swayed at his will all our affections; and how he roused our indignation against Philip in a cause of which we did not perceive the real merits, till at a more advanced period of life we reviewed and corrected our early prepossessions. Yet it was the art of the orator only that seduced and misled our sympathies. In the Athenian quarrel with Philip, that able monarch acted with caution and providence, and with a politic subservience to the real necessities of his situation. Amphipolis, Potidæa, Methone, and Pydna, under the direct dominion of Athens, (and the rest of the Macedonian coast held by the Olynthians who were threatened with the Athenian power,) constituted a danger that urged him to resolution and activity. Hence the Macedonian alliance with Olynthus. Amphipolis, Pydna, and Potidæa, were taken by the confederates.

The history then goes on to the conclusion of the Social War, as it was called. The embarrassments experienced by the Athenians in the conduct of it evidently gave Philip a considerable advantage. Meanwhile, circumstances occurred, deeply involving the interest of all Greece, which interrupt for a time, though in themselves highly necessary to be understood, the particular history of Athens: - we advert to the war for the possession of the temple and treasury of Delphi, called the Phocian or the Sacred War. The hands of the Athenians, however, were not so full that they could not find leisure to quarrel with Philip; whose greatness, the fruit of a sagacious and circumspect policy, was now approaching to its height. His kingdom, by means of his first successes in the war of aggression, which the war-party of Athens had lighted up, extended from the Euxine to the Adriatic; for Thrace and Illyria, if not completely reduced under his dominion, were brought into a state of dependency on him. Athens still commanded the Egean: but the policy of Philip was strenuously directed to the counteraction of this evil. In spite, however, of the failure of the first confederacy against Macedon, untaught by misfortune, and forgetting the disgraceful manner in which the social war had been concluded, the Athenians persisted in hostilities against that powerful country.

It was in Thessaly that Philip gained his most signal victory, not indeed against the Athenians, but the Phocians, whom they had instigated to the invasion of that state; and the whole of it came entire into the power of Philip. Mr. Mitford does not account for what has always appeared to us so problematical in the conduct of the Macedonian monarch, that no plausible solution offers itself, but that of giving him credit for a degree of moderation and candour rarely exhibited by powerful and victorious sovereigns. Had he been

resolved

resolved on carrying war into the southern division of Greece with his own arms and those of Thessaly, he might have occupied the strait of Thermopyla, before the Athenians could have had time to send troops to defend it. After some delay, he did march to Thermopyla; and, though it is allowed on all hands that he might have forced the passage, he withdrew his troops quietly into Macedonia, leaving Greece to her own discords.

We cannot forbear to cite Mr. Mitford's short biographical sketch of Demosthenes :

The only child of the latter of these matches,' (that of the second daughter of Gylon with his father,) from his father, named Demosthenes, was left an orphan of seven years old, with property which ranked him among the wealthy of Athens. Educated as became his fortune, and introduced into life advantageously, through his connection with Demochares, he was of course to take his share of the combined evils and honors, which the Athenian constitution made the lot of the wealthy. In earliest manhood he was appointed to the expensive but honorable offices of choregus, or president of theatrical entertainments, and trierarc, or director of the equipment of a ship of war. To the burden of this office was annexed the honor of the command of the ship equipped. But while none of the wealthy were legally excusable from the one, many would be very unfit for the other, which therefore was not so rigorously imposed. Demosthenes, tho apparently little of a seaman, acted, however, at one time, as a naval captain in the Athenian service. He contributed also to the treasury, as we find him boasting, by gift, called free, but no more to be avoided than the office of trierarc. Nothing, however, beyond common pressure seems to have been put upon him; yet, through his disposition to luxury and 'ostentation, his fortune was quickly dissipated. Want thus drove him to apply his talents to business; and, at the age of five-and-twenty, he began with that employment which had raised Isocrates to fortune, consequence, and fame, composing speeches for suitors in the courts of justice.

Æschines, to balance the disadvantage of his birth, possessed, with great mental abilities, a superior figure, a voice uncommonly melodious and powerful, a reputation for courage repeatedly shown in his country's cause, a private character without stain, and manners that made him generally acceptable. Demosthenes had nothing of all these. A weak habit of body and an embarrassed manner seemed to deny him, equally as Isocrates, the hope of becoming a speaker to win the attention of listening thousands, and he had the farther great disadvantage of a defective utterance. With this, a sour, irritable temper was repelling to friendship, and an extraordinary deficiency, not only of personal courage, but of all that constitutes dignity of soul, made respect difficult and esteem apparently impossible. Nor were these defects REV. MAY, 1820.

C

shown

shown only among familiar acquaintance; they were exhibited in public, and made extensively notorious. In earliest youth he earned an opprobrious nickname by the effeminacy of his dress and manner. On emerging from minority, by the Athenian law at fiveand-twenty, he earned another opprobrious nickname by a prosecution of his guardians, which was considered as a dishonorable attempt to extort money from them. Not long after, in the office of choregus, which carried high dignity, he took blows publicly in the theatre from a petulant youth of rank, named Meidias ; brought his action for the assault, and compounded it, for, it was said, thirty mines, about a hundred pounds. His cowardice in the field became afterward notorious. Even his admirers seem to

have acknowledged that his temper was uncertain, his manners awkward; that he was extravagant in expence, and greedy of gain; an unpleasant companion, a faithless friend, a contemptible soldier, and of notorious dishonesty, even in his profession of an advocate. Yet so transcendent were the faculties of his mind and the powers of his eloquence, that after having, by great assiduity judiciously directed, overcome the defects of his utterance, he quickly made himself mighty among the multitude, terrible to his enemies, and necessary to his party.'

[To be continued.]

ART. II. An Essay on Magnetic Attractions; particularly as respects the Deviation of the Compass on Ship-board, occasioned by the Local Influence of the Guns, &c.; with an easy Practical Method of observing the same in all Parts of the World. By Peter Barlow, of the Royal Military Academy. 8vo. pp. 145. 6s. 6d. Boards. Taylor, Holborn. 1820.

ART. III. An Essay on the Strength and Stress of Timber, founded upon Experiments performed at the Royal Military Academy, on Specimens selected from the Royal Arsenal, and His Majesty's Dock-Yard, Woolwich: preceded by an Historical Review of former Theories and Experiments, with numerous Tables and Plates. Also an Appendix on the Strength of Iron and other Materials. By Peter Barlow, of the Royal Military Academy. 8vo. pp. 258. 188. Boards. Taylor,

Holborn.

F

Or all phænomena in nature, nothing has hitherto more

baffled the scrutinies and foiled the efforts of philosophy than the subtle affections of the magnet. The reciprocal power of attraction existing between the loadstone and iron was known at a very early period: Thales, Plato, Aristotle, and, consequently, all subsequent philosophers, were partially acquainted with the consequence of the inherent force which actuated the two substances: but not until about the end of the eleventh century was it observed that, when poised, and suffered

suffered freely to assume its own natural tendency, the magnetic needle became the index to the north and the south points of the horizon. If we look at that considerable portion of the world's duration which elapsed from the time of Thales, when the magnetic impulse was certainly known, to the time at which the polarity of this surprizing fossil was detected, — a period including seventeen centuries and a half,

we can scarcely fail to think that Nature has very reluc tantly divulged this great secret. To this feeling we must also add the recollection that, notwithstanding the fact of a propensity to polarize having before the year 1100 been satisfactorily ascertained to exist in the magnet, two centuries more were suffered to elapse before this intrinsic faculty and positive law became in any way usefully applied. It was, however, the birth of an æra memorable indeed in the science of navigation; and few things perhaps are now more generally known than this, that the loadstone is to the mariner an universal and constant guide, in the depth of darkness setting right his helm, and in the beaconless space of ocean indicating his course. Still it is not to be imagined that this invention was suddenly matured: for, although experiments might be very generally making by the several nations of Europe during the thirteenth century, in order to reduce to practice the important law, it was not until nicely suspended within a frame or box, over a projection of the rhumbs, that the needle could be usefully employed in a voyage of any extent: nor, indeed, until the apparatus had assumed its present commodious form, could the mariner's compass be properly said to have been invented.

We are still farther led to reflect that many ages have expired since the introduction and general use of the compass, and that, in this latter period, science has been making much deeper researches into nature than man had ever previously effected; yet, throughout the whole of these scientific ages, the admirable instrument of which we are speaking has remained in a state of great imperfection: - not from negligence, for the most experienced and able philosophers have been constantly employed in endeavours to penetrate into the origin of the many anomalies to which magnetic attraction has seemed exposed, but because all their skill and assiduity produced little more than fruitless conjectures on the subject, and consequently no essential improvement was effected in the construction of the compass.

In the preceding remarks, we have glanced cursorily at the slow advancement which, during a vast succession of time, has been made towards perfection in an instrument very simple

in its principle, but very intricate in its nature. The design of these preliminary observations, it will be obvious, is to afford those of our numerous readers, who have paid little or no regard to the question of magnetic influences, an opportunity of judging more satisfactorily concerning the consequence of some recent experiments which have been made on the seacompass by Mr. Barlow of the Royal Military Academy, and recorded in the first mentioned of the two volumes now before us. As, however, nothing in the general allusions already made give those who are strangers to this subject a tolerable idea of the difficulties with which the inquiry into these phænomena is embarrassed, it will not be exceeding our province to notice, in a brief manner, some of the most conspicuous of those particulars which have, from first to last, confounded not merely individual genius and skill, but the united powers of philosophy in all the scientific associations throughout the earth.

It

One essential defect in the compass is that which is commonly termed its variation. Only in some particular tracts of the earth will the needle point due north and south. sometimes exhibits a considerable angle of variation westward; and, in places not far distant, an eastward variation equally great prevails: all apparently without any steady principles. These phænomena seldom correspond with respect to the quantity of variation in any two equal distances of any magnitude. According to a chart of the variations by Bellin, a very celebrated engineer, the needle continues stedfast at 20° of westerly variation during the whole of a direct course from Bristol across the Atlantic to Boston in North America, a distance of about 4800 miles: but in the minor distance from Boston to Cape Florida, about 1100 miles, a variation of 23° occurs. Another instance, in which a very sudden and unusual transition is experienced, has been observed in the Indian Ocean. Sailing east from Madagascar on the parallel of 20° south latitude, in the first seventeen hundred miles, 15° difference of variation westward are found: bút, continuing the course on the same parallel, the needle experiences no farther alteration, and is stationary at 5° of westerly variation throughout the whole voyage to New Holland, a distance of three thousand five hundred miles. It will be noted that from Boston to Cape Florida the course is supposed to be north and south, but in the latter instance the course is from west to east. These, however, are selected as rather extraordinary cases, to shew the greatest extremes of variation in the least known distances, and the least variation in the longest courses connected with the former.

Besides,