Part 1. containing a Sketch of the Revolutions and Improvements in Science, Arts, and Literature during that period. By SAMUEL MILLER, A. M. &c. 2 vols. 8vo. New York, 1863.

THE historian, who traces the progress of knowledge, and

records discoveries in the arts and sciences, has chosen the most delightful department of history. As the materials of his work are not found in the registers of intrigue and warfare, his attention is not perpetually directed to the depravity and misery of mankind. His eye is regaled with a rapid succession of improvements; new prospects are ever bursting on his sight; and even philosophy seems to justify his most sanguine anticipations. The contests, which the historian of learning records, are bloodless; the victories, which he celebrates, are those of knowledge over ignorance, of truth over error. This species of writing, which amuses the leisure of many modern readers, is the offspring of modern times. The civil histories of the ancients contain few notices of the state of learning, or of taste; their treatises on any art or science are introduced by no survey of its former progress, and enlivened by no account of its former benefactors. Much fess did it occur to any ancient author to take a formal retrospect of the literature of his predecessors. The nearest approach to the nature of modern literary annals is found haps in the biographical and miscellaneous work of Diogenes Laertius. This work is confined however to memoirs of philosophers; is written without elegance and without method, and is read also without confidence. But in modern times the history of literature has become a distinct branch of

per

knowledge. Every science finds a historian; every scholar a biographer. In a general history of modern literature, no small space would be necessary to enumerate the literary annalists themselves, and a review of reviews, and a history of literary journals are offices not unknown in the populous republic of modern authors. Indeed the great increase of objects for the student's attention is alarming. Learning seems in danger of being buried beneath its own treasures. As the age of the world is continually growing more and more disproportionate to the common term of individual lives, so the objects of knowledge are constantly accumulating, while the native powers of the human mind receive no accession of original strength. The child of Newton himself must come into the world an ignorant and helpless babe.

These remarks are not written to introduce any reproaches on the work before us, as forming a useless addition to the overgrown body of books. No; we acknowledge ourselves indebted to its ingenious author for reviving the traces of former reading, and for presenting us at one view facts, which before could be collected only from various and remote sources. He has broken off a large fragment from the mass of literary history, and offered it to our inspection under the modest title of "A brief retrospect of the eighteenth century." We shall give a general view of the work with occasional extracts and remarks,

The author, after giving an account of the origin of the present volumes, proceeds to anticipate, in his preface, the objections of criticism, and to notice the deficiencies, which readers of different tastes will imagine themselves to have discovered. It would be unjust severely to censure faults, which the author candidly acknowledges, or to condemn the haste, in which the work was carried through the press, when, after such disadvantages, it appears before the world so generally accurate, and uniformly entertaining.

The first chapter reviews the progress of Mechanical Philosophy in the eighteenth century.

adorns the close of the seventeenth.

The name of Newton

An inauspicious omen!

The reader will be ready to ask, where, in the history of the last age, can we find his successor? The fate of those hypotheses, which have been proposed as contradictions or, as improvements of Newton's, is here detailed. The systems of Hutchinson and of Leibnitz are already forgotten; and of Boscovich little is said, and still less is known. His system

of matter has seldom been noticed in popular treatises on natural philosophy; and its mathematical intricacy has hitherto concealed it from many of the learned. The number of its admirers is however increasing; and, as it occupies a field of speculation, which Newton did not explore, it may hereafter be more intimately united with his philosophy to form a theory, which shall present the most rational solution of the phenomena of matter. The first section of this chapter contains the history of Electricity. In this science the earlier part of the century was illuminated by the strongest flashes of discovery; the attention of later philosophers has been absorbed by chemical experiments. The late discovery of the analogy and perhaps identity of the Galvanic and electric fluids will probably revive the pursuits of electricians. The highly interesting science of Galvanism, which is the offspring of the eighteenth century, and daughter of its old age, forms the subject of the second section. We could not abridge the rapid sketches of the author, without transgressing our limits. The reader will find much curious matter reserved for the notes; the latest experiments, the most ingenious theories, and the ultimate conclusions of the Galvanic philosophers are there detailed. The improvements in Magnetism, moving forces, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Optics, and Astronomy are exhibited in the following sections with perspicuity and accuracy. the branches of science just enumerated, no genius has appeared since the days of Newton, who does not fade before the incomparable Euler. It will not be extravagant to assert, that, in this wonderful man, sagacity and vigor of mind, sublimity of conception, richness of imagination, extent of eru dition, and the strength of an allgrasping memory, were uni ted with the humility and piety of a Christian to form the

In

most illustrious ornament of the most illustrious age of philosophy. The author, in another part of his work, gives him a just encomium, and to ask for more would perhaps be unreasonable. The review of astronomical discoveries and improvements presents to Americans the names of Rittenhouse, Bowdoin, Colden &c. and gives the author an oppor→ tunity of vindicating and illustrating, by several interesting documents, the claims of our countryman Godfrey to the in vention of Hadley's quadrant.

The progress of Chemical philosophy, or "that science, which explains those motions, which take place among the minute component parts of bodies," comes next under review. To do justice in a few pages to the illustrious competitors in this science is a task so difficult, that we did not expect to find it executed with such discrimination and impartiality, and with that spirit and felicity of narration, which form the highest merit of sketches of this nature. Among such a host of names, the sketch will sometimes degenerate into a barren catalogue; but the reader will find the most important discoveries mentioned with the requisite minuteness, and in chronological order. It is recorded in the notes, as a curious fact, that the doctrine of latent heat, first taught by Dr. Black of Edinburgh, and since adopted by most chemists, was originally suggested by Dr. M'Clurg of Williamsburg, (Virg.) a pupil of Black, and author of a treatise De Calore.

We are next introduced to Natural History, which has not disappointed its friends by falling behind in the race of improvement. In every department of this science, the reader will be astonished at the labors of Linnæus, that great master of arrangement, to whom it was reserved to describe intelligi bly what others had seen, and to classify what they had only confounded. In the section on Geology, an account is given of the most celebrated theories of the formation of the earth, from the "elegant romance" of Burnet, to the rational and enlightened Geological essays of Kirwan. Here the author dwells with pious and honorable pleasure on the suc

cessive confirmation, which the Mosaic history has received from the facts, unintentionally brought to light by its enemies, as well, as from the partial investigations of its friends.

It

The next chapter reviews the progress of Medicine. is impossible for us to follow the author in his details, or we should rejoice to exhibit to the reader a view of the contents of this chapter, which, in our opinion, is composed with admirable perspicuity and intelligence. We find a slight inaccuracy in the section on Anatomy, where Silvius is represented, as the successor of Vesalius, that wonderful genius of the sixteenth century. Vesalius, on the contrary, was the pupil of Sylvius, and offended his master by publishing his “ Opus anatomicum," after Sylvius had prepared a great work on Anatomy, “which he considered as a masterpiece." This chapter concludes with a sketch of the progress of Medicine in the United States. Specimens of ability and investigation are more numerous in this branch of knowledge, than in any other cultivated in America. "There seems to be no science," says the author, vol. 1. p. 529, "in which America has made more progress, than that of Medicine, and none, in which she holds a more complete independence of the doctrines and authorities of the European world."

In the three following chapters are reviewed the improvements, which the last century has witnessed, in Geography, Mathematics, and Navigation.

In the survey of agricultural improvements, it would not have been improper to notice the superior taste, which has of late years been shown in landscape gardening, and the laying out of pleasure grounds. This revolution, which has banished the stiff and formal style of Dutch gardens, and all the dull regularity of ancient art, is no less interesting to the man of taste, than the modern triumphs of science are to the philosopher.

A few of the astonishing improvements in the mechanic arts during the last century are enumerated in the ninth chapter; and the progress of the fine arts is traced in the tenth with such an unfinished outline, as we should expect

from

2