The Sun.
London, England, 1827-08-27 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

ARNOTT'S ELEMENTS OF PHYSICS.—London,
1827. pp. 604.

We have been much amused with the varied
scientific knowledge displayed in this elaborate
treatise, as also with the manner in which the
knowledge is put forward. It is one thing to im-
part information, and another to impart it with
entertainment. Most writers, without any very
extraordinary reach of intellect, can do the one,
but it falls to the lot of the gifted few to be ena-
bled to effect the other. The author of the pre-
sent Treatise is one of these few, consequently
his book appeals to two wide classes of the coin-
those who read for instruction,
munity, namely,'
and those who read for mere amusement.

On looking into details we find that Dr.
Arnott has embraced the whole extended circle of
ifatural philosophy, or, as he characteristically de-
signates it, " the phenomena of nature," most of
which, he adds, may be explained by four gene-
ral truths, " atom, attraction, repulsion, inertia."
He then proceeds to classify the most important
facts of nature and art, so as to explain them mi-
nutely by these four general truths, and enable
them to be mutually illustrative of each other.
This is manifestly a judicious method of arrange-
ment ; it is, in fact, setting up landmarks to guide
those who, in wandering over the extensive, and
in some' instances, trackless plains of philosophy,
may be apt to flounder on from error to error,
and finally to lose their way. In that portion of
his work entitled " Medical Mechanics," the
Doctor has advanced many curious opinions ; it
is, in fact, the most momentous chapter in the whole
volume, and seems to have been treated with
corresponding attention. The description of
the spine and its peculiar properties (in the course
of which some smart hits are thrown out against
the modern fashion of rearing females), of the
nature and strength of the cranium and its mode
of gradual developement, of the conformation of
the human body in general, and of its muscular
action in particular—these several points, we
repeat, are so elaborately, so minutely, and so
lucidly treated, that 'they must please the most
finished ignoramus. The next important chapter
is, perhaps, " Hydrostatics," but as Cambridge
has already sufficiently disgusted us with this, we
shall do no more than state, on the authority of
a learned mathematician and friend, that it con-
tains some novel theories, supported with skilful
and scientific ingenuity. It is difficult, indeed,
almost impossible, to make an adequately illustra-
tive extract from a book of this comprehensive
and miscellaneous character ; science is not con-
veyed in an epigrammatic fashion—a new truth,
or an amendment of a received opinion, cannot
be advanced and supported within the narrow
limits of a page (to which the nature of our pub-
lication would unavoidably confine us), we must
content ourselves, therefore, with asserting in
general terms that the present treatise is worthy of
an extended circulation.

EARLY PROSE ROMANCES. LIFE OF VTR-
GILIUS.—LoNnoN, 1827.

In the dark ages, when ignorance was as uni-
versal as education at the present day—when the
classical fancy and the learning of a former more
auspicious period were confined either to the
monasteries of the monks, or the libraries of the
enlightened few—a man who surpassed the ma-
jority of his brethren in mind, was sure to be
looked on' as a conjuror—as a nondescript with
whom it would be unsafe to deal froin his unce-
remonious intimacy with the devil. Such was
the case with Horace, Tacitus, Faustus, Friar
Bacon, and, above all, with the .subject of -the
present legend, the amiable; accomplished, and
sensitive Virgil. How this last, of all others,
came to be considered as a conjuror, it is impos-
sible even to conjecture, unless indeed the nature
and tendency of his celebrated sixth book (in-
accessible to the vulgar) entitled him to Satanic
canonization. It is, however, a fact, that he
was not merely reputed a conjuror, hut the
very prince and paragon of all conjurors-, he
could raise the wind, (an invention not unknown
to Mr. John Wilks, jun.) arrest the progress
of the moon, dry up seas, annihilate kingdoms,
sink continents ; and, in short, indulge to the
full in those
.peculiarly eccentric vagaries which
so eminently distinguished the Marquis of Lon-
donderry's late Parliamentary campaign. We
scarcely think, however, with all his supernatural
abilities, that were he living at the present day,
he could manufacture a Demosthenes out of Sir
Thomas Lethbridge.
The present curious little work professes
to be
titled a republication of an old legend, en-
" The Lyfe of Virgilius, which treateth
nygramancve ti
also of his deth, and many marvayles that
He 110..?
Ile dyd • 1 1 f
in lys ivie tyme by whychcrafte
and
)orough the helpe of the
Devyls of
infant ages'
simple .homely The book is penned in that
style so characteristic of the
in the sincerity of hisheart,as
of literature, if the writer,
while the im-
portance every word lie published • of his subject' devoutly be-
ped
pedantry,
his quaint
occasional gleams of
. It sets out,
agreeably to the good old fashion, with a bio-
graphical memoir of Romulus, and then, with a
celerity only to be equalled by the owner of the
seven-leagued boots, leaps at once to Virgilius,