templated; and we doubt not that the prefent account of it will contribute to establish the faith of many, and afford confiderable affiftance towards understanding fo material a part of the canonical Scriptures. We do not perceive that any material advantage could be gained by laying a detached part of this life before our readers, and therefore conclude, by recommending the whole to their perufal and meditation. Such works in divinity as these volumes contain, cannot often be produced; when they do appear, they fhould command the attention of the theological ftudent, and give new animation and direction to the pious labours of multitudes.

ART. X. A Supplement to Medical Botany: or Part the Second, containing Plates with Defcriptions of most of the principal medicinal Plants, not included in the Materia Medica of the Collegiate Pharmacopoeias of London and Edinburgh: accompanied with a circumftantial Detail of their medicinal Effects, and of the Difeafes in which they have been fuccefsfully emplayed. By William IVoodville, M. D. F. R. S. Phyfician tɔ the Small Pox and Inoculation Hofpitals. 4to. Price, coloured, in Boards, 11. 13s. 6d. Plain ditto 14s. Philips.

1794.

THE favour with which the three former volumes of this work have been received by the public, renders it unneceffary to notice it further than to make a few general obfervations on the execution. In doing this we feel a pleafure in saying, that the part before us, which completes the author's plan, is finished with the fame care, and the plates engraved in the fame neat and elegant manner, as thofe in the former volumes. The plates, two hundred and feventy-two in number, include the whole of the vegetable Materia Medica of the London and Edinburgh Pharmacopoeias, as far as the fubjects are known. Of the few articles not delineated, the author has given as just accounts as could be obtained.

Among the plates, fome reprefent plants of which no engraving had been before given. Others, of which engravings were only to be found in large and expenfive works. The whole, with very few exceptions, we are informed, are taken either from fresh plants, or from dried fpecimens. In giving an account of the medical properties of the feveral articles, the author has followed the most recent and approved authorities, and he has particularly availed himfelf of the works of

the

the latest and most intelligent travellers, in correcting many vague and erroneous opinions relative to the mode of procuring and preparing many curious foreign drugs.

ART. XI. Fragments of Politics and Hiftory. By M. Mercier. Tranflated from the French. 2 Vols. 8vo. 14s. Murray. 1795.

THE fcience of government is one of the profoundest subjects upon which the talents and ingenuity of man can be exercised. It embraces fo large a variety of expedients, and delivers its dictates for fuch great and momentous ends, that its principles can only be justly interpreted by a mind which, unites the difcoveries of induftrious refearch, with the comparifons of difcreet reflection. This rule of judging muft, however, be confidered as limited to writers of political fyftems. Inferior pretenfions will indifputably demand a milder criterion; and he who feeks to inftruct fociety by sketches and fragments, may reasonably expect to be more indulgently judged, than he who profeffes to enlighten the world by fchemes of general policy, and plans of perfect legiflation.

The volumes before us are of that huinble clafs, which appeals to the candor, rather than the juftice of the public: they combine a variety of diftinct fpeculations on fome of the most interesting topics of politics and hiftory. These are delivered with an energy and foundnefs which discover a mind exercised in thought, and intent upon obfervation. As a fpecimen of the author's manner, we fhall cite his reflections upon

" IRON IN THE HAND OF MAN.

"I love to figure to myself the firft operation of the arts upon the earth. Behold! the hatchet enters the forefts, and the wild beasts, ftruck with alarm, abandon their dens to men, who, with iron and fire, open fpacious alleys in woods, where the earth, by the exuberance of her ufelefs productions, becomes a burden to herself.

"The rays of the fun have purified the poifoned foil, where the uprooted pines and old trunks, exhaufted by thick garlands of parafitical plants, gave to vegetation a hideous afpect: the marshes, concealed beneath heaps of rotten leaves, bred hideous infects; a vent is given to these ftagnant waters. The air corrects the exceffive humidity-a temperature the most pernicious to our fpecies. Habitations arife in the jane fpots from whence ferocious animals, lurking under the cluftering boughs, darted out upon their prey.

"Instead

"Inftead of the poisonous plants on which the quadruped and man languifhed alike, too near the green carpet of the fens, we now fee the treasures of a wholesome and fmiling hufbandry fpring up! and fportive flocks now gambol where the hideous ferpent was wont to fhed his venom.

"Such in our own times were the operations of the American colonifts, when they entered thofe filent retreats that required the action of a free air and the quickening influence of the fun, to purge the water and the earth.

"The intention of the Creator, in beftowing the arts, feems particularly to have provided the permanent means of associating men. Human fociety enters into the plan of God, not only as a certain effect, but as a principal object to which most other effects are meant to concur. "Without fociety there is no affinity, no virtue; no knowledge of the Great Being, of our own duties, of our capability of improvement, of the happy developement of our intellectual faculties. What indeed is the human race, difperfed, without morality, without notions of religion or virtue, knowing neither to admire nor to contemplate the wonders of the creation? Society gives the neceffary inftruction to man; and to the profperity which it affords in this world, it joins the hope of a future felicity in a new order of things. For the great and fublime idea of final caufes difcloted itself only in improved fociety, in which we perceive the concurrence of the rays of eternal wisdom.

"To endeavour to prove that the condition of the people of Europe is lefs defirable than that of the Caribs or Hottentots; or that the man who exercifes the arts is lefs happy merely by reafon of his employment; than if all his knowledge were confined to run, to leap, to wrestle, to throw a ftone, to climb a tree, and all his occupation to fatisfy the cravings of nature, and then, void of thought, to flumber at the foot of a tree;-this, I fay, is to play on the furface of things for the fake of difplaying a brilliant eloquence.

"The arts and fciences have doubtlefs their inconveniencies; but are thefe inconveniences to be put in competition with the advantages which refult from them? Can they be compared with the evils which follow the neglect of them? When men were without the arts, they were obliged, like famished wolves, to fally forth from their retreats in purfuit of prey. They were continually engaged in destroying each other, that they might not be deftroyed by famine. Hence the inundation of thofe barbarous hordes, which fear could no longer confine on the shores of the ocean, or behind the mountains of the north. They migrated perpetually from their barien abodes to the regions of the footh, and there deftroyed every thing, till they were deftroyed themselves.

"Notwithstanding all the bleffings which nature has lavished on man, he would have remained poor and miferable, without the benefit of political laws, which increafe the force and enjoyment of a people, which banifh famine, which break the yoke of flavery, and laftly, which inftruct individuals concerning their respective rights.

"Wife political laws collect into a focus abundance and liberty, and prevent men from becoming the flaves of their fellows! Political

law's

laws alfo, by confining nations within prudent limits, hinder them from rufhing against each other. Small tribes are fubject to this accident, as well as mighty ftates, when the means of fubfiftance are not founded on the focial laws.

"Let us conclude, therefore, that men are only unhappy, because they are not fufficiently induftrious." P. 13.

Though these fragments have no profeffed connection with each other, there is a fpecies of progreffion in the fubjects on which they turn; and however abrupt the transition may, at the first view, appear, a revifal will fhow, that arrangement has not been wholly neglected. The nobles and clergy of his own country are treated by this author with a confiderable portion of republican afperity; and his principles of liberty are not uniformly fuch as are fafely compatible with principles of government. We cannot, however, refufe ourfelves the pleafure of making a further extract, in which the ingenuity of the author is happily displayed.

"GEOGRAPHY CONSIDERED IN A POLITICAL POINT OF VIEW.

"Whoever admits an original plan in the univerfe, whoever rejects the words fatality and chance, and furveys with an attentive eye the empires of ancient and modern times, will perceive an order of demarcation upon the furface of our globe, and will not fail to recognize the hand that traced the limits and erected the ramparts. He will behold nations mutually contending till they are confined within the geographical circle drawn by nature; in that enclosure they enjoy the repofe which was denied them when they overleaped the bounds.

"When in the height of metaphyfics, we feel fomething that refifts, that repels us forcibly, that defeats us in fpite of our efforts, it is a decifive mark that we go beyond our limits, and ftrain to surpass our natural capacity: it is a fecret admonition which reminds us of our frailty, and corrects a prefumptuous weakness. But, in the material world, when an evident principle enlightens reafon at the commencement of its researches, it is a certain token that the mind poffeffes a fund of refources which will enable it to draw infallible conclufions. Let us first be natural philofophers: I have thought I could difcern on the globe a decided intention of nature to separate ftates without too much disjoining them, to delineate geometrically the form of empires, and to domiciliate kingdoms; I have thought I could perceive that the globe was fo configured, as that navigation would one day be the tie to bind together the human race. Thefe ideas will no doubt please thofe who, ftruck with the harmonious immentity, believe, that the government of the univerfe prefides majeftically and neceffarily over all other governments. We need only ufe our eyes, perhaps, to be convinced of thefe new truths: an attentive furvey of geographical charts, determines, in fome measure, the pofitive extent of ftates; for the mountains, the rivers, and the lakes, are the unquestionable boun

daries and guardians which kind nature has placed for the prefervation and tranquillity of human affociations.

"But if the order of nature have vifibly feparated empires, it has on another hand decreed, that they fhall have a mutual commerce of knowledge; its defign in this refpect is not concealed. When I hold in my hand a fragment of loadftone, and reflect that this ftone, which appears in no way remarkable, informs us conftantly of the direction of the north, and renders poffible and cafy the navigation of the molt unknown feas, I have about me a convincing proof that nature intended a focial life for man. All these indications of defign feem, therefore, to evince that her views tend fimply to unite men, and make them share in common the good things diffeminated over the globe. Whenever, for the prefervation of the whole, a great crisis of nature occafions the difruption of a small portion of the globe, you fuddenly perceive feas arife where iflands were fwallowed up. Never has a gulf, never has a large gap, invincibly feparated the different parts of the globe; on the contrary, the foft girdle of the waters every where invites man, every where prefents to him roads more dangerous than difficult, and which his courage and genius have furmounted. The celebrated English navigator, who difcovered the inhabited islands in the Pacific Ocean, failed from the Thames, pailed the Antipodes of London, and performed the circuit of the earth. Laftly, fince it has latterly been discovered, by a never-erring experience, that winds which blow conftantly during a certain feafon of the year, waft our hips to India, and that contrary winds, prevailing during another feafon, convey them back again to our ports-it is impoffible not to recog nize certain admirable guides, calculated to approximate and unite the moft remote nations. If man has learned to confiruct a veffel, a bridge upon the ocean, if this frail machine nevertheless braves the angry elements; it is because the primary intention of nature was that men of all climates fhould not be strangers to each other. A dark cloud conceals from us the nations which inhabit the northern extremity of America; but a flight convulfion of the globe may suddenly form a fea, to conduct our veilels among thefe new nations; and, in a fimilar way, although the interior parts of Africa be nearly as much unknown as the centre of the earth, it requires only a happy occurrence to open for us the route. The great views of nature will fooner or later be accomplished.

"For the fame reafon that the gives mountains a gentle flope, to allow a free accefs to them, and facilitate the entrance into the vallies, the has diftributed in all directions a profufion of rivers and feas; every thing announces a circulation fimilar to that in the human body. She therefore wills, that all the people of the earth fhould be knit by the bonds of union, but without clafhing fuddenly, and being too readily blended. Thus, by extending and connecting our various branches of knowledge, we shall find that they all tend to the improvement of the human ipecies; and in this view art is nature." P. 173.

As M-Mercier is already fo well known to the public, by his Tableau de Paris, and other works, we fhall decline entering further into the difcuffion of his genius, his principles, or