Republications.

Discourses and Dissertations on the Scriptural Doctrines of Atonement and Sacrifice, and on the Principal Arguments advanced, and the Mode of Reasoning employed by the opponents of those doctrines, as held by the Established Church; with an Appendix, containing some strictures on Mr. Belsham's account of the Unitarian Scheme in his review of Mr. Wilberforce's Treatise, together with remarks on the version of the New Testament, lately published by the Unitarians. By William Magee, D. D. F. R. S. MR. I. A. Dean of Cork, Chaplain to his excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, late S. F T. C. and Professor of Mathematics in the University of Dublin. From the last London ed. With large additions. 2 vols. 8vo. Philadelphia, S. Potter & Co. New-York, E. Bliss and E. White. Boston, Cummings, Hilliard & Co. and R. P. &C. Williams.

System of Geography, by M. Malte Brun, Editor of the "Annales des Voyages," &c. Boston; Wells and Lilly. Bliss and White, NewYork.

Mr. Edward Louvet, already known to the French and American public, as the author of several approved treatises on various subjects of Literature, Politics and Commerce, is about to establish, in this city, a French weekly Literary and Political Journal, which, we feel confident, will merit and receive a liberal support.

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Subscriptions received at the office of the American, No. 3 Nassau-street; Behr and Kahl's, 129 Broadway; Berard and Mondon's, 20 Maiden Lane; E. Bliss and E White's, 128 Broadway; G. and C. Carvill's, 108 Broadway.

Residence of the Editor, No. 37 Liberty-street.

Note to page 258.-A discussion of the various methods which have been resorted to, in order to determine as nearly as possible the real figure of the earth, with an examination into the nature of the errors to which these methods are more or less exposed, and the most rational as well as most commodious system of correction, would form the subject of a curious and valuable paper. We shall at present confine ourselves to a brief remark with regard to the calculation of the most probable value out of a given number of observations and admeasurements, a problem manifestly of great practical importance.

The first person who laid down a just and rational method of solving the problem, was Boscovich, a very learned and ingenious Italian mathematician, who published his method about the year 1760. His plan was so simple and elegant, that it was employed by Laplace in the second volume of his incomparable work, the Mecanique Celeste, in which he discusses the problem of the figure of the earth with his usual superiority.

A few years after the publication of Laplace's book, two or three mathematicians were led by their researches to a new theorem on this problem, which reduced the speculation to one condition instead of the two conditions proposed by Boscovich.

In 1806, Legendre, an accomplished mathematician of the National Institute of France, published a work entitled "Nouvelles Methodes pour la determination des Orbites des Cometes," &c. in which he stated a new rule applicable to many important questions; and in the same work, he applies it to the determination of the ellipticity of the earth; but he gives no investigation or demonstration of his rule, which he calls the method of Least Squares.

A year or two after this, Robert Adrain, now Professor of Mathematics, &c. Columbia College, New-York, published a paper in the Analyst, in which he investigated a general method of resolving all such questions as required the determination of any quantity derived from many observations. He gives two separate methods of investigation, by which he discovered the method, and applies it to several examples, some of which are of considerable importance. His rule agrees precisely with that given by Legendre.

In the Philosophical Transactions of Philadelphia for 1818, Professor Adrain has given the application of his method for the determination of the ellipticity of the earth, which he deduces from the fifteen observations of pendulum used by Laplace, for the solution of the same question. The result of the Professor's calculation gives 1-319 for the ellipticity, which, from the same data, was found by Laplace to be 1-336. The difference between these two numbers arises principally from some errors committed in the numerical calculations of Laplace, and when these errors are corrected, the ellipticity, by the method of Laplace, as taken from Boscovich, is 1-316 1-2. Ed.

THE

NEW-YORK REVIEW.

OCTOBER, 1825.

ART. XXVIII.-1. An Oration, pronounced at Cambridge, before the Society of the Phi Beta Kappa, August 26, 1824. By EDWARD EVERETT. Fourth Edition. 1825.

2. An Oration, delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1824. By EDWARD EVERETT.

3. An Oration, delivered at Concord, April the nineteenth, 1825. By EDWARD EVERETT. Boston. Cummings, Hilliard & Co. 1825.

We have purposely delayed our notice of the orations of Mr. Everett, because we wished to speak of them as a lasting contribution to the literature of the country, and not as productions of a merely ephemeral interest. Yet in searching for the true point of view from which to regard them, it should never be forgotten, that they were designed for public delivery on particular occasions; and such rhetorical efforts must be principally judged by their adaptation to gain their particular end, of interesting the audience for which they were designed. The philosophical coolness of a mind fearful of being misapprehended, and timidly careful to balance every general expression, and limit every broad assertion, would, in such cases, only weary the audience, and check the glow of the speaker. The man who will say every thing, draw out his ideas to the utmost, and limit them with the nicest precision, leaving nothing for the feelings of others to divine, or for their understandings to qualify, may make an accurate and voluble, though tedious writer, but will never succeed in attempts to sway the minds of a large assembly. If, therefore, in the orations of Mr. Everett, we find positions directly maintained, which require some limitations, we should only ask, whether the general spirit and tendency of the observations are just; and if in his highest efforts every thought coincides with the great principles of liberty and morals, we ought not object, even though in the application of those principles to historical subjects, he has no time to enumerate all the exceptions that might be made. It VOL. I.

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was his hearers who formed the proper and competent tribunal to decide on the merits of these performances as popular addresses, and we feel entirely disposed to acquiesce in all the applause which they are reported to have bestowed.

Our custom of occasionally assembling to be quickened in the love of our country and our institutions, by public addresses from men whose gifts and acquirements entitle them to attention, is rapidly forming a feature in our national character, and is without any exact parallel in history. Funeral orations were, indeed, not unfrequent among the ancients, but on their great anniversaries the voice of the priest, not the orator, was heard, and the smoke of numerous victims arose from the altars of superstition. No addresses were made to intelligence and the high sentiments of the heart. If in Rome panegyrics on the living became frequent, they contained little but words of adulation, addressed to the declining majesty of the empire. These have nothing in common with the free and eloquent bursts of popular feeling, which occasionally makes itself heard from the lips of our public men, and which, already beginning to form among us a distinct class in literature, and being dignified by the efforts of Webster, Everett, and if there are any other whose names deserve to be mentioned with these, has raised the standard of political opinion, strengthened our affection for our country, illustrated the virtues, the exertions, the hardships and success of our ancestors, and at the same time elevated the literary character of the nation.

It is too late to enter into an analysis of the orations of Mr. Everett. They have already found their way to the remotest parts of the union. Nor will we trouble others with recounting our favourite passages, believing that others can be as strongly moved by fine writing as ourselves, and need no assistance of ours to discover beauties. One mind pervades all the three: a mind strong enough to be independent of profound feeling, so that it can forget itself in contemplating the glory of the country-disciplined by a careful study of ancient and modern literature, history and institutions ;-and yet not the less American for being familiar with other nations, nor the less original for being acquainted with the thoughts of other men.

In the oration delivered at Concord, Mr. Everett has related, in an animated style, the events which preceded the march of the British from Boston, the almost providential manner in which information was given of their approach, when by means of a lantern kindled as a preconcerted signal "the news of their coming, travelled with the rapidity of light through the country," the manner in which they shed the blood of the

unresisting, in the wantonness of cruelty, the brave resistance which they encountered, and the final sufferings and defeat which they were doomed to sustain. It was the people which the cry of liberty, on that day, called into action. The yeomanry of the country declared war in their own right, for the defence of their firesides and their principles. "The people always conquer. They always must conquer. Armies may be defeated; kings may be overthrown, and new dynasties imposed by foreign arms on an ignorant and slavish race, that care not in what language the covenant of their subjection runs, nor in whose name the deed of their barter and sale is made out. But the people never invade, and when they rise against the invader, are never subdued. If they are driven from the plains, they fly to the mountains. Steep rocks and everlasting hills are their castles; the tangled, pathless thicket their palisado, and nature, God is their ally."*' We doubt whether the annals of the world present an instance, where a free people of real integrity has fallen before a despot. Nations, which had become corrupt, have been forced to yield. The precious blood of many an individual has been shed on the scaffold, and many have been martyrs to the cause of liberty in the field; like Warren, who was the morning star beaming through clouds, yet lost before the approach of day; or like Riego, the star of evening, whose fall was followed by night and gloom. But while some have been sacrificed in the struggle for liberty, and some noble men, who were in advance of their age and nation, have been suffered to perish, Providence has never doomed a virtuous nation to martyrdom for liberty. The mind, when moved by enthusiasm, receives an almost irresistible impulse, and a consciousness of power; and when not one mind, but the minds of a whole community are thus agitated, their combined energy is productive of incalculable effects.

If the orator, in his address at Concord, has excited a new interest in past events by his eloquent style of narration, and the curious anecdotes which he has collected, in the address pronounced at Plymouth he awakened the sentiments of admiring gratitude for our ancestors. His topics here seem drawn directly from the human affections; and a filial sentiment of regard for the Pilgrims pervades the whole. He carries us with him, whether he goes back to the period when our fathers were struggling for their very being, or looking into futurity, calls up a gorgeous vision" of our coming greatness, or speculates on such subjects in philosophy and history as are naturally suggested by the occasion for which he wrote. What

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* Concord Oration, p. 44.

a contrast have we here between the display of learning in our own country, and in the lands most famous for erudition! Here the fruits of careful observation, long study, and mature thought, are presented to the public in a popular address; while there the discoveries and reflection of scholars are concealed in a learned idiom, or communicated in a language intelligible only to the professed student.

We return with partial fondness to the oration, pronounced at Cambridge; and as a fourth edition of it has been demanded within a year of its publication, we may justify our admiration by an appeal to the public voice. We are equally pleased with the spirit in which it is conceived, the style in which it is executed, and the opinions which it maintains. It glows with patriotism and a love of letters; there reigns in it a mind elevated by the direct contemplation of the works of great men, and called into exercise by a love of glory, and a desire to do service to the cause of truth and science. The style of the orator is finished and engaging; in his descriptions, he permits his diction to become exuberant and splendid; while in his ap. peals to the feelings, (who does not remember the address to La Fayette?) he trusts to the force of truth, and the simplicity of natural expressions.

The principles which Mr. Everett maintains, are such as we may delight to adopt. He believes that liberty is the best nurse of intelligence, and affords the strongest inducements to intellectual exertions of all kinds. The best reward of a great writer, next to the consciousness of having advanced the interests of truth, is glory, the esteem of good men, the sense of being received into the number of those whom mankind agree to venerate and consult for instruction. He, who wishes to be introduced into the inner temple of glory, must so raise his own conceptions of greatness, that his most difficult task will be to please himself; and then he must have that security and personal independence, which may permit him to express himself without reserve, and without disguise. He must possess a firm will, and be capable of presenting clearly to his own mind the great principles of truth, and also of giving them utterance with force and animation. It is the intellect which is employed, and it is his higher nature which claims the reward. ́And what honour can be put in comparison with the general applause of a free and intelligent people? The promise of wealth, and the hope of patronage, never yet inspired the poet, or taught the philosopher to reason. The sweetest tones have been called forth, the truest expressions of passion have been heard in a land of liberty. We may permit a great poet to speak in be