of English works on this science, have yet to learn the rules of substraction, multiplication, and division," we are quite convinced that there is no country in Europe where the principles and practice of arithmetic are better understood than in our own-and farther, that if the excellent little books of Hutton, Bonnycastle and Keith, were to be superseded by this self-confident gentleman's octavo, arithmetic would be as little known in England, in less than thirty years from the present time, as the Syriac language.

Art XVIII. Themes of Admiration, a philosophical poem. With other Metrical Specimens. By T. Heming. 8vo. pp. 160. Price 7s 6d. Sherwood and Co. 1812.

IN publishing this volume Mr. Heming states himself to have been chiefly actuated by a desire of ascertaining the rank he may fairly claim, in the literary commonwealth. It may be demanded,' he says, why we do not weigh with humility our own pretentions. For myself I reply that I want a comparative scale from which I could satisfactorily estimate. I am not able to boast the prolific fancy of a Shakespeare, the capacity of a Milton, the profoundity of a Pope, or the pathos of a Thompson. But what then? Is the sparrow found to sit mute, &c. because the nightingale, &c.'

The unparalleled modesty of this dieclaimer must strongly interest every reader of taste and discernment in the author's favour. In this age of pretention' for a bard like Mr. Heming voluntarily to come forward with a confession of inferiority to such writers as Milton and Shakespeare, is really a very extraordinary proceeding, and will, we doubt not, inspire our readers with a vehement impatience to obtain possession of some specimens of a commodity' of which the vender merely ventures to affirm that it is compounded of original effusion and genuine morality. In the following paragraph extracted from the philosophical poem, they will be reminded of the capacity of a Milton,' the fancy of a Shakespeare, and the profoundity of a Pope,' only to admire how delightfully they are combined in the person of a Heming.j

The splendid sun displays his burnished dress
The grand Chronometer of days and years;
The seasons' guide, who, traversing his walk
Purges and qualifies the vital air,

Distils refreshment o'er the herbage beds
Well rectified, and-nourishes the earth.
The geocentric moon, crescent or orb,
Whose law impulsive to the restless deep.
Its verge of how or lowest neap prescribes ;
The mariners' and lovers' grateful lamp
Compass of months, Hyperion's stately bride,
Who, with him dancing through the GRAND SALOON
Varied positions shews; now changing sides,
Now face to face with bolder countenance
A pair unequalled in the baldric train.
Round the gay gallery nine moving spheres
Of the first order, spinning on their poles
With twice nine servants in their glorious train,

Far swifter speed along their yearly tracts

Than ball exploded from the cannon's throat.'

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The next poem entitled the scene of sorrow,' is more calculated to bring into comparison the pathos of a Thompson.' It is a sort of elegy, which may be said to kill two birds with one stone, as it contains a lament both for Louis XVI. and his royal consort. The poet begins by noticing the impropriety of merely yielding a shudder' at the miseries he is going to describe.

To thee the sorrows of the injured cry

The sorrows of thy tongue their cause deserves,
Vollied with rage indignant let them fly,

And shiver in their course the knottiest nerves,'

In order to do this the more effectually he enters into a disquisition on the nature of man.

here be it understood

That man compounded both of hot and cold
If Direan torch e'er touch his sulphurous blood
A wild combustion rages uncontrouled.'

Having first of all despatched poor Louis, he directs the piteous eye of Melpomene to the quondam queen,' whose melancholy situation is feelingly deplored.

No vivid beam her languid eye can yield

And every brace of body seems unstrung.'.

She has notwithstanding, sufficient strength left to deliver a speech. or speeches to the amount of seventy six stanzas; after which ensues a description of the trial, execution, and posthumous proceedings.

No black plume nods amid procession slow
Unhonoured with a tumulus of sod, &c.

The poet concludes with a patriotic exhortation to the King of England, from which we unfortunately can only afford room for a single

stanza.

#

For pastors to conduct thy Christian flocks,
In schools of diligence for talent search,
It wounds the heart of good old Orthodox

To watch the languor of his ward the church.'

There are several miscellaneous pieces in addition to these two. But we should think we have already afforded our readers, a comparative scale by which they can satisfactorily estimate.' Whether they will be inclined to place the name of Heming on a level with the illustrious names to whom he directs their attention, we presume not to determine. He appears to be a man of good intentions, and we hope will long survive the memory of his verses.

Art. XIX. Observations upon Commercial Terms of Peace with France, and our own Resources. By a London Merchant. London. Gale and Curtis. 1812.

THIS pamphlet is not very remarkable for either profound or extensive views of the very important subjects on which it comments; but it breathes a peaceable spirit, and so far merits our cordial approbation.

Art. XX. 4 Commercial View, and Geographical Sketch of the Brasils, in South America, and of the Island of Madeira; being a description of the Portuguese Colonies, Islands, Cities, Chief Towns, Harbours, Rivers, &c. Together with their Climate, Soil, and Produce; Trade, Religion, Manners, Customs, &c. Serving as a guide to the Commercial World, and pointing out to the manufacturing Towns of Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester, Stockport, Leeds, Northampton, Nottingham, Coventry, Stroud, Dursley, Wooton, Painswick, &c. new sources of wealth and springs of industry, by directing their attention to the formation of such goods as are consumed in the New World. By T. Ashe, Esq. Who travelled the Continent of America several years. pp. 160. 8vo. Price 7s. 6d. Allen. 1812. POOR Richard's way to wealth' was, we believe, offered to his

American country-men at a rate considerably cheaper than Mr. Ashe can afford to sell the information of this starved and hungry octavo. If however, he cannot dispute the palm of patriotism with a Franklin, all must acknowledge that the disclosure of new sources of wealth and springs of industry' to the towns of Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester, Stockport, Leeds, Northampton, Nottingham, Coventry, Stroud, Dursley, Wooton, Painswick'-beside those included in the &c. at the rate of three half-crowns,

is wondrous cheap

And for the money quite a heap.' Even such as are debarred from the immediate advantage to be de rived from the discovery, surely cannot grudge so trifling a sum, to be in possession of a remedy which will shortly add red-herrings and bacon to the dry bread of our manufacturing poor, and put the legions of General Lud more effectually to flight, than all the soldiery sent against him has been able to effect. But the Yorkshire cloth-buyers have a bad habit, which they call pearking. The cloth bought of the manufacturer, is drawn over a pole, in such a manner, that the light falling through, discovers the faults and defects, for which a deduction is made from the price agreed upon; and we strongly suspect that they will cause Mr. Ashe's work to undergo a similar operation. Nor are we without apprehensions that the Sheffield manufacturers, when they hear that the Brazils are an ingredient in the nostrum, will pronounce the work a 'quaster.' Had Mr. Ashe timed the publication of his book a little more happily, we have no doubt, that on the bare credit of the title, it would have been bought up like the first supply of fashionable goods for the season: but, unfortunately, so many of the inhabitants of the towns of Sheffield, Birmingham, Manchester, Stockport, Leeds, &c. have gone in quest of the sources and springs to which he offers to lead them, without any other reward for their trouble than losing-more than their shoes in the mire; that it will be as easy to persuade them that the sources of the Nile are to be found in the Brazils, as that they will find sources of wealth and springs of industry,' in that quarter. He produces his goods after the fair is over.

A Commercial View and Geographical Sketch of the Brasils' must however be interesting, independent of the influence of temporary cir VOL. VIII. 4 S

cumstances. We shall therefore, take the liberty of entirely passing his description of England, with its various factitious qualities of nice and complicated system of most artificial society;' p. 6. We leave it to the Pearkers to meditate on his solemn assurance, that our introduction to South America... is a measure repugnant to this country with events of the highest consequence: events which must ... secure that wealth and prosperity with which we were so recently threatened to be denied' p. 13. We shall leave the inhabitants of Birmingham to appreciate the intelligence that gold, silver, and precious stones, which were formerly exported to Lisbon,' were there framed into gold and silver crosses, idols, images, and saints.' p. 15. We shall leave the Sheffield Merchants to rejoice in the singular discovery, that there are no nations who consume more cutlery than the Spaniards and Portuguese.' (p. 19.) and that this love for fine cutlery which they manifest at home, is carried to a passion by them abroad, and few are seen without knives, or instruments resembling them, and which they use not only at their meals, but for the gratification of sudden resentment, and the commission of private cruelty and crimes.'p. 19, 20. The enlightened manufacturers of Leeds (to whom he gives sundry hints on the subject of education), may be the better, though we are not, for being told that: The man who sacrifices the idle pursuits of trivial, and, at the same time, expensive pleasures, to the rational and satisfactory desire of that sort of knowledge which may turn to his own and to public account, qualifies himself for the favours which fortune may offer; and which, without such acquisitions, it would be out of his power to embrace or improve.' p. 31. And though we have been informed, by persons who seemed to know, that British lace is the term used by the Nottingham manufacturers, to distinguish the wove net-lace from that made with bobbins in Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and the neighbouring counties; yet, as Mr. Ashe addresses himself to the manufactures of British-lace at Northampton,' we hope the manufacturers of British-lace at Northampton will be benefited by his advice. The stocking merchants of Nottingham, too, we hope, will be induced to send their best goods to the Brazils, when they hear that the Brasilians being for the most part, not only wealthy, but rich; and consequently able to indulge themselves in luxuries which people of other countries have no prstensions to afford.' p. 35.

6

All these choice pieces of intelligence, we relinquish to those whom they may concern, in order to come at the Geographical Sketch, of which we soon discover symptoms in the information, that the Brazils are bounded on the north by Terra Firma.' Proceeding farther, we learn that the Indian Salamander is a kind of long four-legged insect of so venomous a nature, that the very sting of it is mortal, unless either burned with a red hot iron, or immediately cut off.' The account of the different Capitanias, too, or Captainricks, as Mr. Ashe elegantly englishes the term, affords a number of variations from the vulgar mode of spellIng the names; though it is but justice to observe, that he seldom spells the same name twice alike. His description of San Salvador, however, appears to be drawn up with some degree of correctness, and

though abundantly rough, affords by far the most favourable specimen of his work. As for his account of the Island of Madeira, it actually occupies se ven pages, but for more than half that extent it has to thank the ingenuity of the printer in spacing properly in return, for which we suppose, he has suffered the numerous printing faults, (as, enchanted climate,' for enchanting climate,' the finest sweetmeats are made in the world,' for 'the finest sweetmeats in the world are made,' ensigna' for insignia,' and numberless others of a similar complexion,) to pass unnoticed. We cannot close our observations without expressing a degree of surprise, that, after Mr. Ashe has asserted: there is no greater error than that of thinking that any rubbish of goods suits the South American market-I know from the most ample experience, that the best articles will sell there well, and at the best possible prices'(p. 22.) he should suppose that exactly the reverse is the case with the English nation.

Art. XXI. Stereogoniometry; also Leeway and Magnetic Sailings. By John Cole, Purser of H. M. S. Aboukir. 8vo. pp. xvi. 326. Price 14s. Lunn. 1812.

THIS

HIS book is very neatly printed, and very ingenious, but we fear very useless. It contains a new and somewhat operose theory of solid angles, with an application of its results to Astronomy, Dialling, Leeway, and Magnetic Sailing: but we do not find that any of the rules deduced from the new theory, are at all preferable to those which have been long in use.

Art. XXII. Poetical Vagaries; containing an Ode to We, a Hackneyed Critic, Low Ambition, or the Life and Death of Mr. Daw; a Reckoning with Time: The Lady of the Wreck or Castle Blarneygig: Two Parsons, or the Tale of a Shirt. By George Colman, the Younger. 4to. pp. 144. Price 1 18. Longman and Co.

1812.

A GREAT deal of drollery squandered to very little purpose The most ludicrous of these pieces is the biographical account of "Mr. Daw" a gentleman, who, after having acquired great renown in the personation of brutes, was, by a managerial order, converted into the hind moiety of an elephant. Conceiving himself, however, to be thrown too much into the back-ground, he thought proper to express his dissatisfaction, by a severe snap at the neck and shoulders: when the latter facing about, a grand intestine scuffle ensued, which ended in the total demolition of the outside, and the exposure and sibilation of the two bowels. The "Lady of the Wreck" though not destitute of wit, is too long for a parody. As for the tale of the "Two Parsons" it is so infamously indecent, that it is to us a matter of astonishment, how any man, who was so far civilized as to know the use and comfort of breeches, could bring himself to write it. Its publication is beyond question a nusance, and ought to be abated as "the law directs,"