THE motives for publishing books are various. Some men write for the purpose of instructing others, some for gain, and some to enforce and diffuse truth; but the motives which this author had for publishing this book, could certainly be none of these. We would gladly suppose that they were pure;-but it displays such a spirit of malignity, in almost every page, mixed with so large a portion of impudent assertion, which the author mistakes for argument, as well as such an abundance of contradiction, which is substituted for reasoning, that the most lenient supposition, as to the motives which gave rise to this mass of crudities, is, that it is the rickety offspring of ignorance and vanity. The grand object which B. Prescot appears to have proposed to himself, was, to reconcile the phenomena of the solar system to appearances, as well as to the Mosaic account of the creation; for he, good man, like some other bigots, supposes them to be at variance. We confess that we are not of this number; and if Mr P. had any scruples on this head, why did he not endeavour to acquire information? Why condemn what he did not understand? Or why hash up for us such a nauseous medley? But he shall tell his own story.

The author begins his book with an unwarrantable artifice, which we must strongly condemn; we allude to the unauthorized use which he has made of the illustrious name of the President of the Royal Society, whom he has satirized by a dedication. The following extract will develope Mr Prescot's design :--speaking of the Newtonian Philosophy, he says "The system of Philosophy in question is, I believe, the only one ever promulgated, in which the aid of the senses has been contemned, and proscribed, for no other reason, than because they constantly bear witness against it. But as in the progress of this delusion, those who make use of their senses may suffer by the arts of those who appear to reject them, it seems high time seriously to enquire, whether the senses and the scriptures are given to deceive us? and whether we are to surrender both, for the sole purpose of allowing philosophers an open field to juggle mankind out of

all that is safe, practical, and useful; 'and, instead of which, to introduce all sorts of inanities and pernicious romances."

These are serious musings; but we shall soon perceive what sort of inanities and romances we are to receive in lieu of those he so scornfully rejects.

"It is further of importance, to enquire whether the great giants and architects of blasphemy are to be flattered, applauded, and raised to honour, while the pigmies and retail venders are to be punished and put down? Above all, it is of great importance, seriously to enquire what power we should look to as the Creator, the Governor and Preserver of the universe? Whether to the imaginary power or powers which philosophers have proudly raised up in the temple of nature; or to the real ONE, which, as the people have been taught to believe, created and sustains all things? Whether princes, governors, magistrates, and people, are to look for safety and protection to the self-moving atoms of Epicurus; the etherial fire of Toland; the moving and animating powers and spirits of Newton and Laplace; or to the One God revealed to them in the scriptures? Whether we are to believe the dogmas of these philosophers, or the books of Moses and the prophets? And, lastly, whether we are any longer to consider Divine Revelation the main pillar of thrones and governments, and the firm rock upon which to found the stability and prosperity of all nations? Is it not therefore high time to remove the accursed thing from the camp? Until this be done, all attempts to suppress blasphemy will be utterly in vain." What now has all this cant to do with the Newtonian philosophy? When Malevolence cloaks itself in the garb of Religion, merely to suit its own purposes, the practice is diabolical, and deserves to be held up to public detestation. Many learned and excellent men have clearly seen the fallaciousness of Sir Isaac Newton's principles of creation, and of planetary motion, and likewise the pernicious tendency of his leading doctrines; and they have, from time to time, attempted to introduce other hypotheses of their own, that would

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from the circumstance of the similarity of her appearance to white clouds, or snow-covered mountains." Respecting the atmosphere, this, he says, is his belief:-" I consider air to be a simple homogeneous fluid, created quite distinct from water or any other substance. I consider that its pressure apart from motion is equal in all directions; that it gravitates no more downwards than upwards; and that all the changes that are observed in the state of its pressure, are caused by the increase or decrease of motion, heat, or the watery substances which float in it near the surface of the globe. It is owing to its buoyancy that it is capable of sustaining such immense collections of water in a fluid, as well as in a congealed state. In this state the buoyant air, in spite of the Newtonian gravity, supports hail-stones, until the fire, or electric fluid, as it is called, by rarifying or shaking the air, in which clouds are formed, or suspended, sets their contents at liberty to fall to the ground."

All this, he says, either is proved in this First Part, or will be proved in the Second Part, which is forthwith to appear. When this is effected, we cannot but congratulate Mr Prescot on the figure he will make among the learned. Think, gentle reader, how his heart must bound with extatic joy, when he reflects on the revolution which his system is about to make in the minds of men! and that in future we shall not say the Ptolemaic, or the Newtonian-but the PRESCOTIAN SYSTEM! Avaunt, then, ye Newtonians, for the system is to hold you up to the scorn and reprobation" of all mankind, and will reduce your philosophy to merited contempt! How easily does this genuine system, invented by B. Prescot, explain all the phenomena in meteorology, which have so long pazzled you! To give only a few instances:-As the moon and stars are formed of ice, and the sun is a body of fire, RAIN can be nothing but water melted from some one or more of the heavenly bodies; after which it falls in drops to the earth. SNOW is only dust blown from the moon or stars, and which falls in flakes to the ground. HAIL is frozen drops of water, shaken from the clouds by

the electric fluid; sometimes the water is frozen in large pieces of ice, and these descend in thunder storms. The disappearance of stars is also easily accounted for; they are all melted away; and the last morsel is the shooting star which we sometimes perceive just before it reaches the earth. In some cases, their places may be supplied by other stars from the milky-way; which may, perhaps, be a reservoir of stars for this purpose.

These applications of Mr Prescot's system are our own, and follow as easy corollaries from his general theory. As Mr P. has annihilated gravity, we are, however, considerably puzzled to explain how the rain, and hail, and snow, find their way DOWN, having nothing to guide them. Also, as the earth is known to be a globe, and has been sailed round, we cannot imagine why objects do not fall from its opposite side. They can only be kept to the earth by the atmosphere, which may press, although it has no weight! We can easily demonstrate, that the air presses by the air-pump; and if we had Mr Prescot's hand on the receiver, we fancy we could make him feel it. The following passages will shew that Mr Prescot possesses a considerable share of what is called inventive faculty.

Speaking of Newton: "Whether Sir Isaac Newton was fully aware of the baneful tendency of his system upon shallow and unstable minds, or that he felt conscious that its glaring absurdities would, sooner or later, expose the fable to detection, and consequent ridicule, cannot now be discovered to a certainty. It, however, appears highly probable, that, in the latter part of his life, his mind was not quite so easy and satisfied with this favourite offspring of his brain, as some of his professed admirers would persuade the world to believe." This is a most wonderful discovery, and fully equal to any thing of the kind on record. "We are informed, by his particular friend Mr Conduit, that, a little before his death, he said, I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble, or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst

the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me." This assertion has been construed, by Newton's friends, into a diffidence of his great powers; and as an humble appeal to mankind, to judge with candour respecting any trifling inaccuracies that might be found among the immense number of truths which he had discovered. Mr Prescot thinks differently he takes the philosopher at his word. "Never, I believe, did the mind of Newton form a more accurate estimate of any thing, than what this single sentence contains respecting the value of his discoveries;-it would really appear from this, that he was conscious of the folly, and, of course, the inutility of his elaborate inanities ; indeed, how could it be otherwise, knowing, as he did, that his system had not a single truth to support it?" Some of our readers will think, no doubt, that these are impudent assertions. We are of opinion, however, that B. Prescot will feel no such compunctious visitings in his latter days, respecting his system; for he is certain that his system is true: he will demonstrate that the moon and stars are made of ice, and that they float in the atmosphere! These are not elaborate inanities, but sublime truths, worthy the genius of the inventor, who has condescended to present them to the world in the immortal volume now before us.-We cannot withstand the temptation of extracting the following passage:-A “recent publication, by the Rev. Mr Cormouls, (entitled Eversion,) reports that Newton, in the latter part of his life, was so uneasy respecting the consequences of his philosophical errors, that he unburthened himself to young Cotes, the mathematician, and was even heard to say, 'When I am gone, Cotes will undeceive the world of a most remarkable error which it labours under.' It is supposed that Cotes stood engaged to conceal it during Newton's life-time; but it so happened, that Cotes died a few years before his master; and as probably no other suitable confident was to be found, the world was left to enjoy the delusion it had, in the face of light, so incautiously embraced." These are falsehoods, insidious and dark. We have seen

Mr Cormouls' book, and remember this, and many more of the like fabrications; one of which is an account of an experiment which the reverend gentleman made on the descent of heavy bodies. "He found," HE says, "that bodies do not fall so far in a given time as they are said to do by philosophers;" but he perhaps forgot that it was possible to repeat such experiments, as he said he had made: the experiments were repeated, and the falsehood was detected. What motives could induce this man to invent such delusive romances, or what credit can be given to books of this description? Before this fanatical junto set themselves to system-making, we do not recollect that any man had ever mustered impudence enough to malign the moral character of Newton. Who ever dared to accuse him of arrogating to himself divine honours? His name had calmnly, and unmolestedly, floated down the stream of time; esteemed not only as the greatest, but as one of the best of mankindnot as an Atheist, but as a firm believer in Christianity-not as a sycophant, and a deceiver, but as an honour to human nature, the boast of his country, and the admiration of the world!

Mr Prescot's grand object appears to have been, to destroy the power of gravitation; and to effect it, no matter how, he has collected and exerted all his might. The tides, he thinks, afford hini considerable scope for animadversion. He exultingly informs us, that these phenomena do not, in all places, follow the motions of the moon, neither with respect to the heights to which they rise, nor to the time of high water. This is another wonderful discovery; but it, unfortunately for him, happens not to be true. His mode of treating this subject is extremely curious. "But it is most strenuously contended by the mathematical followers of the Keplerian hypothesis, that the agreements of the spring-tides, with the conjunction and opposition of the luminaries, is a decisive proof of the moon's attraction. Does it then naturally follow, because two bodies move in concert, that they must therefore naturally attract each other? Just principles of reasoning do not require

that conclusion. God has providentially appointed, to many parts of the habitable globe, an extraordinary flux of the ocean for several days every fortnight; and the moon, by an exact coincidence of motion, serves as a perpetual inder to the tides, whereby mathematicians are enabled, for the benefit of navigation, to calculate, beforehand, the periodieal courses and returns of the tides, which otherwise could not be done. As to calculating tide-tables upon what are termed Newtonian principles, it is all a farce, and something worse to pretend to it." What does Mr Prescot mean by the moon being an inder to the tides? A clock has an index, which points out the hour of the day, but the index is governed by the clock; the moon, then, is an index to the moon, and the tides are governed by the moon. The first person who clearly pointed out the cause of this phenomenon, and showed its agreement with the motions of the moon, was Newton. The moon had, from time immemorial, been considered as the principal agent in producing motion in the waters of the ocean. Thus, if the tide be now at high-water mark, in any harbour, it will soon begin to subside, and flow regularly back for six hours. It is then at low-water mark. After this it will gradually rise for six hours, and subside again as before. The interval, however, between the flux and reflux, is not exactly six hours, but six hours and a little more than twelve minutes; so that the time of high-water is later, by three quarters of an hour every day, for nearly thirty days, after which it recurs again as before. Now these motions of the tides exactly answer to the motion of the moon, for this luminary rises about three quarters of an hour later every day than on the preceding; and, moving round the earth in this manner, she completes her revolution in about thirty days. Can this perfect harmony of motions then possibly arise from the mere concurrence of fortuitous causes? On the contrary, the coincidences are so complete, and the principles so obvious, that we are compelled to look to the moon as the principal cause of them. Beside, the disturbing forces of the sun and moon

evidently depend on their distances from the earth. The earth moves round the sun in an elliptic orbit, and the perihelion distance is a little after the winter solstice. Now, in winter, the spring-tides are greater than in summer, when the sun is at his greatest distance. In the same manner the moon revolves round the earth in an elliptic orbit, and the greatest tides happen, cæteris paribus, when she is nearest to the earth. On these principles, and they are Newton's, tide-tables are calculated, and there is no farce in the business. Mr Prescot finds, by a tedious process, that the power of attraction of the sun upon the earth is greater than that of the moon; and on this account, that the tides produced by the sun ought to be greater than those produced by the moon. This, he says, is an important point, and they cannot get over it! Tell it not in Gath-the explanation may be found in almost every book of Astronomy extant: but as Mr Prescot is totally ignorant of every branch of the mathematics, farther than arithmetic, there is no marvel if he can neither understand, nor even read, such explanations. The first principles of every science must first be known; we can then climb, step by step, till we reach the summit. The road is easy, and the horizon bright and clear; but, without first principles, we are like men wandering in a mist, who, mistaking one object for another, are deceived themselves, and then seek to confound others. Mr Prescot's book is really a wonderful book, and his system altogether a wonderful system. The moon, he tells us, is a globe of ice, which reflects to us the light of the sun. Now, on this principle, she being no where opaque, we wonder how he will explain how she puts on such different phases, from the narrow, and almost invisible crescent, to a full round phasis. But this, by the bye, is a very great improvement on the Newtonian moon; for this moon of ice would shine perpetually. We are greatly afraid that this supposition does not agree with the experience of the senses!

One thing we are remarkably curious to ascertain, either from himself or any of his friends, and that