employed when he was in Portugal suit, in which he rather too precipi

tately engaged, in order to secure a part of his wife's fortune, gave him a great deal of employment very unfavourable to his poetical pursuits. During the last seven years of his life

in the composition of Almada Hill, an Epistle from Lisbon," published in 1781, and in collecting materials for a history of the ancient and present state of that country, which he did not live to prepare for the press. he occasionally afforded some assist"On his arrival in England in Nov. ance to the European Magazine.— 1780, he was appointed joint agent The essays, intitled "Fragments of for the disposal of the prizes during Leo," and some of the most applaudthe Commodore's cruize, and never ed Reviews of Books in that publiafterwards went to sea. By the profits cation, were produced by his pen. of this place, and his share of prize- In this, and other periodical publimoney, he was soon enabled to ac- cations, he strenuously opposed the complish what he had so long, and so influx of that pernicious systent, earnestly desired,-the discharging of which has since deluged a great part his debts in a manner truly honour of the world with blood, and threatable to his feelings. What were the ened the total extinction of all civisensations of a mind imbued with the lized society. In September 1788, be purest principles of honesty upon this composed Eskdale Braes," a song in occasion, one, who has frequently commemoration of the place of his witnessed the heart-distressing sigh, birth. In this little spot and its viwhich often escaped him on a retro- cinity were born Colonel Sir James spect of his affairs, will not attempt Johnstone, Bart. Lieutenant-Colonel to describe.

"In 1782, he published "The Prophecy of Queen Emma," a ballad, with an ironical preface containing an account of its pretended author and discovery, with hints for vindicating the authenticity of the poems of Ossian and Rowley, 4to.

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Alexander Johnstone, Commodore Johnstone, Admiral Sir Thos. Pasley, Colonel Borthwick, the author of "The Seasons," Dr. Armstrong, and many other distinguished heroes, who have bled in defence of their country; and poets who have given new harmony to the language. This was the last of his productions.

"On the 3d of June, the same year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. "On Saturday, the 25th of October, Robert Tomkins, with whom he re- 1788, he died after a short illness, at sided when he was translating the Forrest-hill, where he had been on a Lusiad, (a cousin of Major Waistie of visit to his father-in-law, (in the old the Oxfordshire Militia, who was ap- mansion-house of the Powels, where pointed joint executor to our author Milton married his first wife, and with Mr. William Ballantyne, mer- composed some part of Paradise Lost), chant, in London). By this lady he and was buried in the church-yard of left a son, now an extra clerk in the that parish on the Thursday following, East-India House. By the fortune having completed his 54th year. which he obtained by this marriage, with what he had acquired under Commodore Johnstone, he now became possessed of that competence which enabled him to retire to literary leisure and independence. He accordingly took a house at Wheatly, about five miles from Oxford, where he employed his vacant hours in revising and correcting the poems contained in this volume, with an intention of publishing the whole by subscription. But the failure and death of an eminent banker, with whom he was concerned as an agent for the prizes, and by which he sustained a considerable loss; and a chancery

"Those who have perused the foregoing account, in which the very heart of the man, with all its inward con sciousness, is laid open, will readily admit the justice of the following short character from the pen of the learned Isaac Reed, Esq. who knew him intimately, and knew him long.

"To those who are unacquainted with Mr. Mickle's writings, we need not point out the beauty, the strength, or the variety of his versification, the harmony of his numbers, and the vigour of his imagination. These are so apparent, that we risk nothing in declaring our opinion, that they must sooner or later force themselves into

shall make an extract for the amusement of our readers, without however warranting the accuracy or truth of it; and which, indeed, Zach himself does not attempt.

the notice of those who at present are strangers to them. Leaving his literary character, therefore, to find its own value, we shall confine ourselves to speak of him as a member of society. He was in every point of view "There is a well-known tradition, a man of the utmost integrity, warm that, in the year 1170, Madoc*, son in his friendship, and indignant only of Owen Giryneth, king of a part of against vice, irreligion, or meanness. Wales, went into America with many The compliment paid by Lord Lyttle- of his countrymen, and established ton to Thomson, might be applied themselves on the banks of the Misto him with the strictest truth; not a souri. Various travellers, in fact, line is to be found in his works, which, speak of a European colony, which dying, he would wish to blot. During has preserved the Welch or Celtic the greatest part of his life, he en- language on the banks of the Ohio; dured the pressures of a narrow for- and the following particulars, extracttune without repining, never relax- ed from a Philadelphian Journal, will ing in his industry to acquire, by serve to confirm this opinion. honest exertions, that independence which at length he enjoyed. He did not shine in conversation, nor would any person, from his appearance, have been able to form a favourable judgment of his talents. In every situation in which fortune placed him, he displayed an independent spirit, undebased by any meanness, and when his pecuniary circumstances made him, on one occasion, feel a disappointment with some force, he even then seemed more ashamed at his want of discernment of character, than concerned for his loss. He seemed to entertain, with reluctance, an opinion, that high birth could be united with a sordid mind: He had, however, the satisfaction of reflecting, that no extravagant panegyric had disgraced bis pen. Contempt certainly came to his aid, though not soon; he wished to forget his credulity, and never after conversed on the subject by choice. To conclude: his foibles were but few, and those inoffensive; his virtires were many; and his genius was very considerable. He lived without reproach, and his memory will always be cherished by those who were acquainted with him.”

"Maurice Griffith, a Welchman by birth, having been made prisoner by the Savages of the nation of Schwanees, went, at the expiration of three years, with a party of five of them to discover the source of the Missouri. They mounted this river for thirty days,after its separation from the Mississipi, crossed spacious meadows, but without discovering any source, or meeting with any game. They killed, however, an animal of nine or ten feet in height. They were very well received by ten different tribes of Indians; and met, in a very fertile part of the country, with three white men, clothed like savages, who spoke very good Welch. Griffith pretended not to understand them: they travelled together for four or five days, and then arrived at the principal settlement of these extraordinary savages. The chief and the principal heads of the nation deliberated for three days upon the fate to which they should be condemned. The fire-arms, and other military weapons which they carried, made them be taken for the spies of some warlike tribe, and they resolved that they should be assassinated. Then Griffith, to the great astonishment of all, and even of his companions, harangued the white savages in the Welch language, and inspired them at once with confidence. The chief gave him his hand in sign of friendship, and our travellers remained eight entire months among these singular

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people; having abandoned the project son. Did this wealth alter the man? of tracing the Missouri, as they were Let us learn from his mouth what he convinced, from what these savages was in his sixty-seventh year; when, told them, that at the end of a year's in a letter to his old scholar, J. B. march they would find it of the same Bassaud, then physician to the Embreadth. Griffith did not find among peror of Germany, he writes thus:these American Welchmen any trace "My health is very good. I sleep of books or written tradition. All at my country house. I go to town that they knew was, that their an- every morning by five o'clock: and I cestors came from a very distant occupy myself there, from that time country. They had never aliíed them- until six in the evening, in relieving selves with the other American tribes, the sick. I understand chemistry; and not one individual was to be seen I amuse myself in reading it: I reamong them of a mixed race. Griffith vere, I love, I adore, the only God! thought that their population might When I return to the country, I visit be about fifty thousand men capable my plants: I acknowledge and adof bearing arms. Their houses are mire the presents with which the made of staves covered with the bark liberality of my friend Bassaud has of trees. All their utensils are armed enriched me. My garden seems to with sharp stones, because they have be proud of the variety and strength no iron. Their heaviest ornaments of its trees. I pass my life in conare of silver. Their whole subsistence templating my plants; I grow old in is derived from the chace. They the desire of possessing new ones. knew nothing of our cattle. Griffith Amiable and sweet folly! Thus riches and his companions embarked on the only serve to irritate the thirst of Missouri in a canoe constructed by possession, and the miser is miserable these people, and descended the river, from the liberality of his benefactor. journeying about twenty leagues a Forgive the madness of an old friend, day. They arrived among the Shaw- who wishes to plant trees, the beauty nees, after an absence of two years and shade of which will be destined and a half. It was in a party of hunt- to give delight only to his nephews, ing that Griffith found means to It is thus that my life passes, with escape from them, and reached the out any other chagrin than my dissettlement of Roanock, near the tance from you, and happy in every mouth of the Coalriver. Mr. Child thing else." received this account from his own What an amiable picture does this mouth, and Griffith has always passed present of that great and good man! for a man of truth and probity." What activity, and what zeal for the

The German editor adds, that relief of suffering humanity! The Captains Lewis and Clark, who were original letter is written in Latin, then travelling in these countries, and it has been difficult to catch the might, on their return, either con- spirit of the original, especially Ibi firm or disprove this account of the ego plantis immorior: Deum adoro, existence of these white savages. amo, veneror unice, &c.

The OLD AGE of Boerhaave.
SIR,

VERY thing that relates to great

E and celebrated men possesses a

certain degree of interest; but this

I remain, Sir, &c. X.

ACCOUNT given by the EIGHTEETH
CENTURY to the NINETEENTH.
SIR,

interest becomes more lively when NOTHING is more difficult tha to transfuse, into a foreign lanthe subject of it relates to their last guage, pieces written with that pe years. The name of Boerhaave is re- culiar spirit which we call humor, garded as one of the most illustrious and the Germans laune. Among the in the calendar of modern medicine. ancients, Horace in his Epistles, and After having vigorously struggled Lucian in his Dialogues, are eminent with poverty in his youth, his talents for this; among our countrymen, and his fame at length created a for- may mention Swift, Fielding, Hume, tune for him; and it is said that he Addison, &c. And, in Germany, left two millions of florins to his only few have attained to greater celebrity

in this peculiar faculty than Lichten- of metals, and installed platina in its berg, the learned professor at Got- place. I have pointed out a new sort tenberg, who died some few years of excellent spectacles, which Newsince. He was completely a humorist. ton even thought impossible; I have, So much so, that except the Memoirs at one and the same instant, displaced which he presented to the Academy and re-established the poles of the of Gottingen, it was impossible for magnet; I have hatched eggs with him to write any thing upon the most out the hen, and without the heat of abstract sciences without enlivening incubation; I have reduced the bishop the subject by some strokes of wit, of Rome to his episcopal functions; some pleasantries, or by an ironical I have destroyed the head of a powermanner which he rarely quitted. ful and dangerous hydra.

"I have seen Peter I, and Catherine, and Frederic, and Joseph, and Leibnitz, and Newton, and Euler, Wickelmann, Mengs, Cook, Fope, Johnson, Garrick, &c. &c.

I trust your readers will be pleased to find here some sketch of his manner; and I have extracted, for that purpose, a little piece which he wrote in1783,at the time when the perfection of aerostatics occupied the attention "I have created a new and imof every naturalist. It is as follows: mense empire; I have given a fifth "The Eighteenth Century may, division to the globe, and made vessels with some pride, deliver to the Nine- swim in the air; augmented the numteenth an inventory of the knowledge ber of planets, diminished that of the which it has acquired, and the dis- elements, and reduced the sun to the coveries with which it has enriched rank of a simple satellite.

the human mind. When his suc- "A great number of these discessor, at the moment he receives coveries, however important they may the sceptre from his hands, demands appear, are as yet only embryons, from him an account of his discoveries, which demand care to be developed. the Eighteenth Century may answer What results may we not expect, thus:when we consider that the strength "I have determined the line of the which formerly was insufficient to earth; I have learnt to brave the give an impression to the first efforts thunder; I have corked up lightning of printing, should now make the in a bottle; I have discovered animals Vatican tremble; that a needle, rubwhich, as prodigies, surpass the fabu- bed with the loadstone, has united the lous serpent of Lerna; fish, endowed most distant quarters of the globe; with a power which was refused to that by means of saltpetre and sulthe Olympic Jupiter, that of killing phur, which formerly only burned their species under the water, by our fingers, we may now separate striking them with invisible thunder; whole continents! Oh! if we could I have, by Linnæus, executed the find the key of the sacred vault, where first exact inventory of the works a thousand similar discoveries remain of nature. I have seen two comets buried! Who dare doubt that we return after the leave of absence may not hereafter attain to the age of which my Halley had given them nine hundred years; submit the was expired; instead of one sort of whale to the guidance of the rein, air known to my predecessors, I have and traverse, upon his back, from one discovered thirteen; I have submitted pole to the other; displace the magmercury to the forge; elevated mon- netic poles of our earth, and fix them strous masses by means of fire; me- again at Cayenne and Borneo? Who tamorphosed air into solid bodies, knows but what, armed with the and solid bodies into air; I have fired knowledge of chemistry and phywith water, like gunpowder. I have siology, carried to its utmost perseduced plants, by making them pro- fection, an able minister of finance duce children without their being may succeed in inventing some unmarried: I have made steel melt like guent capable of making grow upon water; I have made glass under water, the backs of his party a precious wool and hurled gold from the throne which may be sheared every year for which he had usurped for so many the benefit of the treasury? millions of years, as being the heaviest "Unfortunately, all these fine

things remain hidden in a labyrinth, States at that period, used very greaf of which Bacon in vain sought the exertions to establish the reputation clue; and man at present is con- of the French manufactures among demned to make the greatest discove- the Anglo-Americans.

ries, only as hogs detect saline sources and mineral waters."

Prior to describing the effects of Luzerne's exertions, it may not be If the witty Lichtenberg could have amiss to say a few words respecting made his eighteenth century speak the nature and extent of the com only a few lustrums later, and at the merce which existed between France moment of its decease, he would have and the United States during the two had ample room to give more interest epochs that succeeded the war beand developement to his harangue of tween the latter and Great Britain.the defunct. The events of the last We shall found our researches on ten years would have furnished him this point upon the result of the with a fine scope for his irony. French customs from 1775 to 1780;

Oct. 30, 1807.

If you deem this morceau worth a antecedent to which it would be implace in your miscellany, I shall be possible to form even a probable congratified by seeing it there, and re- jecture as to the state of the aforesaid main, &c. &c. commerce, it having been, as before tt. observed, illegal, and consequently affording no official documents. At An Account of the Commencement the said period, namely, from 1778 and Fluctuations of the Commerce to 1780, the imports from the United of France with the United States States, on an average, annually a of America.

T

HIS commerce, to which the rupture between Great Britain and America gave birth, we shall divide into four distinct periods.

mounted to 2,393,000 francs; viz. rice and dried cod-fish to the value of 136,000 francs; wood, indigo, and hides, 357,000 francs; and leaf tobacco, 1,900,000 francs. The exports First, As soon as the intercourse of France, for the said states within between Great Britain and some of the said period,amounted to 3,203,000 its continental colonies in America francs; viz.-eatables, spices, &c. was interrupted, the French mer- 191,000 francs; wines and brandy, chants, with the utmost alacrity, 79,000 francs; raw materials, such secretly prepared cargces for North as unwrought iron, &c. 33,000 francs; America, which, in fact, were wholly manufactured articles, such as dracomposed of the refuse of French pery, woollens, silken stuffs, cotton manufactures and merchandizes in velvets, hosiery, hats, mercery, hardgeneral; but which the urgency of ware, Indian manufactures, feathern the occasion compelled the Americans articles, military ammunition, &c.&c. to purchase at an exorbitant rate. to the value of 2,900,000 francs. The French government either was Third, This period comprises the ignorant of, or winked at, the carrying two last years of the American war, on of this traffic, previously to the and the first subsequent to the peace open rupture between England and with Great Britain. At this time the America having taken place; and it French merchants extended their therefore continued unchecked dur- views under the auspices of their going the years 1775, 1776, and 1777. vernment, which anxiously desired Second, An entire change having to establish the intercourse of France occurred in the political concerns of with America upon a solid basis. the two countries, by reason of the The exertions of the French minister treaty between France and the United (de la Luzerne) met with such sucStates in the year 1778, it was na- cess, that, by permission of the Conturally supposed that the adoption of gress, several of the American merbetter principles than those which chants established themselves in the had till then governed the commercial ports of France, resolving to make operations would take place; never- assortments of the prime merchantheless the trade was not very brisk dises of that kingdom for their own before the end of 1780, when M. de country; whilst, on the other hand, la Luzerne, ambassador to the United some French sent out well assorted