In reference to the discovery of America by Madoc, pp. 7 12 25 57, it may amuse your readers to be informed that Seneca shadows forth such a discovery:—­

“Venient annis saecula seris
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum
Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus,
Ichthysque novos deteget orbes;
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.”

              Medea, act ii, ad finem, v. 375.

“A vaticination,” says the commentator, “of the Spanish discovery of America.”  It is certainly a curious passage.

C.

* * * * *

QUERIES.

BERKELEY’S THEORY OF VISION VINDICATED.

In Mr. Dugald Stewart’s Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical Philosophy he says of Lord Shaftesbury’s work entitled Characteristics—­

“It seemed to have the power of changing the temper of its critics.  It provoked the amiable Berkeley to a harshness equally unwonted and unwarranted; while it softened the rugged Warburton so far as to dispose the fierce, yet not altogether ungenerous, polemic to price an enemy in the very heat of conflict.”

To this passage is appended the following note:—­

“Berkeley’s Minute Philosopher, Dialogue 3; but especially his Theory of Vision Vindicated, London, 1733 (not republished in the quarto edition of his works), where this most excellent man sinks for a moment to the level of a railing polemic.”

Can you or any of your readers do me the favour to inform me whether the tract here referred to has been included in any subsequent edition of the Bishop’s works, and, if not, where it is to be met with?

B.G.

* * * * *

DR. JOHNSON AND PROFESSOR DE MORGAN.

Mr. Editor,—­Although your cleverly conceived publication may be considered as more applicable to men of letters than to men of figures, yet I doubt not you will entertain the subject I am about to propound:  because, in the first place, “whole generations of men of letters” are implicated in the criticism; and, in the next place, because however great, as a man of figures, the critic may be, the man of letters criticised was assuredly greater.

Professor de Morgan has discovered a flaw in the great Johnson! and, in obedience to your epigraph, “when found make a note of it,” he has made a note of it at the foot of page 7, of The Companion to the Almanac for 1850,—­eccola:—­