middle between the circle and the oval; and as in his calculations he had considered the oval as a real ellipse, it followed that the only curve, which could bisect the space intercepted between it and the circle, must be another ellipse.

When Kepler thus found that the distances, given by his oval theory, fell as much short of the observed distances as those given by the circular theory had exceeded them, a fortunate accident discovered to him, that the distances used in the circle were the secants of the optical equations in all the different points of excentric anomaly; and that, if instead of these, he should use the different radii to which they were the sccants, such distances would be obtained as should perfectly agree with the distances deduced from observation. But by a mistake committed in their position, that is, in the position of the planet at the time when its distance was supposed to be just, he again failed in his endeavours to obtain just equations; and, whether he employed the circular areas, or the actual sums of the distances, the true anomalies which he considered as correspondent to them were generally false, and sometimes erred more than 5' from the point which the planet really occupied. His distances therefore, though proved by observation to be just, seemed to be inconsistent with the elliptical form ascribed to the orbit: for, in fact, by the positions which he had given them, they represented it as a new kind of oval, going beyond the ellipse in the first and fourth quadrants of anomaly, and retiring within it in the second and third; and only differing from the former in this respect, that it deviated less widely from the circle. Accordingly, when rejecting his distances he returned to the ellipse, it was not from perfect conviction of its being the path in which the planet actually moved, but only because no other prospect seemed to remain of applying the principles he had previously established to the derivation of just equations. But by this step of his procedure, the mistake which he had commited in the position of his distances came to be discovered; and the lines which he had substituted for the secants of the optical equations, instead of being inconsistent with the ellipse in which he had supposed the planet Mars to move, were found to lead to the accurate description of it. His speculations, therefore, concerning the elliptical form of the orbit, received the fullest confirmation; the elliptical areas, and the sums of the correspondent diametral distances, were found to be perfectly equivalent; and the just equations derived from them rendered it unquestionable, that this planet both revolves round the sun in an ellipse, and describes round the focus occupied by the sun, areas of its ellipse proportional to the times. By like experiments it was also found, that the same laws regulated the revolutions of all the other planets; and the three discoveries, that the orbits of all the planets are ellipses, in whose common focus the sun is situated; that they describe round the sun areas of their ellipses proportional to the times; and that the squares of the times of their revolutions are proportional to the cubes of the greater axis of their orbits, or of their mean distances from the sun; are justly to be considered as the most important ever made in astronomy. They were, indeed, the founda. tions of the whole theory of Newton; and it will not perhaps be

thought

thought an unjust conclusion from the consideration of them, that no person, in any age, ever soared higher than Kepler, above the common elevation of his contemporaries.'

That we think highly of this volume may in some degree be inferred from the length of the article: but inference is not sufficient; in plain terms, we are of opinion that Dr. Small has laid the public under much obligation, and has added to his own fame, by the present performance. He seems to have studied the subject with great attention,-to have slurred nothing over, and he is accurate both in principle and in detail. The reader is made an associate of Kepler's labours, and a participator of his triumphs and disappointments. He views the difficulties with which that philosopher was fated to contend, the low state of science, the prejudices of the times, and antient systems which, if false, were yet the fruit of time, of labour, of ingenuity, and were sanctioned by authority. Placed near the German philosopher, 'those who contemplate this history view the cause and the necessity of his immense labours; they must admire his perseverance and activity, even in the excursions which led him astray from the true object of search; and they must sympathize with him in his dubious wanderings, in his mental perturbations, in the wreck of some of the dearest of his hopes, and in the endurance of that fatigue which it was necessary to sustain before the true system could be founded. Tanta molis erat!

Kepler, indeed, possessed great patience and perseverance, but not the patience and perseverance of a mere plodding mathematician: he was sagacious and inventive; in his suggestions and hypotheses, he was fanciful and excentric, but bold and daring: he often attempted to mount from effects to their causes, and to place himself at the fountain-head of the universe: in fine, he was a philosopher by temper and nature, a geometrician by necessity and from convenience. Nothing was too arduous for him, and nothing ever dismayed him: repeatedly foiled and thrown down, he rose with fresh vigor, and enjoyed (according to his own confession) a hard-won victory: "Sed tamen jucundior est victoria, quæ parta erat cum periculo; et nitidior ex nubibus sol exit: Attende, igitur, lector, ad pericula nostra militia," &c. Arg. Cap. Comm. de Motubus Stella Martis. When we consider his discoveries in their history and importance, we find ourselves compelled to join in Dr. Small's concluding remark, as above quoted, that no person, in any age, ever soared higher than Kepler, above the common elevation of his contemporaries.'

R.W.

ART.

ART. IV. The Works of the Right Honourable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Including her Correspondence, Poems, and Essays. Published by Permission, from her genuine Papers. Crown 8vo. 5 Vols. 21. Boards. R. Phillips. 1803.

T

HE title of the English Sevigné has generally been given to the fair author of these well-known Letters, and we now find that this was a rank in reputation which she seems to have anticipated. Writing, in 1724, to the Countess of Mar, Lady Mary says, The last pleasure that fell in my way was Madame Sevigne's Letters; very pretty they are, but I assert, without the least vanity, that mine will be full as entertaining forty years hence.' It is remarkable that, about forty years after this period, a surreptitious edition of some of her letters issued from the press; and the avidity, with which they were read, proved that she did not over-rate her epistolary talents. In addition to the ease and vivacity which delight the readers of Sevigné, our fair and noble countrywoman displays a mind improved by literature, an extensive observation of mankind, and a judgment matured by habits of reflection. If the world was captivated by the edition of her Letters published in 3 Vols. in 1763 (of which an account was given by us in M. Rev. Vol. xxviii. p. 384.) what pleasure may it not reasonably expect from the present work? It was not generally doubted that the Letters of Lady M-y W-y M-u, formerly printed, really proceeded from the pen of Lady Mary: but they came "in such a questionable shape," that, notwithstanding they bore all the internal remarks of authenticity, they were not perused with complete satisfaction. The manner in which the copy was obtained was not told; and we are obliged to the present editor, Mr. Dallaway, for dissipating the cloud which hung on that transaction. This gentleman informs us that

In the later periods of Lady Mary's life, she employed her leisure in collecting the copies of the letters she had written during Mr. Wortley's embassy, and had transcribed them herself, in two small volumes in quarto. They were without doubt sometimes shewn to her literary friends. Upon her return to England for the last time, in 1761, she gave these books to Mr. Sowden, a clergyman at Rotterdam, and wrote the subjoined memorandum on the cover of one of them. "These two volumes are given to the Reverend Benjamin Sowden, minister at Rotterdam, to be disposed of as he thinks proper. This is the will and design of M. WORTLEY MONTAGU, December 11, 1-61.”

After her death, the late Earl of Bute comissioned a gentleman to procure them, and to offer Mr. Sowden a considerable remuneration, which he accepted. Much to the surprise of that nobleman and Lady Bute, the manuscripts were scarcely safe in England when three volumes of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters were published

by

by Beckett; and it has since appeared, that Mr. Cleland was the Editor. The same gentleman, who had negotiated before, was again dispatched to Holland, and could gain no farther intelligence from Mr Sowden, than that a short time before he parted with the MSS. two English gentlemen called on him to see the Letters, and obtained their request. They had previously contrived, that Mr. Sowden should be called away during their perusal, and he found on his return that they had disappeared with the books. Their residence was unknown to him, but on the next day they brought back the precious deposit, with many apologies. It may be fairly presumed, that the intervening night was consumed in copying these Letters by several amanuenses. Another copy of them, but not in her own handwriting, Lady Mary had given to Mr. Molesworth, which is now in the possession of the Marquis of Bute. Both in the original MS. and the last-mentioned transcript, the preface, printed by Beckett, is inserted, purported to have been written in 1728, by a lady of quality, and signed M. A.'

Though it may hence be inferred that Lady Mary had meditated the publication of a part at least of her correspondence, and that she had given the MS. to Mr. Sowden with this view, yet it is evident that the Letters which appeared in 1763 were not printed with the consent of any of her family. The volumes now before us may be considered as the only genuine edition of her Ladyship's works; into which, the respectable editor assures us, no letter, essay, or poem has been admitted, the original manuscript of which is not at this time extant, in the possession of her grandson, the Marquis of Bute;' by whose liberal permission, this work has been prepared for the press.

Prefixed to the Letters, are Memoirs of the Author, by the editor; in which the life of this celebrated lady is briefly sketched, and from which we shall abstract the most prominent cir

cumstances.

Lady Mary Pierrepont, afterward Lady M. W. Montagu, the eldest daughter of Evelyn Duke of Kingston and Lady Mary Fielding, (daughter of William Earl of Denbigh,) was born at Thoresby in Nottinghamshire about the year (was there no register of her birth to be found?) 1690. A mother's care she did not long experience: but her father endeavoured to supply the loss; and, encouraged by early indications of uncommon genius, he bestowed on her an education much superior to that which females then received, imbuing her tender mind with classical studies. "Born," as she tells us herself, in one of her letters, "with a passion for learning," and happy in a facility of acquiring language, she improved the uninterrupted leisure and retirement which she enjoyed at Thoresby, and at Acton, (a village not far from London,) by making a rapid proficiency in Greek, Latin, and French. As a proof of this fact, when

she had scarcely attained her 20th year she presented to Bishop Burnet, who had superintended her education, a version of the Enchiridion of Epictetus, accompanied by a sensible letter, inserted in this collection; the merit of which, observes the editor, is not invalidated, even should it be thought that her translation, (of which, in some passages, there is certainly ground for suspicion,) is of the Latin version rather than of the Greek original.'

In Aug. 12, 1712, Lady Mary was married to Edward Wortley Montagu, Esq. the son of her most confidential friend. Mrs. Ann Wortley, after a peculiarly aukward and unpromising correspondence of about two years; a specimen of which we purpose to adduce from this part of the collection of letters. For three years after her inarriage, she lived in retirement at Warncliffe Lodge near Sheffield; while her husband, a man possessed of solid rather than of brilliant parts, attended his duty in parliament. The appointment of Mr. Wortley, in 1714, to be a commissioner of the Treasury, brought Lady Mary from her retirement to town, and occasioned her first appearance at St. James's; which, as Mr. Dallaway remarks, was hailed with that universal admiration which beauty, enlivened by wit, incontestibly claims.' Her personal charms and intellectual accomplishments were attractions not to be resisted. Not confined to the circles of the nobility, she was in habits of familiar acquaintance with Addison, Pope, and other men of genius. In 1716, she accompanied her husband in an Embassy to Constantinople, from which she did not return till 1718; and it was during this period that she wrote those most amusing Letters in 3 Vols. which were published in 1763, containing an account of her travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The accuracy of her descriptions is corroborated by the present editor; who, eighty years afterward, followed nearly the same route over the Continent to the seat of the Turkish Empire, and resided nearly the same space of time which Lady Mary passed in the palace of Pera. The fruit of this tour was the introduction of Inoculation into this country. Finding the practice of ingrafting the small-pox, as it was then termed, to be common in the Turkish dominions, and attended with the most salutary consequences, she applied it to her own son, at that time about three years old; and by her recommendation, it was adopted here with a success which we need not detail.

On the return of Mr. Wortley to England, Lady Mary, at the earnest solicitation of Mr. Pope, fixed her summer resi dence at Twickenham: but, though the letters of Mr. Pope to her ladyship during her husband's embassy to the Levant abound with expressions of the most ardent admiration, and REV. SEPT. 1804.

D

those