SINGLE SERMONS.

Art. 40. Zeal and Unanimity in the Defence of our Country, recommended. Preached in the Parish Church of Great Baddow, Essex, July 24, 1803, and published at the Request of the Parishioners. By A. Longmore, LL.B. Vicar. 8vo. 1s. Rivingtons.

Animated by the same patriotic spirit which glows in all ranks of the community, the clergy now adapt their exhortations to the circumstances of the times. Mr. Longmore's discourse is plain, and much to the purpose; and though it contains no peculiarity of sentiment, the request of his parishioners for its publication does them credit, as evincing a zeal for the general welfare. It appears, indeed, to be the opinion not only of the parish of Great Baddow, but of every parish in the kingdom, that it must be to our own magnanimity, patriotism, united and continued efforts, that, under the Divine blessing, we must owe our safety.'

Art. 41. Preached in the Parish Church of Wormley, Herts, the 10th of July 1803, by the Rev. Thomas M'Culloch, Rector; which being peculiarly appropriate to the present Crisis, is published at the Request of the Audience. 8vo. IS. Hatchard.

This discourse opens with discovering Discord in the act of forming a triple cord, a singular employment for this lady, and unlike every representation of her in Heathen Mythology; after which we are introduced to Concord, another triple spinner; and she being the preferable operator, we are exhorted to espouse her cause.

CORRESPONDENCE.

We have received a letter from Baron Maseres, with a request that it might be printed in our Number for this month. We are not willing to demur to the wish of our respectable Correspondent, and it may seem but fair that his own account of the matter in question should be submitted to our readers: yet we cannot comply without stating that its length renders the insertion of it by no means convenient. It does not appear to us necessary to add any comment on the letter itself.

To the MONTHLY REVIEWERS.

• GENTLEMEN,

Inner Temple, Aug. 3, 1803. As you have expressed a surprize, in your review of Signora Agnesi's Analytical Institutions, in Art. 3. of the last Monthly Review, that I should have encouraged the publication of that work, I beg leave to state to you my reasons for so doing. I was formerly, about the year 1752, personally acquainted with the late Professor Colson, and knew him to be a very excellent Algebräist; and I have also often looked into his comment upon Sir Isaac Newton's Fluxions, and read some parts

*The description of Discord by Petronius will occur to the clas sical reader :

of it, and think it a very valuable performance, and much less difficult than the second volume of Maclaurin's Fluxions and many other books on the same subject, and much more likely to make its readers become familiar with the method of treating it which was used by Sir Isaac Newton himself. With this good opinion of that work of Professor Colson, I used to lament that he had not published the second part of it, which would have explained the second part of that treatise of Newton on Fluxions, in which he treats of the application of them to the deeper parts of curvilinear Geometry, such as the quadrature of curvilinear areas, the rectification of curve lines, the doctrine of Maxima and Minima, the finding the points of contrary flexure, the points of greatest curvature, the radii of curvature, and the variation of curvature, and the like, but which he treats of in so very concise and summary a way as to stand in need of very copious elucidations. And, partly from Mr. Colson's conversation, and partly from some expressions in the first part of his comment, which was published, I had conceived that he had actually composed this second part of his comment, and written it out fair, so as to be ready for publication, in case he could have obtained a sufficient number of subscribers to defray the expence of printing it This made me desirous of having his papers inspected, in order to discover whether such fair copy of this second part of his said comment could -be found among them. Itherefore desired a friend to apply to Mr. Newling, the worthy Alderman of Cambridge, who is married to Professor Colson's niece, and was in possession of all his papers, to let me have a sight of them for the purpose of making this inquiry; and, when he had allowed me to do so, and had sent me up a box containing a great number of mathematical papers that had belonged to the Professor, and were mostly in his hand-writing, I put them into the hands of my learned friend, Mr. Hellins of Potter's Pury (who understands these matters much better than I do,) to examine them, and to see whether the wished-for second part of the Professor's comment on Newton's Fluxions could be found among them, or any considerable part of it, in such a state of preparation as to be fit for publication. But nothing of this kind could be found: so that my principal hope, in causing this inspection to be made of the Professor's papers, was disappointed. But Mr. Hellins found a copy of the Professor's English translation of Agnesi's Institutions written out very fairly and in a fit condition to be printed. And he informed me, when I asked his opinion of the merit of it, that he thought it a very plain and clear treatise on the subject, and, for the use of students, the most instructive work that he had met with. This recommendation of Mr. Hellins, together with that of Professor Colson himself, who greatly ad. mired it, induced me to resolve to print it, though I by no means approve of those mysterious, or rather false, doctrines of negative quantities, or quantities less than nothing, and of infinitely small quantities, or quantities than which no lesser quantities can be assigned, which she admits into her work, and which you justly censure in your Review of the translation of it lately published. But this kind of language is common to almost all the writers of Algebra since the days of Vieta, and to almost all the writers of Fluxions since the days of Newton and Leibnitz, or rather, perhaps, since the publication of the work of Cavallerius in the year 1635; and therefore the having ad ›pted it ought not to be censured more severely in her than in Sir Isaac Newton in his Arithmetica Univer salis, Mr. Maclaurin in his Algebra, Dr. Saunderson in his Algebra, Des Cartes in his Geometry, and his commentators in their comments on it, and Leibnitz, Newton, Dr. Halley in his discourse on Logarithms, the Bernouillis, the Marquis de l'Hospital, Mr. Rowe in his Fluxions (which

many

many people reckon a very clear and good book,) and Mr. Euler, who, in his treatise on Algebra, in two volumes octavo, (which I have heard spoken of as a most clear and easy, and masterly work,) seems to me to delight in the doctrine of negative quantities and to wallow in it like a hog in a dirty pond. The admission of these mysteries, or obscure, or inaccurate, expressions, into Signora Agnesi's work (though it makes it less valuable than it would have been if she had avoided them,) ought not therefore to be considered as taking away all its merit arising from other circumstances, such as a great number of examples of every operation, fully and distinctly explained, by which the reader is gradually introduced into a knowledge of the subject and the methods of resolving the several problems considered in it, and made familiarly acquainted with it, which never can be effected by general propositions. This is the kind of merit that I conceive to belong to this work, which, however, I have not read, but only slightly looked over, as I find almost all works upon these subjects too obscure and difficult for me to understand them, or, at least, to take pleasure in reading them, except the works of Mr. Huygens and Mr. James Bernouilli, the elder brother of John Bernouilli. But, upon the authority of Mr. Colson himself and Mr. Hellins, I supposed this work of Agnesi might (notwithstanding the blemishes you have mentioned, and which I had observed in it with some concern,) have a good deal of the merit above mentioned, and be a very useful book to familiarize these subjects to beginners, and therefore resolved to publish it; and I likewise was willing, by giving him half the profits of the sale of the book, (the other half being given to Mr. Newling as the price of Mr. Colson's manuscript,) to do a small pecuniary service to Mr. Hellins, who superintended the publication of it, and who (though a very diligent parish priest, and one of the best mathematicians in England, and about fifty-three years of age,) has no better preferment in the church than the small vicarage of Potter's Pury in Northamptonshire, worth only 48 pounds a year. I remain your most obedient and humble servant,

'FRANCIS MASERES.'

N. B. has our thanks for his information; of which we shall make all proper use when the opportunity for it occurs.

If the writer of a letter from Nottingham, who signs himself a Constant Reader,' had really merited that designation, he would have been aware of our having frequently announced that we never accept

anonymous contributions.

J. J. Edinb. will not be forgotten.

Mr. Malton requests us to state that the place of publication for his Tour in London (see our last Number) should have been mentioned as No. 103, Long Acre, instead of Titchfield street.

Mr. Grose's Sermons will be considered in due course.

In the Review for July, p. 299. last line, dele'as.' P. 326.

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Art. 35. 1. 4. for Dr.' read Mr.

The APPENDIX to this volume of the Review will be published with the Number for September, and will contain a variety of articles respecting important Foreign works.

TO THE

FORTY-FIRST VOLUME

OF THE

MONTHLY REVIEW

ENLARGED.

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

ART. I. Introduction à l'Analyse des Sciences, &c.; i. e. An Intro duction to an Analysis of the Sciences; or, Of the Origin, Foundation, and Means of Human Knowlege. By P. F. LANCELIN. 3 Vols. 8vo. Paris. Imported by De Boffe. Price 18s. sewed.

WE

E have lately had occasion to observe that the French literati remain, in a great degree, strangers to the metaphysical disquisitions by which, in the course of the last century, several of our countrymen distinguished themselves. Few, if any, of the metaphysicians of France have gone beyond Locke; and they appear to be unacquainted with the improvements on his labours, for which we are indebted to Berkley, Collins, Hume, Hartley, Horne Tooke, and others: or at least they can have given but slight attention to the criticisms which the chapter on Power has undergone, to the attacks on his doctrines of abstract ideas and of cause and effect, and to the objections urged against several of his philological positions. Nor do they seem to be aware of the great use which has been made, since his time, of the principle of association, in explaining the several phænomena of mind.

Whatever may be thought of the systems and of many of the notions of Hume and Hartley, no metaphysician will deny that they have rectified divers errors, that they have treated their subject in a masterly manner, and that they observe acutely, discriminate nicely, and conduct luminously the most tedious and abstruse investigations. It follows, then, that an APP. REV. VOL. XLI.

Gg

author

author, who sets out in the same career without consulting their treatises, engages himself in a premature attempt; and the very confessions of the writer before us bring him within this censure:-but if he is wanting in qualifications, he abounds in pretensions; and if incompetency could be removed by assurance, he would be without a fault. Highly as he rates his undertaking, we have been unable to find in it a single addition to the stores of our knowlege; and if he even places any important point in a new light, we must own that it has escaped us. We can scarcely assert, indeed, that we have not been guilty of oversights in poring over these pages, for we found it impossible to keep our attention always on the alert, amid the jejune statements, the frequent repetitions, and the beaten topics, which fill up those parts of the work that pretend to be scientific. We must, however, make an exception in favour of those portions of it, in which the author condescends to throw out practical hints for the attainment of knowlege, and the culture of the heart. Many of his observations of this nature are highly important, as well as ably and eloquently expressed.

With such an opinion of this foreign publication, our readers will not expect from us a very elaborate and detailed analysis of its contents.

In the first division of his essay, the author may be said to treat of external objects, of the organs of sense, and of the formation of ideas. From his researches under these heads, he concludes that many of our primitive ideas are formed without the assistance of signs.-In the second division, the influence of signs in the formation of ideas is considered; and definitions are given of a variety of abstract terms in common use.—The third division contains a sort of natural history of the origin and growth of language. Having shewn how, according to his conceptions, its formation is in fact achieved, he discusses its philosophical principles, which he states in detail; and he concludes with rules and directions for the adoption of abstract terms. He then strongly advises the learned to construct a philosophical language, and insists much at length on the benefits to be derived from it. Fearing, however, that his exhortations on this point will fail of their effect, he recommends that, in the mean time, pains be taken to improve our vernacular dialects. As far as respects this latter counsel, we sincerely wish that attention may be paid to him.

Having considered man in relation to his sensations, ideas, and intellectual faculties, the author proceeds, in the fourth division, to treat of him as a Being possessing appetites, desires, and moral habits; and next, to adopt his own language, having

8

treated