elementary form. "In the courfe of my vifit, I faw him with a blunt knife bring back a mishapen mass of fluor to an octaedral cryftal, nor would it readily affume any other form.”

Several other cabinets are defcribed with equal precision; and we shall find our curious Investigator of Nature's operations equally inftructive in the regions of Botany. But when he lets us know that Abbeville and Amiens are manufacturing towns; that in the former is made good damafk, and the latter is famous for its woollen goods and camelots, he affords no more information concerning manufactures and commerce than might be gained from his poftilion, and not fo much as will be found in Brookes's Gazetteer. But it is high time we should proceed to Spain; we thall therefore pafs over the short notes made by our traveller in his journey from Paris to Belgarde refpecting the manufactures of Lyons, &c. and meet him again in the province of Roufillon, which he truly fays is rich and highly cultivated, even to the foot of the Pyrenees, abounding with corn, and wine, and oil, and filk, all of the beft quality. The views all the way up the Pyrenees are beautiful. As you approach their fummit, Belgarde prefents itfelf, feated on a mountain eminent above the reft, and commanding this pafs for a great extent. This fortrefs, the laft in the French dominions, is more remarkable for ftrength than beauty. They reckon more than 1500 fmugglers in the Pyrenees, men of defperate refolution, who, knowing the cruel punishments to which they fhall be condemned if taken, travel well armed, and generally in ftrong parties. A military force is fometimes ient against them, but to little purpofe, as neither party is ever eager to engage. The fmugglers, ftrangers to ambition, and little influenced by the thirft of military fame, without reluctance quit the field; and, unless when their fuperiority is manifeft and great, think only of fecuring their retreat; whift the foldier, regarding this fervice as both dangerous and difgraceful, has no inclination to the attack. When thefe daring adventurers (the fimug. glers) have the misfortune to be taken, fome of them are hanged, fome are broken upon the wheel, and fome are burnt alive. How fhocking to humanity, that Governments by their bad policy fhould lay fuch fnares for men !

The following obfervation is new, and fhews the traveller's clofe attention to natural hiftory: The only ufeful vegetable productions of thefe high mountains are

the ilex and the cork tree; the latter very profitable on account of its bark. When thefe trees are fifteen years old, they be gin to be productive, yet not for the market, this maiden bark being only fit for fuel. At the end of eight years more, the bark improves, but does not arrive at its perfection till the third period; after which, for one hundred and fifty years, it yields a marketable commodity every ten years. The feafon for barking is July or Auguft, when they take special care not to wound the inner bark."

Little more worthy of notice is to be found in the journey from Belgarde to Barcelona; on his arrival, however, at this ancient city, Mr. Townfend takes a full fcope. Being the Holy Week, he defcribes the proceffions, which scarcely dif fer from thofe of other Roman Catholic countries upon the fame occafion, fo repeatedly given in other books of travels→ They confift of a reprefentation of all the active fcenes of our Saviour's life, from his birth to his crucifixion, by pageants; the figures are of pafteboard, as large as life, habited in the ancient Roman dreffes, placed on ftages fupported upon men's shoulders, who are difguifed; a numerous train of masked penitents follow, dragging chains and iron balls proportioned to the imagined weight of their fins. At Bruges, only twelve miles from Oftend, such a proceffion must have been seen by hundreds of English travellers every year, on Palm Sunday.

But to fhew how neceffary it is for travellers who are refolved to write for the Public not to truft to their own felf-fufficiency and vanity, but to let fome literary friend revife the manufcript, we must point out one ftriking error, that it may be

corrected in the next edition. Mr. Townfend feems to be very fond of the numbers one hundred thousand; for in one street at Paris, La Rue de St. Honoré, he affembles more than 100,000 perfons on the evening of the laft day of the Carnival-fee p. 40. Vol. I.; and at Barcelona, about fix weeks after, he finds more than 100,000 people crouding the streets of that city, hurrying from church to church to exprefs the warmth of their zeal, and the fervour of their devotion, by bowing themselves in each, and kifling the feet of the most revered image. Yet he clofes his detached account of the Academies, Courts of Inquifition, Courts of Law, Hofpitals, Houles of Correction, Trades, Manufac tures, Commerce, and Population, with tables, by which, fays he, "the thriving condition of this city will appear by exhi

biting,

biting, at one view, the ftate of its population at different periods." We will take the first and the laft. A. D. 1464, the number of perfons was 40,000.— A.D. 1786, 94,880; and this is repeated in words as well as figures, at the very time when he faw more than 100,000 in the streets-fee p. 107. 134, 135, Vol. I.; yet neither infants nor the fick could be there!

be brought forward for public inspection, at the prefent period.

The journey from Barcelona to Madrid is replete with pleafing incidents and judicious remarks: the regulations of the Magiftrates in fixing the prices of provifions and lodgings to travelle s at the inns throughout Catalonia, are worthy the attention of ftatefmen; for after the subjects have contributed their quota to the fupport of Government, the administrators of fuch government should fecure them from private extortion.

In the Convent of the Dominicans our Reverend Traveller found more than 500 records of fentences paffed on Heretics by the Inquifition, containing their name, their age, their occupation, their place of abode, the time when they were condemned, and the event; whether the party were burnt in perfon or in effigy, or whether he recanted and was faved, not from the fire and faggot, for then he might relapfe, but from the flames of hell. Moft of thefe were women. Under each infcrip. tion there is a portrait of the Heretic, fome half, others more than three parts devoured by devils. He could not refift his inclination to copy fome of them, when no one was walking in the cloifter. An Inquifitor who did him the honour of a vifit, happened to open his memorandum book precifely on the leaf which contained his drawings; he fmiled and faid, “ You fee that I can keep a fecret, and that we are not ftrangers to principles of honour." This was fifteen months after the event, confequently the Inquifitor had had fuffigent time to confider of the matter; yet he would take no harsh measure to prevent the confequence of conveying fuch proofs of cruel bigotry to an enlightened Proteftant country. This furely should have been a letion to the Rector of Pewley, Wilts, not to have given a frightful sketch of one of thefe devices, in a coarfely executed plate, reprefenting, befides other figures, the Devil beginning to eat a Heretic condemned to the faggot in the year 1566. If the Spanish Inquifitor had paid a vifit to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, accompanied by Mr. Townfend, in thefe enlightened days, when the fpirit of Chrif tan charity is univerfally expanding itself amongth all orders of men, but more pecially of the Clergy, we hope he would not have copied from this library, and pub ifhed in his own country in 1791, retentations of Proteftants burning Proants in England, and other parts of Europe, in the 5th and 16th centuries. Tbete records should be confidered only references for private ufe; not to "A propofition evident at first fight," JOHNSON. The reader is requested, on the prefent ccafion, to fubstitute safie. VOL. XX.

Of Zaragoza, which must be looked for in our vulgar authors of repute, fuch as Salmon, Brookes, and Guthrie, by the name of Saragoffa, our author gives but a fright account, which he imputes to his being straightened for time; we shall therefore affure our readers, that the defcription of this ancient capital of Arragon is far fuperior under the article Sara goffa, in Brookes Gazetteer, fixth edition.

Full compenfation is made for the deficiency juft mentioned by our author's ample account of Madrid, in which there are many curious particulars not noticed by other travellers, or at least not publifhed. The good pictures in the churches, the fuperb collection in the New Palace, are defcribed with the fcience of a critic, and the animation of an amateur. The palace of the Buen Retiro, we are told, is a vaft pile of buildings, very antient, long deferted, and verging to decay. The theatre is vaft, and opens into the gardens, fo as to make them, upon occalion, a continuation of the fcene. Further particulars concerning this famous city we shall referve for a future opportuuity, and clofe the prefent Review with an important political axiom * from our author, which if not already transmitted, fhould be fent in a difpatch to Downingftreet, for the benefit of Mr. Pitt, whofe houfe-fteward and cook may thereby add fresh credentials to his political abilities.

"Soon after my return to Aranjuez, I had the honour to dine with the prime minifter, Count Florida Blanca, i was ftruck with the elegance of the dinner, in which there was great variety, yet every thing was excellent; and had I been to form a judgment of the Count merely from the arrangement of his table, I fhould have pronounced him a man of fenfe. It is an old, and perhaps a well founded obfervation, "that no man is fit to govern an empire who cannot give a dinner to his friends." (To be continued.)

A Farc

A Farewell for Two Years to England. A Poem. By Helen Maria Williams. 4to. Is. 6d. Cadell.

That purifying tempeft now has paft,
No more the trembling waters feel the
blast;

The bord'ring images, confus'dly trac’d
Along the ruffled ftream, to order hafte;
The vernal day-fpring burfts the partial
gloom,

And all the landscape glows with fresher
bloom.

A confummation devoutly to be wished, but we fufpect the period is more distant than is fuppofed.

From the state of France Mifs Williams turns to Africa, and expreffes herfelf with becoming indignation on the Slave-trade, and on the failure of the late application for the abolition of that deteftable traffic. She concludes her poem with the following lines:

And when the deftin'd hour of exile past,
My willing feet fhall reach their home at last;

A General Hiftory of Mufic, from the earliest Ages to the prefent Period. By Dr. Burney. Vol. IV. 4to. One Guinea and Half in Boards. Payne, Robson, and Robinson.

[Concluded from Vol. XIX. Page 358.]

The new manager opened his cam

OUR Author having terminated his account of Handel's dramatic compofi-paign with the opera of Alessandro in Pertions and opera regency, proceeds to that fia. This, as ufual when new fingers of the late Earl of Middlefex, which be- first appear on our stage, was a pafliccia gan in 1741. But previous to this new opera, confifting of fongs felected from theatrical adminiftration, he gives, in his different mafters, in order to difplay the afual manner, fragments of the fashion- abilities of the performers by fuch airs as able divifions of the preceding period. had acquired them the most applause in In the Third Volume he has inferted fpe- their own country. The favourite comcimens of the favourite paffages of the pofers of this time, to whofe works the last century, when Melody firft began to fingers had recourfe on the present occabe cultivated; and in the prefent volume, fion, were Leo, Haffe, Pefcetti, Lamhe has done the fame from the first operas pugnani, and Domenico Scarlatti. The attempted in England before the arrival fingers were Monticelli and Visconti, first of Handel, as well as afterwards from man and first woman, with Amorevoli the the airs fung by Valentini, Nicolini, and tenor, and Frafi and Galli, whom we Senefino. He has likewife at the clofe of all remember. There were continued till the laft article, p. 437 and 438, not only 1745. The compofers here, during this given us two plates containing the moft period, were Galuppi, more commonly remarkable paffages and divifions in the known in Italy by the name of Buranello, Songs that were executed by FARINELLI, and Lampugnani, but, on the four following plates, the entire air, Son qual nave, by the performance of which he fo much astonished his bearers. Thefe and other plates, containing "the divifions and refinements which were brought into favour about the middle of the prefent century," will betenable judges of mufic to form an opition of the progrefs of melody and vocal execution, than any verbal defcription which even Dr B. fo happy in difcrimi. Mauve mufical language, can give.

Dr. B. has rendered the account of this period of the mutical drama in England interesting, by his characters of compofers and fingers, and critical remarks on the most favourite fongs in the feveral operas then performed; informing us, that "from this time he fhall have little occafion to trust to tradition er books for the mufical tranfactions of our capital, as he fhall fpeak of perfons and things from his own memory, acquaintance, and profeflional intercourfe."