"This method of M. Lalande's, is a kind of sample and exemplar of almost all astronomical processes. In these, at first, nothing is determined exactly. Approximate quantities are assumed and substituted, the results derived from them examined and compared, and then other approximations, probably nearer to the truth, suggested. Astronomy leans for aid on geometry; but the precision of geometry does not extend beyond the limits of its theorems. In astronomy scarcely one element is presented simple and unmixed with others. Its value, when first disengaged, must partake of the uncertainty to which the other elements are subject; and can be supposed to be settled to a tolerable degree of correctness, only after multiplied observations, and many revisions. There are no simple theorems for determining at once the parallax of the sun, the right ascension of a star, or the heliocentric latitude of a planet." Note, p. 579. To the planetary succeeds the lunar theory. A subject highly curious and extremely difficult, yet of the utmost practical importance, as the foundation of the best method of finding the longitude at sea. This method, now so com monly practised by every mariner, is, as our author well remarks in his preface, nevertheless dependant on whatever is most refined in theory and exact in practice; on Newton's system in its most improved state, and on the most accurate of Maskelyne's observations. A convincing proof, we should think, of the absurdity of those who are given to ridicule the details of science, and the minute quantities which it measures and calculates. In treating of the lunar theory, the author trespasses a little on the province of physical astronomy, without whose aid the corrections for the several inequalities in the moon's motion could not be made intelligible. The next division of the work embraces the subject of eclipses. In explaining the methods of calculating them, our author has displayed all the perspicuity and exactness for which he is so eminent. The method of computation adopted is, considering the nature of the subject, one of considerable simplicity. It is that which M. Biot has adopted in his work on astronomy, most probably from a memoir by Delambre. This method is as extensive in its application, as it is simple in its principle: it applies equally to eclipses, occultations of the fixed stars by the moon, and transits of inferior planets over the sun's disk. The lunar eclipse being the simpler phenomenon, from its not involving the consideration of parallax in latitude and longitude, is treated of first. A general explanation of the solar eclipse is then given, and the reason for classing the other phenomena with it is assigned. It is in the course of discussing these phenomena, which are nearly similar in their general circumstances, and exactly so in their mathematical conditions, to the solar eclipse, that the effects of parallax, above alluded to, are calculated, and the computation of the latter phenomenon thus completed. A short chapter on comets, in which the investigation of their motions is not attempted, succeeds, the planetary and lunar theories. The last division of the work relates to observations, made out of the meridian, the principal instrument for which, Hadley's quadrant, is described. The use of such observations is then shewn, in their application to the finding the true time or hour of the day, by several different methods. To this succeeds the method of determining the latitudes of places; of which a variety of interesting examples are given. The curious and important subject of the longitude naturally follows. The various methods of determining it are fully explained, by chronometers, by eclipses, occultations, eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, the passage of the moon over the meridian, and lastly the most excellent of all others, the observation of the moon's distance from a star. The work concludes with a short account of the calendar, its construction, and several reformations. Before closing this work, we cannot forbear turning to the able view given in the preface, of present state and future prospects of astronomical science. The author conceives, that "It has now reached a kind of maximum state of excellence, and its changes are minute and must continue so. All great changes ended with Bradley. He swept the ground of discovery, and left little to be gathered by those that follow him. Yet during sixty years that have elapsed since Bradley, it cannot be said but that astronomy has greatly advanced, although not by the aid of discoveries, such as those of observation and nutation." He then points out the chief improvements to have been derived from the progress of physical astronomy, the multiplication of observations, and hence the improvement of the tables. With regard to the good derived from these improvements, the certainty and security of navigation is mentioned, as the only practical good that astronomy has conferred on society. Its other benefits are philosophical and intellectual." Astronomy, in fact, seems to have effected all that it is capable of in regard to the uses of the navigator. The limits within which his observations are necessarily confined, the nature and degree of accuracy of the instruments his situation allows him to use, set bounds to the accuracy of his determinations, whatever may be the improved state of refinement to which the theoretical part of the science is carried. The resources of astronomy have been for some time sufficient for his wants, and of more he cannot avail himself. Such at least is the view taken of the subject by our author, than whom no one can be better qualified to judge. Yet the further progress of the science, in the increasing accuracy, and which is an essential point, the increasing number, of observations; as also in the advance of mathematical science, and its more advantageous application to the difficulties of plane and physical astronomy, are surely objects which, in the present age of improvement, cannot but be regarded with interest, if it were only in reference to the intellectual and speculative benefits derivable from them. The utility of every fresh accession to knowledge, as it tends to exalt and improve the mental faculties, must surely be admitted by every reflecting mind and of all departments of science it is by astronomy that such objects are pre-eminently attained. Especially when considered in reference to the objects of an academical education, such a science as astronomy has now become, even were its practical uses ever so confined, ought surely, when duly understood and appreciated, to be ranked among the most important departments in every good course of instruction. And when exhibited in such a luminous, judicious and complete manner as it is in the work before us, we cannot help expressing our sincere hope, that it may experience a more extended, and more efficient reception than it has, in some quarters, hitherto met with. ART. VI. Faust: a Drama. By Goethe. And Schiller's Song of the Bell. Translated by Lord Francis Leveson Gower. 8vo. pp. 312. 12s. Murray. 1823. THE Faust of Goethe has already, to a certain extent, become familiarized even to those who do not read German, by the extensive notice of it in the Germany of Madame de Stael. Her summary in prose, however, though brilliantly touched, could give but a partial and most inadequate idea of the original, either in its manifold beauties, or its yet more manifold extravagances; and we rejoice that the English public have at length a fair opportunity of estimating the full merits (as far as a close and spirited translation can ever afford this,) of a drama which has been vaunted as the Chef d'Euvre of its national school, and which certainly possesses in eminence all the characteristics by which that school is distinguished. We are not about to indulge ourselves, and to alarm our readers by a thrice-told dissertation on the peculiarities of German poetry. We shall plainly carry them through the drama before us, and leaving them to form their own judgment of the original, we shall confine our remarks principally to the very poetical version for which we are indebted to Lord Francis Leveson Gower. The noble writer in the outset, has evinced considerable soundness of judgment, and correctness of taste in his retrenchments. Goethe, with more boldness than real sublimity, has sketched a personal conference between the Deity and the Agent of Ill, upon whom the catastrophe of the drama mainly depends; and Mephistopheles, like the Satan of the Book of Job, receives permission to exercise his arts for the destruction of Faust, whose busy, restless, and aspiring intellect, had rendered him a peculiarly fit object for temptation. A scene like this, however treated, must be difficult in its management; and no English ear could tolerate the flippant and irreverent tone in which Goethe has conducted it. Lord Leveson Gower very wisely passes this by, and plunges at once in medias res. Faust is introduced in his study, a vaulted Gothic chamber, at midnight. Dissatisfied with science, with mankind, and with himself, having tasted and drank deep of all the springs from which human knowledge can flow, he thirsts after some inaccessible stream, and spurning that which he has acquired, he still pants for farther acquisition. In this feverish state of mind, he turns to magic for aid, and unfolds the mystic tomes of Nostradamus. Qur own acquaintance with the Black Art is not sufficiently profuse to enable us to state the precise nature of the instrument which he next consults, the Microcosm; but we imagine that it was a sort of Beryl, that admirable crystal, which, according to the sagacious Aubrey, "hath a weal tincture of red;" and such as the pious Dr. Sherborne, one-time canon of Hereford, and rector of Pembridge, received, to his inexpressible delight, from the widow of an eminent clothier in his parish; who, by means of this divining glass, and a formula of prayer, termed a call, frequently discovered thieves who had stripped his cloth-racks. We need scarcely add, that the excellent Divine, upon obtaining possession of it, incontinently burned the call. With some such magical apparatus as this Faust evokes the Spirit of earth, but soon loathes his sight, and dismisses him. His farther amusements are unseasonably interrupted by the entrance of his Secretary Wagner, a dull aspirant to philosophy, with whom we could as willingly dispense, as his master seems inclined to do. Faust excuses himself after a short dialogue, and is left alone to renew his meditations on the impotence and vanity of human intellect. His thoughts, by degrees, are directed to suicide. "Down swooping to my wish a car appears,- Through the dim gate our venturous way to take, And leap-to nothingness, if such our chance. When the blithe comrades pledged thee through the night, Form'd the quaint subject of the drinker's rhyme. Hail the blest drops, and drain them to the last. |