to the first question, What is religion? is defective, since it is merely defined to be The worship of the Supreme Being; whereas religion includes obedience, as well as worship, or virtue established on the principles of piety. As we proceed in the dialogue, (for the proofs are exhibited by question and answer,) we discover other defective or erroneous statements: - but we shall not break a butterfly on the wheel.

Art. 21. Three Sermons on Subjects of public Consideration; 1st, Boasting excluded or disgraced; and the Exercise of Faith, in the Use of appointed Means, as the Ground of National, Individual, Temporal, and Spiritual, Safety.-2d, Christ's Testimony to Peter's Confession as the Rock on which the Church is built. — 3d, On the Gift of the Keys to that Apostle, and their true Use in the Church. 8vo. pp. 96. 38. 6d. stitched. Rivingtons. 1813.

We learn from the preface that these sermons are the production of a curate of the Established Church, but when and where they were preached we are not informed. In the first, Bonaparte is compared to Benhadad, and the other boasting invaders mentioned in the Bible, and we are exhorted to go against him in the strength of the Lord, by whom he will certainly be overthrown. The preacher next adverts to individual spiritual boasting, and condemns putting on our harness without trust in the grace of God. The second discourse, after some superlatively orthodox comments on Matthew, xvi. 16-18. (for at p. 46. we read of the spirit who forms the unity of the Trinity in the Godhead,') proceeds to expose the weakness of the interpretation given of this passage by the church of Rome, and to shew that Peter never considered himself, nor was considered by our Lord or by his other apostles, as the rock on which the church was to be built. It was not the rock confessing but the rock confessed that was to be the foundation of the Christian church. It is contended, in the third sermon, that the power of the keys given to Peter means no more than power or authority to let people into the kingdom of heaven, by explaining to them its nature; or that the key which he was to use was "the key of knowlege," or instruction. To this the preacher adds that the Popes cannot be Peter's successors, because they have taken away this key of knowlege. As to the power of binding and loosing, it is asserted to have been common to all the inspired apostles, and to mean no more than authority to loose men from their previous obligation to legal ordinances, by pronouncing them no longer binding; and to bind them to the observance of *evangelical institutions and precepts, according to the principles of the doctrine of Christ, and whatever relates to the faith and practice of a Christian. In this sense whomsoever they bound or loosed on earth would be bound or loosed in heaven,' i. . would receive a divine sanction.

To all Protestants, this explanation will be very satisfactory: but the preacher must not think of converting the Pope. - We cannot highly praise the composition of these sermons, nor approve all the arguments which they advance.

SINGLE

SINGLE SERMONS.

Art. 22. The Downfall of Napoleon, and the Deliverance of Europe improved: preached in Cliff-lane Chapel, Whitby, July 7. 1814, the Day appointed for a General Thanksgiving. By George Young. 8vo. 18. 6d. Williams and Son, &c.

In the choice of a text for this pulpit-philippic, Mr. Young has been fortunate (Is. xiv. 16, 17.); and, in the delineation of Napoleon's character, he has manifested skill. The ex-potentate is charged with spreading terror among men, overturning states, sacrificing the lives of millions to his ambition, and aiming at universal empire; and the preacher, having substantiated his accusation, naturally exults in the downfall of such a ruler. The sentiments with which we should review this event, so beneficial to Europe, are next stated by Mr. Young; and here a wide field was opened for displaying the vanity and instability of human greatness, as well as for expressing pious gratitude to the King of kings. This part of Mr. Y.'s task is very creditably performed.

Art. 23. The Downfall of Napoleon considered: preached at St. Mary's, Gateshead, January 13. 1814, the Day appointed for a General Thanksgiving. By the Rev. Hugh Salvin, Curate of Gateshead. 8vo. 1s. Longman and Co.

A spirited, pious, and loyal discourse; in which the preacher, having taken a review of the late war, and complimented his country on the conspicuous part which it played in the subversion of Napo leon's throne, ultimately offers his thanksgivings to the Great Disposer of events for having thrown this once mighty emperor from his seat.

CORRESPONDENCE.

Senex, M.E. R., A Citizen, and others, have favoured us with an expression of their wishes for the publication of a General Index to our New Series. We are perfectly aware that such a reference is very desirable to the readers of our work, and are equally disposed to consult their convenience; not to say that we ourselves should feel the accommodation more sensibly than any other persons. We shall not, therefore, lose sight of the object, though we cannot promise its immediate accomplishment. It is a very expensive and a very troublesome undertaking; no joke', as a Citizen observes.

O. P. Q. will soon be gratified in his request.

Philo is very obliging in his declarations; and his remarks shall receive attention.

The APPENDIX to this volume of the Review will be published on the first of February, with the Number for January.

I

THE

APPENDIX

TO THE

SEVENTY-FIFTH VOLUME

OF THE

MONTHLY REVIEW

ENLARGED.

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

ART. I. ΚΛΑΥΔΙΟΥ ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΥ ΜΑΘΗΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΣΥΝΤΑΧΙΣ ; Composition Mathématique de Claude Ptolémie; i.e. The Mathematical Collection of Claudius Ptolemy; translated for the first Time from the Greek into French, from the Manuscripts in the Imperial Library of Paris. By M. HALMA: to which are added Notes by DELAMBRE. Vol. I. Royal 4to. pp. 600. Paris. 1813. Imported by De Boffe. Price 41. 4s.

THE

HE first printed edition of this celebrated work was a Latin translation from the Arabic version of Cremonius; which, however, abounds so much in the idiom of that language, as to render it nearly unintelligible without a constant reference to the Greek text. This impression was published at Venice in 1515; and a few years afterward, viz. in 1538, the Collection appeared in its original language, under the superintendance of Simon Grynaeus at Basil, together with the eleven books of the Commentaries of Theon. The Greek text was again republished at the same place with a Latin version in 1541, and again with all the works of Ptolemy in 1551. These are, we believe, the only editions that have appeared of this elaborate composition, till the present splendid translation; which is printed on a scale of superior elegance, in double columns, Greek and French; the former in a remarkably neat character, divested of all abbreviations, and occupying throughout the APP. REV. VOL. LXXV.

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interior

interior columns of the several pages. The work, when completed, will form three noble volumes, equally honourable to the science and the assiduity of M. HALMA, and to the liberality of the learned body under the auspices of which it has been brought forwards. The first and second volumes will contain the Collections of Ptolemy, and the third will be devoted to the Commentaries of Theon; a few important extracts from minor astronomers; the analysis which Purbach and Regiomontanus had made of the Commentaries of Geber; the Phænomena of Aratus; the Introduction of Geminus; an Extract from the Hypothesis of Ptolemy, translated from the German of M. Schubert; and finally, the researches of M. Idler, on the observations of the antients and their denominations of the stars exhibiting, in a condensed form, a complete system of antient astronomy.

In the present volume, which is the first of the three, we have only the first six books of the Almagest, preceded by an elaborate and interesting historical preface; followed by a chronological table of the kings of Assyria, Media, Persia, and Macedonia, and the Roman emperors to Antonine, who was the patron of Ptolemy, with a table of the Egyptian months; and at the end of the volume are given 21 pages of variations in the readings of the different manuscripts which the author has consulted. The notes of M. HALMA, and those of M. DELAMBRE, which it appears were in the first instance intended to make a part of the first volume, are now designed for the end of the second; and, as those of the former contain the translator's reasons for the few deviations which he has allowed himself to make from a strict literal version of his author, we deem it right to defer our observations on this head till the second volume appears. We shall therefore, in the present instance, confine ourselves wholly to the scientific merits or peculiarities of the original work, as exhibited by the French translator.

After having replied in the preface to the doubts which may be entertained by some persons respecting the utility of his translation, M. HALMA proceeds to examine the merits of the two Latin versions, and shews, by numerous citations, the great inaccuracies of these editions. He then traces rapidly the history of Grecian astronomy, goes through an analysis of the Almagest, and defends his author against the criticisms of several modern astronomers. He next examines the merits of the Greek edition of 1538; which, though the most perfect of any except the present, is still very defective in parts; and he passes in review the several manuscripts which have been consulted in making this translation. These manuscripts form a portion of

the

the Imperial library at Paris, having been deposited there after the wars in Italy, whence they were brought by the victorious army; viz. one from Florence, which appears to have been written in the 12th century; two from St. Mark at Venice; a third and fourth from the Vatican; and a fifth, of the 6th century, which seems to have belonged originally to the French;-besides others of minor importance.

It is impossible, in reading these open declarations of usurp ation and pillage, not to feel some regret that these venerable buildings have been thus despoiled of such precious relics of their antient learning and magnificence: yet, when we contemplate the use that has been made of them by the French philosophers, and contrast it with the probable obscurity in which they would now have been placed in those abodes of superstitious bigotry, where the Inquisition is again established in all its disgusting forms, our first impressions are converted into a sort of acquiescence if not of approbation, and the crime appears to be expiated by the result which it has produced.

The first eight chapters of the first book contain a sort of introduction, or popular view of the Ptolemaic system; in which it is curious to observe the arguments employed by such a rigid geometer, in support of an erroneous hypothesis. Thus, in endeavouring to prove that the earth remains immoveable in the centre of space, he says, But, if the earth had a motion of translation common to other heavy bodies, it would soon, in consequence of its superior mass, precede them in space, and pass beyond even the bounds of the heavens; leaving all the animals and other bodies without any support but air; which are consequences to the last degree ridiculous even in imagination.' In the same place, he adds,

Some persons pretend that there is nothing to prevent us from supposing that the heavens remain immovable, while the earth turns on its own axis from west to east ; making this revolution in a day nearly; or that, if the heavens and the earth both turn, it is in a ratio coinciding with the relations which we observe between them. It is true that, as to the stars themselves, and considering only the phenomena of them, there is nothing to prevent us, for the sake of simplicity, from making such a supposition: but these people are not aware how ridiculous their opinion is, when considered with reference to events which take place about us: for, if we concede to them that the lightest bodies, composed of parts the most subtle, are not possessed of levity, which is contrary to nature, or that they move not differently from bodies of a contrary kind, although we daily witness the reverse; or if we concede to them that the most compact and the heaviest bodies possess a rapid and constant motion of their own, while it is well known that they yield only with difficulty to the impulses which we give to them; still they would be obliged to acknowlege

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