-grains; of this three hundred and one, that one hundred grains were earth, and two hundred and 'one grains falt, compofed of about one hundred and eighty-eight or one hundred and eighty-nine grains of a calcareous Glauber falt, and eleven or twelve grains of fea falt,

And Dr. Lucas fays, he got in London in the proportion of three hundred and twenty grains from a gallon, of which about fifty-four grains were earth, fifty-two calcareous, and two ochre; the reft, or two hundred and fixty-fix grains, were falt, of a more hard and confiftent nature, than either of thofe got from Epfom or Cheltenham waters; with a more auftere tafte, and some tendency to the form of alum in its chrystals; of which he fays it will probably be found to partake: but Dr. Short, who had fearched and tried experiments to discover alum, could find no mark of it in them.

• When the humidity is near exhaled, in evaporating this water, Dr. Lucas fays, it appears coloured, even after all the ochreous parts are feparated by filtration, which is from the oily matter, which is only to be feparated by rectified spirit of wine, or by fire. In chryftallization it remains with the bittern,

Dr. Shaw has not mentioned the folid contents of the chalybeate water, but Dr. Short has fupplied in fome measure that defect he tells us that the folid matter of this water is to the vehicle in the proportion of one, to two hundred and feventy four and ; that is, about two hundred and twenty grains to the gallon of water; of this about feventy-seven grains were earth, and about one hundred and forty three a falt; of which about one hundred and thirty-two grains were calcareous Glauber falt, and eleven fea falt.'

This work contains an account of feveral waters not mentioned by any preceding writer: and it would be doing injustice to its merit, not to affirm that it is the completeft and most useful fyftem on the fubject, which has hitherto been offered to the public.

V. The principal Prophecies of the Old and New Teftaments; particularly thofe in the Revelation of St. John; compared and explained. By Samuel Hardy, Rector of Little Blakenham, in Suffolk, and Lecturer of Enfield, in Middlesex. 8vo. Pr. 6s Jewed. Pearch.

Expofitions of the Revelation of St. John, and other prophetical parts of Scripture, refemble the defcriptions which aftronomers have given us of the world in the VOL. XXIX. April, 1779.

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moon. There is a grand and illuftrious object within our view, but the eye of the fpectator is fatigued and confounded by the intermediate fpace. As it ufually happens to perfons, who look with long attention on a profpect where nothing is diftinctly perceived, fome fancy they fee, and others for the credit of being difcoverers pretend to fee, various appearances, which they tell us, are the caverns, the vallies, the feas, or the mountains of the lunar world. These fuppofitions are received according to the esteem of their respective authors, and may serve to amuse the imagination, but in reality, afford no pohtive or fatisfactory information. That celeftial body is yet a terra incognita, a region which no human eye can perfeally explore.

In the fame manner, our theological writers attempt to explain certain dark and myfterious predictions of Scripture ; but when they carry their enquiries into futurity, their inveftigations are confounded, and we are furnished with nothing but empty fpeculations and arbitrary fuppofitions.

The writer, whofe performance we have now before us, is one of these adventurers, who feems, as far as we are able to judge. to have loft himself in the search, and to have advanced a number of ground lefs and improbable conjectures.

The ancient prophets, most of whom lived before the Babylonian captivity, fpeak of that event, and the restoration of the Jews under Zerubbabel, in bold and figurative language, agreeable to the genius of Oriental writers; but our interpre ters, when they come to examine thefe predictions, idly fuppofe, that they relate to fome diftant period, in which they fhall be literally accomplished.-Here then we have a future restoration of the Jews, a new temple, a new Jerufalem, and a multitude of other rabbinical dreams.

In his first and fecond differtation this writer attempts to prove, that the Jews will certainly be converted and restored to their promifed land. He then endeavours to point out the time when, and the manner in which this event is to be accomplished. From divers prophecies in Daniel and St. John, he has made it, he thinks, extremely probable, that, allowing for fome defects in chronology, the Millennium will commence about the year of our Lord, 1971; and that somewhere in the period of forty-five years, immediately preceeding that date, antichrift will make his appearance. Now, fays he, in all probability the first converfion of the Jews will happen long before the commencement of the Millennium; confequently it cannot be very diftant from the present time. There are now, he prefumes, fome of thofe figns which Chrift did fay fhould come; famines for inftance, and earthquakes in divers places.

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As to the latter, he tells us, that we have heard of more within these thirteen or fourteen years, than were ever heard of, in an equal space of time fince the foundation of the world; and he is fully perfuaded that they are forerunners of trouble.' As to the former, fays he, God be thanked we have heard of but few; but almost all Europe has for two or three years felt the hardships of great and unusual scarcity. And with respect to ourselves in particular, if we had not been relieved from abroad we had certainly felt the mischiefs of a famine !'

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In regard to the manner in which the Jews are to be converted, he endeavours to prove, that the conversion of St. Paul was a type of the converfion of his countrymen; and from thence he concludes, that they will be converted in the fame manner that he was, namely by a visible appearance of our Saviour in the clouds, and an audible voice from heaven. adds, that' as our Saviour was feen walking on the water to fuccour his disciples at the end of the fourth watch, that is, at the end of the night, fo we may prefume, that he hereby meant to intimate, that the Jews fhould not be finally delivered from their distress, till the time of his fecond coming was at hand.'Admirable arguments!

In the fifth differtation he attempts to prove, that the Jews will hereafter be idolaters; that, for this caufe, they shall be given into the hands of the Chaldeans, who fhall treat them with unexampled cruelty; that, foon after the time of their captivity fhall be expired, Babylon (a city in Chaldea, which fhall hereafter be called Babylon) fhall be utterly deftroyed.

• When the time of BABYLON is come, the Jews, fays he, fhall be releafed from their captivity-The beast shall receive a deadly wound; but the deadly wound fhall be healed; and then fhall THE BEAST, with ANTICHRIST, make war with the faints and prevail -The Jews, upon their release from BABYLON, fhall fing fongs of triumph, according to that of Isaiah: in that day shall they say, praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted. Sing unto the Lord; for he hath done marvellous things; this is known in all the earth.-These hymns are evidently taken from the 18th, the 98th, and the 105th Pfalms; which I therefore confider as prophefies of the future deliverance of the Jews from BABYLON.—But their joy will be short-lived ;-the beaft that afcendeth out of the bottomless pit, and ANTICHRIST, fhall make war against them, and fhall prevail over them for forty and two months.'

This is part of the plan, for the whole is inexplicable, which our author has contrived for the illuftration of some of the principal prophecies in the Old and New Testament.

We shall not trouble our readers with any remarks upon it; the abfurdities, with which it is attended, are fufficiently obvious we shall only fhew, in one inftance, what little attention he has paid to the language, and exprefs declarations of the facred writers.

Jeremiah fpeaking of the approaching defolation of Jerufalem, in the reign of Zedekiah, fays: because they have forfaken me, faith the Lord, and have burnt incenfe to other gods, I will make this city defolate: I will cause them to eat the flesh of their fons, and their daughters; and they fhall eat every one the flesh of his friend, in the fiege and firaitness wherewith their enemies shåll fraiten them, ch. xix.

'But when, fays our author, or where, I would know,—in what fiege, or at what time was it, that the Jews were so distressed, as to eat the flesh of their fons and of their daughters!—I must not be told here that this calamity was fuffered in the reign of Joram, and when Jerufalem was befieged by Titus.-The calamity in the reign of Joram muft needs be out of the queftion; for that did not happen at Jerufalem :-It was prior also to the prophecy And the fiege by Titus was not fuffered for idolatry. Befides this, neither of thefe cafes will furnish us with more than a fingle infiance in each; and therefore they seem to fail with refpe&t to the degree of mifery foretold. And yet, if we except thefe inftances, neither facred, nor prophane history will furnish us with any others.'—

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Has this writer forgotten the fiege of Jerufalem by Nebu chadnezzar ?—It is to be fuppofed he has not, for he mentions it, two or three pages afterwards; but at the fame time he affures us, that there is no where the least hint, that this prophecy was ever accomplished, that parents ate their children, or that friends devoured each other', and that, confequently, the accomplishment of this prophecy is yet to be expected.

If he will make no allowances for the defcriptive language of an Oriental prophet, he may turn to Lamentations, iv. 10. where he will find this paffage, the hands of the pitiful women bave jodden their own children; they were their meat in destruction of the daughter of my people. In every part of this mournful poem the prophet fpeaks of Jerufalem and the temple, as things deftroyed, laid wafte, and prophaned: these words therefore evidently denote the accomplishment of the foregoing predic tion in the fiege by Nebuchadnezzar.

This treatise may be claffed with that of Rabbi Sahadias, concerning the laft redemption.

VI. Theo

VI. Theocriti Syracufii quæ fuperfunt. Cum Scholiis Græcis Auctioribus, Emendationibus et Animadverfionibus in Scholia Editoris et Joannis Toupii, Gloffis felettis incdits, Indicibus amplif fimis. Præmittitur Editoris Differtatio de Poefi Bucolica Græcorum, cum Vita Theocriti a Jofua Barnefio fcripta, et nonnullis aliis Auttariis. Accedunt Editoris et Variorum Notæ perpetuæ Epiftola Joannis Toupii de Syracufiis, ejufdem Addenda in Theo critum, necnon Collationes quindecim Cedicum. Edidit Thoma Warton, S. T. B. Coll. S. Trin. Socius, nuper Poetice publi cus Prælector, Oxenii. E Typographeo Clarendoniano. 4to. Pr. l. 55. in Sheets. Apud Nourfe, Payne, Davies, White, &c. Londini.

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E find it difficult to pronounce whether the editor of the Oxford Theocritus difcovers a greater fhare of tafte or of erudition. Works of this kind have been too commonly executed by scholars of more induftry than genius. But Mr. Warton, in this valuable publication, has happily blended the characters of the judicious critic and the learned commentator.

In the differtation on the Bucolic Poetry of the Greeks, the origin of paftorals is placed in a new light, and ingeniously developed on more rational and probable principles than have hitherto been advanced on the fubje&t. The writer very judiciously proves the fuperiority of Theocritus over Virgil, by fhewing, that the Greek poet copied real manners, and actual fcenes of paftoral life, which have been mifapplied, mifreprefented, and diftorted, in Virgil's imitations.

Theocritus, he says, defcribes many natural circumstances, and rural images, which the delicate Virgil was afraid to introduce into the Roman poetry, as too grofs and uncouth for the refined ears of his polifhed countrymen. "Nihil fupprimit aut diffimulat Theocritus quod folent ætatum politiorum poetæ omnia minute defcribit et enarrat. Hinc eft quod tenuis et exilis fit Maro, quando Theocritus, eandem rem tractans, et plenus fit, et copiofus, et multiplex: quod hic res exprimat, ille tantum indicet. Poetæ Siculi nonnunquam concinnas magis defcriptiones imitando reddidit Romanus; quæ tamen ideo pulchræ erant, quod erant inconcinnæ Expolivit ille quod non debuerat expoliri." Among the Sicilians, the paftoral condition and character were, in great measure, national. "Hinc fortiores et frequentiores inge.ebantur in oculos Theocriti, Siculi hominis, imagines Bucolica: hinc crebræ illæ et naturales, fi loqui liceat, allufiones, quibus nos in ifto poeta volvendo tantopere delectamur: a rebus ipfis nimirum, five objectis, expetitæ, quas quotidie viderat et noverat

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