gion is fo well guarded, than in England; and we are perhaps principally indebted to the laws in favour of Chriftianity for what there is of deifm with us. A ftranger to Dr. Priestley's character might be apt to conclude, from the favourable epithets he beftows on infidels, and the warmth of his zeal for the free publication of deistical writings, that he is an advocate for their party; but as it appears that he only wants to fet them upon fair ground, in order to drub them the more shamefully, they may poffibly think themfelves little obliged to him. By the way, however, we would advife him, as friends, not to be too fond of giving them any advantages: for, as they are not always the fairest of combatants, he may fome time or other, fanguine as he is, happen to find himself over-matched by them, even on his own ground. After a number of fenfible and fpirited obfervations on the fubject of free-enquiry, our Author ends his third, fection with the following paflage: England hath hitherto taken the lead in almost every thing great and good, and her citizens ftand foremost in the annals of fame, as having fhaken off the fetters which hung upon the human mind, and called it forth to the exertion of its nobleft powers. And her conftitution has been fo far from receiving any injury from the efforts of thefe her free-born enterprifing fons, that the is, in part, indebted to them for the unrivalled reputation fhe now enjoys, of having the beft fyftem of policy in Europe. After weathering fo many real ftorms, let us not quit the helm at the apprehenfion of imaginary dangers, but fteadily hold on in what, I truft, is the moft glorious courfe that a human government can be in. Let all the friends of liberty and human nature join to free the minds of men from the fhackles of narrow and impolitic laws. Let us be free ourselves, and leave the bleffings of freedom to our pofterity*.' In There is fo great a fimilarity of fentiment in what our Author hath advanced in this fection, with the fubftance of the following fpirited lines of an anonymous poet, that we cannot refift the temptation of inferting them: In patriot policy, afraid To fpoil the prieft's and lawyer's trade The statefman aiding the divine, Smacking his long tail'd whip, the law; REV. Sept. 8765. Thus In the fourth and laft fection, Dr. Prieftley endeavours to fhew, that, fuppofing the propofed methods of education what they Thus patriots forfeit the pretence Ah me! had custom never fail'd What lengths ftill ftubborn faith had run, But Cuftom ev❜n Caprice hath broke, Shall Science, then, ftill drag her chain, Forbid it, Heav'n! that thus the mind, By tyrant policy confin'd, Should bow, while falfhood bears the fway," And give the cause of truth away. Is this, Lorenzo, to be free? Is this our boasted liberty? That glorious priv'lege yours and mine, In our own fties, like fenfual fwine, At will to grumble, eat and drink; But ah! prohibited to think! Our nobler appetites denied Their proper food, and damn'd for pride; Depriv'd of ev'ry mental joy; Robb'd of the privilege to KNOW, Man's chief prerogative below! they will, they could not be established and produce their full effect, without making at the fame time a confiderable alteration in the English conftitution; fo that the thing which would, in fact, be perpetuated, would not be the prefent conftitution of England; but fomething very different from it, and more defpotic. The English government, fays he, is a mixtu.e of regal, ariftocratical, and democratical power; and if the public education should be more favourable to any one of these than to another, or more than its present importance in the conftitution requires, the balance of the whole would neceffarily be loft. Too much weight would be thrown into fome of the fcales, and the conftitution be overturned. If the commons, representing the body of the people, had the choice of thefe public inftructors, which is almoft impoffible, we should see a republic rife out of the ruins of our prefent government; if the lords, which is highly improbable, we should, in the end, have an aristocracy; and if the court had this nomination, which it may be taken for granted would be the cafe (as all the executive power of the ftate is already lodged in the hands of the fovereign) it could not but occafion a very dangerous acceffion of power to the crown, and we might justly expect a fystem of education, principles, and manners favourable to defpotifm. Every man would be educated with principles, which would lead him to concur with the views of the court. All that oppofition from the country, which is fo falutary in this nation, and fo effential to the liberties of England, would be at an end. And when once the spirit of defpotism was thus established, and had triumphed over all oppofition, we might foon expect to fee the forms of it established too, and thereby the very doors fhut against old English liberty, and effectually guarded against the poffibility of its return, except by violence; which would then be the only method of its re-entrance. To fet blind prejudice apart, To rend th' old woman from the heart; To laugh at blind tradition's rules, The mother and the nurse of fools? Have they with blood fo dearly bought To throw, like fchool boys tir'd with play, O, leave, ye fairiots! leave the mind In search of knowlege unconfin'd, Of her the follower, not the guide. P 2 EP. PHIL & MOR. . It It is evident to common understanding, that the true fpirit and maxims of a mixed government can no otherwise be continued, than by every man's educating his children in his own way; and that if any one part provided for the education of the whole, that part would foon gain the afcendancy in the whole; and, if it w re capable of it, would become the whole. a ftate, for instance, to confift of papifts and proteftants, and the papifts had the fole power of education, proteftantifm would expire with that generation: whereas, if the papifts and proteftants educated each their own children, the fame proportion would continue to fubfift between them, and the balance of power would remain the fame. For the fame reason the only method of preferving the balance, which at prefent fubfifts among the feveral political and religious parties in Great Britain, is for each party to provide for the education of their own children. In this way, there will be a fair profpect of things continuing nearly upon their prefent footing, for a confiderable time; but fubject to thofe gradual alterations which, it may be hoped, will prove favourable to the beft interests of the fociety upon the whole. Whereas, were the direction of the whole business of education thrown into the hands of the court, it would be fuch an acceffion of power to the regal part of our conftitution, as could not fail to alarm all the friends of civil liberty; as all the friends of religious liberty would be justly alarmed, if it fhould devolve upon the established clergy. And it were the greatest injuftice to the good fenfe of free-born Britons, to fuppofe the noble spirit of religious liberty, and a zeal for the rights of free-enquiry, confined within the narrow circle of protestant diffenters.' But we fhall here take leave of this fpirited and fenfible performance, in which, if our more cool and confiderate Readers fhould think the Author's ardour has fometimes out-run his prudence, they must at least admit that his zeal is exerted in a good caufe; and that, altho' his expreffions may in fome paffages have been too fanguine and unguarded, they feem to be the genuine dictates of an ingenuous, honeft and liberal mind. We wish we could pay the fame compliment to the scholar as to the man; but we cannot help thinking our Author fomewhat inexcufable, as Tutor in the Languages and Belles Lettres, for that negligence which is obfervable in the language of these remarks; and ftill the more fo, as the writer he hath attacked is diftinguished for a clofenefs and quaintnefs of ftyle, which hath paffed with many, for concifenefs, precifion and elegance. K-n-k Excerpta Excerpta quædam e Newtoni Principiis Philofophia Naturalis, cum Notis Variorum. 4to. 10s. 6d. Nourse. WE E are often ftruck with the refemblance between our undertaking, as reviewers, and that of a traveller; for, as he fometimes, in his paffage thro' a difagreeable country and barren defarts, meets with beautiful profpects to chear his fpirits and reward his toil; fo we, in our literary tour, meet with works that give us real pleasure, and tend to obliterate the uneafy fenfations occafioned by reading what we cannot approve. The treatife before us is of this kind, and fufficiently appears to be the work of a very able mater, though he has thought proper to conceal his name. We however imagine that it will be no great difficulty to thofe who have feen fome late pieces by a famous profeffor, to guefs at the perfon to whom they are obliged for this performance. It is a comment on thofe parts of Sir Ifaac's Principia, which more immediately relate to the fyftem of the world; and begins with a prooemium in which is fhewn the neceffity of having recourfe to the doctrine of prime and ultimate ratios, in explaining the phænomena of that fyftem. Here the ingenious Author has compared Sir Ifaac Newton's method of inveftigating the prime and ultimate ratios of quantities, with that of exhaustion ufed by the ancients, and the method of indivisibles propofed by the moderns, and clearly fhewn that it excels the former in cafe and fimplicity, and the latter in the certainty of its principles. We fhall add, that he has illuftrated this doctrine in a much clearer, and more fatisfactory manner, than we remember to have seen in any other writer. In the comment on the first section, the principles and reafonings of Sir Ifaac Newton are explained with much greater clearness and perfpicuity, than in the celebrated commentary of Jacquier and Le Seur. The Reader will, we imagine, be tufficiently convinced of this by comparing the explanations of the Lemmas, 1, 6 and 11, as given in this treatife, with thofe inferted in the above commentary. The Author, in the fecond and third fections, has happily made Sir Ifaac Newton a commentator on himself. It is well known that the two firft books of the Principia are purely mathematical, and in the third Sir faac has applied the reafonings in the former to the fyftem of the world. Our Commentator therefore has very judiciously given fome parts of the third book, as a comment on the first. The demonftration of the Scholium to Prop. 7, is new, clegant, and concife: and thofe of Cor. 2. to Prop. 9, and Cor. 1. P 3 to |