laudable undertaking. Benares is fubject to its dominion; the confidence of the Brahmins has been fo far gained as to render them communicative; fome of our countrymen are acquainted with that facred language in which the mysteries both of rel gion and of fcience are recorded; movement and activity has been given to a fpirit of inquiry throughout all the British esta blthments in India; perfons who vifited that country with other views, though engaged in occupations of a very different kind, are now carrying on fcientific and literary refearches

with ardour and fuccefs. Nothing feems now to be wanting, but that thole entrusted with the adminiftration of the British empire in India, fhould enable fome perfon, capab e, by his talents and liberality of fentiment, of inveftigating and explaining the more abftrufe parts of Indian philofophy, to devote his whole time to that important object. Thus Great Britain may have the glory of exploring fully that extensive field of unknown fcience, which the Academicians of France had the merit of first opening to the people of Europe.

Μ'

Y dear gentlemen, foldiers, and loyal auditory, thefe are the words of the kingly prophet; frea the vehemence of his infpired fpirit, he ardently prays to the all-feeing eye for judgment and righteoufnefs, and that the fame may defcend to his fon to govern his people, which was obtained: for, my dear fauls, be affured, there is nothing a juft man and fervant of God afks from his great Creator but he obtains it. Its proved fo; for no greater bleffings co'd mort Is have bu his fon and fucceffor enjoyed; he had wisdom, riches, and all other worldly grandeur; he had trophies in war, and fubdued all the enemics of God by his felect people. Now, my dear fauls, and loyal foldiers, thefe words of God and his holy prophet were fpoke and verifyed for the inftruction of fucceeding ages to the end of the world, and may now be applied to our prefent caule. We are

here to fight the battle of God against his enemies, under the command of the king's fon; he is the heir, and no doubt has the hereditary right of the crown of his ancestors: you fee him there in his Royal Perfon, not coveting the right of any other, but endeavouring to recover his own, ufurped fra' his royal family many years paft, and by the blefling of God he'll do it, and fay as the royal prophet expreffeth it in the 118th Psalm, ver. 7.

The Lord taketh my part with them that helpeth me, therefore I fhall fee my de fire upon my enemies." My dear fauls, you fee that God has raifed his moft Chriftian Majesty, and Catholic Majefty, two of the greatest monarchs in the world, to be his help: you, my dear fellow-fubjects and loyal hearts, are bound by God and nature to help your true and undoubted Prince to his ane: O now, my brave and heroic foldiers, let your courage and valour be known at command, in afferting the right of your native and hereditary Prince; he is no alien precariously brought over from the German continent, and placed by a rebellious and miferable folk on

the

who defcended from the Oliverian hell-hounds, their guilt is in their faces, and their date of being is at hand. Now, my dears, keep clofe to command, and obferve what the gofpel faith ;-Sis fidelis ufque ad mortem, et dabo tibi coronam vita-Be you faith. ful unto death, and you fhall have the crown of life; and that we may have that, let us a' implore the Almighty God upon our knees to grant us

that; and after that, a' that is pleafed to join me, let us invoke the interceffion of the glorious Mother of God, who will, no doubt, obtain what the afks from our dear Saviour Jefus Chrift, her dear Son, that he would be pleafed to profper our royal captain, direct our fteps, and forward our good defigns, to the glory of God and the benefit of out King and country. Amen. Amen.

THOUGH the plurality of worlds is not a philofophical dogma altogether proved, yet the opinion fhould appear the more probable, as it has, for its foundation, first, that principle of truth that nature does nothing in vain; and, fecondly, aftronomical obfervations which cannot be refuted.

The ancients, deprived of the advantages of the telescope, fupplied the defect with an extraordinary perfpicacity of mind. They difcovered, with the eyes of genius, what our inftruments have brought within our view. They knew the path we have taken in order to establish the doctrine of a multitude of worlds, and they have deduced, from the fame principle, the confequences which the moderns have drawn. We cannot have a greater or more fublime idea, nor one more worthy of the greatness of the Deity, than their notions of the destination of the planets, and of the multiplicity of ftars that adorn the firmament: the fages of antiquity confidered them as fo many funs, round which planets fimilar to thofe in our folar fyftem revolved: they went fill farther; they maintained that thefe planets were inhabited by beings, the nature of whom they did not define, but who, they faid, yielded neither in beauty nor in fize to ourselves.

Orpheus is the most ancient author whofe opinion on this fubject has been preferved. Proclus, in his commentary on Timæus, quotes three verses of this philofophical poet, in which he exprefsly fays that "the moon is a world like ours, which has its mountains, its vallies, &c. Pythagoras, who followed Orpheus in many of his opinions, alfo taught that "the moen is a world fimilar to our own, inhabied by animals whofe nature he did not determine;" although he believed them larger and more beautiful than thofe that inhabit our globe, and not fubject to the fame infirmities. The fentiment of Democritus, as related by Stobeus, on the nature of the moon and the cause of the fpots we obferve on her dife, which he believed to be "nothing but fhades formed by the great height of the mountains he fuppofed to be in the moon," as well as the queftion agitated by Plutarch on the fame fubject, further prove our affertion. Lailly, Ariftotle, Epicurus, and Heraclitus believed in the plurality of worlds; as did Thales, Araximenes, Alcinous the Platonist, Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Xenophon, Lucian, &c. Origen explained the opinion of Democritus on the existence of an innumerable quantity of worlds, fome of which were inhabited by ani

mals,

mals; but others had neither animals nor plants. This was the dottrine which furnished Alexander the Great with the idea, which has been preferved as an evidence of his ambition, when he wept that he had only one world to fubdue.

The magnificence and fecundity of nature fhine in all her works. The hand of the Almighty, which laid the foundations of the univerfe, which fufpended from the arch of heaven millions of globes of light, which gave them the first impulfe, which created planets fimilar to that we inhabit, could it have been unable to people thofe obs as it has peopled ours? We have ftronger reafons than the ancients had for believing that the moon is inhabited. All the modern obfervations tend to perfuade us that the moon has an atmosphere, that fome parts are lighter and more elevated than others, and that thofe places which reflect the light lefs ftrongly, and prefent a furface at all times equally fmooth, are vaft feas: from all which it has been concluded, that in the moon there are mountains, the height of which has even been measured geometrically.

The celebrated Gableo determined, that the higheft of thefe inequali ties exceeded the height of any of the mountains of the earth. The total eclipfes of the fun, the aid of the telefcope, the affertions of the moft illuftrious aftronomers, efpecially of Caffini, the man of our world, fays Fontenelle, to whom the heavens were best known, all concur in perfuading us, that fince there is in the moon, as in our earth, an atmosphere, mountains, feas and rivers, we must conclude that there will also be rain, fnow, and all the other meteors which are the confequence of thefe fuppofitions; nor is it lefs to be concluded, according to our ideas of the wifdom of God, that he has there placed heings, of whatever nature they may be, to inhabit that planet, that all thofe things, all that accumulation of phe P VOL. XIV. No. So.

nomena may not be ufelefs; for we will not fuppofe that nature, or the Supreme Architect of the univerfe can have made any thing in vain.

Among the moderns, thofe who have thought that because the moon is furnished with hills and vallies, fogs, foreits, feas, and houses, it must therefore be an inhabited or a habitable country, are Father Marfenius, Gilbert, Gaffendi, &c. Kepler was also of opinion that the moon was inhabited. Hevelius, in his ingenious defcription of that planet (Selenographia) has divided it into provinces.

Cyrano de Bergerac's Hiftoire comique of the empire of the moon is well known. It would appear from the burlefque, inflated, and fingular ftyle of that work, that the fpirit of the author had made frequent journies to the country he defcribes. It is evi dent, however, notwithstanding the fooleries in which he indulges, that he was well acquainted with the principles of Defcaites, and that, had age ripened his talents, he would have been capable of fomething better.

Superftition and enthufiafm, which mingle in all religions, do not injure the truths they are fometimes connect ed with. Father Kircher has tranf ported himself in idea into all the planets, and has given us the defcription of their inhabitants according to the fancies of his own brilliant imagination. Thus, according to thofe fancies, there are for example in Saturn, melancholy old men, walking with the pace of a tortoife, cloathed in mournful habits, armed with fmoaking torch es, and whofe countenances are pale. and forbidding In Venus, on the contrary, there are young people of the moit enchanting fhape and beauty, fome dancing to the found of lyres and cymbals, others fcattering flowers and perfumes. The author explains the reafon of this difference in the inhabitants of the two planets; and is reafous, which are not wanting, are as folid as his vifions. Perfons who have

time