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"Quant à ceux qui, pour plaire aux peuples, propofent des loix agraires, dont le but eft de dépouiller les propriétaires par un partage "inique, où d'abolir les créances, ils fappent les deux principaux "fondemens de la république, la concorde, qui ne fçauroit fubfifter entre des citoyens, lorfqu' on prend aux une pour donner aux autres, "& la justice, qui eft abfolument aneantie, fi chacun ne peut conferver fes propriétés. Je l'ai déjà dit, il n'exifte de cité que pour guarantir à chacun l'inviolabilité de fa fortune.-Les auteurs de ces loix fi "défaftreuses n'obtiennent pas même la faveur populaire, dont ils font "fi jaloux. En effet, ils font à peine avoués des citoyens, qu'ils enrichiffent, & ceux, qu'ils dépouillent en conçoivent un vif reffenti"ment. . . . Il ne faut pas fe croire excufable, parceque la portion des citoyens, qu'on gratifie, eft plus nombreuse, que celle, à qui on ôte. "On doit pefer les droits, & non pas compter les têtes. L'équité peut"elle jamais permettre, qu'on enleve à une famille le champ, qu'elle poffède dépuis des années, & peut-être des fiècles, pour en faire la proie d'un homme nouveau ?”

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The life of Cicero is an elegant biographical effay, prefixed with propriety to the Offices, in which the Roman orator frequently alludes to the exigencies in which he was placed; fo that if the work itself con tains ufeful precepts, his life will furnish fuitable examples.

Of the notes, fome.are intended to give an account of the different perfons, fuch as magiftrates, warriors and philofophers, who are mentioned in the work; whilft others confift of explanations of the duties, of man, and univerfal jurisprudence; in fome of which the author combats the too extended notion of equality.

ART. 43.

Lettres écrites de Barcelone à un zelateur de la Liberté, 1. Sur l'état dans lequel Je trouvoient les Frontières d'Espagne, en 1792.—2. Sur les Emigrés dans ce Pays, les Moeurs, Ujages, & Opinions des Efpagnols, &c. par M. Ch***, Citoyen François, en 8vo. de 448 pages. à Paris; pr. 41. 10s. br.

M. de Ch***, who has refided fifteen years in Spain, thinks thofe Politicians greatly mistaken, who imagine that the Spaniards are ready to fhake off the yoke of defpotifm and fuperftition, in imitation of the French: he is forry to have little to fay in their favour; but he adds, the fault is to be charged on themselves, on their ancestors, and on the four Philips, who fucceffively governed Spain; on the Bourbons, by whom they were followed, and who did not poffefs fufficient courage to drive from the throne that fanaticifm by which it is befet; on that feries of kings, which has fuffered the nation to be a prey to the mul'titude of evils, which are the offspring of fuperftition; who have permitted fanguinary inquifitors to feize on that fceptre, which, in their own hands, was regarded as a mere bauble; and who have, finally, ailowed thofe brave Spaniards, who, under Charles V, conftituted the firft nation in Europe, to become the laft by their puerile fuperftition. As an inftance of that fuperftition, the author relates the following ftory of the phial of St Donatus:

"In the time of the Moors Girona had been attacked, and was on the eve of falling into the enemy's hands, when the inhabitants recom

mended

mended themselves to the protection of St. Donatus, who fent upon the infidels fo terrible a fwarm of flies, that they were foon obliged to decamp. An holy hermit advised the inhabitants to preferve these precious flies against any fimilar exigence, offering on the part of St. Donatus, by whom he pretended to be infpired, to enclofe them all in a phial, where he faid the faint would engage to keep them alive; which, we are told, he performed with incomparable dexterity. I have feen this phial, where it is believed that these flies have been shut up for feveral centuries. It is not, indeed, very eafy to diftinguish them, which is of little confequence; the phial is, notwithstanding, depofited in the treafury of the cathedral, and they threaten to open it, whenever the French fhall make their appearance in that country."

The manufactures of the Spaniards are thus defcribed by our author: "Of their oil," fays he, "I fhall only obferve, that there are not "two kinds in Spain; it is in general deteftable, though the Spa"niards poffefs the beft olives in Europe; but they do not know how "to manage them, and are not fatisfied with any advice which is given them on the fubject. The fame happens likewife in other cafes. "Tell them, that of the finest wool in the universe they are not able "to make cloth; that though they have the fofteft filk, they have in "the whole country no filk manufactory; that their wines, which "would otherwife be the beft on the continent, contract a dif "agreeable flavour, from the little attention that is paid to them, that "though they are mafters of the gold of America, they are always poor; they will anfwer with a contemptuous fmile, that their cloths are more beautiful than thofe of England for their fineness, and "that they surpass them in colour; that they find their account in felling their filks raw; that wine, to be good, ought to have a certain "refinous fmack; and that we rob them of their money."

Affiches annonces, & Avis divers.

ART. 44. Joannis Emmanuel Gilibert, olim in Lugd. in Schola Grodnenfi, necnon in Univerfitate Vilnenfi (Botanices Profefforis) Exercitia Phytologica, quibus omnes Plante Europea, quas vivas invenit in variis herbationibus, ceu in Lithuania, Gallia, Alpibus, analyfi nová proponuntur, ex Typo Nature defcribuntur, novifque Qbfervationibus, Tempore forendi, ufibus medicis aut economicis, propriâ Au&oris Experientiâ natis. Volumen Primum. Planta Lithuanicæ cum Lugdunenfibus comparata. Volumen Secundum. Cæteræ Plante cum Lugdunenfibus comparata. Lugd. 1792, 655 pp. in 8vo.

The author received his firft inftructions in botany from Sauvages and Gowan, at Montpellier; after which he had recourfe to the gardens and collections of M. Juffieu at Paris; and, laftly, returned to Lyons, where, at the request of the then Intendant Fleffeles, " iftius, qui primo "anno revolutionis Gallicæ crudeli fato periit præfectus mercatorum ;" he formed a botanical garden at his own expence. Sed ifte," adds our author," obtemperans juffui Thefaurarii Abbatis Terrai me trif"tem dimifit, non remuneratis amiffis pecuniis; ab hoc momento firmam fumpfi propofitum paternos campos derelinquendi." He ac cordingly procured a recommendation from Mr. Haller to the Polish Ambassador, in order to his going to Grodno. Here, and in the counI BRIT. CRIT. VOL. I. MAY 1793.

try

try about Vilna, Novogorod, and Warfaw, he collected plants till the year 1783, defcribed partly in his Flora Lithuanica, and partly in his Chloris Grodnenfis. He likewife purchased the Herbarium of Gowan, compared it with the fpecimens which he had collected in his travels through France, Auftria, and Switzerland; and defcribed the whole after nature; which produced the prefent Exercitia Phyfiologica, in which, among other innovations, he divides the different plants into four general claffes, viz. into flores monopetalos caliculatos, flores polypetalos, flores apetalos, flores occultos. He likewife changes many of the Linnæan names, calling, for inftance, the liguftrum vulgare, liguftrum angufto folio; the fambucus arborefcens, fambucus nigra; the cochlearia flagrans, cochlearia officinalis; the lilac cordato folio, fyringa vulgaris, &c. obferving, however, that he only does this with reference to his own Flora; but that, in general, he fhould with the Linnæan names to be retained, because," fays he, "aliter confufio Babylonica de novo nafceretur."

Among the plants defcribed by our author, many are rare; fuch as the valentia glabra, the campanula pyramidalis, the dracocephalum Moldao, the veronica maritima, the pedicularis fceptrum carolinum, the charophyllum aromaticum, the laferpitium pratenficum, the faxifraga Hirculus, the ophrys Lofelii, the corallorhiza, &c. The work is illuftrated with 103 copper-plates. Goetteng. Anzeig.

ITALY.

ART. 45. Ephemerides aftronomica, &c. Aftronomical Ephemerides, for the Year 1793, calculated for the Meridian of Milan, by the Abbé Angelo de Cefaris. 8vo. Milan.

The Abbé de Cefaris gives us, in the firft place, his own obfervations on an inferior conjunction of Venus with the Sun, an oppofition of Jupiter, and another of Mars, with the fame, all of which took place in the year 1790. A fecond article, by the fame author, is very curious, containing obfervations on the paffage of Jupiter and his Satellites behind the Moon, in 1792. The Abbé Oriani has rendered an important fervice to aftronomers, by prefenting them with perpetual tables of Uranus, or the planet of Herfchel; in which the epochs of its mean motions are fixed to the year 1840, with the quantity of those motions, from year to year, and from day to day; as he had already done, with refpect to the other planets, in the preceding volumes. An oppofition of Jupiter with the Sun, in 1790, obferved by the Abbé Oriani, offers nothing particular. Father Benferretti communicates a table, calculated for the longitude of the obfervatory at Milan, which faves, in a variety of cafes, the trouble of calculating the spherical triangles, formed by three points the pole, the zenith, and any given ftar : next follow the planetary obfervations of the Abbé Reggio, who made ufe of an equivatorial fector of the length of five feet, to take the difference of the right afcenfion and declination of any fixed ftar, from those of the planet, on which he made his obfervations. He has likewife added a table, to rectify the effect of refraction. Obfervations on Mercury, in his greateft digreffions, during the years 1791 and 1792, and on Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus, for 1792, in their oppofitions with the Sun; folar obfervations in the equinoctial and folftitial points, for the purpofe of determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, &c. An oppofition of Mars,

and another of Uranus, which took place in 1792, calculated by the Abbé Cefaris. The volume concludes with meteorological obferva tions for the year 1790, by the Abbé Reggio.

SPAIN.

Efemeridi di Roma.

ART. 46. De la China, &c. of the Peruvian Bark, by Hippolito Ruiza Botanift of the King of Spain's Garden. 8vo. Madrid.

The Spanish government, to which not only Botany, but likewife other branches of Natural Hiftory, have of late been indebted for many valuable improvements, had fent feveral learned men into Peru for the purpose of making difcoveries relative to these sciences. Of this number, Mr. Ruiz, it feems, is difpofed to communicate his obfervations in proportion as they are made, fo that this effay is only to be regarded as the introduction to a more confiderable work.

Before he enters on his own obfervations, made, he fays, among woods, precipices, and all the horrors of favage nature, he prefents us with a review or what other authors have written at home on the fame fubject, giving us an account of the hiftory of the Peruvian Bark, its firft difcovery, its virtues, and the different methods of ufing it, according to the opinion of the moft celebrated phyficians; afterwards follows the botanical description of the Cinchona of Linnæus, with its different fpecies, as well ancient as modern. In this part, Mr. Ruiz generally agrees with the Swedish botanift Swartz, who had likewife feen these trees in the Weft-Indies.

In the Supplement, the author adds a defcription of another tree, known in Peru under the name of Quina-quina, from which the inhabitants extract three different kinds of balfam; namely, the white liquid balfam, the white dry balfam, which is the true balfam of Tolu, and, laftly, what is generally called the balfam of Peru.

GERMANY.

Efprit des Journaux.

ART. 47. Car. Traugett Gottlob Schoenmann, Bibliotheca hiftorico li teraria Patrum Latinorum à Tertulliano Principe ufque ad Gregorium M.Ifidorum Hifpalenfem, ad Bibliothecam Fabricii accommodata, 8vo. Tom. I. 672 pp. Lipfia 1792.

Under this title we are prefented with what may be called a companion to the commentaries of Oelrichs on the Latin Fathers of the fix first centuries, which had indeed already been announced in the preface to that work. The Author has undertaken to give us a literary and critical hiftory of all thofe writings of that period, from which Oelrichs had only collected extracts, with a view to the formation of an hiftory of religious opinions. He has likewife defcribed, with the greatest accuracy, the different editions of the works of thofe Fathers, and the MSS. which were made ufe of for them. This we confider to be the most important part of the work, in which, though fome future Fabricius may perhaps find defects, we cannot think they will be of fuch confequence, as to make it neceffary for him to form a new Inventory. The prefent volume concludes with Paulinus, fo that the next will of courfe begin with St. Auguftin. Goetting. Anzeigen.

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CORRESPONDENTS, &c.

FOR the good wishes of various Correfpondents, the Editors of The British Critic return their grateful thanks.

If their plan be approved, the execution of it alone must determine their fuccefs,

On this fubject they can fay, that, if the prefent number be thought well of, a continual improvement in those that are to follow is what they can very strongly promife; as they find their ftrength increafing daily, by the most valuable acceffions of affiftance,

Candidus may be affured, that the value of his excellent advice is completely felt, The British Critic will be conducted with perfect candour, and all poffible impartiality. The Editors hope, that even they who differ from them in opinion, the moft widely, will never have just reason to complain.

The communication of O is under confideration.
A True Briton's favour has been received.

SE and W. T. are informed, that the Editors have precluded themselves from noticing any work which was publifhed in the year 1792. Their communications will be returned, if required, with many thanks.

In the cafe of books dated 1792, but not actually publifhed' till 1793, an apparent deviation from the above rule may, perhaps, be made; but in no other inftances.

To Mr. Steevens the Editors have to apologize for an error in the punctuation of his title-page, which has occafioned another in p. 58 of the Review. As the remark thus caufed was made with no unfriendly view, it is not doubted that he will candidly excufe it. The reader is defired to correct the paffage thus; "Revised and augmented (with a Gloffarial Index) by the Editor of Dodley's Collection of Old Plays."