have had in his own possession, thus affording a proof of the care which he bestowed on his epistolary compositions,. It is followed by a letter from Lord Mansfield, which, the Biographer asserts, bears no mark of the superior mind of that eminent man: but it certainly does not disgrace him, and, considering it as a common epistolary effusion, this may be deemed some commendation. We are next presented with a letter from Mr. Edmund Burke, written in his best manner; and we wish our readers to share with us the pleasure which we have received from the following part of it:

"I have always thought with you, that we possess at this time very great advantages towards the knowledge of human nature. We need no longer go to History to trace it in all stages and periods. History, from its comparative youth, is but a poor instructor. When the Egyptians called the Greeks Children in Antiquities, we may well call them Children ;,and so we may call all those nations which were able to trace the progress of society only within their own limits. But now the great Map of Mankind is unrolled at once, and there is no state or gradation of barbarism, and no mode of refinement which we have not at the same moment under our view: the very different civility of Europe and of China; the barbarism of Persia and of Abyssinia; the erratic manners of Tartary and of Arabia; the savage state of North America and of New Zealand. Indeed you have made a noble use of the advantages you have had. You have employed philosophy to judge on manners, and from manners you have drawn new resources for philosophy. I only think that in one or two points you have hardly done justice to the savage character.

"There remains before you a great field. Periculosa plenum opus alea tractas, et incedis per ignes suppositos cineri doloso. When even those ashes will be spread over the present fire God knows. I am heartily sorry that we are now supplying you with that kind of dignity and concern, which is purchased to History at the expence of mankind. I had rather by far that Dr. Robertson's pen were only employed in delineating the humble scenes of political economy, than the great events of a civil war. However, if our statesmen had read the book of human nature instead of the Journals of the House of Commons, and History instead of Acts of Parliament, we should not by the latter have furnished out so ample a page for the former. For my part, I have not been, nor am I, very forward in my specu lations on this subject. All that I have ventured to make have hitherto proved fallacious. I confess I thought the Colonies, left to themselves, could not have made any thing like the present résist ance to the whole power of this country and its allies. I did not think it could have been done without the declared interference of the House of Bourbon. But I looked on it as very probable that France and Spain would before this time have taken a decided part. In both these conjectures I have judged amiss.-You will smile when I send you a trifling temporary production, made for the occasion of a day, and to perish with it, in return for your immortal work. REV. JULY, 1802. But

R

But our exchange resembles the politics of the times. You send out solid wealth, the accumulation of ages, and in return you get a few flying leaves of poor American paper. However, you have the mercantile comfort of finding the balance of trade infinitely in your favour; and I console myself with the snug consideration of uninformed natural acuteness, that I have my warehouse full of goods at another's expence.

"Adieu, Sir; continue to instruct the world; and whilst we carry on a poor unequal conflict with the passions and prejudices of our day, perhaps with no better weapons than other passions and prejudices of our own, convey wisdom at our expence to future genera tions."

The last sentence is both a fine and a just compliment to those men of letters, who do not

"narrow their mind,

And to party give up what was meant for mankind,"

(GOLDSMITH.) and should comfort them when, considering themselves to be as much formed for action as for speculation, they are tempted to lament that fortune has not opened to them the flowery fields of public life.-Dr. Robertson is justly censured by his biographer, for the disposition which he has shewn to palliate or to veil the enormities of the Spaniards in their American conquests.

The unfortunate contest between Great Britain and America put an end to the Doctor's plan for the completion of his general history of that continent: but his active mind then led him to think of other subjects for the employment of his studious leisure. He seems to have meditated a history of Great Britain, from the revolution to the accession of the house of Hanover: but he soon abandoned this idea, and the only publication with which he afterward favoured the world was his Disquisition concerning Antient India.

Having thus conducted Doctor Robertson to the end of his literary career, the biographer considers his general merits as an historian. He observes that the strain of his composition is flowing, equal, and majestic; harmonious beyond that of most English writers, yet seldom deviating, in quest of melody, into inversion, redundancy, or affectation; that his works have been allowed, by the most competent judges, to be remarkably free from Scotticisms; and that the elevation of his language particularly qualified him for delineating the characters of princes, Statesmen, and warriors, and recording events which have happened on the great theatre of public affairs: but that it was not so perfectly well calculated for the engaging and pathetic details of domestic life. He also remarks that,

Whenever his subject admits of being enriched or adorned by political or philosophical disquisition, by picturesque description, or

by the interesting details of a romantic episode, he scruples not to try his strength with those who have excelled the most in these different departments of literature; uniformly, however, avoiding to mingle in the humble scenes of ordinary life, or to meet his rivals on any ground where he did not feel himself completely their equal.'

Professor Stewart then passes to a review of Dr. Robertson's more active occupations: of which the most conspicuous was the part which he took in the Supreme Ecclesiastical Court of Scotland. Of the constitution of that court the Professor gives a general outline; for the materials of which, he informs us, he is obliged to a paper drawn up, at the request of Dr. Robertson's son, by the Reverend George Hill, D.D., principal' of St. Mary's College, Aberdeen. We learn that Dr. Robertson's abilities secured to him, for a long course of years, an unrivalled influence in guiding its deliberations; and his talents for debate are mentioned by his biographer in terms of great encomium. The Professor says that the characteristic of his eloquence was persuasion; that his general conduct was marked by judgment, temper, and address; that good sense was the most prominent feature in his intellectual character; that he was a most agreeable and instructive companion, a good son, a good brother, a good husband, a good father, exemplary in the discharge of his duties, and always attentive to his clerical character.

• His health began apparently to decline in the end of the year 791. Till then, it had been more uniformly good than might have been expected from his studious habits; but, about this period, he suddenly discovered strong symptoms of jaundice, which gradually undermined his constitution, and terminated at length in a lingering and fatal illness. He had the prospect of death long before him; a prospect deeply afflicting to his family and his friends; but of which, without any visible abatement in his spirits, he happily availed himself, to adorn the doctrines which he had long taught, by an example of fortitude and of Christian resignation. In the concluding stages of his disorder, he removed from Edinburgh to Grange House in the neighbourhood, where he had the advantage of a freer air, and a more quiet situation, and (what he valued more than most men) the pleasure of rural objects, and of a beautiful landscape. While he was able to walk abroad, he commonly passed a part of the day in a small garden, enjoying the simple gratifications it afforded with all his wonted relish. Some who now hear me will long remember,-among the trivial yet interesting incidents which marked these last weeks of his memorable life,-his daily visits to the fruite trees, (which were then in blossom,) and the smile with which he, more than once, contrasted the interest he took in their progress

* This memoir was read at different meetings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. with

R 2

with the event which was to happen before their maturity. At his particular desire, I saw him (for the last time) on the 4th of June 1793, when his weakness confined him to his couch, and his ar ticulation was already beginning to fail: and it is in obedience to a request with which he then honoured me, that I have ventured, without consulting my own powers, to offer this tribute to his memory. He died on the 11th of the same month, in the 71st year of his age.

I have already hinted at his domestic happiness. Nothing was wanting to render it perfect while he lived; and, at his death, he had the satisfaction to leave, in prosperous circumstances, a numerous family united to each other, and to their excellent mother, by the tenderest affection. His eldest son, an eminent lawyer at the Scotch bar, has been only prevented by the engagements of an active profession, from sustaining his father's literary name; while his two younger sons, both of whom very early embraced a military life, have carried his vigour and enterprize into a different career of ambition. His eldest daughter is married to Mr. Brydone, the well-known author of one of our most elegant and popular books of Travels. Another is the widow of the late John Russell, Esq. Clerk to the Signet.'

Dr. Robertson's first preferment was the living of Gladsmuir in East Lothian, to which he was presented by the Earl of Hopetoun. In 1759, he was appointed chaplain of Stirling Castle; in 1761, one of his Majesty's Chaplains in ordinary for Scotland; in 1762, he was chosen Principal of the University of Edinburgh; and two years afterward, the office of King's Historiographer for Scotland, with an annual salary of 2001., was revived in his favor.

From the extracts with which we have presented the reader, he will see that this work is judiciously and ably written. It discovers the language, indeed, and perhaps the partiality of friendship; and probably something more might have been accomplished, to use the biographer's own words, by a writer whose pursuits were more congenial to Dr. Robertson's: but with the performance as it stands we have been much pleased; and we have no doubt that the literary world at large, as well as Dr. R.'s particular friends, will be perfectly satisfied with this tribute of Professor Stewart's regard for the memory of that eminent Writer. But s

ART. II. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. IV. [Article concluded from the Rev. for May, p. 23.]

HAVING before furnished our readers with a brief abstract

of a considerable portion of this large volume, we now attend to the remainder of its contents.

To determine the true Place of a Planet, in an elliptical Orbit, directly from the mean Anomaly, by converging Series. By David Rittenhouse,

Rittenhouse, LL. D., President A. P. S.-This problem, which is known by the name of Kepler's problem, was solved by that geometrician indirectly and tediously: but the present determination, which is not the only one of the kind, is a direct solution. The memoir is very short, and supposes much to be previously known.

On the Improvement of Time-Keepers. By the Same.-One cause of inequality, in the vibrations of a pendulum, is the alteration which takes place in the density of the air; and to remedy this inequality is the object of Dr. R.'s improvement. He proposes to extend upwards the inflexible rod on which the ball of the pendulum is fixed, beyond the point of suspension; and to affix, at a distance equal to that at which the ball is placed, another ball of equal surface, and of the same shape, but much lighter. The proposer of this contrivance has not ascertained its merits by decisive experiments, for he says,

The only experiment I have hithero made on this subject has been merely to shew that a pendulum can be made in this manner which shall vibrate quicker in a dense medium than in one more rare, contrary to what takes place with common pendulums.

I made a compound pendulum, on the principles above mentioned, of about one foot in its whole length. This pendulum, on many trials, made in the air 57 vibrations in a minute. On immersing

the whole in water it made 59 vibrations in the same time, shewing evidently that its motion was quicker in so dense a medium as water than in the air. When the lower bob or pendulum only was plunged in water, it made no more than 44 vibrations in a minute; the remaining 15, being solely the effect of the pressure of the water against the upper vessel.'

A Letter from Mr, Andrew Ellicott to Robert Patterson, in two Parts. The first part of this paper contains a number of astronomical observations; and the second gives the theory and method of calculating the aberration of the stars, the nutation of the earth's axis, and the semi-annual equation. We have little to add to this brief enunciation of the contents of the memoir, but that the latter part includes an account of the method of laying down the plan for the new city of Washing

ton.

A Letter from Mr. Andrew Ellicott, to Mr. Robert Patterson. -This letter offers a method of calculating the excentric anomaly of the planets.

Method of raising the common Logarithm of any Number immediately. By David Rittenhouse, President of the Society.The principle of this method is not explained; and, in point of facility in arithmetical computation, it does not appear su

R 3

perior