confifts of two lofty rooms, about four yards fquare; with an iron bedftead and firaw. The floors are flagged, dry, and well ventilated by iron gratedwindows towards the paffage which divides the rooms. The fewers are judiciously con "ructed, and communicate with the drains. Prifoners are feldom detained here longer than one or two nights. The liberality and humanity of the magiftrates will not fuffer even this fmall place of confinement to efcape their attention. Prifoners, 16th Auguft 1802, none. To Dr. LETTSOM. Wakefield, Sunday My dear Sir, evening, Aug. 15, 1802. IT is fcarcely poffible to form a greater contraft than between the two places I have just been visiting. Before I got into the chaite this morning, I thought I would take another peep into the gaol at Sheffield, to fee how they spent the Sunday. I found the Low Court debtors as black as chim ney-fweepers, and as bufy as bees, fifting cinders, to make up the afhes two loads, which are to be fetched away to-morrow morning. I arrived at this place (Wakefield) juft as divine fervice had begun, and was furprized not to fee a fingle beggar or vagrant, or even an idle lounger, about the fireets. The church was filled within, and peace and order dwelt without. I was pleafed to be informed this was not a cafual circumfance, but that I fhould always find it fo whenever I vifited it on the Sabbath day. I rather think the police is fo regulated, that fome of its refpectable inhabitants perambulate the treets alternately, otherwife it would be impoffible to keep fo large a town in fuch decent obfervance of the Sabbath. The account of this prifon will give a little falt or relish to my letter; for I nuft own they have (with a few exceptions) been very unfavory articles; I fear as unpalatable to you as painful to myfelf; but to you, my good friend, who are to well acquainted with the mileries and infirmities of human nature, all apology will be needlefs JAMES NIELD. P.S. It is my custom to attend prifon fervice, but the new chapel is not finished. from fpondent, W. I. P. (p. 224) seem to have no Small relemblance to each other, both in the elegance of their ftyle, and the neat vein of raillery which pervades them both; I fhall an fwer them in one letter. Is it not a little hard upon me, who wifhed to provoke no one, to be affailed on all fides? I only beg that the Architect will prove that H. A. U. and R. U. B. are one perfon; by the letter of H. A. U. (p. 217), he feems not to have any very large portion of infight into per fonage and character. I am, as I declared, but a young Correfpondent; and fhould have thanked the Architect for any information which he might give me on the fubject of my letter, and expected not to be anfwered by fneers, and accufations of ignorance. What I firfl flated I maintain: "the mouldings are, as far as I can judge, fharp and well cut." As to its being repaired upon the frict model of the original, I am no judge, as I never faw the original; but, as far as I can reinem ber, and from the prints in Bentham, which I have examined, I think it is. I cannot fpeak with certainty; the prints are on too finall a fcale; and the diftance of time fince I faw the building hinders my forming any certain opinion, and I had not time to use my pencil. Nor do I look upon myself as fo very ignorant as not to understand the difference between the fivle of the 13th century and of the Tudors; but Mr. Carter is engaged to furvey it: we fhall hear his remarks, which I fhall receive with eagernefs, and, doubtlefs, with improvement, as he is a great mafter of the fubject, though now and then carried away to petulant remarks and unfounded affertions; witnefs the unmerciful reception of my unforte nate leiter. The bent of Mr. W. I. P.'s letter I do not perceive. I wrote merely to fuggeft, that Mr. Wyatt's cement had not been proved fufficiently to afford us any certainty of its duration. Mr. W. 1. P. completely agrees with me, and tells me that it is a pity that I am not a competent judge;" but he brings no proof of my being unfit, unless his apoftrophe to flucco and cement, or his remarks upon the Weft door, be brought as proofs. But of my fitnefs or unfituels," the patrons of this Mifcellany will be the best judges." As W. I. P. has told us that there is a hidden virtue in three initials, and as virtue is fearce; I am fill Yours, &c. RU.B. Mr. THE MEMOIRS OF THE REV. G. COSTARD. HE Rev. George Coftard, whofe Oriental and Aftronomical Learning is too well known to need encomium, was born at Shrewsbury 1710, and (it is believed) firft educated in the grammar-fchool there. In or about the year 1726, he was admitted a member of Wadham college, Oxford; B.D. 1729; M. A. June 28, 1733. He became a fellow of that fociety, and a tutor there; in 1742, was Univerfity proctor; and, on the death of Dr. Wyndham, was in election for warden of his college, but declined it on account of his age. His firft ecclefiaftical preferment was the curacy of Iflip near Oxford. He afterward became vicar of Whitchurch, between Lyme and Bridport, in Dorfetfhire, where he ferved two churches for fome years. He was a man of general learning, deep read in Divinity and Aftronomy, well verfed in the Greek and Hebrew languages, and a perfect mafter of the Oriental. His correfpondence with the Literati was extenfive both at home and abroad; and many of his learned productions were read before the members of the Royal Society, and after wards publifhed among their Philofophical Tranfactions. Mr. Coftard's extenfive learning having recommended him to the notice of the Earl of Northington, lord chancellor, he obtained, by the favour of that nobleman, in June 1764, the vicarage of Twickenham; in which fituation he continued till his death, which hap pened Jan. 10, 1782, at the age of 72. His private character was amiable; and he was much refpected in the neighbourhood in which he refided for his humanity and benevolence. From fome paffages in his writings he appears to have been frongly attached to the interefts of public freedom. He had a great veneration for the antient Greeks, of whom he fays, that, "is to the happy genius of that once glotious people, and that people alone, that we owe all that can properly be ftyled aftronomy." And in another place he obferves, "that their public fpirit and love of liberty claim both our admiration and imitation. How far the Sciences fuffer where oppreflion, fuperftition, and arbitrary power prevail, that once glorious Nation affords this day too melancholy a proof." In 1733, he published, in octavo, Part of a letter written by him to Mr. John Canton, containing an account of a fiery meteor feen by him in the air on the 14th of July 1745, was read at the Royal Society on the 7th of November in that year, and published in their Tranfactions, No. 447. He In 1746, he published, in London, in octavo, "A Letter to Martin Folkes, efq. P. R.S. concerning the Rife and Progrefs of Aftronomy amongst the Antients." In this very learned letter, he endeavoured to prove that the Greeks derived but a very small portion of their aftronomical knowledge from the Egyptians or Babylonians. obferves, that though the Egyptians and Babylonians may be allowed by their obfervations of the heavens to have laid the foundation of attronomy yet that, as long as it continued among them, it confifted of obfervations only; and in this ftate it remain ed, even among the Greeks, for foine time, till, geometry being improved by them, and them alone, into a fcience, and applied to the heavens, they became the true and proper authors of every thing deferving the name of aftronomy. In-1747, Mr. Coftard publifhed, in 8vo, "Some Obfervations tending to illuftrate the Book of Job, and in particular the words I know that my Redeemer liveth," &c.; to which was annexed, "The third chapter of Habakkuk, paraphraftically tranf fated into English Verfe" (fome years before, for his own amufement). The fame year, a curious letter written by him to the Rev. Dr. Shaw, principal of St. Edmund hall, Oxon, relative to the Chinefe chronology and aftronomy, was read at the Royal Society, and publifhed in "The Philofophical Tranfactions," No. 488. In this letter he took notice, that it had been the affectation, of fome nations, and particularly the Babylonians and Egyptians, to carry up their history to fuch an immoderate antiquity, as plainly to fhew thofe accounts to be fictitious, and without foundation. This allo was the ca è with the Chinese. And Mr. Cofiard urged a variety of arguments to prove, that the mathematical and aftioncmical knowledge of the Chinefe was inconfiderable; and that little dependance was to be placed on the pretended antiquity of their history. In 1749, he published, at Oxford, in 8vo, A further Account of the Rife and Progrefs of Aftonomy among the Andents, Antients, in three Letters to Martin Folkes, efq." The first of these letters treats of the attronomy of the Chaldeans; the fecond is an elaborate enquiry concerning the Conftellations fpoken of in the Book of Jobt; and the fourth is on the mythological aftronomy of the antients. In thefe letters he has difplayed a confiderable extent of Oriental and Grecian literature. His next publication, which appeared in 1750, in 8vo, was, "Two Diflertations;" the first containing an enquiry into the meaning of the word Kefitah, mentioned in Job xlii. 11; in which is endeavoured to be proved, that, though it most probably there ftands for the name of a coin, yet there is no reafon for fuppofing it ftamped with any figure at all; and therefore not with that of a lamb in particular. The fecond, on the fignification of the word Hermes; in which is explained the origin of the custom among the Greeks of erecting ftones called Hermia; together with fome other particulars relating to the mythology of that people. Thefe Differtations were infcribed to his friend Dr. Hunt, then profeffor of the Hebrew and Arabic languages in the univerfity of Oxford. At the conclufion of them Mr. Cofiard fays, "the fudy of the Oriental languages feems to be gaining ground in Europe every day; and, provided the Greek and Latin are equally cultivated, we may arrive in a few years at a greater knowledge of the antient world than may be expected or can be imagined. But, without this foundation, I may venture to pronounce, from the little experience I have had, that it will be darkness and perplexity. It is be In this letter, among other things, he endeavoured to prove, that the authors of the Septuagint verfion did not underftand the original, in thofe paflages in which the Constellations are mentioned. He thinks it probable, that "thofe whom Ptolemy employed to tranflate the Hebrew writings knew nothing of aftronomy, or the original names by which the Conftellations were firft called by the old Chaldean or Egyptian obfervers; and that this led them to apply, with uncertainty and confufion, the fabulous names given them by the Greeks, which, in their time, had univerfally taken place of the other. He was of opinion, that the Book of Job was not older than the time of the Jewish captivity at Babylon. ginning at the wrong end, which can never be attended with fuccefs in any thing. It may not, perhaps, be inproper to add, before I have done, that, for fuch researches as these I have here been fpeaking of, few places, if any, in Europe, are fo well adapted as the University of Oxford." In 1752, he published, in 8vo, at Oxford, "Differtationes II. criticofacra, quarum prima explicatur Ezek. cap. xiii. ver. 18. Altera vero 2 Reg. cap. x. ver. 22." The fame year a tranflation was published of the latter of thefe differtations under the following title: "A Differtation on the 2d of Kings, chap. x. ver. 22, tranflated from the Latin of Rabbi Coftard; with a Dedication, Preface, and Poftfcript. critical and explanatory, by the Tranflator." In the Preface and Dedication to this publication,, it is attempted to place Mr. Coftard in a very ludicrous light. On the 25th of January, 1753, a letter written by Mr. Coftard, and addreffed to the Earl of Macclesfield, concerning the age of Homer and Hefiod, was likewife read at the Royal Society, and afterwards published in the Philofophical Tranfaétions for 1754. In this letter Mr. Coftard ftates the ages of Homer and Hefiod much lower than the ordinary computations. He endeavours to make it appear, from aftronomical obfervations, that Homer and Heliod both probably lived about the year before Chrift 580, which is three centuries later than the computa tion of Sir Ifaac Newton, and more than four later than that of Petavius. In 1755, he wrote a letter to Dr. Birch, which is preferved in the Britifh Museum, refpecting the meaning of the phrafe "Sphera Barbarica." Some time after this he undertook to publifh a fecond edition of Dr. Hyde's "Hiftoria Religionis veterum Perfarum eorumque Magorum;" which was accordingly printed under his infpection, and with his corrections, at the Clarendon prefs, at Oxford, in 4to, 1760. In 1764, he published, in 410, "The Ute of Aftronomy in Hiftory and Chronology, exemplified in an Enquiry into the Fall of the Stone into the gofpotamos, faid to be foretold by Anaxagoras;" in which is attempted to be fhewn, that Anaxagoras da not foretel the fall of that ftone, but the folar eclipfe in the first year of the Peloponnelian war; that what he faw was |