was tranflated into various languages *. Nor ought it to be omitted, that the man fo miferably neglected by the weak king Henry, was earneftly enquired after by Philip of Spain, when he affumed the crown of Lisbon. When Philip heard that Camoens was dead, both his words and his countenance expreffed his disappointment and grief. "From the whole tenor of his life, and from that spirit which glows throughout the Lufiad, it evidently appears that the courage and manners of Camoens flowed from true greatnefs and dignity of foul. Though his polished converfation † was often courted by the great, he appears fo diftant from fervility, that his imprudence in this refpect is by fome highly blamed. Yet the inftances of it by no means deferve that feverity of cenfure with which fome writers have condemned him. Unconfcious of the feelings of a Camoens, they knew not that a careleffnefs in fecuring the fmiles of fortune, and an open honefty of indignation, are almost infeparable from the enthu fiafm of fine imagination. The truth is, the man poffeffed of true genius feels his greatest happiness in the purfuits and excurfions of the mind, and therefore makes an estimate of things, very different from that of him whofe unremitting attention is devoted to his external interest. The profufion of Camoens is alfo cenfured. Had According to Gedron, a second edition of the Lufiad appeared in the fame year with the firft. There are two Italian and four Spanish translations of it. An hundred years before Caftera's verfion it appeared in French. Thomas de Faria, Bp. of Targa in Africa, tranflated it into Latin, and printed it without either his own or the name of Camoens: a mean but vain attempt to pass his verfion upon the public as an original. Le P. Niceron fays there were two other Latin translations. It is tranflated alfo into Hebrew with great elegance and spirit by one Luzzetto, a learned and ingenious Jew, author of several poems in that language, and who, about thirty years ago died in the Holy Land. + Camoens has not escaped the fate of other eminent wits. Their ignorant admirers contrive anecdotes of their humour, which in reality difgrace them. Camoens, it is faid, one day heard a potter finging fome of his verfes in a miferable mangled manner, and by way of retaliation, broke a parcel of his earthen ware. Friend, faid he, you deftroy my verfes and I deftroy your goods." The fame foolish story is told of Ariofto; nay, we are even informed, that Rinaldo's speech to his horfe in the first book, Ferma Baiardo mio, &c. was the paffage miftuned; and that on the potter's complaint, the injured poet re- he he diffipated the wealth he acquired at Macao, his profufion indeed had been criminal; but it does not appear that he ever enjoyed any other opportunity of acquiring independence. But Camoens was unfortunate, and the unfortunate man is viewed through the dim fhade his fate cafts o'er him : Never had been defcried Yet after the ftricteft difcuffion, when all the causes are weighed together, the misfortunes of Camoens will appear the fault and difgrace of his age and country, and not of the man. His talents would have fecured him an apartment in the palace of Auguftus, but fuch talents are a curfe to their poffeffor in an illiterate nation. After all,、 however, if he was imprudent on his first appearance at the court of John III. if the honefty of his indignation led him into great imprudence, as certainly it did, when at Goa he fatyrifed the Viceroy and the first Goths in power; yet let it also be remembered, that The gifts of imagination bring the heaviest task upon the vigilance of reafon; and to bear thofe faculties with unerring rectitude or invariable propriety, requires a degree of firmness and of cool attention, which doth not always attend the higher gifts of the ⚫ mind. Yet difficult as nature herfelf feems to have rendered the tafk of regularity to genius, it is the fupreme confolation of dullnefs and of folly to point with Gothic triumph to thofe exceffes. which are the overflowings of faculties they never enjoyed Per⚫fectly unconscious that they are indebted to their ftupidity for the confiftency of their conduct, they plume themfelves on an imaginary virtue, which has its origin in what is really their difgrace.Let fuch, if fuch dare approach the fhrine of Camoens, withdraw to a respectful diftance; and fhould they behold the ruins of genius, ⚫ or the weakness of an exalted mind, let them be taught to lament, ⚫ that nature has left the noblest of her works imperfect.' After bestowing an eulogium on poetry in general, Mr. Mickle proceeds to defend that of Camoens, and particularly the Lufiad, from the depreciating criticism of Voltaire, who has moft egregiously misreprefented and affected to turn into ridicule, the conduct and machinery of this Portuguese poem. He obferves, that our countryman Lord Kaimes, mifled by that fuperficial and volatile French critic, has done Camoens equal injuftice. We fhall felect for this part of our tranflator's introduction the following short paragraph, to which are fubjoined, the accompanying annotations. "The poem of Camoens, indeed, fo fully vindicates itself, that this defence of it perhaps may feem unneceffary. Yet one confideration will vindicate this defence. The poem is written in a language unknown in polite literature. Few are able to judge of the original, and the unjust clamour raised against it by Rapin and Voltaire, has * It is an unhappy thing to write in an unread tongue. Never was author fo mireprefented by ignorance as the poet of Portugal. Rapin, that cold-blooded critic, |