work, he has not deigned to observe that they had both entertained fimilar ideas, without having any communication on the fubject-Thefe opinions, concerning the property of which M. DE LA BORDE is fo jealous, refpect the voyage made by Captain Shortland, and his discovery of New Georgia, or the Land of the Arfacider, as it had before been called by M, De Surville. On this head, much reproach is beftowed on Capt. Shortland, and not a little lavifhed on his countrymen, thofe proud islanders, who endeavour to appropriate the difcoveries of others to themfelves.' As we have already treated this fubject at full length in our account of Governor Philip's voyage, in the first volume of our New Series, p. 164; and again in the review of M. Fleurieu's work, vol. vii. p. 174 to 185, and p. 250 to 259, we omit any farther remarks on it in this place, only obferving that M. DE LA BORDE has advanced nothing to induce us to depart from the fentiments which we there expreffed. Our author differs from M. Fleurieu in two points: 1ft, in not believing that the coafts difcovered by Mefirs. Bougainville, Surville, and Shortland, form an archipelago, but belong to the fame continent; and next, in imagining that, if they are a cluster of islands, they are not the fuppofed Solomon Islands. This laft idea, he obferves, is a dream of M. Buache, in the refutation of which he would not wafte his time, had not M. Fleurieu, by adopting it, given it fome importance: he therefore hopes to prove, in a work written for the express purpose, that this fuppofition is a mere chimæra.-M. DE LA BORDE clofes this part of his fubject with calling the attention of his countrymen to the misfortunes of M. De la Peyroufe; who, with his companions, is, in his opinion, ftill living on the fhores of New Holland. We are next prefented with a preliminary difcourfe on the mode in which America was peopled: whether by Africans paffing from the coaft of Guinea to the Brazils, which, in our author's idea, formerly joined each other, fo as to make one continent:—or was America peopled by the unfortunate remains of the inhabitants of the Atlantides of Plato, or was not its population derived from a nation which once inhabited an immenfe country joining Mexico to the Moluccas, and of which the remains are to be fought in the innumerable islands of the South Sea, in New Zealand, New Holland, &c. ?-All this is wandering on an immenfe plain with very little light to direct us; and, accordingly, though we may fometimes admire M. DE LA BORDE's ingenuity, we are feldom, if ever, convinced by his arguments. We are moft inclined to join him in fentiment, when he tells us that much reafoning is thrown away in proving nothing; and that it might as well be pretended that America Pp 4 peopled peopled the other three parts of the globe, as that it received its population from them. He maintains, however, that, from the refemblance between the two people, the Americans were either the ancestors or the defcendants of the Scythians. M. DE LA BORDE next enters on his principal fubject. He first gives a concife ftatement of the circumstances leading to the difcovery of the South Sea, and afterward furnishes an abridgment of all the voyages of confequence made to that part of the globe. His narrative is brought down to the year 1790, and concludes with an account of the Mutiny on board the Bounty, and of the fhipwreck of the Guardian. The different voyages, which are here related, have been already noticed by us at feparate times on their original publications; in courfe, we need at prefent only obferve, that their most material circumftances are judiciously brought together into a fmall compafs. These volumes are also illuftrated by valuable maps, which do credit to the author's skill and induftry; and the readers of this work will readily own with us, that M. Dɛ LA BORDE has enabled them to acquire a confiderable degree of information with very little expence or trouble. Our newspapers have reported that the ingenious author of this work, and his learned brother-historian, M. Fleurieu, were among the number of those who have been lately facrificed to the ungovernable fury of the mobs of Paris. We fincerely hope that the report is unfounded: for when men of literature and fcience fall victims, and generally innocent victims, to the rage and frenzy of the multitude, their excesses are particularly deplorable. ART. XIII. CHRISTOPHORI SAX11 Onomafticon Literarium, five nomenclator Hiflorico-criticus Præftantiffimorum omnis ætatis, populi, artiumque formule fcriptorum. Item Monumentorum maxime illuftrium, ab erbe condito ufque ad fæculi, quod vivimus, tempora, digeftus, et verifimilibus, quantum fieri potuit, annorum notis accommodatus. 8vo. 7 Vois, Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1775-1790. London, Elmfley. TH 'HE laft volume of this most useful and truly excellent work has just reached us, and has afforded us a fresh occafion of lamenting the difficulty of procuring the new productions of modern fcholars from the continent, in any moderate time, after they are firft published. The first volume appeared in 1775: it begins with Adam, and concludes with Gelafius, who flourished about 476 years after the Chriftian æra. It contains 598 pages. The The fecond volume appeared in 1777. It opens with Eutocins, the mathematician, A. D. 478, and finithes with Joannes Rhagius fticampianus, the author of a Commentary on the Grammar of Peter Helias. He was born in 1460, and died in 1520.-659 pages. The third volume was published in 1780:-from Raphael Maffeus Volaterranus, grammarian and hiftorian, who was born in 1451 and died in 1521, to Academia Parmenfis, which is faid to have been founded between 1585 and 1590, a Rainutio, duce Parmenfi.-660 pages. The fourth volume came out in 1782: from Cæfar Baronius, the celebrated author of Annales Ecclefiaftici, who was born in 1538, and died in 1607, to the foundation of the Academia Nature Curioforum in Germany, 1652, by J. Laurentius Baufchius-659 pages. The fifth volume appeared in 1785:- from Placidus Carrafa, author of Motuce illuftrate deferiptio, publifhed in 1653, to the establishment of the Royal Society at Berlin, in 1700, under Frederic, the firft king of Pruffia.-655 pages. The fixth volume, publifhed in 1788-from Dominicus de Angelis, a Neapolitan hiftorian and Philologue, author of a tract, Della Patria d'Ennio, printed at Rome in 1701, and of other works in Italian; who was born in 1675 and died in 1718-to Joannes Taylor, editor of Lyfias, in 1739-744 pages. The feventh volume, which came out in 1790, begins with Jofephus Bartoli, a Philologue and Antiquary of Padua, author of two learned difputations, in Italian, who flourished in 1740; and concludes with Rudulphus Henricus Zobelius, author of Bibliothek der Philofophie und Litteratur, which opened with fair prospects, in the year preceding his death, 1774-447 pages. To this volume is added an index to the whole work. In a compilation of this nature, fome omiffions and many errors must be expected. Frequent objections alfo will be ftarted from a difference of opinion, in the reader, respecting the merits of the writers, whofe names the author has enumerated, and whofé works he has characterized. In the prefaces, appendices, and analecta, SAXIUS has fupplied numerous deficiencies, and has corrected feveral mistakes; and to the caviller and the carping critic, he may recommend the verses of Euenus: Πολλῶς ἀπιλέγειν μὲν ἔθος περὶ πανὸς ὁμοίως Καὶ πρὸς μὲν τέλος ἀρχὲς λόγος εἷς ὁ παλαιός" Among Among the omiffions, which have escaped the diligent and learned SAXIUS, may be enumerated TYNNICHUS, celebrated by Plato, in Ione, and by Parphyrius de Abftinentiâ, as an excellent hymnographift.-The curious reader may confult also Koenius in Corinthum, p. 135, Briffæus, in Terentianum Maurum, and Fabricius, Bibl. Græc. vol. I. p. 184. Edit. Harles. He lived earlier than the age of Efchylus. We have alfo noted the omiffion of LYSICRATES, whofe name occurs not in Fabricius, though he is quoted by Hefychius, V. Bayala, and V. Σpusha; and of many of the writers, quoted by Athenæus; among whom we particularly lament the want of a complete enumeration of the Greek tragic and comic writers. On the whole, however, we congratulate the literary world on the completion of this Onomafticon, which must be confidered as a lafting monument of the diligence and learning of SAXIUS; and we may with confidence affert, in the words of the authors of the Bibliotheca Critica, that the feventh volume iifdem, quibus priora volumina, commendatur dotibus, diligentia, brevitate, delectu, in notandis fcriptorum ætate, genere, laude, et memorandis notitia fontibus. Biblioth. Crit. Vol. II. P. VII. p. 94. ART. XIV. Hiftoire de la Noblese hereditaire, &c. i, e. An Hiftory of the Nobility, as well Hereditary, as following by Succeffion, (fucceffive,) among the Gauls, French, and other Euro. pean Nations of their Government from the Year 57 before our Era to the prefent Time: containing the Origin and Names of the ancient Nations which have united and formed the Kingdom of the Francs; the Names and Authority of their Chiefs and Kings, taken from the most ancient and illuftrious Families among them their Government under the Roman Empire to the Time of Clovis, &c. By the Abbé C. 1. DE BEVY, Hiftoriographer of France, &c. 4to. pp. 544. 11. 55. fterling. Liege, 1791. Imported by Nicol, Pall Mall. IN N times like the prefent, when philofophy is bufily employed in overturning authorities and prejudices, and in fubftituting reafon and juftice in their place, it behoves thofe, in whofe eyes all change is innovation, and all innovation is destruction, to step forward and plead the caufe of ancient ufage and immemorial custom. Now is the feason when the aristocratical fophift should affail the ear that is liftening to fenfe, and diftract its attention by the fafcinations of found: when he should dazzle the eye that is fearching after truth, by interpofing the glare of tinfel and frippery under which the has been buried, He He should now alarm the fuperftitious by defcanting on the divine authority of kings, and the inherent piety of priefts: he fhould footh the feeble into pity, and, while he dwells with exaggeration on the miferies which individuals have fuffered from the fury of a fenfelefs rabble, he fhould forget the oppreffion under which millions have laboured from the tyranny of a few: he fhould filence the poor man, oppreffed with taxes, by infifting on the fplendor in which, by the contributions of himfelf and his fellow-wretches, a court is fuftained; and while he laments over the deftruction of ilts and tournaments, and all the loft honours of chivalry, he should fervently implore that our remaining follies, rendered fo acceptable by their age and magnitude, fhould be fpared, and that time fhould be allowed to increase our veneration for the tottering pile of national inconfiftencies. Under the banners of fuch a leader, the author of the prefent work might be proud to enlift; and no favourer of the privileged orders could refufe to enroll one, who has spent fo many years and so much labour in raking together all that can be collected concerning nobility for the laft eighteen centuries. For ten years, (tays he,) I had to ftruggle against the prejudices which are fo prevalent in France, that all the memorials of those ages, in which a regular pay was established for the troops, are either loft or fhut up in the Tower of London.' However, after immenfe researches, a fortunate chance procured him, in 1780, the fight of one hundred of thefe precious originals, and enabled him to complete his account of the Proceres, Optimates, Magnates, Illuftri; of the Duc, Comte, Centenier, Dixainier, &c. &c. M. DE BEVY maintains the antiquity of nobility against the opinions of Meffrs. Du Bos, Henault, Velly, and Mably, and all the proneurs d'égalité,' who trace its origin no farther than to the eighth or tenth century. In order to prove his polition, he quotes whatever has been faid by Cæfar or Tacitus concerning the chiefs of the Germans or Gauls; and if, with him, we tranflate principes, princes; and dux, duke; and fo on; we muft allow that he feems to have established his point: but, as yet, we have feen no reafon to conclude that dux in Cæfar's time was an hereditary title, conveying certain privileges and immunities, fimilar to what was lately understood by duc in France; or to what is at prefent meant by duke in England. Till this circumftance be afcertained, all the quotations, which are introduced, are rather oftentatious than inftructive. In the compofition of the prefent work, the learned Abbé does not confine himself very strictly to order. He divides his book into chapters; and the principal fubjects, which are dir cuffed, |