their feudal rights, of reftoring the eftates of the clergy, or of leffening in any degree the fecurity allotted for the payment of affignats, was completely and for ever abandoned. These points are warmly attacked by the Abbé; who contends that it is impoffible that any man, who has the smallest regard for morality, religion, juftice, or even decency, could ever think of treating with an affembly that has trampled on all these virtues. He thus emphatically apoftrophizes his country: Unhappy nation, muft it be your fate to have all the empyrics of the earth to try experiments on you, to run all the risks to which the corrupt imaginations of thofe arrogant philofophers would expofe you, who, in the delirium of a falfe notion of celebrity, or of an unbridled ambition, think that they can govern mankind by other principles than thofe of morality, juftice, and eternal wisdom! Will you never be tired of finding yourself the victim of their deftructive plans! What have you gained by all the fyftems which they have been labouring for four years to make you adopt? Behold the fhocking state to which they have reduced you: you had a king, whom heaven in its merey feemed to have formed on purpofe for you, and they have murdered him; you had temples to which you used to repair to adore the God who had always protected you, they have pulled them down, have driven away his minifters, and have robbed them of their property; you had laws, which fecured your happiness, and they have engraven on their ruins, in characters of blood, the most barbarous inftitute of every paffion and of every crime; you paffed for the most loving and the most fentimental nation, and they have made you a thousand times more ferocious than a horde of favages or tygers. Such is the fruit of the liberty which they have given to you, of the fovereignty with which they amufed you, and of the happiness which they promised you!' A treaty with fuch perfons, he fays, would be blafphemy against fociety. The Abbé maintains that the idea of a portion of the fovereignty being vefted in every individual of a ftate is a chimera, leading to abfurdities the most extravagant; that, if the people, individually or collectively, ever pofleffed the right of fovereignty, they furrendered it when they adopted a conftitution, and placed a king at the head of it; that, without a conftitution, a multitude of men cannot be called a nation, which gives the idea of regulated fociety, but merely a collection of individuals, in which no one has a right to act but for himself; and that no act can be done in the name of the nation, and binding on all, if it be not done according to the forms prescribed by the conftitution. Hence he concludes that neither the king, who is but a trustee for the public and for his own family, nor the States General, to whom the conftitution has given only the power of granting or refufing supplies, and of making known to the crown the grievances of the nation, сап can conftitutionally make any alteration in the fundamental laws of France. Thefe doctrines, though maintained with ingenuity and plaufibility, our readers will probably not be difpofed to relifh, nor deem calculated for the meridian of England. We will give one more extract from this work, which expreffes the fentiments of the most numerous part of the emigrants, for the purpose of letting the people of this country fee to what these gentlemen expect the fucceffes of the allies will lead: As for me, who have never thought that it was lawful for man to be falfe, unjuft, or cruel, through prudence, nor to facrifice principles to circumflances, I will be explicit without difguife or fear. I declare then, openly, in the name of religion, virtue, juftice, and honesty, so dear to men who are not abandoned and unprincipled, in the name of the French monarchy and its faithful adherents, whofe organ M. Mallet du Pan has fo audaciously prefumed to make himself; in a word, in the name of all the friends of humanity, who are incapable of capitulating with crimes; that I call for the profcription and removal of the abufes which the lapfe of ages may have introduced into our government, and at the fame time the complete restoration of our ancient conftitution in its primitive purity; of that conftitution which, under the auspices of the most confoling of all religions, was for 1400 years the pledge of the king's juftice, and of his fubjects' obedience; which alike respected the liberty, and protected the property, of the lowest and of the highest citizen; and which, uniting all the orders of the ftate, made them concur, through one common and equal intereft, in promoting the profperity of the empire, the glory of the fovereign, and the happinefs of individuals. I declare that to the king must be restored his lawful authority, fuch as it has always been from the foundation of the monarchy; that authority at once active, abfolute, and beneficent, the only one capable of maintaining the peace and happinefs of a vaft empire; that precious authority always placed between juftice and love, the true pillars of the throne of the Bourbons. I declare that to the clergy mu be restored their eftates, because they are the lawful proprietors of them; because, in the midst of a fociety that calls itfelf civilized, they have been ftripped of their poffeffions by the law of the ftrongeft; and because the nation is obliged in honour to make reftitution of the plunder that has been audaciously feized in its name. I declare that to the nobility must be restored their feignorial rights, becaufe they are their property; their honours, because they are the price of their many fervices; and their rank in the monarchy, becaufe they are its glory and fupport. In a word, I am for the complete and entire re-establiment of the old form of government, and the annihilation of all thofe abfurd reveries, thofe cruel innovations falfely called philofophic, thofe acts of delirium, incredulity, and rebellion, dignified with the name of decrees; I declare that not one of them must be preserved; because, independent * Does not the prefent writer alfo audaciously prefume to make himself their organ? Pp 2 ly ly of the crimes that produced them, they are all vitiated by a radi cal nullity, the want of conftitutional power in the three affemblies wrongly called national, from which they have emanated.' Though the principles which the author of this converfation lays down cannot be palatable in this country, we must allow that he reasons on them with ability; and that, if he infists on the restoration of the old French conftitution, it is not because he confiders it as a defpotism, but as calculated to secure liberty, property, and the empire of law It is neceffary, also, that we fhould obferve that he is an advocate only for the conftitutional authority of the crown; and not for those encroachments which, for more than a century and a half, had enabled the kings to legiflate and impofe taxes without the concurrence of the States General. ART. XIII. Epitre fur l'Homme, &c. i. e. An Effay on Man; written in Confequence of the French Revolution. 8vo. pp. 22. Bruffels. 1794. De Boffe, London. Price is. THIS work confifts of about 312 verfes, exclufively of feve ral long and judicious notes, and feems to have been formed on the model of Pope's Effay on Man. The author has indeed taken different ground, and, in general, has treated the fubject rather as a chriftian philofopher, than as one who had no other light to guide him than that of human reason, unaffisted by revelation. Ever fince modern philofophy had erected itself into a fect, he fays, it has been the object of its fectaries fyftematically to attack and undermine the doctrines of revealed religion; in oppofition to which they have taught that man is naturally good, that virtue fprings up fpontaneously in his breaft, and that his vices are the effects or confequences of human laws and inftitutions. Our author, on the contrary, maintains that, in confequence of the fall of Adam, man is born with propenfities to wickednefs, which develop themfelves with his faculties, and conftantly incline him to evil; and that human laws, fo far from being the caufes of his vices, are in reality the effects; being framed for the purpose of reftraining his paffions, and keeping them within bounds. This laft obfervation may be generally true, but it is particularly falfe; for no man of information and candor will undertake to allert that there are not, in many ftates, inftitutions which, though establifhed longè alio intuiter, have a tendency to check the progrefs of virtue, and to give encouragement to the basest paffions of the human heart. How many laws are enacted in this country, for the execution of which there is no fecurity, except in the bafe principle of felf-intereft?--Not to dwell on this circumfance, which, we are willing to admit, does not make againft against the main fcope of our author's effay, it being perhaps. no more than an exception to his rule, we must obferve that, though he relies chiefly on, yet he does not truft folely for fupport to, the authority of revelation; an authority which, he knows, the philofophers whom he attacks would refute to acknowlege: he alfo calls into his aid the opinions of Horace and other antients; for whom, he alfo knows, his adverfaries entertain much more respect than for Mofes and the prophets. That Horace confidered man as by nature prone to evil, and laws as made for the purpose of reftraining this propenfity, may be inferred from the 3d Satire of his ift book, in which he fays, Jura inventa metu injufti fateare neceffe eft, It is not for us to fettle the dispute between our author and his adverfaries, nor to declare which fyftem fhould be preferred to the other; it is enough for us to have flated the nature of his plan, and to add that he has executed it in a masterly manner, both with respect to reafoning and to poetry. In one place, he cenfures Pope for not having fufficiently attended to history: but his very cenfure contains the highest compliment to our countryman, as it feems to place him above all the other philofophers mentioned on the occafion. The paffage to which we allude is as follows: L'hiftoire: guide fur, elle offre à la raifon Ce fl fi precieux que defira Platon, Et que Rouleau, Leibnitz, Hobbes, Pope lui meme, ART. XIV. Allgemeines Polyglotten Lexicon, &c. i. e. A General Polyglot Lexicon of Natural History. By PH. AND. NEMNICH, J. U. L. Vol II. 4to. Hamburgh and Leipzic. London, imported by Sewell. THIS is a fecond volume of the part of the CATHOLICON relating to natural hiftory, which we announced to our readers in the Appendix to our 11th vol. p. 561. It comprizes the letters from C to F, both inclufive; and we can only obferve that it feems to be executed with the fame induftry and accuracy that were apparent in the first volume. The progress now made enables the author to engage that the whole of this alphabet fhall be completed in the fourth volume; to which, however, will be added a copious index of the names in all the languages introduced in the work. The bulk of the whole will be fuch as to form in the binding three moderatefized volumes. ART. XV. Allgemeines Warterbuch der Marine, &c. i.e. A General Dictionary of Sea Terms. By J. H. RODING. Vol. II. 4to. Hamburg and Leipzic. London, imported by Sewell. THE "HE firft part of this dictionary was reviewed in the Appendix to our 11th vol. p. 563. The second has not fallen fhort of the former in merit: it contains the plates which were neceffary to render intelligible the important differtation on the curvature of anchor-prongs, &c. an English vocabulary of fea-terms, an Italian, a Portuguese, and a Spanish. We prefume that the author has had thefe vocabularies revifed by fome practical navigator, and we therefore fhall not venture to criticize. To judge by Dryden's Annus Mirabilis, and Falconer's Shipwreck, fome of his terms are not claffical. Under the article Ebbe und Fluth, we meet with the combination Floodtide, which, however correct etymologically, does not found like a common phrafe for high water. It is to be hoped that this work, on the whole valuable, will be republished with the English language for its bafis; that the deficiencies will be supplied from domestic fources, and from the Encyclopedie Methodique; and that a more free introduction will be made of mathematical inveftigations, of which, except in the article Abtreiben, we have not difcerned deep traces; fo that the new work may affume a more fcientific form. It were perhaps defirable to incorporate in it a gazetteer of fea-ports, and a feries of charts. ART. XVI. Sur les Generations actuelles, &c. i. e. On the existing Generations. Human Abfurdities. A Dreamer of the Alps. 8vo. pp. 415. Paris, 1793. THIS HIS dreamer of the Alps paffes in quick review before him all the moft fplendid and important objects of human inquiry. He confiders, 1. the habitation of man, viz. the univerfe, and that part of it with which he is particularly connected; 2. man himself; 3. the furface of the earth as modified by man; 4. the focial state of man; 5. general intellectual opinions; 6. particular opinions of different people. Over this immenfe field, his march muft of courfe be extremely rapid and defultory. In fact, the chief purpose of the work feems to be to give birth to a number of fentiments of the new philofophy, expreffed in that obfcure, fwollen, and affected phrafeology, under which trite and vague notions are fo often difguifed. The tendency of the whole is evidently to fhew the follies and abfurdities into which men have fallen, when they have quitted the plain dictates of nature, as referring to their I condition |