to the different gradations of a learner, likewise the best mode of studying them, &c.

4. On Antediluvian Fecundity.

In Scholey's edition of the Bible, in a note on the verse where Cain says, "And it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me," it is stated, that Dr. Dodd computes there to have been, in the 128th year of the world, as many as 421,164 men, without reckoning women or children. As this appears wonderful, Wm. of Piccadilly, would be glad to know upon what principle, according to scripture, the calculation is made, to render the result probable.

5. On Church Music.

Wm. Waleis asks, Has the use of music in Christian worship any sanc

tion in scripture, when, and by whom, was it introduced into the Christian Church?

6. On the title "Esquire."

A correspondent inquires, What qualifications originally gave claim to this title, and have they received any subsequent modifications?

7. On Thunder and Lightning.

A querist observes, Every one knows to what philosophers attribute the phenomena of thunder and lightning. -Will some of your correspondents, through the medium of your Magazine, attempt a reconciliation of the generally received opinion, to the existence of this phenomena, when the weather is extremely cold, and the atmosphere greatly charged with moisture, which has twice been the case within the month of December last?

COMMERCIAL REPORT, LIVERPOOL, 23d FEBRUARY, 1822.

MANY important measures respecting our trade and commerce will be brought before the Legislature during the present Session. A revision of the navigation laws, and possibly some modification of the corn bill, may form a part of the deliberation of the committees appointed for these purposes: it may be fairly anticipated, that much good will result from the discussion of these subjects; and it is to be hoped that regulations better adapted to the altered style of commerce will take place. There can be no doubt, that the agricultural distress is exceedingly great; but it may well be questioned, if any legislative interference can afford effectual relief, unless a considerable reduction in rents take place, or an act be passed to levy the poor-rates on the landlord, and the fundholder.

In the mean while, an improvement has shewn itself in many articles of colonial and other produce, particularly in Indigo, Coffee, Dyewoods, and Spices. It is now believed that the great depression of prices, in consequence of the return to a metallic currency, has reached the lowest point; and as many of the articles of consumption have declined far below the price at which they can be brought to market, a re-action may be expected; in fact it has already commenced, and bids fair to extend its influence more generally.

In Sugars there has been more demand; and brown and middling qualities have advanced 1s. to 1s. 6d. per cwt. Molasses have improved in price.

The grocers are
About 300 tons

Coffee.--The demand still continues, and a small advance has taken place. the chief customers. Good ordinary Jamaica realize 110s. to 112s. per cwt. of Guayaquil Cocoa were sold at 35s. for sound, and 31s. 6d. for damaged. East-India Ginger has been much inquired after. There is little inquiry for Rum: Jamaicas 1s. 10d. to 2s. for 16 O. P.

Cottons, have been in brisk demand the two preceding weeks: the last week's sales comprise 11,270 packages, and the sales of the present week amount to 9600 packages, viz.--3670 Boweds, at 7 d. to 10d.; 860 New Orleans, 94d. to 11ąd.; 400 Tennessees, 74d. to 8d.; 640 Sea Islands, 18 d. to 2s. 3d.; 1780 Pernambucco, 11d. to 113d.; 500 Bahias, 101d. to 111d.; 920 Maranhams, 10 d. to 113d.; 190 Mina Nova, 10d. to 10d.; 300 Geraes, 94d. to Ï0d.; 50 Paras, at 9d.; 100 Carthagena, 8d.; 15 Barbadoes, 93d.; 20 West India, 83d.; 31 Demararas, 10 d. to 114d.; 17 Surat, 73d. 120 Bengals, 64d. to 62d.; per lb.

Tobacco, is purchased rather sparingly; there is some little inquiry for Virginia and Kentucky leaf for export at low rates, but few sales have taken place. Montreal Pot Ashes are in good demand, 36s. Boston Pots at 48s. Tar and Turpentine remain without alteration. Rosin steady, at 7s. 9d. to 8s. per cwt. Dyewoods still keep increasing in value; Campeachy Logwood fetches £11.; Jamaica Logwood drops, and Cuba fustic is held at £13. 13s. Solid Nicaragua Wood has been sold at £37. and £38. per ton.

Rather more business is doing in Olive Oil. Good Spanish fetches £60. per tun. Seed Oils are without alteration. Cod Oil £20. Greenland Whale and Seal dull. Tallow 50s. Palm Oil £31. per tun. Oil of Turpentine in good request, and 72s. per cwt. is generally asked. The sales of hides continue very extensive, and they have this week fully recovered the depression they sustained the last.

Hemp, is steady at £52. per ton.

Corn Market. There is very little doing, and no alteration in price is perceptible. Fair Carolina Rice fetches 18s. 6d. in bond. New York Flax-seed obtained 65s. per hhd.

LONDON PRINTED AT THE CAXTON PRESS, BY H. FISHER.

THE

Emperial Magazine;

OR, COMPENDIUM OF

RELIGIOUS, MORAL, & PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.

66

APRIL.] SOCIAL REFINEMENT HAS NO EXISTENCE WHERE LITERATURE IS UNKNOWN." [1822.

THE PHYSICAL AND MORAL WORLD.

No. 4.-A Synoptical View of the Subject, and Tables of Emblematical Scales of Things in the Universe.

have hitherto been too much involved in mist and obscurity, to come home to the mind with a proper degree of force, we certainly ought not to despise it.

Let us examine then, how our auTHE following paper will consist of a thor makes out his septenary of the synoptical view of Mr. Macnab's sep- universe. His manner, to be sure, tenary scale: on which is suspended is so abstruse and intricate, that to his whole system. Though in my trace him clearly, is like reducing Essays on Creation and Geology, pub-chaos itself to order; yet as the sublished in this Magazine for 1820, Iject is so grand, and so highly calcuhave differed most essentially from lated to afford the utmost satisfaction him respecting the extraordinary pro- when accomplished, we shall do what traction of the period he assigns to the we can to trace it out. In No. 1, of work of creation; yet this by no means these papers, I have sketched the interferes with his grand scheme of great septenary scale of our author, the septenary scale, nor with the treat- and our business now is to elucidate ing of the subjects of all possible it by some further remarks. knowledge, by the doctrine of analogy; there being still seven periods assignable to the work of creation and the rest which succeeded; and things which are material may still be a type of things immaterial.

We have already treated of the seven-fold mystery, as our author calls it; and have seen that it was by this rule that even God himself proceeded in creating the world in six days, and resting on the seventh. We have seen natural phenomena presenting themselves in sevens, as in the seven colours of the rainbow, and the seven sounds of the octave; and we have tried to account for such astonishing arrangements in the works of nature, by tracing them up to what we conceive to be the cause of them, namely, that of a septenary nature in the Deity himself, or the seven Spirits of God, of which we read.

Mr. Macnab attempts to arrange the whole of universal nature into a scale of seven; and from the data we have advanced, the attempt, in truth, cannot be considered so preposterous as it might be supposed at first view. And, notwithstanding all arrangements of this kind cannot be equally demonstrated as colours and sounds, yet if the plan be found to be useful in illustrating important truths which No. 39.-Vol. IV.

After the length we had brought him, Mr. Macnab goes on to say, that in this world, the seven steps of the scale are also distinguished by certain analogous vicissitudes or contrarieties. Thus, there are in the first or elemental, light and darkness; in the second or mechanical, attraction and repulsion; in the third or chemical, composition and decomposition; in the fourth or vegetable, strength and weakness; in the fifth or animal, action and passion; in the sixth or intellectual, knowledge and ignorance; and in the seventh or moral, right and wrong. Art. 94.

He further demonstrates the mutual connection of the different steps of his great scale, by a similar connection existing in nature, in the seven sounds of the octave, and the seven colours of the rainbow. "In colours, as well as in sounds, all the steps run into each other. They are seven, and no more than seven, displaying each a palpable characteristic, though it be impossible to define where the one begins and the other ends." As in the great scale, we take the centre or fourth, as the most prominent point, so we begin to reckon from the fourth or centre; and counting from the centre, the respective steps of the scale harmonize in the following manner. The first U

fifth, and seventh interval, as above described, each step of the one harmonizing with its respective step of the other, but never varying as it respects the number of the notes. One scale, it is true, may rise above another, but this instead of forming more notes than seven, runs into the octave, or note above the complete scale of the first key, and forms the first note of the second key;-and so on we may go to a third, or fourth, or as high as it is possible to raise notes;—and always the respective notes of the one scale will harmonize with the respect

They harmonize in the following beginning or centre of a new scale, manner, as represented by the brack-which runs in like manner into a third, ets. The green being in the centre, is the most conspicuous of the whole, and answers to the place of the Sun in the great scale of the universe: and this is remarkable, as our author observes, as it is to the sun which presides over the centre of the system that the whole vegetable kingdom owes this colour. The blue and yellow, next on each side, when mixed, produce a green. The same is produced, but less perfectly, by a mixture of the orange with the indigo, which lie beyond the blue and yellow on each side. And lastly, a mixture of the violet and red, produce, in like man-ive notes of the other, which forms a ner, a still less perfect green; the green gradually becoming less and less perfect as we approach from the centre to the extremities of the scale.

The same remark holds good with respect to sounds. Sounds are not computed by a scale which runs in a straight line merely from lower to higher; but each sound of the octave is as different as the different steps in the scale of colours. Sounds, according to the gradations of a scale, proceed from a centre, which has been called the unit or key note; and that there proceeds from the centre or key, a concentric circle, which may be called the third interval; another beyond that, including the former within it, which may be called the fifth interval; and lastly, another circle extending beyond both these, and including them within it, which may be called the seventh, or yaw, as this interval completes and perfects the scale of sounds. But this last interval has got the appellation of the octave; though the octave properly is the eighth or

perfect concord of sound,—but never consisting of more than seven primary sounds. To illustrate this subject, I have given a figure in the following

table.

Thus does sound radiate from a centre, into concentric circles; an emblem of which may be seen when you drop a stone into a pond when it has a calm and smooth surface.

Our author considers, and perhaps very properly, that the subject of concentric circles, which are evident in the computation of the musical intervals, should be applied to science in general. And he is of opinion, that it is for want of this, that every attempt hitherto made, to ascertain the arrangements or method of nature, whether in mineralogy, botany, or geology, has failed, because in all systems hitherto attempted, the method has been, to proceed in a straight line, by ranking the objects of study one after another; and not considering, that in the method of nature, the straight line is blended with the circle

TABLE I.

Of the Emblematical Scales of things in the Universe.

1. There is the complete or mathematical septenary, in the first place, which exhibits a most perfect figure, and a very wonderful arrangement of Distances, so that of SEVEN equal divisions, it forms one complete whole. Thus,

2. There are in all the other scales, at least three parts, viz. a Right and Left divided by a mesial line, expressed or understood. Thus,

Line.

To which we sometimes give the appellation of the Natural and Spiritual side of the scale, and to the middle, the Central step.

3. Things are placed in the scale either in the Centre, or to the Right or Left, according as their nature may require. Thus, on the left is placed Matter, and on the right, Mind, as,

Matter, Central Step,

4. The Organic Vegetable, as it is, properly speaking, neither Matter nor Mind, yet allied to both, is placed in the centre between them. Thus,

Matter, Organic-Vegetable,

5. As we go on to investigate Matter, it presents us with Chemical and Mechanical properties; and, as we proceed to examine Mind, we find Animal and Intellectual properties, which are therefore arranged thus,

Organic
Vegetable,

6. But it is evident that this emblematical arrangement is not yet complete, for the vegetable kingdom wants the SUN, without which it cannot exist; as also, Matter wants its ELEMENTARY step, and Mind its MORAL: And also, there must be two causes annexed to these; the first, the cause of their origin,

and the second, the cause of their use or end. So that when all these circumstances are taken into consideration, they will present us with the following scale, which we call The great Septenary Scale, or Scale of the Universe, because it contains between its extremities every object of possible knowledge, with the state of eternity, or of Jehovah the First Cause, and Final End of all things, as it were surrounding it, and operating the whole. Thus,

Eternity ab ante, efficient causation.

Elemental, Mechanical, Chemical, Organic Animal, Intellectual, Moral. Vegetable,

Perceived by the Senses.

Understood by abstraction, reason, or intellect.

Believed by Faith in the Word of God, who is called Alpha and Omega, the First and Last.

Scale of Colours,

As exhibited by the decomposition of Light by the rainbow and prism.

Eternity to come, final causation.

The harmonizing steps of this scale correspond with those of the former. They are the 4th or centre, then the 3d and 5th, the 2d and 6th, and lastly the 1st and 7th. They harmonize when respectively mixed, each pair forming a green of a different shade.