gotten afterwards, and at length re difcovered in the beginning of the fifteenth century of our vulgar æra. In short, it evidently appears, by the flopes of all the lands which are washed by the ocean, by thofe gulphs which the eruptions of the fea have formed, by thofe Archipelagos which are scattered in the midst of the waters, that the two hemifpheres have loft upwards of two thoufand leagues of land on one fide, which they have regained on the other.'

The remaining part of this performance is divided into fiftytwo chapters, under the heads of The different races of men-; of the antiquity of nations; of the knowledge of the foul; of the religion of the first men; of the customs and opinions common to almost all nations; of Savages; of America; of the doctrine of Theocritus; of the Chaldeans; of the Babylonians become Perfians; of Syria, of the Phoenicians, and of Sanchoniathon; of the Scythians and Gomerites; of Arabia; of Bram, Abram, and Abraham; of India; of China; of Egypt; of the language of the Egyptians, and their fymbols; of the Egyptian monuments; of the Egyprian rites and circumcifion; of the myfteries of the Egyptians; of the Greeks, their ancient deluges, their alphabets, and their genius; of the Greek legiflators; of Minos and Orpheus, and the immortality of the foul; of the Greek fects; of Zaleucus, and fome other legiflators; of Bacchus; of the metamorphofes of the Greeks collected by Ovid; of idolatry; of the oracles; of angels, genii, and devils, among the ancient nations and the Jews; whether the Jews taught the other nations, or whether the other nations taught the Jews; of the Romans; the beginning of their empire, their religion and toleration; queitions relating to the conquefts of the Romans, and their decline; of the first people who wrote history, fables, and the first historians'; and of legiflators who have spoken in the name of the gods,

Such is the bill of fare; which, doubtless, muft excite the curiofity of the learned, when Mr. Voltaire is to regale them in the character of the Abbé Bazin. They muft not, however, be furprized, if in treating of fuch a variety of subjects, he has fometimes been guilty of repetitions, and even plagiarisms; but then thefe pillages, if fuch they can be called, are moftly from himself in his other works; and perhaps Mr. Voltaire's memory may at this time be so much upon the decline, as to make him forget when and where, he has previously availed himself of his common-place book.

What he fays of the knowledge of the foul, if it is not in every respect new, is at leaft curious and entertaining. What notion had the first people of the foul? The fame which all

our boors have before they have understood their catechism, or even after they have understood it. They only acquire a confufed idea, which they never reflect upon. Nature, has been too kind to them to make them metaphyficians: that nature is perpetual, and every where alike. She made the first focieties fenfible that there was a Being fuperior to man, when they were afflicted with uncommon misfortunes: fhe in the fame manner taught them, that there is fomething in man which ads and thinks. They did not diftinguish this faculty from that of life. By what degree can one arrive at imagining, in our phyfical being, another metaphyfical being? Men entirely occupied with their wants, were certainly not philofophers. In the course of time focieties fomewhat polished were formed, in which a fmall number of men were at leifure to think. It must have happened that a man fenfibly affected with the death of his father, his brother, or his wife, faw the person whofe lofs he regretted in his dream. Two or three dreams of this fort must have caufed uneafinefs throughout a whole colony. Behold a dead carcafe appearing to the living, and yet the deceased remaining in the fame place, with the worms gnawing him. This, then, that wanders in the air, is fomething that was in him. It is, his foul, his fhade, his manes; it is a fuperficial figure of himself. Such is the natural reafoning of ignorance, which begins to reafon. This is the opinion of all the primitive known times, and must confequently have been that of thofe unknown. The idea of a being purely immaterial, could not have prefented itself to the imagination of those who were acquainted with nothing but matter. Smiths, carpenters, mafons, labourers, were neceffary, before a man was found who had leisure enough to me. ditate. All manual arts, doubtless, preceded metaphyfics for

many ages.

We should remark, by the bye, that in the middle age of Greece, in the time of Homer, the foul was nothing more than an aerial image of the body.-Ulyffes faw fhades and manes in hell. Could he fee pure fpirits ?

We fhall, in the fequel, confider how the Greeks borrowed from, the Egyptians the idea of hell, and the apotheofis of the dead; how they believed, as well as other people, a fecond life, without fufpecting the fpirituality of the foul; on the contrary, they could not imagine how a corporeal being could be fufceptible of either good or evil; and I do not know whether Plato was not the first who spoke of a being purely fpiritual. This, perhaps, is one of the greatest efforts of human knowledge. We are not at this time of day fuch

novices upon that fuhject, and yet we confider the world as ftill unformed and fcarcely fafhioned.'

However shrewd and ingenious this author's reflections may be, we cannot approve of his plan, which certainly tends to deftroy all historical authority; though at the fame time the lovers of truth muft acknowledge themselves obliged to him for exploding numberlefs abfurdities equally inconfiftent and improbable, which have, nevertheless, remained unimpeached for a fucceffion of ages. To the judicious this book may afford inftruction and amufement; but to those who have only fkimmed the furface of fcience, and whofe religious opinions are ftill wavering, it may be dangerous, and cannot be ufeful.

MONTHLY CATALOGUE.

13. Obfervations on the Baume De Vie, firft difcovered by Mr. Le Lievre, the King's Apothecary at Paris. 80. Pr. 1$. Flexney.

THIS appears to be of the number of quack medicines with

which the prefs daily teems, and the public groans.— To fuch excefs is this mifchief now risen, that regular pharmacy is almoft deftroyed; the opiniated ufe thefe medicines, which are fometines like powder of poft, entirely innocent, but oftener very pernicious, because they can confide more in their own skill and fagacity than in those of the phyfician; the ignorant use them, because they know no better. It is not then furprising that they fhould be in fuch univerfal eftimation, patronized as they are by the two moft prevailing enemies of mankind, Ignorance and Opinion.

This balfam of life, puffed off with a French title, which we make no doubt will recommend it greatly, is, like the reft, applauded as an infallible cure in all difeafes. And that a greater quantity of it may be confumed, (which we apprehend would contribute much more to the emolument of the quack than of the patient) it is directed to be taken in clyfters, as well as by the mouth. The pamphlet confifts chiefly of letters from various people, nobility, and gentry, in France, as teftimonials of its infallibility: of the fame kind, we prefume, as thofe which every day appear in the public papers, and of whofe tendency even the credulous public is almoft fufficiently convinced. It is not enough that we are oyer-run with French foppery and French cooks, our mifery must be compleated with French quackery; though, to fay

the truth, our own quacks are equally expert in this mifchievous art.

We do not doubt that the French would very willingly recommend their quack medicines to their beloved neighbours the English; they are very fenfible their noftrums would make more havock among us, than a Richelieu or a Contades; by this art they may flatter them felves with deftroying those

Quos neque Tydides, nec Lariffæus Achilles,

Non anni domuere decem, non mille carinæ.

14. A Letter from J. Keyfer, Surgeon and Chemist at Paris, to Mr. Jonathan Wathen, Surgeon, of London; in answer to bis Pamphlet, intitled, Practical Obfervations on the Venereal Difeafe, Sc. 8vo. Pr. bd. Nicol.

In our Review for July laft, we gave an account of Mr. Wathen's pamphlet, to which this before us is an answer.

The author gives fome atteftations of its efficacy, particu- ' larly a letter from the celebrated Mr. le Cat, at Rouen, who may be justly efteemed one of the beft furgeons in France. It appears, from this pamphlet, that this extolled pill is really a preparation of mercury by the vegetable acid, and ftill further comminuted by the action of a machine. The author mentions a circumftance with regard to phyfic in France, which well deferves our attention it is, that in that kingdom no noftrum can be fold without having previously undergone the examination of gentlemen appointed by the faculty of phyficians. The French government, fays he, by the excellency of its police, protects the lives of its people from being deftroyed by quack medicines *." How totally different is this from the conduct of our gwhich every day gives the --, by patent, to these remedies.

Quid non mortalia pectora cogis

Auri facra fames!

It is probably owing to this facra fames auri in the French phyficians, that, notwithstanding this good police, they have their quacks and their quackery.

The pamphlet before us attacks Mr. Wathen with a good deal of wafpish malignity, and in a great meafure unprovoked; fince from this gentleman's pamphlet we cannot fee that he impeached Mr Keyfer's pill, farther than the nature of his undertaking obliged him; that is, in common with other cele->

*P. 6.

X 4

brated

brated mercurial preparations. With respect to the facts con tained in this letter, we can, from our own knowledge, contradict the affertion touching the ufe of Keyfer's pill being common in the hofpital fuperintended by Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Bromfield. This untruth fhould perhaps throw a doubt on the.. whole, unless the writer may poffibly think himself entitled to the plea of fidem non derogat error.

15. The Principles of the late Changes impartially examined: in a Letter from a Son of Candor to the Public Advertiser. 8vo. Pr. s. 6d. Almon.

This author writes upon an entire new plan, for he attacks the prefent adminiftration without being a violent friend to the laft. The whole is fuppofed to be in answer to a letter fent to a gentleman in the country, dated London, July 24, 1765. We fhould be apt to think that the letter and this answer came from the fame hand, did not marks of a fuperior diction and information appear in the former. The writer before us is one who feems to poffefs the Arachnean art of spinning out an eighteen-penny pamphlet. from a very flight quantity of mate rials. The whole of his reafoning confifts in fuppofing that the late miniftry was turned out through the invisible agency of the favourite.

Neither their public conduct, nor the private characters of any of them, had the leaft hand in their deftruction: they did not die for violations of liberty; to expiate general warrants, feizure of papers, reftrictions of the privilege, and fecurity of parliament; reftraint on the freedom of the prefs, rigorous crown profecutions; informations for conftructive contempts; effoins, privilege, and other obftructions to the courfe of justice. Thefe, with all their attendants and confequences, whether justly or unjustly laid at their door, does not matter. to the prefent purpose, were blasts which they had weathered: and they could not with any reason come as charges, at least from the grand enemy.

"It was not their unpopularity, nor Canada bills, the Manilla ransom, the demolition of Dunkirk, encroachments in the fishing of Newfoundland,, or disturbances in the fettlements on the coaft of Africa, nothing of the foreign fyftem, or do meftic management of affairs, that haftened thefe minifters to their end. They were not offered up to the complaints, the cries, nor the wishes of the people, Neither were they victims to the refentment of foreign courts, as fometimes has been the fate of miniflers: for the minifters refident here, from thofe powers, whofe averfion would not be a bad rule for our choice, were foolish enough at the time openly to speak out their ap

pre