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fhortest and plaineft Manner, and fupported by Examples, all taken from Cicero. Proper to be perufed and learnt by Heart, by young People who have acquired a fufficient Knowledge of the Syntax. To which is added, a very concife Treatife on Numbers, thewing in the fulleft Light, the Way of expreffing them in Latin. With the Roman Manner of counting the Days of Months. By A. De Burcy. 12mo. I s. 6d. Printed for the Author. Sold by Fielding and Walker.

This work is divided into five chapters. The first confifts of fuch general rules as were reducible under no particular head; the fecond is confined to nouns; the third to pronouns; the fourth to verbs; and the fifth to conjunctions, prepofitions, adverbs, and other particles. The rules are drawn up with perfpicuity and brevity, and in general, are judiciously exemplified. There are fome, however, which we think not altogether unexceptionable; thofe we mean, in which the young pupil is taught, that words are fometimes added in Latin merely for the fake of ornament. In this point, we apprehend the Writer to be mistaken. Whatever is merely ufelefs, can never by good writers be confidered as ornamental. It is poffible, indeed, that in a dead language, there will fometimes be shades of meaning, too faint to strike the eye of a modern obferver. Yet we may affure ourfelves, that what may now appear to be altogether expletive, was originally intended to give fulness to the fenfe as well as harmony to the period, either to add energy to the expreffion, or to render it more emphatical. That this, indeed, was the cafe, is obvious from many of the examples which Mr. De Burcy introduces as proving the contrary.

The Treatife on nouns of number will be very useful to young beginners, who generally find the Latin numerals extremely perplexing.

Art. 43. Inftitutes of Arithmetic, elementary and practical; defigned as a Text-Book, for the Ufe of Schools. By William Gordon, Author of the Univerfal Accountant. 12mo. 2 s. Edinburgh printed London fold by Richardfon and Urquhart. 1779. There is a kind of claffical elegance, if we may fo exprefs ourfelves, in the method ufed throughout this book, which is not only new, but pleafing alfo. The definitions and rules are brief, clear, and distinct: but, as a fchool-book, we cannot help thinking, that there is a deficiency in the number of examples; unlefs we are to fuppofe it intended for youth of a riper age, than that at which with ùs they usually set to learn arithmetic.

SERMO N.

1. The Magiftrate's Duty with respect to Vice and Immorality, fet forth, -By a Minister of the established Church. 8vo. 6 d. 1779. Sold by Evans in Pater-nofter-row.

Whether this fermon was preached, or if preached, at what place, does not appear; it is, however, feasonably offered to the confideration of the public, particularly thofe to whom it is immediately addreffed, viz. all the magiftrates of the kingdom.

After confidering the magiftrate's duty to punish vice, and enumerating several irregularities, which call for his particular regard;

5.

fome

fome objections to the exertion of his authority for this purpole, åre anfwered; and among the reft, the common, but often futile plea, that the magiftrate is not called to act, unless fome complaint is brought before him.

This Writer infifts, that there are feveral cafes in which it is the magistrate's duty to vifit fufpected places, and fearch out offenders. He obferves particularly, that the legislature has laid a pecuniary penalty on mayors, theriffs, &c. for not fearching places fufpected of unlawful games. On the whole, it is to be doubted, that there are magiftrates, who might profit (in the virtuous fenfe of the word) by a careful attention to the reprefentations and advice delivered in this ufeful fermon.

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the AUTHORS of the MONTHLY REVIEW. GENTLEMEN,

Correfpondent in your laft, p. 399. maintains from Bingham,

A that the ufe of organs came into the church fince the time

of Thomas Aquinas, anno 1250, and that they were introduced into churches by Martinus Sanutus, àbout the year 1290." But I think I can trace them at least a hundred years higher, on the authority of Gervas, the Monk of Canterbury, who wrote about the year 1194. In his defcription of Lanfranc's church, as it was before the fire in 1174, he has these words, "Crux aufiralis fupra fornicem organa geftare folebat *." And the ornamental foundation of this organ loft, being a projection faced with wainscotting painted, on which are the figures of St. Auguftine and St. Gregory, may ftill be feen in that cathedral, over St. Michael's chapel, and is described by Mr. Goftling, in his ingenious Walk,' p. 238. fecond edition. Yours, &c. CANTUARIENSIS.

... We have read our worthy and learned Correfpondent's letter, concerning the Doctrine of the Eternity of Hell Torments, with atWhat we advanced upon tention, but not with conviction. that fubject, in the Article concerning Bishop Pearce's Sermons, was not haftily thrown out; but was the refult of long and deep enquiry and reflection. We cannot, however, as Reviewers, enter into private controverfies. If our Correfpondent fhould refolve to lay his fentiments before the Public, we shall give them a candid and impartial confideration.

+++ J. D.'s letter, relative to the want of a GENERAL INDEX to all the volumes of the MONTHLY REVIEW, has afresh excited our attention to that defign; concerning which we shall speedily come to a final determination.

** Mr. Knox's Essays, Moral and Literary, Vol. II. in our next.

• Decem Scriptores, p. 1293.

APPENDIX

TO THE

MONTHLY REVIEW.

VOLUME the SIXTY-FIRST.

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

ART. I.

Voyage Pittorefque de la Grece. Chap. IV.-Travels through the dif
ferent Parts of Greece, reprefented in a Series of Engravings.
Large Folio. No. IV. Paris. 1779.
T may be faid of this

noble and elegant work, that it ac

new

advances; mobilitate viget. The XXXIId plate, which begins. this fourth part, contains a general chart of the ifle of Paros, one of the most celebrated of the clufter called the Cyclades. Its opulence and population gave it a confiderable afcendant over the neighbouring iflands. Attacked in vain by Miltiades, conquered by Themiftocles, poffeffed by Mithridates, and delivered up to the Romans, in consequence of the victorious arms of Sylla and Lucullus, it became the property of a noble Venetiant after the deftruction of the Roman empire, was afterwards invaded by the fucceffors of Mahomet, and fubdued by Barbaroffa, in the reign of Soliman II. The remains of its ancient opulence and grandeur, which still ftrike the eye of the curious traveller, are rich, precious, and interefting. Columns, ftatues, cornices, architraves, of noble workmanship are difcernible, in great abundance, in the walls of modern buildings, where they are lavifhed without tafte, and placed without any order or arrangement. There is an old caftle in this ifland, built of no other materials than the ruins of the most magnificent ancient edifices. Paros was the native country of Archi

See our account of No. III. in the laft Appendix, vol. Ix., page 509. Numbers I. and II. were mentioned in former Reviews.. + Mark Sanudo.

APP. Rev. Vol. Ixi.

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locus,

locus, the Aretin of ancient times, of Agoracrites, the difciple. of Phidias, and of Polignotes, Arcefilas, and Nicanor, who carried the art of encauftic painting to a confiderable degree of perfection. This island is also famous for having furnished the Arundel marbles, which comprehend the principal epochas of Grecian hiftory, from Cecrops to Alexander; and which are juftly confidered as one of the nobleft literary ornaments of the univerfity of Oxford.

The XXXIIId plate represents a Grecian dance at Paros.The XXXIVth the entrance of a marble quarry, in which an ancient baffo-relievo is placed, exhibiting a Bacchanal figure, ill executed. The XXXVth, which contains an accurate plan of the harbour of Nauffa, where the Ruffians affembled their main force in the laft war, furnishes our Author with an opportunity of entertaining the military reader with details relative to the art of war.

The XXXVIth and the two following plates represent the entrance of the grotto of Anti-Paros, its geometrical plan and dimenfions, and a view of its infide. This famous grotto, which, at this time, is fuch an interefting object to the naturalift, feems to have been unknown to the ancients, whom terror, perhaps, reftrained from founding its depth, which fome fuppofe to be above 250 feet. The inhabitants of the island never attempted to defcend into it before the year 1673, when M. de Nointel, the French Ambaffador at Conftantinople, went down, with a great part of his retinue, and other travellers, and had mafs celebrated in the lowest apartment of that vaft cavern: the altar, employed on this occafion, was a ftalagmite, whofe height was 24 feet, and its bafe 20 feet diameter. Our Author had also the curiofity to undertake the formidable defcent, and he defcribes, with the pen of a naturalift and a painter, the manner in which thofe maffes of cryftallization, which we find delineated in the XXXVIIth plate, are formed and augmented in their fize and dimenfions. The ftalactites (like icicles, which during the winter hang from rocks that had been overflowed by the fwelling torrents) grow and extend inceffantly, in length, the conic figure, which they always derive from the mechanifm of their formation; while the drops that fall from them, when the filtration is abundant, form falagmites at the bottom of the cavern,, which rifing in a contrary direction, exhibit, at first, a range of columns, and at length joining the ftalaЯites, unite with them in one folid mafs. Notwithstanding the zealous curiofity of our noble and very ingenious Author, M. de CHOISEUL, to get at the extremity of this fubterraneous cavern, he could not engage the inhabitants of the island to affist him in this perilous enterprize, They told him that a goat, which

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went aftray in the grotto, after wandering a long time, cam out in the ifle of Nio. This ftory, however improbable, excited ftill more his curiofity; but he could not fatisfy it.

In the XXXVIIIth plate we have a view of the village of St. George in the island of Sciros; and in the XXXIXth a map of that ifland, in which Lycomedes is faid to have reigned, when Thefeus, driven from his dominions, fought there a retreat, and perifhed miferably in the attempt. The fuperftition of the inhabitants is ftill more exceffive than that of the other Greeks in the Archipelago; it is nourished by the Monks of the convent of St. George, which are a colony of the monaftic republic of Mount Athos. The fuperior of this convent, who is always fent from Mount Athos, governs the ifle of Sciros defpotically, and strikes terror into the inhabitants by an image of his faint, which performs wonders of divination and vindictive juftice; and thus draws ample contributions from the multitude. This convent is furrounded by 365 chapels, whofe faints are a heavy burthen upon the laborious inhabitants.

The XLth plate reprefents the inhabitants of the island of Lemnos, the celebrated forge of Vulcan, in ancient times.-It is natural to think that a volcano, or collection of fubterraneous fire, gave occafion to this fable; and, in effect, our Author found, throughout Greece, evident veftiges of the defolations produced by fubterraneous fires, feveral of which burn ftill. But who would have thought, that the Iliad and Odyffey are nothing but the facred and fymbolical books of the priests of Siris (in Lucania); and that their Heroes and Deities are allegorical beings, defigned to reprefent the difafters produced in the territory of Troy by fubterraneous fires, which had before manifefted their terrors in feveral parts of Greece! This new piece of critical, or rather volcanic interpretation, is announced by our Author, as the invention of a Mr. Ciro Saverio Minervino, a learned Neapolitan, who has undertaken to prove it clearly in a work compofed exprefsly for that purpofe,-nay, who intends alfo to demonftrate that Homer was a fabulous being, and that the word Homer is no more than the title of the books, which have been attributed to him.-This propenfity to torment the immortal Author of the Iliad is not new. He has already paffed through the hands of the chymifts, who have pretended to difcern, in his works, all the fecret operations of their art, even the tranfmutation of metals; and he has been made, by fome allegorical theologians, the myftical painter of the events of the Chriftian church, and of the miracles of its founder.This method of interpreting is fimilar to that of thofe divines and critics in Holland, who follow a certain Cocceius; one of whom, fome time ago, fpiritualized, in this manner, the labours of Hercules a making this hero pafs for Jefus Chrift, Alcmena for the Virgin

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Mary,

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