menace of sending ships of war here during the present year did not concern me, but on hearing thy threat to convey me to Okotzk, I believed that thou didst regard me to be as great an impostor as Gorodsee (Leonsaimo)-I could, indeed, scarcely persuade myself that thy lips had uttered such an injury to my honour. For three hundred days thou hadst never spoken an unkind word to me; whilst I, owing to my fiery temperament, had frequently yielded to fits of passion without any cause. But, on this important occasion, anger overcame thy reason, and, in a moment, didst thou dispose ne to become a criminal and a suicide. That a man of my rank should remain a prisoner in a foreign country is repugnant to our national honour: yet thou wouldest reduce me to that condition. I willingly accompanied thee to Kamtschatka; and my government was informed of that circumstance; for I sent a message to Kunashier explaining thy reasons for visiting my ship. The sailors alone were compelled to accompany thee against their inclination. Thou wast the strongest party; but, though my person was in thy power, my life was not at thy disposal. I will now disclose to thee my secret design-I had resolved to commit suicide in case thy purpose remained unchanged! I therefore cut the central tuft of hair from the crown of my head, (he shewed me the bald part from which the hair had been removed,) and laid it in the box which contained the portrait. This, according to our Japanese customs, signifies that he who sends his hair in this manner to his friends has died an honourable death; that is to say, has ript open his bowels. His hair is then buried, with all the ceremonies which would be observed at the interment of his body. Thou callest me friend, and therefore I conceal nothing from thee. So great was my irritation that I would have killed both thee and the senior officer, for the mere satisfaction of afterwards communicating what I had done to thy ship's crew." 'What a strange sense of honour according to European ideas! But the Japanese consider such conduct most magnanimous. The memory of the hero is preserved with respect, and the honour of the deed descends to his posterity. If, on the contrary, he should fail to act in this manner, his children are banished from the place of their birth. Yet I had lived in the same cabin with a man possessing these terrible ideas; and had slept tranquilly near him, in the confidence of perfect security. While shocked by the discovery of the danger from which I had escaped, I could not help asking him why he would have so limited his vengeance, as it was in his power, by setting fire to the magazine, to destroy us all. "No," said he, "what bravery would there have been in that? A coward alone would satiate his revenge in such a manner. Dost thou imagine that I would have killed thee in thy sleep, while I honoured thee as a valiant chief? No! I would have gone more openly to work." On the following day (for we must now hasten to a conclusion) Kachi was set on shore, where, by exhibiting a formal declaration which had been procured, by his advice, from the governor of Irkutzk, that the proceedings of Chwostoff were wholly unautho rized; and bearing testimony to the good disposition which he found among the Russians towards Japan, he succeeded in negociating the liberation of the captives with his tardy and cautious countrymen. On the 22d June Golownin and his companions in misfortune received letters from Captain Rikord; and Alexei and one of the seamen were allowed to visit the ship and return; three days after which, namely, on the 16th August, they were finally set at liberty. All were elated with joy except Moor, whose face was frequently bathed in tears, and who uttered so many incoherent expressions, that the Japanese kept a strict watch over him, apprehensive that distress of mind might tempt him to commit suicide. The kind attention bestowed by Captain Golownin on this unhappy young man, and the feeling manner in which he speaks of his conduct and situation, exhibit his character in a very amiable point of view. If (says he) I unfold his errors, it is not that I wish to dwell on the description of the horrors into which he plunged me and my unfortunate companions. No! may his example prove a warning to all young men whom fate may hereafter overwhelm with misfortunes such as we were doomed to endure. May it serve to convince them, that no wretch is visited by remorse so insufferable as he who renounces his faith and his country. If, like the unhappy Moor, whose history is as instructive as memorable, he has previously been a man of rectitude and extreme sensibility, how dreadful must be his torments when he returns to the paths of virtue, and looks back upon his past conduct. I entreat the reader not to condemn this unfortunate officer:-if he accompanies me to the end of my Narrative, his indignation will be converted into pity, and he will, perhaps, shed a tear over the sad memory of this poor miserable youth.'-pp. 128, 129. On reaching the Diana at Chakodade, the officers eagerly thronged round their long-lost companions, but Moor remained motionless and apparently insensible to all that was passing. On their passage home, every thing was attempted to amuse his mind, but in vain. He neglected his dress, associated with the common sailors, or shut himself up in his own cabin. At Petropawlowska, his old shipmate, Lieutenant Rudakoff, took him into his house and shewed him every attention—but all was in vain; he called himself a traitor and an outcast, wept aloud, and deprecated his unhappy fate. Golownin assured him that every one wished to bury in oblivion what had passed, and that young as he was, he would have many opportunities of atoning for the errors into which he had been driven by despair. This seemed to give him a temporary return of spirits; but he seized the first favourable moment that presented itself, and shot himself through the the heart. His companions erected a monument over his grave, on which, with a feeling that does them honour, was inscribed the following epitaph 'Here rest the ashes of LIEUTENANT FEODOR MOOR, Who terminated his career in the harbour of Petropaulowska, on the 22d of November, 1813, In the Flower of his Age. In Japan He was abandoned by the Protecting-Spirit, which had hitherto been his Guide. Despair Precipitated him into Error; But his faults were expiated by bitter Repentance and Death. Many very curious traits of character are developed in the course of Captain Golownin's narrative, which shew no deficiency in strength of intellect, in generosity of sentiment, or benevolence of disposition among the Japanese: a jealous and despotic government however has done its utmost to repress every good feeling, and to reduce man to a mere machine, the movements of which are directed by prescriptive custom, and into which no additional wheels or springs are ever admitted, to give it new or increased powers of action. In this respect the government of Japan closely resembles that of China. The people, however, generally speaking, have more energy of character than the Chinese. A third volume has been published in Captain Golownin's name, under the title of Recollections of Japan. It should rather have been called Collections from Kampfer, Thunberg, and the earlier voyagers: as such we do not consider it worthy of further notice. ART. VI.-An Elementary Treatise on Astronomy. Vol. II. Containing Physical Astronomy. By Robert Woodhouse, A.M. F.R.S. Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Svo. Cambridge, 1818. WE are indebted to Newton for the science of physical astronomy. Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Horrox, Huygens, Hook, and others, had before his time indeed attempted to connect the motions of the celestial bodies with physical causes; some of them with considerable ingenuity; but others, mixing together wild fancies and sober reasoning, excited only a temporary notice. Whatever traces they left, however, were almost entirely effaced by the mag nitude nitude of Newton's discoveries; whose advances in this science were so great that even the additions which have been made within the century that has now nearly elapsed, since his death, may be considered as only adding a few links to the chain which he formed. Sixty years had passed away from the publication of the Principia' before the exertions of mathematicians were directed in extending what Newton had left. The memorable adjudication, in 1740, of the prize to D. Bernouilli, Maclaurin, and Euler for their Essays on the Tides, may be considered as the commencement of the second class of improvements in physical astronomy. These have since been continued by a succession of distinguished men, and embodied in the Mécanique Céleste' of Laplace, to whom some of the most important advances in this science are due. It appears to be the object of the author of the work before us to enable the student to become familiar with all the principal discoveries in physical astronomy from that time to the present day: and, in our opinion, he has not laboured in vain. A person possessed of the mathematical knowledge obtained by many of the students, who graduate each year bachelors of arts at Oxford and Cambridge, will readily master the contents of this volume, and when he has so done, he will feel himself competent not merely to understand, but to read with facility the Mécanique Céleste.' Mr. Woodhouse commences his treatise with some historical notices, and intersperses many others as he proceeds. In this, we think, he has acted judiciously. It has always appeared to us, that, for want of them, some of the first works on physical astronomy lose a considerable portion of their interest. The illustrious author of the Mécanique Céleste' promised that, at the conclusion of his work, he would, in a distinct division, assign to each of the inventors in this science their respective improvements. It is now fifteen years since the fourth volume was published, and we are not aware that this promise has been fulfilled. This is certainly to be regretted. That the name of Lagrange would make a very conspicuous figure in the Mécanique Céleste' was naturally to be expected; and, under the circumstances of the case, it must appear more extraordinary, that in the new edition of the Mécanique Analytique' of Lagrange, the name of Laplace only once, we believe, occurs. Mr. Woodhouse, in his preface, gives a brief view of physical We had, on a former occasion, received much pleasure from a similar mixture of mathematical history in another work of Mr. Woodhouse. We allude to his treatise on • Isoperimetrical Problems and the Calculus of Variations,' published in 1810. In the part of mathematics belonging to isoperimetrical problems, the modern improvements have so far surpassed the first attempts, that these attempts would now scarcely deserve notice, were they not made interesting by a judicious detail of the difficulties and progressive steps of the first discoverers. astronomy astronomy as created and left by Newton. He connects it with the subsequent labours of the first set of Newton's successors,' as he calls them, of Clairaut, Euler, D'Alembert, T. Simpson, and Mayer. He does justice to the memory of our countryman, T. Simpson. The merits of this ingenious man have not been sufficiently remembered among us, and, in some publications we have seen, he appears to have been entirely overlooked, and the merit of extending the discoveries of Newton assigned exclusively to foreigners. It was therefore with much pleasure we read the following, 'The tracts of Thomas Simpson were published in 1754 (1757), and its author, in his own way, without (it would so seem) any help from his countrymen, or communication with foreigners, deduced the several lunar equations, and, rightly, the progression of the lunar apogee. With better opportunies he would have been, at the least, not inferior to any of the first set (as we have called them) of Newton's successors. But Clairaut and D'Alembert had several advantages over him; they were distinguished members of a learned academy, in continual intercourse with men of science, ambitious, emulous of each other, and patronized, on account of their abilities, by the great. There was very little, if we may rely on his biographer, to stimulate or aid the efforts of our countryman. From an obscure station he was transferred to a laborious occupation, with little leisure, and that melancholic, or made less by the influence of bad habits.' At the conclusion of his preface, Mr. Woodhouse observes, that the mode by which gravity causes its effects is beside the scope of the physical astronomer.'" It is, nevertheless,' he continues, a circumstance extremely curious that effects, such as are those of gravity, should be produced; that, apparently, so small a body as Mars, for instance, should be able sometimes to impede, and at other times to expedite the earth in its course. The more we reflect on this matter the more mysterious it appears. It is truly wonderful that planetary influence should exist, and that the ingenuity of man should have detected it. Astronomy reveals things scarcely inferior in interest to the mysteries of astrology. It does not indeed pretend to shew that the planets act on the fortunes of men, but it explains after what manner and according to what laws they act on each other.' We are here tempted to add a remark or two. This mysterious power of gravity, emanating from the source of all power and incessantly acting, furnishes us with an impressive illustration of a never-failing Providence. Each particle of matter, every instant shares in the superintending power of the Great Being who wills that the system of the world shall be upheld by the principle of universal attraction. By whatever agency he has ordained the |