The 26th article contains a description of an excellent electrometer, of a very fimple and eafy conftruction, invented by Mr. Henly, and ftrongly recommended by Dr. Priestley, in a letter addreffed by him to Dr. Franklin, on account of its fuperior usefulness and accuracy, to every other inftrument of this kind yet propofed. A flender rod, or index, made of boxwood, with a cork ball at its extremity, turns on the center of a vertical graduated femicircle, fixed to an upright ftem of box, placed on the prime conductor; and by the angle which it makes with the faid ftem, on being repelled from it by the electricity of a jar or battery, it indicates with the greatest exactnefs the progrefs and height of any charge.

To this defcription, which is accompanied with a plate, fome curious experiments are added, communicated by Mr. Henly, who has produced fome of the great effects of Dr. Prieffley's batteries, by means only of a fingle jar, merely by laying great weights on the bodies under which the explosion is made to pass. By this expedient he has frequently, with this moderate charge, raised a weight of fix pounds Troy, and has fhattered ftrong pieces of plate-glafs into thousands of the fmalleft fragments, and fometimes to an impalpable powder. When the glass has been ftrong enough to refift in some meafure the violence of the fhock, it has been marked by the explosion with the most lively and beautiful colours, which are fometimes difposed in prifmatic order. In some specimens three or four diftinct returns of the fame colour may be observed. On examining the glafs, the colours are plainly feen to have been produced by its furface being fhattered into thin lamella, varying regularly in thickness, in proportion to their distance from the path of the explosion.

The 5th and 27th articles contain only meteorological obfervations made at Lyndon and Ludgvan, by Mr. Thomas Barker, and the late Dr. Borlafe.

MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.

In article 7, Mr. J. R. Forfter gives an account of the roots with which the Indians in the neighbourhood of Hudson's Bay dye porcupine quills of a bright and durable red and yellow colour; and of his attempts to employ fome of these roots, that have lately been fent over hither, in the dying of woollen stuffs, in which he has fucceeded fo far as to produce a bright and lafting yellow. In a fimilar manner the Spaniards at Mexico have lately learnt of their Indian neighbours the art of dying the deepeft, least corrofive, and moft lafting black that ever was known, and which they extract from a plant called Cafcalotte. The Reader will find a fhort defcription, and a drawing of the fruit, of this vegetable, in the late Abbé Chappe's Voyage en Californie,

Californie, (page 57) noticed in the Appendix to our 48th volume, p. 560.

In the 12th article Capt. Newland relates the expedients be employed to procure fresh water at fea, to the amount of 8 or 10 gallons in 12 hours, with no other apparatus than an iron pot; an empty cafk for a refrigeratory; fome fheet lead beat into a pipe, for a worm; a fmall jar, for a receiver; a few wood alhes, or foap, and billet wood for fuel. In the next article he attributes the luminous appearance of the fea-water at night to animalcules and the fpawn of fmall fish.

The 35th and laft article of this volume contains the detail of fome experiments on two dipping needles, made according to a plan of the Rev. Mr. Mitchel, and executed for the Board of Longitude by Mr. Nairne. From the nearly uniform refult of thefe trials, these inftruments appear to have been planned and conftructed with the greatest accuracy, and as free from friction as is poffible or necellary. The needle for inftance is so tenderly fufpended that, its N. end being raifed to a horizontal pofition, and then let go, it would vibrate between 8 and 9 minutes before it fettled. We find the dip of the needle to have been at a medium about 72 degrees and 10 or 20 minutes. A drawing of the inftrument accompanies this paper.

ART. IX. The Hiftory of English Poetry, from the Clofe of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century. To which are prefixed Two Differtations: I. On the Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe. II. On the Introduction of Learning into England. Volume the Firft. By Thomas Warton, B. D. Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and of the Society of Antiquaries. 4to. 11. 1s. - Boards. Dodfley. 1774.

F all the fpecies of intellectual entertainment, there feems

to be none more engaging than that which exhibits the progrefs of the arts and fciences. To mark the gradual formation of taste, the flow but fuccefsful pursuit of truth, character, and nature; to abserve the efforts of the human mind, making its way through ages, from the depth of Gothic barbarity, till it exults in the full expansion of claffical and philofophical splendour ;— this is one of the nobleft and most interefting objects of human curiofity and inveftigation. In no fphere can thefe refearches be attended with a higher or more fentimental pleasure than in that of English poetry; in tracing the hiftory of which we find a degree of fenfibility almost bordering on enthusiasm. In what this pleasure originates, it may not, perhaps, be eafy to defcribe; as it is not unlike many of those instinctive fenfations, which, while we enjoy, we need hardly regret our ignorance of their caufe. We cannot, however, fall into our Author's opiREV. Apr. 1774.

U

nion,

nion, where he afcribes them to that triumph of fuperiority with which we look back on the favage condition of our ancestors,' or to conscious pride, arifing in a great measure from a tacit comparison of the infinite difproportion between the feeble efforts of remote ages, and our prefent improvements in knowledge.'

To reft the cause of our pleasure in this, would be to throw a needlefs difcredit on the motives by which we are actuated. To an ingenuous and difcerning mind there will appear little if any reason for the triumph of fuperiority. If those who now excel in the arts had brought them from their first rudiments to the perfection in which they ftand, they would, indeed, have an obvious foundation for conscious pride;' but when they confider the long and almost imperceptible gradations by which thofe arts advanced to their perfection, how little the laft improver gained upon his predeceffor, and how little they may have added to that perfection themselves, the idea of triumph vanishes immediately,

The pleasure we find, then, in tracing the infancy of the arts we love, we may afcribe to fomething that fhall do more honour to our moral nature. We may afcribe it to that principle of love itself. Who ever felt its influence, but found a tender interest in the hiftory of its object? Who, but found even the fports of infancy, and the minutest anecdotes of that object important? Thofe who have been no ftrangers to the tender paffion will fubfcribe to the truth of this obfervation; and we well know that the moral and intellectual are perfectly analogous to the natural affections.

Leaving the matter under this by no means refined or farfetched idea, we will, in the first place, recommend to our Readers the Author's account of his very agreeable undertaking.

I have chofe to exhibit the history of our poetry in a chronological feries: not diftributing my matter into detached articles, of periodical divifions, or of general heads. Yet I have not always adhered fo fcrupulously to the regularity of annals, but that I have of ten deviated into incidental digreffions; and have fometimes stopped in the course of my career, for the fake of recapitulation, for the purpose of collecting fcattered notices into a fingle and uniform point of view, for the more exact infpection of a topic which required a feparate confideration, or for a comparative furvey of the poetry of other nations.

A few years ago, Mr. Mason, with that liberality which ever accompanies true genius, gave me an authentic copy of Mr. POPE'S fcheme of a Hiftory of English Poetry, in which our poets were classed under their fuppofed refpective fchools. The late lamented

In his Preface.

Mr.

Mr. GRAY had alfo projected a work of this kind, and tranflated fome Runic odes for its illuftration, now published; but foon 'relin. quifhing the profecution of a defign, which would have detained him from his own noble inventions, he mott obligingly condefcended to favour me with the fubftance of his plan, which I found to be that of Mr. POPE, confiderably enlarged, extended, and improved.

It is vanity in me to have mentioned thefe communications. But I am apprehenfive my vanity will justly be thought much greater, when it fhall appear, that in giving the hiftory of English poetry, I have rejected the ideas of men who are its moft diftinguished ornaments. To confefs the real truth, upon examination and experiment, I foon discovered their mode of treating my fubject, plaufible as it is, and brilliant in theory, to be attended with difficulties and inconve niences, and productive of embarrassment both to the reader and the writer. Like other ingenious fyftems, it facrificed much ufeful intelligence to the obfervance of arrangement; and in the place of that fatisfaction which refults from a clearnefs and a fulness of information, feemed only to fubftitute the merit of difpofition, and the praise of contrivance. The conftraint impofed by a mechanical attention" to this diftribution, appeared to me to deftroy that free exertion of research with which fuch a hiftory ought to be executed, and not eafily reconcilable with that complication, variety, and extent of materials, which it ought to comprehend.

The method I have purfued, on one account at least, seems pre ferable to all others. My performance, in its prefent form, exhibits without tranfpofition the gradual improvements of our poetry, at the fame time that it uniformly reprefents the progreffion of our language.

Some perhaps will be of opinion, that these annals ought to have commenced with a view of the Saxon poetry. But befides that a legitimate illuftration of that jejune and intricate fubject would have almost doubled my labour, that the Saxon language is familiar only to a few learned antiquaries, that our Saxon poems are for the mott part little more than religious rhapsodies, and that scarce any compofitions remain marked with the native images of that people in their Pagan ftate, every reader that reflects but for a moment on our political establishment must perceive, that the Saxon poetry has no connection with the nature and purpose of my prefent undertaking. Before the Norman acceffion, which fucceeded to the Saxon government, we were an unformed and an unfet:led race. That mighty revolution obliterated almost all relation to the former inhabitants of this inland; and produced that fignal change in our policy, conftitution, and public manners, the effects of which have reached modern times. The beginning of these annals feems therefore to be moft properly dated from that era, when our national character be gan to dawn.

It was recommended to me, by a perfon eminent in the republic of letters, totally to exclude from thefe volumes any mention of the English drama. I am very fenfible that a just history of our stage is alone fufficient to form an entire and extenfive work; and this argument, which is by no means precluded by the attempt here offered to the Public, ftill remains feparately to be difcuffed, at large, and in form. But as it was profeífedly my intention to comprife every Species

fpecies of English poetry, this, among the reft, of courfe claimed a place in thefe annals, and neceffarily fell into my general defign. At the fame time, as in this fituation it could only become a fubordinate object, it was impoffible I fhould examine it with that critical precifion and particularity, which fo large, fo curious, and fo important an article of our poetical literature demands and deferves. To have confidered it in its full extent, would have produced the unwieldy excrescence of a disproportionate epifode: not to have confidered it at all, had been an omiffion, which muft detract from the integrity of my intended plan. I flatter myfelf however, that from evidences hitherto unexplored, I have recovered hints which may facilitate the labours of thofe, who fhall hereafter be inclined to investigate the ancient state of dramatic exhibition in this country, with due comprehenfion and accuracy.

It will probably be remarked, that the citations in the first volume are numerous, and fometimes very prolix. But it should be remembered, that most of these are extracted from ancient manufcript poems never before printed, and hitherto but little known. Nor was it eafy to illuftrate the darker and more diftant periods of our poetry, without producing ample fpecimens. In the mean time, I hope to merit the thanks of the antiquarian, for enriching the ftock of our early literature by thefe new acceffions: and I truft I fhall gratify the reader of tafte, in having fo frequently refcued from oblivion the rude inventions and irregular beauties of the heroic tale, or the romantic legend.

The defign of the DISSERTATIONS is to prepare the reader, by confidering apart, in a connected and comprehenfive detail, fome material points of a general and preliminary nature, and which could not either with equal propriety or convenience be introduced, at leaft not fo formally difcuffed, in the body of the book; to establish certain fundamental principles to which frequent appeals might occafionally be made, and to clear the way for various obfervations arifing in the courfe of my future enquiries.'

The firft differtation, on the origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe, contains abundance of antique learning and ingenious conjecture. It has been a received opinion, that this kind of Arabian fabling was introduced into the Weft by means of the Crufades; but it is Mr. Warton's object to thew that its reception in Europe runs higher than the era of the Crufades, and he fuppofes that it was introduced into Spain by the Arabs, or Saracens, who came thither from the northern coaft of Africa, about the beginning of the eighth century. Now, there is, we apprehend, no doubt but thefe Saracens would bring with them their peculiar fables, and that by their long authority and refidence in Spain, thofe fables would unavoidably be communicated and diffeminated through Europe. But, certainly, the introduction of romantic fiction into this quarter of the world does not originate with them. The innumerable hords that migrated from the North-eaft, and overflowed the Weft, were not without their romantic fictions, of a different fpecies, in

deed,