among the other planets to poffefs the best place; lefs cold than Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, and lefs fcorched than Venus and Mercury. With that magnificence doth Nature difplay itself on this our Earth! A pure light extending from the eaft to the weft, gilds fucceffively the parts of this globe: the air, a light and a tranfparent element, furrounds it a heat foft and animating, roufes every thing to life: water fo neceflary for the fupport of life, is fpread upon the furface with a liberal hand: the fea, which feparates the continents, is not a cold and fterile element, but as rich and as well peopled as the land: this immenfe mafs of water, inactive in itfelf, is moved by the attraction of the heavenly bodies: it rifes and falls alternately by the influence of the moon : and when the influence of the fun also concurs, as in the time of the equinoxes, the tides rife the higheft. The air more light and fluid than water, obeys a ftill greater number of powers. The distant action of the fun and moon, the near action of the sea, that of heat, which rarifies, that of cold, which condenfes, are the occafion of continual agitations in the air. The winds are its currents they put the clouds in motion, and tranfport to the dry furface of the land the humid vapours of the fea, and thus fpread fecundity by means of dew and rain: they excite tempefts; the fea enraged, dashes with a hoarfe found against the fhore; which against all its efforts remains firm and immoveable. The earth, raifed above the level of the fea, cloathed with a green furface, variegated with flowers, peopled with an endless variety of animals, is a place of repofe and a delicious habitation, where man prefides over the other animals; the fingle being who is capable to know and worthy to admire the marvellous works of the Deity. Nature is the external throne of the divine magnificence. Man, who contemplates and ftudies it, afcends by degrees to the internal throne of infinite power, and not lefs infinite benevolence. Fitted for the adoration of his maker, he is trufted with anthority over all the creatures; vaffal of heaven, king of the earth, he peoples and ennobles it: among living creatures he establishes order, fubordination, and harmony: he embel : lifheth nature itfelf, cultivates, extends, and polishes it in place of thistles and briers, he multiplies the vine and the rofe. Behold thofe defert regions, thofe melancholy fpots where man never trod, covered with wood, thick and dark, trees without leaves waiting through old age, others in greater number rotting upon heaps already putrefied. Nature, which when cultivated is in fplended youth, feems to be here in the lait stage of life: the earth covered with the ruins of its own productions, inftead of fweet verdure, offers nothing to the fight but corruption and impure plants, the fruit of corruption in low places, rotten water and fpungy earth neither folid nor liquid: moraffes covered with fetid plants, nourishing venemous infects and unclean animals. Betwixt marfhes in the low grounds, and waisted forests in grounds more elevated, are interjected great extents of heath, were bad plants prevail, and choke the wholefome; no road, no communication, no veftige of art in these favage places. Man there would be a prey to wild beafts: terrified with their roarings, and not lefs fo with the filence of these profound folitudes, he retires with precipitation exclaiming how difinal and hideous is brute nature; it is man, man only can give her life and beauty: let us drain thefe marshes; let us put these dead waters in motion; let us employ fire to confume the rotten furface, and destroy with fteel what the fire leaves unconfumed; and then we fhall foon fee the production of plants fweet and falutary: Hocks and herds fhall bound upon that ground formerly imperviable: they shall find nourishment in abundance, and paturage conftantly renewing: let us take the aid of thefe new fervants to accomplish our work: the ox, fubmiflive to the yoke, will employ his force to till the ground, which grows young again by culture: a new nature is the product of our labour. How beautiful it is, that cultivated nature! How fplendidly adorned it is by the care of man! He himself is the chief ornament and the nobleft production. In the multiplication of the fpecies, nature itfelf feems to be multiplied: by his art he brings to light whatever is hid in her bofom: new riches and treafures formerly unknown! flowers, fruits, perfected, and multiplied without end: ufeful ani mals : mals transported, propagated, augumented without number: the hurtful ipecies reduced, confined, banished: gold, and iron, more useful than gold, extracted from the bowels of the earth: torrents rendered innocent; rivers directed, and locked up within their beds: even the fea ⚫ fubdued, and traversed from the one hemisphere to the other: the earth every where acceffible, rendered every where alive and fruitful in the valleys fmiling meadows, in the plains rich pafturages, or corns, ftill more rich the hills covered with vines and fruits, and their fummits crowned with useful trees and young forefts: deferts converted into cities inhabited by an immenfity of people spreading from thefe centers to the very extremities: roads open and frequented, make a free communication, witneffing the art and union of the fociety. A thousand monuments of power and glory demonftrate, that this globe is more indebted to man for its beauty, that to nature itself. : But if he be King of the earth, his title is by conqueft alone; which he cannot preferve but by cares conftantly renewed. If thefe cares be abandoned or remitted, every thing languishes, is changed, and returns to the state of Nature: the exerts her rights; defaces the works of man, covers with duft and moss his most sumptuous monuments, levels them in time with the ground, leaving him nothing but the regret of lofing by his indolence what his ancestors acquired by their labours. Those melancholy times in which man lofes his dominion, thofe periods of barbarifm dur ing which all things go to ruin, are always prepared by war, and accompany famine and depopulation. Man, who can do nothing fingly, who is ftrong by union only, and who cannot be happy but in peace, has the madnefs to take up arms for his own unhappiness, and to fight for his own ruin excited by infatiable avarice, blinded by ambition, ftill more infatiable, he renounces all fentiments of humanity, turns his power against himself, and contrives his own deftruction. When the fumes of glory are diffipated, he fees, with a fad and defponding eye, the earth wafted, arts buried, nations defperfed, his happinets ruined and his power an nihilated. Almighty God, reftore peace to the : afflicted earth, and filence the loud clamours of war and difcord. God of bounty, author of all beings, thy paternal care embraces all created objects. But man is thy chief care thou haft illuminated his foul with a celeftial ray complete thy benefits by penetrating his heart with love for thee his Creator: this divine fentiment will reunite the most bitter enemies in cordiality and affection: man will be no longer afraid of man; nor will murderous fteel any longer arm his hand : the devouring fire of war will no longer fhorten his days: the human fpecies, weakened, mutilated, cropped in its flower, will fpring again and multiply without end: nature, overwhelmed with misfortunes, barren and abandoned, will reaffume, with new life, its wonted fecundity; and we, beneficient Deity, will fecond nature, and join our efforts to hers; rendering to thee continually a renewed tribute of gratitude and admiration. A letter wrote by the celebrated Rouffeau; before bis departure for Berlin [52], to Prince Louis of Wirtemberg, at Laufanne. Tranfcribed in a letter, dated, Berne, Nov. 9. 1765. to a gentleman of diftinction in Edinburgh, who favoured us with a copy of it. Je pars, Prince; c'eft la neceffité qui l'ordonne. J'emporte au milieu de mes difgraces le legret de ne vous avoir jamais vu. Mais j'ai vu votre ame. Son image eft empreinté dans mon coeur; et quelque part que je vive et que je meure, le fera jufqu' a mon dernier fonpir. Souvenés vous auffi de moi; parlés en quelquefois avec le vertueux Tiffot; aimés moi toujours; plaignes les hommes, et ne les haiffés pas. A TRANSLATION. Prince, I depart; neceffity commands it. I go, amidst the rest of my misfortunes, with the regret of never having feen you. But I have feen your foul. Its image is imprinted on my heart; and wherever I live or die, will remain fo till my latest breath. Do you also remember me; fpeak of me fometimes with the virtuous Tiffot: love me always ; pity mankind, but hate them not. Defcription Description of Wilton-Houfe, a magnificient Seat of the Earl of Pembroke. HIS elegant fructure is fituated at Twilton, about three miles from Salisbury in Wiltshire, and was begun in the reign of Henry IV. on the ruins of a fuppreffed abbey. The great quadrangle was finished in the reign of Edward VI. together with the porch, which was defigned by Hans Holben. But the hall fide being burnt down about 60 years ago, was rebuilt by the late earl of Pembroke, then lord bigh admiral of England, in a very noble and fumptuous manner. The other parts, rebuilt by the firft Philip earl of Pembroke, were all defigned by that celebrated architect Inigo Jones, and finished in the year 1640. The canal before the house lies parellel to the road, and receives into it the greatest part of the Willy. this piece, and Lewis XIV. of France offered as many louis d' ors as would cover it; but the price is really invaluable. Over the chimney is prince Charles, and his brothers the duke of York and Glouces fter. And over the doors, on each fide of the capital picture, are two admirable portraits of king Charles I. and his queen; all by the above celebrated artist. The paffage from this room is by the grand geometrical ftair cafe, the first of the kind in this kingdom, with a rich and lofty ftair-cafe hardly to be paralleled for its magnificence. At the foot of the staircafe is a Grecian ftatue of Bacchus, of white Peloponnefian marble, and a young Bacchus on his arm eating grapes; the whole fo foft and natural as can hardly be excelled in the Vatican at Rome. In short, the whole stair-case, and two rooms at the top of it, are fo crouded with pictures of both Italian and Flemish mafiers, as would require a volume to defcribe. There is also another fine ftair-cafe as full of pictures as the former, and at the foot of it a beautiful marble ftatue of Flo Near it is a parlour, decorated with the heads and horns of tags, fome of them very large; and alfo with the horns of antelopes. The court-yard of the palace is paved with free-ftone, and has a marble fountain in the center. On the right-hand of the entrance is the hall, in which is a large fhuffle-board table of marble. In one of the two large parlours on the feft-ra. hand are two celebrated pictures, one reprefenting our Saviour wathing his difciples feet, and the other little thepherds and country-utenfils, both by the famous Balano. From this a portico leads to the other parlour, fupported by two fine pilJars of black and potted porphyry. The grand-front of this noble structure is 194 feet long and juftly esteemed as one of the finest productions of Inigo Jones. The grand apartments are univerfally acknowledged to be one of the noblest that architecture has yet produced, particularly that called the salon and the great dining room: the former is a cube of thirty feet, and the latter a double cube of fixty by thirty and both thirty feet high. At the upper end of the latter is the celebrated family-piece by Vandyke, twenty feet long and twelve high. The figures are as big as life, and appear as fo many real perfonages rather than the production of the pencil. Thefe figures are the earl of Pembroke (then lord chamberlain of the household) with his lady, fitting; their five fons ; ftanding, on the right; and the earl of car narvon, with his lady, their daughter, on the left; before them ftands their eldeft fon, with the duke of Buckingham's daughter, whom he married. Sir Godfrey Kneller would have given 3000 l, for February, 1766. The falon, which, as we have already obferved, is a cube of thirty feet, is alfo adorned with family pictures, most of them by Sir Peter Lely. In this and moft of the rooms are marble chimney pieces of the most exquifite workmanship, carved in Italy, and brought over by the firft earl of Pembroke. Here is alfo a gladiator finely gilt, and preferable to that at Hampton-Court. But fome of the chimney pieces which are of white marble, and done by Inigo Jones, exceed every thing of the kind; and a black maible (tone over the chimney of one of the garrets is fo finely polifhed, that Salisbury church, and its fpire, are feen on it as plain as in a looking glass. There are also a great number of baffo relievos, and other works in marble. With pictures by the most celebrated matters. There is likewife a large variety of fine granate, porphyry, and marble tables, and a cheft made of the nutmeg-tree, which, when opened, emits a fine spicy odour. In a word, there are so many antique bufts, by Greek and Roman mafters, fuch a collection of wonders both in fculpture and painting, that nothing can exceed them in beauty, nothing be more M furprizing furprizing than the number of them. Among the bufts is a celebrated one of the Egyptian goddess Ifis, on a fine table of granite. The Loggio, or Banquetting house, in the bowling-green, has an Ionic arcade, with pilafters beautifully rufticated, and enriched with niches and statues, befides a row of antique buftos on the top. Here is alfo a grotto, whofe front is curiously carved without, and wholly of marble within the pillars are of black marble of the Ionic order, and their capitals of white marble, and decorated with fine basso relievos brought from Florence. In the garden are two ruftic Ionic doors, fronting each other two ways. The ftables, and other offices, with the curious ruftic gate, and the columns frofted on each fide, on the ftable-bridge are all beauties in their kind, and finely difpofed. The gardens, as well as the canal, are fed from the rivers Nadder and Willy, which here join their streams. manfhip; but the rest, about a hundred in number, are only for common horse-men. The late earl enriched his feat with a well-chofen library, and a collection of medals, antiques, and other curiofities, which shewed the juftness and elegance of his tafte, who was one of the greatest virtuofos and antiquarians of the age. It is faid, his lordship had fome thought of erecting a Stone henge in miniature, as it was fuppofed to be in its original glory, according to Dr. Stukely, on the hill in his garden. Had this been finished, it would have added to the curiofities of Wilton, and been the admiration of foreigners as well as natives; for every one that views that ftupendous piece of antiquity in its ruins would with delight contemplate it, as it is fuppofed to have appeared in its flourishing state. Dr. Cook's Account of the Effects of Peruvian Bark in the Complaint of the Gout, as experienced on himself. N order to relieve from noble column of porphyry, with a marble ftatue of Venus, on the top of it, above 30 feet high; it is of excellent workmanship, and came originally from Alexandria. Near it is another marble statue on one knee, fupporting a fun-dial. The gardens extend on the fouth-fide of the houfe, beyond the river, and have a view of the remarkable Down called Salifbury-plain, leading to Shaftsbury. The old walls that formerly furrounded thefe gardens have been many years taken down, and haw-haws fubftituted in their place, which open a boundless view to the country all round. Here is alfo a magnificent bridge over the river in thefe gardens, and reckoned their principle ornament. From the garden is an eafy afcent to the top of a hill in the park, on which is an equeftrian ftatue of Marcus Aurelius, exactly refembling that in the Capitol at Rome. We omitted to mention one curiofity, which is fhewn in this manificent ftruc ture, namely, a collection of head-pieces, coats of mail, and other armour, for both horse and man, particularly thofe of Henry VIII. Edward VI. and a rich fuit of an Earl of Pembroke, nick-named Black Jack, which he wore when he befieged and took Boulogne in France, where he commanded under the king. Befides thefe, there are twelve other fuits of armour, remarkable for their work myself under a course which I am detertermined to profecute at least for one year, as in that time I shall have given my Medicine a fair trial, with which, if I am fuccessful, will then prescribe for others. I have already took it daily for four months, to the quantity of a heaped teapoonful wetted, firft with ftrong cinnamon water, and then diluted with plain water, and wash it down with a draught of the same, an hour or two after breakfaft, to lay a foundation, to prevent its making me fick, and to create an appetite to my dinner. When I have compleated the courfe, I fhall be better able to give a full account of the fuccefs. However, I find great benefit from it already. It wards off the gout, which pushes hard against it, but holds but a few hours; it gives me a good appetite to my victuals; brightens my memory; ftrengthens my nerves; and furnishes me with a stock of spirits to ftudy every night from fix to eleven o'clock, without weariness. It fweetens the juices, and increases perfpiration, and renders its fmell in a morning as thould be, like that from roafted mutton; and I live in hopes that it will even cure my gout. Gentlemen fufferers, I mention this to encourage you to fet out on the fame trial, that we may hereafter compare comfortable notes together, when the old faying, will be no longer medice cara teipfum, a matter of banter. Dr. Sydenham faid, if ever a specific was found fufficient to cure the gout, it must be a ftomachic. This the bark certainly is, where it fits eafy; therefore bids the fairest for the prize, of any fingle drug belonging to the materia médica. Simplicity is the perfection of phyfic, witness the late Dr. Ratcliff; why then should a patient swallow down the loathfome farraginous mixture of many, when a fingle fimple can do the whole bufinefs alone? It has been usual with me for fome years paft, to be laid up a long time with the gout, once, and fometimes twice, every year; but most commonly in the winter. I have escaped hitherto, and hope fo to do, though I have a little of it even now in the middle joint of the middle finger of my right hand, as bad a fit in my foot, for fix hours, ten days ago, which makes me think the bark is feretting the gout out of my body, as formerly, before I took it, fuch fore-runners always ended in a fevere and lafting fit all over me. And what is more ftill, I durft not for many winters paft, even venture down ftairs to dine with my family, but kept always up in my warm ftudy; whereas I do now, through the benefit of the bark, ride about the country, and vifit my patients in the very coldest days of this feafon, without any injury, to the admiration of all who knew me. This, I particularly addrefs to my gouty brethern, whofe complaint I should be glad to remove. JOHN COOK, M. D. Some of the Caufes that occafion in London the Mortality of Children under two Years of Age. NE of the caufes, I apprehend, oil, panada, caudle, or fome fuch unwholefome mess. To point out an evil without applying a remedy, is not altogether fo ferviceable; therefore I fhall trouble you with the happy method I have had practifed in my own family; which, if duly followed, I am certain, that one third more children would be preferved to the age of two years; and after that time there will be little to fear but from the small pox, &c. The Instead of bandages, and all thofe loads of fwaddling-cloaths, let the infant have only a little flannel waistcoat, without fleeves, to fit the body, and tie loosely behind, to which there fhould be a petticoat fewed, and over this a kind of gown, of the fame material, or any other that is light, thin, and flimfy. petticoat fhould not be fo long as the child, the gown a few inches longer, with one cap only on the head, which may be made double, if it be thought not warm enough. What I mean is, that the whole drefs fhould be fo contrived, that it might be put on at once, and neither bind nor prefs the head at all. The linen as ufual. This would be fufficient for the day; laying afide all thofe swathes, bandages, ftays, and contrivances, that are moft ridiculously ufed, to clofe and keep the head in its place, and fupport the body; as if nature, exact nature, had produced her chief work, a human creature, fo carelessly unfinished, as to want thofe idle aids to make it perfect. Shoes and stockings are needlefs incumbrances, till they are able to go out in the dirt. There fhould be a thin flannel shirt for the night, which ought to be every way loofe. Children in this fimple, pleafent drefe, which may be readily put on and off without teafing them, would find themselves perfectly caly and happy, enjoying the free ufe of their limbs. This fhould be continued till they are three ONE of the ces this mortality, is years old. the diabolical method of the nurses binding their tender bodies, as foon as born, with bandages, fo tight, that neither the bowels nor the limbs have any liberty to act and exert themselves in that free eafy way nature designed they should. Another caufe is, that deftructive cuftom of feeding them with water-pap, c.; and, from the firft, fome will cram down their throats fome butter and lugar, Great care fhould be taken in feeding them: nothing is fo good as cow's milk, but not to be boiled, with fome of the bifkets called tops and bottoms, or rufks, by which we are fure to avoid that pernicious thing called allum. Half their diet fhould be thin, light broths, with a little bread or rice boiled in them; not to be fed above four times in twenty four hours; and not to be fed in the night, Ma |