muft, in a great measure, be afcribed to its being introduced into the church as an univerfal hymn-book for the use of perfons whofe fentiments, ideas, and circumftances, have not the leaft coincidence with thofe of the royal poet: a whole congregation unites in finging all the pfalms of David without diftinction, as if every member of it had wandered with this king among the mountains of Judea, and been perfecuted by Saul: they utter imprecations against Doeg and Ahithophel, and cure the Edomites and Moabites; nay, what is worse, they put these curfes into the mouth of him who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, who, when he fuffered, threatened not. Instead of endeavouring to vindicate thefe imprecations, as many divines have attempted to do, M. HERDER juftly obferves, that they ought to be confidered as defects in David's perfonal character, for which, however, his peculiar circumftances plead fome excufe; we ought to confider his particular feelings, as an injured man, and as a foldier, as a fugitive, and as a king. With all the good, he had alfo many of the bad, qualities, ufually accompanying a warm temper; his paffions were ftrong, and his refentments were violent; befide, it fhould be remembered that he often fpeaks, not fo much in his own name, as in that of his people; not in his perfonal, fo much as in his national and political, character. ་ In his furvey of David as the Pfalmift, M. HERDER judiciously reminds the reader of his peculiar character and dignity, as the Viceroy of Jehovah, the God of his nation. These circumftances give a fpiritual and religious turn to his expreffions, even when he speaks of fecular fubjects. He fat as the anointed 1 of the Lord on his holy hill of Zion; in adminiftering juftice and judgment, he was the prieft of God; in maintaining the national laws, he was the fervant of the Moft High; and, in common with the meaneft Ifraelite, was the fubject of the King of Kings. These peculiar relations to the Deity, and the confcioufnels that his kingdom was under the direction of a particular providence, rendered it perfectly proper and natural for him to use expreffions, which, in a perfon differently circumftanced, would look like the affected boaftings of enthufiafm. The moral pfalms of Afaph are, in our author's opinion, preferable to thofe of David; for as his affections were lefs ardent, he is much more difpaffionate and philofophical. In fhort, M. HERDER confiders the Pfalms as national poems, defigned to express the particular relation in which both the people and their monarch food to Jehovah, as the peculiar God of Ifrael; and he does not admit of those prophetic allufions to the Meffiah which, many think, lie concealed in the paffages, but which, in a primary fenfe, related to David. The fecond Pfalm, for inftance, he afferts, refers entirely to David, who, as King of APP. REV. VOL, LXXX. U u Ifrael, Ifrael, is faid to be anointed by God, as his fon or viceroy, his holy hill of Zion. This paffage is indeed quoted in New Teftament, but it is applied to Chrift by the apof: exactly in the fame fenfe with that in which David wrote: concerning himself; and, to speak of Kings as the fons of Ga was a common figure in Eaftern poetry. In the twelfth and laft differtation, M. HERDER accounts f the frequent references to David and Solomon, in the writing of the prophets. The defection of the ten tribes in the reign Rehoboam, and the fubfequent circumftances of the kinge of Judah, feemed not to correfpond with the divine predictio and promises in favour of the family of David. Yet to the promifes, the prophets, whom God raised up, naturally look. for confolation amid the diftreffes of their country; and a the ftate of this family was not then fuch as juftified a hope that these predictions would be foon fulfilled; their inplicit confidence in the unchangeable word of God, togeth with the immediate revelations with which they were favoure.. directed their views to a future branch of this illuftrious fler. to which they applied the promises that had been made to Das. by the Deity. In predicting the happinefs of the Meffia: kingdom, it was natural for the prophets to make freque allufions to the reigns of David and Solomon, because these wer the only kings, under whom the Jews had enjoyed any thi like national grandeur and profperity, which, they thought, wa referved for them. The ingenious author has promifed another volume on thi interefting fubject. ART. XXI. Sow, Nouveaux Mémoires de l'Academie Royale, &c. i. e. New Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres of Berlin, for the Year 1785. 4to. 509 Pages. Berlin. 1787. TH HISTORY OF THE ACADEMY. HIS part of the work begins with extracts of letters from feveral aftronomers to M. BERNOULLI, containing obfer vations on the tranfit of Mercury, May 3d, 1786 *; of HERS CHEL's planet, and of eclipfes of Jupiter's fatellites; with view to ascertain the mean motion of these planets. As these articles are not fufceptible of abridgment, we shall refer the reader to the Memoirs at large. In medicine, we find an analyfis of a memoir, concerning the Hydrops uteri et Ovarii, prefented to the Academy by M. Jac For Mr. Edward Pigot's obfervations, which are here given, fee Review, vol. lxxvi. p. 119. QUINELLE, QUINELLE, Surgeon-major of the regiment of Agenois, at Weiffemburg, in Alface. From the account here given, this memoir does not appear to contain any new obfervations; but the author is praised for his diligence in collecting, from ancient and modern writers, fuch information as may explain and illuftrate the nature of thefe dreadful maladies. Under the article of Jurifprudence, are fome remarks, by M. ANIERES, on the prize problem propofed by Count Windifchgrätz; for the terms and conditions of which, fee Review, vol. Ixxviii. p. 494. These remarks tend to fhew the improbability of a fatisfactory folution of the problem, and to vindicate the Academy in declining the Count's propofal of adjudging the I prize. Under the title of Hiftory, Profeffor WEGUELIN gives an account of a Hiftory of France, undertaken by the Abbé SOULAVIE, of which nine volumes were prefented to the Academy; eight of thefe contain the natural hiftory, and the ninth, an introduction to the political hiftory, of this monarchy; in which the Abbé propofes to begin with the ter periods, and thence to proceed, in a retrograde order, up to the earlieft times. We confefs we see not the advantage of this crablike progrefs in hiftory; which, to mention no other inconveniences refulting from it, muft, we think, occafion an anticlimax in the importance of the fubject. The Abbé pleads the example of Mr. Hume, who began his Hiftory of England with the acceffion of the house of Stuart; but Hume tells us, in his life, that this was owing to his being "frightened with the notion of continuing a narrative through a period of feven hundred years." M. SOULAVIE intends to divide his Hiftory into five periods, which will be determined, not fo much by the different races of kings, as by the gradations made in civilization and manners. The laft article of this part of the work relates to a difpute, referred to the decifion of the Academy, between M. NICOLAI, and the Abbé De L'E'PÉE, celebrated for his mode of inftructing the deaf and dumb, which, it seems, had been rather undervalued by the former. We cannot fupprefs our admiration of the Abbé's laborious undertaking, and the fuccefs with which it is crowned. We are here informed that he begins his inftructions, not by endeavouring to form the organs of fpeech to articulate founds, but by communicating ideas to the mind by means of figns and characters to effect this, he writes the names of things, and, by a regular fyftem of figns, eftablishes a connection between these words, and the ideas to be excited by them. After he has thus furnished his pupils with ideas, and a medium of communication, he teaches them to articulate and pronounce, and renders them not only grammarians, but logicians. In this manner, he has enabled one of his pupils to deliver a Latin ora U u 2 tion tion in public, and another to defend a thefis against the ob tions of one of his fellow-pupils in a fcholaftic difputation; which the arguments of each were communicated to the otte but whether by figns, or in writing, is not faid; for it does appear that the Abbé teaches his pupils to difcern what is spoke by obferving the motion of the organs of fpeech, which the inftructed by Meffrs. Braidwoods are able to do with astonish readiness. There is, perhaps, no word, fays the Abbé, more difficult explain by figns, than the verb croire, to believe. To do th he writes the verb with its fignifications, in the follow manner: Je crois Je dis oui par l'efprit, Je pense que oui. Je dis oui par le coeur, J'aime à penfer que oui. Je ne vois pas des yeux. After teaching these four fignifications, which he does by 2 many figns, he connects them with the verb, and adds othe figns to exprefs the number, perfon, tenfe, and mood, in whic it is ufed. If to the four figns, correfponding with the lin above mentioned, be added that of a fubftantive, the pupil w write the word foi, faith; but, if a fign, indicating a partic ufed fubftantively, be adjoined, he will exprefs la croyance, be lief; to make him write croyable, credible, the four figns of t verb must be accompanied with one, that indicates an adjecti terminating in able; all these signs are rapidly made, and imm‹diately comprehended. M. LINGUET having afferted that perfons, thus inftructed. could be confidered as little more than automata, the Abbé invited him to be prefent at his leffons, and expreffed his aftonif ment that M. LINGUET fhould be fo prejudiced in favour of the medium, by which he had received the first rudiments of knowJege, as to conclude that they could not be imparted by any other; defiring him, at the fame time, to reflect that the connexion be tween ideas and the articulate founds, by which they are excited in the mind, is not lefs arbitrary, than that between these idea and the written characters, which are made to represent them to the eye. M. LINGUET complied with the invitation; and, the Abbé having defired him to fix on fome abftract term, which he would, by figns, communicate to his pupils, he chofe the word unintelligibility, which, to his aftonishment, was almoft inflantly written by one of them. The Abbé informed him that, to communicate this word, he had ufed five figns, which, though scarcely perceivable to him, were immediately and diftinctly apprehended by his fcholars: the firft of thefe figns indicated an internal action; the fecond reprefented the act of a mind that reads internally, or, in other words, comprehends what is propofed to o it; a third fignified that fuch a difpofition is poffible; thefe, aken together, form the word intelligible: a fourth fign tranforms the adjective into the fubftantive, and a fifth, expreffing egation, completes the word required. M. LINGUET afterward proposed this question, "What do you understand by meaphyfical ideas?" which, being committed to writing, a young ady immediately anfwered on paper in the following terms, I understand the ideas of things which are independent of our enfes, which are beyond the reach of our fenfes, which make no impreffion on our fenfes, which cannot be perceived by our enfes." On reading this, we cannot help exclaiming with the poet: Labor omnia vincit improbus! a maxim by none more forcibly illuftrated, than by the Abbé DE L'E'PÉE. 6 EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. Memoir I. Experiments performed with a view to determine whether the degree of heat of boiling water be fixed and invariable, independent of every accidental circumstance, except the pressure of the atmosphere. By M. ACHARD. It has been generally fuppofed, that water and all other homogeneous fluids, when boiling, have acquired the greateft degree of heat which they can receive, provided the denfity of the atmosphere remains unaltered: for, if this be increased, it is known that boiling water becomes capable of a greater, and, if diminished, a lefs degree of heat. In order to examine how far this opinion is well founded, M. ACHARD tried the experiments here related, which, for the fake of greater accuracy, were all made with diftilled water. From these trials, it appears that, of water boiling in a brafs veffel, the heat, as expreffed by the thermometer, is confiderably diminished when a current of external air is permitted to act, either on the fides of the veffel, or on the furface of the water contained in it; and that this degree of heat, fo far from being fixed, undergoes an immediate change from the leaft motion of the air; and is varied in proportion to the force with which the air acts on it. But, of water boiling in a glafs veffel, the heat is fixed, and remains unaltered during the whole time of ebuilition, without being affected by a current of air, even when fuffered to act on the furface of the fluid. Hence M. ACHARD infers, that metals more eafily part with their heat than glass, and tranfmit it more readily to thofe bodies, which have lefs: this fact is confirmed by another experiment, in which the end of a fmall iron bar was immerfed in water boiling in a glafs a veffel, by which it was fo much deprived of heat, that the ebullition ceafed, but foon recommenced; and the mercury in the thermometer, fufpended in the veffel, rofe again to its former height: on blowing against that end of the bar, which was above the furface of the water, the mercury fell 1-20th of a Uu3 degree |