SG-I M. Biofs Abstract of Mr Napier's 



In giving an account of the commentary by Newton, in the 

 Biographie Universelk, I had expressed some doubt as to the 

 conclusion at which Newton arrived, that the eleventh horn of 

 Daniel indicated the Church of Rome. Dr Brewster, in a work 

 of the same kind (I mean of the same kind as my own), printed 

 at London in 1832, has taxed me severely for my aptitude to 

 doubt ; he has affirmed, that that interpretation of the eleventh 

 horn, as well as others of a like nature, at which Newton ar- 

 rived, " may be yet exhibited in all the fulness of demonstra- 

 tion/' I found myself then called upon humbly to entreat Dr 

 Brewster, in this same Journal, to have the kindness to excuse, 

 on that point, the impracticability, under which we in France la- 

 bour, of admitting such anti-catholic conclusions. The Scotch 

 biographer of Napier recurs with some regret to the expression 

 of repugnance I then gave utterance to, in respect that, accord- 

 ing to him, the Commentary of Napier contains, in the passages 

 he cites, more than nine quarto pages of condensed proofs of 

 that same proposition. Nevertheless, he has no idea of being 

 scandalized at my blindness. " In the present state of the 

 world, it creates no sensation to hear M. Biot announce, that it 

 is impossible for him to believe the eleventh horn of Daniel to 

 be the Church of Rome ; but the times were very different when 

 Napier wrote. To this we must add, that when such Protest- 

 ants as Calvin and Joseph Scaliger openly avowed their impres- 

 sions that the v/hole Revelation of St John was an inexplicable 

 mystery, of which the very writer was a problem, it is greatly to 

 the honour of Scotland, that, from the bosom of so rude a coun- 

 try, a Commentary should have come worthy of the first scholar 

 of the age, and capable, as we shall shew, of instructing even 

 our own enlightened times.'' (P. 201.) If we may be permit- 

 ted to appreciate this conclusion of our biographer by the light 

 of human understanding alone, I confess I do not see how it 

 flows from the authorities he cites, which appear to me rather 

 to establish a consequence of an opposite nature. But perhaps 

 the inspired character of his text has descended to the panegy- 

 rist, in which case I have not a word more to say.* 



• To us it appears that the whole of Mr Napier's analysis of the theologi- 

 cal works of the inventor of logarithms, has been entirely misapprehended by 

 M. Biot, and to a degree beyond what we think could have happened to any 



