ARTICLE 38.

Concluded from page 418.

ADAM in Biography is another example of numerous and unwar, rantable deviations from the origi

Rees.

4to. Philadelphia. We now proceed to expose other important alterations, which the American editors have not thought proper particularly to indicate to their readers.

The article ACCOMMODATION in Theology in the English edition consists of about four columns and a half, in which compass much curious and interesting learning is introduced from several eminent writers. In the American edition all this is reduced to a very meagre half-column, or about one ninth part of the original. Two whole pages are thus struck out, and the reader is not informed of it! But this is not all. A reference, which Dr. Rees makes to another part of the work, the article QUOTATION, where the subject would doubtless be resumed, is a so suppressed. Are we to understand by this, that the American editors intend to suppress the whole article, to which this reference is made? If such is to be the management in the succeeding volumes, the publick, we trust, will manifest that indignation, which is due to conduct worthy of the darkest ages of monkish cun ning.

rations, though among the most important in the volume, are designated by any mark. It should be observed also, that the conclud

ing sentence of a paragraph in the original article rendered it neces sary to make a reference to the articles, FALL of MAN and ORIGINAL SIN. That sentence is struck out of the American edition, and with it the reference, and a new sentence of a very different import is substituted by the American editors; from which it is to be presumed,that those two impor tant articles are to be wholly omitted. This has proceeded, undoubtedly, from the same motives with the suppression of the reference in the other instance we mentioned. We leave the liberalminded reader to determine what name such conduct deserves.

We forbear extending our remarks upon other articles,in which similar mutilations have been made, but we think some of our readers will feel obliged to us, if we point out such as we have discovered, and leave the comparison of them with the original to the leisure of individuals. And here we would observe, that it is not merely in articles of magnitude that such reprehensible mutilations are made; the same spirit may be traced from the largest to the

smallest articles of a particular kind, throughout the volume.

The following are the principal mutilations, in addition to the preceding, which we have discovered. ABSURDITY-A small part of this article is struck out.

ACTUAL SIN-This article has suffered a small and not important retrenchment.

ADOPTION in Theology is shamefully mutilated, and an addition is made near the end of it, which ought to have been distinguished as an American alteration. ADORATION absolute-A part of this little article has been lopped off.

AERIANS This article is also considerably mutilated; and of the next,

AETIUS, we can say something more; for here the learned American editors, who "correct" and "revise" this edition, have, by expunging one of Rees' references to Gibbon's History, while they retain the other, fallen into the amusing absurdity of referring to that author with a ubi supra, when they have not mentioned his History before in the whole article!

AFFIX in Grammar has several trifling alterations, which we leave the Hebrew scholar to estimate, and we finish our list with

AGNOËTAE, where there is a suppression, which most readers would think of importance.

These are the principal variations of magnitude which we have noted in our copy of the Cyclopædia; but, as we have not gone through every article with equal attention, it is highly probable that many have escaped us. We shall close this part of our Review with a few general remarks. One of the first reflections, which the reader will make when he arrives at the end of this

volume will be, upon the different manner,in which the different classes of articles are republished. He cannot but observe the scrupulous care, with which insignificant American additions or alterations in the scientifick articles are distinguished by brackets; while the theological articles, and such as are connected with them, in which the most important changes have been made, are mutilated without such notice to the reader.

Why this difference? If the American editors do not agree with Dr. Rees in religious sentiments; if they believe his opinions to be such as the Scriptures do not warrant, let them openly confute him; but let them allow him to be heard as well as themselves, and above all let them not stigmatize themselves by undertaking to pass off their own sentiments as those of that learned divine or his associates. And we have the

greater right to demand of the American publisher (from his own prospectus) that a fair hearing should be given to all denominations of persons, especially upon theological questions; for in the United States religious sects are more various, and religious liberty is supposed to be enjoyed in a greater degree, than in almost any other place on the globe; and the American publisher of the Cyclopædia, among other recommendations of his edition, informs his subscribers that it is to be "adapted to this country;" from which general recommendation, he surely could never mean to except the theological part of the publication -the very part which in this country should be the least tainted with prejudice.

We shall now point out some of the principal additions and improvements in this edition.

After half a dozen trifling articles of geography (taken from Dictionaries and Gazetteers that are in every body's hands) which are wholly unworthy of a place in this work, unless it is to contain a complete system of Geography, we come to the life of Sir Ralph ABERCROMBY, which is a considerable article, but appears to be taken almost verbatim from a hasty English publication of little authority, entitled "Public Characters." As a variation from Dr. Rees' edition, it ought to have been designated, and the authority cited, as is generally done in his biographical articles.

The article ABORTION has been somewhat enlarged.

ABSORBENTS is considerably augmented, and the additional matter is very properly put in brackets. Whether the article is improved, we leave to the decision of gentlemen of the faculty; for when doctors disagree, Reviewers should not be obliged to decide. We cannot, however, commend the national vanity, displayed in these additions; still less do we approve of the contemptuous insinuation against almost all the medical characters in England, who seem to be charged with adopting the theory of cutaneous absorption merely from prejudice, because "they were no doubt natives of England," and were "bred up in the firm belief of it."*

The article ACADEMIES has also several useful additions; but the

Since writing the above, we have seen and perused the Pennsylvania Inaugural Dissertations referred to in this article, and, whatever the fact may be respecting the absorption of oil of turpentine and camphor by the skin, we are far from thinking that the experiiments there related satisfactorily establish the fact, that mercury is not absorbed by or through the skin.

arrangement of the whole article does not appear to be more perspicuous than that of the English edition, which has been deservedly censured.

AFRICA has large and important additions made to it from the travels of Mr. Browne and Mr.Horneman: This, we believe, will be thought the most valuable of the American additions.

Such are the principal improvements we have remarked in this portion of the work.

We observed in the beginning of our review, that Mr. Bradford had resolved not to content himself with giving to his countrymen a mere copy of Dr. Rees' Cyclopedia, but promised amendments, and additions. We presumed from this, that he had engaged "literary and scientifick characters," who would faithfully perform this task; but, without calling in question their competency, we are sorry to find they have been so negligent as to suffer many errours of the English edition to be copied into theirs in the most servile manner.

They tell us, after Dr. Rees, under the article ABGARUS, that the authenticity of that prince's correspondence with our Saviour, has been admitted by archbishop Wake, although the contrary is the fact, and the mistake has been pointed out in an English review of this work.*

Under the article Ãво, a town of Sweden, Dr. Rees mentions a seminary of learning as an "academy," which should have been called a university, according to the definition given by the author, under the article Academy in the same volume. It is a little extraordinary the American editors should not have taken notice of it,

*See Brit. Critick, vol. xxvi. p. 238.

when it has been called a university in Guthrie's geography for many years past. The royal high court of judicature, at this place, is said by Dr. Rees to be the only one in Finland, which is not true. During the reign of Gustavus III. a similar royal high court of justice was es tablished at Wasa, for the northern district of Finland; that at Abo being for the southern district.

ACADEMY French-Mention is here made of this body as now in existence under this name; and it is observed that they meet in the Louvre, in an apartment " now called l'Academie Françoise ;" and that "at breaking up, forty silver medals are distributed among them, having on one side the king of France's head, and on the reverse protecteur de l'Academie," &c. !! This is surely an oversight, but it is an oversight that will amuse, rather than offend, the reader; one would imagine, however, that the incorrectness of the article, as applied to the present time, must have been observed by the American editors, when at the distance of only two or three pages from it, a reference is made to the [National] INSTITUTE, of which, we believe, the old Academy spoken of in this article, or rather individual members of it, now form one of the Classes.

At the close of the article "AcCENT, in Grammar," is this observation that "as minutely as the accents of words have been studied, those of sentences seem to have been utterly overlooked." We were surprised at this remark, and especially to find nothing here said of the labours of Walker, who has certainly investigated this very subject (if we apprehend the force of the remark) with great success. This is, upon the whole, an admirable article-one of the best in the

work; but the remark above quot. ed is certainly incorrect.

ACT of Faith, or auto da fé We are here informed (in what we take to be an extract from Dr. Geddes' Tracts) of the manner of burning hereticks, as practised by the Inquisition; and in the course of the narrative it is said, that "a scaffold is erected in the Terreiro de Paco [Terreiro do Paço] big enough for two or three thousand people," &c. As this paragraph here stands, it does not appear where, or what, the Terreiro do Paço is, and the uninformed reader would be likely to conclude that it is an appropriate place, in all Roman Catholic coun tries, for burning hereticks; whereas the fact is, and we presume it so appears in the Tracts here quoted, that the Terreiro do Paço is a publick square in Lisbon; and, we presume, Dr. Geddes is here describing the ceremony of burning, as practised in Lisbon, and not in Roman Catholic countries in gexeral. It would have been proper, also, for the information of the younger class of readers, to have added to Dr. G.'s account, that this horrible ceremony has not been witnessed in Lisbon, nor, we believe, in any other Catholic country, for many years.

ACOSTA, Joseph-We are here informed, that Acosta wrote a Naturall and Morall History of the West-Indies, and that it was first printed in Spanish, in 1591, and in French, in 1600. As this is one of the most interesting of the early works upon America, the American editors might have added, that it was also printed in English, with additions, London, 1604.

ADOLPHUS, Frederick-king of Sweden, succeeded to the government in 1751, but was not the son of his predecessor Frederick, who had no children by his Queen-Ul