imaginations, that the future courfe of things will be better than what we have experienced in the last 100 years; for it is so far back that thefe averages extend. The prefent femi-chaotic state of Europe will not permit us to indulge in fuch agreeable but vifionary expectations: and in a few months we have feen a new and great republic rife, the vices of whose internal conftitution are fuch, that foreign wars will become neceflary to it, to obtain some respite from internal commotion. This is very clearly illustrated, by the confequences which always attended the heterogeneous and difcordant constitution of the republic of the Romans; a much more moral people. A ftate of hoftilities, almost continual, was the only remedy to the difcord of peace: it was by foreign wars only that they enjoyed, at any time, the delufive appearance of a hollow truce at home, with no principle of union within; the ftate fell to pieces, when there was no external force to comprefs its repulfive parts together: it fell, for want of an enemy; and the tyranny of a defpot fucceeded the alternate tyrannies of the and the mob. The new republic has the fame diforders, but in a malignant degree; and it poffeffes only the fame terrible means, to patch up the blotches and ulcers, which its radically vitiated conftitution will be perpetually producing and reproducing.

great

Thefe confiderations will not give us leave, especially at prefent, to think the chances of the duration of peace to be increased, or tending to increase. Eighteen years therefore is affigned, as the length of a period of one war and one peace taken together: or as the diftance from any affigned year of peace, to the fame year in the next peace.'

[To be concluded in cur next.

ART. XVI. The Siege of Berwick, a Tragedy. By Mr. Jerningham. As performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden. 8vo. pp.68. 1s. 6d. Robfon. 1794.

WHE HEN authors, and thofe of fome eminence, fail in the department of the drama, it often arifes from their making the production of a play a matter of play; not adverting to, or not duly confidering, the difficulties which peculiarly attend this fpecies of compofition. In order to conflitute an excellent drama, there must be a story well conceived, and replete with incidents; characters well drawn, and well fuftained; a plot gradually developing itself and heightening in intereft; and a dialogue abounding in fentiment and poetic imagery; and the age is become too faftidious to difpenfe with any of these ingredients. Mr. Jerningham, a gentleman who writes with eafe," does hot appear, in the prefent inftance, to have fufficiently attended to thele requifites. We cannot fay how this tragedy, affifted by fcenery, rich dreffes, and powerful acting, was received on the ftage: but, as a compofition for the clofet, it is certainly defective. It feems to us to have been made public in an unREV. MARCH, 1794.

દ

Ꮓ

finished

finished state; for fcenes which, according to the argument, ought to have been given, and which would have extended the piece to the ufual length of five acts, are omitted; and characters, to which we naturally expect to be introduced, are only described, without once making their appearance. The General of the befieging army, indeed, comes on the stage, but merely for the fake of conftituting the piece a tragedy by allowing Sir Alexander Seaton, the governor of Berwick, to run him through the body; for he exchanges not a word with Sir Alexander; and though, without him, there could be no bloody catastrophe, his name does not appear in the Dramatis Perfona. Mention is made of a Herald: but the General, who is the caufe of all that is tragical in the play, is included among the inconfiderable perfons fignified by &c.

The dialogue, it must be owned, is often profaic and carelefs; fome of the lines limp on unequal feet, and frequently terminate with the pooreft monofyllables, as the, to, in, with, f, a; while the word, which is to complete the fenfe, must be fought in the beginning of the next line. E. g.

The following paffage, Evidence like this would not be admitted in the court of Nature,' which is good profe, thus affumes the majestic appearance of poetry:

.. Evidence

Like this would not be admitted in the court
Of Nature.'

Like many, many more unfortunate mothers,' is an unexceptionable line of profe, but not of verse.

The reader is most interested in the generous contest between Archibald and Valentine, the fons of Sir Alexander, each of whom contends that he fhall die for the other, and for his country. This part of the dialogue is the beft written, and evinces Mr. Jerningham's poetic powers. The General of the befieging army, who had taken the two gallant youths in a fally, threatens both with death, unless the town be delivered up; and he cruelly leaves the parent together with his fons to make the fatal choice. Archibald, being the eldeft, claims the honour of dying for his country as the facred right of primogeniture. This claim Valentine nobly oppofes:-he cannot patiently hear

his

his brother, with an avarice of fame, demanding exclufively the mead of glory,' and thus pleads to be permitted to participate in the honour of death:

When first I quitted childhood's lowly vale,

Eager with you I climb'd youth's arduous height,
Whence greater fcenes expanded to my view;
Still our pursuits, confenting to one plan,
Our lives, like wedded ftreams, united roll'd:
And will you now difturb the facred tide,

And bid the kindred waves difparting run?'

The fubject of this tragedy is thus concisely given in the advertisement: In the reign of Edward the Third, Sir Alexander Seaton refufed to furrender the town of Berwick, even at the peril of lofing his two fons; who, being taken prifoners in a fally, were threatened with immediate death unlefs the town was delivered up.'

See Abercrombie's Martial Atchievements, vol. ii. p. 29.' By feveral parts of this drama, as well as by Mr. J.'s former poetic productions, we are convinced of his ability to have made the Siege of Berwick more perfect than it is in its prefent ftate. Had he expanded his tragedy to the ufual length, the hurry which exifts in the third and laft act would have been avoided; and, by certain additions, and a few touchings and re-touchings, he would have rendered it more worthy of the stage, and more fatisfactory in the closet.

The prologue and epilogue, both written by the author, have confiderable merit.

ART. XVII. FOREIGN LITERATURE.
Literary Intelligence from our Affociates on the Continent.
FRANCE.

NOTWITHSTANDING all the dreadful evils of war both external and internal, and all the horrors of civil difcord and anarchy, into which their unhappy country has been driven, fome of the French philofophers have not been deterred from purfuing their fcientific labours, nor from executing plans to which we cannot deny the title of great and honourable. We hear that the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for the year 1789 are in the prefs, and that the Connoiffance des Tems for 1794, and M. de Lalande's Tables of Horary Angles, are already published. Another interefting article of intelligence is that the plan for eftablishing an univerfal measure, of which we gave a fhort account in the Appendix to our eighth volume, is now carried into execution. The court of Spain had the liberality, notwithstanding the war, to fuffer M. Méchain to

Z 2

proceed

proceed in his operations for measuring a degree of the meridian in that country, and ordered the Spanish engineers to afford him every affiftance in their power. For this it deferves the thanks, not only of the French, but of the great republic of science, which is not confined to any particular nation, and ought not to be fhackled by national and political prejudices. He carried on his feries of triangles from Barcelona to Perpignan; and, from this place, the menfuration was continued to Paris. M. de Lambre and his pupil, M. le François, have measured a degree of latitude in the vicinity of the metropolis with fuch accuracy, that, we are told, though perhaps with fome little exaggeration, there is not an uncertainty of more than an inch. In all, twelve degrees of the meridian have been measured; of which the mean is 57027 toifes, and by this the univerfal ftandard of meafure is calculated. M. M. de Borda and Caffini have determined the length of a pendulum, that fwings feconds, in vacuo, and in a mean température at Paris, to be 3 feet and 8,06 lines. M. M. Lavoifier and Hay have found that a cubic foot of diftilled water at the freezing point weighs, in vacuo, 70 pounds and 60 gros, French weight. We fhall infert a table of the measures and weights now established :

Weights.

The weight of a cubic Metre, or French Pounds.
Cade, of water, is called a Bar,
or Millier

th of a Bar, or Decibar, or

2044,4

of water is called a Grave, or lb. oz. gros, grains.

Pound

,0001 Decigravet, or Grain

,00001 Centigravet

A piece of filver coin, weighing a centigrave, is denominated a Franc of Silver, and, according to the former ftandard, will be worth 40 fols 10 deniers. The Milliare, or thousand Metres, is to be fubftituted for the mile,-and the Are, for the arpent, in land measure. The latter two are to each other as 49 to 25. The aftronomical circles, with which M. M. de Borda and Caf fini made the obfervations, are divided according to this plan; the quadrant contains a hundred degrees, and each degree a hundred minutes. Hence the minute of a great circle on our globe is equal to a Milliare, or measured mile. If, for the reduction of this measure, we estimate the Paris toife, according to the comparison made with the standard kept in the Royal Society, to be 6,3925 English feet *, the Milliare or minute will be equal to 1093,633 yards, and the Metre, 3,280899 feet.

We venture to exprefs our approbation of this fyftem of meafures the more freely, as it is not founded on any arbitrary ftandard, nor has it the leaft connection with national and politi cal prejudices; its novelty will be an objection with many, who hate to be turned out of the old path, however rugged and unpleasant it may be. The reduction of quantities from the old into the new measure will certainly occafion a little trouble at first, and fome time muft elapfe before mankind are familiarized with it but this mode will be confined to the French; for it can hardly be fuppofed that other nations will adopt it in the common commerce of life; though there can be no reason why it should not be univerfally used in works of science : it See Phil. Tranfact. N° 465, § 5.