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hence thofe objects that ought from their nature to afford the moft rational delight, the pleasures of home, are discarded to make room for paftimes that contribute much more to diffipate and confuse the mind, than to give it ease and recreation.

But the worst confequence of this intellectual corruption is that felfish fubferviency to power, in the utmost depravity of the meaning, which fettles fo deeply as to become the only motive able to excite their activity, in any emergency of a pub. lic nature; and induces them, at the fame time, to exert it in the meanest endeavours to please tyrannic fuperiors, by every fpecies of adulation and bafe compliance with their capricious injunctions, in order to preferve that footing of regard and notice from them, which, in fuch a government, is absolutely neceffary to confer on individuals an air of importance and diftinction.

We are not, therefore, to be furprised that patriotifm (that comprehenfive benevolence which includes in our own, the welfare of every member of the community) should so rarely be admitted, if fuch a phrafe may be hazarded, to the privilege of denizen, in a state immersed in that degeneracy of fentiments which excludes, and, in a manner, annihilates the natural efficacy of even the most potent and coercive ties; for how is it poffible that a man who feels not for all that is nearest to him, for all that renders private life defirable, fhould cherish any concern for the public?

As republican governments, for the reafons above affigned, afford much more numerous inftances of matrimonial honour and happiness than others, they are, in confequence, much more fertile in patriots; the greatest of whom have been produced in republicks, and ever been confpicuously remarkable, at the fame time, for the conjugal virtues, which are ufually the forerunners or concomitants of all others.

Socrates, the patriot of mankind, rather than of Greece, was a moft excellent husband. The laft Brutus, affociate of Caffius in afferting the Roman caufe, was a pattern of nuptial tenderness.

• Such were, in modern times, that heroic champion of Swifferland, the celebrated William Tell: the great Barnevelt in Holland and in France, the laft affertor of French liberty against the ufurpations of the court, during the minority of Lewis XIV. the illuftrious Brouflel, whom Voltaire undervalues with fo much injuftice and impropriety. Such alfo was in our country, that mirror of honefty and difinterestednefs, as well as of the moft fplendid abilities, the truly noble Sir William Temple, who retained his integrity in the midst of a court that was in its time, the center of diffoluteness and

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profligacy, that of our Charles II. a prince more abandoried to voluptuoufnefs than even his cotempórary of France, the aforementioned Lewis; and who ftrove no lefs to follow his foot-steps in the establishment of defpotism in this kingdom.

From the preceding remarks a reflection obviously arises, which every man who afpires at the title of patriot ought to bear ingraven in his mind, that the more libertinism in the marriage state gains ground in a free nation, the nearer it approaches to the downfall of its liberty; an affertion we need not go further to illuftrate by the moft glaring proofs, than the laft cited æra.

• Let any one examine the public and private transactions of that infamous reign; he will find an alarming licentiousness of manners flowing faft from the head to its members. From the king, a man of no principle, to his courtiers, who foon loft theirs. From the court, whence all fenfe of virtue and decency was almoft banished, to the bulk of the people; anong whom a vifible depravity was daily increafing. We may appeal to the theatrical compofitions of that time for an evidence what fort of morals were then countenanced. Compofitions which, however replete with wit and fancy, display such a picture of the manners of our ancestors, as it is heartily to be wifhed their defcendants may never afford any cause for a reproduction of on the scene.

While the nation was thus, after the example of its fovereign, running, as it were, the race of debauchery, both he and his minifters were ftudying how to avail themselves of this flagitious difpofition, by endeavouring to bring expeditiously to maturity, the most iniquitous defigns against its liberties. 'And had his fucceffor carried on the attack against these alone, he most probably would have fucceeded; as the minds of men, through a long courfe of degeneracy, were become fo debafed, that nothing but an attempt to overturn their religion (the last thing that human nature will fuffer) could have rouzed them from that lethargic indifference for, and oblivion of the com mon weal, which are ever the fure effects of a vicious, immoral life.

We may conclude this fubject of the fafhionable infidelity. fubfifting in France between fo many hufbands and wives, with obferving that notwithstanding fome may be apt, in the levity of their heart, to treat it as a matter rather of gaiety and laughter, than as an object demanding the most serious reflections, it can appear no fuch trifle in the fcale of found reafoning. It is a fashion (if fo foft a name is applicable to fo fcandalous a vice) pregnant with fuch infinite mischief to fociety, that it behoves every one to lend his affiftance in exVOL. XXIX. April, 1770.

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pofing thofe equally dangerous and ignominious confequences that neceffarily flow from the fhameful and criminal connivance, and it may almost be said toleration, it too openly meets with in fome countries; where, through the most unaccountable infatuation, they feem to have forgot that no fpecies of wickedness strikes more directly at the root of all human happinefs that exclufive of its immediate effect, the deftruction of domestic tranquillity, and the introduction of anarchy and confufion into families, it is the fource of the most irreconcilable, and often the most fatal enmities, and naturally produces the moft dreadful catastrophes in private life. That whenever it gets footing, and grows habitual in any country, it breeds diffidence and fufpicion between individuals, and is unquestionably the greatest obftruction to friendship, from the fear and jealousy we are liable to entertain of those who have conftant opportunities to abuse the privileges annexed to it. That it banishes all delicacy of fentiment, and utterly extinguishes that respect for the fair fex which is founded on the opinion of their honour and virtue; of which, when the violation is no longer reputed disgraceful among men, it seldom remains an object of confequence among the women. That, in fhort, by extirpating the most effectual motive for reciprocal attachment and regard, it annihilates the effential felicity of love; and by extending our defires and paffions, and the hope of gratifying them, indifcriminately to all, it eradicates the nobleft refinements that dignify the human system, and throws all the received ideas of civilifed nature into their primary chaos and confufion.'

VIII. The Elements of Optics. In four Books. By W. Emerson,

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T HE fcience of optics, taken properly and fimply, relates only to direct vifion; but when confidered in a larger fenfe, it will be found to contain the whole doctrine of light and colours, and all the phenomena of vifible objects it may therefore juftly be called a mathematical science that treats of light in general, and of every thing that is feen with direct rays. When rays of light are confidered as reflected, that part of optics whereby we are enabled to investigate their laws and properties, is called catoptrics; and when the refraction of rays is confidered, and the laws and nature of it explained and demonftrated, it is then called dioptrics; fo that optics comprehends the whole, of which catoptrics and dioptrics are the two parts.

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To this truly noble art we are indebted for the most important and wonderful difcoveries that have hitherto been made both in aftronomy and natural philofophy; for by the help of glaffes, ground into certain figures, and placed in due pofition, we may enlarge the diameters of the heavenly bodies, and all fuch objects to which we are allowed no nearer approach, in what proportion we pleafe, and view them as perfectly and diftinctly as if we could fummon them before us, and command them to the end of our telefcopes. This has brought us into a perfect knowledge of those parts of the creation with which we are allowed no kind of commerce, fave that of viewing them through immenfity of space from the globe which we inhabit. We can now perceive, by the different phases of the planets, that the fun is the fountain of all their light ; and by fixing upon fome remarkable fpots upon their furfaces, obferving their periodic times, and how they fhift their pofition, we determine the motion of these bodies round their axis, and the time in which that revolution is performed. Severe fecondary planets, or fatellites, which were too finall for the naked eye, are now difcerned to move round Jupiter and Saturn, as the moon round our earth; and about the laft of them is feen the particular phenomenon of an annulus or ring. Nor is the discovery of these fatellites merely fpeculative, but of prodigious use and advantage; for their eclipfes have determined the velocity of light, and are fo frequent, as to be the most constant appearance the heavens afford us at prefent for the folution of that great and valuable problem of the longitude. The distances, magnitudes, and motions of all the heavenly bodies, and even the irregularities of the moon, have by this means been fo nicely obferved, and by the power of numbers reduced within fome few tables for any determinate inftant of future time, are now to be predicted as eafily, and almost as exactly, as we could wish.

If, on the other hand, we defcend to examine the more minute parts of the creation, the microfcope will furnish us with a prospect no lefs amazing than before. By means of this inftrument, we difcern the admirable range of the conftituent particles of all fuch bodies as come within our nearer view. The cuticule, or outward skin of the human body, is found to be compofed of several strata of fcales lying one over another in different numbers, according to its different thicknefs in different places; between thefe fcales the miliary glands, difperfed over the furface of the whole body, are seen to fend out excretory ducts, through which we perfpire; and about one of thefe fcales are obferved near five hundred ducts, fo very fmall, that one hundred and twenty five thousand orifices

of these excretory ducts may be covered by one fingle grain of

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It is to the invention of the microscope we owe a confirmation of the circulation of the blood, that noble difcovery of the great Dr. Harvey, and which is now made vifible in the transparent parts of animals; fuch as the fins and tails of fishes, and the feet of frogs; and the anastomoses of the arteries and veins put beyond all difpute. By the help of this instrument, we can obferve the different organization of the leffer fpecies of animals; as the regular armour of the flea, the jagged probofcis of the tick, and the briftles of the mite; and in thefe animals there alfo appears a great variety of branchings of the blood-veffels, the pulfe regularly beating in feveral arteries, and even the periftaltic motion of the intestines may alfo be difcovered.

From what has been faid, and many more things that might be faid, appears plainly the excellency of the fcience of optics, and its great use to mankind above all others; and how neceffary it is for us to be acquainted with it, to let us into the fecrets of nature, not only in regard to the grand fabric of the whole univerfe, but likewife to the most minute and imperceptible parts of it.

In the work before us, which confifts of four books, containing fimple optics, catoptrics, dioptrics, and optical inftruments, the author has (in our opinion) handled the different parts of the science in a fhort, concife, yet clear, and comprehenfive manner; and demonftrated all the principles in a method extremely easy, natural, and plain, which we apprehend the following extract will, in fome meafure, ferve to evince.

To investigate the proportion of moon light to day light, or the light of the fun, at full moon.

The moon's radius is to the earth's radius as to 3.65; and fince the radius of the moon's orbit is 60 of the earth's radii, therefore the radius of the moon's orbit, or its distance from the earth is 60 x 3.65, or 219 of the moon's radii.

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Now fuppofe equal spaces at the earth and moon to be equally illuminated; and that the whole furface of the moon was thus equally illuminated, and the light reflected therefrom all around, fo far as the furface of a sphere paffing through the earth, defcribed from the moon's center, then all this light is spread upon this furface, and confequently its denfity will be lefs in the reciprocal proportion of these furfaces, or reciprocally as the fquares of the diameters. That is, the denfity of the light at the moon (which is fuppofed the

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