whereon the Autumnal Equinox occurred, and one of the four grand folemn Bardic Days.' Gwir, yn erbyn y Byd. Motto of the Ancient Bards of Britain. In English-Truth, against all the World! And they fhall beat their fwords into plough-fhares, and their fpears into pruning-hooks; nation fhall not lift up fword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.' Ifaiah, chap. ii. ver. 4. Fell weapon, that in ruthless hand Where nought of hell-born war invades ; That dawns from heaven, and drives away Those fiends that love eternal night, She, with rude yell, blafphemes the fons of light, 2. I faw the tyrant on her throne, With wrathful eyes and venom'd breath, And boaft, unfham'd, her fields of death; 3. I faw the vicior's dreadful day, He, through the world, in regal robe, With carnage zon'd th' affrighted globe: What lamentable fhrieks arofe, In all th' excess of direft woes! And each imperial dome with horrid fhouts rejoice! 6 4. But hear from heav'n the dread command; When from oppreffion's trembling hand Bids on her head the rocks and mountains fall, To fhield her from the wrath whofe venging thunders roll. 5. Thou, ftrength of kings, with aching breaft, I raise to thee the mournful ftrain; Or quench in blood thy thirst again. To join with angels in the fongs of peace, " 6. Dark error's code no more enthrals, Its vile infatuations end; Aloud the trump of Reafon calls; The nations hear? the worlds attend! But lives with Nature on th' uncity'd plain : Long has this earth a captive mourn'd, We Pride's rude arm no longer feel; No longer bleed beneath Oppreffion's heel For Truth to Love and Peace restores the world again. 7. The dawn is up, the lucid morn, I carol in its golden fkies; The Mufe, on eagle-pinions borne, Through Rapture's realm prophetic flies; Hufh'd is the ftorm on ev'ry fhore; Crop the fresh herbage of perennial Spring: In chorus joining with feraphic lyres, We crown the Prince of Peace, he reigns th' Eternal King!' At the end of the poems is an account of the Welsh bardic triades, a manner of writing which our author warmly defends, It has a striking refemblance to the manner of Ecclefiafticus and the Proverbs, and is certainly not ill calculated for aphorifms, especially if they are capable of any point; but it must be very tirefome in any long compofition. A few of thofe quoted are, The three primary requifites of poetical genius; an eye that can fee nature, a heart that can feel nature, and a refolu tion that dares follow nature. The three utilities of poetry; the praise of virtue and goodnefs, the memory of things remarkable, and to invigorate the affections. There are three forts of men; the man of God, who renders good for evil; the man of men, who renders good for good and evil for evil; and the man of the devil, who renders evil for good. The three primary privileges of the bards are, maintenance wherever they go, that no naked weapon be borne in their prefence, and their teftimony be preferred to that of all others. As we have expreffed our warm approbation of the high tones of liberty, and enlarged fentiments of philanthropy, which are to be met with in these Poems, we hope the author will allow us to wish that he would retrench from any future edition, those strokes of petulant farcafm which greatly blemish the general tenor of his productions. He does not poffefs any talent for humour. Neither does it well become a writer, on his first appearance before the public, to fpeak contemptuously of of men, or claffes of men, who have long been in poffeffion of its admiration or reverence. We are forry, likewise, that he indulges in his Preface a strain of querulous complaint, in which his readers cannot sympathize, as he has not stated to them the injuries to which he seems fo fenfible; nor, if he had, could they probably have judged of them. We fear, indeed, that a wounded fenfibility is the tax which genius, rifing above its fituations and connections in life, is too generally forced to pay. We remark many words ufed in an uncommon sense, as fewelled, careered, wordless, dangerless, leisured. Where the poetry is bold, as in the ode we have quoted, they have a happy effect. We obferve also a fonnet on fonnet making, faid to be in the Welsh manner, which is only an imitation of the famous Spanish Sonnet of Lopez de Vega, which has been imitated fo often. As our Cambrian bard tells us many of his best pieces are yet unpublished, we hope he will be induced, from the reception of these, to give them to the world, and in return we will give him a triad. Refpect the public, fpeak fparingly of thyfelf, and defpife not criticism. Obfervations on the Nature of Demonftrative Evidence; with Explanation of certain Difficulties occurring in the Elements of Geometry: and Reflections on Language. By Thomas Beddoes. 8vo. 35. 6d. Boards. Johnfon. 1793. THERE is no royal road to geometry, faid once a philofo pher, and the fentinent has been re-echoed by every teacher of mathematics, when his pupil in defpair is ready and willing to throw the elements of the prince of geometers into the fire. Our author is of a very different opinion, and conceives that children might be made to pafs over the pons afinorum without difficulty, and that by appealing to the fenfes, we might give them at once an infight into thofe truths, which are now not to be acquired without toiling through the perplexities of a tedious demonftration. We are inclined to agree with him in this point, and heartily with, that he may perfuade his brethren of Oxford and Cambridge to make the experiment upon the youth entrusted to their care; for we have feen many a one wafting his hours unprofitably in endeavouring to enter into his tutor's ideas; ana beir tinto a new world of lines and circles, and being told that there is fomething very myfterious in the fcience into which he is to be initiated, he approaches every theorem with awe, and nnds himself foon bewildered in a labyrinth, without any friendly clue to guide his forlorn fteps. If it is true, that in a train of mathematical reafoning we proceed at every ftep upon the evidence of the fenfes, or in different terms, that the mathematical fciences are fciences of experiment and obfervation, founded folely upon the induction of particular facts, as much fo as mechanics, aftronomy, optics, or chemistry,' there cannot be a doubt, that the best way of communicating knowledge on thefe fubjects, is to prefent to the fenfes every experiment in the fame manner as it is mentally performed. That the mathematics are of this nature, the author fhews in a variety of inftances; and the fourth propofition of the first book of Euclid is to completely to his purpofe, that it is fufficient to examine the proccfs of the mind in every step, to be convinced, that the mere experiment of laying the one triangle upon the other in a vifible manner, would without difficulty teach the learner the truth required. The fame may be faid of the fifth propofition, which is difficult only from a beginner not being fo well acquainted with the nature of angles as of lines; but if he had been either accustomed frequently to confider them, or if his inftructor had dwelt fufficiently upon this point, the experiments on this propofition might be easily made; and the refult would fix itself at once upon the mind. Why do we, after having read the fix first books of Euclid, find great difficulty in furmounting the eleventh and twelfth The figures are more complicated; they are on a plane furface, though they ought to reprefent folids, and we have been lefs accustomed to confider folids and compare them together: yet, if the folids were reprefented as fuch, and we were frequently to examine them, the propofitions in these books would be as eafily digefted as any in the preceding. The doctrine of ratios, which is fuppofed to be more mysterious than any part of the mathematics, and on that account the fifth book of Euclid is omitted in the lectures of many tutors in Cambridge, is fhewn alfo to be eafily acquired by experiments; and though the author is aware that many will laugh at the idea of teaching it by tapes and ftrings, the mode feems feasible and proper to fhorten the way to knowledge. Whether it is time to throw away our Euclids, and substitute other modes of inftruction, we thall not decide, though per fectly convinced that there is great 100m for improvement in the prefent fyftem of education; and we cannot but think, that the remarks interfperfed on this fubject, in various parts of the work before us, deferve the attention of every perfon employed in communicating inftruction to the rifing generation. The following extract will give an idea both of the author's ftyle, and too truc an account of the difficulties under which we labour in our early years. But |