THE INSPECTOR. MAIN PRINCIPLES OF FRENCH PHILOSOPHISM, GERMAN ILLUMINISM, AND ENGLISH UNITARIANISM. Τρισσοκαρηνος ιδειν ! ολοον τέρας, ετε δαηΐον! "Triple-headed Spectre! Pernicious Portent, "Unintelligible! Hell-footed HECATE!" ORPHEUS. -"O Generation of VIPERS !"THE BAPTIST. "Beware of the leaven of the SADDUCEES."- Ye make him TWOFOLD MORE A CHILD OF HELL Than YOURSELVES!" JESUS CHRIST. SITTING in my remote and elevated Obfervatory, bordering on the Atlantic Ocean, often wrapt in clouds, and buffeted by ftorms and tempests, incident to fuch an expofed fite; like my illuftrious predeceffors, the noble Dane, Tycho Brahe, in his Obfervatory at Uraniburgh, on the Baltic Sea, or the ftill more adventurous Sons of Science, the French and Spanish Academicians, in their perilous station on the fummit of the Mountain of Pichinca, towering over Quito, in Peru, at the height of 2434 French toifes, or fathoms, above the level of the fea—yet not the highest of the Andes-who were often in danger of being frozen to death, though almost under the Equinoctial Line ;—as we learn from the aspiring and undaunted sufferers, Bouguer, Condamine, and Ulloa-in their curious and scientific narratives: and having a tolerable apparatus about me, especially fome excellent achromatic telescopes, though antiques, of Greek and Hebrew construction, befides others of later date, framed by modern ingenuity, and more commodious perhaps, but not fo much to be relied on in nice obfervations and calculations, as thofe inimitable inftruments. formed 1 formed and fashioned and graduated by those prime workmen, the Prophets, the Evangelifts and Apoftles, under the direction and guidance of the GRAND INSPECTOR himfelf-I have feized every favourable opportunity, every tranfient opening of a hazy atmofphere, for fome years back, to view the present state of LITERATURE throughout EUROPE, and efpecially in the BRITISH ISLES: -Nunc defiderium curaque non levis ! And with grief and apprehenfion, perceive the inroads daily making, by "the tripleheaded Spectre" of French Philofophifm, German Illuminism and English Unitarianifm, in various fhapes, and in divers difguifes, artfully contrived, to allure and draw in unfufpecting readers unawares into the magic circle of their fafcinating influence; by the formidable powers of ridicule and ribaldry, of methodism and hypercriticism, inveigling and beguiling "the unlearned and unstable," the halflearned B 2 learned and prefumptuous, the giddy and the volatile, the grave and the ferious; who cannot bear the labour of thinking for themselves, or are puzzled how to diftinguifh and feparate wholefome from deleterious doctrines. The general resemblance between these modern philofophizing fchools, and the Jewish, the Sadducees, the Scribes and the Pharifees refpectively, is pointed out in the fecond fcriptural motto; and these again, claim kindred with the Grecian fects-the Epicureans, the Academics, and the Stoics. Those corrupters of the more ancient and purer philofophy of the Seven Jages, of Pythagoras and of Socrates.-And our LORD himself, although he inveighed with fuch pointed feverity against the Philofophifts of his age and nation, yet honoured genuine PHILOSOPHY, the offspring of that WISDOM FROM ABOVEORACLE OF THE DEITY-admired and extolled by fews and Greeks-and perfonified in Himself" JESUS OF Nazareth THE CRUCIFIED"-" to Jews a tumbling THE block |