the meaning does not long remain. When Brutus fet his legions to fill a moat, inftead of heavy dragging and flow toil, they fet about it with huzzas and racing, as if they had been striving at the Olympick games. They hurled impetuous down the huge trees and ftones, and with fhouts forced them into the water; fo that the work, expected to continue half the campaign, was with rapid toil completed in a few days. Brutus's foldiers fell to the gate with refiftlefs fury, it gave way at laft with hideous crash. -This great and good man, doing his duty to his country, received a mortal wound, and glorious fell in the cause of Rome; may his memory be ever dear to all lovers of liberty, learning and humanity ! This promife ought ever to embalm his memory.The queen of nations was torn by no foreign invader.-Rome fell a facrifice to her own fons, and was ravaged by her unnatural offspring: all the great men of the state, all the good, all the holy, were openly murdered by the wickedeft and worst. Little islands cover the harbour of Brindifi, and form the narrow outlet from the numerous creeks that compofe its capacious port.-At the appearance of Brutus and Caffius a thout of joy rent the heavens from the furrounding multitudes.

Such are the flowers which may be gathered by every hand in every part of this garden of eloquence. But having thus freely mentioned our Author's faults, it remains that we acknowledge his merit; and confefs that this book is the work of a man of letters, that it is full of events difplayed with accuracy, and related with vivacity; and though it is fufficiently defective to crush the vanity of its Author, it is fufficiently entertaining to invite readers.

REVIEW*

OF

"FOUR LETTERS from Sir ISAAC "NEWTON to Dr. BENTLEY, containing "fome Arguments in Proof of a DEITY."

IT

T will certainly be required, that notice fhould be taken of a book, however small, written on fuch a fubject, by fuch an author. Yet I know not whether thefe Letters will be very fatisfactory, for they are anfwers to inquiries not published; and therefore, though they contain many pofitions of great importance, are, in fome parts, imperfect and obfcure, by their reference to Dr. Bentley's Letters.

Sir Ifaac declares, that what he has done is due to nothing but industry and patient thought; and indeed long confideration is so neceffary in fuch abftrufe inquiries, that it is always dangerous to publish the productions of great men, which are not known to have been defigned for the prefs, and of which it is uncertain whether much patience and thought have been beftowed upon them. The principal question of thefe Letters gives occafion to obferve how even the mind of Newton gains ground gradually upon darkness.

Literary Magazine, Vol. I. 1756, p. 89.

"As

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"As to your first query, fays he, "it feems to me, that if the matter of our fun and planets, and "all the matter of the universe, were evenly fcattered throughout all the heavens, and every particle had "an innate gravity towards all the reft, and the whole space throughout which this matter was scattered, was but finite; the matter on the outside of this "fpace would by its gravity tend towards all the "matter on the infide, and by confequence fall down "into the middle of the whole fpace, and there compofe one great spherical mafs. But if the matter

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was evenly difpofed throughout an infinite space, it "could never convene into one mafs; but fome of it "would convene into one mafs, and fome into an

other, fo as to make an infinite number of great maffes, fcattered at great distances from one to ano"ther throughout all that infinite space. And thus

might the fun and fixed stars be formed, fuppofing "the matter were of a lucid nature. But how the "matter fhould divide itself into two forts, and that ແ part of it which is fit to compofe a fhining body, "should fall down into one mafs and make a fun, and “the reft, which is fit to compofe an opaque body, "fhould coalefce, not into one great body like the

fhining matter, but into many little ones; or if the "fun at firft were an opaque body like the planets, or "the planets lucid bodies like the fun, how he alone "fhould be changed into a fhining body, whilft all

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they continue opaque, or all they be changed into

opaque ones, whilft he remains unchanged, I do "not think more explicable by mere natural causes, "but am forced to afcribe it to the counsel and "contrivance of a voluntary agent."

VOL. II.

C¢

The

The hypothefis of matter evenly disposed through infinite space, feems to labour with fuch difficulties, as makes it almost a contradictory supposition, or a fuppofition deftructive of itself.

Matter evenly difpofed through infinite space, is either created or eternal; if it was created, it infers a Creator: if it was eternal, it had been from eternity evenly spread through infinite space; or it had been once coalefced in maffes, and afterwards been diffufed. Whatever ftate was first, must have been from eternity, and what had been from eternity could not be changed, but by a caufe beginning to act as it had never acted before, that is, by the voluntary act of fome external power. If matter infinitely and evenly diffused was a moment without coalition, it could never coalefce at all by its own power. If matter originally tended to coalefce, it could never be evenly diffufed through infinite space. Matter being fuppofed eternal, there never was a time when it could be diffufed before its conglobation, or conglobated before its diffufion.

This Sir Ifaac feems by degrees to have underftood: for he fays, in his fecond Letter, "The reafon "why matter evenly scattered through a finite space "would convene in the midft, you conceive the "fame with me; but that there fhould be a central particle, fo accurately placed in the middle, as to "be always equally attracted on all fides, and thereby continue without motion, seems to me a suppofition fully as hard as to make the sharpest needle stand upright upon its point on a looking-glass. "For if the very mathematical centre of the central 'particle be not accurately in the very mathema

"tical centre of the attractive power of the whole "mafs, the particle will not be attracted equally on "all fides. And much harder is it to fuppofe all the particles in an infinite space should be fo accurate"ly poised one among another, as to ftand still in a perfect equilibrium. For I reckon this as hard as "to make not one needle only, but an infinite num

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ber of them (fo many as there are particles in an "infinite fpace) ftand accurately poifed upon their "points. Yet I graut it poffible, at least by a divine power; and if they were once to be placed, I £6 agree with you that they would continue in that pofture, without motion for ever, unless put into "new motion by the fame power. When therefore I faid, that matter evenly spread through all space, "would convene by its gravity into one or more great maffes, I understand it of matter not refting "in an accurate poife."

Let not it be thought irreverence to this great name, if I obferve, that by matter evenly spread through infinite space, he now finds it neceffary to mean matter not evenly spread. Matter not evenly Spread will indeed convene, but it will convene as foon as it exifts. And, in my opinion, this puzzling queftion about matter is only how that could be that never could have been, or what a man thinks on when he thinks of nothing,

Turn matter on all fides, make it eternal, or of late production, finite or infinite, there can be no regular fyftem produced but by a voluntary and meaning agent. This the great Newton always afferted, and this he afferts in the third letter; but proves in another manner, in a manner perhaps more happy and conclufive.