In any of the cafes falling on the right hand of the black waving line, or if both altitudes exceed 50°, the effect of refraction may be had at once by Table III.

To find the effect of parallax.

Add together the proportional logarithm of the moon's horizontal parallax, the logarithmic cofecant of the star's al titude corrected for refraction, and the logarithmic fine of the diftance cleared from refraction; the fum, abating 20 from the index, will be the proportional logarithm of a first arc.

Add together the proportional logarithm of the moon's horizontal parallax, the logarithm cofecant of the moon's altitude corrected for refi action; the fum abating 20 from the index, will be the proportional logarithm of a second arc.

Then, if the diftance is lefs than 90°, the difference of these two arcs is the principal effect of parallax (or parallax in distance); which added to or fubtracted from the distance corrected for refraction, according as the first arc is lefs or greater than the second, will give the distance corrected for the principal effect of parallax.

But if the diftance exceeds 90°, the fum of the two arcs is to be taken inftead of their difference, and is to be fubtracted from the diftance corrected for refraction.

In Table IV. in the column marked above with the diftance, find the two numbers answering to the parallax in diftance and in altitude, their difference is the second correction of parallax in feconds; which, added to or fubtracted from the diftance corrected for refraction and principal effect of parallax, according as the distance is less or greater than 90°, will give the correct or reduced diftance."

Here follow four examples, which take up no less than seven pages in their operations, and these are fucceeded by ten pages of fupplemental tables, whose construction and uses in correcting the corrections already made, are exemplified in nine pages more; then comes the instructions for finding the longitude at fea by help of the Ephemeris; thefe, with two examples ferving to illuftrate their use, fill the last two-and-twenty pages

of this treatise.

An ingenious mariner who has been many years used to the fea-service, upon infpecting the Nautical Almanac, made the following remark, with which we fhall conclude this article. "That in very long voyages the precepts there delivered might probably be of ufe, with regard to the determination of the longitude; but, in fhort trips to fea, he apprehended they would be altogether useless, because the voyage would cer tainly be ended before the neceffary calculations with their proper corrections, &c. could poffibly be made."

XIII. Crito,

XIII. Crito, or, Effays on various Subjects. Vol. II. and Lat. 12mo. Pr. 2s. 6d. Dodsley.

HIS publication is a kind of centaur, half political, half metaphyfical; that is, one part of it is intelligible, and the other unintelligible, we are afraid, even to the author himfelf; and were it otherwise, perhaps, (as the French faying is) "the play would not be worth the candle." Difquifitions upon the nature of the Godhead, and the origin of good and evil, are in themselves pernicious to society, unless they tend to fome particular doctrine for the prefent, or future, good of mankind. We can almost defy the most fubtle metaphyfician to prove, that his and the labours of all his confraternities on thofe fubjects, ever reformed a rake, or converted an atheist.

This writer dedicates his performance to his dear little nonentities of the twentieth century; and his. dedication, which forms almoft half the contents of the book, is executed with fome humour.

In the first place, fays he, I hope, as all authors do, to be in higher eftimation with your worships and ladyfhips, than with my contemporaries. We great men are but moderately valued in our own times; but this flight is made up to us by posterity. For we live on after we are dead; and the older we grow, we grow the greater. By the time you come upon the stage, Crito will be a fort of little antient; confequently will begin to be a little venerable.

Befides this, I expect you twentieth-century gentlemen and ladies to be of a more compofed way of thinking than my contemporaries; for whom, I affure you, it is not a little difficult to know how to write. The very truth is, ever fince our great Political Conjurer (who will be very well known in your age) fpirited America over into Germany to be conquered there, we have been so scared by the tremendous fight of that huge continent (credite pofteri!) failing in the air over our heads, that to this day we have not recovered ourselves, fo far as to be able to diftinguish between a compafs-needle and a weathercock, or between a pillar of marble and a broken reed.

It is true, our state-physicians have been fome time in confultation on our cafe. They are bringing the conftitution to a crifis as faft as they can. The humours ferment vigorously, abundance of corrupt matter digefts; the fymptomatic complaints grow ftronger and ftronger, and the critical paroxyfms will probably be severe. According to dean Swift's doctor, when the patient is fick to death, he is in the moft

* See Crit. Rev. vol. xxii. p. 57.

hopeful

hopeful way. So much the better for us. The ftate is fick enough, if that be to her advantage. A nation may, on account of its magnitude, be compared to the Krachen, deferibed by Doctor Pontoppidan, the good bishop of Bergen, to which a whale is but a fprat. It may, therefore, be half a century in its laft illness, and twenty years on its death-bed. I hope, that is not yet our good lady Britannia's cafe. But her recovery, if the fhould recover, will be a work of time; as alteratives produce their effect but flowly. I do not, therefore, expect my countrymen, of this nor of the next century, to be in much condition for liftening to advice. And if I had determined not to publish till the time, when I might have expected to be immediately attended to, I must have kept my piece not nine years, according to Horace's prescription; but perhaps ninety-nine, by which time, I fhould, if I lived fo long, be of an age not fit for correcting the prefs. I have therefore determined to discharge my confcience, by feeing this fecond and laft volume of my ineftimable work fairly ufhered into the world and humbly beg your gracious reception of it, when you come to have hands to receive it.

I have obferved above, that we are haftening matters to a crifis, which may chance to prove falutary to the constitution. Now I must be fincere enough to own, that, though our driving things to an extremity may eventually prove to your advantage; if you contrive to walk into the world, just as the troubles, we are raifing, come to be fettled; I must own, I fay, that we have yet no great claim to your gratitude on this account. For it is well known, we have had no eye to you in what we have been carrying on for these last fifty years. We not only hold you to be at present nothing, as above obferved; but, one would imagine, by our way of providing for you, we concluded you never would be any thing.

• Nor indeed can I pretend, that we deserve much approbation on account of our prudence for ourselves, in conducting our reformation-scheme. For it might, in my humble opinion, be to the full as judicious to go to work deliberately, and to rectify what is amifs, article by article, as to heap expedient upon expedient, blunder upon blunder, and mifchief upon mischief, till all is in a ferment. As if we expected (in the manner of the refiners, who throw a quantity of ore into the furnace, and are certain of the metal's coming out pure by and by) that order muft of courfe proceed from confufion, and a happy eftablishment grow of itself out of the chaos we have been jumbling together.

I appeal therefore to you from my contemporaries, who have it not in their power to oblige me in any, but one way, viz. giving me the pleasure of doing them good, and who grudge

me that pleasure. It is true, I am not the only author, who complain, that the people of this age are too wife for advice. There have been many writings published of late, incomparably more deferving of the general attention, than any thing within the reach of my mediocrity, which have produced no material good effect. Some of us, your worthy predeceffors, have read and fhaken our wife noddles over them, saying, “Why yes, as you fay, Mr. Author, these are undoubtedly bad things. But it is impoffible to reform them." As if there had never been, in the whole hiftory of mankind, an instance of any one particular amended, that once went wrong. Thus we treat all manner of proposals for realifying what is amifs, either in the conftitution of church or ftate, or in our own private conduct. And when, at any time, we are told by an honest and blunt writer, of fomewhat grofsly fcandalous, but profitable to fome individuals, which ought, for the fake of common decency and common fenfe, to have been amended fifty years ago; we jog one another, and agree to confute that impertinent writer by filence. We caft a flur upon the book, as a mean performance; or on the fubject, as exhaufted. And the good-natured people, who implicitly follow their leaders, do not know what is a mean performance, or what the contrary; nor confider that the fubject of grievances is never exhaufted, while the grievances continue. Thus the honeft writer's good advice is neglected, and the evil remains un-cured, as much as if it were really incurable. Now this conduct fhews how we have improved on the fagacity of our forefathers; time was, when people were afhamed of being publicly branded; and it was thought neceffary to answer a writer, who prefumed to infinuate, that governors, either in church or ftate, were culpable. What was the confequence? Why, a controversy was fet on foot: Matters were thoroughly examined: Truth came out: The eyes of the people were opened: Knavish statesmen and churchmen were foiled at fair argument, and the wings of tyranny and prieftcraft were clipped. How much wifer we; who walk off, as quietly as fo many cowards after a kicking; and never make one wry face! Populus me fibilat: at mihi plaudo. If we have not the empty praife, we have the folid pudding.

At the fame time, I cannot deny, that there are more buyers of books in this age, than in any former. But this is no argument, that we are at all the better for the books, we buy. No nation pays fo magnificently for the performance of mufic, vocal and inftrumental (if the frittering noise, we are now-a-days regaled with at operas and concerts, may be called mufic) than the English. Yet it is notorious, that no people on earth have so little natural genius to music, as the South-Britons. The cafe is the fame with books, as with mufic; we lay out money

4

money in both, not because we want them, but because we are rich, and muft lay out our money in somewhat."

Our author recommences his metaphyfical (or whatever the reader pleases to call them) difquifitions by a fourth effay, which he seems to have compofed upon the principles of that very ingenious game called puzzle; witnefs the following quotation, which, fo far as we can unpuzzle matter, may stand as detached from his general reasoning (if we may be allowed that expreffion) :

There is no neceffity, in the prefent deduction, for making it a question, Whether the greatest happiness is the natural confequence of the greatest virtue? Whether this be granted, or denied, the neceffity of the Creator's propofing to replenish his universe with moral agents will remain the fame, as arifing from the Divine nature, which, being moral, rendered it impoffible, that the Creator fhould not propofe to produce moral agents, with the fingle and ultimate view of their becoming like to himfelf in that which is his greatest glory, viz. moral rectitude. Yet no one can, I think, have any doubt, concerning the neceffary connexion, in the nature of things, between virtue and happinefs. But this we have at prefent no concern with. All I would urge is, That the Creator, being himself a moral agent, and his moral character being his fupreme excellence, he could not but propose to create moral agents, as fuch, exclufive of the confequences refpecting their happiness. Because, whatever. their happiness should eventually prove to be, their merit must, if they behaved well, come to be great; and if they should even have partly failed of happiness (which yet could not happen) they might attain what is more important, viz. moral rectitude of difpofition..

To say, that any scheme muft of courfe have appeared to the Creator the beft, which produced the greatest happiness, merely because it produced the greatest happiness, would be faying, That the fupreme Being looks on happiness as of greater confequence than rectitude. But this is fo far from being a right state of the cafe, that it is certain, every good man (the goodnefs of men, is, God knows, moderate enough) would choose rather to be more virtuous, and lefs happy, than more happy, and lefs virtuous, (a man is, in fact, more or less virtuous, according as he more or lefs fincerely loves virtue for its own fake) much more would an angel choose in the fame manner; and most of all would He, whofe rectitude is abfolutely perfect, choose rather to see his univerfe filled with fupremely virtuous, though lefs happy beings, than with fuperlatively happy, but lefs virtuous beings, were this poffible.'

Pray,