MISCELLANEOUS.

Art. 53. New Instructions for Playing, in all its Varieties, the Game of Billiards, with Ease and Propriety: to which is prefixed, an historical Account of the Game. By an Amateur. Illustrated with an elegant Copper-plate representing the Tables, Players, &c. and Cuts to delineate the Fortification Game. 12mo. I s. 6d. Hurst.

This compilation will be an useful manual to young players at the elegant and entertaining game of billiards, and may occasionally assist the memories of the more experienced. The History of the Game is very brief and insignificant; and we think that the writer is wrong in stating that the clumsy mace is the prevailing instrument' in this country: the cue, we believe, is now much more generally used, particularly by adroit players.-When the person making a stroke, at the Red or Carambole Game, hits both his adversary s and the red ball, the stroke is commonly termed a cannon: but it is here properly styled a Caram, or Carambole. This misnomer should be abolished;-as also the vulgar phrase of holding a ball, instead of holeing it.

Art. 54. Essays moral, economical, and political. By Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England. Jones's Edition. 8vo. 6s. Ed.

1801.

Jones.

In our 34th volume, N. S. we noticed a new and elegant edition of these admirable Essays, and mentioned in terms of merited com. mendation the preface, by which they were justly characterized. and introduced to the notice of the reader. The subject of the present article is also elegantly printed, and is recommended by a short Life of the illustrious Author, with an engraving of him from an original picture by Hopwood.

Art. 55. An Indian Glossary; consisting of some thousand Words and Terms commonly used in the East Indies: with full Explanations of their Meanings. Forming an useful Vade Mecum, extremely serviceable in assisting Strangers to acquire with Ease and Quickness the Language of the Country. By T. Roberts, Lieut. &c. of the 3d Regiment of the Native Infantry, E. I. 8vo. 3s. 6d. Boards. Murray and Highley. 18.0.

As every attempt towards the accomplishment of a work of this kind undoubtedly merits encouragement, the present compilement, from a competent hand, will probably meet with a favourable recep tion; and it cannot but prove very useful, in proportion to its present extent. The explanations here given are necessarily brief, but to us they appear to be as satisfactory as they could reasonably be expected to be, in a publication intended merely for common use.

In his preface, Mr. Roberts occasionally takes notice of a similar work by Mr. Hadley; and he observes that, in the performance now before us, the terms collected are infinitely more numerous than in Mr. H.'s production. The word infinitely is, surely, too great for

the occasion.

For

For a similar work, intitled The Indian Vocabulary, see M. R. vol. 1xxviii. p. 158.

Art. 56. A Hint of the Chouan Army's having been but a Snare fabricated by the Facobins themselves!!! 4to. 28. Spragg. 1801. An old proverb says, "A word to the wise is enough." We should always be glad to obtain the credit of wisdom by taking any seasonable intimation that might be offered to us: but really the present author's Hint is thrown away on our dull capacities.

Art. 57. An Account of the Emancipation of the Slaves of Unity Valley Pen, in Jamaica. By David Barclay. 8vo. 6d. W. Phillips.

1801.

Of all the sects into which the Christian Church, or body of nominal Christians, is divided, the people commonly called Quakers profess to be most deeply impressed by those amiable sentiments which distinguished the preaching of the Saviour of the world. Quakers have never persecuted: nor will they be induced, by motives of interest, to be possessors of slaves. David Barclay employs the following lines of the late Mr. Cowper, the poet, to express his sentiments:

"I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,

And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd."

Thinking thus like a true Christian, he was resolved also to act like one. He and his brother John coming, in consequence of a debt to them, into possession of a pen (or grazing farm) in the island of Jamaica, with thirty-two slaves, they resolved to emancipate these poor Blacks; and John dying, the execution of the design was left to David. As the measure would have been unpopular in Jamaica, he removed them at considerable expence to Philadelphia; where, by proper care and attention, they were prepared to make a good use of the liberty which was so generously conferred on them.

The manumission bestowed in this instance was the effect of a principle, not of a fit of generosity. These Blacks, be it remembered, were not turned adrift, without the solicitude of their former master: but great pains were taken to fit them for emancipation, and, in restoring them to their natural rights, to render them useful members of society.

Mr. Barclay is decidedly of opinion that emancipation must be gradual; and it appears, from the evidence here adduced, that, if conducted with prudence and humanity, this measure would ultimately be as beneficial to the Community, as it must be comfortable to the Individual.

Art. 58. Bull Baiting! A Sermon on Barbarity to God's dumb Creation, preached in the Parish Church of Wokingham, Berks, the 20th of Dec. 1801 (being the Day previous to the annual Bull Bait in that Town). By the Rev. Edward Barry, M. D. 4to. 1s. 6d. Spragg.

It

It appears that a person named Staverton had bequeathed the rent of a house to purchase, for ever, a bull to be baited for the diversion of the town of Wokingham; and the people of this town, to prove that they like the sport and are not wiser than their benefactor Staverton, have been in the habit of purchasing a second bull out of the poor's rate, to protract this brutish and cruel amusement. Such a practice merits the most pointed reprobation; and Dr. Bary will be applauded by all good men, for his resolute and truly Christian exertions to shame the people of Wokingham into the suppression of this custom. The brute creation are subject to our dominion; “we stand in the place of God to them," says Dr. Hartley: but it is our duty, even in consigning them to death for our food, to observe the maxim of the poet

"And till we end the heing, make it blest."

Dr. Barry reflects credit on himself as a clergyman, by inculcating this principle, in opposition to the prejudices of the vulgar: but, when he remarks that the flesh of the bull is rendered by baiting loathsome, if not dangerous to be eaten,' we apprehend that he will not equally advance his reputation as a physician.

Art. 59. The Anniversary Sermon of the Royal Humane Society, preached at the Parish Churches of Kensington, April 19, and of St. Lawrence, Reading, June 17, 1801. By W. Langford, D. D. Canon of Windsor, and Chaplain in ordiliary to his Majesty. An Appendix by the Society, on Shipwrecked Mariners, Resuscitation, &c. 8vo. IS. Rivingtons.

To the sentiments and tendency of this discourse we feel not the smallest objection: but, as a composition, it is not such as the name of the preacher led us to expect. In the following sentence, for example, we find a very common thought expressed with much pomposity: It falls not within the conception of man, that injury can be wished for, much more brought on his own person, by any infatuated and wretched being.' Dr. Langford's meaning, we apprehend, is, that it is wonderful that a rational being should meditate and contrive his own injury: but, by swelling out the sentence with the epithets infatuated and wretched,' he assists us to the conception of its possibility; since infatuated misery may be sup posed, at times, to abandon itself to despair.

Art. 60. The Importance of Religion to a Military Life: preached September 6, 1801, at the Garrison-Service in the church of St. Peter's Port, Island of Guernsey. By Thomas Brock, A. M. and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. 4to. Is. 6d.

vingtons

Ri

Noctura petuntur militia:-the military life is subject to peculiar temptations as well as dangers: but there is no necessity that a soldier should be profligate and irreligious. From the account of Cornelius, Acts, x. 1, 2. Mr. Brock addresses the army in a very glowing, serious, and affecting manner; reprobates the fashionable principles of Honour; and urges the very perils to which the soldier is exposed, as a peculiar reason for his cultivating, a religious state of

mind.

Art.

Art. 61. Preached at Knaresborough Aug. 16, 1801, for the Benefit of the Sunday Schools. By the Rev. Samuel Clapham, M. A. Vicar of Great Ouseborne, near Knaresborough. 8vo. Rivingtons.

18.

In addition to charitable exhortation, Mr. Clapham gives his advice respecting the management and superintendance of the children belonging to the Sunday schools, in order that the purposes of those benevolent institutions may be more effectually answered. As there is reason in his remarks, we hope that he will neither preach nor publish in vain.

CORRESPONDENCE.

In answer to A Consant Reader, who objects to our censure on placing the accent on the first syllable of the word conventiele, (See Rev. for Feb. p. 133.) we must observe that Shakspeare and Dryden cannot be regarded as authorities for the modern pronunciation of words. Shakspeare, for example, accents òrisons both ways:

"The fair Ophelia !-Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd!"

HAMLET.

Nay, stay; let's hear the òrisons he makes."

3 Henry VI.-and elsewhere.

Present custom is the rule, in cases of this kind.

The Chronology of our ephemeral Epic productions is not regulated, in our Review, by the relative date of their subjects, but by the actual time of their publication.

We cannot pursue the argument with a Well-wisher; and indeed, if what we have already said has produced no conviction on his mind, we must despair of effecting any such change. With regard to a deceased individual, whom he particularizes as a recent subject of our commendation, we may remark that this commendation was bestowed on his literary attainments, amiable manners, and private virtues; and when we spoke of his son, our praise was confined to his possession of abilities, not extended to his political exercise of them on all occasions In the supplication with which this animated writer closes his letter, we do indeed, as he does us the justice of supposing, most cordially join with him; and we shall be happy if the blessings attendant on its being heard, and granted, should convince him that there is no ground for some of the apprehensions which he entertains.

In a letter from Mr. Pratt, the author of Bread, or the Poor, a poem, mentioned in our last Review, that gentleman desires to enter his protest' against our conjecture, that imagination had assisted in the drawing of his picture of the poor, in any one trait. In particular, he assures us that the Stratford anecdote is represented without many of the aggravations that might have been added, and is a

fact so generally known, that an inquirer would receive confirmation of it, at this moment, from the majority of the county.' Mr. P. adds that he can boldly call on travellers of all denominations, in proof of his assertion that the cots and cottagers, the little trades and tradesmen, are in all, yea more than all, the misery and starvation in which he has represented them.'

In a 2d edit. of his poem, Mr. Pratt has transposed its title, thus; The Poor, or Bread; the former word being deemed most proper to take the lead, as more expressive of the variety of permanent objects discussed in the work.

Mr. Bransby will find that the problem of the Tides was solved by M. La Place, in the Paris Memoirs for 1775, 1776, and 1790; and also in his Mécanique céleste. These works will explain why M. Bernouilli's hypothesis is imperfect, and why M. La Place undertook, on accurate principles, a more complete solution of this problem.- See also the Appendix to our 28th volume, N. S. p. 532.

To C. A. we must repeat the notification so often conveyed to Correspondents, that it is a rule with us not to accept voluntary criticisms on particular works, from unknown hands.

A Constant Reader writes to us on the subject of a translation of Spallanzani's posthumous work on the Circulation of the Blood. We do not recollect to liave heard of such a publication.

Mr. Robinson is informed that his productions will be noticed, as soon as opportunity admits.

Circumstances, which we could not control, have delayed our account of the work which is the object of T. C.'s inquiry: but it is not forgotten, nor designed to be overlooked.

A Yorkshire Friend' is received, and will be considered.

In the Number for March, p. 270. l. 16. for xaraλym, read καταλλαγήν. P. 317. line penult. for his,' read Dr. Gray's. P. 318. 1. 25, 26. the sentence should begin thus: Had this argument operated with former writers, Mr. Nisbett would have been spared,' &c. P. 336. l. 15. put a comma after incumbent.'

The APPENDIX to the xxxviith vol. of the MONTHLY REVIEW, New Series, will be published with the Number for MAY.