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or distribution of language; considerations of Mr. Locke's essay "on the nature, use, and significa tion of language"; the division of speech, according to the author's theory, into words necessary for the communication of thought; viz. the noun and verb, and abbreviations employed for conciseness and dispatch; remarks on the noun, on the article, and interjection; observations on the word that, which is not allowed to be a word so mutable in signification as it is made by grammarians; etymology of the English conjunctions, of prepositions, of adverbs.

The second part, (mark how appropriate !) is introduced by observations on the rights of man. It treats of abstraction, or, as the author would prefer to term it, subaudition, by which the substantive is derived from a participle, or an adjective: as, fact (aliquid) factum ; debt (aliquid) debit-um. Thence he proceeds to adjectives and participles; and leaves the verb, which has been the subject of more dispute and wrangling, than every other description of words in our language, to the mercy of contending grammarians.

This work will be pleasing to the etymologist, sometimes even where it is not satisfactory; and it will often be diverting to those, who are slow in discovering resemblances, from its apparent fancifulness. We are happy to see it accompanied by an index to the subjects and words, that are examined in the work. It would be pleasing to us also to recommend this edition for its correctness. But the errors, which we have noticed, especially in many Saxon words, are such, as to justify us in withholding this praise. These These mistakes we presume, (for we have not thoroughly compared this with

the English edition) are generally to be ascribed to the present editor (Wm. Duane) whose nationality probably is such, that he will not take offence at the suggestion.

ART. 64.

An Essay on the human character of Jesus Christ. By Willium Austin. Boston, printed for W. Pelham. 12mo. pp. 120.

MR. Austin informs the publick, in the advertisement prefixed to the volume, that he has endeavoured to explore a new, but indirect, source of argument, in favour of the divinity of Jesus Christ.' We have, in vain, attempted to discover this argument; nor can we determine from a perusal of the book, whether the design of the writer be wicked or charitable.' In either case, however, we may safely pronounce, that it will do no harm, and little good.

The following description of the great founder of Christianity is not inelegantly written.

"At about the age of thirty JESUS appeared again in publick. He was then in all the ripeness of manhood, at a period equally distant from the levity of youth, and the cares of age. He is reported to have been in his person exceedingly beautiful if you examined but one feature at a time; but his entire countenance raised in the beholder an interest which immediately affected the heart. Sympathy, awe, reverence, but most reverence, was the prevailing sentiment he inspired. These were the features of his character in the moment of repose. His stature was rather above the common size, as was his person, but finely proportioned. His hair was auburn,gracefully flowing over bis shoulders; his steps slow, firm,bespeaking a man of purpose. The most brilliant temperature of health adorned his cheeks, which, in conjunction with

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Were this description grounded on authentick history, it would be extremely interesting; but at present must be considered as the mere creature of Mr. Austin's imagination. What is still worse, it is in direct contradiction to the word of revealed truth. Isaiah says, chap. liii. 2, He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty, that we should desire him.' The publick must determine between the prophet and Mr. Austin.

We should be glad to know, whence Mr. Austin derives his information, when he asserts that Socrates was a retired philosopher, one who led a quiet, contemplative, theoretical life.' So far from it, that he led an active and laborious life, and such was his military prowess, that he is recorded to have saved, in battle, the lives of Xenophon and Alcibiades. He delivered his lectures in publick,and spoke boldly on every sub ́ject, religious as well as civil, and attracted crowded audiences in the groves of Academus, at the Lyce um, or on the banks of the Ilyssus. So far from being a theorist, he derided the more abstruse enquiries, and metaphysical researches of his predecessors, was the first who introduced moral philosophy among his countrymen, and drew her down from heaven upon earth. We recommend to Mr. Austin the perusal of Xenophon and Plato,

from whom he will gain more solid instruction,and more authentick information, than from the supertreatises of ficial and meagre

French sciolists.

The following quotation is exactly in the French manner, which we unequivocally condemn as puerile and false rhetorick.

'Yet this temperate Nazarene prefered the brook or the rivulet to the joy of the vintage. Yet this humble Naz arene travelled Judea on foot, and never rode but once; and then in a manner that seemed to court the contempt of the populace. Yet this self-denying Nazarene frequented the tables of a Wapping and St. Giles. Yet this cold blooded Nazarene was as exemplary in his affections, as though he had been dipped, every morning in the river Cyd

nus.'

P.57.

We are sorry that Mr. Austin has introduced his own political sentiments into a work of this nature. He tells us that the virtuous Gilbert Wakefield was sacrificed in the prime of life, and the much-enduring Priestley hardly found respite on the frontiers of the wilderness.'

Now, though we have the profoundest respect for the talents and virtues of these gentlemen, yet we cannot but conclude, that their misfortunes originated in their own imprudence. Wakefield was fined and imprisoned for attempting, in a pamphlet, to dissuade his countrymen, from resisting a French invasion, an invasion threatened by the most unprincipled and ferocious ruffians, that ever disgraced human nature. He lived, however, some time after he was thus sacrificed, as Mr. Austin terms it, and published some useful and elegant works. With regard to Priestley, his departure from his native country was a voluntary act; and if he did not meet here with all the attention and re

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spect due to his talents, his warmest friends must attribute it to his own indiscretion. By interfering with our domestick politicks, and publishing political pamphlets, he justly forfeited, with prudent men of all parties, that esteem and consideration, which his almost unequalled attainments would, other wise, have secured him.

This little Essay is, on the whole, a very harmless production, though it is not easy to ascertain its precise object. It is composed with considerable elegance and terseness of style, though we do not approve of such words as accredited, test, used as a verb, rehellant, &c.

He, who writes as well as Mr. Austin, may, with due pains, learn to write better, to whom we would recommend the study of the ancients, in preference to that of the French school, of which the taste is generally false, and the style affected.

ART. 65.

Memoirs of Ninon De L'Enclos, with her Letters to the Marquis De Sevigné, and Mons. De St. Evremond. Translated from the French, by Mrs. Griffith. Philadelphia: printed by T. S. Manning, for Thomas Palmer.

12mo. 1806.

We would remind the editor and apologist of these Letters and of their author, of the reply, which Johnson made to a gentleman on a similar occasion : the woman, sir, is a whore, and there's an end on't.' We take no pleasure in the use of an indelicate term, and regret the necessity we are under of calling things by their names;

however, it is sometimes adviseable to come at the truth without the parade of a figure, and should our readers be hurt at the laconick style of our quotation, we have only to urge the plea of expediency, and to rely on their good sense for an acquittal. No, there is little to be feared from a coarse phrase, honestly delivered; and of the two, it is better that the sensibilities of a prude should be shocked, than that an infamous writer should escape without the chastisement she deserves. It is this dressing false sentiment in the graces of rhetorick, this painting the devil white as it were, that he may pass upon the unsuspecting; it is this vile cant of the prurient school of Rousseau, that is more to be feared than a blunt speech of the Doctor's.

And I can teach thee, cousin, to shame the devil

By telling truth; tell truth, and shame

the devil.

If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,

And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence. SHAKS.

The reasons assigned for presenting the American Publick with an impression of these Letters, we consider worse than impertinent; and the parallel which their ingenious Publisher has thought proper to institute between Ninon and Anacreon Moore, so much to the advantage of the former, we shall not subscribe to, unless we are previously informed what distinction can be made between a licentious enditer of lascivious prose and a shameless scribler of indelicate verses. Indeed, we have before expressed an opinion with regard to the susceptible Mr. Little and his amorous effusions, and we could not now, conscientiously, pronounce the apotheosis of his twin sister in levity, or

fall in with the Preface and make a saint of a Cyprian. Though it is difficult to decide, where the demerits of the parties are so equally balanced, we are rather inclined to believe, that, upon an impartial examination, the heroine of our Editor would take rank of her relation. Not that Mr. Little has been exceeded in fanning the wild fires of love, or that he is second to any in his contributions to the Libertine's Assistant, but because the impurities of the heart show ugli. est in a woman.

A shameless woman is the worst of men. YOUNG.

Some wits, of whom better things might be expected, not contented with the applause of the learned and polite, have, occasionally,accommodated their vein to the taste of the vulgar, and, instead of appearing before their judges in the attick dress of their order, may be figured as mounted on a barrel in the market-place, and holding forth most smuttily after the manner of Scaramouch. These eccentricities of genius, however, are more contemptible than mischievous, for those who are most taken with them, are generally of that class of which the vulgar saying is true

it is impossible to spoil what never was good ;' and with respect to the more delicate and refined, who nauseate the unseemly fancies of the Pantagruelists, they are at liberty to use the precaution not to travel foul ways. But of those writers who, like our author, possess in common with the serpent the power to charm and destroy, against whose poison no antidote is provided, we have nothing to say either encouraging or contemptu ous; for they are too deadly to be laughed at, and too insinuating to disgust. The filth and dirt which

Rabelais and Swift sometimes delight to fling about them, rarely adhere to an wholesome mind; but the sweet mischief that flows from the pens of such authors as Ninon and Moore, mixes with the heart's best blood, and distempers the whole subject.

We can not avoid fancying the influence which a writer, of the description last named, might exercise over some ingenuous nymph, of less reflection than feeling. We think that we see such an one secretly retiring to her nest, at an unfashionable hour, with a volume of her favourite concealed in her bosom, there to regale herself, watch after watch, with love pictures and sentiment, till the nearly expended taper winks in its socket. But a truce with this common, and her insidious epistles, for we take no delight in contemplating evils which we cannot counteract; besides we are apprehensive that by this notice, we have rather enflamed curiosity,than excited aversion.

This work is well executed— The more's the pity; that such vile matter should be neatly set down !

ART. 66.

The Parnassian Pilgrim; or the posthumous works of the late Mr. William Lake. With a short account of his life. Printed at the Balance Press, Hudson, 1807.

William Lake was born in Kingston, (Penn.) on the 20th day of Sept. 1787, and was the son of an unfortunate Englishman, who, at an early age, left his own country for this Land of Wonders. After a common school education he was removed from the threshold

of science to assist his father in husbandry. At the age of thirteen a happy reverse in his father's fortune enabled him to remove to the school at Bethlehem, where he entered upon the course of studies preparatory to his admission at some public seminary. Owing, however, to his forming an attachment, which met with his father's displeasure, he resolved never to see him again,and accordingly flew off in a tangent from Bethlehem and his Dulciena and drooped into a store at Philadelphia. It was in this situation that he composed most of his poetical productions. Between the age of fifteen and eighteen his business led him to different parts of the Union and even to Europe, returning from which, he paid the debt of nature on the 15th of December 1805; having composed no less than sixty-seven pieces of poetry, consisting of songs and odes, of elegies and epitaphs, of visions and solili

quies, of May-day presents and trifles, the buttercups and danda lions, that spring up spontaneously "upon the lower slopes of Parnassus;" all which he vainly imagin ed were to immortalize his name, and which really afford another proof upon what a prodigious great scale is every thing done in this country.

Of this collection we can give our readers no better idea than by recommending to their perusal the immortal productions which daily grace our newspapers; then begging them to imagine these bound together in one volume duodecimo under whatever title best suits their taste, "the Parnassian Pilgrim," or the Muses Waitingmaid. The character of the author is fully comprised in a couplet of Pope;

“A youth foredoom'd his father's soul

to cross,

"Who penn'd a stanza when he should engross."

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An interesting discovery was made in the course of last year, by the Rev. Dr. Buchanan, who travelled into Travancore for the purpose of visiting the ancient Syrian Churches. He found fifty-five churches in the district of Malayala or the Christian communion, which are built in a style not unlike some of the old parish churches in England. When Dr. Buchanan arrived at the remote churches in this district, he was informed by the inhabitants, that, to their knowledge, no European had visited the place before. These churches acknowledge the patriarch of Antioch, and their Liturgy is derived from that of the early church of Antioch, called Liturgie Jacobi Apostoli. The Christians of MaVol. IV. No. 11. 4F

layala differ, however, in this ceremonial from every other existing Church, and their proper designation is, 'Syrian Christians,' or the Syrian Church of Malayala.' The doctrines of the Syrian Church are contained in a very few articles, and are not at variance in essentials with those of the Church of England. Their bishop and metropolitan, after conferring with his clergy, delivered the following opinion:-That an union with the English Church, or at least such a connection as should appear to both Churches practicable and expedient, would be a happy event, and favourable to the advancement of religion. It is in contemplation to send to England some of the Syrian youth for education and ordina

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