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
Of warrior fierce, of defpot king,
Haft long career'd o'er ev'ry land,
Haft heard th' embattled clangor's ring;
Wrench'd from the grafp of lawless pride,
With reeking gore no longer dy'd,
I bear thee now to rural fhades,

Where nought of hell-born war invades ;
Where plum'd Ambition feels her little foul;
And hiding from the face of day

That dawns from heaven, and drives away

Those fiends that love eternal night,

She, with rude yell, blafphemes the fons of light,
That bid her deathful arm no more the world controul,

2. I faw the tyrant on her throne,

With wrathful eyes and venom'd breath,
Enjoy the world's unceafing groan,

And boaft, unfham'd, her fields of death;
When through the skies her banners wav'd,
When, drunk with blood, her legions rav'd,
Her priest invok'd the realms above,
Dar'd at thy throne, thou God of love,
Call for the thunders of thy mighty will,
To storm around the guiltlefs head,
To ftrike a peaceful brother dead;
Whilft blafphemies employ'd his tongue,
The gorgeous temple with loud echoes rung;
I felt my fhudd'ring foul with deepest horror chill,

3. I faw the vicior's dreadful day,

He, through the world, in regal robe,
Tore to renown his gory way;

With carnage zon'd th' affrighted globe:
Whilft from huge towns involv'd in flame
The monfer claim'd immortal fame,

What lamentable fhrieks arofe,

In all th' excess of direft woes!
Loud was the fycophant's applauding voice:
Together throng'd the fceptred band,
Hymn'd by the fiends of ev'ry land:
How mourn'd my foul to hear the tale
Of fad humanity's unpity'd wail!

And each imperial dome with horrid fhouts rejoice!

6 4. But hear from heav'n the dread command;
It gives to speed that awful hour,

When from oppreffion's trembling hand
Muft fail th' infulting rod of pow'r;
Long vers'd in mysteries of war,
She fcyth'd her huge triumphant car;
Her lance with look infuriate hurl'd;
Bade fell deftruction fweep the world;
She wing'd her Churchill's name from pole:
Now brought before th' eternal throne,
Where truth prevails, all hearts are known,
She, felf-condemn'd, with horrid call,

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;
Thou shalt no more this earth moleft,

Or quench in blood thy thirst again.
Come from rude war's infernal ftorm,
And fill this hand in alter'd form,
To prune the peach, reform the rose,
Where in th' expanding bofom glows
With warmeft ardours, ev'ry with benign:
Mine is the day fo long foretold
By heaven's illumin'd bards of old,
To feel the rage of difcord cease,

To join with angels in the fongs of peace,
That fill my kindred foul with energies divine.

" 6. Dark error's code no more enthrals, Its vile infatuations end;

Aloud the trump of Reafon calls;

The nations hear? the worlds attend!
Detefting now the craft of kings,
Man from his hand the weapon flings;
Hides it in whelming deeps afar,
And learns no more the fkill of war;

But lives with Nature on th' uncity'd plain :

Long has this earth a captive mourn'd,
But days of old are now return'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;
The battle's rage is heard no more,

Hufh'd is the ftorm on ev'ry fhore;
See lambs and lions in the mead
Together play, together feed,

Crop the fresh herbage of perennial Spring:
From eyes that bless the glorious day
The fcalding tears are wip'd away;
Raife high the fong! 'tis heav'n infpires!

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