I think of death, I tremble and shudder; therefore if you observe any thing like firmness in my conduct, attribute it to the right cause, to the mercy of God, who effects a miracle in my behalf. I have, in truth, no resolution, but God strengthen me with his powerful support." He then put his hand in his pocket to take out a handkerchief to bind over his eyes; but having drawn it out half way, he put it up again, so that none observed it but those that were with him on the scaffold. He then very gracefully advanced, and requested those below to throw him one, and immediately two or three being thrown up to him, he took one of them, and expressed his thanks, adding, that he would pray for his benefactors in heaven, not having time left him to do it on earth. The executioner then came to bind on the handkerchief, but did it very awkwardly, so that the corners of it hung down before his mouth, but he turned them up himself, and fastened it more commodiously. Having done this, he laid his head on the block (which one of the attendant Jesuits had wiped with his handkerchief, it being wet with blood), and asked whether he lay in the right posture?-when being desired to put his head a little farther forward, he did so. At the same time, the executioner, perceiving that the strings of his shirt were not loosened, began to untie them, which, having felt, he asked whether his shirt must be taken off also? and on being told "No, it is only necessary to un tie the strings," he assisted in drawing down his shirt so as to uncover his neck and shoulders, and then again replaced his head on the block, and pronounced his last words, which were, Maria mater gratiæ, mater misericordiæ, tu nos ab hoste protege, et hora mortis suspice;" and then, "in manus tuas," &c. &c. His arms appeared to tremble while he was expecting the stroke, which was given on the highest part of the neck, too near to the head, which being only half severed, the body fell on its back on the left side of the block, the face upwards, and the legs and hands feebly moving. The executioner attempted to turn it round, so as to finish what he had begun, but frightened by the cries and exclamations of those around him, he gave three or four hasty blows on the throat, and thus cut off the head, which remained on the scaffold. The executioner, having stripped the body, carried it, covered with a cloth, into the coach which had brought them. With it he also placed that of Monsieur de Cinq-Mars, with their heads (the eyes of both being still open), particularly that of Monsieur de Thou, which appeared as if living. From thence they were carried to the Fueillans, where Monsieur de CinqMars was interred before the high altar. The body of Monsieur de Thou was embalmed and placed in a lead coffin, to be conveyed to the buryingplace of his family. LESLIE versus HEBREW. MR EDITOR, IN a trifling composition I sent you some time ago*, it was asserted that Professor Leslie had thought proper to pass a heavy censure on the Hebrew language, in his Philosophy of Arithmetic, though, as I added, it could be proved from his own writings, nay, from the very passage that contained the charge, that he is ignorant even of the alphabet of the language on which he thus presumed to offer an animadver Dublin, Jan 20, 1820. sion. The professorial dictum alluded to is this: "The oriental nations appear generally to have represented the numbers as far as one thousand, by dividing their alphabet into three distinct classes;-but the Hebrew, the rudest and poorest of all written languages, having only twenty-two letters, could advance no farther than 400, and to exhibit 500, 600, 700, 800, and 900, it had recourse to the clumsy expedient of addition, by joining 400 * Our correspondent alludes to a beautiful Latin version of the first fitte of Chevy-Chace, See No. XXXII. and 100, 400 and 200, 400 and 300,400 and 400, and 400 with 400 and 100." Philosophy of Arithmetic, p. 218. The rudest and poorest of all written languages! By my troth, Mr John Leslie, these be bitter words! but the latter part of the sentence, by displaying the utter ignorance of the Professor, happily renders the railing of the former perfectly innocent. Indeed, so much ignorance and impertinence combined, will hardly be found, in so short a compass, in the works of any other writer of the smallest literary character. The merest smatterer in Hebrew any one who had read the first page of a grammar-could have informed Mr Leslie, that the Hebrews had not recourse to the clumsy expedient of which he accuses them, and that their alphabet supplied them with charac ters sufficient for expressing numbers as far as a thousand. It is clear that the Professor was totally unacquainted with the letters of the language he was criticising, or he would have known that the five finals (technically called *Camnephatz) are used to express the five last hundreds; and therefore, that the glory of inventing the expedient, which he describes with such imposing minuteness of detail, is due entirely to himself. So much for his qualifications to decide on the merits of Hebrew. But it appears to me that he has a peculiar pique against the language, that his censure arises as much from spleen as ignorance;-for the Roman method of notation is still more clumsy than this fancied Hebrew system not only their hundreds but their tens, and even their units, being formed by repeated and often very cumbrous additions; and yet Mr Leslie does not pour forth the vials of his wrath on the language of Latium, nay he even finds, in this unwieldy notation, sample of a philosophic language," (p. 210.) Nor is he angry with the Greeks (whose system he highly panegyrizes, p. 11, &c.) although he knows that their alphabet is as insufficient for the purposes of notation as he supposed Hebrew to be, and that they are, in consequence, obliged to borrow three a letters to supply the defect. I am pretty sure he does not know the source from which they were borrowed; and he may perhaps be somewhat astonished that these three letters were lent to the rich Greeks by the poor Hebrews; Bau, (6), Koppa, (90), and Sanpi, (900), being only Vau, †Koph, and Tzaddi. It may be also new to him, that the two mathematical words of eastern origin, Sepher (p. 112.) and Karatha, (p. 133.)-the only two oriental words of any consequence, I believe, which he quotes-are HebrewTED numeravit, and secuit. They may be Arabic also; but to enter into the controversy respecting the comparative superiority of Hebrew and Arabic, for the edification of Professor Leslie, would be as profitable as to set about demonstrating the seventeenth proposition of Euclid's twelfth book to a person who did not know a right line from a curve, much less a polyhedron from a sphere. I do not well know how to account for this pique. The only reason the learned Professor seems to assign, is the smallness of the alphabet; certainly a very characteristic objection for an arithmetician, who values every thing by number. But though this principle may look very well in the golden regulations of the rule of three, I am inclined to think it does not succeed altogether in languages; for thus the dialect of Homer could be calculated to be far inferior to the Romaic, and the tongue of his Majesty, the emperor of all the Russias, would take lead of the other languages of Europe by a considerable majority. We must look, therefore, for some other reason; and perhaps we may find it in the unhappy circumstances in which Hebrew is placed-it is the language of the Old Testament-the language, as a philosopher like Mr Hume, or a partizan of Mr Hume's, would say, dedicated to superstition, and is therefore, like every thing else connected with such a cause, to be attacked by that tolerant and equitable sect per fas et nefas. But in doing so, I may be permitted to remark, there should be some little *, 500; □, 600; 7, 700; 5, 800; c 900. Koph is 100; but as the Greeks borrowed Tzaddi final for 900, they were compelled use some letter different from Tzaddi for 90, and they took the next to it, p. knowledge of the ground displayed. It is not good generalship to intrust even the details of a siege to a blundering gunner or a rash volunteer. And I must consider the Professor as a most unfortunate, though perhaps a courageous enfant perdu, after this specimen of his skill, although he may be enlightened enough, in other respects, to be entitled to sneer at the credulity of Luther, the dreams of the Christian fathers, and the "fancies" of Saint John, (p. 230.) Professor Leslie's mistake, it may be said, is a mere trifle, not worth the paper employed in exposing it. It is true, indeed, that as no man is actually bound to know Hebrew, there is no great disgrace in making an erroneous assertion concerning this language; but I assert, that no man has a right to pass a dogmatical and insolent judgment on any branch of knowledge whatever, of which he is so wretchedly ignorant as not to know its first elements. Mr Leslie would look, with deserved contempt, on him who should venture to call Euclid a poor mathematician, if the very sentence which conveyed the charge furnished also a proof that that critic was ignorant of the definitions of geometry; and how are we to look on the professor himself? He may believe me when I tell him, that in the eyes of those who know any thing on the subject, he makes as awkward a figure as the most deficient digit he ever* " caused modify." He may also assure himself that the rule, ne sutor ultra crepidam, is truly a golden one. He is, perhaps, a mighty respectable third or fourth rate mathematician, a refrigerator of any rate he pleases-and an arithmetician scarcely second to Cocker himself; but when on the strength of these qualifications he thinks fit to step into philosophy, or to invade the province of critics and scholars, nothing can be more pitiful. And yet (p. 232.) he blames Joseph Scaliger (whose name as a man of learning is rather higher than Mr Leslie's as a mathematician,) for quitting his usual studies to meddle with mathematics. So easy is it to perceive the "presumptive dogmatism" of another, and to overlook our own! You perceive I have not said a word in defence of the Hebrew language; I thought it would be ridiculous to offer any against such an assailant.— I shall, however, add, that those who are acquainted with it know, that for simplicity of construction, regularity of derivation, conciseness, perspicuity, and force, it is not equalled by any language in the world;-but on this occasion I need not appeal to Hebrew scholars. He who reads the Bible in his vernacular tongue will agree with me, that the man who attributes the extreme of rudeness and poverty to the language of the sublime lyric effusions of Isaiah, the energetic drama of Job, the unrivalled pastoral of Ruth, not to mention other splendid passages of Scripture which instantly crowd on the memory, must be satisfied to lie under the imputation of pitiable ignorance, or still more pitiable prejudice. Apologizing for the length of this letter, which has grown to a much greater size than I intended, I am, sir, your most obedient servant, Your printer has made me break Priscian's head sorely in the translation of Chevy Chace, by printing me hic occursum ire, for me hic occursum ire. (Chevy Chace, verse 9.) I should not mention such a trifle, but that I wish to say that my translation was not intended to be quite Augustan. There are many rough passages in it, which are given as imitations of the rusticity of the old ballad. In a word, I thought that a poem, in a dialect almost as remote from the idiom of modern England as Mr Kirkman Finlay's, would be most accurately translated in a style somewhat resembling the un-latinity of the Muse Edinenses; but I was afraid to venture quite so far as they have done. "To transform the ordinary characters, (says he, I have caused modify their shape thus ;" and a For the puzzle it occasions you need only look • An elegant phrase of Mr L.'s. p. 117.) therefore, into deficient digits, very wise and pretty modification it is. into the work. A RECOLLECTION. LET me for once describe her-once,-for she As 'twere some angel image, and there clings Over a mouth, from which came sounds more sweet C. L.. TO THOMAS CAMPBELL, ESQ. An Expostulatory Epistle occasioned by the following passage in his Specimens of English Poetry. "Stevens celebrated hard drinking, because it was the fashion-and his songs are now seldom vociferated, because that fashion is gone by." Specimens, Vol. VI. p. 437. SIR, in your last work you the logic display Of Aldrich or Burgerdick, Crousaz or Hamel, If fashion rejects jolly topers, 'tis plain, In Ireland, I'm sure, many ages must roll Will cease o'er our tables to shine, Mr Campbell. * Four logicians. The first as honest a fellow as ever filled a pipe; the other three were mode and figure men. It is not worth while to print after the etymon of this word; in Ireland it signifies a sluttish awkward woman; it is synonymous with the short word for female dog. Come over among us, sweet bard, and I swear, That when home you return with a nose red as stammel, * That the sons of gay Bacchus are dead, Mr Campbell. Then oh! by that face which in prospect I view, For my punch is just out and I'm †tir'd, Mr Campbell. Cork, Jan. 24, 1820. Half-past one o'clock in the morning. ‡P. T. T. Reddish cloth, used by B. Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher, Sir W. Davenant, &c. + Tired, according to Cobbett in one of his " years residences in America," is a quaker word to express drunk. How true this is I know not; but I supplicate the gentle reader to take it here in its more usual sense. i. e. Post ten tumblers. ABSTRACT OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS FOR 1819. MR EDITOR, THE following abstract of my meteorological observations for 1819 will be found I hope, not altogether uninteresting. I am aware, indeed, that of its intrinsic value, your readers and I may probably entertain very different opinions. To some it may appear a very dry morsel amidst the more exquisite and delicious viands which your monthly bill of fare contains, while my own eye will be running over the dense columns of figures with all the pride of a successful theorist, contemplating the experimental proofs of his favourite speculations. But whatever importance may attach to the subject itself, I can assure your readers that they may depend on the accuracy of the facts stated below. The titles of the different columns, under the heads Thermometer and Barometer, are abundantly obvious. Those under the Hygrometer may, perhaps, require some explanation, particularly the three results deduced from Mr Anderson's principles of hygrometry. The first of these is the point of deposition, or that temperature at which the air, if cooled down, would begin to deposit its humidity. The second is the absolute quantity of moisture contained in a hundred cubic inches of air, expressed in decimals of a grain, Troy. And the third is the relative humidity of the atmosphere, supposing absolute dryness to be denoted by 0, and saturated by 100; or, in other words, the quantity of moisture expressed in hundredths of what would produce complete saturation. For a farther explanation, I refer to your twenty-second Number, page 472. Jan. 42.5 33.3 38.2 36.8 37.9 37.5 9.2 41.1 44 29.422 44 29.390 44 29.406.191.197.388 Avr. 52.6 40.3 48.0 44.3 46.4 46.2 12.3 47.9 58 29.664 52 29.671 52 29.667.113.108.221] 3 S |