Be 
28 
reveals all her enchanting beauty to the 
understanding, it is transported into an 
ecstacy ; it is a rapture which has been 
mistaken for frenzy. So happened it 
to Archimedes, when he discovered 
tke problem he had so long been me- 
ditating upon. ‘I have found it! I have 
found it!’ he cried, leaping out of the 
bath, and hastening away like a mad- 
man. Now, look ona voluptuary or a 
giutton, who has fully satisfied his ap- 
' petites; will he leap, and, in an ecstacy, 
praise himself with conscious pride, and 
cry out ‘More! More!’ This demon- 
strates, that the pleasures of the under- 
standing are more exquisite and lasting 
with trath, than those of the senses with 
the objects that affect our bodily organs.” 
The Princess smiled at the demonstra-- 
tion of Ibrahim, and his syliogistic mode 
of argument, as if he had been seated in 
a chair at the University. 
’ Misseno then shews the nothingness of 
fame, in its posthumous existence. After 
Ibrahim has declaimed on the immorta- 
lity of heroes and sages, Misseno asks—~ 
« When do these great men enjoy that 
immortality you extol? Is it new, or 
when they lived ?’—‘“ Now,” replied the 
advocate for human fame. ‘ Well!” 
rejoined Misseno, ‘* and have you got 
any messenger to send to them, to inform 
them of their immortality? Believe me, 
posthumous fame, or infamy, never reach 
them; these are flowers, or stones, 
thrown by the hands of children, which 
can only drep in that immensity, which 
divides them from us !” 
~ June 12, 1809. 
i 
Yo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
ig is well known, that in setting a watch or 
clock by a sun-dial, it is necessary (ex- 
cept on four days in the year), to consult 
the Table of Equation, and to set it either 
faster or slower than the time shewn by 
the dial, as directed by the almanack, 
for every day. It is however, proba- 
bly, not so well known, that the same 
table should also be referred to, in no- 
_ ucing the rising and setting of the sun. 
For instance, about the 26th of Oc- 
tober, the sun appears, by the almanac, 
to rise at seven, and set at five, at which 
LusITANIA. 
time of year, the clock is fifteen minutes - 
faster than the sun; or, in other words, 
the sun comes to the meridian (or to any 
hour marked on the sun-dial), a quarter 
of an hodr before the trve time of day. 
Consequently, if, without attending to 
the table of equation, the sun be reckon- 
Proposed Improvement in Aln 
ed to rise exactly at seven, and set at five, 
by a well-regulated clock, it must then be 
four hours and three-quarters only in - 
ascending from the horizon to the meri- 
dian, and five hours and a quarter in 
descending thence to the western hori. 
zon, which will make the afternoon just 
half an hour longer than the forenoon. 
It must, therefore, clearly appear, that 
if at any time, when in a favourable situ- 
ation for the purpose, a person wished to 
set his watch by the rising or setting of 
the sun, the variation between the real 
and solar time, as shewn by the table of 
equation, must be attended to, exactly in 
the same manner as when a watch is ~set 
by a sun-dial. : : 
In fact, therefore, the sun at the time 
of year alluded to, doesnot rise and set at 
seven and five,asexpressed in the almanac, 
but at fifteen minutes before each of those 
hours. And this may serve to account for 
the darkness of the afternoons, and early 
disappearance of the twilight, in the two 
months preceding the shortest day, when 
the clocks are slower than the sun; com- 
pared with the lighter afternoons in 
the corresponding months after that day, 
when the clocks are faster: a circum- 
stance that cannot fail to be observed by 
such as are in the habit of reading or 
writing in the afternoon, who will find, 
that early in the dark month of November 
(six weeks or more before the shortest 
day), itis hardly possible to read or write, 
by daylight, ull five o’clock; whereas, 
towards the end of January (about four 
weeks only after the shortest day), they 
will begin to see clearly at that hour. 
But here, perhaps, another question- 
arises, namely—If the sun (except on 
four days in the year) does not really rise 
and set at the times mentioned in the al- 
manac, would it not be better (as less 
likely to deceive), if the times of the 
rising and setting, by a well-regulated 
clock, were expressed in the almanac; 
as In the instance of the 26th of October, 
six hours 45 minutes, and four hours 45 mi- 
nutes, instead of seven hoursand five hours, 
so as to have no occasion to refer to the 
table of equation, except on observing 
the shadow on a sun-dial, which cannot 
otherways be regulated ? wis 
Should I not be perfectly accurate in 
any part of the foregoing statement, it 
will, at least, give an opportunity to 
some one of your more intelligent readers, 
in this particular science, notonly to set 
me right, but to make the matter per- 
fectly clear, which will equally answer the 
purpose of Your's, &c. 
Chichester, July 10, 1809. gn 
Qa 
