cenfure of the recent and ftrange pretenfions of the latter. In a word, this difcourfe does ample credit to the abilities of the preacher. Art. 58. The Example of our Enemies a Leffon of national Abafement and Reformation to ourselves, at Yeovil, by George Beaver, B. D. Rector of Trent, in the County of Somerfet; and West Stratford, cum Frome Billet, Dorfet. 4to. 1s. Baldwin. We meet with fo many indications of narrowness of mind, and of bigotry of fentiment, in our faft-day fermons, that when we turn over the pages of a difcourfe that is free from imperfections of that disgraceful kind, we are ready to exclaim, "Well done! thou that haft done no ill!"-In Mr. B.'s difcourfe, we fee nothing reprehenfible; on the contrary, there is ample room for commendation; particularly where the preacher cautions his hearers against depending on a formal deprecating of God's wrath, &c.' and takes notice of the apparently little effect of thofe periodical folemnities, which feem to be too generally regarded as an eafy method of entering into a compofition with the Almighty for the fins of a whole nation, &c.' Art. 59. The Times, &c. preparatory to the Public Fast.-By W. Gilbank, M. A. Rector of St. Ethelburga, London. 4to. 15. Robfon, &c. Mr. Gilbank's fat fermon is to be chiefly regarded as a zealous philippic against the French; the honeft preacher, however, does not forget his own countrymen, but tells them, as the vulgar phrafe goes, a little of their own." Fafts,' fays he, have been proclaimed with all the devotion that could fanctify the occafion: the people have been called to meet in folemn affembly, to humble themselves before God, and to acknowlege their errors: but has there afterward been seen any fign of true repentance? Is there any where lefs anxiety fhewn in the purfuit of wealth? Is the intemperate thirst after diftinction and preeminence at all abated? Is expenfive or criminal pleafures become lefs an object than before? Have the obligations of conjugal fidelity been better obferved? Has the extravagant rage for diffipation at all fubfided? Has there in any clafs of people appeared a greater regard for religion, or a ftricter attendance on religious worship? In short, have we much reafon to fuppofe that we are not, by our multiplied tranfgreffions of commiffion and omiffion, almost as much the objects of Divine vengeance as our neighbours?' Every reader, who is in any tolerable degree a competent obferver of the " figns of the times," will be ready, without much hesitation, to give a proper anfwer to the foregoing home-put queftions. Art. 60. at Henley on Thames. By the Rev. Edward Barry, M. D. 4to. IS. Parfons, &c. There is a peculiarity of caft in this difcourfe, (fomewhat difficult to defcribe,) in which the preacher carefully avoids the common ftyle of declamation refpecting the war, and the wickedness of the French; confining himself chiefly to fuch notice as he thinks proper to take of our national and private iniquities. There are many good things in his remarks and admonitions; though, as we must be free to add, we have met with nothing equal, in point of excellence, to the 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th verfes of the lviii. chapter of Ifaiah, with which Mr. Barry's discourse is very properly introduced by way of text. • SIR, CORRESPONDENCE. To the EDITOR of the MONTHLY REVIEW. Framlingham, April 8, 1795. IN your Review (February, p. 191,) of the Marquis de Cafaux on the Effects of Taxes, you quote him as affirming that, towards the clofe of the last century, viz. from 1688 to 1697, wheat was fome few pence more than 50s. a quarter; and adducing it, (with the amount of the whole produce of England and the price of labour in that period, compared with the price of corn and produce of the land from 1744 to 1780,) as an irrefragable proof of the benefit of taxes, and that the united enjoyments of the land owners and labourers have actually increafed very confiderably in the latter period. Had bis affirmation fet forth a real fact, the inference drawn from it would not, in my apprehenfion, neceffarily follow; for the high or low price of wheat at any given period may be entirely owing to the feafon and confequent ftate of the crop, the farmer being better able in a plentiful year to fell his grain for a fmall price, than after fuch a harveft as the last for more than double the fame fum, when the average quantity of wheat, (at leaft in thefe parts,) appears to have fallen much below four coombs per acre. But the affirmation is, I believe, falfe and groundless, and the argument drawn from it in favour of taxes, and horrid war, altogether inconclufive. I beg leave to confront with it the ftatement of the price of wheat in that period given by that accurate obferver, Mr. Samuel Sag of Westminster, in a letter to Dr. Short of Sheffield, accompanying a copy of his journal of the weather, which commenced with the year 1695. The letter is dated Feb. 1744. Mr. Say writes," I think I can remember that the feafons were kindly to the fruits of the earth, the latter end of the reign of K. James, and the beginning of K. William's. I fee under the hand of a perfon on whofe relation I can depend, that wheat fold for 28. the bufhel only, by the quarter, at Yarmouth market in the year 1688." [Mr. Say had in his poffeffion the books and papers of his uncle, Mr. N. Carter, a confiderable merchant in that place.] "The spring was very mild and forward the year 1690, and wheat only 2s. 6d. the bufhel that year, and other proportions agreeable. From 1691 to the end of 92, I boarded at Norwich for 111. per ann. in a good family; and, if I mistake not, the following winter of 169 was very fevere;-" which is in general a prelude to a favourable wheat harvest. I leave it to the Marquis, and others, to reconcile his affertion, that wheat was fomewhat more than 50s. per quarter from 1688 to 1697, with Mr. Say's statement of the fact, that it was only from 16s. to 20s. in 1688 and 90, and that he had reafon to think it to have been plentiful and cheap the four following years, at leaft in 91 and 92, when he boarded in a good family in the city of Norwich for 11l. per annum. Not taxes, but the earth's fruitfulness, kept wheat at fo low a price during thefe years, and a fucceffion of unfavourable weather in 1695 and the following years raifed it to a much higher pitch in 1698 than stated by the Marquis, viz. 72s. to 80s. per. quarter; but though, from the wetnefs of the autumn in 1698, there was but half a crop fown, yet in 1699, from the heat and feasonableness of the fummer, wheat fell to a reafonable price, and continued fo for feveral years. 'From • From this account, it seems just to conclude that the Marquis's statement of the price of wheat, at the firft period mentioned, must be materially erroneous, and that the great increase of it in 1698 was entirely owing to a remarkable badnefs of the feafon. In the other period, the variation in price in different years was nearly as great, according to the feafons, and not as influenced by the taxes. His arguments in favour of them may be fpecious, but they are too contrary to the common sense and feelings of mankind to prove convincing. SIR, 'S. S. TOMS.' To the EDITOR of the MONTHLY REVIEW. HAVING feen in your Correfpondence of laft month that Mr. T G. in juftification of his having omitted my name, as the original author, in his tranflation of the Tour to the Pennine Alps and Defcrip tion of Nice, acquaints you that he purchased these works of me, four years ago, I must requeft you, in order to clear this matter to the public, to infert in your next publication, that when T.G. applied to me for the purchafe of the plates belonging to thofe books, he affured me that they were merely to be coloured and framed for exportation; and as T. G. did not introduce himself to me as either author or book. feller, on thefe conditions only I parted with them. "The prefent being a true state of the cafe, I defy T. G. to prove, that he ever purchased of me the copy right, although it is certain, that at the time I parted with the plates, I made him a prefent of a few of the remaining copies. looking on them as ufelefs; intending, as the introduction to my defcription of Nice (which he has likewife omitted) formed the public, to enlarge that defcription with a fequel of obfervations, &c. on that country at a future period, and which I have now perfectly completed in my prefent book on the Maritime Alps, &c. and which I flatter myself will foon appear before the public. My caufe of complaint does not however entirely originate from the tranflation of thofe works; but from their having been done without my confent or knowledge; and the fuppreffion of my name, which laft amiffion I have moft forcibly felt, from the idea of its being particularly unjuft, thofe books having met with the most flattering indulgence from men of tafte and science in this country. South Molton-street, April 9, 1795 'I am, Sir, Your moft obedient humble fervant, We have received a long letter from Mr. Anftice, in which he mentions certain practical obfervations, and cites fome authorities, that furnish, he prefumes, an argument or an apology for his revi ving the famous controverfy about the eftimation of mechanical force. The principles which we explained on the occafion of examining his late pamphlet were fufficient, we thought, to fatisfy every reafonable doubt which might be entertained on that head: but the novelty of fome of the doctrines then advanced, and the concifenefs at which we commonly aim, have perhaps prevented several of our readers from fully comprehending our views. We shall therefore refume the fubject, and beftow a few reflections on the material paffages of Mr. Anftice's letter.. • See Review, vol. xv. p. 465. It It is now very generally admitted by philofophers, that the noted controversy about the force of moving bodies was at bottom a difpute of words. The loose and undefined acceptation of the terms action, effect, performance, &c. in mechanics, proved the fource of endless debate. A queftion in reality fo nugatory affords not a fingle conclufion applicable to practice. Both parties agreed on the fundamental principle of dynamics: but the followers of Leibnitz were guilty of inconfiftency in fuperadding an arbitrary proposition. To fhew that the Newtonian doctrine does not anfwer, fo well as the Leibnitzian, the purpose of the practical mechanic, Mr. Anftice defcribes the machine ufed in founderies for breaking caft-iron, &c. It confifts of a ball of iron of one hundred weight, which is raised by manual labour to the height of 64 feet, where it is difengaged and fuffered to fall on a pig or bar of that brittle metal, which by its velocity it is juft fufficient to break. Now this ball is raised to the above height by the exact fame mufcular labour and in the fame time, as would be requifite to raise a ball of 4 cwt. 16 feet by using any of the mechanic powers. But what will be the efforts in this cafe to break the iron? In the former, the velocity at the moment of percuffion will be as 8, in the latter 4, which, according to the Newtonian doctrine, will produce a momentum in the one as 8 by 18, in the other as 4 by 416, with this advantage attending the latter, that, although it be raised by the fame power in the fame time, it will fall when difengaged in half the time which the former will require. Therefore, by the Newtonian account, there will be great waite of labour, unless the weight of the ball be altered to the greateft, and the height through which it is raised to the leaft, which the given power, as to exertion and time, will admit of.' It is to be observed that neither the Leibnitzian nor the Newtonian doctrine is adequate to the explanation of the fact here mentioned. According to the former, for inftance, the effect of the stroke would be the fame if 64 cwt. fell from the height of one foot :-but Mr. Anflice, and every perfon acquainted with practical mechanics, will readily acknowlege that the fubftitution of this flow ponderous mafs will not produce the end defired. The true explication must be derived from the principle which we formerly ftated. The rapidity of the defcending body is fuch as to concentrate the whole action of the ftroke on the contiguous portion of the obftacle, without allowing time for the motion to diffuse itself through the mafs. Hence the fracture is commenced, and is continued by the general tremor which-enfues. A fimilar confideration will obviate another objection which Mr. Anftice proceeds to make. If a fhip break from her moorings by the action of a current moving with the velocity 1, and it be found that a chain of brittle metal be juft fufficient to ftop her if the velocity of the current were 2, it would by the Newtonian doctrine require 2 fuch chains, and by the Leibnitzian 4 fuch, to stop her motion; and as the effects in both cafes would at last appear to be inftantaneous, it would be in vain to urge that the times of action, during the feparation of the metal in thofe inftances, were different.' The affertion at the clofe of this quotation is very hafty and inac Our fenfes are not fufficiently delicate for philofophical obfervation curate. 6 fervation, Motions, whether extremely rapid or extremely flow, elude their difcrimination. In these cases, it is reason or the analogy of facts that must direct our decifions. Were ropes fubftituted for the metallic chains, the progreffive ftraining of their fibres, which ter minates in rupture, would render the interval of time apparent; yet the only difference in the effects confifts in degree. Inftantançous in the ftrict acceptation is abfolutely inconceivable; in ordinary lan guage, it denotes a celerity which outstrips the current of our fenfa. tions. All motion is performed in time: this axiom, although often. neglected, is of most important application in natural philofophy. We advanced that all the modifications of force may be refolved into preffure. To this doctrine Mr. Antice urges the objection that one bard body may prefs, by its gravity, &c. on or against another, during a hundred days, without producing more effect (as to any mechanical purpose) than in one; although, by the above pofition, the force exerted be a hundred degrees more in one cafe than in the other; therefore, caufes and effects cannot here be equal." We would only obferve that abfolute hardness is a mere fiction of theory. All fubftances are condenfible, and differ only in the degree of that qua, lity. The incumbent body will occafion fuch a compreffion as to form a repulfion equal to the weight; and thefe two oppofite forces will maintain perpetual balance. If the weight refted on a spring, Mr. Antice could be at no lofs to conceive our meaning. What has confused or misled our author, and many others who are not exercised in metaphyfical difcuffion, is the crude doctrine delivered in the common books on Natural Philofophy. The treatises written in the English language are particularly defective. We are forry to confefs that mathematical learning has long been on the decline in Great Britain. The memory of paft glories has nourished our va nity and damped our exertions. Supinely proud of our imagined fu periority, we have ceased to cherish the ardent impetuous spirit of refearch. JOINHERIA, and XY Z, muft excufe our non-compliance with their requefts. We really have not time to answer all the applications for literary advice, &c. which are continually made to us." +++ The letter figned An Old Woman' is received. We do not queftion the Lady's veracity. ttt W. D.-Clericus of Leicestershire,-J. W. &c. &c. are under confideration. 1st Several fmall tracts have been tranfmitted to us from certain of the North country Preffes, [Whitehaven, Carlisle, Penrith, &c.] but are unfuitable to our purpose; fome are of a date too remote ; others are not of fufficient confequence. 1 The late Mr. STUART'S Antiquities of Athens, Vol. III. will appear in our next Review. Left. |