fore nearer the centre of the earth than the equator; therefore the earth was flattened at the poles. Never did reasoning and experiment so fully concur to establish a truth. The vial in appearance, a line more or less, could lead to the knowledge of the greatest physical truths? It was first of all discovered that weight must necessarily be less on the equator than in our latitudes, since weight alone causes the oscil-celebrated Huygens, by calculating cenlation of a pendulum. Consequently, trifugal forces, had proved that the conthe weight of bodies being the less the sequent diminution of weight on the farther they are from the centre of the surface of a sphere was not great enough earth, it was inferred, that the region of to explain the phenomena, and that the equator must be much more elevated therefore the earth must be a spheroid than our own--much more remote from flattened at the Poles. Newton, by the the centre; so the earth could not be an principles of attraction, had found nearly exact sphere. the same relations: only it must be obMany philosophers acted, on the occa-served, that Huygens believed this force sion of these discoveries, as all men act { when an opinion is to be changed-they disputed on Richer's experiment; they pretended that our pendulums made their vibrations more slowly about the equator only because the metal was lengthened by the heat; but it was seen that the heat of the most burning summer lengthens it but one line in thirty feet; and here was an elongation of a line and a quarter, a line and a half, or even two lines, in an iron rod, only three feet and eight lines long. Some years after, MM. Varin, De-tive gravity in full action. But this shayes, Feuillée, and Couplet, repeated near the equator the same experiment on the pendulum; and it was always found necessary to shorten it, although the heat was very often less on the line than fifteen or twenty degrees from it. This experiment was again confirmed by the acade-tance of one diameter. micians whom Louis XV. sent to Peru; and who were obliged, on the mountains about Quito, where it froze, to shorten the second pendulum about two lines. About the same time, the academicians who went to measure an are of the meridian in the north, found that at Pello, within the Polar circle, it was necessary to lengthen the pendulum, in order to have the same oscillations as at Paris: consequently weight is greater at the polar circle than in the latitude of France, as it is greater in our latitude than at the equator. Weight being greater in the north, the north was there inherent in bodies determining them towards the centre of the globe, to be everywhere the same. He had not yet seen the discoveries of Newton; so that he considered the diminution of weight by the theory of centrifugal forces only. The effect of centrifugal forces diminishes the primitive gravity on the equator. The smaller the circles in which this centrifugal force is exercised become, the more it yields to the force of gravity; thus, at the pole itself the centrifugal force, being null, must leave the primi principle of a gravity always equal, falls to nothing before the discovery made by Newton, that a body transported, for instance, to the distance of ten diameters from the centre of the earth, would weigh one hundred times less than at the dis It is then by the laws of gravitation, combined with those of the centrifugal force, that the real form of the earth must be shown. Newton and Gregory had such confidence in this theory, that they did not hesitate to advance, that experi{ments on weight were a surer means of knowing the form of the earth than any geographical measurement. Louis XIV. had signalised his reign by that meridian, which was drawn through France: the illustrious Dominic Cassini had begun it with his son; and had, in 1701, drawn from the feet of the Pyrenees to the observatory a line as ciple from Paris to Dunkirk; and the degrees were still found to grow shorter as they approached the north. People were still mistaken respecting the figure of the earth, as they had been concern straight as it could be drawn, considering the almost insurmountable obstacles which the height of mountains, the changes of refraction in the air, and the altering of instruments were constantly opposing to the execution of so vast and delicate aning the nature of light. About the same undertaking; he had, in 1701, measured time, some mathematicians, who were six degrees eighteen minutes of that me- performing the same operations in China, ridian. But, from whatever cause the were astonished to find a difference error might proceed, he had found the among their degrees, which they had exdegrees towards Paris, that is, towards pected to find alike; and to discover, the north, shorter than those towards the after many verifications, that they were Pyrenees and the south. This measure-shorter towards the north than towards ment gave the lie both to that of Norwood the south. This accordance of the maand to the new theory of the earth flat-thematicians of France with those of tened at the poles. Yet this new theory was beginning to be so generally received, that the academy's secretary did not hesitate, in his history of 1701, to say that the new measurements made in France proved the earth to be a spheroid flattened at the poles. The truth was, that Dominic Cassini's measurement led to a conclusion directly opposite; but, as the figure of the earth had not yet become a question in France, no one at that time was at the trouble of combatiug All these measurements proved that this false conclusion. The degrees of the degrees had been found as it was the meridian from Collioure to Paris wished to find them. They overturned, were believed to be exactly measured; for a time, in France, the demonstrations and the pole, which from that measure-of Newton and Huygens; and it was no ment must necessarily be elongated, was longer doubted that the poles were of a believed to be flattened. form precisely contrary to that which had An engineer, named M. de Roubais, at first been attributed to them. astonished at this conclusion, demon-short, nothing at all was known about strated that, by the measurements taken in France, the earth must be an oblate spheroid, of which the meridian passing through the poles must be longer than the equator, the poles being elongated. But of all the natural philosophers to whom he addressed his dissertation, not one would have it printed; because it seemed that the academy had pronounced it was too bold in an individual to raise his voice. Some time after the error of 1701 was acknowledged, that which had been said was unsaid; and the earth was lengthened by a just conclusion drawn from a false principie. The meridian was continued in the same prin China was another powerful reason for believing in the oblate spheroid. In France they did still more; they measured parallels to the equator. It is easily understood that on an oblate spheroid our degrees of longitude must be shorter than on a sphere. M. de Cassini found the parallel which passes through St. Malo to be shorter by one thousand and thirty-seven toises than it would have been on a spherical earth. the matter. In At length, other academicians, who had visited the polar circle in 1736, having found, by new measurements, that the degree was longer there than in France, people doubted between them and the Cassinis. But these doubts were soon after removed: for these same astronomers, returning from the pole, examined afresh the degree measured by Picard, in 1677, to the north of Paris; and found the degree to be a hundred and twenty-three toises longer than it was according to Picard's measurement. If, then, Picard, with all his precautions, had made his degree one hundred and twenty-three toises too short, it was notative style. We do not admit it into at all unlikely that the degrees towards the south had in like manner been found too long. Thus the first error of Picard, having furnished the foundations for the measurements of the meridian, also furnished an excuse for the almost inevitable errors, which very good astronomers might have committed in the course of these operations. Unfortunately, other men of science found that, at the Cape of Good Hope, the degrees of the meridian did not agree with ours. Other measurements, taken in Italy, likewise contradicted those of France, and all were falsified by those of China. People again began to doubt, and to suspect, in my opinion very reasonably, that the earth had protuberances. As for the English, though they are fond of travelling, they spared themselves the fatigue, and held fast their theory. history, for too many metaphors are hurtful, not only to perspicuity, but also to truth, by saying more or less than the thing itself. In didactic works, this style should be rejected. It is much more out of place in a sermon than in a funeral oration, because the sermon is a piece of instruction in which the truth is to be announced; while the funeral oration is a declamation in which it is to be exaggerated. The poetry of enthusiasm as the epopee and the ode, is that to which this style is best adapted. It is less admissible in tragedy, where the dialogue should be natural as well as elevated; and still less in comedy, where the style must be more simple. The limits to be set to the figurative style, in each kind, are determined by taste. Balthazar Gracian says, that "our thoughts depart from the vast shores of memory, embark on the sea of imagin The difference between one diameter and the other is not more than five or six of our leagues-a difference immense ination, arrive in the harbour of intelligence, the eyes of a disputant, but almost imper- and are entered at the custom-house of ceptible to those who consider the mea- the understanding." surement of the globe only in reference to the purposes of utility which it may serve. A geographer could scarcely make this difference perceptible on a map; nor would a pilot be able to discover whether he was steering on a spheroid or on a sphere. Yet there have been men bold enough to assert, that the lives of navigators depended on this question. Oh quackery! wilt tnou spare no degrees-not even those of the meridian? FIGURED-FIGURATIVE, WE say, a truth 'figured' by a fable, by a parable; the church figured' by the young spouse in Solomon's Song; ancient Rome 'figured' by Babylon. { A figurative style is constituted by metaphorical expressions, figuring the things spoken of and disfiguring them when the metaphors are not correct. This is precisely the style of Harlequin. He says to his master, “The ball of your commands has rebounded from the racket of my obedience." Must it not be owned that such is frequently that oriental style which people strive to admire. Another fault of the figurative style is the accumulating of incoherent figures. A poet, speaking of some philosophers, has called them : D'ambitieux pygmées Vont redoublant leurs folles escalades. When philosophers are to be written against, it should be done better. How do ambitious pigmies, reared on their hind legs on mountains of arguments, continue escalades? What a false and ridiculous image! What elaborate dul Ardent imagination, passion, desire-{ness! frequently deceived-produce the figur In an allegory by the same author, en titled the Liturgy of Cytherea, we find piece of red cloth, placed by the courtethese lines : De toutes parts, autour de l'inconnue, De par Venus nous venons cette affaire zan Rahab at her window, for a signal to Joshua's spies, as a figure of the blood of Jesus Christ. This is an error of an order of mind, which would find mystery in everything. All men of sense have asked how it can be proved that these Hebrew words, "maher, salas-has-bas," (take quick the spoils) are a figure of Jesus Christ? How Judah, tying his ass to a vine, and washing his cloak in the wine, is also a Nor can it be denied that St. Ambrose made a very bad use of his taste for alleHere we have harvests of hearts thrown gory, when he says, in his book of Noah on the ground like small hail ; and among and the Ark, that the back-door of the these hearts palpitating on the ground,ark was a figure of our hinder parts. are gods bound to the car of the unknown; while Love, sent by Venus, ruminates in his seraglio in heaven, what he shall do to bring back to the fold this lost mutton surrounded by scattered hearts. All this forms a figure at once so false, so puerile, and so incoherent-so disgusting, so ex-figure of him? How Ruth, slipping into travagant, so stupidly expressed, we are astonished that a man, who made good verses of another kind, and was not devoid of taste, could write anything so miserably bad. bed to Boaz, can figure the church? How Sarah and Rachel are the church, and Hagar and Leah the synagogue? How the kisses of the Shunamite typify the marriage of the church? A volume might be made of these enigmas, which, to the best theologians later times, have appeared to be rather far-fetched than edifying. Figures, metaphors, are not necessary in an allegory: what has been invented with imagination, may be told with sim-of plicity. Plato has more allegories than figures; he often expresses them elegantly and without ostentation. Nearly all the maxims of the ancient orientals and of the Greeks were in the figurative style. All those sentences are metaphors, or short allegories; and in them the figurative style has great effect in rousing the imagination and impressing the memory. We know that Pythagoras said, "In the tempest adore the echo," that is, during civil broils retire to the country; and, "Stir not the fire with the sword," meaning, do not irritate minds already inflamed. In every language, there are many common proverbs, which are in the figurative style. FIGURE IN THEOLOGY. It is quite certain, and is agreed by the most pious men, that figures and allegories have been carried too far. Some of the fathers of the church regard the The danger of this abuse is fully admitted by the abbé Fleury, the author of the "Ecclesiastical History." It is a vestige of rabbinism; a fault into which the learned St. Jerome never fell. It is like oniromancy, or the explanation of dreams. If a girl sees muddy water, when dreaming, she will be ill married; if she sees clear water, she will have a good husband; a spider denotes money, &c. In short, will enlightened posterity believe it? the understanding of dreams has, for more than four thousand years, been made a serious study. Symbolical Figures. All nations have made use of them, as we have said in the article EMBLEM. But who began? Was it the Egyptians? It is not very likely. We think we have already more than once proved that Egypt is a country quite new, and that many ages were requisite to save the country from inundations, and render it, The Iroquois have more sense. They do not take the trouble to enquire what passed on the shores of lake Ontario some thousand years ago: instead of Here is also an evident proof of the falsity of the new paradox, that the Chinese are an Egyptian colony. The characters are not the same. The Chinese mark the course of the sun by twenty-eight constellations; and the Egyptians, after the Chaldeans, reckoned only twelve, like ourselves. The figures that denote the planets are in China and in India all different from those of Egypt and of Europe; so are the signs of the metals; so is the method of guiding the hand in writing. Nothing could have been more chimerical than to send the Egyptians to people China. All these fabulous foundations, laid in fabulous times, have caused an irreparable loss of time to a prodigious multitude of the learned, who have all been bewildered in their laborious researches, which might have been serviceable to mankind if directed to arts of real utility. Pluche, in his History, or rather his fable, of the Heavens, assures us that Ham, son of Noah, went and reigned in Egypt, where there was nobody to reign over; that his son Menes was the greatest of legislators, and that Thoth was his prime minister. The same authors affirm that the sphynxes, with which Egypt was adorned, signified superabundance, because some interpreters have asserted that the Hebrew word spang meant an excess; as if the Egyptians had taken lessons from the Hebrew tongue, which is, in great part, derived from the Phenician: besides, what relation has a sphynx to an abundance of water? Future schoolmen will maintain, with greater appearance of reason, that the masks which decorate the key-stones of our windows are emblems of our masquerades; and that these fantastic ornaments announced that balls were given in every house to which they were affixed. Figure, Figurative, Allegorical, Mysti cal, Tropological, Typical, &c. This is often the art of finding in books everything but what they really contain. For instance, Romulus killing his brother Remus shall signify the death of the Duke of Berry, brother to Louis XI.; Regulus, imprisoned at Carthage, shall typify St. Louis captive at Massoura. It is very justly remarked in the Encyclopedia, that many fathers of the church have, perhaps, carried this taste for allegorical figures a little too far; but they are to be reverenced, even in their wanderings. If the holy fathers used and then abused this method, their little excesses of imagination may be pardoned, in consideration of their holy zeal. According to him and his authorities, this Thoth, or somebody else, instituted feasts in honour of the deluge; and the joyful cry of "Io Bacche," so famous The antiquity of the usage may also among the Greeks, was, among the Egyp-be pleaded in justification, since it was tians, a lamentation. Bacche came from practised by the earliest philosophers. the Hebrew beke, signifying sobs, and But it is true that the symbolical figures that at a time when the Hebrew people employed by the fathers are in a different did not exist. According to this expla- taste. nation, joy means sorrow, and to sing signifies to weep. For example: When St. Augustin wishes to make it appear that the forty |