340 
Accounts received from Antigua 
state that, in consequence of the bene- 
volent exertions of some individuals, 
subscriptions had been raised in the 
town of St. John’s (the capital of the 
island), sufficient to enable the Com- 
mittee of the Wesleyan Sunday-school 
Institution to erect, at Parham Town, 
a school-house caculated to hold 1000 
scholars. 'This school, it appears, was 
opened towards the middle of the last 
year, with about 700 slave children 
from estates adjacent to the town. 
There are besides two Sunday-schools 
established in St. John’s, connected with 
the Parham school, and one at East 
Harbour independent of it. 
An American squadron has been sta- 
tioned on the coast of Africa for the 
purpose of seizing and bringing to adju- 
Literary and Critical Proémium, 
[May 1, 
dication such American vessels as may 
be found violating their Abolition 
Laws. With respect to the plan of 
planting a colony in Africa with free 
blacks from the United States, the 
hopes of success of the American So- 
ciety have led them to form the project 
of an establishment on an .extensive 
scale. 
It deserves to be recorded, that the 
praise-worthy exertions of this associa- 
tion are made out of funds not ex- 
ceeding 600]. per annum! No society 
in the whole world better deserves 
liberal subscriptions and rich legacies; 
and, in being its active president, the 
Duke of Gloucester derives more real 
honour than he could enjoy from sitting 
on the most powerful throne. 
NEW BOOKS PUBLISHED IN APRIL: 
WITH AN HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL PROEMIUM. 
—— 
Authors or Publishers, desirous of seeing an early notice of their Worke, are 
requested to transmit copies before the 18th of the Month. 
= 
"PRE founders of the family of the 
Medici, respecting whom so much 
interest has been excited in this country 
by the well-known works of Mr. Roscoe, 
have been animadverted on, with much 
harshness, by later writers, and particu- 
larly by M. de Sismondi, whose statements 
and opinions are altogether at variance 
with those of the English biographer. In 
defence of the subjects of his history, and 
of his own views of their character and 
conduct, Mr. Roscoe has just published, 
illustrations of the Life of Lorenzo de’ 
Medici, in which he enters fully into the 
questions raised by his opponents; and 
contends with great force, and, we think 
very successfully, that he has neither ex- 
aggerated. the exploits and personal qua- 
lities of his hero, nor been induced, by a 
natural partiality, to conceal or modify 
the real situation which he occupied in the 
state. Besides this vindication of his own 
opinions and motives, Mr, Roscoe’s work 
discusses many topics arising out of his 
former volumes, on which it throws addi- 
tional light; and an appendix is subjoined, 
containing several original and important 
documents. We observe, in front of the 
volume, afine print of Lorenzo de’ Medici, 
from a bust by Michel Angelo, strongly 
expressive both of the energetic character 
of the. original, and of the transcendent 
powers of the sculptor. 
A new edition, has appeared, in four 
bulky. .volumes, of the late Professor 
Rosison’s, System of Mechanical Philo- 
sophy, which, the title-page says, contains 
notes by Dr, BREWwsTEeR; but for these 
the reader will search in vain. Perhaps a 
living name was deemed necessary to give 
currency to so dead a mass, recommended 
chiefly by wordy metaphysical disserta- 
tions, which generally end in nothing. We, 
however, give Dr. Robison credit for his 
clear exposition of the folly of using figu- 
rative terms as expressive of causes. He 
justifies these merely as descriptive of 
ultimate phenomena, as in attraction’ for 
drawing toward, and in repulsion for push- 
ing away; but he afterwards forgets him- 
self in regard to the planetary motions, the 
ultimate phenomena of which are circular 
motions; and then, instead of recognizing 
in his own nomenclature, a circular molive 
principle, as descriptive of the ultimate 
phenomena, he drops all his figures, and 
admits the monstrous incongruity of an 
attractive or deflecting central power, 
and a simultaneous rectilinear or tangental 
power.* From the horns of this dilemma 
his faith and his orthodoxy did not permit 
him 
* The subterfuge that terms only ex- 
press phenomena, holds only in regard to 
simple phenomena, and fails when it ap- 
plies to complex cases, in which the same 
terms express causes or powers acting in 
different directions. The terms then ex- 
press the sense in which they are univer- 
sally considered, and define causes and 
nothing else. The Newtonian reasoning 
proceeds thus,—the planets move, or 
would move, in’ straight lines, from which 
rectilinear motion they are deflected into 
curves by the attractive force of the sun : 
—all 
