it is in the true Lyric file; and of the author it is peculiarly worthy of remark, that he is emitled to the meed of praile, as Simonides of Cos obtained a prize, in the eightieth year of their age!!! The following two ftanzas and fhort addrefs are at your fervice, as the poflible means of producing the Alcaic Ode, aid of gratifying the public eye, as well as private friends, in the perufal, by an early publication of it in the Gentleman's Magazine. The compliment due to the author "Dilecta Phobo, feu tibi carmina Jan. 14. Mr. URBAN, IN the Hifiory of Surrev lately publifhed, the Editor, under the parish of Reigate, has inferted two lines as being placed over the door of the poor houfe attached to that and other neighbouring parifhes. As the book is not in general circulation, I fhall beg leave to inclofe a copy of the lines: "Ad Viatorem, Non manet hic, mihi crede, comes, fed fplendida, tantùm Reddidit, en! Miferis, tecta, fuperba I Mr. URBAN, Birmingham, Jan. 4. BEG leave to refer A. Z. p. 1100, who inquires after the firi introduction of Windmills, to p. 728 of volume LXXIII. He will there find that they were known in England in 1297, which is earier than is generally fuppofed and we may align them to a ill earlier æra, as fome of our Hiftorians tell u, that at the battle of Lewis, in 1254, Richard, King of the Romans, took refuge in a Windmill*: though we may reafonably doubt the conjecture of the late good Vicar of Cudhani, p. 901, who would carry back their introduction as far as the time of the Domelday Survey in 1086—Admitting that the parish of Cndham had no fiream fufficient to turn a Watermill, might not the boundaries, of its antient manor have been fufficiently extenfive to include this defirable acconmodation; or, might not the mills recorded in the Survey have been fituated in an adjoining maner, but ap propriated to the ute of the tenants at Cudham; and confequently valued with that manor? Your Correfpondent the "Architect," who fo ably vindicates the works and the workmen of Old England from the undeferved charge of Gothic barbarity, will, perhaps, indulge us by flating the earl.ctt period in which he has noticed the reprefentation of Windmills, among the many relicks of antient Sculpture and Painting copied by his accurate and indefatigable pencil. donius." Yours, &c. WILLIAM HAMPER. HE following Mero.anda of the prices of grain, labour, &c. in Staffordthire, in 1695, are copied from the pocket book of " Mad m Chetwind's" Steward; and may afford fome *Tindall's Hift. of Evesham, p. 253, amufemen amufement to thofe of your readers who are fond of recalling "the days of the years that are paft' Yours, &c. WILLIAM HAMPER. January 1694-5. . s. d. Pd. Tho. Spoooner for 60 ftrike of barley 05 18 04 Pd. for 16 ftrike of oates at 15d. 01 00 00 Pd. Mr.Pollett for 12 thr.ftraw 00 08 00 Pd.Smyth for 2 ftrikes of wheat 00 07 07 Pd. Wm. Adey for6 ltr. of wheat 01 04 06 March, pd. Walter Parton * 18 days.. April, 1695, pd. Mrs. Pallett for 7 fir. of peafe 00 12 00 00 14 00 Pd. Tho. Wright for the lay 21 hd. of bricks... 00 17 07 00 09 00 00 03 00 1901. Deaths. January 120 Deaths. Deaths. 01 01 00 1800 370 ftr. malt. 01 17 00 Auguft, pd. Walter, thresh ing 7 days Pd. Wm. Wood to pay for 5 days fawing 6 ftr. coales November, pd. Jo. Hawkins Pd. Mr. Webb for 10 wea- thers Pd. Wm. Wood to pay for 5 flrike of coals to coake, and given the colliers... Pd. Edw. Sawyer for coaking the faid coals...... Pd. Wm. Monk thacking and ridgeing the barue and houfes 3 days.. 1803. Deaths. January 181 Bilbopfgate. Hoxton. Golden-lane Clerkenwell 01 05 06 00 05 00 06 05 00 .00 04 08 It is hoped the knowledge of thefe facts will ftrongly tend to promote the beneficial practice of Vaccine Inoculation; it appearing, that the faral difcafe of Small-pox has progreffively declined, as the ineftimable difcovery of Vaccination has been introduced. Rotherhithe 510 1,070 816 579 245 February 121 March 1. A Letter to Phileleutheros Orielenfis, eccafioned by bis "Sbort Account of certain notable Difcoveries," contained in a recent Work, intituled, "Elements of General Knowledge." IN our review of the Short Account," we were taxed with more than want of impartiality towards the author of the Elements." If this be intended as a defence of him, we mult confefs that it is fo diffufe and fo replete with wire-drawn and vulgar wit, that there is nothing to recommend it but the difplay of the Letter-writer's learning; as if, by his Greek quotations, he meant to prove himfelf competent to enter the lifts with his anta gonift. His fpeech bewrayeth" hin a ftudent of the lately united kingdom. 2. The Biter bit; or, Difcoveries difcovered in a Pamphlet of certain notable Difcoveries, fuppofed to be contained in a recent Work, intituled, The Elements of General Know ledge." By S. Nobody, of King's College, Oxford. ་་ THIS is a fhorter defence of the "Elements; but not more fatisfac tory or interefting. One of thefe is afcribed to a fon. of the printer. Soon after we had reviewed the two preceding articles, appeared, 3. Some Account of a recent Work, intituled, "Elements of General Knowledge, being Part the Second; with Remarks upon Two Articles published in the Britifb Critic. By J. Davifon, M. A. 66 OUR opinion on the former part of this Account, vol. LXXIV. p. 449, is not in the leaft altered, by the avowal of the author's name. The Univerfity and their New Statute are fo completely, committed by the author of the Ele ments," that it feemed a facred obliga. tion on her fons to enter upon a fall and fair examination and difcullion of his pretenfions, and how far he was to be confidered as competent to his undertaking, to convey knowledge to "the junior ftudents in the Universities, and the higher claffes in fchools-to thofe who are qualifying themfelves to pafs the public examinations for their degrees, and to make the most useful topics of literature familiar and eafy to general readers, who have not had the advaus tage of a learned education." From p. 9 to 34, the Accountant proves, that neither the definitions, nor the principles of the various parts of the Mathematics, are juft. The whole bufinefs GENT. MAG, January, 1805. of philofophy is flurred over, and the fair expofition of it totally evaded.” (p. 18.) Bacon difcovered neither gunpowder nor the telescope; they were known before; and, if Marcus Græcus treated of gunpowder in the ninth century, he was probably acquainted with the Greek fire of the antients, which a noble earl conjectures to be aimed at the navy of Great Britain. The first edition of the Elements" difpofed of Copernicus in few words; the fourth gives a view of the Copernican fyftem, either as taken by Copernicus himfelf, or as improved and filled up fince his time." (p. 25.) This fingle elfay upon Copernicus would, of itself, oblige me to question the author's competency to any philofophical fubjest: it is an amendment of a former attempt. It appears upon an afterthought, with all the advantages which induftry, quickened by the fenfe of former deficiency, can give it. And the fubject itself is of the very fimpleft confideration. To draw out an epitome of the Copernican fyftem, that shall be juft and confiflent in all its parts, and in proper terins, is fo very humble a talk, that he who fails in it must be pitious to his exertions." (p. 28.) The far indeed from having philofophy profketch of Galileo's difcoveries, in the first edition, is very imperfect; and,. after having been retouched, it is very imperfect fiill. It is quite grievous to think what treatment Kepter received in the first edition." (pp. 30, 31.) Only five of the feven fatellites of Saturn'are fated as difcovered; and Mr. Boyle is made the inventor of the air-pump, which he himself difclaims, referring to a printed report of Otto Guericke's con trivance, which he greatly improved upon. The fame imperfection attends Mr. K's account of Bacon's philofophi cal works, and of Herfchel's and Newton's difcoveries. In the Hiftory of modern Europe, fo many deficiencies are pointed out, that our limits cannot comprize them. In the article of the Crufades, Mr. K, after making "Mr, Gibbon fit for the portrait of an unfaithfol Hillorian, rifks the faith of a large portion of history upon a name fo difhonoured." (p. 45.) As the Crufades ore vindicated again Mc. G. fo is the Hiory and Condition of our own Country against Mr. K's mifreprefentation and "ferious hyperboles ;" fich as, the reducing while countes to fo rents, 1 refts, and the introduction of the Nor- "The fiandard of language, we sec, is first lodged with the polished ranks of fociety, in the courfe of a page paffed into the hands of the learned, and now remaining with the people at large." (p. 94.) Mr. K. prefumes, that the bft comedies of Menander and Philemon, and the loft books of Polybius, if they could be recovered, would probably make fuch difcoveries as confiderably to abate "the praise usually bestowed upon. Terence and Livy." "Terence bimfelf introduces his dramas as tranflations from the Greek ; nor do I think that our opinion of Livy's talents would be lowered by the recovery of Polybius. We know already that he took the fubflance of much of his hiftory froin Polybius; but we know alfo that he could derive his eloquence, his lights and beauties of compofition, and his neverfailing good fenfe, on which accounts it is that we admire him, from no other fource than his own cultivated mind;" fays Mr. D. p. 96, 97. The error of making Diodorus Siculus blame fet fpeeches in Livy and Salluft, retained in three editions, and left out in the fourth, is finely expofed, and the fentences proved to belong to Dr. Jenkin, in the Reasonableness and Certainty of the Chriftian Religion; (p. 103.) This is one of the apteft detections in the *Account." Second to it, an nual and diurnal circuit of the earth round the blazing centre of the [planetary] fyftem, forms a mofi fingular "an phenomenon, quite unknown to aftronomers; (p. 108.) As Mr. K. confounds Auguftus with Antony, Trajan with Titus, and Pliny the younger with Pliny the elder, so be appropriates to Athens the 3000 fiatues, which his author diftributes among Athens, Olympia, and Delphi (p. 130.); inverts the order of Alaric's invafions of Greece and Italy, and makes Theodoric and Athalaric labour to foften the rough manners of the Goths by the refinements of learning, whereas they rather difcouraged it (p. 132-3.); ́and the Lombards are made to gain poffelfion of Italy in the fifth century, whereas they did not before the clofe of the fixth; (p. 134.) Thefe and the fix following pages are taken up with fimilar errors and mifreprefentations and mif-citations, "in a book which coneludes, in its Lift of Editions, with a challenge to the moft operofe kind of claffical criticifin." "Of the large hiftorical divifions of the work, I confider the Hiftory of Rome to be much the beft; but one firiking and effential defect in it is the total want of an orderly narrative of facts and events. The beginning of the first part is not excellent, and other parts are like the beginning. (p. 144.) In the fecond, the fall of the Roman empire was not at the taking of Rome. The empire was divided, and the old capital in a manner abandoned. If an event, which altogether changed the ftate of Italy, does not find a place in an abridgement of Roman hillory, it is an abridgement in truth, which abforbs æras and revolutions." (p. 145.) "The corre& fpeaker," fays Mr. K. "rejects local and provincial forms of expreffion for thofe that are general. He converfes neither in the dialect of Somerfet nor of Norfolk *, but in that elegant phrafeology which has received the fanction of the best company.” (p 82.) Yet, in an apoftrophe to the Deity, cited p. 108, Mr. K. violates English : Extending its eager views to the contemplation of objects fo vafl, our fouls feel the narrowness of their faculties to comprehend," &c. Haiah is made to prophecy when Jerufalem was laid in ruins; whereas the fubjectmatter of his prediction was the future event of Jerufalem being laid in ruins. (p. 109.) 66 The age of Cornelius [Sylla] is called pure times (p. 111); and the Roman laws are as much misreprefented as they are flightly touched. (pp. 111, 113.) The differtation on the luxury of Rome is copied, with incorrect references, from the Origin and Progrefs of Language, III. 456. The Illus of Plato is one while denoted by the now bareness and unfruitfulness of its banks, and another by its being almoft dried up, inflead of being once full and flowing; whereas all writers of antiquity fpeak of it as vaka and aquila, a contemptible and finall fream, nearly dry in fummer, and only overflowing in winter *. In his obfervations on Tafie, Mr. K. has confounded the arch of Conftantine with the pillar of Antonine. (p. 121.) Arioflo is made contemporary with Dante, Boccacio, and Petrarch; though he lived two centuries remote from Dante, in the most polished age of Italian literature, under Leo X. (p. 125.) But this is of a piece with the placing Chryfoloras and Gaza of Theffalonica in Italy after the fall of Conftantinople; though the error had been corrected in Hody and Boerner, who are actually referred to by Mr. K. Chryfoloras Spread Grecian learning through Italy Fong before the emigrants from Conftantinople, and Pope Nicholas V. invited Theodore Gaza before 1453, but not fo early as 1440, when he was neither pope, nor poffeffed of the means of patronage. Calliftus, whom Mr. K. has ranked with the emigrants, hath little chance to be recorded with ho nour in any annals of literature, except in thofe before us. He is an uncommon perfonage, whofe hiftory feems to be this: Calliftus is a title of honour belonging, of undoubted right, to Johannes Andronicus; and Conflan tius (or Confiantinus) belongs to another Lafcaris: for there were two of the name, famous in their time. We may immagine the original flood in fome good book, Johannes Andronicus Calliftus, Conftantinus and Johannes Lafcaris Gaza, &c. out of which the ardour of compilation, joining and disjoining, produced that curiofity of biography, Calliftus Conftantius.` "(p. 128.) "In the few pages which have been drawn from Montefquieu on the Decline of the Roman Empire, several things are reprefented in a way contrary to Montefquieu's meaning, as well as to the known truth of common trite hiftory." (p. 146.) "It was feen in part L how the Hiftory of the Peloponnefian War, delivered in the Elements of General Knowledge,' is at variance throughout, and in exprefs terms, with another hiftory of it, written by Thucydides, whofe authority, neverthelefs, is alledged with as much courtefy as if it had been followed." (p. 147.) For fome grofs mifreprefentations in the Hiftory of Greece, ill amended in a fubfequent edition, and others equally glaring in the Hiftory of England, we inult refer to pp. 147–152. Mr. K's Effay on Oratory is gathered from Ward's Syfiem of Oratory, as is that on Logic from Duncan's Ele ments. "He who brings us fruit, though it be from another man's garden, fill deferves our thanks for his trouble: only we would rather he did not fpoil the fruit by an over-hafty hand in gathering. For the fame reason, provided an author make a good use of the labours of his predeceffor, we need not care how free it be; and, in the prefent inftance, we should not take it ill that an old book were given us again in epitome, had the epitome been to * "On the left hand, returning from the Aquæduct, is the bed of the Iliffus, and higher up the junction of the Eridanus. The water of this river was fo bad, that the cattle would fcarcely drink it. The Iliffus is now, as it ever was, an occafional .torrent. In fummer it is quite dry. During our refidence at Athens, I feveral times vifited the bed after fnow had fallen on the mountain, or heavy rain, hoping to fee it filled to the margin, rufhing along with majeftic violence; but never was even the farface covered, the water lodging in the rocky cavities, and trickling from one to another. "The poets, who celebrated the Iliffus as a ftream laving the fields, cool, lucid, and the like, have both conceived and conveyed a falfe idea of this renowned watercourfe. They may beftow a willow fringe on its naked banks, amber waves in the muddy Mæander, and hanging woods on the bare fteep of Delphi, if they please'; but the foundation in nature will be wanting; nor, indeed, is it eafy for a defcriptive writer, when he exceeds the sphere of his own obfervations, to avoid falling into local abfurdities and untruths." Chandler's Travels in Greece, pp. 78, 79, lerably |