culture in that country, which, compared with that of England, yields but as three to eight. Neceffary provifions are alfo imported annually into France to the amount of two hundred millions of livres: while that country, if even moderately cultivated, might afford large exports to other ftates. In England agriculture alfo occupies far more hands in an equal extent of fui face than France does. After all, the foil and clime of England are, with regard to agriculture, fuperior to thofe of France, or perhaps to thofe of any other country and yet in England it is fuppofed the proportion of poor equals that of France. Commerce and manufactures offer far more abundant refources to the poor than agriculture, and the toils are continuous, not interrupted by intervals. But our limits will not permit us to enlarge farther on this fubject than merely to obferve, that the committee, after defcanting on the means of employing the honeft poor, proceeds to the means of correcting the vicious. The whole pamphlet is worthy of the attention of the benevolent in all countries.

Le Chemin du Bonheur tracè aux jeunes gens, is a religious work of great merit. The author gives the eflence of Christianity, free from controverfy, or any cenfure of the creed or practice of any Christian communion.

The Prefervatif contre le Schifme, or questions on the decree of the 27th Nov. 1790, 8vo. concerns the prefent religious ferments in France.

A tragedy, entitled Washington, ou la liberte du nouveau - monde, by M. de Sauvigny, has appeared on the theatre of the nation at Paris. The title may indicate that it is an illegitimate drama.

Mirabeau juge par fes Amis et par fes Enemis, Paris, 8vo. is the title of a work containing a collection of the best pieces which have appeared in the periodical works for and against that cele brated man.

The Voyage en Italie of M. Duclos, hiftoriographer of France, lately published at Paris, in one volume, 8vo. is confined in its plan. The journey was performed in the year 1766. M. Duclos declares exprefly, p. 280, I am drawing up this journal of my travels only for my own private fatisfaction, and not for the prefs.' We are not therefore to regard him as a complete traveller, but as a philofophical obferver, who collects as he paffes along political or moral materials, of which he means to make a proper ufe at a future time. Confidered under this point of view, this posthumous work of Duclos is interefting. The good quali ties and the defects of the author mark its pages; his peculiar manner, his philofophical tone, always frank, often fevere, and that paffionate love for every feature of beauty or goodness, which is peculiar to just minds and fenfitive hearts. The production

is nervous the caufticity of the author is very apparent: he lived with the great and knew them.

Some of his reflections at Rome we shall tranflate, as a specimen of the work. With us in France a king builds a palace, his fucceffor is not pleased with it, and he builds another, which is in like manner abandoned by a third. If this change were only occafioned by the development of the genius of an age, and the gradual perfection of the arts, few objections could be made; but it is commonly pure inconftancy, and the people pays the expence. We have seen as much spent in building, nay more than Louis XIV. fquandered, and what has been done? It is not thus at Rome. Is the erection of a church proposed? The plan is meditated, digefted first. The future changes, if any, only tend to perfect the edifice. One pope begins, and his fucceffors continue. church of St. Peter is the work of thirty popes.

The

In general, the administration of the popes is moderate.➡ Each pontificate is only estimated at feven years, taking the medium of a series of popes. It is not poffible that an old man fhould bufy himself with the faults of the adminiftration, that he fhould flatter himfelf that he fhall have time to correct them, or that he fhould even have fuch courage at an advanced age as to make the attempt: he only thinks of enjoyment.-The govern ment is one of the worst in Europe. I do not speak of the defects of the conftitution of this fingular monarchy. For example, in a ftate where the fovereign is an old man elected and abfolute, but who cannot appoint his fucceffor, it is impoffible to reunite all inclinations in one, to confound particular interefts in the common intereft, or to make the latter the fource of the former. The spi rit of new Rome is diametrically oppofite to that of the ancient. In this laft every point of the circumference tended to the center, and patriotifm was the ruling paffion of the citizens. In the new, all, who have the fmallest private intereft to follow, leave the circle. It is the mode to be folitary or not to unite, except to form factions, fave in one general inftance, the pretenfions of the Roman court over other catholic ftates. In this point alone all are actuated with one fpirit. But this favourite object must be foon renounced, if Rome wifhes to preferve any privilege.'

Nor muft we omit to mention an Englishman, who may ren der the island of Capra more illuftrious than the ancient debaucheries of Tiberius. He was called the chevalier Torol. Afflicted with an asthma, after having tried the air of the several regions of Italy, he found no benefit except in this famous ifland. Hardly had he paft a few days at Anacapri before his breathing became more free. Refolved to fix there he built an agreeable houfe upon the hill, where he lived thirty years, occupied with leifure and amufed with his ftudies. M. Duclo's thus proceeds. A a 2

• The

The first piece of furniture he procured was a young and beautiful girl, by whom he had three fons, whom he fent to London as foon as they were of an age proper to learn commerce, each with a thousand guineas. He died in 1766,leaving to his female com panion his house and two hundred a year, and the rest to his fons. His habitation was a kind of little fort, to which you afcended by ftairs cut in the rock; it was defended by two pieces of cannon, and by a garrifon, confifting of domeftics whofe maintenance depended on the care and duration of his life, without any hope of legacies. He was beloved and esteemed in the ifle. If this was not a wife man feek one fuch elsewhere.'

Of the work entitled Esprit Pensées et Maximes de M. l'Abbe Maury, little needs be faid. The opinion of the abbe, fupported by that of Hume, that there cannot be found a ray of real cloquence in the English writers, is rather remarkable. But it ap pears certain the that animated elocution which appears in the works of Fenclon, Boffuet, Rouffeau, Raynal, &c. has never yet been hazarded by the fevere fense of our great authors, who prefer the decency of reafon to the impaffioned decorations of eloquence.

The poems of M. Bonnard, Paris, 8vo. prefent many agreeable specimens of that light ftyle which is the moft pleafing prevince of French poetry.

GERMAN Y.

The Ueberficht der Vornemften Regierungen, &c. or View of the chief Goverments of Europe, by M. G. A. Breitenbach, counsellor of the finances of the duke of Saxe-Weimar, prefents an account of the prefent ftate, not only of Europe, but of the known world, with an abridgement of the history of each coun try, or at least of the reigning dynafiy. As to Europe, this little work can only be useful to those who look into it for the elements of the hiftory of our own times; but the information it contains concerning the other parts of the globe, although very short, nevertheless developes a general knowledge of the ftate of thofe diftant countries fufficient for the commonalty of readers. As a fpecimen of his manner we shall transcribe the following article.

National Government of the Interior Parts of America.

It is well known that Peru was anciently governed by the incas, and there ftill remain defcendants of that race. Apu inca, who had embraced the catholic faith, reigned, in 1746, over a part of the ancient inheritance of his family, from Tarma in Peru to the country of the Amazons, and received an embaffy from Ferdinand VI. king of Spain (See the Voyages of Bayer). Another, -named Tupac Marri, put himself at the head of an infurrection

against

against the Spaniards in 1781. He was vanquished by the general D. Valle, who made him prifoner, and ordered his head to be cut off. His wife and his children, with other of his relation, were brought captives to Cusco.

The defcendants of the ancient fovereigns of Mexico were deprived of all their rights by the Spaniards, and arranged in the clafs of private individuals. It has nevertheless happened that a defcendant of Pedro de Montezuma, fon of Montezuma II. and to whom the emperor Charles V. had affigned fome lands in Mexico, with the title of count, obtained the dignity of viceroy of Mexico in 1697 (Voyages of Gemelli). Another of thefe counts, de Montezuma, lived at Manilla in 1768; the Spanish king paid him a penfion of 5000 piaters, and permitted him to ufe the arms afcribed to the Mexican empire (Voyages de Page). Of the other American princes, known under the name of Caziques. there was, in 1760, one named Ponteak, of the family of Ottovavas, who governed the Algonquin Indians in Canada, Roger, in his account of North America, mentions this Ponteak as one of the most powerful princes in that part of the world, and who had formed the project of uniting under his fceptre all the Eeighbouring native nations. But in this he failed.'

We fhall only obferve upon this extract, that it is surprising to fee the Voyages of Gemelli quoted as an authentic work, while it was a fabrication of the clofet.

Mr. Heim's Hiftorifch Philologifche Abhandlung; or, Hiftorical and Philological Treatife on the Roman Monuments discovered at Afchaffenburg, from 1777 till 1787, Francfort and Mentz, 4to, is not a little curious. Many Roman antiquities have at different times been found at Mentz, but they have been neglected, or carried to Vienna. The difcoveries at Afchaffenburg began, 1777, upon the occafion of repairing one of the old towers of the town, others followed in 1782, on demolishing a private house, and in 1383, on fearching the foundations of the old caftle. The antiquities of which we have here a description, are, 1. A votive marble to Apollo and Diana. 2. One fimilar to Jupiter, as preferver of the Roman republic. 3. Another, infcribed to the greatest of the gods. 4. Another to Jupiter, by a family of the country. 5. A domeftic altar to Jupiter. 6. A votive marble to the fame deity, by two Roman legions. 7. Another dedicated to the British Jove, and to the other gods of Britain. 8. A table of stone for facrifices. 9. A Roman coin.

All thefe monuments are defcribed in the prolix ftyle of the old antiquaries; but the want of plates is an effential defect. The author gives an account of the progrefs of antiquarian ftudies in his country, and a lift of writers who have treated on the antiquities of Mentz.

Ifert's Reize na Guinea, &c. or, a Voyage to Guinea and the Caraibes

A a 3

Caraibes Iflands, 8vo. is in the form of letters, and prefents many proofs of judgment and veracity. The author is phyfician to the Danish fettlements in Africa, and he arrived at Chriftianfburg, on the banks of the river Volta, towards the end of the year 1783. This fortrefs is the chief place of a Danish colony, founded in 1660. Mr. Ifert first gives an account of a war between the Danes and the natives, which raged at the time of his arrival, Amid other particulars he then mentions that ftreams of water are rare in that region; but the defect is fupplied by a fingular filtration not yet accounted for. Ditches are dug at the distance of 150 paces from the fea, and of the depth of eight or ten feet: by degrees they are filled with water to the height of the fea's level; and this water is perfectly sweet and wholefome. Our limits will not permit us to follow Mr. Ifert in his account of the charming Country of Whedha, left a defert by the ftupid indolence of the natives, nor of that of the Aquapins, a nation feated about 30 leagues from the coaft. Mr. Ifert leaves Africa to go to Santa Cruz, an ifland bought by the Danes from the French at the beginning of this century. The chief town is Chriftianftad. Thence he procecds to the other Danish ifles, and to Guadaloup and Martinico.

Another work of the fame author, the publication of which had commenced under the title of Flora Auftrialis, has been interrupts ed by his death,

The Deutfche Schaubuhne, or German Theatre, published at Augsburg, 8vo. proceeds regularly in twelve volumes for each year. The third year is now completed.

Vogt's fingular work Guftav Adolph, or the Hiftory of Gusta vus Adolphus, king of Sweden, in the form of a drama, published at Frankfort, in two vols. 8vo. with plates, is not deficient in entertainment nor in inftruction.

PRUSSIA.

Of Baron Poelnitz's Memoiren zur Lebens, &c. or Memoirs to ferve the History of the Lives and Government of the four laft Pruffian Monarchs, the first volume has appeared at Berlin, 8vo, The manufcript of this work has been long concealed in cabi nets, and the editor deferves thanks for the publication of a work fo authentic and interefting. This first volume ends at the death of Frederic I. who appears to more advantage in the pages of Poelnitz than in former publications.

SWITZERLA

N D.

At Laufanne has appeared in two vols. 8vo. La Morale du Citoyen, by M. Bonfils of Geneva. This is the work of a good citizen, and contains many new and useful ideas. Among others, the propofition for a tribunal of morals, who fhall enquire into the caufes of female feduction, and replace the repentant in character

and