12 



Ihe coniiiiprcc of tho period. The alterations caused by the 

 conquests and settlements of the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and 

 Normans, in manners and customs, were adverted to. The 

 changes in them in the present period were attributed to cir- 

 cumstances and the gradual progress of society, and upon 

 attentive examination would be found considerable and worthy 

 of delineation. He then noticed the sudden changes in 

 manners and customs evidenced by History ; the influence of 

 religion and its teachers on the people, their courage and bra- 

 very, unlimited hospitality, ostentatious gallantry, and irra- 

 tional credulity ; the decline of chivalry and its revival by 

 Edward 1st. and 2nd, The corrupt and oppressive adminis- 

 tration of Justice, the statutes of Champerty, and frequent 

 robberies ; and observing that religious liberty was then 

 imkuown, and civil liberty insutficient to defend the people 

 from oppression, he introduced some general reflections on 

 the state of society in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 

 He next offt?red some observations on the different lan- 

 guages used by the diflPerent orders of the people, Latin, 

 Norman or French, Anglo-Saxon or English, on the purity 

 of the Anglo-Saxon two hundred years after the conquest, 

 its change in the fourteenth century, with the causes, into 

 what be termed English, though diflicult to be understood by 

 modern English readers without a glossary ; and on the 

 various dialects and modes of pronunciation. The Lecturer 

 concluded with some particulars relating to the extravagancies 

 of dress, the ridiculous and inconvenient fashions, the sump- 

 tuary laws for their regulation and restraint, the amusements 

 tnd other remarkable circumstances in the social and domestic 

 economy of the period. 



December 22, 23, and 24, Mr. (iiles delivered a course 

 of three Lectures on Astronomy, of which the following is a 

 Synopsis : — 



First Lecture — Definition of the Science — History and 

 relative utility— Attraction— Laws of Motion — Simple and 

 Compound Forces, in their application to the orbitical and 

 elliptical motions of the Planetary Bodies.— Various opinions 

 respecting the form of the Earth — proved to be a Spheroid- 

 Earth's motions determined — Spheroid of rotation proved to 

 be oblate — size of the Earth. The Moon's motions — her 

 size and distance — how found by her horizontal parallax. 

 Moon's phases. The difference between a periodical and 

 synodical month. Method of calculating the height of Le- 

 mar Mountains by the Micrometer. Probability of a Lunar 

 Atmosphere, &c. 



Second Lecture. — The Harvest Moon explained — Equation 

 of Time. The Sun's size considered by comparison — his 



