war, and peftilence, their climate defending them from bath thefe vifitations, it being as obnoxious to ftrangers and the plague, as it is healthy to the natives. The fnow does not incommode them, for by their natural agility, added to art and contrivance, they fly over the tops of the fnowy heights like crows. The multitude of white bears with the country abounds, ferves them for amufement and diverfion; for they are fo dextrous in combating thefe fierce animals, that there is fcarce a Laplander, who does not kill many of them in a year, although it is very rare, that a Laplander is ever killed by one of them.

• We may add, that the long nights in those subpolar regions, of which they give us fo horrible a representation, are not fo difmal as they are imagined to be. They hardly experience total darkness there above one whole month: the reason is, because the fun defcends below his horizon only twenty-three degrees and a half; and according to the computation of aftrologers [aftronomers], the twilight may be perceived at eighteen degrees of depreffion. Neither does the apparent absence of the fun continue for fix months, as it is commonly thought, but for five only, for on account of the great refraction of the rays in that atmosphere, you fee the fun, half a month before it mounts above the horizon, and for the fame fpace of time after it defcends below it. Some Dutchmen in a northern voyage they made in 1596, being in the latitude of 76, were vaftly astonished at feeing the fun fifteen or fixteen days before they expected to fee it. In our difcourfe on mathematical paradoxes, we explained this phænomenon, and fhewed, that by attending to, and computing all things, thofe who inhabit near the Poles, enjoy the light of the fun for a greater portion of the year, than those who live in the temperate and torrid zones; therefore what is faid of the equal repartition of light all over the world, although it is generally affented to, is not true.

We much admire, and live very happily on the aliments we commonly use; but there is no nation, to which the fame thing does not happen. The people of the northern regions, find the flesh of bears, wolves, and foxes, very favory and regaling. The Tartars are fond of horfe-fleth; the Arabs of the fleth of camels; and the Africans and Chinese, of that of dogs; for they both eat and fell them in the markets as we do pig pork. In fome regions of Africa, they eat monkies, crocodiles, and ferpents; and Scaliger fays, that in various parts of the east, bats are esteemed as regaling a dish, as chickens are with us.

The fame that happens in point of food, happens with refpect to every thing elfe; for whether it proceeds from the force of habit, or the proportion of temperament or difpofition of each nation refpectively, or that things of the fame fpecies, have different qualities in different countries, which make them more or less commodious or agreeable; every one finds himself

better

better fatisfied with the things of his own country, than with thofe of a foreign one, and he is therefore attached to it, because he feels his own convenience better gratified there, and not by the fuppofed love of his country.

The inhabitants of the Marian iflands, which are fo called from Donna Mariana of Auftria, who fent miffionaries among them for their converfion, made no use of, nor had any knowledge of fire. Who however would venture to affert, that this element was not indispensably neceffary to human life, or that there was any nation whatever, which could fubfift without it? But notwithstanding this, thofe iflanders, without fire, lived contented and happy. They were not fenfible of the want of it, because they did not know it. Roots, fruit, and crude fish, were all their aliment; and ftill they were more healthy and robuft than we, for living to a hundred years of age, was very frequent and common among them.'

From a fpirit of national prejudice, which prevails in almost all hiftories, it happens, that, with refpe&t to an infinite number of facts, the things, which are paft feem as uncerrain to us, as those which are to come; almost every circumftance being mifreprefented by partial hiftorians.

I acknowledge, fays this writer, that the hiftorical Pyrrhonifm of Campanella was extravagant, who carried his want of confidence in history to fuch a point, as to fay he doubted whether there ever was an emperor in the world named Charles the Great. But with refpect to thofe events, which the hiftorians of one nation affirm, and those of another deny; and as there are many fuch events, it will be prudent for us to fufpend our judgment, till fome well-informed third perfon shall decide upon them; for excited either by vanity or inclination, or led by condefcenfion, every one goes on to flatter his own nation; the light of truth at the fame time, being concealed from the eyes of the people, by the fmoke of the incenfe of flattery; and the harmony of adulation, preventing their liftening to the voice of reason.

• I fhall not dwell upon thofe authors, who carried the paffion for their country, to lengths of extravagance, fuch as Goropius Becanus, a native of Brabant, who very deliberately endeavoured to prove, that the Flemish tongue was the first in the world; and Oliver Rudbec, a Swede, who in a book he wrote on purpose, tried to evince, that all which [that] the ancients had faid of the fortunate iflands, the garden of the Hefperides and Elyfian fields, alluded to Sweden, pronouncing at the fame time, his own country to be the fource and perfection of European learning, and afferting, that letters and the art of writing, did not defcend from Phænicia to Greece, but from Phænicia to Sweden, in the profecution of which undertaking, he rummaged out, and expended in wafte, much hidden learning.'

The

The three remaining effays are upon the following fubjects: The Semblance of Virtue, or Virtue in Appearance; the Virtue or fuperior Excellence of Nobility, with fome remarks on the power or influence of high blood; and the Machiavelianism of the ancients.

The laft difcourfe contains a very judicious analysis of the politics of Machiavel's book, intitled the Prince; and an enquiry into the depraved policy of the king of Egypt; when he not only refused an afylum to Pompey, after the battle of Pharfalia, but ordered him to be put to death.

This work is very indifferently tranflated, as the reader may obferve in the foregoing extracts.

Advice from a Lady of Quality to her Children, in the last stage of ̧ a lingering Illness, in a series of Evening Conferences on the most interefting Subjects. Tranflated from the French. 2 vols. Small 8vo. 5s. Jerved. Rivington.

IN the first conference this lady has given us the history of

her own life. Her husband, fhe tells us, was a field-marshal in the French army, and distinguished by his bravery and accomplishments. But not long after his promotion, about the age of fifty, he died, like a Chriftian philofopher, as the expreffes herself, full of loyalty to his king, full of tenderness for his wife and children; burning with a fervent defire to be admitted into the prefence of God, and only concerned, that it was not his good fortune to fall in the field of battle.' The idea of fuch a husband, as may naturally be fuppofed, could not be eafily effaced from the memory of an affectionate wife. She remained a widow; and, about the age of thirty-nine, fell into a lingering illness, which continued feveral months. The latter part of this interval the employed in occafional conferences with her children; reprefenting to them the vanities of the world, and inftructing them in the duties they owed to their country, to fociety, and to God.

Her discourse, fays the French editor, is chiefly directed to those of her two fons, who had engaged in a military life; but in one of thefe conferences, fhe addreffes herself particularly to her third, who had dedicated himself to the church; another is confined to the inftruction of her daughter; in all of them, her admonitions are inforced with tears, and interrupted by fighs; they are the natural dictates of the tendereft affection, which no bodily infirmities could prevail with her to fupprefs.. If the reader finds not in this work thofe episodes, or that variety which diftinguishes a romance, it is only because truth wants none of thefe embellishments: fhe needs only to be feen, to command our attention and our admiration: the voice of naVOL. XLVII. Feb. 1779. ture

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ture is heard throughout the work, and the eloquence here difplayed is the forcible language of the heart.

The evening being made choice of as the properest season for inftruction, we have divided the work into evening conferences: the whole was faithfully collected by the industry of án amanuenfis, fo placed, as to be an ear-witnefs of all that paffed: had not this care been taken, the world would have been deprived of an invaluable fyftem of education, which no one can read with inattention, and few without improvement."

The author's name is concealed. But the editor thinks, that this concealment will not in the leaft impeach the authenticity of the work. It is, he fays, conceived in fuch terms, as to convince any judicious reader, that fuch fentiments could only be founded in nature. Here are no brilliant conceits, no affected phrafes, but the artless expreffions of maternal affection: and he who does not yield to the force of fuch evidence as this, must be confidered as one, who cannot diftinguish what is really the language of nature; or as one, who never yet experienced the power of fentimental affection."

Thefe arguments in favour of the authenticity of this work, enforced by a confident appeal to the reader's tafte, are by no means conclufive. Admitting, thefe difcourfes bear the marks of maternal affection, we cannot from thence infer, that they are the real inftructions of a dying mother. Nothing is more easy, to a writer of any abilities, than to fupport fuch a character. And he must be a wretched author, who puts • brilliant conceits and affected phrafes' into the mouth of a lady on her death-bed. The fcheme itself is extremely obvious. The fuppofed fituation of the mother is calculated to give her advice the highest degree of energy and pathos. A reader, who takes up the book, prepoffeffed by this idea, will probably be affected. The tranflator thus pathetically expreffes his great fenfibility on this occafion: The involuntary tear hath more than once been witness to my approbation of that tendernefs of affection, with which it abounds.'-In our opinion the author has carried the tragic part to an excefs. The good lady is inceffantly talking of her extreme weakness, her emaciated frame, her approaching death, the terrors of the grave, and the horrible corruption, which her body is about to experience. The phyfician attends; the children withdraw; fhe recovers; the vifits her husband's tomb; he has a fucceffion of fainting fits; and, a few days after fhe had finished her plan of inâruction, the expires. Thefe melancholy topics are io often repeated, that they lofe a great part of their intended

• Dr. Gialle.

effect.

effect. Befides, it is improbable, that the advice of a fick parent, delivered to her children extempore, fhould compose, when thrown upon paper, a connected and methodical fyftem of education; or that an amanuenfis, fhould be employed on fuch an occafion. We therefore can by no means agree with the editor, when he fays, the noble fentiments, which occur in these pages could never have been the offspring of imagination.'

The fubjects, on which this lady difcourfes, are, order and regularity, focial duties, virtue, pleasure, ambition, generofity, female conduct, ftudy, the clerical character, pride, friendfhip, the court, the love of truth, brotherly love, religion, the vanity of the world, relative duties, kindness to domeftics. And, befides thefe difcourfes, the eldest fon reads a manufcript on patriotism, written by his father.

It is not easy to extract any paffage from this work, which is more particularly interefting than the reft; and therefore we fhall give our readers the fentiments of this accomplished lady on ftudy; merely because what the fays upon that subject is confined within a small compass.

I fhould imagine that you can never do better, than devote to literary pursuits the moments which are at your own disposal : a mind which we neglect to cultivate is like a body which we do not feed: by reading, the faculties are enlarged, the memory is ftrengthened, and the imagination is enriched: but the principal point is, to diftinguish what is worth reading, in the midft of fo many works, as are continually making their ap pearance in the world; this choice is a matter of real dif ficulty.

• Mr.

to whofe merit you are no firangers, and whom I have confulted upon this fubject, is of opinion, that you should immediately have recourfe to fuch writings as tend to regulate the morals, and to form the mind: he advifes your beginning with books of fuch a nature as will furnish you with found principles on the most important obligations of life; fuch as will fhew you the delufions of a fenfual life, and the deftruction occafioned by the indulgence of our paffions; fuch as will elevate your minds, by making you acquainted with God and with yourselves.

When you have firft taken care to furnish yourselves with virtuous fentiments, you will diligently confult fuch authors, as have written on the fubject of your profeffion; it being an unpardonable ignorance not to be well acquainted with whatever is the bufinefs of our lives; your uncle, who has been engaged in military service all his life, and who has ftudied all the arts and exercifes of war, will be the best director in this refpect; and will furnish you with the propereft books on the subject apply yourfelves wholly to this study, and you will foon

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