plication of caustics to strictures of the urethra, first due, we believe, to that ornament of his profession, John Hunter. Mr. Home has, to our personal knowledge, employed the lunar caustic in multitudes of cases with admirable dexterity and advantage. Mr. Whately, we have understood, has also met with great success. Why should he quarrel with Mr. Home, about the kind of caustic and other minute particulars? Both of these gentlemen deserve the thanks of the community, and will have their reward.

MISCELLANEOUS.

ART. 29.-Retrospect of Philosophical, Mechanical, Chemical and Agricultural Discoveries; being an Abridgment of the Periodi cal and other Publications, English and Foreign, relative to Arts, Chemistry, Manufactures, Agriculture, and Natural Philosophy, Accompanied occasionally with Remarks on the Merits or Defects of the respective Papers, and in some Cases showing to what other useful Purposes Inventions may be directed, and Discoveries extended beyond the original View of their Authors. pp. 404. London. Wyatt.

THIS work is of a periodical description, and three times in the year announces the various occurrences which have taken place in the departments of philosophy and the arts, in the manner stated in its most copious title. Great diligence has been used to collect much information in little room, and not without success. The performance is likely to be useful to many, whose leisure, whose circumstances, or whose inclination, do not permit the perusal of more diffuse or accurate works. This may be considered as a kind of newspaper of science, and we are ready to admit that no single periodical work can supply all the information here contained. At the same time it would be unfair to the public to state that all the analyses, or abridgments which are here found, are entitled to the praise of perspicuity and accuracy. In fact, there are some instances where great carelessness may be observed, and if the editors expect to acquire or to preserve the favour of the public, that will not be done by such specimens of analytical powers, or chemical sagacity, as are displayed at page 218, where a long and very absurd account is given of a patent bleaching liquor, where the writer seems ignorant of the identity of the acetous and pyrolignous acids, and of the ready solubility of acetite of lime, as well as of many other sufficiently obvious particulars, though it must be acknowledged that it is not easy to give a scientific account of the patentee's preparation. In general, however, the articles are not thus ob jectionable.

ART. 30. The Life of the much-lamented Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, Knight of the Bath, Duke of Bronte, &c. By the

is

Author of the Manchester Guide, 8vo. 18. Bickerstaffe.

-1805.

THE breath had scarcely left the body of the immortal Nelson; when the press teemed with lives, and histories, and biographical anecdotes,' of the lamented hero. As the history of his life is, however, about to appear under the auspices of his family, we shall suspend all remarks for the present, observing only that the work be fore us is, we believe, sufficiently accurate as to dates and facts, which are related with tameness and insipidity.

ART. 31-Memoirs of the professional Life of the late most Noble Lord Horatio Nelson, Viscount and Baron Nelson of the Nile, andễ. of Burnham Thorpe in the County of Norfolk, Baron Nelson of the Nile and of Hilborough in the said County, Knight of the most Honourable Order of the Bath, Vice Admiral of the White Squadron of the Fleet, and Commander in Chief of his Majesty's Ships and Vessels in the Mediterranean, also Duke of Bronte in Sicily, Knight Grand Cross of the Sicilian Order of St. Ferdinand and of Merit, Member of the Ottoman Order of the Crescent, and Knight Grand Commander of the Order of St. Joachim; comprehending authentic and circumstantial Details of his glorious Achievements under the British Flag, and à Sketch of his parliamentary Conduct and Pritate Character, with Biographical Particulars of Contemporary Naval Officers; to which is added by way of Supplement, a correct Narrative of the Ceremonies attending his Funeral. By Joshua White, Esq. Third Edition, considerably enlarged. 12mo. 88. Cundec. 1806.

COPIOUS gleanings from newspapers, annual registers, &c. compared, however, with the former article, it will afford much entertainment. In addition to the life of the immortal Nelson, the vo lume before us contains biographical particulars of cotemporary officers, and a correct narrative of the ceremonies attending the late procession to St. Paul's, with other details, of which the title is a prolific index.

page

ART. 23.-To Your Tents! an Address to the Volunteers of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. By the Rev. Matthew Wilson, A. M. formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Curute of Crayford, Kent. 8vo. 6d., or 5s. per Dozen. Grilliths. 1806.

THIS Address, which is written with a great degree of animation. is rather ill-timed, if the rumour be true that the greater part of the ́volunteer corps are to be shortly disbanded.

ART. 33.---The Juvenile Preceptor, or a Course of Moral and
Scientific Instructions, &c. Second Edition.
Harris. 1805.

CHEAP and good.

12me. '1s. 6d.

ART. 31.—A Letter to a Friend occasioned by the Death of the Right Honourable William Pitt. Svo. Hatchard. 1806.

*

WHILE politicians are speculating on the death of Mr. Pitt, the, author of this letter wishes to be endured if he contemplates it as a Christian. For this purpose, he ransacks the scriptures to prove that the immortal spirit, when separated from the body, neither sinks into a state of temporary slumber, nor loses the remembrance of the transactions of antecedent life.' He then proceeds to inform his friend, that the disembodied spirit is enabled to estimate aright the difference between things temporal and things eternal!' That the more highly Mr. P. may have rated temporal things heretofore, the more awfully impressive will have been his sensations, when his removal to another region shall have taught him to feel with an energy which mortals cannot feel, that earth and all things pertaining to earth, are nothing, absolutely nothing, in comparison with eternity. He then supposes that if the voice of the deceased could now reach the British cabinet, if it could command the attention of a British senate, he would with solicitude inexpressibly greater than he ever felt on any subject of temporary concern, entreat statesmen and politicians habitually to bear in mind, not only that they have a country to protect, and a king to serve, but that they have also a Master in heaven; discharge your duty, he would exclaim, in singleness of heart as unto Christ, &c. &c. This exclamation is continued through two pages and a half, and the letter is concluded with the pious wish that the grace of God may direct and prosper Mr. Pitt's successors! We are unable to determine whether the author of this curious epistle designed it as a satire on Mr. Pitt, or on those who have succeeded him in office.

ART. 35.-Typographical Marks used in correcting Proofs, explained and exemplified, for the Use of Authors. By C. Stower, Printer. 8vo. 1s. Longman. 1805.

AN useful publication for young authors. It frequently happens that much time is lost, and errors frequently committed, in consequence of the printer not clearly understanding the alterations of the author. The common mode therefore with which all printers are well acquainted, should be clearly understood and adopted by every writer; this mode is accurately explained and exemplified in this pamphlet.

ART. 36.-Essay on the Nature of Laws, both Physical and Moral, by a Layman. 8vo. Walker. 1806.

THE intention manifested in this short treatise, deserves more praise than its execution. We would recommend the author to revise his logic, to learn the nature of definition, and the necessity of attention to the use of his terms. He would not then say that space and time are laws, or that either of them excludes the idea of infi

1

nity and eternity. But he will do well to correct his notions of space, time, infinity, and eternity, by reading over Locke's excellent chapters on these subjects. Morality is strangely defined to be every thing which has relation to infinity and eternity, but though the definition is faulty, and there are some quaint expressions on the rule of the centre over the circumference, yet the author's morals are sound, and he very properly refers them to the holy scriptures. His maxim is just. No better seat can be prepared for the truths of revelation, than a moral heart, nay, there can be no morality but what is derived from those truths. As we have recommended logic to our author, we will farther encourage him to the use of his faculties in study, by making the structure of language and grammar the objects of his meditations.

ART. 34.—A short Introduction to Swedish Grammar, for the Use of Englishmon, by Gustavus Brunnmark, M. A. Chaplain to the Swedish Legation at the Court of Great Britain, &c. Richardson, 1805..

THIS work, as the title declares, is only intended as a short introduction to the Swedish grammar, and we are happy in announcing that it will be followed by a larger work, or a more complete gram> mar, for which, from this specimen, we are inclined to augur the best effects. The Swedish Academy has been laudably employed in improving the language, and from its transactions the author has derived great assistance. The Swedish language is but little studied in this country, yet from its affinity to our own, it merits more attention. Both nations are derived from a common ancestor, and in the wilds of Tartary spoke the same language. The Swedish has departed least from the original, whilst ours, from our ancestors pursuing their conquests more to the south, and afterwards suffering themselves the effects of the Norman conquest, presents a medley, 'too much resembling the mixtie-maxtie accounts of Lord Melville and Mr. Trotter. On the subject of articles and pronouns, we have a reference to Harris, and of course did not expect any very great accuracy upon this subject. Man,' is said to be an impersonal pronoun, commonly translated with (by) one or we, as man kan ej', one cannot; hvad skall man gora,' what shall we do? and in another place we are told, that when we do not want to determine any certain person or persons of a verb, we use the pronoun man," which on that account (and not that it is used before impersonal verbs, which it never can be) is called impersonal, though, strictly speaking, it comprehends all the persons, as 'man kan lätt se det,' one can or may easily see it: man har sagt mig det,' I am told so, &c. Now in these cases man' is the same as man' in the Ger man man sagt,' or on in the French, 'on dit'; which latter 'on' is an abbreviation for 'homme,' or man,' and 'man' is evidently a noun in this, as in every other case in which it is used; and the phrase is, a man has said that, a man can easily see it. The knowledge of

phrase, as well as the word they,' which is frequent in our language, may answer some moral purpose, for instead of believing the words uttered, when they are prefaced by the Swedish and German phrases' man sagt,' the French phrase 'on dit,' and the English phrase they say,' we should consider, that the man' and 'son' means one person, and 'they,' several persons, who know probably nothing at all of the matter in discussion. We expect to derive much instruction from the larger work which is in contemplation, and cannot lay this down without recommending it to those who wish to obtain an insight into the Swedish language.

ART. 38. The Elements of Commerce, or a Treatise on different Calculations, being a complete System of Commercial Calculations. B C. Dubost. 8vo. 21. 128. Gd. Symonds, 1806.

THE first volume of this work only is before us; the second is shortly expected. We here find many different calculations, but most of them relate to operations of exchange. With the first set of calculations, namely on tare, trett, commission, interest, and discount, boys in general are made acquainted before they leave school the next set, on the operations or exchange, more peculiar ly belong to the extensive scale of a foreign merchant. This part occupies upwards of three hundred pages, and yet it is only an amplification of instances, which, when the principle is known, is scarce ly necessary, and which a lad well instructed in arithmetic will easily learn in a few hours in the counting-house. The whole depends upon a simple and well known rule in mathematics, which is, that we can add together ratios, by multiplying the antecedents for a new antecedent, and the consequents for a new consequent; and that every proportion may be reduced to an equation. Ilence in exchanges, where several places are concerned, a very complicated operation may be reduced into a simple one, by striking out those antecedents and consequents which are the same; or we can reduce them to fower terms, if they have a common divisor. In every countinghouse there is a table of the values of denominations of money at the different places to which the merchant trades, and in general this táble exhibits the values of money in a better form for practice, than the present volume. Of course to him the greater part of the voJume is superfluous, and the principle may be learned by others, as well from the monies of four places as four hundred. The re marks on speculations in exchange and banking operations, and on exchange circulations, are deserving of the perusal of persons entering into an extensive line of trade; but the volume might have becti reduced to a quarter of the size, without any disadvantage to the instruction it is intended to communicate, and we may express our surprise that so little use is made of decimal fractions. In the hint suggested of employing logarithms in the long calculations of exchanges, we join entirely with the author, and it has always struck us as extraordinary that logarithms are so little used by the exchange broker, when his operations would be so much shor tened by an art so easily acquired.