Art. VI. Select Letters of Ganganelli; Pope Clement XIV. Trans lated from the French by C. J. Metcalfe, Esq. 12mo. pp. 275. Price 5s. London, 1819.

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T is a rather singular circumstance, that the present Translator of these Letters does not seem to be aware that they are supposititious. Even if this were not sufficiently ascertained by the absence of all substantial authentication, it would, we think, be manifest from the evidence afforded by the Letters themselves. They are palpably written for the press, and abound in set phrases, studied points, measured and balanced antitheses, without any of the ease and abandonment of a genuine correspondence. In fact, they are universally assigned to the Marquis de Caraccioli; and if any portion of them really belongs to Ganganelli, it is so small as to be completely lost in the general mass. The literary merit of these compositions is not very great. They are ingenious trifles, generally commonplace, never deep, though sometimes lively and amusing; and the degree of popularity which they have acquired, is chiefly, if not wholly, to be ascribed to the novel and piquant effect duced by making a pope the dispenser of liberal opinions.

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There is however nothing, so far as we recollect, in the Letters, which might not have been written by Ganganelli. He was an amiable and liberal minded man, a Roman Catholic from policy, but most probably with as little real veneration for the papal institutions, as the more enlightened of his predecessors, excepting inasmuch as they contributed to the extension and confirmation of the influence and interest of Rome. Circumstances, together with the exertions of the Cardinal de Bernis, gave to Ganganelli the throne of the Vatican; but we are persuaded that he would often afterwards have gladly exchanged the uneasy honours of the tiara, for the humbler privileges of his previous cardinalate, or even for the tranquil privacy of his original cell. His reign was short and troubled, and its leading event, the suppression of the order of the Jesuits, not only occasioned him great anxiety, but if strong suspicions may be credited, contributed to the brevity of his administration. While suffering under acute and protracted pain, he is said to have exclaimed: I am going into eternity, and I know well for "" what!'

As these Letters have been so long in the hands of the public, we feel no disposition to enter into a specific discussion of their qualities; but to those who may wish to make themselves acquainted with a popular and not uninteresting work, we would recommend the present selection. It appears to have been judiciously made, and the translation is respectably executed. Mr. Metcalfe has, however, fallen into some errors in his rendering of names, which he should have been careful to avoid. Benedict

is invariably written Benet, a mere French contraction, never used in English composition; Leghorn can scarcely be recognised under the name of Livurnum; we have Baromie for Borromeo; and in the XXXth Letter, we are told of the 'Theo'dosia,' as a work of Leibnitz, instead of Theodicée.

Art. VII. A Theory of the Moral and Physical System of the Universe, demonstrated by Analogy; in which the Elements of general Science are explained upon a Principle entirely new. By Francis Maximus Macnab, Solicitor of the Supreme Courts of Scotland. 8vo. pp. 474. Price 12s. Edinburgh, 1817.

WE scarcely know how to treat this very singular book. It would not be difficult to make out a general analysis of its contents, but we are withheld from the attempt, first, by the conviction that a large portion of our readers would derive little gratification from our labour, and secondly, by the consideration that such a procedure would be hardly fair to the Author, since it must necessarily convey a most inadequate idea of his work. The main attraction of this production consists in its pervading whimsicality; its commonest truisms are put forward in such an unaccountable way, that we are quite startled, when we pause for reflection at the close of a sequence of oracular and oddlooking phrases, to find that we have been wondering at a very satisfactory set of every day verities. Every thing about the volume is marked by a departure from the ordinary forms of thinking and writing, which has frequently the air of affectation, and is by no means adapted to make a pleasing impression on the reader's mind. We have, in fact, been sometimes tempted to fancy that the work was meant for a grave and deep piece of irony, levelled against the reveries of Hutchinson, and the inventive researches of Bryant; and this suspicion has been revived in our minds as often as we have encountered the unlucky designation in the title-page-Maximus Macnub! If this be a genuine affix, we can only say, that a more untoward collocation of epithets has seldom fallen to the lot of civilized man; and we would by all means recommend to its unfortunate succumbent, to make as little parade of his classical title as possible, and to content himself with the homelier but safer distinction contained in the dissyllabic section of his prænominal bearings. We were, moreover, somewhat staggered by the puerile and unmeaning diagram inserted by way of frontispiece. It might answer the purpose of attracting attention to Emmanuel Swedenborg's visions, or Jacob Behmen's inspirations, but at the head of a moral and physical system of the universe,' it is an omen of wretched augury. On the whole, however, we believe Mr. Macnab to be perfectly serious and very much in earnest, and in the few remarks which we may find it expedient to make, we shall proceed on this supposition.

Another difficulty arises from the language which this formidable theorist has held concerning Reviewers. He accuses them of merciless dispositions towards those works of affected refinement and taste,' which are continually issuing from what he is pleased to term 'the upper regions of the sensual walk.'

Hence,' he says, the myriads of poems, plays, novels, romances, &c. with which the world is infested. The critical reviewers, who lie in wait upon the ideal line that divides the brightest shade of the sensual, from the dimmest of the refined walk, earn a livelihood here by the tomahawk and scalping knife. Multitudes indeed escape them, as the dens to which the wretches are dragged seldom admit above a dozen at a time; but these are tortured with every refinement of cruelty; their characters are ripped up, their feelings torn in pieces, and round the caves of the critical Cyclops are suspended the disjecta membra poetæ, for it seldom happens that the critics will quote him fairly, they having, in general, a malignant pleasure in exhibiting him in a disjointed state, after he is broken on the wheel.'

We are thus placed in an awkward dilemma. We decline from want both of patience and of excitement, the analysis of a complicated theory which appears to us defective in interest and in substantiation; but we should feel no reluctance to bring forward such quotations as might afford, in our apprehension, a fair sample of the general composition. From this, however, we are expressly warned by the broad hint conveyed in the passage just quoted. Should Mr. Macnab reply to us, that he has spoken only of affected refinement,' and that his work is the offspring of sound and genuine taste,' we can only rejoin that he has deprived himself of all benefit from his own plea, since he has, among the affectations and sensualities with which the world is infested,' and which he is pleased to represent as so unfairly dealt with by Reviewers,' expressly enumerated “romances.'

Nothing then remains but that, without encumbering ourselves with the Author's strange analogies, and truly unfathomable mysteries, we limit our strictures to a few merely general observations.

We must, however, first state that, notwithstanding the very slight estimation in which we hold his theory, Mr. Macnab himself appears to us to be a pious and strong-headed man; and that although much of his system is altogether absurd, yet many of his illustrations are perfectly startling from the strength and energy with which they are conceived and expressed. He has had for his object to trace out a blended system of facts and analogies, signs and things signified, for the purpose of unfolding and harmonizing the moral and physical phenomena of the universe. Of his facts, a large portion is altogether hypothetical; and of his analogies, though some are striking

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and ingenious, yet others are extremely questionable, and the greater proportion seems to us utterly fantastic and unprofitable. He adopts, in all its romantic baselessness, the etymological structure of Bryant, and reasons from it with as much complacency as if every fragment of it was established and secure. He does not indeed seem quite satisfied with the derivatives from the word Ham; but whether he rejects them altogether, or whether he is re-assured by the solution' which be affirms that he has given, we are unable to comprehend. From this strange system of words and syllables, Mr. Macnab infers the history of the Amonians, with as much decision and distinctness, as if their statutes at large,, their journals and gazettes lay actually upon his table. All this is very amusing, but we imagine that it will be satisfactory to few beside Mr. Macnab himself; and we are, in truth, utterly astonished that he has not, in countless instances, recoiled from the incomparable absurdities to which he has been reduced. In the outset of his work, he has occasion to make important though mysterious use of the septenary scale; and among other ridiculous illustrations of its extensive prevalence, he actually includes the seven champions of Christendom,' and the common phrase of one's seven senses,' as if the latter were any thing more than a vulgar alliteration! In the progress of his etymological speculations, he finds the confusion of tongues' stand directly in his way. 'No'-he exclaims, as if himself or his father had been a party concerned in the transaction,

"It was not a "confusion of languages" as is vulgarly imagined, but a confusion of lip,' a spasmodic affection of the organs of speech, especially in the utterance of labial sounds; so that instead of Baal, (to whom the tower was dedicated), they stammered or stuttered Ba-bel

It may seem a little unaccountable, that these stammerers should be able to enuntiate the vowel sound a in the first syllable, and yet be compelled to change it into e in the second. But Mr. Macnab is a consummate master of the real import of terms, and we hope that our readers will be able to comprehend the following proof of his skill in this respect.

'The apostle in alluding to the six periods of creation, instead of calling them days,' calls them awves, a word which our translators render worlds,' but which, in its true meaning, signifies ages of immeasur able duration, and the cretend beings which exist in them or during their

course!"

But if we were to rehearse all the instances of strange interpretation, crude and unauthorized conception, and peremptory assertion, which we bave marked for comment, we should exhaust all reasonable time and patience. We shall therefore, after asking Mr. Macnab where he learned that every inch'

of the empire of China was either cultivated' or turned to the best account,' pass on to matter better entitled to attention. Mr. M. bears throughout a strong and evangelical testimony against the corruptions of human nature; he invariably appeals to the Scriptures as his foundation and authority; and the resolute reader will be indemnified for his perseverance by not a few passages of great force, eloquence, and truth. We were exceedingly struck by his selection of cheap justice,' as a grand criterion to be applied as the only and unerring test of the prosperity of nations. The passage in which it is referred to, is longer than we find it quite convenient to insert, but its vigour and importance, together with the little probability of its extensive circulation in the volume itself, induce us to make room for so much of it as may serve both for the evolution of his principle, and for an example of his general manner.

To administer justice, is the end for which all human governments are ordained, the circulation of justice in the body politic, being strictly analogous to the circulation of the blood in the body natural. It is the phenomenon upon which its very life momentarily depends; and its health is indicated by the state of its pulse. The accessibility of justice, or the price at which it is sold in any country, is the only criterion for estimating the merits of its government. If justice be easily accessible, or its price low, the government is good; if justice be difficult to obtain, or its price high, the government is bad. The rule is universal and infallible, because it is founded on the Word of God. All the other phenomena of the body politic, for example, its national debt, taxes, agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the forms of its constitution, ultimately depend upon the MORAL SENSE of the people, as evinced in their ideas regarding the circulation of justice. Accordingly, while the superficial politicians of this world are attracted by ostensible' forms and accidental circumstances, the Christian's eye is fixed on the index, viz. the price of justice; which shews with unerring certainty, the state of the heart of the body politic, whether it be sound or rotten. It shews the standard of morality upon which the life of the "beast," (Art. 412.) or political body, depends, whatever be his shape, or size, or mode of existence; for where the people's attention is fixed on the distribution of justice, there never can be tyranny; and where their attention is diverted from it, there never can be freedom.

When a government, forgetful of the end for which it was ordained, and a people, forgetful of the Word of God, permit the price of justice to rise, (according to its natural tendency) we are expressly told, that they shall be "devoured by the sword." The secondary causes by which this awful threat is executed, though seldom thought of by worldly politicians, are not the less fatally and necessarily connected. The high price of justice invites the rich to defraud the poor; it encourages every man to be a villain, by assuring him of impunity, provided the victims of his villany be persons who are unable to pay the price; for all such persons are thereby virtually Vol. XII. N.S. 2 Q