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Of modern except that

Nor have

Herodotus, and Dr. Steuart's elaborate work on Salluftt. The former having proceeded to a fecond edition, appears with many valuable additions and improvements. Of the latter, we shall speak more diftinctly in our next Preface, when we fhall have clofed our examination of its contents. history we have nothing in this Volume, of the English Navy, by Mr. Derrick ‡. we been much employed on Antiquities, except in viewing the controverfy between Mr. King and Mr. Dutens, on the Antiquity of Arches §; and in commending the very elegant Specimens of ancient Ornamental Architecture, which Mr. Tatham | fome time ago prefented to the Public. A work which fcientific men had justly appreciated, before it happened to attract our notice.

BIOGRAPHY.

Here we have rather a more copious harveft. The Life of Beattie by Sir William Forbes, itfelf fills up a confiderable space; and fo fills it, that while we admire and love the poet and philofopher, we contract little lefs efteem and affection for his biographer. But we contracted them, alas! only to join, almoft immediately, the honourable and amiable train of friends, who attended him to his last abode. Dr. Drake has fucceeded in giving new intereft to the lives of Steele, Addifon**, and their coadjutors, fo often written before, for various purposes, and particularly to accompany their periodical Effays. Amore exact difcuffion of their ftyle, humour, and peculiar or fimilar talents has enabled him to effect his defign in a pleafing and instructive manner. Mr.

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Dutens has added his name to the lift of Autobiographers. We will not fay that we should willingly have written of ourselves, all that he has written of himself; but we will fay, unequivocally, that they who feek for amufement, will be fure to find it in his Memoirs, and frequently united with inftruction. The Life of James the Sext, which we noticed in our first number †, is an ancient and anonymous tract, published originally, but with fome alteration, in Crawfurd's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland; and now republished from an old MS, with reference to the Controverfy refpecting Mary Queen of Scots. We have given fome curious inftances of the differences between the Memoirs and the Life, by printing them in parallel columns.

TOPOGRAPHY AND TRAVELS.

We travel with the Topographer, fometimes more agreeably than with the profeffed Tourift; an illuftrious inftance of which occurs in the Magna Britannia of Meffrs. Lyfons, the beginning of a large and important work; and fuch a beginning as augurs well of the parts which are to fucceed. It is fomewhat fingular that the alphabetical arrangement, which the Authors have taken for their compilation, has led them, in the firft inftance, to three counties, not one of which had yet been made the fubject of a regular County Hiftory. The Defcription of Latium, (which we have attributed, and we believe rightly, to a Lady, fingularly well qualified for such a talk, Mifs Cornelia Knight §) contains a judicious mixture of ancient and modern-topography; with fuch references to claffical authorities as must please the ftudious, and inftruct the lefs accomplished reader. The account of the Commerce and Navigation of the Black Sea, fuppofed

No. V. p. 479. No. 1. p. 15.

Memoires d'un Voyageur qui fe repofe." *No. I. p. 66. ‡ No. II. p. 131.

to

to be the work of Mr. Eton*, contains fuch information as the name of that intelligent Traveller will flamp with authority. The book which Dr. Pinckard has entitled Notes on the West Indies †, may be confidered as holding a middle place between Topography and Travels, though the most important part of it is his Account, from obfervation and very painful experience, of the dreadful Yellow Fever.

When we meet with Mr. Barrow, we come to a well tried fource of original and pleasing information, and his work on Cochin-China, is clearly not unworthy of him. The additional information on Africa, which, as an ancient author has faid, femper aliquid affert novi, is alfo very acceptable. Mr. Carr's Stranger in Ireland § is, like his "Stranger in France," a pleasing and lively book; and, unlike fome English travels in that country, will please the Irish by its candour, no less than the English by its information.

The books which remain in this clafs may be more curforily mentioned. They are four in number: Mrs. Wakefield's Excurfions in North America¶; the Belgian Traveller, by the Author of the Revolutionary Plutarch **; Kotzebue in Italy tt; and Helms's Travels from Buenos Ayres ‡‡. All thefe have merit in their refpective ftyles; and the firft, though apparently an ideal excurfion, is as inftructive as any among them.

PHILOSOPHY.

We cannot better begin this head than by fpeaking of the Philofophical Tranfactions, a work of more established fame than any that the rest of Europe

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has produced. The firft, and the beft of its kind. Two parts have been analyzed in our prefent Volume. We found confiderable merit in the Lectures on Zoonomia, by the late Dr. Garnett †, a work in which the principles of Philofophy are applied, in part, to medical admonition. The other works we have here to notice, are either of a mixed kind, or confined to fome diftinct branch of fcience. Mr. Olinthus Gregory's Treatife on Mechanics, theoretical, practical, and defcriptive; Mr. Dalby's first Volume of a Courfe of Mathematics §; and Dr. Jamefon's Mineralogy of the County of Dumfries, are all works of fcientific merit, though the two first are more distinguished in their refpective branches, and lefs liable to critical objections. The clear and inItructive Converfations on Chemistry, which we afcribe without hefitation to Mrs. Bryan, deserve a very favourable remembrance; nor fhould Mr. Galpine's Compend of British Botany ** be omitted, being one of the moft ufeful companions that a ftudent can take in his pocket.

In the philofophy of the human mind, called Intellectual Philofopbytt, Profeffor Scott has established a permanent reputation, by reducing to elementary analyfis that very difficult branch of knowledge. Dr. Gillies's Supplement to his Analysis of Ariftotle ++ was mentioned in this volume, only to defend it from liberal and unjuft attacks; which it was not very difficult to do, against an affailant who wants knowledge almost as much as he wants candour.

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POLITICS.

We have had little lately to do with this fubject, unless the difcuffion of neutral claims and belligerent rights can be so termed. As a remnant of that topic, we have noticed, in this volume, the Speech of Mr. Randolph, in the American Congrefs, reprinted here, with an able Introduction by the Author of War in Disguise. The two rival pamphlets, the Inquiry into the State of the Nation, and the Anfwer to the Inquiry t, both anonymous, are written with ability; the preference will generally be given to the one or the other, according to the political connections of the reader. The latter has fince been augmented by a Supplement. Mr. Canning's Speech § on the Repeal of the Additional Force Act is a difcuffion of political principle, rather than of mere arrangement, and, as fuch, may be here mentioned.

MEDICINE.

Works of this clafs, lately examined, have refembled fmall dofes, rather than continued and connected courfes of difcipline. They have come frequently, but they have been foon difpofed of. We begin with a fubject of very extenfive intereft, as extenfive as the gout, whofe dominion who has not felt or feared? To this extent fhould reach Mr. Hunt's Salutary Cautions against the rash and perilous practice of affufion; founded, as it appears, on a falfe theory, and more likely to deftroy the patient than remove the malady. We perufed, nearly

* No. I. p. 39§ No. III. p. 326.

+ No. II. p. 186.
|| No. I. p. 61.

No. III. p. 325.

together,

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