adolefcence, may have got themfelves entangled in his nets. We wish them well out again-for we know not what they will get by it.-Our Author derives fome confolation from this thought, that Voltaire, by his attacks on fanaticism, has really ferved the caufe of true religion, though without intending it, and, fays he, in the impenetrable judgments of God, may not this inftance of merit have produced a moment of clemency and grace?'-We shall all fee, how those matters ftand, when the time comes,-and before that our gueffes are ufelefs. Our Author concludes this article in the following manner : How pleasing is it to entertain thefe comfortable ideas, and thus to temper the feverity of this article by obferving, that if, in effect, M. de Voltaire had the misfortune to wander from the faith, he never abjured the effential and fundamental doctrine of the existence of God, and a future state of rewards and punishments; and that he paid a conftant homage to the truths of primitive Revelation, that are contained in the law of nature.'-In all this article, there is something that would almost engage us to fay to M. PALISSOT, as Hamlet faid to the ghost,

Thou com'ft in fuch a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee-

But at prefent we have not time-and fhall therefore proceed. After having mentioned the faults and foibles of Voltaire, our Author defends him against the charge of levity, avarice, and malignity, that have been brought against him by many of his adverfaries. This defence is carried on by fomething like what we call the proof of an alibi, in the Courts of Justice, even by examples alleged of gravity, generosity, and humanity. Every body knows, that M. de Voltaire has done fplendid deeds, that he educated and portioned the grand daughter of Corneille, and Mad. de Varicourt, who had no other title to his generofity, than her birth, graces, and indigence; that he interested himself, with a benevolent and noble ardour, in the caufes of Calas, Sirven, Montbailly, and the unfortunate Lally, which will remain eternal monuments of VOLTAIRE's humanity, and of the tremendous iniquity of the French tribunals; that he was generous, humane, and beneficent, to his peasants; and that his acts of charity were many, and noble. It even appears from M. Paliffot's difcourfe, that he did not gain fo much by his works, as is generally apprehended; and that the Bookfellers were always complaining of Voltaire, and growing rich by his publications.

His journey to Paris fhortened his days: fo ftrong, however, was his conftitution, that nature could not kill him without the help of opium:-The incenfe of the French academy may, we think, by its fuffocating power, have prepared matters for

this catastrophe. Some days,' fays our Author, before his death, the prefentment of that fatal moment occupied him conftantly. He never had felt fo deeply the influence of melancholy, as one day that he returned from a vifit to the Marchionefs of G* with whom he had contracted an intimate friendship in his early youth. I am come, faid he, from one bank of Styx to the other: I never was fo fenfible of my old age as today.' This is fomething like David Hume's Charon, but is not quite fo merry. A little before the fit of fickness, that ended his days, he made a vifit to the Marquis of Villette, while he fat at table, and, after fome moments of the deepest thought, and a melancholy afpect of recollection, he said to him, You are like thofe Kings of Egypt, who, while they fat at dinner, had a death's-head placed on the table before them.'-On his arrival at Paris, he faid, I am come in quest of glory and-death. When an artist brought him a picture, representing his literary triumph; he faid coldly, It is my tomb that I want, and not my triumph.

We find fubjoined to the eulogy of this extraordinary man (for fuch, indeed, he was, whatever rank may be otherwife affigned to him in the judgment of pofterity) notes, records, and letters, defigned to explain and illustrate feveral paffages in the text of M. PALISSOT. Among thefe pieces, we meet with fome letters of the King of Pruffa to Meffrs. de Voltaire and D'Alembert-a letter of the Princefs of Bareith (and an excelJent one too) to M. de Voltaire,-a fine ode of M. Le Brun, fecretary to the Prince of Conti, recommending to the generofity of M. de Voltaire, the grand-daughter of Corneille, and the anfwer of the latter,-which is elegant and humane.

Upon the whole, this eulogy of M. PALISSOT, notwithanding fome defects which the sharp eye of criticism will eafily difcern, is a very good, decent, and fenfible piece. If fome of the objects, that deserved a more circumftantial detail, are touched too fuperficially, many of the more important ones, that naturally occurred in an undertaking of this kind, are really treated with a mafterly hand.

AR T. XV.

HERMANNI BOERHAVII Epiftola ad Johannem Baptiflam Bassand, Medicum Cæfareum.-HERMAN BOERHAAVE's Letters to John B. Faffand, Phyfician to his Imperial Majefty. 8vo. Vienna, 1778. VERY publication that bears the immortal name of BOERHAAVE will be received with avidity by more than one clafs of readers. His epiftolary correfpondence, in which we find fuch an amiable mixture of the great genius and the good man, will be more peculiarly interefting to all fuch as are endowed with a good taste and a feeling heart.

The

The authenticity of thefe Letters is completely afcertained, as they are printed from the originals which are kept in the Imperial Library. M. Baffand, to whom they were written, had ftudied under Boerhaave, and, after having acquired an eminent reputation by the fuccefsful practice of phyfic and furgery in different countries, he rofe to the rank of First Physician to the Imperial court at Vienna. We fee by thefe Letters that they were written as much from the heart as from the head, and that the Belgic Hippocrates correfponds with Baffand, not only as a man of learning, but alfo as his intimate and cordial friend. The greatest part of thefe Letters treat of fubjects relative to phyfic, botany and chemistry; they contain feveral cafes of uncommon difeafes, concerning which Mr. Baffand confulted his illuftrious friend, and received the moft inftructive and fatisfactory anfwers. But many of thefe Letters defcribe likewife the manners and fentiments, the occupations and amusements; in a word, the domeftic life of this great and excellent man, and here we fee the ferenity of his mind, that funshine of his foul (as Pope calls it) which is virtue's prize, that fimplicity of manners, that zealous defire of being ufeful to his friends and to human fociety, that grateful fenfe of the fmalleft fervices, and that love of truth, virtue, and religion, which formed the venerable and lovely lines of his moral character. As a fpecimen of the ftyle and tone of thefe Letters, we fhall quote a part of the 85th (they are, in all 94) which fhews his manner of living, when he was already in the 67th year of his age: Ego rečte valeo, nočtu dormio in villa mea. Quinta matutina peto urbem: ibi ad jextam a meridie querelas ægrotantium lenio. Chemica exerceo. Animum legendo oblecto. Deum adoro, amo, veneror unice. Redux rus firpes contemplor, agnofco, laudoque amici Bassandi liberalia munera: bortus enim fuperbit arborum varietate vegetarum. Ibi ego plantis immorior amore plures habendi fenefco. Amabilis, dulcis infania! Tiliam Bohemicam latiffimo folio, atque miram illam cucullato folio ex Silefia, quis unquam dabit? Ita pariunt divitiæ infatiabilem majorum famem & torquet avarus benefacloris liberalitatem. Ignofce fenefcentis amici delirio, quærentis ferere arbores, quæ adpectum juvant nepotum, iifque umbram faciant. Mihi fic vita tranfit inter hæc, dolenti nihil, nifi quod non fimul fis, lætus cœtera. It is impoffible for a feeling foul to read these natural effufions of a ferene mind, and a benevolent heart, in fuch a man as BOERHAAVE, without fingular emotions of fenfibility and admiration.

ART.

ART. XVI.

Gefchichte der Deutfchen, &c.-An Hillory of Germany, (or rather of the Germans.) Part I. which begins at the earliest Period, and - concludes with the Reign of Conrad 1. By MICH. IGNATIUS SCHMIDT, Ecclefiaftical Counsellor of the Prince of Wurzburg, Profeffor of History, and University-Librarian in that City. Svo, Ulm. 1778.

IT

T has been alleged, as a defect in the greateft part of the writers of German Hiftory, that they have given more attention to the laws, jurifprudence, and political conftitution of the empire, than to the manners and characters of its inhabitants. The former are certainly of great confequence in a good hiftory; the latter, however, ought not to be neglected. It is the defign of our Author to reunite both thefe inftructive and entertaining points of view in the prefent work. His defign, as expreffed by himfelf in his preface, is to unfold the origin of the manners, cuftoms, laws, arts, and fciences; with the political and ecclefiaftical conftitutions and regulations that take place in Germany: or, in other words, to fhew by what fteps and circumftances the empire has arrived at the ftate in which it is at prefent. Accordingly five objects have engaged him, particularly, in the course of this Hiftory; which is to be comprehended within fix volumes: Religion, confidered in a general and extenfive point of view -the Adminiftration of Justice-Manners-Arts and SciencesPolitical Government. The order and accuracy, the manner of chufing and quoting authorities, the tone of narration and fpirit of reflexion, which are obfervable in this first volume, remove all doubt with respect to the favourable reception of this work. This volume (to which is prefixed a preface, in which the Author examines the degree of credit that is due to the account of the Germans given by Tacitus) is divided into three books. In the first, we have the ancient history of that people, as far down as the conqueft of the Gauls by Clovis, King of the Franks; and in entering on this part of the fubject Mr. SCHMIDT makes a great number of inftructive reflexions on ancient Germany, confidered with respect to the nature of its foil and climate, the character of its inhabitants, the political and religious conftitution of that rough and uncultivated people, and alfo of the Alemans, who made fo great a figure towards the declenfion of the Roman empire. The fecond book exhibits an hiftorical view of the monarchy of the Pranks, to the reign of Charlemagne, and of the variations in the manners and character of that nation, and in their civil government, during that period. The third book contains the fpace of time, beginning with the reign of Charlemagne, and ending with Conrad I.

ART.

1

THIS

ART. XVII.

Le Naturisme, ou Nature confidereé dans les maladies et leur traitement, conforme à la pratique d' Hippocrate et de fes Sectateurs.-The Procedure of Nature, confidered in Difeafes, and the Method of treating them, in Conformity with the Doctrine and Practice of Hippocrates and his Followers. By M. PLANCHON, Licentiate in Phyfic, Member of the University of Louvain, Correspondent of the Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Belles Letters of Dijon, and of the Royal College of Phyficians at Paris. 8vo. Tournay. 1778. HIS treatife was occafioned by a queftion propofed by the Academy of Dijon, and obtained the prize annexed to the most fatisfactory folution of it. The question is one of the most important and perhaps one of the most difficult in the whole circle of Medical practice. It comes to this: When and in what cafes is the phyfician to come to the affiftance of nature, or leave her to repel the disorder by her own power? This the Academy of Dijon calls La Medecine agilante et expectante, as it reprefents the practitioner, fometimes acting, and at others, waiting the moment when he is to act. But how difficult muft it be, in a multitude of cafes where nature's powers are latent, where her fprings and refources are concealed, where fallacious appearances difguise her real ftate, to decide, when the phyfician muft act, and when he must wait for the lucky, the critical moment?-and how difficult moreover, to difcern or hit upon that moment? However little fufceptible this problem may be of a complete folution, the attempt nevertheless to throw light upon it may produce ufeful difcoveries, and feveral inftructive hints may be given by nature, though the may not think fit to unfold the whole of her fecret. Such may have been the views of the Academy of Dijon in propofing this question, and fuch the encouragement of M. PLANCHON in his attempt to answer it. After having given, in a preliminary difcourfe, a very compendious fummary of the history of phyfic, more especially of the Hippocratic doctrine, he confiders in the introduction, what is to be understood by the word nature. This, according to him, is the agent, which maintains and repairs the conftituent principles of life, which rifes in oppofition to whatever disturbs the functions of the animal economy, and combats the enemy, until it is victorious or vanquifhed. He then divides his work into four parts. In the first, he treats of the activity and inaction of nature in diseases. In the fecond, he endeavours to indicate the difeafes, and the pericds of thefe difeafes, in which the physician ought to act or to remain only a spectator of the efforts of nature. In the third, he points out the figns or fymptoms, by which the practitioner may see, that he must att or wait. In the fourth, he exhibits under the title of Corollaries, a feries of aphorifms, which contain a re