She continued to discharge gravel this way, whenever her urine was drawn off, till the beginning of November, at which time she felt more diftrefs than ufual, whenever her urine came off by vomiting, and the foon obferved a gritty substance in her mouth. When I was informed of this new phænomenon, I requested her to fave the urine for my infpection, the next time the vomited. I compared this with what I drew off, and found it contained the fame kind of gravel as that which paffed the catheter. I procured and saved several drachms of this gravel, that came from her both by the inftrument and by vomiting, and could observe no difference either in the colour or confiftence of them.

From this period to the fummer 1788, her complaints continued much the fame. When her water was not drawn off, fhe always brought it up by vomiting, commonly attended with great pain in the head. During this fummer, fhe twice paffed a fmail quantity of urine, through the urethra, in confequence of being frightened, once by thunder, and the fecond time by the falling of a window in her room. This ferved only to raise her fpirits for a few days, with the expectation of her urine returning through its natural channel. Her cafe, however, continued the fame in that refpect, and grew every day more complicated in others. The hypogaftrium became more tumid and tender, and her bladder appeared very much thickened, and extremely fore, even after it was evacuated. Add to this, the apparent inequality of the furface of the bladder, was fo great, and the tumour shifting fometimes towards the right, and at others to the left inguen, according as her body was moved, that I began ftrongly to fufpect a ftone.'

These circumftances, we apprehend, are too precife to leave the least fufpicion of mistake. Dr. Senter concludes his narrative with fome reflections; among which the most important is, that we have here a strong proof of the inverted motion of the lymphatics.

The papers not comprized in our analyfis contain principally obftetrical and meteorological obfervations.-The Act for the Incorporation of the College,' and the Conftitution' of the fociety, are prefixed to the volume. Alfo a judicious Difcourfe delivered before the College, Feb. 6, 1787, on the objects of this inftitution,' by Benj. Rush, M. D.

ART. X. Du Gouvernement, Des Maurs, &c. i. e. On the Government, Manners, and Conditions in France before the Revolution : with Characters of the principal Perfons of the Reign of Louis XVI. 8vo. pp. 326. Hamburgh. 1795. De Boffe, London. 4s. ΤΗ HIS book is written with a neatness and fluency which adapt it for circulation in the polished claffes; to whom its general caft of opinion will be by no means difagreeable. Notwithstanding a marked hoftility to democratic notions and proceedings, the author abftains from virulence and invective, and

displays

difplays an urbanity which is fcarce among the advocates of party, and is therefore entitled to commendation. To palliateis indeed the characteristic object of almost every section throughout his work.

The Preliminary Confiderations deprecate, with much gentlenefs, that deference to fortune, that partiality to fuccefs, which begins to endanger an equitable eftimate of French affairs; and the introductory remarks on the Government of France, and its conflituent principles, reprefent it as practically much more useful than might be fuppofed from its theory.

The work is divided into fections, the drift of each of which we shall briefly point out. The account of the Manners of the Court marks in them nothing of that depravity or groffnefs, which paffes for a regular symptom of extreme civilization. The king and queen, it is faid, have been the victims of libel; and even the famous ftory of the necklace is impliedly denied. In behalf of the morals of the clergy, an old teftimonial of Bishop Burnet is seriously adduced. The nobility and its privileges, the writer thinks, were by no means grievous to the amount, nor abfurd to the degree, that has been fuppofed. The tiers état was not fo trammelled in its induftry, nor fo trampled in its treatment, as demagogues have urged. The improving tafte in manners was gradually bringing about the blending of conditions, which it was needlefs, therefore, to folicit from the law. The parliaments had their Catos. The adminiftration itself is defended with a felf-betraying fophiftry. The venality of offices was perhaps the beft fecurity for an independent magiftracy. The lettres de cachet were not numerous; they were iffued cautiously; and the author was once of opinion (p. 157.) that a project for abolishing of them would foon have been laid before government by the parliaments. The public debt and the public taxes, before the revolution, are the topics next confidered, and the author feems not averse from the experiment of an impêt unique, a confolidation of all the taxes into a single land-tax; which was the favourite scheme of Turgot.

We fall tranflate great part of the chapter fuperfcribed of literary men

With the reign of Louis XV. or in a few years afterward, the celebrated men who adorned it difappeared. Intrigue and cabal placed the fceptre of literature in the hands of D'Alembert, who furvived Voltaire. While no one read his éloges, fo full of affectation and quaint phrafeology; nor his hiftory of the overthrow of the Jefuits, in which acrimony contends with buffoonery; nor his uninterefting éloge on Queen Chriftina; nor his effay on literary men, the offspring of caprice and prejudice; while all well-informed perfons defpifed his tranflations of Tacitus; D'Alembert was the dictator of literature, and difpofed of all feats in the academy-but, if he has

004

enjoyed,

enjoyed, especially under Louis XVI. an ufurped celebrity, he cannot be reckoned among the writers who have adorned that monarch's reign; all his writings having appeared in the time of Louis XV.

Condorcet, who laboured to fucceed to D'Alembert's throne, belongs to the age of Louis XVI.: but he cannot be quoted among illuftrious authors. His works, of which scarcely the titles are remembered, have neither animation nor depth, and his style is dull and dry. Some bold attacks on religion, which ought not to have been countenanced, and trivial declamations against defpotism, have alone given a degree of fame to his writings.

The Abbé de Lille, a man of truly poetic genius, ranges in the period of Louis XVI. Had he been born at a time in which poetry was more the object of delight; had he compofed, inftead of tranflating; had he chofen interefting fubjects; he would justly have enjoyed the greatest reputation.

Among the very fmall numbers of writers whom this age can properly enter on the lift of thofe of the reign of Louis XVI. the Comte de Choifeul-Gouffier is entitled to diftinction; and I know not whether, in any æra, we can find a man of his rank who has compofed a work equal in merit to his Travels in Greece. This publication unites, with the deepest knowlege of antiquity, a pleafing ftyle, diverfified, and always fuited to the fubject.

The numerous and celebrated authors of the time of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., who exercised their talents in various ways, having augmented the turns of language, and varied the forms of style, it feems as if language had fuppled itself in their skilful hands, and that thence may have refulted a general facility of expreffion and compofition. In fact, a croud of examples of all kinds offer in fome degree, to every writer, affortments ready prepared, from among which he may clothe his ideas. Thefe have been incitements to write, and the number of authors has increafed to infinitude under the reign of Louis XVL: but fcarcely one of them has raifed himself above a certain ftandard.

A fmall work, in which are united fpirit, elegance, and humour, the Almanack of Great Men, has made known the vast number of men in France who have been fubjugated by the mania of fcribbling. It is aftonishing to fee the quantity of productions, from the madrigal to the tragedy, which appear and difappear in the metropolis, like infects which are born, flourish, and perish in the courfe of twentyfour hours. Two remarkable works were published during the reign of Louis XVI, One is the Hiftory of the Discovery of the two Indies, which met with the greateft fuccefs, without caufing a high opinion of the author, who was regarded only as the editor of another perfon's ideas. This work is compofed of various reports, and forms a whimfical combination of different flyles, principles repeated over and over again, high-flown declamations, and, fometimes, the most difgufting delineations of voluptuoufnefs: altogether, meretricious ornaments have here entirely robbed the fubject of its grandeur. Such is the book of the Abbé Raynal on the difcovery of both the Indies. The reader of it might imagine that he was hearing a quack doctor, mounted on his stage, and difpenfing to the gaping multitude common

place

place farcafms (des lieux-communs) against defpotifm and religion, which are remarkable only for their boldness. This book is no longer read, and is only confulted as a dictionary: but, in a short period, when time and various circumftances fhall have effected alterations in the colonies, when fome fhall have declined and others fhall have advanced in confequence, the Abbé Raynal will not be of any the leaft utility.

The other work, the Travels of the young Anacharfis, was the confequence of more than thirty years of application; the models of this learned compofition were the Cyropædia, Sethos, and the Travels of Cyrus; the form, which the author has given to it, requires that the young Anacharfis, in fome degree refembling Telemachus, should intereft the reader-but the work contains only a frigid, uniform, and unanimated narration. Anacharfis afks queftions, and they are answered; and it is without any enhancement of the amusement of the reader, that the author has given to his book the dead carcafe (cadavre) of a romance. It cannot be included among the productions of genius: it comprehends no profound defign, it offers no grand refult, and the ftyle has no character.

To Sethos and the Cyropædia, as models for the author of Anacharfis, may be added an antient work, the History of the Dinofophifts of Athens:-but there is another, which appeared in this century, and which feems to have formed the outline of the Travels of Anacharfs; viz. the Hiftory of the Seven Wife Men of Greece. The fages meet at the Court of Periander, king of Corinth, and converfe together on religion, politics, and the different governments of Afia; they travel through feveral celebrated countries; they go to Scyros in order to fee Pythagoras, and thence to Samos, with that philofopher. They then repair to the Court of Polycrates, and laftly come to Sardis to vifit Cræfus.

Anacharfis, who has travelled to China to fee Confucius, finds the Seven Wife Men at Sardis, and gives them an account of his adventures. Anacharfis is one of the principal actors in this historical romance, which comprehends the most interesting details refpecting various countries of Greece, and the most important events of that period. This work has been forgotten, but merits not oblivion:

Et habent fua fata libelli.

M. Necker must be reckoned among the writers of the reign of Louis XVI. He is the first who confecrated the pomp of eloquence and the flowers of imagination to matters of civil administration: but his works, which anfwered the end of the author, that of making an impreffion on men of the world, and elevating him to a high fituation, are void of learning and of fentiment. The fuccefs of the publications of M. Necker fhould doubtless have encouraged placemen in France to write on the fame fubjects, and to promulgate found theory, fupported by experience: in fine, the example of M. Necker fhould have triumphed over the prejudice which prevented those perfons, who were called to fill exalted stations on account of their birth and their fituation, from giving their ideas to the public.'

The author now pafles to what, by a ftrange mifnomer, he terms a conclufion, which is introductory to fix chapters of anec

dotes relative to Maurepas, Turgot, Saint Germain, Pefai, Necker, and De Brienne, which may be read without fatigue, and forgotten without much regret.

ART. XI. Confiderations fur la Revolution Sociale. 8vo. pp. 261. 3s. fewed. De Boffe, London. 1794.

THIS volume, afcribed to M. FERRAND, is faid to have been "read and approved" by perfons of weight in the diplomatic, fcale; and it has thence derived an importance, to which it is not entitled by compafs of thought, eloquence of ftyle, nor foundness of counfel. It may be confidered as speaking the language of the Concert of Princes. It continues to hold up the pretended fecret Propaganda Society, fupposed to have branched from the Jacobin Club of Paris over the whole furface of Europe, as an inftitution of infinite concern, alarm, and danger; as directed by leaders of filent activity and unrelenting zeal, no lefs prudent than determined, no lefs unprincipled than able. It contemplates not only the overthrow of hereditary inftitutions, and of all corporations and establishments, as the darling purfuit of this hidden combination, but fuppofes it to meditate the deftruction of property itself, and, with it, of the very cement of focial and civilized life. Against this chimera, the author thinks it the deadly fin of the European powers to have waged war with fo feeble an effort; and he advises them to cross the Rhine with new emigrants, and to afcend the Loire with new Chouans, in order to carry into execution the manifeftoes of the Duke of Brunswick, and to substitute in France a regular military government, inftead of its defpotic anarchy.

Page 224 the author thus goes on:

I know that it will be objected to me, that the very exceffes of the Jacobins have ftopped the progress of their doctrines, and that their principles are lefs to be feared, fince we have seen how they apply them.

I acknowlege that the people were at one time on the point of being undeceived: their own misfortunes naturally recalled them to fubmiflion and to reafon. This was the moment which governments ought to have seized, in order to crush a fect which had just made itself detefted by those whom it had feduced; to teftify that horror of it in which their people were then difpofed to join with them; and to attach more ftrongly to their authority those who began to perceive that their own happiness was interested in maintaining it. But this is what governments have not thought it proper to do: it is perhaps that of which they had no idea: the moment is passed in which they might have availed themselves of it, and that moment will not

Though London appears in the title-page, the work was printed abroad.

return.