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the motion of this circular stream began to languish, and could no longer defend itself from being absorbed by the more violent vortex of the Earth, which was then, too, a Sun, and which chanced to be placed in its neighbourhood. The Moon, therefore, became a Planet, and revolved round the Earth. In process of time, the same fortune, which had thus befallen the Moon, befell also the Earth; its face was encrusted by a gross and inactive substance; the motion of its vortex began to languish, and it was absorbed by the greater vortex of the Sun: but though the vortex of the Earth had thus become languid, it still had force enough to occasion both the diurnal revolution of the Earth, and the monthly motion of the Moon. For a small circular stream may easily be conceived as flowing round the body of the Earth, at the same time that it is carried along by that great occan of ether which is continually revolving round the Sun; in the same manner, as in a great whirlpool of water," one may often sce several small whirlpools, which revolve round centers of their own, and, at the same time are carried round the center of the great one. Such was the cause of the original formation and consequent motions of the Planetary System. When a solid body is turned round its center, those parts of it, which are nearest, and those which are remotest from the center, complete their revolutions in one and the same time. But it is otherwise with the revolutions of a fluid: the parts of it which are nearest the center complete their revolutions in a shorter time, than those which are remoter. The Planets, there fore, all floating in that immense tide of ether which is continually setting in from west to east round the body of the Sun, complete their revolutions in a longer or a shorter time, according to their nearness or distance from him.'

This bold system was eminently fitted to captivate the imagination: it even retarded for a time the triumph of sober and genuine philosophy:-but the spirit of inquiry having now been set afloat, men dared to penetrate the sanctuary of Nature. Facts rapidly accumulated; and as the number of cultivators daily increased, the basis of astronomical theory was improved and defined by the acquisition of correct observations. The study of geometry was prosecuted with the happiest success, and that wonderful science was advanced to a very high pitch of perfection. If Des Cartes introduced centrifugal forces, it was Huygens who perceived the importance of the subject, and investigated the properties with depth and elegance. It would be needless to mention the scientific constellation which graced that active period. Every thing proclaimed an approaching revolution. At length, a genius of the first magnitude arose, the honour of his species, and the peculiar boast of our island, whose comprehensive mind at once grasped the preceding discoveries, gathered the scattered facts into a focus, and finally developed with luminous evidence the sublime system of Nature. Some points in the Newtonian philosophy are explained

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by Dr. Smith with his usual perspicuity; of others he contents himself with a succinct enumeration; and, conscious of the imperfection of this part of his essay, he hastens to a close. The two concluding sentences are striking:

• And even we, while we have been endeavouring to represent all philosophical systems as mere inventions of the imagination, to connect together the otherwise disjointed and discordant phænomena of nature, have insensibly been drawn in, to make use of language expressing the connecting principles of this one, as if they were the real chains with Nature makes use of to bind together her several operations. Can we wonder then, that it should have gained the neral and complete approbation of mankind, and that it should now be considered, not as an attempt to connect in the imagination the phænomena of the Heavens, but as the greatest discovery that ever was made by man, the discovery of an immense chain of the most important and sublime truths, all closely connected together, by one capital fact, of the reality of which we have daily expe

rience.'

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We cannot dismiss this valuable fragment without adding a few cursory remarks. The proposition, which Dr. Smith so beautifully illustrates, does not differ, in the main, from the sentiment commonly entertained; for that which appears specious or plausible is such only because it is accommodated to the usual train of our thoughts. The philosopher judges of the solidity of a scientific theory, in nearly the same way in which the critic estimates the merit of a composition addressed to the fancy. Both of them appeal to the principles of the human mind; and Truth and Beauty, inseparable companions, are derived from kindred sources. The quotation at the beginning of this article very satisfactorily explains the origin of our idea of causation, which consists wholly in the firm conviction that is derived from the experience of the uniform sequence of events. The first statement of a doctrine equally curious and important we owe to the penetration of Mr. Hume, whose admirable essay on Necessary Connexion, an exquisite morsel of reasoning, has produced one of the greatest improve. ments in metaphysical science, by dispelling that air of mystery and abstruseness which enveloped a subject of such peculiar delicacy. The difficulties arose from misconception alone, and it was a very shallow device to fill up the distance between cause and effect by the help of other intermedia. The province of philosophy is to class related objects, and to trace connected events. Whether the observed concatenation proceeds from the appointment of the Deity, or results from the essence of things, is a question not very intelligible, and of which the solution may be freely resigned to the theologian.

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Our intercourse with the East has lately revealed much valuable information, which sets in a new and engaging light the history of science in the antient world. Long before the era of authentic record, Asia was the cradle of astronomy, whether it was cultivated in the genial plains of Hindostan, or in the bleak tracts of Upper Tartary. Its ramifications thence extended to Babylon, to Phoenicia, and to Egypt. During his travels into the East, Pythagoras might obtain some knowlege of the true system of the universe :-but it was necessary to observe a guarded silence, and not to shock the prejudices of the age by a premature disclosure of truths so repugnant to the ordinary apprehensions of men. The opinion of the motion of the earth seems to have been included among the esoteric doctrines of his school, which were imparted only to his chosen auditors, and under the seal of impenetrable secresy. His famous theory concerning the harmony of the spheres (according to the happy conjecture of Condorcet) concealed, under an agreeable fiction, the proportions which regulate the periods and distances of the coelestial bodies. The successors of Pythagoras were not equally cautious; their li beral sentiments exposed them to persecution; the sect was cruelly expelled from Italy; and its tenets degenerated into disrepute and partial oblivion. From the wrecks of astronomical doctrine, the Greeks, a most inventive people, reared an original system, due principally to the capacious genius of Hipparchus.

În describing the judgments of the fancy, and in stating the grounds of its acquiescence with the successive theories, we apprehend that Dr. Smith has sometimes pronounced too decisively. Is it possible to determine à priori what shall appear simple, or consistent, or natural? The train in which our imagination moves is formed by education, habit, and example. The first inquirers would most easily attain the belief of circular and equable motion; this opinion became inveterate through the concurrence of succeeding ages; and it was not relinquished till after the discoveries of Kepler. All the apparatus of Equants, Eccentrics, and Epicycles, was introduced to conciliate the seeming irregularities detected by more precise observations, with a notion so deeply rooted in the imagination. The circle was deemed the image of Divinity, and uniform motion its distinctive attribute. The cœlestial bodies, sublimed from "æthereal mould," could partake nothing of the gross matter of this nether world. It was the system of Des Cartes that boldly overturned those prejudices of the schools, and assimilated the heavens and the earth by an extension of the same machinery.

REV. MAY, 1797

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The superlative merit of Kepler appears not to be sufficiently appreciated by Dr. Smith. If that profound mathematician indulged a fondness for pursuing analogies, he acted conformably (we are persuaded) to the true spirit of inductive philosophy. Feeling that the phænomena of Nature were not insulated facts, he searched with obdurate application for those numerical relations which must pervade the order of things. He tried his various suppositions by the standard of experiment,-by the collection of Tycho Brahe's astronomical observations. The importance of the result justly places him in the rank of the greatest of discoverers; and his talents as a philosopher will not suffer on the comparison with those of Lord Bacon, his contemporary; who delineated the method of advancing the sciences; while Kepler, instinctively tracing the same plan, pushed his investigations with judgment and skill, crowned by the most brilliant success.

[To be concluded in another Article.]

ART. V. The Chase, and William and Helen: two Ballads from the German of Gottfried Augustus Bürger. 4to. pp. 41. 3s. 6d. Boards. Edinburgh printed. Sold by Cadell jun. and Davies, London.

1796.

WE have already given our opinion of the style best adapted to those popular narrations properly termed ballads; which, either being really or imitating the first efforts of poetry in a rude age, when chiefly distinguished by its simple force of expression, and by the natural vividness of its imagery, can ill associate with refinement of phrase, or the polished harmony of exact versification. The abrupt dramatic language of Bürger, filled with interjection and onomatopeia, has been found by its effects wonderfully to suit the wildness of his stories; and those of his translators, who, in their own tongue, have imitated his manner, have, in our judgment, best succeeded. Of the several versions of the ballad of William and Helen which have lately come under our inspection, we were, on this account, most pleased with the first written, but last published, intitled Ellenere, and composed in the form of the old English ballad *; though we were in doubt whether it gained any thing by an imitation of the antient mode of spelling. We have now before us another translation on the same plan, but more modern in its appearance; and we think that, even after so many respectable attempts, it may claim a very considerable share of comparative applause. So generally re

* See the Rev. for February last, p. 186.

sembling,

sembling, indeed, is it to the last-mentioned version, that the author's positive assurances of its composition before that came farther to his knowlege than by the repetition, from memory, of a single couplet, were necessary to efface the idea of imitation; and surely, besides that often repeated couplet, there are several lines almost exactly the same with corresponding lines in the other, only somewhat different in the spelling. Yet we do not mean to represent it as not an entirely new composition; and it has poetical beauties of its own, which sufficiently display the writer's superiority to any idea of servile

or mechanical imitation.

As our readers are probably satiated with that transcription of parallel passages, which we thought useful to enable them to compare the former translations with each other; and as, in the publication before us, this is only one of two pieces which are to be noticed; we shall content ourselves with copying a few stanzas in which there appears to us some novelty of imagery, as well as of diction. The first arrival of William's spectre is thus described:

• Then crash! the heavy draw-bridge fell,

That o'er the moat was hung;

And clatter! clatter! on its boards
The hoof of courser rung.

'The clank of echoing steel was heard

As off the rider bounded;

And slowly on the winding stair

A heavy footstep sounded.

And hark! and hark! a knock-Tap! tap!

A rustling stifled noise ;

Door latch and tinkling staples ring ;

At length a whisp❜ring voice.'

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We now proceed to the other ballad, intitled the Chase; which is the first in order, though we were naturally led to a prior

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