(24.) "The Hand-Book of Household Science. A Popular Account of Heat, Light, Air, Aliment, and Cleansing, in their Scientific Principles and Domestic Applications. With numerous Diagrams. By EDWARD L. YOUMANS, Author of the 'Class-book of Chemistry,' Chemical Atlas,' and Chart of Alcohol and the Constitution of Man.'" (12mo., pp. 447. New-York: Appleton & Co., 1857.) Professor Youmans has a special genius for inventing educational means and methods, and for bringing science into successful contact with the practical operations of life. The book before us is a very successful effort in the latter of these two departments. It has the systematic method and lucidus ordo of science, with much of the freedom and ease of popular discourse. There is much which any can understand and all should know. It will be a valuable manual for the academic teacher, and may well be recommended to general popular perusal, as containing the last results of research contributed to the benefit of life. VI.-Belles-Lettres. (25.) “The Poets of the Nineteenth Century. Selected and edited by the Rev. ARIS WILMOTT, Incumbent of Bearwood. With English and American Additions, arranged by EVERT A. DUYKINCK, editor of the Cyclopedia of American Literature. Illustrated with one hundred and thirty-two engravings, drawn by eminent artists." (4to., pp. 616. New-York: Harper & Brothers, 1857.) A gorgeous annual! The finest and latest gems of literature in a congenial casket. Munificent art has done her fitting homage to genius, to furnish an appropriate tribute to friendship. VII-Miscellaneous. The following works our space does not allow us to give a full notice: (26.) "Life Studies; or, How to Live. By Rev. JOHN BAILLIE." (18mo., pp. 108. New-York: Carter & Brothers, 1857.) (27.) "Lectures on Temperance, by ELIPHALET NOTT, D.D., President of Union College. With an Introduction by TAYLER LEWIS, LL. D." pp. 341. New-York: Sheldon, Blakeman, & Co., 1857.) (12mo., (28.) "The Northwest Coast; or, Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory. By JAMES G. SWAN. With numerous Illustrations." (12mo., pp. 435. New-York: Harper & Brothers, 1857.) (29.) "Hand-Books of Improvement, comprising How to Write, How to Behave, How to Talk, How to do Business. Complete in one volume." (12mo. New-York: Fowler & Wells, 1857.) Of the following, a notice may be expected in our next number: (30.) "The Convert; or, Leaves from my Experience. By O. A. BROWNSON." (12mo., pp. 450. New-York: Edward Dunigan & Brother, 1857.) (31.) "Aspirations of Nature. (12mo., pp. 360. the Soul."" way, 1857.) By J. T. HECKER, author of 'Questions of (32.) "Plenary Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. By ELEAZAR LORD." (12mo., pp. 312. New-York: M. W. Dodd, 1857.) VIII.-Periodicals. (33.) "The Phonetic Journal, (weekly,) devoted to the Propagation of Phonetic Reading, Writing, and Printing. By ISAAC PITMAN, Bath, England." We are in the regular receipt of this, the organ of the phonetic reforms of Pitman, the ingenious inventor of Phonography and Phonotypy. We have seen articles written in our standard periodicals upon phonography, which showed that the writers did not know what phonography was, nor its differences from phonotypy. Phonography is the most perfect of short-hand; expansible enough to be safely used for a correspondence or a legal document; contractible enough to keep pace with the most rapid speaker. Phonotypy is a reformed orthography, by which there becomes but one possible mode of spelling a word. All the difficulty of learning our written language by foreigners or children, and all danger of misspelling, are by this method ended. Phonography will in time supersede all other stenography, and phonotypy ought to supersede all other orthography. (34.) "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review. Conducted by FREEMAN HUNT. Published Monthly. Vol. 37, No. 5, November, 1857." (New-York: Freeman Hunt, No. 142 Fulton-street.) Mr. Hunt's Magazine is a permanent as well as a peculiar institution. Its attainment to a thirtyseventh volume proves that there is a demand for it, and that it very ably supplies the demand. It abounds with mercantile essays and articles of the highest value. ART. XI.-LITERARY ITEMS. Or Mr. Rigg's work on Modern Anglican Theology, the Clerical Journal (Eng.) says: "Perhaps nowhere else can be found more discriminating estimates of the characters and writings of Hare, Maurice, Kingsley, and Jowett, both in relation to general theology and to the Church of England." The British Standard says: "It may be doubted whether any other man in Great Britain has so complete and strong a grasp of the entire theme." Our American Bibliotheca Sacra calls it "A small book, of greater pretense than performance." T. & J. Clark of Edinburgh are publishing a translation of John Albert Bengel's valuable Gnomon of the New Testament. Essays on the Accordance of Christianity with the Nature of Man, by Edward Fry, are noticed by critics with high commendation. An experiment has been completed to test the validity of the methods of deciphering Assyrian inscriptions, by placing in the hands of four independent translators a single document, namely, the inscription of Tiglath Pileser I., King of Assyria, B. C. 1150. The translations have been published, and are considered as establishing in the main the valuation of the character of these inscriptions, and the scientific character of the method. The general sense of the translations is similar, with plentiful and essential variation in the details. Rawlinson's translation is as follows: "Bit-Khamri, the temple of my lord Vul, which Shansi-Vul, high-priest of Ashur, son of Ismi-Dagan, high-priest of Ashur, had founded, became ruined. I leveled its site, and from its foundation to its roofs I built it up of brick; I enlarged it beyond its former state, and I adorned it. Inside of it I sacrificed precious victims to my lord Vul." The Prophecies relating to Nineveh and the Assyrians. Translated from the Hebrew, with Historical Introduction and Notes, exhibiting the principal Results of the recent Discoveries. By George Vance Smith, B. A. The Book of Jonah, illustrated by Discoveries at Nineveh. By Rev. P. S. Desprez, B. D. London, 1857. These two works are considered as interesting, but somewhat premature in the attempt to make abundant and safe illustrative use of the recent developments. Chevalier Bunsen is engaged in a new translation of the Bible into German. The work will consist of seven volumes. It will be divided into three sections, and the last section will be entitled, Bible and World History; or, the Life of Jesus, and the Everlasting Kingdom of God. The Lectures of Sir William Hamilton, embracing his Metaphysical and Logical Courses, with Notes from the original materials, and appendix containing the author's latest development of his Logical Theory, is in process of publication by Messrs. Blackwood of Edinburgh. They are to be published in four octavo volumes, under the editorial care of Rev. H. L. Mansel, Oxford, and John Veitch, Edinburgh. The article in the London Quarterly on Philosophy Old and New, which was republished in the Eclectic of this country, was written, as we learn, by Richard Watson Dixon, son of the late delegate to our General Conference, and late a graduate of Oxford. Herodotus, a new version, from the text of Gaisford, with Illustrative Appendices, founded upon recent Historical and Ethnographical discoveries, obtained in the progress of the Cuneiform and Hierological developments, by Rev. George Rawlinson, assisted by Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir G. J. Wilkinson, is in the press of Murray. A History of the Life and Times of Edmund Burke, by Thomas M'Knight, author of the Biography of D'Israeli, by the same publisher. A work on The Light of Nature, by Nathaniel Culverwell, with a Critical Essay on the work by John Cairns, M.A., is just published by Constable & Co. The Romish paper, the Tablet, in discoursing on the future of the Romish Church in the United States, says: "Few insurance companies, we venture to assert, would take a risk on the national life of a creed which puts five hundred daily into the grave for one it wins over to its communion. And yet this is what Catholicity is doing in these States while we write." Smith's Harmony of the Dispensations, from the press of Carlton & Porter, is just issued, and will be noticed in our next number. THE METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW. APRIL, 1858. ART. I.-FRIAR BACON AND LORD BACON. [SECOND ARTICLE.] 1. Lord Bacon's Essays, Apophthegms, Wisdom of the Ancients, New Atlantis, and Henry VII; with Introductory Dissertations and Notes, by J. DEVEY, M. A. London: H. G. Bohn. 1 vol. 12mo. 2. The Entire Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England. A new Edition, revised and elucidated; and enlarged by the addition of many pieces not printed before. Collected and edited by ROBERT LESLIE ELLIS, M. A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; JAMES SPEDDING, M. A., of Trinity College, Cambridge; and DOUGLAS DENON HEATH, Esq., Barrister at Law, and late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans. [Announced in Oct., 1848.] WE have been anxious to introduce the evidences which justify the suspicion of Francis Bacon's obligations to Roger so gradually that they may prepare the way for more conclusive testimonies, and give to the whole array a cumulative effect. Francis Bacon was a man of wonderful and versatile powers of mind, and of vast genius. Tact, sagacity, ingenuity, depth, eloquence, and facility of expression he possessed in the highest degree. After all possible deductions are made from his reputation, he will still remain a great man, a great reformer, a great philosopher. If such a man stooped to plagiarism, or the semblance of plagiarism, he would carefully conceal all traces of the source to which he was indebted. It is, consequently, a difficult as well as a delicate task to demonstrate the suspected crime, and to catch the criminal flagrante delicto; and, however strong the direct testimony may be, it will be scarcely credited, unless the evidence is sustained by previous indications, and the combined significance of the separate testimonies is duly appreciated. FOURTH SERIES, VOL. X.-12 It may be that everything hitherto advanced is insufficient to prove that the later philosopher was indebted to his predecessor. If this constituted the entire proof, it might be represented as too slight to sustain any definite conclusion, though, in our opinion, it would sanction a very strong suspicion of such obligations. When, however, this is confirmed by such coincidences as could not be accidental, and which, nevertheless, are essential characteristics of each author, these acquire additional strength themselves, and prepare us for a more correct and prompt estimation of the relations of the parties. Will any casual agreement explain the fact that both allege the same four impediments to correct knowledge? Roger Bacon declares that "there are four principal obstacles to the discovery of truth, which embarrass every one in the pursuit of knowledge, and scarcely permit any to attain true wisdom; namely, the example of frail and inadequate authority; length of custom or habit; the belief of the untrained multitude; and the concealment of one's own ignorance with the pretension to apparent learning."* It is stated by Brucker,† that Roger Bacon wrote an essay "On the Four Universal Causes of Human Ignorance." This must have been the work entitled in Jebb's catalogue, De Causis Ignorantiæ Humanæ, and which that learned editor, as already observed, regards as contained in the First Book of the Opus Majus. If, however, it was a separate work, the means are not accessible to us of determining the fact, or consulting its pages. We must content ourselves with what is before us, but that suffices to demonstrate that Roger Bacon reduced the chief impediments to the apprehension of truth to four, to wit, authority, habit, popular opinion, and vain ostentation. Is it an accident that Lord Bacon agrees so completely with Roger Bacon in declaring that "four species of idols beset the human mind; to which, for distinction's sake, we have assigned names; calling the first, Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Den; the third, Idols of the Market; the fourth, Idols of the Theater?" The designations are Lord Bacon's, and are glaring instances of that constant affectation of quaint and novel technicalities, which was peculiar to his style. But the division itself is Roger Bacon's. If the developments of these general fallacies by each author are carefully compared together, it will be apparent that the Idols of the Theater correspond with the fallacies proceeding from undue reverence for authority; the Idols of the Market with those occasioned by vulgar Opus Majus, Pars I, cap. i, pp. 1, 2. † Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil., tom. III, p. 822. |