dication of ourselves, from the charges of groundless and per verfe mifrepresentation, as ample and fatisfactory as poffible. We thought ourselves bound in justice, both to our Review and the Public, as well as out of a refpect to what we conceive to be the genuine truth of the Gospel, not to pass over a single remark that we deemed of any real confequence; and we now chearfully submit the refult of all to the determination of the impartial and critical Reader.

As Dr. Pricftley is a man of motto's, and hath done us the favour of presenting us with one in the beginning of his Reply, we will return the compliment, by prefenting him one at the conclufion of our remarks on it: "Go not forth haftily to ftrive, left thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put thee to fhame."

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

ART. VIII. Commentationes Societatis Regia Gottingenfis, &c. i. ẹ. Memoirs of the Royal Society of Gottingen, for the Year 1780 Vol. III. 1781.

A

T the head of this volume we find an Introductory Difcourfe, which was delivered at one of the academical meetings, in the prefence of the Duke of Wirtemberg, to whom it was par ticularly addreffed. The choice of the fubject is as elegant, as the manner of treating it is learned and ingenious; and both furnish new proofs of the fine tafte, acute fagacity, and extenfive erudition of Mr. Profeffor HEYNE. The fubject is Hercules Mufagetes, i. e. Hercules, Conductor of the Mufes; and the circumflances that gave rife to this denomination. It is not ufual to meet with Hercules in fuch company; we generally find him destroying monfters, difcomfiting troops of robbers, ftrangling giants, and performing feats of formidable valour: but here we fee him in the fociety of the Nine, nay even in the character of their Chief and Conductor. That he is fo reprefented on fome ancient gems and medals, is an inconteftible fact; that a temple was dedicated, at Rome, in the Circus of Flaminius, Herculi Mufarum (to the Hercules of the Mufes, is equally certain; but ow the old Grecian giant killer came to obtain thefe literary diftinctions, is a point not fo eafily made out. It is true, learned men have not been wanting, who reprefent this fame Hercules as a prodigy of erudition. Read the Quafliones Romana of Plutarch; read feveral paffages of Ifocrates, Athenæus, Eumenes the rhetorician, and other ancient writers; read, to name no more, in

For the two former volumes, fee Appendix to our fixty-seventh volume,

the

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3

the Memoirs of the Academy of Infcriptions, the ingenious differtation concerning Hercules Mufagetes, by the learned Abbé Fontenu, and you will be informed, that this ancient hero was an adept in Theology, Medicine, Mathematics, Aftronomy, Literature, Philofophy, Eloquence, and Poetry. It may be a hard matter to refift fuch refpectable authorities; but Mr. HEYNE thinks it a much more difficult business to bring one's felf to believe, that in a period, when the Grecians did not know their hornbook, when their fields were without culture, and their forefts were the habitations of robbers and wild beasts, a man fhould have arisen, furnished with all the treasures of erudition and the arts,

But the authorities above-mentioned are not fo irrefiftable as is imagined; and our Academician's critical examination of the teftimonies of ancient writers, with refpect to the learning of Hercules, diminishes greatly their force. These teftimonies are borrowed from the Sophifts, who propofed to their difciples dubious fubjects to exercise their fubtilty, extravagant ones to dif play their dialectical powers, pompous ones to improve them in the arts of invention and declamation. Thus the fame of Hercules might be transported by fiction and fancy from the ftrength of his body to the powers of his mind. But these teftimonies come alfo from the panegyrics of the rhetoricians; and when Ifocrates flattered the vanity of Philip by the mention of his defeent from Hercules, it was the natural work of adulation to represent this heroic ancestor as a prodigy of intellectual acquirements as well as of corporeal energy. Befides, as soon as this Grecian bruifer got into the affembly of the Gods, his exploits were in the mouths of the poets *, by whom they were embellished, and augmented; and from thence they got into the allegorical interpretations of the Stoics, who were very fond of fpiritualizing the fables of the Gods, and reducing mythology to reafon and philofophy. The poets, alfo, had their part in the fiction, and the artifts, who followed with fuch ardour the descriptions and allegories of the poets, might easily be induced to immortalize Hercules, with the pencil or the chifel, as the Conductor of the Muses.

But though all this may naturally enough account for the title of Hercules Mufagetes; yet our Author thinks that an accidental circumstance, a well known fact, was the true cause of this appellation. The idea is ingenious, and the fact is as fol

See alfo M. Court de Gebelin's notion of Hercules, and that of Mr. Bryant, in former volumes of our Review; alfo M. Dupuis' Expofition of this Demi-god and his attributes: for the latter, in particular, fee Apendix to our 65th volume, p. 534. See also Dr. Mufgrave's Hypothefis, July 1784, p. 62.

lows:

lows: Fulvius Nobilior, among other fpoils, brought with him from Ætolia to Rome, after the fack of Ambracia +, the ftatues of the Nine Muses, of exquifite workmanship. Thefe he placed in the temple he had erected in honour of Hercules, and this alone is fufficient to account for the title of Hercules Mufarum. Nay, who knows, but a ftatue of the fon of Alcmena accompanied the effigies of the Nine Sifters among the plunder of Ambracia in which cafe he might both literally and pleasantly be called Hercules Mufagetes.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

MEM. I. Explications and Illustrations relative to fome new and rare Families of Plants in the King's Botanical Garden at Gottingen, accompanied with Figures. By Profeffor Jo. ANDREW MUR

RAY.

MEM. II. Chirurgical Obfervations. By M. AUG. G. RICHTER. This Memoir contains the cure of an Amaurofis—of a fractured thigh-of an obftructed vagina by perforation-of á cancer in the lower lip of a Ptofis, or fall of the eye-lids, and feveral obfervations on the depreffion of the skull.

MEM. III. Experiments, relative to the dying of Cotton with the Flowers of the Carthamus, or Baftard-Saffron t. By M. JOHN BECKMAN. After having tried this dying-ftuff with fuccefs on wool and linens of all kinds, our very ingenious and laborious chemist employed it upon cotton, and, after a variety of trials and experiments, which are here defcribed at great length, and in a very clear and instructive manner, met with remarkable fuc cefs. There are many curious obfervations and facts in this Memoir, which che connoiffeurs in natural hiftory and chemistry will read with pleasure. Manufacturers will derive a rich fund of information from it, with respect to many important parts of the art of dying, and the practice of this art among the Turks and the Armenians, fettled of late years at Aftracan More efpecially, they will learn, by the ingenious and well-conducted experiments of M. BECKMAN, of what remarkable ufe oil is in giving a lively and vigorous dye to cotton. He even

recommends the use of it in dying linen yarn, whatever the colour may be that is given to it; for fince its efficacy is fo great in making cottons absorb more copiously and quickly, and retain longer, the too volatile and fugitive hue of the Carthamus, it muft produce a ftill greater effect on thofe colours, which bear, by their natural strength, soap, falts, and the heat of the Sun, against which the Carthamus cannot stand its ground.

+ The royal refidence of Pyrrhus.

Called alfo in English the Safflower. It is a native of Egypt, and is much and fuccefsfully cultivated in Germany, for the purpofe of dying.

MEM.

MEM. IV. Concerning argillaceous Earths in general, and more efpecially a kind of Clay, found in the Valley of Urach (in the Duchy of Wirtemberg, on the River Erms). By M. JOHN FRED. GMELIN. This very elaborate Memoir contains 72 experiments, made on the clay of Urach, is not fufceptible of any analyfis or abridgment, that would not carry us beyond our bounds.

MEM. V. Concerning the fundamental Meteorological Year. By Profeff. J. CHRIST. GATTERER. How fundamental? will our Readers afk. It is fo called, will our Academician reply, because his meteorological obfervations, during the course of this year, have been made in fuch a manner, that, when they are reduced to Tables (which work he has begun, and will foon finish), they will ferve as a rule of proceeding, as a fure guide to all those who defire to foretel, with certainty, the state of the atmosphere, not only at Gottingen, but throughout the whole globe, and to draw up annual meteorological kalendars, in the Tame manner as the aftronomical almanacks are formed.-If this be a great undertaking, the ways and means that have been employed by M. GATTERER for its execution, are, at least, proofs of a bold and adventurous genius, accompanied with extenfive knowledge, and the most laborious activity. The Memoir before us fhews all this abundantly, and would make a vulgar reader imagine, that there was fomething very extraordinary in the brain that engendered fuch a plan of investigation; but the fundamental meteorological year is not defigned for ordinary obfervers. What immenfe pains has this learned man taken? His meteorological divifions of the globe, reprefented on (geographical charts, in which the ocean is divided into four great meteorological portions, with each its adjoining tracts of land, which our Author calls its Meteorological diocefe, fubdivided into meteorological provinces), form the grand field of action and observation. Then come the meteorological islands, by which he does not understand islands, properly fpeaking, but great tracts of land, which are separated (as it were) from the feas that lie nearest them, and whose rivers either are loft in their fands, or form internal lakes and bodies of water.-After having fhewn his ground, our Academician exhibits his manner of proceeding. That he may not be looked upon by the Academy as a vain boafter, he expofes to view not only fome of the meteorological tables that he has already calculated, but alfo the use and method of all his tables. He begins with the Meteorological Tables of the Sun, who is the principal agent in the changes of the atmosphere, though it has never as yet been explained (fays our Author) how or according to what laws of nature the great lu minary produces thefe changes. He blames much his predeces fors in this science, for having confidered the powers of the Sun

and

and Moon only aftronomically, and not meteorologically; for hav ing alfo omitted many of these powers, and scarcely ever thought of meafuring their quantity. He obferves, that the meteorological influence of the Sun depends on the varying fituation of the folar equator and axis, on the diminution or increafe of the obliquity of the eccliptic, on the inequality of the folar light, which proceeds from the inequality of the Sun's surface (but is redreffed gradually by every folar revolution) on the varying diftance of the Sun from the place of the Meteorological Obfervatory, on the various time of his rifing and fetting, and on many other circumftances of this kind. All thefe have been confidered and comprehended by our Academician in the conftruction of his Solar Tables, the greatest part of which are already finished; and of which fourteen are indicated, with a notice of their contents, in this Memoir. This notice is followed by one of eight Meteorological Lunar Tables. Here the Moon's influence appears to be more extenfive than we could have wifhed to fee it. After thefe lunar tables come Meteorological Comparative Tables, which exhibit the folar and lunar powers in their joint force. We have not yet done; for these are followed by Meteorological, Terrestrial, or Local Tables, relative to local winds-to the diminution of heat in proportion to the elevation of places above the furface of the ocean -to the acceleration er obftruction of meteors according to the diflance of a place from the fea to the drynefs or moisture of a district to the variations of atmospherical electricity-the magnetic needle,-lightning, &c. Then come, finally, Auxiliary Meteorological Tables, which contain Comparative Tables of barometers and thermometers of every kind-Barometrical Tables in which the Paris measures are reduced to thofe of London and Rhinland-Tables of degrees and of hours-Comparative Tables of degrees and hours-Tables of longitudes and latitudes in time and in degrees-and fome Tables, in which the quantities, variously expreffed in the Solar, Lunar, and Local Tables, are reduced to a common ftandard. It might be well expected, that fuch an amazing apparatus would not be brought upon the stage for nothing, and that the mountain would not feel fuch throws of labour only to produce a mouse: accordingly, all this terminates in Meteorological Predictions and Meteorological Kalendars, which are to foretell all the future aspects, features, rates, and temperatures of the atmosphere, in fæcula fæculorum.

MEM. VI. The Hiftory of the Aptenodytes, a Bird whofe Kind is only found in the Southern Ocean. By Dr. JOHN Reinold FORSTER. This bird, which has many things in common with the Penguin, and the Alka, and is of the goofe kind, has, however, peculiarities enough to encourage Mr. FORSTER to confider it as a new genus, to which he has annexed the new deno

mination