fteel fpring, having a check-chain within its cavity. He recommends this fpring-block to be applied particularly to the fheetropes, and, if practicable, to the dead eyes, inftead of what are called the chains. The contrivance is certainly ingenious: but a steel spring of fufficient ftrength is fo expensive, so apt to break, and fo fubject to ruft, that we fear it will never be brought into common ufe.-This paper was defervedly honoured with the Magellanic gold medal, by an award of the Society, in December 1790. Art. 41. A Botanical Defeription of the Podium Diphyllum of Linnæus. In a Letter to Charles Peter Thunberg, M. D. Knight of the Order of Wafa, Professor of Medicine and Botany in the Univerfity of Upfal, &c. &c. By B. S. BARTON, M. D. &c. From the rhetorical account here given, this plant feems to be rare in America, and to have hitherto been imperfectly defcribed. Dr. BARTON confiders it as equally related to the Sanguinaria and the Podophyllum of Linné, and he therefore propofes to erect it into a new genus under the defignation of Jeffersonia, in honour of Thomas Jefferfon, Efq. American Secretary of State. A neat engraving is added of the fpecies binata, the only one yet known. Art. 42. Obfervations on the Conftruction of Hofpitals. By M. LE ROY, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. It is propofed that a large hospital should confist of separate buildings, each forming a ward, built on columns at a confiderable height above the ground; the cieling to confift of a number of spherical arches opening into a funnel furnished at the top with a vane, and the floor to be perforated with holes. at convenient diftances. This conftruction would procure a perpetual renewal of fresh air. Other ufeful contrivances are defcribed. The volume clofes with a lift of the donations received by the American Philofophical Society fince the date of their laft publication. We are informed that the late Mr. John Hyacinth de Magellan of London prefented, in 1787, the fum of two hundred guineas, to be vested in fome permanent fund; the intereft thence arifing to be expended in annual premiums adjudged by the Society to the moft ufeful difcovery relating to navigation, aftronomy, or natural philofophy, mere natural hiftory excepted. The confiderations, which on the whole are liberal, are stated fully in an advertisement. We cannot forbear remarking that the typographical errors. are uncommonly numerous in this publication. It has alfo a very material defect, the want of an index, or at least a table of contents. MONTHLY MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For FEBRUARY, 1795. POLITICS, COMMERCE, and POLICE. Art. 21. A fort Account of the late Revolution in Geneva; and of the 2s. 6d. IN our laft APPENDIX, (juft published,) we gave an account of this work, from the original French; the author of which, as we learn from the above title-page, is the refpectable Mr. D'Ivernois. As we have already given a full view of this detail, we have now only to announce the prefent tranflation; which feems to be well executed. It is preceded by a pertinent Advertisement, confifting of feveral pages; in which the tranflator exclaims, with animation and with warmth, but with no impropriety, against the conduct of the French towards the unfortunate little but interefting Republic of Geneva. The work, in the prefent edition, is likewife illuftrated with feveral new notes, and fome curious fupplementary matter.Surely, if this performance had been published and circulated in Holland, the Dutch would not have been fo ready as they are faid to have been, to open their arms for a friendly reception of their Republican visitors. Art. 22. A Second Letter to the Landholders of the County of Wilts, on the alarming State of the Poor. Svo. 6d. Eafton. Salisbury. 1794. This well intended and not ill written pamphlet has for its subject the evil effects of fpinning machines; as having, in the clothing diftricts of Wiltshire, &c. thrown the wives and daughters of labouring men out of their accustomed line of employment, and having thus not only reduced them to the most diftrefsful state of indigence and want, but led them to what idleness will ever lead the lower class-dishoneft acts, and a lofs of moral character. The letter writer's colouring, we hope, is rather ftronger than reality will warrant : No country gentleman, (he fays,) who witneffed the miseries of his parochial poor, during the laft winter, will deny that they exceeded the bounds of all former leverities. He must have seen fuch confequences refult from them, as threaten to spread evils of the moft pernicious tendency throughout the country. Difaffection and diftrefs increased with equal rapidity. The labourer returned at night to a family deftitute of food, of fuel, and almoft of clothing! What was there here to refren his body or his mind after his daily fatigues? His eyes were fhocked by the nakedness of his children; his ears were affailed by their cries for bread; he felt his existence to be a burthen; he experienced, after he had ftrained every nerve to obtain a competency, that he was unable to procure it. He laid himfelf down to relt beneath a hovel, which would not defend him from the inclemency of wind, or rain; till the morning again called him forth forth under all thefe difcouragements, to renew his toils, and labour ftill in vain. Yet happier even in this, than those who fat fhivering at home, without any honeft employment to divert their cares; without one comfort, or confoling thought.' During a rapid increafe of commerce, the effect of machinery, in abridging labour, is not felt; the manual labour, which the machines may fuperfede, is abforbed in other departments of manufacture:-but no fooner does an abridgment of demand take place than the effect is perceived, with all its attendant evils. This circumftance Thews the error of forcing up commerce above its natural level, and the madness of blafting the profperity of a country, by wanton and unneceffary war. The thoufands and tens of thoufands who are flain or, lefs fortunately, mangled in the field of battle are not more to be lamented, than the thousands and tens of thoufands who are reduced to a ftate of mifery in their own impoverished habitations! Art. 23. A Speech intended to have been spoken in the Houfe of Commons on Tuesday the 30th of December 1794, on the Caufes and the Remedies of the Impotence of the States at prefent united against France. 8vo. Is. 6d. Evans. In this intended Speech we find a great deal to praise, but at the fame time not a little to cenfure: as a compofition, it unquestionably poffeffes merit; and its general tendency might well be deemed patriotic, if it did not contain fome principles which are, in our opinion at least, incompatible with the internal tranquillity of this country,principles which could not be reduced to practice without plunging us into a civil war. These we will notice in the order in which they stand in the Speech: but we will firft make some obfervations on different parts that precede them. The author begins by accounting for the amazing fuperiority of numbers which the French have brought, and are ftill able to bring, into the field against us, and for the fucceffes that have attended their arms. The inhabitants, merely as fuch, of the allied ftates, he estimates as five to one when fet against thofe of France; and the fuperiority of the allies in natural financial resources as ftill greater. He will not allow the French to be fuperior to the confederates in courage; nay, he confiders them inferior in that point to fome of them but ftill they are every where victorious: this, he says, they owe to the phyfical force of numbers of foldiers; for France has now as many foldiers as citizens; and as, he contends, the will therefore be able to keep up the fuperiority in the field which the now confeffedly enjoys, it is his opinion that, all idea of fubduing her being abfurd, we should immediately treat with her for peace, and put an end to the war, or completely change our fyftem of forming our armies. He tells us that he can now maintain an army of twelve hundred thousand men, as well as fhe could one of 400,000 under her kings: but we do not think that the proofs which he brings in fupport of this propofition are conclufive. He reckons that the ftate has gained a revenue of five millions per annum by the abolition of monarchy, and of days of idleness; to which being added the confifcated eftates of the clergy and the nobility, he makes out a fund fufficient to arm, pay, clothe, &c. 700,000 men: to thefe he adds the REV. FEB. 1795. P 400,000 400,000 embodied uuder the old fyftem, and makes out an aggregate of 1,100,000 men: but even according to this calculation, a whole twelfth of his army of 1,200,000 is cut off at a stroke; and it ought to be remembered that France never had on foot an army of 400,000 men under the old fyftem, except during the period of the fucceffion war in the reign of Lewis XIV. and the confequence then was that the country was threatened with a famine, as agriculture was not able to bear the lofs of fo many men taken during that long war from the plough, and fent to the army to fupply the lofs of those who had fallen in battle. On the other hand, it is not clear that France has gained much by the abolition of holidays; for fhe ftill has her civic feafts, and her millions of national guards are occafionally doing duty to preserve the police of their refpective diftricts, and confequently are not always employed in productive industry. We believe it will be found that, where the has gained a livre by putting down feftivals, &c. fhe has loft five; and that what has been obtained by the ejection of the clergy has not ferved to feed a quarter of the revolutionary committees hitherto employed to keep up the spirit of the revolution in the people. LINDET (fee p. 210.) alludes to their great number in his report on the state of the nation in September laft: he does not precifely ftate the number, but it has been repeatedly afferted that they amount to twenty thousand, and the annual expence attending them to twentyfix millions sterling. We are not any where told of how many perfons each committee is compofed: but it has been faid that though the convention intended to reduce the number of the committees, it was not expected that it could be able to reduce it lower than 8000; and confequently not a great deal more than a half of the twenty-fix millions annually could be faved by this measure of œconomy. The operations of the allies, the author fays, are impeded by two bodies of men, whom he defcribes as two heavy millstones hanging about their necks ;' he means the nobility and clergy, not excluding our own. These two bodies he would diffolve: but, if we understand him, he is for doing much more than diffolving them as bodies, much more than for diffolving the alliance between church and state, an alliance which certainly had no existence in the pure days of primitive Chriftianity; he feems to us to aim not merely at the extinction of the establishment of the clergy, but at the extinction of the clerical® functions and character altogether: for he labours to fhew that the obfervance of the Sabbath is not a duty impofed on all; in war and at fea it is not retained. Why, (fays he,) fhould that be lawful at fea, which is unlawful on land? Why has the fociety instituted for the ftrict obfervation of the Sunday stopped thort at the fhores of the fea? Imperious neceffity here begins to operate; and the fame imperious neceffity now forbids the Judaical obfervation of the Sabbath. One great and powerful nation has fet the example, and the rest must follow. The example which that nation has fet is not merely the abolition of a church establishment, but of Christianity itself; and therėfore, though in the former inftance it might be followed without any injury to religion, yet in the latter it could not be even attempted, (to fay nothing of the impiety of the measure,) without producing a civil war; for the people of this country have not yet arrived at that de gree gree of philofophic fublimity, in which the heart begins to be filled with indifference for revealed religion. A part of our author's plan for adding to the resources of this country, in our opinion, would make it from north to south one vaft theatre of havoc and defolation. We do not allude to that part in which he infifts that the eftates of the church must be facrificed to the public welfare,' for fuch a measure applied to the eftates at prefent poffeffed by the church might be attended with great advantages, and little inconvenience: but what we deem pregnant with war, bloodshed, and ruin, is the project that he propofes, when he fays, (page 31) the nullum tempus bill must be renewed, and the domains of the crown refumed.' No bounds are fet to the doctrine nullum tempus occurrit regi; no prescription nor length of poffeffion can be pleaded against the crown: this unhinges every man's eftate in the kingdom, for all hold their lands under royal grants made in different ages; and should it be faid that the crown had been deceived in its grants, or had abused its truft in making them, and that confequently the lands holden under them ought to be refumed, what man could call a fingle acre his own? jointures, fettlements, mortgages, all are shaken and infecure, and confufion must follow. Had any period, any reign, or even any age been mentioned, beyond which the refumption fhould not be carried, we might then be able to judge of the extent of the mischief; but an unlimited nullum tempus bill might hurry us back perhaps to the times of the antient Britons or Saxons, or at least to, the Norman fettlement. A limitation of 50 or 100 years would not anfwer the author's purpose; if it did not go back at least as far as the reign of Henry VIII. it would not add much to the national resources; fhould it take in that period, it certainly might establish a claim to a revenue of many millions annually: but the greater the revenue, the wider the calamity of fpoliation muft fpread; and the greater would be the danger that the whole would be spent in an endeavour to make it flow into the public exchequer. That our author has a view to the refumption of the old church lands may be collected from the following hint, which is not calculated to make the mind of the Duke of Bedford very eafy Even the reformation, (fays he, page 19,) entailed upon us the generous and difinterested houfe of Ruffel, which owes its greatnefs and its riches to the plunder of the church.' Though our author is an advocate for peace, he is far from being difpofed to treat for it on infecure or dishonourable terms; on the contrary, he would not confent to negociate on any other bafis than that of the uti poffidetis. He is a decided enemy to the law of primogeni ture, by which eftates are accumulated to an overgrown fize in the eldeft branches of families; and for the removal of this evil, he proposes that the law of gavelkind should be established throughout the kingdom. For the neceffity of reform in parliament, and in the executive and judicial departments of our adminiftration, he ftrenuously contends: but he pointedly condemns the idea of univerfal fuffrage; he would not allow it to any who do not pay direct taxes and to a confiderable amount, though to all who come within that defcription he is for granting it, without diftinction of fex; thus making himfelf one of P 2 the |