Hence we see that this celebrated treatise, which Biot alleges to have been written between 1712 and 1719, was actually in the hands of Le Clerc in Holland previous to the 11th April, 1691, and consequently previous to the time of the supposed insanity of its author. Mr. Locke lost no time in obeying the request of his friend. Le Clerc instantly stopped the publication of the letter, and, as he had never learned the name of the author, he deposited the manuscript, which was in the handwriting of Mr. Locke, in the library of the Remonstrants, where it was afterward found, and was published at London in 1754, under the title of _Two letters from Sir Isaac Newton to M. Le Clerc_,—a form which had never been given to it by its author. The copy thus published was a very imperfect one, wanting both the beginning[104] and the end, and erroneous in many places; but Dr. Horsley has published a genuine edition, which has the form of a single letter to a friend, and was copied from a manuscript in Sir Isaac Newton’s handwriting, in the possession of the Rev. Dr. Ekins, Dean of Carlisle. Having thus determined as accurately as possible the dates of the principal theological writings of Sir Isaac, we shall now proceed to give some account of their contents. _The Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John_ were published in London in 1733, in one volume 4to. The work is divided into two parts, the first of which treats of the Prophecies of Daniel, and the second of the Apocalypse of St. John. It begins with an account of the different books which compose the Old Testament; and as the author considers Daniel to be the most distinct in the order of time, and the easiest to be understood, he makes him the key to all the prophetic books in those matters which relate to the “last time.” He next considers the figurative language of the prophets, which he regards as taken “from the analogy between the world natural and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic;” the heavens and the things therein representing thrones and dynasties; the earth, with the things therein, the inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth the most miserable of the people. The sun is put for the whole race of kings, the moon for the body of the common people, and the stars for subordinate princes and rulers. In the earth, the dry land and the waters are put for the people of several nations. Animals and vegetables are also put for the people of several regions. When a beast or man is put for a kingdom, his parts and qualities are put for the analogous parts and qualities of the kingdom; and when a man is taken in a mystical sense, his qualities are often signified by his actions, and by the circumstances and things about him. In applying these principles he begins with the vision of the image composed of four different metals. This image he considers as representing a body of four great nations which should reign in succession over the earth,