in the principles by which the system of political establishments can move and act; and that operations of these principles continue their movement in a regular progressive course. Howsoever men may shut their eyes to this crisis; howsoever they may endeavour to conceal it from others —it is a fact in event.' pp. 107, 108. This is attributed to the prevalence of systems of delusive liberty and impracticable equality. To remove them, our author enters into a discussion of the social compact, more impenetrably obscure than any we recollect to have met with on the subject; and, as the same obscurity is preserved to the end of this Memorial, we must confess we have not been able to form any precise idea of the na ture of the remedy suggested. As some apology for want of appre hension, we must observe, that throughout the whole Memorial, our author betrays a most unfortunate predilection for scientific metaphors. Every thing is described in terms borrowed from astronomy, geometry, logic, or chemistry; and the analogies suggested are carefully followed out. One state, we are told, has 'her orbit disturbed;' another is 'eccentric to its system, and verges to a foreign centre ; ' others are actuated by an external predestinating will.' This language does not tend to illustrate the plainest part of the subject; but where ideas, in themselves sufficiently vague and obscure, are described through the medium of com bined attractions,'equilibriums,' monad particles,' poises,' 'yortexes,' ' primaries and satellites,' it requires a very uncommon degree of discernment to disentangle the author's meaning. We are assured, that the author does not reason from metaphors. They are, however, so much incorporated with his argument, and there is so little precision in the language used after the metaphor is laid aside, that, in most cases, it is difficult to form a clear idea of his meaning; and, in others, we cannot help suspecting that the argument is accommodated to the metaphor, instead of being illustrated by it. The abstract argument on the nature of the balance of power, (p. 39.), that it must consist of an equilibrium of three, fixed on a common centre, cannot be attributed to any other source. Another instance of this occurs. After comparing the tendency to revolutionary principles to combustion, warning persons not to consider the flame as extinguished, though we do not see it burning, the author delivers the recipe for it in the same language. It is, that the state -must, by some dissolvent, by some counteracting elective attractions, first loosen the parts of this combustible, and then, by a kind of po litical chemistry, draw out the calorique; otherwise, it will neither be extinguished nor compressed, but must, in spite of all policy, of all force, explode.' pp. 145. 146. We expected to have been told what this dissolvent was, and what was the political chemistry that would draw out the caloric. This, however, is by no means the case; as, even where the metaphor is dropt, we are left in equal uncertainty as to the nature of the Governor's plans. We should not have thought it necessary to point out these defects, had they not been of a nature which must materially interfere with the general design of the publication; as we were by no means disposed to criticise the style of a work which must derive its importance chiefly from the experience and reputation of its author, and the success of his former predictions. ART. XX. The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society: A Poem, with Philosophical Notes. By Erasmus Darwin, M. D. F. R. S. Author of the Botanic Garden, of Zoonomia, and of Phytologia. London. 1803. 4to. pp. 300. 'HE work which we are now to review, seems to have been fully prepared for the press before the death of the author; and it certainly derives an additional and melancholy interest, from its appearance as the parting legacy of a writer, from the exertion of whose splendid talents we have formerly derived very high gratification. Yet if we were to judge only from the first impressions which were made by the earlier productions of Dr Darwin's muse, and from the force with which they caught the public attention, we should probably overrate the eagerness and impatience with which the greater number of readers will now be drawn to listen to his dying notes. Only a few years have elapsed, since the genius of the author of the Botanic Gar den' first burst on the public notice in all its splendour. The novelty of his plan--an imposing air of boldness and originality in his poetical as well as philosophical speculations--and a striking display of command over some of the richest sources of poetical embellishment, were sufficient to secure to him a large share of approbation, even from the most fastidious readers, and much more than sufficient to attract the gaze and the indiscriminating acclamations of a herd of admirers and imitators. Yet, with all these pretensions to permanent fame, we are much deceived, if we have not already observed, in that of Dr Darwin, the visible symptoms of decay. Whether in consequence of more sober and chastened reflection, or from mere caprice, or from whatever other cause it may have proceeded, his beauties seem to have quickly palled upon the public taste; and his decline from the exalted place he once appeared to hold, has been unhappily ac celerated. celerated by the ridicule of tasteless and impotent imitation. Still, however, we presume, that the former admirers of Dr Darwin's poetry will turn with some degree of pleasing expectation to this posthumous work; and though we are very far from thinking that it is like y to produce any new fluctuation of opinion, we may safely promise them the satisfaction of recognizing the same characteristic manner, and some of the same peculiar excellencies which distinguish his former compositions. At the same time, we feel little hesitation in stating, that the Temple of Nature' appears to us, in poetical excellence, to fall far short of the Botanic Garden;' and that, without possessing an equal share of beauties, its defects are more frequent and obtrusive. In estimating the merits of Dr Darwin's work, it is difficult, and perhaps would be improper, to separate the characters of the poet and the philosopher. His larger poems are all of the didactic class; and seem to have been designed as the vehicles of such parts of his philosophical speculations, as were the most susceptible of poetical illustration and embellishment. In a short preface, the author has informed us that the poem, which is here offered to the public, does not pretend to instruct by deep researches of reasoning; its aim is simply to amuse, by bringing distinctly to the imagination the beautiful and sublime images of the operations of nature, in the order, as the author believes, in which the progressive course of time presented them.' From this declaration, the reader might probably be induced to expect nothing more than a description of some of the known phenomena of nature, exhibited in detached compartments, and bound together by no other connexion than might be necessary to aid the imagination in its transitions from one subject to another. On a slight inspection, however, it will be found, that in his delineations of Nature, the author does not restrain himself within the narrow bounds of observation; that he again returns to the confines of Chaos and Old Night, from which he had escaped with so much labour in his former poem; and that, instead of copying from the great volume of Nature which now lies open to our view, he fondly attempts to penetrate the veil which must for ever conceal her mysteries from mortal eye, and affects to disclose, with all the confidence of an observer, an imaginary order and progress of things, from sluggish and unorganized matter, upwards, into living, intelligent, and moral existence. In a word, those who are at all acquainted with the writings of Dr Darwin, will be at no loss to discover, that the Temple of Nature' is in substance, little else than some of the wildest theories of the Zoonomia' done into verse, and di vested of those subordinate and collateral discussions which form the most valuable part of that ingenious but fanciful work. Considered as a whole, it seems to possess a sufficient degree both of philosophical and poetical unity. The origin of human society, or the formation of a race of beings with qualities and attributes to fit them for uniting into a social state, may be considered as the general theme which he proposes to explain; and in doing so, he has attempted to shew, that the object has been accomplished solely by the slow and spontaneous operation of certain primary and general laws impressed on rude matter by the great Author of nature. In this undertaking, he cannot be accused of timidity: but that he might not be loaded with the charge of undue presumption, he has provided a suitable machinery to give force and authority to his doctrines. After a very general statement of his subject, and an address to Immortal Love,' which in a poem 'de natura rerum' could not with decency be omitted, we are introduced to the Temple of Nature, which the poet has had the good fortune to discover on the ancient site of the Mosaic Paradise, and which he has taken care to make sufficiently vast and capacious, for the reception of all sorts of imaginary beings, clean and unclean. Among the crowd, the reader will have the pleasure of meeting again with a most respectable assemblage of bright Nymphs, recumbent Beauties, unclad Graces, gay Desires; besides young Dione and her quivered Loves, with all of whom he must have before contracted an intimate acquaintance, under the auspices of Dr Darwin. The goddess herself is the only new figure in the group; and perhaps the reader may agree with us, that novelty is not the only circumstance in her appearance which may be apt to startle a stranger. Shrin'd in the midst, majestic NATURE stands, In a morning procession of nymphs to the temple, which is led by Urania, or the Priestess of Nature, the muse rather abruptly presents herself, and implores the fair hierophant' to withdraw the mystic veil,' and disclose the hidden plan of Nature, in the formation of her animated works. The request is, of course, instantly complied with; and the remainder of the poem proceeds, in the words of the Hierophant, interrupted only by a few pertinent questions, VOL. II. NO. IV. questions, or a few supplementary illustrations which had occurred to the muse herself. The first of four cantos, into which the poem is divided, is entitled Production of Life;' and apart from the machinery which is thus employed to give it poetical effect, it contains little more than an exposition of the author's favourite hypothesis of the gradual process of Nature in the formation of organized and living matter, by the spontaneous operation of chemical laws and affinities. Reasoning analogically from the growth of individual animals, and the successive changes of being through which they are seen to pass, he seems to think himself warranted in concluding that there are no fixed or insurmountable boundaries between the different species of animals ;-that the more perfect animals differ from the less perfect only in having arrived at a more advanced stage in the spontaneous evolution of those original energies which have been bestowed in common upon all;-and that hence, by a fair deduction, we shall arrive at the origin of our own nature, merely by descending along the scale of animal existence, till we find ourselves at the natural zero, where the transition from unorganised to organized matter is supposed to shew itself in the rudest and most minute of the microscopic animalcula. In stating this general outline of Dr Darwin's theory, we do not feel the slightest provocation to enter into any serious inquiry either as to its originality or its truth. Whatever may be its merits in other respects, we believe that it is not of a kind to lose much of its native dignity and importance, by exchanging the severe and simple garb of science for the thin and gaudy draperies of fancy. As a specimen, we shall select the first that occurs; and we leave it to others to decide, whether, as a grave philosophical hypothesis, it could possibly be improved by the flattest translation into prose. 'First HEAT from chemic dissolution springs, From |