SOME PARTICULARS OF VOLTAIRE.

Ferney, October 1, 1773.

After passing several days at Geneva, we went to Ferney. Voltaire at first sent word that he was sick, a practice which he had for forty years past. But at last he admitted us. "I remember," said he, "having had the honour of seeing you last year, since then you have been in Italy, you have visited the catacombs, and seen a great many of the dead. You see one now, for I am dying at this moment." As he said this, he struck his forehead. Baron Rudbeck begged him to wait a little, at least till we were gone. I added, that he could not die, that his genius was immortal, that besides it was not last year, but three years ago that we were at Ferney, which proved that time did not pass heavily, with other expressions of the same sort.

He then spoke with a lively pleasure of the important revolution which had taken place in Sweden during our absence; and exclaimed with great emphasis, and in a loud tone, "Gustavus is adored through Europe." He repeated these words several times, and then went on, "when you arrive in Sweden, and see this great king, lay me at the feet of his majesty, and tell him that he is adored in Europe." On this occasion we became acquainted with the family of Voltaire, with Madame De-' nys a daughter of one of his sisters, and his heiress, with Mr. Durey de Morsan and father Adam.

Madame Denys is a widow without children, and now about sixty years of age, very lively and agreeable, mistress of music, plays well on the piano, and speaks Italian. She made a great many inquiries about what we had seen in Italy; we had as many about her uncle, and she communicated a number of anec dotes of him.

Mr. Durey and the Abbé Adam, keep Voltaire company. They help him in reading large works and make extracts for him, they also translate books from languages less familiar to him. If he were not so well assisted, it would be impossible for him to write so many volumes; besides these he has his secretary Vanniere, a Swiss, who does nothing but make fair copies. Mr. Adam also understands Greek and Latin pretty well. He was a Jesuit at Dijon, and is therefore called father Adam. He came to Voltaire some time before the expulsion of the

Jesuits, and has now lived at Ferney for nearly twelve years. He is a man of much talent and wit.

It is said that Voltaire is not afraid of death, and has already made his will with great courage. On the other hand, some assert that the idea of death alarms him, and that he talks so much of it merely to accustom himself to consider it. We found him very much deranged; his dark lively eyes are very deeply sunk, yet still he has strength enough to write poetry as easily as any one else could write prose. He dictates easily sixty verses without stoping.

He now observes a very strict regimen. He does not eat at noon. Between nine and ten at night he eats a little and slowly. About eleven or twelve he goes to bed, but sleeps scarcely four or five hours, though in general he is in bed sixteen and even eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. During the day he sits in his bed and writes, and the same at night when he cannot sleep, which happens when any idea is fermenting in his head. In this sleepless state he has quite the appearance of a corpse waiting for interment; and has never, indeed, a good look. Sometimes he gets up at six or eight o'clock in the morning.

LITERARY VARIETIES.

THE forty-fourth exhibition of the Royal Academy, for the year 1812, contains 940 works of art, in painting, drawing, and sculpture, most of them above mediocrity. The chief historical pieces are by Hilton, Trumbull, West, Craig, Northcote, and Turner. The best portraits are by Owen, Lawrence, Beechey, Phillips, Lonsdale, Shee, and Howard. The principal landscapes by Daniell, Constable, Callcott, and Farington. The vulgar life by Carse, Bird, Frazer, and Wilkie. The chief drawings by Craig, Westall, Buck, Varley, and Wilson. The architecture by Soane, Wyatt, Gandy, Porden, Inwood, and Tapper. And the sculpture by Flaxman, Garrard, Chantrey, Turnerelli, Nollekens, Dawe, and Bacon. The chef-davres of the exhibition are, OwEN's portrait of the Chancellor; LAWRENCE'S Kemble in Cato; HILTON's Christ restoring the Blind:

and CRAIG'S Christ feeding the Multitude: it is, however, an invidious task to name particular pieces in a congregation of so much excellence, particularly as many other artists have enthusiastic admirers, and as there is no infallible criterion of absolute beauty in works of art.

Mr. JACKSON's Grammar of the Eolo-Doric, or modern Greek Tongue, vulgarly called the Romaic, which was announced some time ago as being ready for publication, is now printing with great diligence at Oxford. Under the signature of Diλogwpaixòs, Mr. J. offered his opinions regarding the modern Greek, as early as June, last year, asserting it to be a compound of the ancient Eolic and Doric dialects; and it is with the concurrence of several learned philologists of modern Greece, that he has announced his grammar under the title of Eolo-Doric, in preference to that of the Romaic language. In the course of the work, the peculiarities of the Eolo-Doric will be distinctly traced to the respective dialects of which the modern Greek is composed; and, besides the usual appendages of a grammar, as familiar dialogues, letters, translations, &c. it will contain specimens of a modern Greek tragedy, with the English version opposite, and a copious vocabulary.

The number of persons charged with criminal offences, committed in England and Wales for trial, at the assizes and sessions, in 1811; also, the total for seven years, from 1805 to 1811, both inclusive:

Imprisonment, and severally to be whipped,

fined, pilloried, kept to hard labour, &c. 2,049

Whipping and Fine

Acquitted

No bill found; and not prosecuted

12,587

Executed

"Modern literatuue," says a late English publication, "affords no examples of the multiplication of copies equal to those of Moore's Almanac, and Mavor's Spelling Book. Of that famous Almanac, about 420,000 copies are sold annually; and of that generally used Spelling Book, about 120,000 in the same period; yet, as the former consists of only two sheets, and the latter of seven, each consumes 840,000, sheets, or 1680 reams of paper! If, then, one printing press can work three reams per day, Moore's Almanack will employ four presses, or eight men, nearly six months; and Mavor's Spelling Book, two presses, or four men all the year, besides the employment of binders, &c. &c. The press of no country boasts of works of similar circulation."

Another proof demonstrative of the improved state of education in England, may be drawn from the known consumption of elementary books of geography, a science in which, till lately, the mass of the English were proverbially ignorant. There are now sold annually about

12,000 of Goldsmith's Grammar of Geography. 2,000 of Geography for Youth.

2,000 of Geography for Children.

2,000 of Turner's Geography.

2,500 of Goldsmith's popular Geography.

4,000 of ditto's British Geography.

1,500 of Guthrie's Grammar.

4,500 of Walker's, Vyse's, Evans's, &c. &c.

In all 30,000.

By which it would appear, that, in Great Britain, at least 30,000 children are constantly instructed in this science! Twenty-five years ago, the annual sale of all the books of this class, did not exceed 5000.

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According to some late experiments on the comparative strength of men and horses, applicable to the movement of machines, it appears, that the effect of a horse is fourteen times greater than that of a man; or, which amounts to the same thing, fourteen men must be used instead of one horse. Hence it appears, that it is much more advantageous to employ horses than men in moving machines, if other reasons did not, in some cases, require us to prefer men,

From Mr. MONTAGU's researches on the constitution of sponges, it appears that no polypi, or vermes of any kind, are to be discerned in their cells or pores; they are, however, decidedly of an animal nature, and possess vitiality, without per ceptible action or motion! Mr. Montagu has divided the genus Spongia, into five families, viz. branched, digitated, tubular, compact, or orbicular. Only fourteen species were previously known, but Mr. Montagu has described no fewer than thirty-nine.

It appears from the eighth annual Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society that 35,690 Bibles, and 70,733 Testaments, were issued last year, besides the number circulated abroad by the Society's aid that within that period seventy new Auxiliary Societies, including Branch Societies, were produced in Britain alone, and that the neat income of the year was 43,5327. 128. 5d. and its expenditure, including its engagements, 46,530l. 10s. Ild.

By the Report of the Committee of Agriculture, it appears, that the total amount of waste lands in the United Kingdom, is as follows:-England above six millions of acres, Wales two, and Scotland about fourteen.

From the Gazette de France, July 14. The mortifying condi tion of the Theatre François, the first theatre of the capital, cannot be dissembled. Since the departure of some of its prime supports, it is fallen into a state of torpidity, verging on death. It is so far paralyzed that tragedy it cannot play. The little reputation of some of its actors, the disgust and weariness of beholding without intermission the same pieces, repulse the pub