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nitz and Wolf.-11. Are the unities of nature susceptible of perceptions? Our Author needs not be more embarraffed by this queftion, than his neighbours in philofophy. On the fuppofition of two diftinct fubftances his hypothefis is fubject to as little difficulty as that of the doctors, who maintain an immediate and phyfical influence of mind upon body, and of body upon mind, and on the fuppofition of one fubftance only, he recurs to the fiat of the Creator; and Dr. Priestley (if his material cohefion of we know not what-holds yet tight) will help him out of the mud, or enable him to fit in it refpectably. However this may be, M. BEGUELIN's difcuffions of this laft quetion are acute and ingenious in a very eminent degree: they are worthy of the high reputation he defervedly bears, as one of the first adepts of the prefent age both in fpeculative and natural philofophy.

Inquiries concerning the ancient judiciary proceedings against Sor cerers and Witches. By M. FORMEY. This fhews, from good documents, that the forcerers were rich, and that the judges were covetous rogues, who neither believed in witchcraft nor magic, but panted after confifcations.

Memoir. Concerning certain Maxims that ought always to be kept in view in philofophical inveftigations. By M. COCHIUS. Solid and judicious.

Memoir concerning Defects. By DOM, PERNETY. What he fays is true and trite.

BELLES-LETTRES.

Memoir concerning the influence of the Sciences on Poetry, Fourth Memoir-By M. MERIAN. This Memoir, which contains only 150 pages, takes up Latin poetry in its cradle, and follows it ftep, by ftep in five fections, until, after a long ftate of ficknefs and decrepitude, it expired in the arms of Sedulius, under the reign of Conftantine.

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MEMOIRES de l'Academie Imperiale et Royale des Sciences et BellesLettres de Bruxelles: i. e. MEMOIRS of the Imperial and Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres of Bruffels. Vol. II. 1780, 4to, pp. 671. (price 14s. fterling)

HIS valuable collection is carried on with regularity, ca

Tpacity, and fpirit, and deferves, in an eminent degree, the

attention and applause of the republic of letters. The prefent volume, in pursuance of the plan already observed in the former, is divided into two unequal parts: the first is taken up with the journal of the fittings of the academy, which contains an account

For our account of vol. I. fee App. to Review, vol. lix. p. 510

of the pieces presented, and of the fubjects of their deliberations and the fecond contains the Memoirs.

JOURNAL OF THE ACADEMY.

EXTRACT of a Memoir concerning the Gloffopetras and Bufonita, by the Abbe WITRY, Canon of Tournay; defigned to prove, against the affertions of the celebrated Mr. Henckel, that these productions derive their origin from different marine bodies.

EXTRACT of a Memoir concerning an economical Stove, better adapted to warm Apartments, than thofe hitherto invented; by the fame. As chimneys certainly warm a chamber unequally, and are a kind of ventilators, adapted more to renew the air, than to diffuse warmth in an apartment, this memoir is an object worthy of attention.

EXTRACT of a learned Memoir of M. Van Wyn, penfionary of the Brille (now of Gouda), defigned to remove the confufion which the resemblance of certain names has produced in the Flemish hiftory.

ANALYSIS of the Memoir of Mr. Needham, concerning the contagious Disorder that reigns (and has reigned fo long in the Netherlands, more especially in the United Provinces) among the borned cattle. Having divided the disorders incident to organized bodies into two claffes, the first comprehending thofe that are inflammatory in confequence of a fuperabundance of vital powers, and the fecond, thofe that, through a defect of vigour, are of a putrid or gangrenous nature, our academician places the disease among the horned cattle in the latter, and therefore confiders antiseptics, as the true preservatives against this fatal malady. As, however, the expences attending the Peruvian bark, nitre, brandy, affa foetida, camphor, &c. are confiderable, and burdenfame to the peafant, he recommends marine or rock-falt as a cheap and effectual prefervative; and he fhews, by a variety of arguments and obfervations, its falutary effects.

EXTRACT of a Memoir, containing a General Theory of round Flints, together with Confiderations on the ftrata of these Flints, that are found in the Country about Louvain. By M. DE LAUNAY.

Remarks on the learned Preface to the Irish Vocabulary, printed at Paris in 1768, by the Count DE FRAULA,-who fhews that the Irish and the Belgi have the fame origin, and defcend from the ancient Scythians.

OBSERVATIONS on the Belemnites, by M. De MARCI.

A MEMOIR concerning fome MSS. of the Public Library of the Abbey of St. Vincent at Befançon. By Dom. BERTHOLD. The object of this memoir is a collection of 80 volumes in folio, which are comprehended under the general title of-Manufcripts of Granvelle. They contain the most interesting events that dif tinguifhed the reigns of Charles V. and Philip II. during the miniftry of Nicholas Perrenot, and Anthony his fon, known'

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under the title of Cardinal Granvelle. Though there are fome interruptions in this important feries of hiftorical materials, thofe that have escaped the ruins of time are curious and inftructive: fuch are, the original letters of Charles V. Ferdinand, Maximilian II. Philip II. Mary Queen of Hungary, Eleonora Queen of France, Mary Stuart, the two Margarets of Austria, and other illuftrious perfonages. Thefe letters, written at a period when no fufpicion of their future publication could influence or restrain the writers, lay open fprings of action, reasons of state, motives and views, which ferve as authentic guides in judging of events, and expofe to cbfervation characters, which hiftorians have only delineated by conjecture.

MEMO R of Dom. Berthod containing the Voyage of Claude Belin to Bruffels, drawn from the 25th and 26th Volumes of the MSS. of Granvelle. It is well known that the Duke of Alva began his odious adminiftration by the arreft and trial of the Counts of Egmont and Horn. Claude Belin, advocate-fiscal in one of the diftricts of Burgundy, was fent for to Bruffels, to perform the functions of this office in the trial of the two counts. The fubftance of the memoir before us is drawn from letters, written on this occafion to Cardinal Granvelle, particularly by Belin, who feems to have been an honeft man. In thefe letters we have a curious account of the unworthy proceedings of the council, that fat in judgment on these illuftrious victims of fuperftitious tyranny, of the cabals of the Spaniards to remove all the Fremith nobles from the council of ftate, and of the unfupportable arrogance of Vargas and Del Rio, who owed their afcendant to their fervile fubmiffion to Alva. But the object we have particularly in view here, is a letter which Cardinal Granvelle wrote from Rome to Belin, in answer to his complaints of the proceedings of the council and its fanguinary: chief.- -This letter paints Granvelle's character in a much more lively manner than any hiftorical pencil has done, and the antiquated French ftile in which it is compofed, is a vehicle to the matter it contains, which (we know not why) ftrikes us moft agreeably. We shall extract fome paffages from this letter, which, though they may lose a great part of their zeft in our tranflation, will nevertheless fhew the character of the man. "Good Mr. Advocate (lays Granvelle to Belin) I received your: "letters on St. Andrew's day, and, on my faith, they put me in "a great pother, feeing, by the fame, what is doing, and that 66 you have begun to ftand forth against those who are placed in "the management of affairs; nay, even against the Spaniards, "who have the Duke's good graces-whether they deferve "them or not-of which, in my thinking, you ought not to 66 come forth as a judge.. -You have had rubs, it is true, but ❝ methinks you have already forgot what you wrote me lately,

that

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that you remembered to have heard me fay, in my faloon at "Befançon, to wit, that there are things of which we must not "keep up a refentment or after-tafte; fuch, for example, as "invectives and pills, which we ought to swallow without chew"ing, that we may not perceive their bitternefs; and in like "" manner at court." Again-" If by being too touchy, "and by refusing to fuffer and to yield gently to the humours "of your fuperiors, you render yourself odious, and spoil your "affairs, it is not my fault, and I will fay with. the Prophet, "Quod in me fuit præftiti tibi.--For God's fake do both in "matter and manner, what they (ALVA and VARGAS) will, "and how they will: they can give you no place, that will not prove better than that which you hold in Burgundy, and if "they defire to have you among the fifcals, take care to serve to "the Duke's mind. He that afpires after preferment muft "learn to fuffer, especially at his fetting out, and must not be

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daftardly and fearful. If you had been in my place in Flan"ders, when, two years long, I was told every day that I "should be ftabbed, you would have died of the affright; and " even here, where I am at present, it behoves me to be upon my guard. The man who hopes to rife, muft venture his "fkin; and I wonder not a little at your apprehenfions at the "writings that will be compofed in Germany against the pro ceedings (with respect to Egmont and Horne) Only think of "the writings that were thrown out against me in Flanders: I "made a wide throat, and let them go down fweet as milk:"the ftrokes of pen upon paper are not thrufts of a dagger.". The whole letter is in this ftyle and manner, and fhows the

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Other Memoirs are mentioned in this JOURNAL, but as they are either printed entire in this prefent volume, or referved for fucceeding volumes, we fhall take notice of them in their proper place, in our account of the memoirs,-to which we now proceed.

MEMOIRS.

Memoir. Concerning elementary Fire, confidered in general as exifting throughout all Nature, together with conjectures relating. to its different Modifications, its Laws of Action, its End, and its univerfal Utility. By the Abbé MANN. We are working hard, in this period of philofophy, to get at the fecret of Nature, with respect to the origin, effence and properties of the fubftance, which, whatever it is, fpreads light and heat throughout our globe, and feems to be the great spring and agent in the material world. Experiments and obfervations are affiduously employed in this important line of fpeculation; and it cannot be faid that they have been wholly deftitute of fuccefs. Conjectures alfo may be allowed a place, fince, when they are not contradicted by the

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other two inftruments of investigation, they may have their ufes, and lead us through bye-roads into the path of truth. The very learned Author of this memoir is a first-rate conjecturer, and it must be confeffed, that his conjectures carry evident marks of fagacity and genius. His memoir is compofed of three fections. In the firft, he treats of light, heat, and the electrical fluid, confidered in general as different modifications of one and the fame principle, which he calls ELEMENTARY FIRE. This fire, according to him, is a distinct substance, a separate and primitive element; it is an affemblage of the molecules of a matter that is evidently homogeneous, inalterable, incoercible *, always in action and motion, or tending thereto, effentially fluid, and the principal cause of all fluidity in Nature, and of all heat and burning in bodies.This account of fire contains nothing new it is the revived opinion of Homberg, Boerhave and S' Gravefande, fet out with new improvements, and may, for ought we know, be right. Light, according to our author, is probably a modification of this elementary fire, which it can only produce, when active and disengaged, to a certain degree, from those heterogeneous bodies with which it is very often combined; whereas, in order to produce combuftion or fenfible heat, only a high degree of denfity is required, which is always proportionable to the degree of the combuftion. Hence he accounts for the existence of light without heat, and for the different degrees of the fun's heat, though light and heat be the effects of one and the fame principle. Our academician confiders farther, the elementary fire in the different degrees of what he calls its unitive affinity to different fubftances, and the effects refulting from thence upon its action, as also in the different manner in which it exists in bodies, as lodging in their pores, or combined with them as conftituent parts of their fubftances. He thinks, that by confidering light as the motion of fire in a right line, and heat as the agitation of the fame fluid (fire) moving in all directions, this theory will explain, in a fatisfactory manner, the several phenomena of light and heat, with all their modifications, that are obfervable on our globe.This theory is old, and may

be true.

Electricity is the third modification of the elementary fire. It partakes, according to our Author, of the nature of light, common fire, and phlogifton, and holds a middle rank between light and heat, being more combined and mixed with heterogeneous fubftances than the former (which comes nearest to the nature of its principle), and lefs than the latter.

The refult of this FIRST SECTION is, that the infinitely fubtile and active fluid, which adminifters light and heat, and which

* By incoercible, we fuppofe our Abbé means untractable.

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