metaphyfical theory, into all the obfcurities of the Leibnitzian doctrine of Monades, and to have given to his principle of vitality a form that renders it incapable of exciting any diftinct or clear idea. It would, however, betray a great want of equity and candour to cenfure this obfcurity with any degree of feverity. In this chequered ftate of light and darkness, in which the objects of knowledge are fo extenfive and deep, and the intellectual faculties fo feeble and limited, we must often grope a long while in obfcurity to come at fome imperfect glimples of truth, and that, more efpecially, when we inveftigate the origin and principles of things. The obfcurity of Mr. NEEDHAM is that of a deep thinker, and is very different from the confufion and perplexity of a hafty, fuperficial, and injudicious obferver of Nature.

ART. VII.

Marti Tullii Ciceronis Opera omnia ex recenfione Jo. AUG. ERNESTI cum ejufdem Notis et Clave Ciceroniana.-The Works of Cicero revifed by M. Ernelti, who has accompanied them with Notes and a Clavis, &c. 4 Vols 8vo. Hall. 1777.

THIS is the third edition of the work here announced.—

The first was published in 1772, and the fecond in 1774; and as we have not, as yet, mentioned this valuable publication, we shall take the prefent occafion to make it known with the diftinction to which it is entitled. It is certain that this edition of Cicero, published by one of the best and most univerfal scholars of this age, though the prefs-work and paper be not fplendid nor the notes abundant, has nevertheless a degree of merit, upon the whole, which renders it preferable to any other edition. This fuperiority is founded on the elegance and folidity of feveral inftructive prefaces, on the correctness of the text, and the difcretion, the precifion, and tafte that reign in the number and nature of the notes. Mr. ERNESTI has followed the text of Gruterus, preferably to that of Grævius and Davis: but he has improved it fo confiderably, that it may and probably will carry his own name down to posterity.

This

In his general preface M. Ernefti gives a critical hiftory of the preceding editions of Cicero, points out their defects, and fhews us the rules he followed in order to avoid them. preface was published under the form of a profpectus, or prolegomena, above thirty years ago, which fhews the time and labour that have been employed in preparing this edition; but it is re-publifhed here with many Additions and Improvements. To give a valuable edition of Cicero, a man must have almost as compleat a knowledge as that illuftrious Roman, of the words and fyntaxis which are used in his works,-must be ac

quainted

quainted with all their analogies, must be capable of relishing, with a fine feeling, their beauty and harmony-must be fufficiently acquainted with the ancient manner of writing, to understand the manufcripts; and muft add to these another quality of a dangerous application, fometimes, even a critical fagacity to follow the fcent of a loft text, and difcover its traces, even without the affiftance of manufcripts. The first of these qualifications is evident in Victorius; Lambinus poffeffed the fecond and third in an eminent degree ;-and, in our opinions, ERNESTI difplays them all.

It is particularly to be obferved that he does not blindly follow Aldus Manutius, as moft of the preceding Editors have done, but has confulted a prodigious number of manufcripts, many of which had not fallen into the hands of his predeceffors; as alfo ancient Italian Editions, that, before his researches, were undeservedly buried in oblivion. We find in the particular prefaces, prefixed to each volume, interefting accounts of these manufcripts and editions. He has been rather too fparing in the number of his notes, that he might not fwell the work into too many volumes; but what the Reader may lose by this difcretion, is abundantly compensated by his Clavis, or key to the interpretation of his Author, which contains more illustrations of difficult paffages, than we find in the moft voluminous commentaries.

De la Legiflation, ou Principes des Loix.-Concerning Legislation, or the Principles of Laws, by the Abbé de MABLY. 2 Vols. 8vo. Amfterdam. 1777.

N

OTWITHSTANDING the almost infuperable difficulty of introducing a perfect fyftem of laws into any nation, it is ftill useful to instruct mankind in the important fcience of legislation, and to remind their rulers of the obligations they are under of reducing this mafter-fcience to practice, in order to the advancement of public felicity. Such is the defign of the work now before us; a work which the name of its Author is fufficient to recommend to the attention of the Public, as the Abbé MABLY has more than once appeared, with great diftinction, in the republic of letters, enriching it with productions that have more or lefs affinity with the prefent publication.

This publication is in the form of a dialogue, in which the interlocutors are a Swedish philofopher (we do not often meet with these two words together) an Englishman, and the Author himself. The Swede makes the principal figure in this conference. The Briton, prepoffeffed, and not without reason, against the Swedish government, and elated with high ideas of the British constitution, starts objections to the philofophical system

༦

of legislation propofed by the Scandinavian fage, while the Author takes little fhare in the converfation, except now and then to admire the wifdom of this fage, and the folidity of his principles, with relation to laws and morals. The dialogue confifts of two parts, each of which is divided into eight chapters, and yet the whole is reprefented as the converfation of a fingle day, which fhews that the speakers must have scarcely had a moment to draw breath. We fhall, firft, prefent a general idea of the plan of this work, and then felect fome paffages to ferve as fpecimens of our Author's manner of treating this fubject.

His firft business is to fhew what that kind of happiness is, which Nature points out to man, as his end, and the conditions on which it is attainable. And indeed the knowledge of these points is effentially neceffary to our forming a right judgment with respect to those laws that are most useful to fociety. According to our Author, the profperity of ftates is founded, by an invariable dictate of nature, upon an equality of fortune and fituation among the citizens as its neceflary bafis. We are forry for this; for if this be true, no ftate can attain or even approach near to true happiness. This our Author does not deny: he acknowledges that the ftate of equality has difappeared in all the communities of men known to us, and that there are infuperable obftacles to its restoration; and therefore inftead of aiming, like certain philofophers, at impoffibilities, or attempting to bring human nature back to that ftate of equality which is irrecoverably loft, he endeavours to administer some comfort to mankind in their prefent deplorable condition, to point out the means of rendering that condition as happy as is poffible; and this he does by fhewing how the legislator ought to exert all the force of his edicts and inftitutions against avarice and ambition, the two greatest enemies of focial happiness. Though we are not of the Abbé's opinion, that Nature calls men to an equality or community of goods; though we are perfuaded that variety of talents, genius, and character, render equality of ftate and condition impoffible for any length of time, and that the happiness of human fociety does not require it, yet we think with him that the inroads that are made upon this equality by avarice and ambition are, indeed, the great fources of national mifery, and that nothing can be more falutary than to make war upon these two odious paffions, and to counteract their influence as far as human forefight and activity can extend.

The thing is obvious; the manner is lefs fo; and the wifdom of the rules laid down for this end by our ingenious Author difcover a mafterly hand at difcuffions of this nature. He unfolds, in the first part of his work, the nature and charac

ters

ters of avarice and ambition, the neceffity of reftraining them at the fame time, and, as it were, with the fame rein, and the genius and character of the laws that are neceffary to modify and fubdue them both in magiftrates and citizens. In treating this part of his fubject, he obferves, occafionally, that nations are perpetually admonished, by their calamities, of the neceffity of correcting their laws, and that time and chance often favour them in enterprizes of this kind.

The fecond part of the work begins by an interesting detail of the precautions that must be used by a wife legislator to prepare the citizens of a corrupt ftate for their return to the true dictates of nature. Our Author afterward takes a view of the different European governments, in order to examine what may be expected from them with respect to the improvement of their laws. He places in their proper light the general rules which the legislative power ought to prescribe to itself in order to avoid mistakes, and the principles by which it ought to judge of the expedience, importance, or neceffity of every law. He infifts upon the care that should be taken to inspire citizens with a love of the laws by which they are governed; and, under this article, among the means that are adapted to promote this, he mentions, particularly, mildnefs in penal statutes, the advancement of good morals, the influence of a well-directed education. This latter he confiders as a peculiar object of the attention of fovereigns, and there are few objects that, generally speaking, come lefs under their cognizance, though it may be justly efteemed as the proper if not the only foundation both of private and national felicity.

Such is the general plan of the work of our refpectable Author; the detail is highly interefting, though in fome places it lies expofed to critical cenfure. In combating, for example, the favourite notion of the admirers of Montefquieu, that the climate has a great influence upon the characters of men, and ought, of confequence, to be confidered in the fyftems of legiflation, that are adapted to thefe characters, he certainly goes too far. These Authors, fays he, instead of entering into an attentive view of the human heart, and ftudying its paffions, have built all their plans of legiflation, and all their schemes for the well-being of human fociety on objects and confiderations that are really foreign to man, and that have no immediate reference to the effential conftitution of human nature. If we are to credit these fophifts, Providence has appointed one happiness for the ancients, another for the moderns; and Afia, Africa, Europe, and America, have each their respective and diftinct happiness. They will tell you gravely that laws, which are excellent in the 10th degree of latitude, lofe all their excellence and merit under the 30th, so that it would seem that it is

the thermometer, and not the affections of human nature, which the legislator muft confult in order to know what actions he must recommend, and what he muft prohibit. What relation is there between mountains, plains, the proximity of the fea, or of a great river, the drynefs or moisture of a foil, (and an hundred other circumftances of that nature) and laws defigned for the happiness of man? Does the nature of the human heart change acccording to the nature of the climate? Do not the fame wants, the fame organs, the fame external fenfes, the fame inclinations and paffions, the fame faculty of reafon, take place in all the various regions of the globe, that is (to reduce them to one general principle) are not the attraction of pleasure and the fear of pain, the universal and predominant motives to action under the pole as well as under the line? And where are those heaven-favoured climates in which avarice and ambition, floth and voluptuoufnefs, may not produce their poisonous fruits?" &c.

There is perhaps more eloquence and wit, than folidity and precifion in this manner of treating a point, which is certainly delicate and of nice investigation. Our Author acknowledges (in a paffage not far from those we have now quoted) that it may happen, that, in one place, the paffions of men may be more headstrong and imperious, and in angther more fufceptible of difcipline and reftraint—that in one place they will be expofed to more frequent temptations, and in another their progrefs and impetuofity will be checked by accidental circumftances. Thefe varieties, then, in the characters of the paffions and the principles on which they are founded, become proper objects of the attention of the legiflator, and the mere contemplation of the human heart independently on the accidental circumstances in which it feels and acts, and on the objects that affect it (of which the influence of climate on our organization may be a main one) is not sufficient to enable the lawgiver to adapt his inftitutions to every exigence. Nay, granting, that the influence of climate is infufficient to change the effential nature of human paffions, yet may it not modify them in different ways, diverfify their degrees, and the manner of their operation, and thus become objects of the attention of the legiflator? Love, for example, is an univerfal paffion, but are its impreffions the fame in the Laplander and the African, the Samoeydian and the Italian ? The truth of the matter is, that great inconveniencies may arife in point of legislation from attributing too much to the influence of climate, and care ought to be taken not to indulge too much the fuggeftions of fancy, and the fpirit, of hypothefis in this matter:-but, on the other hand, it is equally unreafonable to reject entirely this influence, which the phyfical and moral conftitution of different nations in different latitudes fo

evidently