reader, when he perceives the Preacher, in one part of the fermon, which relates to our courts of judicature, and ecclefiaftical forms, rather pleading in fupport of the old adage declaration, nolumus leges Anglice mutari. Had this maxim been always adhered to, how should we have obtained the reformation from popery, which, as a Christian, and a Proteftant minifter, Mr. Abdy no doubt highly values? Or how fhould we have been freed from other barbarous ufages that have anciently prevailed among our ancestors? Poffibly the Archdeacon, whofe difcourfe manifeits both piety and good fenfe, will, on farther deliberation, be himself perfuaded, not only that a modeft and earneft application for an alteration, in fome matters, civil and ecclefiaftical, which are deemed oppreffive to the fub ject, may, with great propriety, be preferred, but also that it may be highly expedient, equitable, and reasonable, that fome redrefs fhould be granted. In its general tendency, however, the fermon is a very good one: it pleads againft uncharitable cenfures, and is defigned to recommend and enforce a regard to piety, as the first and chief fecurity for the good order of fociety, and the welfare of individuals. UI. The Divine Message; or, the most important Truths of Revelation, reprefented in a Sermon upon Judges iii. 20. Defigned as an Antidote to the dangerous and fpreading Evils of Infidelity, Arianifm, and Immorality. By the Rev. Charles De Coetlogon, A. B. of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. Izmo. Is. Harris, &c. 1773. This difcourfe has already paffed through one edition. The fubflance of it, we are told, was delivered without any defign of publication; and that it is printed in confequence of the repeated defire of many. In the first part of the fermon the Author prefents his reader with a short and fuitable state of the evidence of Christianity, from whence he proceeds to reprefent its contents, which, in his view, principally confift of fome high points in Calvinistic divinity, concerning which we are by no means inclined to enter into any debate. The Writer's intentions appear to be very good; his ftyle is far from being difagreeable; and his addreffes to different characters' are ferious and affectionate. Happy is it, if this, or any other kind of preaching, is found to promote the important purposes of rendering men really virtuous and religious! NV. On Bankruptcy, flopping Payment, and the Juice of Paying our Debts. Preached at various Churches in the City. By the Rev. Will. Scott, M. A. Morning Preacher at St. Michael's, Woodftreet, and Afternoon Preacher at St. Catherine by the Tower. 8vo. I S. White, &c. 1773: Republished, with fome additions and alterations, from Bishop Fleetwood; and dedicated to Mr. Fordyce and Sir George Colebrooke. Mr. Scott preaches frugality to the citizens, and, at the fame time, charges them double price for a fermon of the common fize and quantity; and that, too, not of his own compofition !Perhaps he thought it expedient to deal with the city-traders a little in their own way: in like manner as Daniel Burges is faid to have occafionally addreffed the foldiers and draymen, in their own language,-rapping out a good round oath, and giving them a hearty curfe or two, to excite their greater attention. V. The Nature of obfolete Ordinances-Preached in the University Church in Cambridge, at the Affizes, March 10, 1773. By John Hey, B. D. Fellow of Sidney Suffex College, and one of the Preachers at his Majefty's Chapel at White-hall. Svo. 6d. Beecroft, &c. The previous advertisement informs us, that the publication of this difcourfe is owing to fome applications to the Author, importing that feveral Gentlemen, of confiderable ftanding in the University, were defirous of examining, at their leifure, the remarks contained in it.-An additional motive was his finding fome reafon to conclude that the general defign of the difcoufe had been mifrepresented.' -This general defign was to examine upon what principles of reafon fuch laws as are ufually called obfolete may be neglected and difobeyed.' The Author's obfervations on this curious topic are made in reference both to our civil and religious concerns; and efpecially to the latter: for the fake of which, we fuppofe, the fermon was compofed :-particularly with a view to certain regulations, and the great queftion concerning Subfcription. What Mr. Hey has advanced on the fubject of fincerity, and forms of declarations, &c. deferves attention. VI. Preached in the new Chapel of the City of London Lying in Hofpital for married Women, at the Corner of the City Road, Old ftreet, on Eafter-day, April 11th, 1773. By Alexander Cleeve, A. B. Vicar of Stockton upon Tees. 6d. Nicoll. 1773 CORRESPONDENCE. Dr. Duncan's poetical Effay on Happiness will be the fubject of an article in our next Review; as will, alfo, the fecond edition of An Hiftorical View of the Controversy concerning an Intermediate State. ERRATA in our laft Month's Review. P. 302, line 5 from the bottom, dele the. 303, 1. 12, dele his. I. 28, dele yet. 305, 1. 4 from the bottom, for now here, r. nowhere. ERRATUM in this Month's Review, viz. In the account of Mr. Arbuthnot's Inquiry, p 349, line 10, for eight fmall farmers, read feven. Thefe, with the mafter of the great fam, the Author places as a balance to the labour of the holders of the eight fin ul farms. THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For JUNE, 1773. ART. I. Philofophical Effays: In feveral Letters to the Royal Society. Containing a Difcovery of the Caufe of Thunder, &c. &c. By Henry Eeles, Efq. 8vo. 4 s. Robinson. TH HESE papers contain the Author's correfpondence with the Royal Society, on the subjects of electricity, meteors, magnetifm, &c. and confift of eleven letters, written between the years 1751 and 1761. Their prefent publication may be confidered as an Appeal to the People, against certain philofophers, and particularly against thofe who have conducted the corref pondence of the Society, and directed the publication of their Tranfactions; on account of their fuppofed partiality in fuppreffing the greater part of the difcoveries which the Author had communicated to them, from time to time, on the subject of electricity. He has therefore, like Bayes, taken a refolution to fhame the rogues, and print it.' The Author's two first communications to the Society, it seems, were not only favourably received, and printed in the Philofophical Tranfactions, but the thanks, of that body were likewife communicated to him by Dr. Birch, their Secretary; by whom he was requested, in their name, to favour them with his further experiments and oblervations. Nevertheless, although he readily, and repeatedly, and, as this volume fufficiently fhews, very diffufely explained his new principles and diícoveries, in a series of letters addreffed to the Society; none of his fubfequent communications were inferted in the Tranfactions; nor would the Secretary of that body, or their noble Prefident, the Earl of Macclesfield, to whom he at length applied, return any answer to his letters addrefled to them. Though it is not our province to decide between the Author and the Society, we fhail offer a few general remarks, which VOL. XLVIII. Gg naturally naturally occur to us on the perufal of these letters, and which will, at the fame time, convey to the Reader, fome idea of the nature of their contents. In the first place then, with regard to the Author's complaint, that his letters were not inferted in the Philofophical Transactions, it must be acknowledged that, with all their evident defects, they certainly contained fome ingenious ideas and obfervations, which, at the time that they were communicated to the Society, had the merit of being original, and were on that account, at least, not undeferving a place in that repofitory of philofophical facts and opinions. We here more particularly allude to thofe relating to the two distinct and contrary powers, by which the Author, (too exclufively indeed, and not every where very intelligibly or fatisfactorily) endeavours to account for the various phenomena of electricity; in oppofition to Dr. Franklin's theory of a fingle fluid. And in the next place, whatever were the merits or demerits of Mr. Eeles's Effays, a reader of fenfibility may poffibly think that this gentleman was, at leaft, intitled to the common civility of an answer, of some kind or other, in return to his repeated communications and requefts: particularly as the former were tranfmitted to the Society, at their own particular defire, conveyed to him by their Secretary. On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that the papers thus withheld from the public appear on many accounts to have been by no means proper for publication, in the ftate in which they were fent to the Society. Mr. Eeles's manner of explaining his doctrine, and relating his experiments, is remarkably embarraffed, prolix, obfcure, and defultory. Perhaps the Au thor intended to offer an excufe for his manner of writing, when he tells us, in his preface, that he never took a note of what he intended to fay, or ever ftruck out a line which he wrote on the fubject.'-This declaration, how well foever it may account for the imperfections of the Author's compofitions, implies a very palpable want of refpect both to the Society and to the Public, for whofe infpection, doubtless, the Author ultimately intended them. The Author's repeated objections to Dr. Franklin's hypothefis, particularly to the doctrine of negative electricity, and that of the impermeability of glass, are nugatory and inconclufive. As a fpecimen of what he urges against the firft of them, we fhall give the following fhort quotation from his Preface. I would afk thefe gentlemen' (the Franklinifts) fays Mr. Ecles, a civil queftion, whether it is mere inanity which knocks down fteeples and towers, rends trees, tears up the earth, kills men and cattle, fets places on fire, &c. or I might fhorten the queftion by afking how mere inanity, or nothing can act? but this would be a difpute about nothing.'-According to this mode of reafoning, we may fuppofe Mr. Eeles would enter undifmayed into a Torricellian Vacuum.; the nearest approach to nothing, that we are acquainted with: and yet he cannot be ignorant that rabbets and mice. fuffer greatly in their perfons, or lofe their lives, on being fhut up in that other receptacle of ins anity, ycleped an exhausted receiver. The Author too may eafily recollect many other negations, as well as that of electric fire, capable of giving occafion to very notable effects. Though the Author every where oppofes Dr. Franklin's theory, yet either by not fully comprehending, or not adopting fome of that gentleman's principles, particularly that of the impermeability of glafs, he often fails egregioufly in the application of his own theory of two diftinct and contrary powers, to the explaining the phenomena of electricity; thofe of the Leyden phial in particular and is every where miftaken in imagining that the numerous experiments he produces are fo many proofs, or demonftrations,' as he fometimes terms them, of the doctrine that he adopts; which at the utmoft can be confidered only as illuftrations of his hypothefis. He feems indeed totally ignorant that the phenomena of electricity, as far at leaft as has hitherto appeared, are upon the whole as eafily explicable on the theory of one, as on that of two fluids ;-improved even as the last mentioned hypothefis has been, through the ingenuity of Dr. Priestley. The eighth letter of this collection is written in defence of the Author's theory of the afcent of vapours, against the objections of Dr. Darwin, publifhed in the Philofophical Tranfactions for the year 1757. The harsh and indecent terms which Mr. Eeles here employs in fpeaking of this gentleman, on account of his having had the misfortune to differ from him, on certain doctrinal points, juftly rendered this letter, at least, inadmiffible into a collection published under the respectable fanction of a fociety of philofophers and gentlemen. Mr. Darwin,' fays the Author, at page 144. [-by the bye, in his wrath Mr. Eeles difdains to give the title of Doctor to Meffrs. Franklin, Priestley, or any other of his graduated antagonists]Mr. Darwin,' fays he, has fhewn a thorough ignorance in making electrical experiments, and fubftituted a monjirous falfity of his own.' And again at the following page, Yet has Mr. Darwin the affurance to tell the Royal Society, &c.' We cannot offer any thing on the Author's behalf, in palliation of thefe and fome other incivilities and indecorums that occur in this work; unlefs we fhould apply to that purpose what Mr. Ecles, not indeed by way of excufe, but only incidentally, obferves at page 105; where he informs Dr. Birch that, when he is quite well, he is employed in the amufements of the place where Gg 2 |