poor the eafy tafk of any common plodder. No, his first object is to fhew himfelf off. He begins, therefore, as if all knowledge was to commence from the oracle in his own breast, with a general differtation upon the subject of the work, in which he delivers the language and opinions of the fchool that has had the honour of educating him, and treats with profound contempt every notion derived from a different fource. In this difplay, the book before him is long totally forgotten, and pages are confumed in telling the world all that he knows and thinks on the topic in queftion. Having thus fhewn how he would have written himself, he proceeds to con raft it with what the author has done; but of this, he is not folicitous to exhibit more than what belongs to the contraft; for he accustoms himself to regard every author as a competitor for fame, and never lofes fight of advantageous comparison.

If the author's performance be in the department of fine writing, or what addresses the taste and imagination, the critic has not the fame opportunity of placing himself in competition, yet he is not deftitute of means for arrogating fuperiority. Senfible that to admire, is in fome meafure to acknowledge a fuperior, he is careful not to do it without great exceptions and qualifications; and though he knows he could not have written as the author has done, he need not despair to make the reader believe that he could have written much better. He can give ideas of perfection beyond the power of human attainment; and it corts him nothing to ima gine an accumulation of excellencies in their nature incompatible. Faftidioufnels will always pafs, with the vulgar, for a proof of tafte; and it is a very natural exclamation, "What a great genius this muft be! why, nothing pleases him."

Thefe very clever fellows are probably very young men, for that is the age of wonderful ability. Now, young men are 100 full of themselves, and have had their feelings too little exercifed, to fympathile much with others. It costs them little to hurl contempt and farcafm upon men of worth, to irritate morbid fenfibility, to mortify exalted hopes, and doom to neglect the labours of half a life." They never refift the temptation of faying fome thing lively, because it is ill-natured; or of pouring forth a torrent of eloquent abule, because it may overwhelm humble modefty. Ambitious of the credit of being formidable combatants, they deal their blows to right and left, regardless on whom they fall; and feldom reflect,

either on their own undue advantage in fighting concealed, or on the inoffensive nature and unprotected condition of an antagonist.

When they form a junto or knot of affociates, perhaps in some seat of literature of local celebrity, their conceit is tenfold augmented. By converfing orly with one another, they think all fenfe and taste confined to their little circle; and in mutual admiration place one another respectively at the head of every branch of fcience and literature. They divide the world of letters into two parties; one compofed of themselves and their friends, the other, of all befides who prefume to write; and the great object of their labours is to give confequence to the firft, and vilify the laft.

Your readers, Mr. Editor, will probably recognize that I have not been defcribing creatures of the imagination. It will be proper for them in that cafe to reflect, whether by inconfiderate applaufe and encouragement, they have not favoured a mode of carrying on the critical office equally prejudicial to the interefts of literature, and offenfive to the moral feelings. Such is the malignity of human nature, that severity pleases more than candour, and too many find an inhuman gratification in feeing a figure fet up as the butt of fportive malice. But, a little confiteration would fhew, that it is the cominon intereft of fociety to discountenance fuch pesty warfare; for every one is liable to fuffer, at leaft, in the person of his friends; and furely it is not defirable that the attempt to please and inftru& mankind, fhould neceffarily expofe a perfon to wan ton fcurrility. Your's, &c. MICIO.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

HAVE delayed giving you my opinion

concerning the ancient painting of Chaucer, which has been engraved and inferted at the clofe of Mr. Godwin's Life of that poet, in the hope of meeting with fome friend converfant with ancient writings, who might have b en able to decypher the characters, which are fo distinctly preferved in that picture.

I have not been wholly fuccefsful in my enquiries, or refearches. Neither myself, nor any of my friends, have hitherto dif. covered among the languages of the continent any clue to what may be the idiom or the meaning of the infcription in queftion, though beyond all doubt the painter, who bestowed fo much pains upon it, had fome meaning in view.

To return to the picture itfelf-the style

It only remains then to enquire-whether this portrait, painted in oil, could have been produced during the life-time of Chaucer, i. e. before the year 1401; or whether it was not painted fome few years pofterior to his deceate. Upon this point, I conceive there will always be a diverity of opinion. According to the moft generally received opinious, the art of painting in oil was not intro 'uced before the year 1410. The Brothers Van Eyck, of Flanders, have had the honour of letting a reputed example, which was immediately followed by every painter of their time in every country. There have, however, been found in Bohemia feveral pictures of the 13th century, bearing on their furface all the marks of being oilpaintings. Thele pictures have been carefully preferved in the Imperial Gal. lery at Vienna; and they have occafioned M. Mufel of Bafle to write a very learned differtation to prove that oil-painting was practifed before the time of the Brothers Van Eyck, who merely contributed to revive the art by inventing a more eafy procefs. If it be true, that the paintings difcovered in the Houfe of Commons, which were produced in the year 1350, are executed in oil-colours, there can be no longer a doubt relative to the antiquity

of the art,

There is, however, a third folution of the problem in queftion, and one which in my opinion, is the most probable. It has been fuppofed that many of the pictures of the 13th century, which were painted in water-colours, have at an after-period been covered with a coat of oil, with a view to their prefervation, and that in procets of time, this coat of oil has become fo perfectly amalgamated with the colours, as to occafion them to be mistaken for paintings in oil. It is even fuppofed that this accidental mixture of oil with paint gave rise to the invention of the Brothers Van Eyck-It is to be remarked that in the pictures of the 13th century, to which I have alluded, the vilages and hands of the perfons reprefented generally appear much browner than the painter would originally have defigned to make them; while on

the white drapery and every other virgin colour, except green, the oil has failed to produce a timilar effect. Whatever therefore may be the appearance of oil colour on this very curious portrait of Chaucer, it by no means prevents the conclufion that it was originally painted in watercolours, and that the oil has become amalgama ed with the paint. Another no lefs probable inference might be drawn; namely that an original portrait of Chaucer painted in water-co ours might have existed before 1410, the epoch, when the invention and practice of oil painting was rapidly gaining a preference over the former; and that the immediate descendant of Chaucer caufed a copy of this portrait to be made in oil-colours as better adapted to preferve the refemblance of his illuftrious ancestor. This fuppofition exactly agrees with the appearance of the picture in queftion, which exhibits in its ftyle all the marks of a painting in oil, certainly executed at the very dawn of that art about the year 1410. feription of Chaucer's naine, coeval with the portrait, leaves no doubt in my opinion, as to the portrait being a refemblance of the form and drefs of Chaucer, and it is therefore highly interesting to pofterity. I have the honour to be, Your's, &c. JOSEPH COUNT TRUCHSESS. Truchfeffian Gallery, Feb. 10, 1804.

The in

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

BSERVING, in two periodical cocmporary journals, as well as by public advertisements, that Dr. H. Wollafton is attempting to introduce fpectacle-glaffes of the form of a meniscus as a matter of novelty and improvement, in that fmall, but invaluable, article, I beg leave, for the information of your numerous readers, to lend you the following fhort animadverfions thereon:

A menifcus is that form of optical lens well refembled by a watch glass, or a portion of a gla's fphere. It is one of the common figure of lenfes, as given by all the writers on optics, and it is the kind that Dr. Wollaton recommended as being on a new principle, and the best-adapted for the purpole of fight. He fays it was fuggefted to him from the following confi deration: "Suppofing an eye to be placed in the centre of any hollow globe of glais, it is plain, that objects would then be feen perpendicularly through its surface in every direction. Confequently the more

nearly

nearly any spectacle glafs can be made to furround the eye, in the manner of a globular furface, the more nearly will every part of it be at right angles to the line of fight, the more uniform will be the power of its different parts, and the more completely will the indistinctness of lateral objects be avoided."

Now, this inference, upon a little confideration by any perfon ever fo little acquainted with the principle of optics, will be manifeftly erroneous, and quite irrelevant as to the properties of fpectacleglaffes, or other lentes. By a thin, hollow, glais fpnere, the rays to an eye in its centre will certainly not fenfibly be refracted; and more perfectly fo will be the rays from objects through a parallel or true ground plane of glais placed before the eye, but with this advantage of the plane, that a fenfible thicknefs will occafion no refractive power, when the fame, in a globe, would act like a concave lens, and fomewhat diminish the appearance of objects. It is not by the geometrical shape of the lens that vilion, or the purposes of intruments, are answered, but by the refractive power, produced entirely by the proportions of curvatures, or radii of curvatures, given to their form.

A menifcus lens is not more the fegment of a globe, as implied by Dr. Wollafton, than a convex lens, but a lens, composed of the furfaces of two fpheres of different radii. When the radius of the exterior curve exceeds that of the interior, it acts like a concave lens, and diminishes ob jects. When the radius of the exterior curve is lefs than that of the interior, it has the properties of a convex lens, and magnifies; but with this difference in both cafes, that, having a greater surface, it produces a greater degree of aberration, both of the longitudinal and lateral kinds, and confequently more indiftinctnefs towards its periphery than any of the other kind of lenies of the fame foci and diameter. The truth of this may be feen in the optical works of Smith, Emerson, Martin, &c. A practical proof of this may be had by the following experiment: Take a menifcus of about four inches pofitive focus, and about the size of a fpectacle glais, and alfo a common convex fpectacle glass of the fame focus and diameter, by night, in a room, with a lighted candle at a ditance; hold them about four inches and a quarter from a white wainscot or wall, before the candle; there will be refracted to a focus thereon two bright inverted images of the flame and candle; but, about the one formed

by the menifcus, there will be a fmall, faint, white circle of aberration, and what on the face as a fpectacle-glafs produces the peripheretical indiftinctness of objects, and, by a candle, the prifmatic colours about its flame. Such glaring objects feen obliquely must be allowed to be detrimental to the fight.

For the fatisfaction of any intelligent perfon, I have conftructed a hand-frame, confifting of a double convex, plano-convex, menifcus, and two plano-convexes together, all of the fame focus, four inches, and which will afford an ocular proof of the inferiority of the meni'cus to the other form for the purposes of spectacles or any other inftruments. They may be viewed gratis at our manufactory, No. 30, Holborn. I have in my poffeffion an old menifcus fhaped fpectacle-glafs, which I can prove to have been made a great number of years. I do not therefore fee upon what new principle or contrivance his Majesty's letters patent have been folicited.

The menifcus fhaped lens containing the greatest aberration of any other form, is the reafon why it has been abandoned by all fkilful opticians. I am, Sir, Holborn, Your's, &c. WM. JONES

Feb. 14, 1804.

In the fecond book of Paradife Loft, Milton adopts the ftyle and imagery of this paffage of the Iliad : "Black it ftood as night, And hook a dreadful dart.”

The Grecian defcribes the wrath of Apollo; the British poet delineates the terrors of death.

In the three hundred and fifty-ninth verfe of the first book of the Iliad, Thetis is described as afcending like mist : ηύτ' ομίχλη

In the feven hundred and tenth verfe of the first of Paradife Loft, we read, Anon, out of the earth a fabric huge Rofe like an exhalation.

Innumerable

Innumerable are the indirect influences of the Homeric Mufe on the compofitions of Milton! Would that the Iliad had been Englished by him; then would the "Tale of Troy divine" have been our's as well as the Songs of Eden! Cowper's Tranflation of Homer will grow mellow with age, and venerable with antiquity. He breathes the spirit of the Greek, without his fire and energy: it is Patroclus, clad in the armour, but without the spear, of Pelides. Occafionally he is inftinct with the flame of the original, as in the tranflation of the celebrated description of Jupiter's nod :

"All around

The earliest traveller who has noticed the monument in queftion is Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish Rabbi, who travelled to the East in the middle of the twelfth century, and has left behind him a curious narrative of his peregrinations, the veracity of which having been impugned, has been ably defended by the learned Renaudot. This traveller, fpeaking of Alexandria, ftates, that on the fea-fhore there lay a monument, on which the figures of birds and other animals were sculptured, with an infcription of ancient times that no one could read. The inhabitants of the place conjectured that (ome king, who reigned before the flood, was buried in it. The length of the fepulchre was fifteen fpans, the breadth fix. It is not abfolutely certain that Rabbi Benjamin is defcribing the monument in question, becaufe we have ftill evidence to fhew that there were others, and probably many, of the fame kind; a circumftance that, in my humble opinion, fhews the difficulty there must be in appropriating to any one of them the honour of containing Alexander's body, even admitting that he was buried according to Egyptian rites, which is another fact that requires verification.

from thought

To make us lefs, bent rather to exalt
Our happy fate, under one head more near
United.
Pared. Loft.

I conclude with a reference to the unanimity of the British nation, in the war in which, fingle-handed, we are involved with the French. Our's be hereafter the praife of Abdiel:

Leo Africanus, who wrote an account

himself vifited in the fifteenth century, mentions, that, among the ruins of Alexandria, the Turks have a chapel, in which, they fay, the body of Alexander is preferved, as they read in the Korán; and that great numbers of pilgrims come to vifit it.

Our countryman Sandys, who visited Alexandria at the commencement of the le.ent enth

feventeenth century, does not appear to have feen this monument. He defcribes it from Strabo; and adds, that the glafs tent of Alexander remained till the time of the Saracens. The rest of his account feems to be copied from Leo Africanus.

The only remaining authority that at prefent occurs to me is that of the Arabian author of Lebrorik or Lobbaltarik, i.e the Marrow of Hiftory; being an univerfal hiftory of Mahometanifin. This work is quoted in D'Herbelot's Biblioth. Orientale, p. 318, of the folio edition, as fating that the body of Alexander was carried to Alexandria in a coffin of gold, which his mother caufed to be changed for one of marble. It must be remembered that this Arabian history is of fo late a period as the fixteenth century; and that it is very improbable that Alexander's mother fhould have interfered on the occafion.

I defire it to be understood, that nothing is here advanced in the view to prejudice the queftion relating to this fine relic of antiquity, which at all events will remain a monument of the labour and in genuity of the Egyptians, and the admiration of future ages. No cne is more difpofed than the prefent writer to fee the matter fairly and liberally discussed; nor awaits with more eagerness or pleafure the differtation of the learned and ingenious traveller alluded to in the letter of ipus. I take this opportunity of noticing the handsome and fatisfactory manner in which the Edinburgh Reviewer has replied to my remarks on his account of Mr. Pinkerton's Geography. Unacquainted as I was with Profeffor Dohm's German, edition of Kampfer's Japan, the grounds for my enquiry, and it is prefumed with g od reafon, were the following: Scheutzer in his title page afferts, that he has trar flated from Kampfer's original manufcript. In his introduction he fays, that "Sir Hans Sloane, hearing of Kempfer's death, and having found by his Inaugural Thefes, and his Amænitates Exotice, that he must have brought with him into Europe many natural and artificial curiofities, defired Dr. Steigerthal, his Majefty's chief phyfician, in one of his journies to Hanover, to enquire what was become of them. This gentleman was fo obliging as to go to Lemgow himself; and, being told that they were to be difpofed of, he immediately informed Sir Hans of this circumftance, who thereupon purchafed them for a confiderable fum of money, together with all his drawings and manufcript memoirs: and it is owing to

his care and generous affiftance, that this hiftory of Japan, (the original High German manufcript of which was bought at the fame time,) is now firft published in English."

Against thefe pofitive declarations, Profeffor Dohm, as we are informed, afferts that two complete copies of the work, one of them in the author's own hand-writing, were purchafed by him from the heirs of his niece, in 1773; and that Scheutzer's translation is paraphraftical and inaccurate. Besides this, it is added, that one of the Monthly Reviewers profeffed to have examined the Sloanian manufcript now in the British Museum, and believed it not to be of Kempter's hand-writing. All this is very ftrange! Where is the teftimony, if any to be found, relating to the particulars of Sir H. Sloane's pur chafe?

Was Dr. Steigerthal impofed on, or Sir Hans Sloane, or both; and did Scheutzer honeftly believe that he was tranflating from an original manuscript? How far is his, tranflation paraphraftical as to his original?

Perhaps the circumftantial statement in Profeffor Dohm's preface might throw further light on the matter; and it is indeed to be withed, that we had a faithful tranflation into English of this German edition. In the mean time, if any perfon in poffeffion of the work would communicase to the Monthly Magazine fuch part of the preface as relates to the subject in queftion, he would render an acceptable piece of fervice to the public. The Edinburgh Reviewer believes there is a French tranflation of Dohrn's edition.-Quare, When and where was it published ? Feb. 13, 1804.

D.