penerated them, as it escapes from them, the heat of every body would be equal to that of the neighbouring ones; but fluids, he fuppofes, though they readily admit the particles of fire, ftill more readily part with them. When fire enters into a

liquid, he conceives that it pushes its particles from without, inwards; in which action it meets with refiftance, much greater than that which it fuftains on leaving the fluid, when it acts on the extreme particles, or thofe on the furface, in a direction from within, outwards, carrying fome of them off along with it. Every liquor therefore, he adds, that evaporates, ought to be cooler than the furrounding air; and this, in proportion to the rarity of the air, and the extent of its surface in contact with that of the fluid. Accordingly a very volatile liquor, placed under a receiver, in which the air has been greatly rarified, and expanded over the furface of a piece of linen wetted with it, is in the most favourable fituation for the production of artificial cold,

We fhall take our leave of this ingenious performance by oba ferving that, after all the Author's laborious and accurate refearches with refpect to his principal object, or the menfuration of heights by the barometer; it may ftill be thought that there are few perfons who are qualified, or may be inclined to profecute this method, on account of the smallness of the scale, the many minutia to be obferved, the different fources of uncertainty, and other difficulties attending the application of the barometer to this purpose. Thefe difficulties have however in a very great measure been removed by the perfeverance and fagacity of the Author; who firft by improving the barometer itfelf, and afterwards by detecting and afcertaining, by means of the inftrument thus improved, the effects of various causes acting on the atmosphere, and which greatly affect the calculation, has enabled others ftill further to improve and facilitate this method, and to fupply the few defiderata ftill wanting to bring it to perfection. How nearly he has himself approached to it, is evident from numerous examples here given; in many of which the juftice of his calculations was afcertained by actual admeasurement by the line. On the whole it appears that the heights of different ftations, as calculated from that of the barometer, by his formula, have approached fo near to the actual heights, that the greatest differences, and thofe very few in number, do not exceed the one hundreth part of the whole.

In answer to the doubts that may yet be entertained on this head, and to ftimulate future inquirers and obfervers, we fhall conclude with a quotation from the Author, immediately relating to this fubject.

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• When

When I fee,' fays M. de Luc, the aftronomer in his obfer. vatory attempting to measure the distance of the stars, by comparing them with the minute, and almost imperceptible divifions of his inftruments; viewing them, at the fame time, through a medium that varioufly refracts the rays of light:When I fee the geographer determining the pofition of places on the earth's furface, merely by that of his telescope fixed to the limb of his quadrant, and by a pendulum;-I do not hefitate to offer the small scales of the barometer and thermometer, as fit measures of acceffible heights. But at the fame time, I appeal to the geographer and aftronomer, whether they have perfected their respective arts at once; and whether the exactnefs of the mathematician would have been of much service to them, had not his labours been feconded by thofe of the artist and the obferver.'

ART. X.

B.

Explication de quelques Medailles, &c.-An Explanation of certain Greek and Phenician Medals. By M. L. Dutens, Quarto. London. Thane. 1773.

ART. XI.

Explication, &c.-An Explanation of fome Phenician Medals, in the Cabinet of M. Duane. By M. L. Dutens. Quarto. London. Thane. 1774.

TH

HOUGH we have of late been repeatedly tempted, and have as often taken occafion, to treat certain elaborate and folemn difcuffions of matters relating to antiquity, with an air of levity, feemingly ill fuited to the gravity of the fubject; yet we are very ready to declare that we refpect every flip and corner of the extenfive fields of fcience and literature too highly, to involve all thofe, whofe lot or choice it may be to cultivate even the most barren spots of either, in one indifcriminate cenfure. When the inveftigation of antient coins, or other monuments of antiquity, tends to the discovery of new facts that have the leaft claim to fignificance;-when it leads to the elucidation of an obfcure or contraverted point of hiftory; when it points out the progrefs, ftate, and declenfion of the arts among a people ;-in fhort, whenever it gratifies a laudable curiofity, or contributes in any degree to the advancement of any branch of useful, or even ornamental knowledge-it is in no danger of incurring our animadverfion or ridicule provided nevertheless, that fuch ridicule is not extorted from us, by circumstances of a rifible quality, the operation of which it is impoffible for all the phlegm even of a reviewer to refift.

M. Dutens, our readers may recollect, is the Author of an ingenious work, in which he endeavoured to fupport the pri

ority

ority and pre eminence of the antients in fcience, and which was particularly noticed in a former volume of our review *. The medals of which he here treats, conftitute part of a collection made by him in different parts of Europe, and, excepting two or three, have never yet been published. The first of thefe performances contains the figures and explanations of near thirty Greek and Phenician medals; fome of which, particularly a few of the first class, are fingularly beautiful. Among these there are fome that evince, not only that the Sicilian artists excelled all others in the delicacy and elegance of their workmanship,-which is a point generally acknow ledged; but likewife, as the Author obferves, that the arts flourished in the highest degree in Sicily, near 200 years before they arrived at perfection in Greece.

In proof of this obfervation, it here appears that there are medals of Gelon, who reigned at Syracufe about 500 years before J. C. that are fuperior, both with respect to taste and execution, to thofe which the Greeks produced above 150 years afterwards, even in the cities where the arts were most highly cultivated. Fifty or fixty years before the time of Gelon, the arts in Greece, M. Dutens remarks, were in a ftate of downright barbarifm. Pliny, as he elsewhere obferves, names two fculptors at Crete, in the year 560, before our æra, who were the firft that worked on marble; their predeceffors having hitherto exercised their art only upon wood. From this circumftance, a fair inference may be drawn with refpect to the art of engraving; as these two arts are congenial, and have conftantly kept pace with each other.

On the fubject of his attempts to explain the Phenician medals in this collection, the Author previously obferves, that a conftant application during twenty years to the study of the Hebrew language, had induced him to hope that he might con quer fome of the difficulties attending the elucidation of thefe coins. On his first entrance on this part of the medallic fcience, he was surprised to find rather conjectures than rules, more doubts than certainties, more of empiricifm than of science.' By what other title, he adds, can we more properly characterise the writing of poems in a language t, if we may give it that hame, with the very alphabet of which we are unacquainted? It is indeed ludicrous to reflect, with the Author, on the difputes carried concerning the fenfe of certain paffages, which are faid not to be conformable to the genius of the

See Appendix to our 35th Volume, 1766, page 544.

+ M. Dutens alludes to certain Phenician poems, manufactured at Oxford. See Pietas Univerfitatis, and the Carmen Phenicium, in the Epithalamia Oxonienfia, printed in 1761.

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Phenician

Phenician language:'-for, it seems, those who are the best judges of this matter know very well that, instead of underftanding all the fineffes of the Phenician tongue, we scarce know fifty words belonging to it, a few proper names excepted. The learned, M. Dutens obferves, are not agreed even as to the power of fome of the Punic letters; and fuppofing that dif ficulty got over, and that they have reduced them to the titles of the correspondent Hebrew characters; they have no other method of interpreting the words in this language, than by giving them the fignification which they bear in the Hebrew and Samaritan tongues. The Carmen Phenicium above referred to, confirm this obfervation: and yet we fee fome of your more fuperb Punic antiquarians, who are themselves wandering in this dark labyrinth, stalking along with as much stateliness, and divarication of the legs; and infulting their fellow-wanderers with as much confidence, as if they alone had a clue to direc their ftrides through it!

To enable future adventurers to grope their way with more fecurity through these intricate paffes, M. Dutens has given a plate containing the various forms of the Phenician, Punic, and Siculo-Punic characters that occur on coins, together with the titles of the corresponding elements in the Hebrew tongue, The Punic alphabets which the Abbé Barthelemy has published, have not been intirely acquiefced in by Mr. Swinton; who, on the other hand, has published others, which, in their turn, have not been universally adopted: nor does even his own alphabet, as we are here told, which he published in 1764, agree with that which he gave in 1750. This of M. Duten's has the me rit of being formed on more certain principles; as no characters are admitted into it, the powers of which have not been generally or univerfally acknowledged in the explication of legends, and acquiefced in by all parties. So far as it goes there fore it may be abfolutely confided in,

The fecond of these performances contains 22 Phenician medals, in the collection of M. Duane; the fubjects and legends of which the Author endeavours to explain in a conife and unaffected manner. His explications and conjectures will, we apprehend, be acceptable to thofe who choose to amuse themselves in this harmless, and occasionally instructive branch of antient erudition

B.

ART.

ART. XII.

Quatrieme Lettre a Monfieur de Voltaire, par M. Clement. M. Clements's fourth Letter to Voltaire. Quavo, Paris. 1773

IN our we gave a vaccine, and we Clement's

N our laft Appendix we gave an account of M. Clement's

our readers that the fourth is not inferior to any of the preceding. It is written with great fpirit, and in a ery entertaining manner. The Author thews himself to be a man of good tafte, and an excellent critic, though fometimes, perhaps, a little too fevere. The fondeft admirers of Voltaire, however, if they have any pretenfions to candor, and are not strangely prejudiced indeed, muft allow that most of Monf. Clement's criticisms in the letter now before us are extremely just and pertinent.

What he proposes, is to vindicate the literary characters of· Fontaine and Boileau, and to examine what Voltaire has faid of them in his Siecle de Louis XIV. and his other writings. He begins with Fontaine, of whom Voltaire, after speaking of Corneille, Boffuet, Moliere, &c. fays, (Siecle de Louis XIV. Chapitre des Beaux Arts) qu'il se mit prefqu'à côté de ces hommes sublimes. He afterwards affirms that Quinault delerves to be ranked with his illuftrious cotemporaries, fo that poor Fontaine is thrust down to a lower rank than Quinault, ce qui est, peutêtre, fays our Author very justly, le jugement le plus honteux pour us bamme de gost.

Voltaire in his catalogue of Authors in the age of Lewis the XIV. tells us, that Fontaine is often negligent, and unequal; that his works are replete with grammatical errors; that he has even frequently corrupted the French language, that he finks too often into the familiar, the low, the trivial, &c. and he endeavours to support thefe affertions by examples.

M. Clement examines the feveral parts of this charge at full length, and vindicates. Fontaine in a very ingenious, and to us, a very fatisfactory.manner. He fhews that Fontaine, instead of corrupting the French language, has enriched it with a great variety of bold and nervous expreffions, and he produces many beautiful and friking paffages from his works in support of what he advances,

As to the familiar, the low, the trivial, &c. which are charged upon Fontaine, our Author gives us much stronger examples of them in Voltaire's own writings, than any that are to be found in Fontaine's. Thefe examples too are taken not from the productions of Voltaire's dotage, but from thofe of his better days, and chiefly from his epiftles to the king of Prussia, in one of which we have the following lines;

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Confervez,