black Tartarian vomit,' of their plucking the apples of Sodom, of their encountering Lot's wife in the form of a transparent pillar of salt,' and of their finding at Bethel the very stone which Jacob made his pillow. With the exception of the fabulous apples of Sodom, these incidents might have occurred in their journey, but the insertion of them is not authorized by the account of the Jewish Lawgiver; and the same may be observed of the fictitious dialogues of which the greatest part of this volume is composed. Our great poet has attempted, in his Paradise Regained, to furnish us with the speeches which passed in the Wilderness between our Saviour and the Devil. but we believe that few peruse this poetic supplement to the Gospels with any pleasure, and we should have thought that the failure of MILTON would have discouraged Sir James Bland Burges and Mr. Cumberland. Most invention, as we have before remarked, is to be found. in that part of the work which introduces "Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons." This demon is the Satan of the poem, and is closely copied from its prototype in the Paradise Lost. Will not the following passage remind every reader of Milton's celebrated description of his hero, B. I. 592, &c.: His visage now display'd Tarnish'd magnificence, that dimly show'd A ray of majesty, not quite eclips'd.' As far as simplicity of style' is concerned, we are ready to allow these gentlemen some praise. The conceptions are natural, the language is not laboured, and the speeches are in general adapted to the characters of the speakers as well as to the situations in which they are supposed to be placed. We shall deduce a few specimens: but we must first report the contents of the remaining books of this partnership poem.The sixth book relates the tumult occasioned by the report of the spies and the destruction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. In the seventh, Moses pronounces sentences upon the rebellious people-The evil spirits are dispersed-The period of the Israelites abode in the wilderness being passed, Moses gives order for their march towards Canaan-The gods of the idolatrous nations assemble on the mountains of Abarim, where Chemes resorts to them - Balak, King of Moab, holds a council with the confederate kings-Balaam arrives at his camp, and delivers his prophecy, and blesses Israel, whom he was called upon to curse-His predictions are disregarded, and a battle becomes inevitable.' The argument of the eighth and last book, is, The discomfiture of the Pagan hostThe death of Balak-Joshua destroys the Grove of ChemosHas an interview with Balaam-Chemos, driven to the infernal regions, seeks protection of Satan-Satan contends with the Archangel Michael for the body of Moses-Moses ascends Mount Pisgah-Addresses his last speech to Joshua and the People-Dies, and the Poem concludes.' The speech of Joshua to the Israelites, on his return from exploring the land of Canaan, is thus conceived: "Princes, the land, that we were sent to search, Imperial cities, jointly we beheld; I state not this, as glancing blame on these, So ill compacted, formless, and inert, Their very numbers, which should be their strength, And such the slight account I hold of them, Let Israel only to itself be true, Their kings, their cities, and their gods shall fall Caleb also makes an oration to the same purpose, in reply to Shammua and Gaddiel. To shew with what success the Miltonic diabolical language is imitated, we transcribe the speech of Chemos to the gods. of the idolatrous nations assembled on the lofty summits of Abarim, after the destruction of Korah and his associates: "Hither, "Hither, ye fearful ministers of Him Whom hell's stern legions fruitlessly oppose, Hither in all your attributes of fire, Earthquake and storm and pestilence repair, And, like those suff'ring wretches, o'er whose heads To the deep centre hurl me! From your clouds, Nor will my torments pause; too deeply lodg'd, The strong conviction of unceasing pangs, Good hope, though our angelic thrones be lost, Parodying, or rather copying Milton, these fiends are subsequently exhorted to rouse and defend their thrones, or be for ever lost." With what propriety Balaam is represented as an idolater, (p. 365.) we are at a loss to divine, since the sacred page. does not so describe him: but his speech to Balak is not an unfaithful transcript of the Jewish historian: "From Aram, from the mountains of the east, From From God, the sole, eternal Lord of all, Came forth the word; from the great source of truth, REV. JULY, 1808. S Some Some liberties are taken with scripture proper names, without any apparent reason. Engeddi is transformed into Engaddi, and Adonibezeck into Adonizedeck.-When these gentlemen profess to aim at simplicity, the reader will expect the occasional occurrence of tame lines, and he will not be disappointed. ART. V. Construction of several Systems of Fortification; for the Use of the Royal Military Academy. By I. Landmann, Professor of Fortification and Artillery. 8vo. pp. 103. and Folio Plates separate. 138. Egerton. 1807. MR. R. Landmann tells us that this work contains the method of constructing several systems of fortification, to form a series of plans, serving as an illustration of the course of lectures given in the Royal Academy.' The plates are twentysix in number, and are stitched together by themselves. After having alluded to the drawings that are to be made from them on half sheets of imperial paper, the mode of representing works of earth and masonry, wet and dry ditches, profiles of earth and masonry, bridges, &c., and of the different colours, he proceeds in plate 1. to give the construction of Vauban's first system on three sides of a hexagon. This is not, however, that celebrated engineer's first method, any farther than it relates to the outline of the body of the place; for it differs essentially in various other respects from the account given of that method both by Mr. Muller and others, and particularly from that which was taken from a French book and published by the Abbot Du Fay, with the approbation of Marshal Vauban himself. In the first place, Mr. L. constructs the great ditch at the flanked or saliant angles of the bastions, only 18 toises wide, instead of 20; and he makes the faces of his ravelin, even when it wants flanks, meet if produced the faces of the bastions 5 toises from the epaules or shoulders, instead of the shoulders themselves, or the faces, 3 toises only from the same. He determines the saliant angle of his ravelin by intersecting the perpendicular produced with a radius equal to 185-30 Viox toises from the angle of either flank thus making the capital of that work less by at least 8 toises than it is according to Vauban's first method, and considerably increasing the obliquity of the defence of its ditch by the faces of the bastions. He also places his tenailles 5 toises from the flanks instead of 3 only as in that method, and in the direction of the lines of defence, without taking any notice of two other sorts of tenailles with flanks that have frequently been used in it. |