THE BOSTON REVIEW.

FOR

JANUARY, 1809.

Librum tuum legi & quam diligentissime potui annotavi, quae commutanda, quae eximenda, arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulfi. patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur. PLIN.

ART. 1.

THE NEW CYCLOPAEDIA, &c. by Abraham Rees and others. First American edition, revised, corrected, enlarged and adapted to this country, by several literary and scientifick characters. Vol. II. part 1. Philadelphia, Samuel F. Bradford, 4to.

THE farther we advance in our examination of the American edition of this work, the more we regret the manner in which it has been conducted. After the fair promises of the "literary and scientifick characters" who superintend it; what a disappointment must it be to the purchaser, what a mortification to the friend of American science and literature, to find so few real improvements made upon the English work. How has this happened? Is it because the original is so perfect that it leaves no room for amendment? If we are to judge from the complaints and railing of the American editors, nay, if we may rely upon the judgment of some impartial persons, this cannot be the case. Must it not then pro

ceed from one of the causes we have mentioned on former occasions; either the incompetency of these gentlemen to their undertaking, or an attempt to impose upon the American publick! Let the facts we exhibit give the answer.

In our last review of the Cyclopaedia, we examined with care, and we trust with all due candour, the important article ANGEL, contained in the present half volume. We shall now proceed with the remaining articles, of which AMERICA is by far the most important, and will undoubtedly be the most interesting to our readers. But before we examine this, we shall dispose of a few smaller articles which precede it.

The first that we remark upon is a geographical article consisting of five words, viz. “AMACČURA, a town of Africa." We have taken notice of this original article (though we generally mean to confine our attention to the labours of the American editors) because we think articles of this sort do not add much to our stock of know

ledge, and because we think that our editors might find abundant room for improving the work in such instances. And we may remark, that there are not a few articles as unsatisfactory as this, and which relate to subjects much more interesting than this "town of Africa."

AMACK, in geography, an island of Denmark, has an addition of four or five lines to describe the hats, jackets, breeches and petticoats of the inhabitants, whose dress and mode of living Dr. Rees had spoken of in general terms, as being "peculiar." If it was worth while to be so minute in respect to these islanders, the American editors would have done well to describe their mode of living, as well as their dress.

AMASIA, in ancient geography, has an addition of five and twenty lines.

AMBER, an interesting, though concise article in the original work, has a column of additional matter, for which the editors (as we wish they always would do, till they give their names to the publick) cite their authority.

AMBROSE ST. This article has a number of childish insertions of short phrases, and even single words, which are very much in the strain of that overweening zeal for the supposed interests of religion, which has been displayed in former parts of the work. We will give one or two examples. The English editors, after observing that "pious frauds and pretended miracles served also to augment the esteem and veneration with which he was regarded by the credulous multitude," proceed to details, in the midst of which the American editors make insertions in brackets, as follows:

"These holy relicks were presented with solemn pomp to the admiration of the people; and many miracles were [said to be] wrought on possessed and diseased persons who touched them, and [it was affirmed that] one recovered his sight by touching the bier on which the bodies were deposited, with his handkerchief."

Again,

"Many fabulous particulars are related concerning Ambrose, which are not worth minutely recording, and which the allowable scepticism [if scepticism be ever allowable] of the present age will not admit."

We really do not perceive the necessity of spending time on amendments like these, unless the Cyclopaedia is intended for schoolboys of the lowest form. Is it possible that any reader could be misled by the expressions of the original? But we are willing to give these amendments the praise which we cannot bestow upon all parts of the work; we mean, the praise of doing no harm. We ought not to pass over a short paragraph at the close of this article, boldly calling in question Dr. Rees's impartiality, because, forsooth, he is an Arian!

We would, upon this, put a plain question to these liberal editors. Do you mean, gentlemen, to affirm, that sectarians are never impartial? If so, will not this imputation attach to yourselves, who profess to be of a particular sect or party, as well as to this biographer, whom you choose to denominate an Arian?

AMBURY, in farriery, is a new article, taken, as it appears, from the Domestick Encyclopaedia.

AMENDMENT, in law, has a few additional sentences, collected with a very commendable industry from Bacon's Abridgment, titie Amendment, and the English statutes there cited.

AMERICA is the next article in order. The very mention of this name, we have no doubt, excites in our readers the most eager desire to peruse this article in the American Cyclopaedia. They will remember that, according to the prospectus, particular attention was to be bestowed upon all those parts of this edition which relate to America. They will recollect, too, the profound contempt, not unfrequently deserved, with which some of our writers are accustomed to treat every thing written by Europeans upon the subject of this country. They will naturally consider also the great advantages which the American have over the English editors, by being, in a manner, upon the spot, where any fact can be readily ascertained, any question immediately answered, without traversing the Atlantick ocean. They would also reflect, or would have a right to presume, that America is the native soil of these gentlemen; that the history of their particular portion of the country, the United States, occupies a considerable part of that of the whole continent; and, therefore, that the editors have, in addition to every other motive, the stimulus of patriotism to urge them to spare no exertion in this part of their work. They might also naturally suppose, that the eyes of the literati of Europe (and Dr. Rees, we have no doubt, would see it with as much satisfaction as any man) are fixed upon this part of the American work, anticipating the most complete account of this continent, which has ever been published. For these and other reasons, which we could mention, the readers of the Cyclopaedia will expect every thing that can be desired upon this interesting subject. We shall now see how these expectations will be answered.

In managing this article, the American editors have adopted a method a little different from that which they have followed in most other parts of the work. They have not mutilated and altered at pleasure, as in the first number, nor have they confined themselves to correcting the errours of the original; but with a laudable ambi→ tion have, in addition to their usual corrections, given an entire new article upon America. We highly commend this patriotick spirit, and, wherever we can, we shall as highly commend their work. In our remarks we shall first consider the original article with the American corrections, and then examine the merits of the new article.

The original article, which has some formality, though not much method, is so unsatisfactory, that it has been censured by Dr. Rees's own countrymen.* But among the various criticks who have expressed dissatisfaction at the article, we do not recollect any who have had so little charity as to impute its imperfections to a studied design of the compilers to degrade America. This imputation was reserved for our liberal minded editors. Near the close of the original article, after copious strictures upon it, they say:

* See British Cratick, vol. 27.

F

"We regret exceedingly that the foregoing particulars contained under this interesting head should have required so much of our animadversion. Living, however, in that country, and familiar with many of the subjects which this article affects to describe, it was our duty, and we have accordingly endeavoured to expose some of those ancient absurdities which have so long circulated in Europe to the intended degradation of America; particularly as these accounts are again brought forward to the world in a work of this kind, where the influence of prejudice and credulity should be utterly unknown.” We also "regret exceedingly" that these gentlemen should have had occasion for so much animadversion, and we no less regret that they should feel themselves justified in closing their animadversions with an unqualified opinion, that these "ancient absurdities have been long circulated in Europe to the intended degradation of Amer❤ ica." And it is most remarkably unfortunate, that they should insinuate that Dr. Rees and his associates have admitted any thing into their work under the influence of prejudice and credulity. Are these gentlemen ready to admit, that Buffon and the rest of the French philosophers, who gave the greatest currency to these preposterous opinions, did it with the intention of degrading us? Does Mr. Jefferson, who made a reply to Buffon, once insinuate such an intention on the part of his adversary? Yet Dr. Rees has done no more than to copy their sentiments upon this subject. We do not like to see such a readiness to impute bad motives we think, as we intimated under the article Angel that it is not very politick, and we also think that Dr. Rees and his friends have a right to demand the proofs of it. For our part, we have seen no more evidence of wicked intentions, and prejudice, and credulity in them, than we think they will discover in the labours of these American literati. And upon what foundation does this unworthy imputation rest? Upon this; that the English editors have inserted into their work an article containing mistakes and false theories respecting America, which have been circulating for many years not only in European but American publications, and some of the most absurd of which errours in the opinion of the American editors are still admitted into the school books of our children!

If this is to be the evidence of wicked motives, of prejudice and credulity, then woe be to these charitable editors, when the Patagonians, the Mexicans, the Peruvians, the Osages, the Mandarines, the Esquimaux, and the rest of the original inhabitants of this continent, from the Atlantick to the Pacifick ocean, shall be made acquainted with the errours and chimerical hypotheses detailed by these gentlemen, in relation to their several countries.

These gentlemen, among other extraordinary things, sneer at the story of the Canada earthquake, of 1663, which is said to have overturned a chain of free stone mountains, not a free stone mountain, as they state it, upwards of three hundred miles in length. This account is, we confess, extraordinary; but extraordinary as it may appear, it is supported by authorities which these gentlemen will not lightly reject, and on which, as American authorities, Dr. Rees would have a right to place entire reliance. Dr. Morse, in the very last edition of his Geography, printed in 1805, a book which is used

in all our schools, inserts the story without comment; and, farther, cites the authority of a late professor of our university, for an account of this and other earthquakes in North America. Indeed, Dr. Rees has evidently copied and abridged that part of Dr. Morse's Geography which comprehends this extraordinary narrative! Surely then, Dr. Rees is not to be censured for permitting things of this nature to find their way into the Cyclopaedia. If our own geographers and professors countenance and adopt such relations, why should foreign writers be charged with partiality for following their example? And this story is not, after all, more extraordinary on the face of it, than some which other American writers have published respecting this country, or some, which these very editors have admitted into this very article. Take the following examples.

Dr. Mease who has appeared frequently in publick as an author, in his "Geological account of the United States," published in 1807, in which we are told, that the most scrupulous attention has been exercised in ascertaining the accuracy of his facts and statements, relates a number of extraordinary stories, and among them the following, respecting the narrows of Connecticut river, which he inserts without comment.

"Two hundred miles from the sound is a narrow of five yards only, formed by two shelving mountains of solid rock, whose tops intercept the clouds. Through this chasm are compelled to pass all the waters which, in the time of the floods, bury the northern country. At the upper cohos, the river then spreads 24 miles wide; and for five or six weeks, ships of war might sail over lands that afterwards produce the greatest crops of hay and grain in all America. People who can bear the sight, the groans, the tremblings and surly motion of water, trees and ice, through this awful passage, view with astonishment one of the greatest phenomena in nature. Here water is consolidated without frost, by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching sturdy rocks, to such a degree of induration, that no iron crow can be forced into it. Here iron, lead, and cork, have one common weight; here steady as time, and harder than marble, the stream passes irresistible, if not swift as lightning, the electrick fire rends trees in pieces with no greater ease than does this mighty water." ! ! !

These editors can also publish extraordinary stories, as well as Dr. Mease. They have not indeed, so far as we recollect, told us of the famous Salt Mountain of 180 miles in length, and of which a specimen was actually said to have been sent to Mr. Jefferson, and to the museum of our own university, nor of the salt plain, which appeared after the salt mountain had melted away. But, not to mention the discovery of unicorns with curling horns like the fossil, cornu Ammonis, which they state on the authority of a Canadian, they tell us, when speaking of Louisiana that "it is said, that the buffalo and bear, particularly, are in droves of many thousands, and continue passing without interruption for weeks together; so that the whole surface, of the country is for many miles in breadth trodden like a large road!" And in another place they say; "in some places whole hills, through the multitudes of deer, buffalo, &c. that have resorted to them from time immemorial have been eaten down to a plain !”