Fanny is left to be abused by her enraged fifter; and thus ends this very long act. ACT III. Opens with the arrival of three lawyers, who come to settle the marriage-contract between Sir John and Mifs Sterling. Whilft these formal gentlemen are in conversation with Mr. Sterling concerning the particulars, they are interrupted by Sir John, who has matter of importance to communicate to his hoft. The lawyers are defired to amufe themselves in the garden, and then Sir John difclofes his paffion for the youngest daughter, imploring the father's confent to marry her instead of her elder fifter. Sterling is at first offended, but becomes reconciled on Sir John's propofing to relinquifh 30,000l. of the 80,cool. which he was to have had with Mifs Sterling. This propofal is the only new incident by which the story advances, during this whole act, the latter part of which is employed in a fruitless attempt to obtain Mrs. Heidleberg's confent to the intended transfer. ACT IV. Mrs. Heidleberg, who rules the roaft in this family, refolves to fend Fanny to town next morning; to prevent which, Lovewell perfuades his wife to difclose their marriage to Lord Ogleby; who, he tells her, feems to entertain a visible partiality for her, and from whose influence in the family a reconciliation will moft probably be brought about. Fanny, determined to disclose the dreadful fecret, accofts his lordship in the garden. She begins her ftory; but for want of refolution, speaks fo equivocally, that his lordship, whofe vanity has ever the afcendant, mistakes the whole of her converfation for a declaration of love to himself. She retires, and my lord, fully perfuaded of her paffion for him, determines to marry her. His mistake gives rife to another fcene, partly of the fame kind, between Lovewell and his lordship, who continues in his errour to the end of the act. He propofes the match to Sterling, and obtains his confent; and Lovewell is ordered immediately to London to fetch fome papers neceffary on the occafion. ACT V. Lovewell, confidering that he was dispatched on a needless errand, inftead of fetting out for London, retires to his Fanny's bed-chamber; where, raifing his voice rather too loud, he is overheard by Mifs Sterling, liftening at the door, fhe having been already informed by her maid that there was a man in her fifter's chamber, which man Mifs Sterling naturally concludes to be her faithlefs Sir John Melvil. Big with this idea, the fallies forth, in the dark, conducting Mrs. Heidleberg to the door of her fifter's room. Having no doubt but that Sir John and and Mifs Fanny are together, laying a plan for their elopement in the morning, they determine, in revenge, not only to disappoint but to expose them; and therefore begin to make a horrible uproar, in order to raise the family. Sterling appears first, then Canton, then the lawyers, and then his lordship, all greatly terrified at Mrs. Heidleberg's outcry of thieves! The company being thus affembled, they are informed that Sir John is locked up with Fanny, in her bed-chamber. Lord Ogleby, having no doubt of his Fanny's affection, difbelieves the fact; and, calling aloud for Sir John Melvil, the baronet enters, not from Mifs Fanny's chamber, but on the oppofite fide of the stage, to the great, aftonishment of the whole company. Lord Ogleby now requests that Mifs Fanny may be defired to come forth and difpel all their doubts. She appears, but foon faints away. This occafions a fresh alarm; on which Lovewell rufhes from the fame apartment, catches her in his arms, and the recovers. They now confefs their having been four months married. Sterling threatens to turn them out of doors, upon which Lord Ogleby generously declares that he will receive and patronise them. After a little expoftulation, however, all parties are reconciled; the play concludes; and is followed by a very fingular and very entertaining Epilogue. It may poffibly be faid, with fome appearance of juftice, that in this comedy we are prefented with no entire new characters; but if that be a fault, we shall more readily excuse it, when we confider the difficulty of finding any real character which hath not already been exhibited upon the ftage; fo that in this respect any thing truly original is hardly to be expected. As to moral, it certainly contains none; on the contrary, the only offenders, are the only perfons made happy in the catastrophe: for, as to Mifs Fanny's fufferings, we are of opinion there are not many young ladies who would fcruple to fuffer twice as much during the honey-moon with the man of their heart. On the whole, however, tho' this comedy may not (in the perufal) have quite answered our expectation, fo greatly raised by the united names in the title-page, yet, confidering it merely as a piece of entertainment, it certainly deferves the applaufe which it has fo generally received. Some of its fcenes are truly comic, the story is well conducted, and the final event, or unravelment of the plot, judiciously brought about.We cannot, however, taks leave of our ingenious Authors, without expreffing our furprize at their addrefs to the fpectators, in the laft fentence of the play in which they have offended against a moft effential rule of the drama: which invariably fuppofes the whole action performed independent and entirely regardless of the fpectators. It is, indeed, not only injudicious, but has too obviously the appearance of being merely intended to coax the audience into good humour. Philofophical Philofophical Tranfactions, Vol. LIV. concluded. See p. 63. IN N our Review for Dec. laft, we gave an account of the papers in this Vol. of the Philofophical Transactions, relative to phyfics, natural hiftory, &c. In our number for January, thofe on medical and anatomical fubjects were mentioned; and now we proceed to the mathematical, mechanical and aftronomical communications. The firft of these is Article III. The defcription of a new and fafe crane, which has four different powers; invented by Mr. James Ferguson, F. R. S. This machine, which cannot be eafily understood without the engraved figure that accompanies it, is very well adapted to prevent the many fatal accidents that often happen by using the common tread-wheel crane. But either from the multiplicity of its parts, the confiderable friction they occafion, the lofs of time, or, perhaps, from the inflexible bigotry of the perfons concerned in thefe machines, to their old methods, it has not yet been carried into execution. For we muft obferve, that though this piece of mechanifm has never before appeared in any printed work that we have feen, yet a model of it was fome time fince prefented by Mr. Ferguson to the fociety for the encouragement of arts, &c. and is now in their machine room; fo that the contrivance has been long enough known to mechanics for it to have been carried into execution. Indeed the machine before us does not feem calculated for raifing heavy weights. with that dispatch which is neceffary on the public wharfs. For though it is well known that the force of one man may, by this, or almost any other machinery, be fufficient for raifing the moft enormous weights; yet, as what is gained in power will always be loft in time, it becomes neceffary, where dispatch is required, to proportion the power to the weight intended to be raifed; fo that the work may be performed in a reasonable time; and this is perhaps the principal reason why our mechanical gentlemen have not attempted to introduce Mr. Ferguson's machine inftead of the common cranes now in ufe. IV. Of the Moon's Distance and Parallax: a Letter to Andrew Reid, Efq; from Dr. Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch has in this paper given an easy method for determining the moon's diftance, from the received theory of central forces. The method is this: Sir Ifaac Newton concluded, from an investigation of the law of gravitation, that the gravitation at the earth's furface, being diminished as the fquare of the diftance from the earth's centre increases, would, at the diftance of the moon, produce a fall from reft, in one fecond, precifely equal to that verfed fine. Or, that the gravitation of the moon toward the earth, being increafed as the fquare of that diftance is diminished at the earth's furface, be of the fame quantity as as that of falling bodies is actually found to be.This law of gravitation Mr. Murdoch affumes as given, and makes the moon's diftance the quantity fought. Thus writing F for the number of feet which a body falling from reft, defcribes, in vacuo, at the equator in one fecond, V for the verfed fine of the arc of the moon's orbit described in the fame time, to the radius unity, D for the femidiameter of the equator in feet, and the ratio of the distance of the centres of the earth and moon, to the femidiameter of the earth, that of X to 1: we have, by the general law, the moon's fall in F fecond, equal to ; but the fame fall is equal to VXDXX; F X2 F whence X3=VXD, and X=√ VXD is the distance sought in femidiameters of the equator 60.08906. And the arithmetical complement of the logarithm of the above number is the log. tang. of the moon's mean horizontal parallax at the equator, which therefore is 57'. 12", 34. But as this distance will be fomewhat increased by the revolution of the earth and moon round their common center of gravity, this able mathematician finds, by a very curious pro cefs, the true diftance to be 60.5883 femidiameters of the equator, and the moon's horizontal parallax 56'. 44", 07. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXIV. XXV. XXVI.XXX. XXXI. XLV. Obfervations on the eclipfe of the fun, the first of April, 1764, made in Surry-ftreet in the Strand, by James Short, M. A.; at the houfe of Jofeph Salvador, Efq; by Dr. John Bevis; at Liverpool, by Mr. James Fergufon; at Brumpton Park, by Mr. Samuel Dunn; at Flamstead houfe, by Mr. Profeffor Blifs; at Thorley-hall, by Matthew Raper, Efq; at Schovezinge near Heidelberg, by Chriftian Mayer; at Chatham by Mr. Mungo Murray; and at the Jefuit's college in Rome. As there is nothing very particular in these observations, we have placed them under one article, and fhall refer those who are defirous of perufing them, to the original, as an abridgement would be ufelefs. But muft obferve, that Dr. Bevis, Mr. Dunn, and Mr. Mayer, have alfo given in their papers, obfervations on the eclipse of the moon, which happened on the 17th of March, 1764. XXVII. A table of the places of the comet of 1764, difcovered at the obfervatory of the Marine at Paris, on the third of January, about eight o'clock in the evening, in the conftellation of the Dragon, concluded from its fituation obferved with regard to the flars : By Monfieur Charles Meffier. This table contains fixteen places of the comet deduced Q3 from from obfervations made from the third of January to the eleventh of February. To which Mr. Meffier has added the following elements of the theory of this comet, as deduced by M. Pingré, from his firft obfervation: The afcending node Place of perihelium 3° 29°. 20. 6". 53. 54. 19. II. 16. 48. Logarithm of the diftance of the perihelium 9.751415. Paffage of the perihelium 12 Feb. at 10h. 29'. mean time in the meridian of Paris. The motion retrograde, XXVIII. A Supplement to Mr. Pingré's Memoir on the Parallax of the Sun in a Letter from him to the Royal Society. Mr. Pingré, in this fupplemental part to his Memoir publifhed in the preceding volume of the Philofophical Transactions, endeavours to fhew, from feveral obfervations made at different places, particularly thofe made by Mr. Mafkelyne at St. Helena, that his own observations on the late tranfit of Venus, made at the ifland of Rodriguez, are nearer the truth than those made by Meffrs. Mason and Dixon at the Cape of Good Hope. He has also corrected a pretty remarkable difference that appeared between the account of his own obfervations on the tranfit of Venus, as tranfmitted to the Royal Society, and that published in the French Memoirs. XXIX. An Account of the Tranfit of Venus: in a Letter to Charles Morton, M. D. Sec. R. S. from Chriftian Mayer, S. J. According to the obfervations of this ingenious Aftronomer, the interior contact of the western limb of Venus, with the western limb of the fun, happened at 20h. 53. 8". true time. The moment of the egrefs, wherein the fame limb of the fun after the interior contact firft appeared corniculated, 20h. 53′ 35′′. and the first outer contact at 21. 9. 4′′. XXXV. Some new Properties in Conic Sections, difcovered by Edward Waring, M. A. Lucafian Profeffor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge. Thefe new properties are delivered in fix theorems, and are at once both curious and ufeful; but cannot be abridged, or given without the figures. XLVI. The Defcription of a new Hygrometer, invented by James This inftrument will certainly anfwer the end propofed, and Sun |