Dr. UerscheVs Reviewer rev'iewed. 361 



countervail, when any unsavoury thing had got behind the 

 wainscot: a third exclaimed, with niore archness oF man- 

 ner, that it was a right cunning experiment, and by a' I the 

 world like applyintr, what he whimsically called, a nieta- 

 phy-<ical svphon to the merit of an author; by which, in 

 the first instance, the merit was indeed made to mount np, 

 but as certainly, added he, shaking his head, to wheel round 

 to the Cv-ntrarv direction ; till by degrees the whole stock 

 should be drawn off, in the way of hocus-pocus, by the 

 preponderant bias in the longer leg. 



But to interpose a little in favour of the reviewer, from a 

 wish of reconciling appearances, it is only fair to consider, 

 as he himself indeed expressly warns us to do, that whilst 

 Ite was blowing so warm on the author by' panegyric, yet 

 so miserably cold on his essay, almost in the same breath, 

 he lav under a conflict between his great respect for Doctor 

 Herschel and his paramount obligation lo fidelity, when 

 deliverina; his awards in philosophical matters, for the edi- 

 fication of the public. 



It comes therefore, in the next place, to be examined 

 hpw far the solidity of this reviewer's malter can justify 

 that fervour of his critical zeal which, on the present oc- 

 casion, has led him to be so fastidious and magisterial j 

 under the great delusion, as it should seeix), of his being so 

 warranted on the score of duty, that he might give the 

 greater consequence and currency to his critical manifestos. 



For prosecuting, in the hopes of success, a subject well 

 Icnovvn to be important, and also of a recondite nature. 

 Doctor Herschel, in the true spirit of experimental philo- 

 sophy, conceived that every thing depended on a full dis- 

 covery of the phjenomena of the coloured ring< he treats 

 of in his essav, as far as they could be traced by the most 

 diligent and varied trials. Before he entered on these expe- 

 riments no phihisopher had ever seen but one set of rinos, 

 namely, that discovered and treated of by Sir fsaac Nuw- 

 ton. But whilst viewitig that beautiful appearance a-! pro- 

 duced by the contact of tiic famous fluyticnian Icubis^ 

 Dr. Herschel detected betwten bis glasses several other sets 

 of coloured rings, which, by the pecsiliai construction of his 

 jipparaius, were formed at the same time. To a person 

 then employed as he was, such very new phasnomenn coulcl 

 not but be decuied most worthy of atlenf ion. Nor will it l;e 

 asserted, aloiiir with the reviewer, by any one who has pre- 

 tensions to science, that to examine their naime and pecu- 

 liarities could be of no avail. The fact is, as ippcnrs Irom 

 §1)6 essay, that this patient and acute philosojiher Ikh, with 



remarkable 



