ART. VIII.

Anecdota Græca, e Regia Parifienfi et e Veneta S. Marci, Bibliothecis deprompta, edidit Johannis Bap. Cafp. d'Anfe de Villoifen. i. G. Grecian Anecdotes (or rather Mifcellanies) taken from the Libraries of the King of France at Paris, and that of St. Mark at Venice, and published by M. JOHN BAPTIST CASPAR D'ANSE DE VILLOISON, Member of the Academy of Infcriptions at Paris. 2 vols. 4to. Venice. 1781.

WE

E mentioned, in one of the preceding Articles of this Appendix, the ardor and affiduity with which this learned man has been fearching after the hidden treasures of Grecian literature, in the library of St. Mark, these three or four years paft. Here we have the firft fruits of his labours, which thew that he is as ready to communicate as he is ardent to acquire. The first volume of this collection contains a work of EUDOCIA, Empress of Conftantinople, in the eleventh century, now published, for the first time, entitled, 'Iwvid, or Violarium, and containing, in an alphabetical order, an account of all the Gods, Goddeffes, Heroes, Heroines, Philofophers, Artists, &c. As this work is partly drawn from the fame fources from whence Suidas derived his materials, it will no doubt contribute to the emendation of that author; and as it contains feveral things either new, or, at least, hitherto too little known, it will cer tainly excite the curiofity of the philologifts. It contains 442 pages, and is publifhed without either a tranflation or notes. The fecond volume is mifcellaneous. It confifts, among others, of the following pieces: An accurate Defcription of the 'Podwria, or Anthology of Macarius Chryfocephalus, from the library of St. Mark, in which we find fentences and fragments of Synefius, D. Chryfoftom, Plutarch, Ariftides, Herodian, the Orator Æfchines, Lucian, Demofthenes, Libanius, and Choricius.→→→d An Oration of Procopius of Gaza, from the library of St. Mark. A Notice of Extracts that are found in Macarius, from Xenophon, Stobæus, Jofephus, Eufebius, Nicephorus, Chummus, Germanus, Conft. Manaffes, Pindar, Homer, Theocritus, Lucian, Hefiod, Ariftophanes, &c.-A Treatife de Atticifmis.Helia Monachi, περὶ τῶν ἐν τοῖς εἰχοις παθῶν.—Herodiani Varii libelli Grammatici.-Dionyfii Thracis Grammatica, cum codice Scripta collata. Scholia Inedita in Dionyfii Grammaticam; and Extracts from the Commentary of Diomede the Scholaftic on that Work.-But the two most valuable pieces in this volume are, The Third Book of Iamblichus concerning the Doctrine of Pythagoras; and Two Differtations of Plotinus.

A R. T. IX.

Aftronomie. i. e. A Treatife of Aftronomy. By M. DE LA LANDE, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. Vol. IV. Paris. 1781.

THE

THE three preceding volumes of this work were published about ten years ago, and it has been generally efteemed one of the most complete and learned fyftems of aftronomy that hath appeared. The volume before us contains an ample Treatise on the Ebb and Flow of the Sea-A Memoir concerning the Origin of the Confellations and the Illustration of Mythology, by the Means of Aftronomy. By M. DUPUIS, Profeffor in the University of Paris. And Supplements to the preceding Volumes by M. DE LA LANDE. Thefe Additions to this valuable Work deserve more than a fimple enumeration.

The Tides have been long an object of furprise and investigation; and M. DE LA LANDE begins his Treatife with a hiftory of the opinions of the Ancient Philofophers concerning this phenomenon. We do not think the paffage of Quintus Curtius, relative to the aftonifhment which filled the foldiers of Alexander, in their paffage to India, when they faw the fea overflowing the coafts, and afterwards leaving their vessels in the mud,a fufficient reafon for affirming that the people of Greece were ignorant of the phenomenon of the tides. The paffage, which he himself quotes from the Timaus of Plato, may be alleged as a proof of the contrary. In that paffage an attempt is made to explain this phenomenon by the impreffion which the waters of the Atlantic receive from the rivers that fall into the ocean from the Celtic mountains, and the re-action that is the confequence of this impreffion. However unfatisfactory this explication may be, it fhews that the phenomenon of the tides was known in Greece, and was moreover an object of investigation and research. The notion of the Stoics on this fubject, as recorded by Solinus and Apollonius, is too childish and abfurd to deferve mention. Others, among the ancients, confidered the tides as ebullitions, occafioned by fubterraneous fires, or as effects of winds and exhalations, or as the confequence of a rarefaction produced by the beams of the moon, or as proceeding from the interruption of the feas by the continents; in fhort, the hypotheses were various on this head, and they were all infufficient to account for the appearances. Nevertheless, as our Author obferves, feveral of the ancients, and, among others, Pliny, Ptolemy, and Macrobius, were acquainted with the influence of the fun and moon upon the tides; and Pliny fays exprefsly, that the caufe of the ebb and flow is in the fun, which attracts the waters of the ocean; and adds, that the waters rife in proportion to the proximity of the moon to the earth.

From the ancients our Author proceeds to the moderns who. preceded Sir Ifaac Newton in this investigation. He mentions and confutes, in a few words, the hypothefes of Galileo and Des Cartes, and fixes his attention on lunar attraction, as the only explication that accounts for the phenomenon in queftion. The great English philofopher now mentioned, proved that the ebb and flow was the effect of univerfal attraction, and Halley was the first who drew from this principle an ample theory of the

tides.

But as the problem of the tides was fufceptible of a profound analysis, and the refearches of Sir Ifaac Newton admitted of, and even required a farther developement, the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris propofed this problem as the fubject of a prize, for which the three greateft geometricians in Europe contended. These were Meffrs. Euler, D. Bernoulli, and Colin McLaurin, who were all crowned and divided the prize. After giving an analysis of their differtations, our Author takes notice of the new light which M. d'Alembert caft upon this fubject by his excellent reflections on the ebb and flow of the fea, in his Memoir concerning the general caufe of the Winds, which was crowned by the Academy of Berlin in the year 1746; and in which that celebrated philofopher confiders the attractive influence of the moon and of the fun on the mafs of the air, and exposes Bernoulli's mistake in fuppofing, in the equation he gave for the elevation of the waters, the earth compofed of layers of different denfities. M. DE LA LANDE fuppofes, with Newton and D. Bernoulli, that the fea affumes an elliptical figure, anfwers the objections that the Cartesians have made to this figure, eftimates, the elevation of the tides under the equator, on the fuppofition that the earth is a homogeneous fpheroid, explains the reafons of the high tides at St. Malo, and confiders largely the principal phenomena of the ebb and flow of the ocean. After having moreover pointed out the effect of the perigee of the moon, her forces in the different points of her orbit, M. Bouger's rule for finding the tides, relatively to the diftances of the moon, the effects of the diftances of the fun, the differences of the folftices at different heights and hours, our Author examines this queftion, Whether the tides of the equinoxes are always the higheft? and proves, that the affirmative takes place only in certain cafes. He afterwards treats of the tides in narrow feas, and particularly in the Mediterranean, of the extraordinary motion of the fea, of the tides in the rivers, &c. This is followed by an account of the obfervations that have been made relative to the tides in different parts of the globe, and by tables of the hours and heights of the tides in these parts.

The aftronomical reader muft confult the Treatise itself, to form a juft notion of its contents, which are highly inftructive,

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but not every where beyond the reach of philofophical criticism.

The Memoir of M. DUPUIS is doubtless a masterly performance. It discovers deep investigation, ingenious conjecture, and a rich fund of erudition, accompanied with fagacity, judgment, and genius. According to the hypothefis of this learned man, the origin of the conftellations is derived from the Egyptians. That people, by reducing to claffes the different clusters of ftars in our zodiac, defigned to form, for their own ufe, not only an aftronomical, but also a rural kalendar. They confequently confidered the figns of the zodiac as fymbols of the courfe and effects of the fun; and they connected these symbols with the different feafons of the year in fuch a manner, that they announced to the hufbandman the labours of the field, and the times of expecting the fruits of his induftry. The times of ploughing and reaping, fays Mr. D. are the two important periods of the rural year, and therefore must have been reprefented by a particular hieroglyphic of fuch a kind, as that its fignification fhould be clear and palpable to the moft ignorant spectator. The bull or ox was the plaineft fymbol of tillage; a virgin holding an ear of corn was well adapted to reprefent the months of harvest; and accordingly we find these two symbols in the zodiac. It appears then, that our zodiac contains, in fact, what it was natural to expect in the hieroglyphical kalendar of a people addicted to aftronomy and agriculture, that the state of the heavens and the earth, in their moft interefting periods, was indicated there in fuch a palpable manner, as to prevent the poffibility of miftaking it, and that the other fymbolical characters of the zodiac have, moft probably, a fignification relative to the ftate of nature in the climate of the people who invented the kalendar.

Our Author proves, that the Egyptians were the inventors of the aftronomical kalendar, notwithstanding any appearances to the contrary, proceeding from the changes that may have taken place in the climate and foil of that country. He then examines the opinions of feveral learned men, and, among others, the hypothefis of M. Bailli, relative to the additions or alterations which have been made in the aftronomical kalendar by other nations; and all his difcuffions terminate in attributing the invention of this kalendar to the Egyptians. He even thinks that aftronomy had its birth in Egypt, and that all the nations, who had any acquaintance with this fcience, derived their knowledge of it either directly from the Egyptians, or from other nations who had been inftructed by them. The univerfality of the names of the twelve figns of the zodiac, which are the fame in Egypt, India, Perfia, Phenicia, Greece, and Italy, fhews them to have been derived from one common fource.

The

The ancient fables, according to our author, contain nothing more than a phyfico-aftronomical theory relative to the afpects of the heavens, and the agents in the natural world. He explains and illuftrates the monuments, the fimple and compound fymbols of the deities, and the fables of antiquity, by the theory of the rifings and fettings of the stars, the paffage of the fun through the different conftellations, and, above all, by the preffion of the equinoxes, which, difplacing every thing, and changing the aspects of the heavens, muft have varied the allufions and fymbols, multiplied the genii, and changed the characters of hieroglyphical writing. This is giving us a new key to open the mysteries of mythology; and whether it opens really, or only appears to open, it is most learnedly described, and most ingeniously employed.

His confidering the mythological parts of epic and didactic poems as broken morfels of the kalendar, opens a new field of interpretation. In order (fays he) to decompofe a fable, and find out its principle, we have only to take a globe, rectify it to the latitude of the country where the fable appears to have been invented, fix the equinoctial point to the place of the zodiac where it must have been at that time, obferve at the horizon what stars, by their rifing or fetting, indicated at night or morning the entrance of the fun into each fign, particularly thofe which marked the equinoxes and folftices, and combine their afpects with the motion of the fun or the moon. This, continues M. DUPUIS, is precifely the method recommended by the Egyptian priests themselves, who faid, that all the fables were formed on the motion of the fun and moon, the twelve figns of the zodiac, and the ftars that are in afpect with them. We shall fhew how our author employs this method in analyfing and explaining the Labours of Hercules. He thinks his fuccefs here will confirm the excellence of this aftronomical key, and fhew at the fame time the manner of using it.-BE not surprised, reader,-hear him ;-we fhall let him speak for himself.

'Hercules was worshipped in Egypt and Phenicia: the globe muft, therefore, be placed according to the latitude of thefe climates. As the Phenician Hercules is the most famous, it will be proper to chufe this latitude, i. e. we fhall elevate the pole to 32 degrees, or thereabouts. This genius (Hercules) had at Tyre a temple, as ancient as that city, and which was erected 2300 years before the age of Herodotus, as that hiftorian himfelf affures us: this places the vernal equinox in the first degrees of Taurus, and confequently the fummer folftice in the first degrees of Leo; the one an equinoctial, and the other a folftitial fign, in what we call the fabulous ages. After having determined the latitude of the place, where the tables relating to Hercules

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