A TRANSLATION of the SIX BOOKS of PROCLUS, on the THEOLOGY of PLATO; to which a Seventh Book is added, in order to supply the deficiency of another Book on this subject, which was written by Proclus, but since lost; also a Translation of PROCLUS' ELEMENTS of THEOLOGY. In these Volumes is also included, by the Same, a Translation of the Treatise of PROCLUS, ON PROVIDENCE and FATE; a Translation of Extracts from his Treatise, entitled, TEN DOUBTS CONCERNING PROVI-to the like effect. DENCE; and, a Translation of Extracts from his Treatise on the SUBSISTENCE OF EVIL; as preserved in the Bibliotheca Gr. of Fabricius. In 2 Vols. Royal Quarto.-250 Copies only Printed. Price 5l. 10s. THEORETIC ARITHMETIC, in Three Books; containing the substance of all that has been written on this subject by THEO of Smyrna, NICOMACHUS, JAMBLICHUS, and BOETIUS.-Together with some remarkable particulars respecting Perfect, Amicable, and other Numbers, which are not to be found in the writings of any ancient or modern Mathematicians. Likewise, a specimen of the manner in which the Pythagoreans philosophized about Numbers; and a developement of their Mystical and Theological Arithmetic.

NO. VII.

AND

Journal of the Belles Lettres.

EXPRESSLY DESIGNED FOR THE POLITE CIRCLES.
SATURDAY, MARCH 8, 1817.

PERHAPS there is no subject of history, (for historical the subject has now become) more misrepresented and misunderstood, than the origin of our war with the French Revolutionists. Numbers still consider it as impolitic and unjustifiable on the part of England; while some, and those not a few, actually assert, that we ourselves were the aggressors. We shall now endeavour, in as short a space as our limits will allow us, to set this interesting question in its proper point of view.

Most persons, we think, will agree, that the laws, the morals, and the religion of a country, are far more important to her welfare, than commercial treaties or territorial boundaries; and consequently, that any attempt upon the part of another country to molest the former, demands her resentment and resistance, far more than any infraction of the latter. A nation should not consider her possessions so dear to her as her principles, and should lament the loss of the one, not so much for the loss itself, as for its diminishing her means of defending the other. It follows, therefore, that a declaration of hostility against her civil institutions, is a more direct outrage, than one which would only threaten them indirectly, by the violation of a diplomatic parchment.

PRICE 1s.

driven through a narrow streight, at the rate of thirty miles an hour, during three months and two days. It then emerged once more into a wide sea, and the sailor discovered that he had got into another world, a fac simile of our own, both of which were fastened together by the aforesaid streight, "like the chain of a double headed shot," or "the tail of a cow," or a twin brother," or

an umbilical chord," and both of which, he begs, in God's name, may be considered as parts of the same earth. Here he lands, and happily meets an inhabitant who speaks the purest English.

From this clumsy contrivance one is naturally led to expect a fable on the plan of Peter Wilkins, or the Flying Island; but here the romance ends and the pamphlet begins. The remainder contains nothing further than a solemn political sketch of this new country, Armata, alias England, during the last thirty years. The whole concludes with a dissertation on lime and salt, the derivation of the word London, and a promise to write a future account of a city called Swalo, or Swallomor, or Swaloup, or Swalodun, or Swaloal.

Why it was found necessary to turn this world into part of a great chain shot, for the purpose of proving that England might originally have prevented the war, we cannot, Now the two principal causes assigned by the British we fairly confess, upon any principle, either of good sense Government for putting the country in a state of military or good taste, discover. The writer asserts, that England preparation, were, first, that France had manifested an in- ought to have acted as arbitrator between France and the tention to violate treaty by opening the Scheldt; secondly, continental confederacy, and that thus she might have that she had professed herself hostile to all kingly govern saved the life of the French Monarch. Now this, we prements, and had promised assistance to every nation who sume, she could not possibly have done, without interfering would adopt her own system of liberty. Even the great in the internal affairs of France; and it appears rather exleader of opposition admitted, that a war to protect our traordinary, that such interference should formerly have treaties was both necessary and justifiable; but at the been urged as proper, by those very persons who have same time, asserted, that her declaration of war against lately accused her, though without any foundation in truth, kings, her promise of assisting all who wished to dethrone of a similar interference. How can we hope that our posthem, and her reception at her assembly, of English dele- terity will ever obtain a true statement of passing events, gates and traitors, whom, in contempt of the King and the when we are told, even in the very face of those events, Parliament, she professed to consider as the representa- that two years ago, we placed the Bourbons on the throne? tives of the British people, were causes quite insufficient Had we really done so, we should have been authorised by for hostilities! Certainly, the records of nations could fur- the usages of nations; because, as conquerors, we held in nish no precedent for such causes; but why? Because ourselves the right to dictate whatever mode of governhistory happily could not produce an instance of similar ment we chose ; nay, to portion out the territory into dukeprovocation. Unless then, a river was dearer to us than doms and principalities, and distribute them amongst our a religion, and our alliance with the Stadholder more bind-own generals. Yet with all these powers vested in us, ing on us than our allegiance to the King, it follows, (even and though we declined interfering with any form of gosetting the question of the Scheldt aside) that there still vernment which the conquered nation might itself adopt, remained ample motive for the measures which our govern- we are at this moment, and by some of our most enlightment adopted. The French declaration of war, however, ened statesmen too, accused of having done that which preceded our own, and thus prevented all possibility of we did not do, and which, had we done, we should have affixing any farther odium on our conduct. been perfectly justified in doing.

We have been led into the foregoing remarks by the perusal of a late publication, called ARMATA, but whether we should class it under the head of a romance, or a pamphlet, we really feel quite at a loss to determine. It begins with an account of a sailor, whose good ship Columbia was overtaken by a hurricane on the 10th of February, and

But it was, from the beginning, a war, not polemical or diplomatic; not founded upon views of aggrandisement, or upon infraction of treaties; not depending on the quirks of citizen Chauvelin, or on the long periods of Lord Grenville -it was a war in which the kingdom of the mind was invaded, in which human nature itself was called upon

to protect her rights; its origin was infidelity and its object extirpation-not that savage extirpation which would cut off a people at a blow, but that more refined butchery of intellect and moral truth, which, in leaving us life, would bestow upon us the worst of curses, because it would continue us under the dominion of all the rest.

tion of a frigate, are propositions neither Christian nor Mussulman.

others: there would be fewer orators than scholars, fewer Some branches of learning would attract more members than grammarians than cultivators of the physical sciences, because these sciences would have more to hope from the existence of such an assembly.

In this Congress, which embraces all faiths, and every spePLAN of a general Association of Learned and Sci-cies of knowledge, is colour to be made a ground for exclusion? entific Men, and of Artists of all Nations, for accelerating The nobility of the skin is already banished to the archives of the Progress of Civilization, of Morals, and of Illumination. folly. If such men should appear as Captain CUFFEE, KIZELL, By the ABBE GREGOIRE, Ex-Bishop of Blois.ans who want but the means of making their talents known) every and ISAACO, (negro authors of some recent publications, and lated and arranged by SIR T. CHARLES MORGAN, M. D. honest man would receive them with honor, while he would (Concluded.) reject from the assembly, with detestation, the ravagers of Africa, whose treasures are produced by the sweat, the tears, and the blood of its unhappy slaves.

Neither should difference of sex become a source of exclusion. There exist too many celebrated females, the creditors of history, who would bring an ample contingent to the service of the Congress.

The novelty of the assembly would bring from the most distant climes, men like the Persian MIRZA ABU TALEB, who lately appeared in Europe, and whose travels are translated into several European languages. Curiosity or accident would bring individuals from countries, in which the arts are yet in their infancy; and the descendants of ancient races, escaped from the chances of time and revolution. By the side of an Armenian or a Tartar, we might perhaps have a GUEBRE, 2 TORKELINE, or a TORLACIAS; the one an Icelander by birth, the other by descent, might embrace a Mandarin of letters, admitted as a literary character, and not as a Mandarin; for here the titles and decorations of vanity would be reduced to their just value. The chimney-sweeper poet BERONICIUS, or the ploughman BURNS, would hold a place far above many individuals, born in the highest classes of society.

THE city in which the Congress should meet, ought unquestionably to be remote from the din of war, and the discord of revolution; it should be commodiously situated for intercourse with foreign countries, and abounding in books, instruments, &c. for the prosecution of enquiry. Cheapness of provisions also would form an important consideration-Paris would fulfil some of these considerations, but not the whole; not at least until it shall have ceased to be a military position, and guarded by the troops of foreign nations-neither should the supposed advantages of its central situation (which however are far from incontestible) interfere with the principle of alternation of place; which would be productive of great benefits, and by which all civilized nations might enjoy in turn the presence of the Congress. For this purpose, the first meeting should fix the country, city, and other similar points for the regulation of the next. But as no such arrangement could be made for the first Congress, it becomes necessary to offer an opinion on the subject. Germany, (embracing all that part of the continent, which speaks the language of Gesner and of Wieland), has not the advantage, or more probably the disadvantage, of possessing a metropolis, which, usurps a literary supremacy over its other cities, and decides for them definitively upon points of taste and science. In this assembly also we might see the representatives of In these matters, as in politics, Paris assumes a sovereignty that classic country of liberty, which for more than four cenover the departments, which yield with blind idolatry to its turies has groaned beneath the Mussulman yoke. The illusdictates. Germany has at least an hundred cities, where let-trious offsets of ancient Greece, spread abroad over all Europe, ters are cultivated, by men, who for the most part join to great modesty a laudable elevation and independence of character. Such men will most probably abound in the free cities; and on that account they would deserve the preference: such for instance is Frankfort on the Maine. With respect to the interval Their exists also an amphibious race of beings, who would between the sessions; if it be too long, it would fatigue the ge- be anxious to gain admittance. The ancestors of these persons neral anxiety for communication; if too short, the Congress gloried in their ignorance of letters, considering it as a mark of would lose the charm of novelty, and sufficient materials would their nobility. But when the dissemination of knowledge not be accumulated for the renewal of its operations. Instead among the people rendered them a power in the state, these of biennial meetings, to which SIR JOHN SINCLAIR inclines, preux chevaliers felt the necessity of participating in the benefits would it not be more advisable to assemble triennially? The of instruction, to which their fortune opened to them the path. first assembly, however, foreseeing obstacles, and opposing But the majority, in thus placing themselves on a level with itself to the difficulties which might arise, would determine with greater precision upon this and other points connected with the conduct of the Congress; such as the formation of a centre of correspondence, the keeping of archives, &c.

The discussion of this question in periodical publications would bring it fairly under consideration; and if the public voice was clearly in favor of its adoption, any government, alive to its own interests, and anxious for the welfare of its people, or any learned society might take the first steps, without offending the amour propre of other nations; for the beginning must be made somewhere; and the initiative is but an invitation.

The custom of learned persons travelling at their own charge, or at that of their governments, assures us against any objection on the score of expence. With respect to the parties to be convoked, they should be of all states, without distinction of origin, sex, condition, colour, or faith. The sciences cultivated, or at least susceptible of cultivation, by men of all religions, belong not exclusively to any. The square of the hypothenuse, the cycloid, the calculation of an eclipse, the disposi

would come with Corai' at their head, to the Congress, breathing vows for the regeneration of their country.

With respect to number, the Congress should, without doubt, be unlimited.

their age in information, still displayed an affectation and pride; and by the exhibition of parchments, claimed an entrance into the sanctuaries of science. Hence arose the noble academicians, honorary members, metamorphosed into amateurs of knowledge. Are these men to be admitted into the Congress? The answer is to be found in the preceding number; send them to the tribunal of opinion.

The individual who travels for a specific object, seeks out the monuments, books, &c. analogous to his research; and he is drawn by a natural attraction towards others engaged in the same pursuits; being instigated by a desire of communicating his discoveries, and of obtaining information upon the points of which he is yet ignorant. The voyager in thus travelling through the world, effects in his individual person, what is required of the members of the Congress collectively. It is useless to enter into any extensive detail of examination,

1 Coray, the learned Editor of Hippocrates, and one of the revivers of the literature of ancient Greece, among its Romaic descendants.—T.

upon the questions of procès verbal, presidents, or of the lan- not be obtained, if its researches were not carried into all subguage to be employed in an assembly where all the members jects which could rectify false science, enlighten ignorance, are polyglot. In deliberative assemblies it often happens, that console misery, and elevate those countenances which have minute questions are tediously discussed, because they are been beaten down by misfortune. The names of HOWARD, within the scope of little minds, incapable of elevating them-HANWAY, FOTHERGILL, CHAMOUSSET,' can never be pronounced selves to vast and generalising conceptions, and delighting only but with veneration. Numbers of young persons, ambitious in the citation of particular instances. But men of genius, of filling honorable stations in society, would travel to become well aware that, next to virtue, time is most precious in human spectators of the Congress we propose, and to habituate themaffairs, will easily escape from these preliminaries, and proceed selves to laudable dispositions. Many periodical works would at once to the object of their meeting. Geometers would seek likewise be undertaken to disseminate its proceedings. Before out geometers, and chemists unite with chemists: the botanist, its close, the assembly should appoint a time and place for the the physician, the antiquary, the sculptor, the musician, would next sessions, arrange plans of occupation for the interval, each seek conferences with those devoted to the same pursuits. establish correspondence, and form an intermediate commisOne would bring a new instrument, another an unknown for- sion for receiving papers, &c. Thus men of the highest quamula, a simplified method, a project which solicits, or perhaps lities will have made an exchange of knowledge, of esteem, has already received, the sanction of experience. Beside such and of affection. Fortified in the love of good, they will return men, how infinitely little would appear those who have figured to their fellow citizens charged with scientific spoils; and will on the earth only through their opulence and power: how exe- fulfil a duty, which in Iceland was once the object of legislacrable the conquerors and the poets who sing only of the tive injunction. For every inhabitant who quitted that island, ravages of war! Point out the man, who first introduced the upon his return home, was compelled to appear before a magispotatoe into Europe, (be he Raleigh, or who he may), and let trate, and to communicate his observations on all that had ap a monument be erected to this benefactor of humanity, above peared to him good, and capable of being imported, in foreign that of every warrior, except those who have combatted in the manners. cause of liberty. In the event of this plan being adopted, any literary body, or any government may, as it has been already stated, convoke the first assembly. But if we suppose it to be rejected as Utopian; to have made the proposition, will still be an useful labour. FLEURI has observed that we should never remain satisfied, while one ignorant person stands in need of instruction, or one sinner requires conversion: and this maxim, though especially addressed to the ministers of the altar, is equally applicable to all mankind. Between nations and individuals there is the same rigid obligation to hinder evil, and to do good; to labour alike for the welfare of contemporaries, and for those who are to succeed us in the career of life. Virtue and truth are the heritage we should transmit to posterity; Having ascertained the boundaries of science, the next labour for those generations still belong to the great family of man, would be to devise means for its amplification. Subjects would which are reposing in the womb of time, and are not destined be proposed, prizes offered; and the business of the Congress to receive existence, until we are sleeping in the tombs of our divided among the members, to occupy the intervals between ancestors. the sessions. Placed two thousand leagues asunder, astronomers might agree to observe at the same instant, the march of a planet or a comet; their glances might, as it were, meet in the heavens, and an active correspondence might mutually transmit their reciprocal discoveries.

The first operation for the employment of the Congress would be, to draw up an account of the present state of the several sciences; to point out what has already been done, and what there yet remains to do; to apply the discoveries hitherto made, to the wants of society, and the established theories, to the perfecting of arts and manufactures. For this purpose, by the side of the chemist and the natural philosopher, the manufacturers would find a place, in order to obtain a rectification of their processes, or a communication of new methods; and geometry, statistics, and political economy would open their archives to the merchant, who seeks new vents for the extension of commerce,

LETTERS FROM LONDON.

LETTER V.

As you might easily have foreseen, from the tenor of a former letter, I was not very likely to succeed as a Herodotus and Pythagoras, travelling through foreign coun- governess. I therefore relinquished the project, and tries and discoursing with the philosophers of Thebes and the waited on the lady who had promised to make me her priests of Memphis, concerning customs and manners, afford amanuensis. She received me with abundant civility, inan image of what historians, antiquarians, and philosophers stituted me on the spot, and introduced me in the evening would perform at the Congress; of what Du THOU, FLEURI,

GUICHARDINI, and ROBERTSON would have done, had they to a literary party. These, it seems, are a select few, who lived under the proper circumstances. The fine arts would also meet once or twice a week for the purpose of giving and have their representatives; and the pleasures they afford would receiving wisdom, of bartering an apologue for an anecrender them a general relaxation to all, no less than an occu- dote, doling out sententiousness by retail, and, in short, pation to their respective professors. In discussing the labours of Congress, nothing has yet been sist of certain ladies and gentlemen, who have the happitransacting a regular commerce of small wit. They consaid of morals and of political economy. What would Edin

burgh, what would Germany think, if studies so important to ness, as they themselves say, to be neglected by the pubhuman happiness were not placed in the very first rank? lic; and who despise the public heartily, and write for it LOCKE, LEIBNITZ, CLARKE, BONNET, CONDILLAC, have every daily. They therefore find a prodigious comfort in colwhere their admirers. Let us reject their errors; but let us lecting together, and praising each other, since the comreceive with respect the researches of men, who have sounded the depths of intellect, examined the principles of social relations, and have planted the boundaries between legitimate authority and tyrannical abuse. Since sound morals and enlightened religion are the first wants of mankind, all right thinkers ought, with a common consent, to tend towards the regeneration of education, the spreading of elementary instruction among the lower classes, and the vulgarising, (if we may so speak), of good methods and of good models.

1 CHARLES HUMBERT DE CHAMOUSSET, born in Paris in 1717, was the Howard of France, and the author of very many tracts on points of charitable œconomics, which were collected and published by the ABBE DESHOUSSAYES. He was the inventor of that useful institution the petite poste. His whole time was occupied in dispensing assistance to every species of distress, which poverty entails on the human race; and he sacrificed an advantageous establishment in matrimony, because the lady The generality of modern institutions have tended to render did not sympathise in his charitable feelings. He died in mankind little: and the end of the scientific Congress would | 1773.-Tr.

munity will not do so for them. And truly, any one who heard them would imagine, that a congress of wits was then and there holden, in formal deputation from the four corners of the globe.

At first, a serious obstacle presented itself against my admission into this society; as none but those who had already written something, were eligible. Fortunately, however, I recollected that I once composed an additional verse to Lullaby, so was introduced, in due form, as a lady, "who had kindly benefited the commonwealth of letters."

"We congratulate ourselves on so valuable a member," said a pale gentleman, " for in Cato's judgment, a verse, a line of true simplicity, is worth a whole Childe Haroldry of fustian."

The room was in raptures at this parody. "Did you hear that? note that!" echoed every where; and every one took out a tablet. This is rather an awful affair, thought I; and what a flow of soul must needs ensue, when people are talking for immortality!

"As you are about entering upon a literary life," continued the pale gentleman, "allow me, Madam, to obtrude a few admonitory observations; for though some men are born with a desire to mind their own business, all men are born with a fondness for interfering with the affairs of

others."

Tablets and exclamations were now at work again.

"If your object in writing is present notoriety, you must knock at the public brains with a quarto, for they are never at home to the gentle tap of an octavo, Notes, wide lines, and a Thames of margin, will soon swell up the frog to a sufficient bull. In poetry,, you must either invent a new measure, or revive an old one; you must write with diluted ink, and eke out a thought to three pages; and, above all, must be sedulous to bring adjectives and substantives together, which, having never been so close before, naturally stare in astonishment at finding themselves side by side. For this purpose, a calida junctura between obsolete and new-made words, is the surest and easiest resource."

"But if plain prose be your object, you must not write a condensed style, but contrive to make every sentence a labyrinth of parentheses, hypotheses, and repetitions. In a word, it is now the fashion to write as if you were speaking, and to speak as if you were writing."

trary, we run rather into the opposite extreme, and hold up indifferent writers, as prodigies of wit. Formerly, seven or eight geniuses in a century, were thought sufficient; but now man, woman and child, all have genius. We are not content with a Pleiades, we must create a galaxy. And, indeed, in my judgment, this propensity is not without some reason; for though we do not, perhaps, possess any one. star of the first magnitude, yet our literary hemisphere is illuminated by so glorious a cluster of smaller lights, that we may defy any former age to compare with the present in collective brilliancy."

By Jupiter, Sir, you are a satellite on this occasion ;" observed the pale gentleman, and the company laughed and recorded.

The remainder of the conversation was conducted in a similar manner, but with frequent pauses; because as all were determined not to commit themselves by talking plain sense, silence, portentous of epigram, was often the consequence.

At length I left them, and returned home, with the full conviction, that a party specifically meeting to talk, is the most silent assembly in nature; that nothing can be more dull than a firm resolution to be witty, and nothing so little conducive to knowledge, as a premeditated conversation for the purpose of imparting it. Adieu.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS.

THE PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE, A Novel; by MISS JANE PORTER, author of Thaddeus of Warsaw, Sidney's Aphorisms, and the Scottish Chiefs. 4 vols. 12mo.

THE literary reputation of Miss Porter has already risen to a height above that of any cotemporary female writer of adorned history. While perusing her wellconstructed narratives, we are ready to believe ourselves, not wandering through the paths of fiction, but suddenly admitted to a participation in a train of minute facts and characteristic details, hitherto neglected by the historian, or concealed by the narrator of Secret Memoirs. Her magic pencil gives to the varied and successive pictures which are displayed upon her canvas, all the reality of portraits; and where the annalist of the epoch leaves but a frigid outline of events, she successfully unwinds the clue of ravelled policy, and traces the causes which bring "Then as for the subject, there is nothing so lucrative" States and Empires to their periods of declension." as novels or travels. Happy are those authors, who feel Whether the perusal of historical novels may prove proa desire to see a thousand miles. They set off some fine pitious to the acquirement of a clear and accurate knowmorning with a portmanteau, take a tour through France ledge of past events-whether the union of fictitious and the Netherlands, then publish, and out of the profits characters and situations, with the dark series of accreditafford themselves a trunk for their next excursion. To ed facts, be not prejudicial to the effect of those lessons of conclude, nobody now will allow genius out of a certain experience, which we gather from the virtues and succircle, and public taste is as fluctuating as the Ocean. cesses, the crimes and the follies of our predecessors-is a Nothing floats upon its surface but trifles, and the light-question which, although not irrelevant to the subject ness of a production may always be known by its buoy-before us, we will waive for the present, since we love ancy." much better to commend than to argue.

I have not interrupted my detail of this harangue, with a list of the murmured eulogies that its several passages received, but when the speaker had ended, an old cynical gentleman took up the subject.

"I am far from being of opinion," said he, "either that the public taste, generally speaking, is vitiated, or that there is an insensibility to talent among us. On the con

With infinite splendor of coloring, and grace of diction, Miss Porter is nevertheless a diffuse writer. She is not often profound in her reflections, and but rarely witty in her dialogue; nor does she frequently delight by a concentrated blaze of genius. But in her works, as in the immortal remains of Raffaelle, it is the mind that inspires, the soul which informs, the majestic whole, rather than