galls or warbles, fitfafts, ftrains, ring-bones, thorough-pin, windgalls, plints, fpavin, and curb, indifpofitions of the horfe which fall pro perly under the care of the horse furgeon or farrier.

The author's fifth chapter is filled with an elaborate difplay of the anatomy and phyfiology of the horse's foot.

His feventh chapter prefcribes rules for fhoeing horfes. In the feventh is a defcription of the difeafes to which the foot of the horse is fubject, and the beft methods for their cure.

The eighth chapter treats of the general economy, of the medical and furgical applications, or the cure of the diforders and hurts, of horfes.

TE Directions are given, in the ninth, for the fit management of the horfe in the ftable, and during a journey. Such are the contents of the first volume of this excellent practical treatise.

The fecond volume is a convenient Dictionary of the Materia Me dica of Veterinary Medicine, with a good Pharmacopoeia annexed to it. This is a new province, firft opened by Mr. White, in the Literature of Veterinary Medicine. Thefe parts of this work will be found exceedingly useful to practitioners in the Veterinary Art. Mr. White's dofes, as they are ftated in the Pharmacopoeia, feem to be apportioned upon the moft rational principles, and with very great judgment.

We need not fay more in favour of a work thus compofed, and of the first part of which a large edition has been already diftributed, than that his Royal Highness the Duke of York has been pleased to recommend it as a manual for ufe among the cavalry of the British army, and that its influence has already, in a confpicuous manner, improved the management of horfes, as well among grooms and farriers, as among higher practitioners, throughout this country.

IN

Holcroft's Travels through Weftphalia, &c.

(Concluded from P. 61.)

N his fecond volume, Mr. Holcroft enters more at large into a detcription of the manners and cuftoms of the French, than in the preceding volume, and, though we cannot approve his too liberal use of Saint Foix's Hiftorical Effays, whole pages of which are, occa fionally, transcribed, yet, on the whole, we have found lefs to blame. and more to commend in this, than in the former part of his travels. His remarks on the difgufting mixture of finery and filth, and of the incongruities which pervade every part of the domeftic economy of a French family, are, we know from experience, ftrictly correct. "So frange is the affemblage of objects, finery and wretchednefs are in fuch frequent contact, gilding and cobwebs, dark gateways and dirty ftaircafes, leading to fpacious apartments in which magnificence lies in diforder, and neglect, thefe, and the continual repetition of fimilar incongruities, obtrude upon the man of obfervation an almost unvaried

<3

picture

picture of grandeur and beggary." In fhort, to fum up the whole in few words, there is in France no fuch thing as comfort, and of course, no fuch word is to be found in the French language.

Mr. Holcroft's indignation at the habitual profligacy of the French, and at their licentious efforts to glofs over, by unappropriate epithets, the breach of chastity in the female fex, is well timed, and well expreffed. Though why he fhould have felected a long lift of royal amours in illuftration of his pofition, in preference to all others, we cannot conceive; ftill we agree with him that it is the duty of perfons who either fill, or are deftined to fill, the throne, to fet an example of virtue and decorum to their inferiors. And if, fetting at defiance the moft facred of ties, they are profligate enough habitually and publicly to violate their duty to God, by a conftant breach of his command. ments, they cannot well be furprized if their fubjects are led to neglect their duty to them, by a daring breach of allegiance. Indeed, their conduct has a natural tendency to produce fuch an effect; for when men, in elevated ftations, ceafe to be refpectable, they will not long continue to be respected. In detailing the profligacy, however, of former fovereigns, juftice required that Mr. H. fhould make an honourable exception in favour of the laft of the Bourbons, who filled the throne of France; a prince who fcrupuloufly difcharged all the duties, of a good Chriftian.

Where the manners of a people are indelicate and vicious, it is not furprising that their language fhould be fo. Of the indelicacy of the French in converfation, and in the names of their streets, &c. Mr. H. exhibits many notable examples. Yet he truly observes ;

"Few things are more truly ridiculous than the affectation of delicacy, When I hear a man talk of his small cisthes, I imagine I am in company with a fool, or (with) the fon of a washerwoman. Real delicacy results from a thorough acquaintance with the ufages of the world, which bids us carefully avoid offending those usages; and from chaftened but unobtruding moral principles."

Of the grofs indecency of the drefs of French women, our countrymen could have little conception, if it were not for the servile imitation of it which has for fome time prevailed among our own females. We fhall leave a French writer to defcribe this; and in his own language.

"Nos Phrynées et nos Lais avoient appris que les anciens fculpteurs n'etoient parvenus à rendre tranfparente, avec la draperie, les formes de leurs ftatues de femmes, qu'en drapant leur modéle avec un linge mouillé. La crainte des rhumes les empêchoit de s'habiller avec un jupon trempé. Elles y fupléerent en ne portant ni chemises, ni jupon, ni jupe, ni poches. Elles avoient grand foin, en marchant, de pincer leurs robes des deux cotés des hanches. Alors fe mouloit pour tous les yeux ce qu'elles vouloient montrer à la Republique expirante; n'ofant pas fe decouvrir plus que le genou, elles le dédommageoient en nudifiant leurs bras. Ainfi etoient mis en étala l'échantillon des colonnes qui reftoient cachées malgré elles."

This picture of his countrymen, by citizen Fantin Defodoards, will not be fufpected of exaggeration. Indeed, we are forry to fay, that fimilar pictures may be daily feen in the streets and public places of London. Our author's anxious defire to depict the living manners of the French, in the moft correct and ftriking manner, has led him into the delineation of fcenes of no very delicate nature. His excufe for this, is thus expreffed. "It is not by affertions but by facts that manners can be understood; and, if facts must be concealed because they are offenfive to the imagination, though the knowledge of them may contribute to correct error, and lead to useful and effential enquiries, the imagination is a prude, that has rather the femblance than the re ality of virtue." Our readers must be left to appreciate the validity of this excufe.

We fhould truly rejoice with Mr. Holcroft, to find that education in France is improving ;" but we fear that he is egregioufly mif taken in his affertion, because it is in direct oppofition to the statement of a French author, (who must be fuppofed to have had the bet means of acquiring a correct knowledge of the fact) quoted in the appendix to our laft yolume. Mr. H's remarks, however, on the fubject, and especially on the neglect of mothers to nurse their own children, are generally juft. The following obfervations, it will be found difficult, we conceive, to reconcile with his previous affertion. In enumerating feveral important facts deducible from his general ftatement, refpecting the prefent fyftem of education, in France he fays;

"

Among them are the great paucity even of primary fchools; the fill much greater want of fecondary fchools, where nothing more is taught than, if fo much as, that education which is bestowed in almoft every parith in England; the disordered ftate of the higher feminaries of learning; and, more than all the reft, either the jealous fears or the busy defpotilm of Government, all centering in the chief.

"If the nation be fo ignorant as that every petty day-fchool must be infpected, that every fecondary or grammar-fchool must be watched by the prefect, that men must be fent annually to travel through the departments to fuperintend prefects, infpectors, and schools, and that the fuperintenders, including all under and all above them, must be fuperintended by the First Conful himfelf, who is the omnipotent reformer, in what a state must this actual ignorance be? Should it be answered, it is but the jealoufy, the prefumption, and the defpotifm of Government, will that be a more favour able picture of the actual state of knowledge?"

These facts, and these reflections, certainly not very favourable to the fuppofition of an improved ftate of education in France, are followed by a variety of judicious, and forcible obfervations on the fame fubject,

Notwithstanding the extreme vigilance of the police, acts of brutal violence are more frequent in regenerated France, than in an of the unreformed countries of Europe; and the French are deprived of their favourite fneers at the effects of our fea-coal fmoke and our foggy at

mosphere,

mosphere, in producing felf-murder, as our readers will find from the following statement.

"A gentleman on whofe honour I can depend, and who was once high in office under the miniffer of police, told me that, within the last ten months, there had been a hundred and ninety-three fuicides in the departments, and about the fame number in the metropolis; that upwards of feven hundred murders had been committed, within the fame period of time: that effects to the value of about a million of livres, little short of forty-two thoufand pounds fierling, had been stolen, and nearly the fame lofs fuftained by fire: that is, in the departments. Including all France) he estimated the number of fuicides at from two to three per day, or five in two days!

"I must not here omit to mention that it was with difficulty, that is, it was with the trouble of going myself or of fending a voucher with the fervant, that I obtained aqua fortis of which I was in want, from the apothecary's hop. Suicide, and I fear murder, by poifon, have been fo frequent that the firictest injunctions are iffued not to fell any drugs that can give fudden death."

After fome farther proofs of the frequency of fuicide and murder, Mr. H. thus concludes the chapter with the following fenfible reflections.

"After proofs like thefe, what fhall be faid concerning that gaiety of: heart, which the natives and the writers of France fo often affirm they pof fefs, and to fo high a degree? If it be a feeling of fhort duration, fuddenly taking birth and as fuddenly killed, produced by trifling caufes, and liable to end in fuch fatal defpondency, it is a habit of mind which, inftead of merit. ing their praife, ought to excite their most serious attention to reduce it to reafon. True chearfulness is more robuft: that mind only can enjoy fecu rity which, added to virtuous intention, has the fober and tranquillizing habits of order; and which, willing at all times to partake of pleasure, bas the patience first to enquire what is the cost, and what the confequence.pri

We prefume Mr. H. does not mean to exclude a juft fenfe of the importance of religion, and a full conviction of its truths, from his lift of effentials to the enjoyment of mental ferenity. To the good temper of the French he pays a just tribute of praife.

1

During their late odious perfecutions, for perfecution is always odious, and the enemy of every noble caufe, the emigrants of France have many of them been highly and juftly praifed, for the chearful refignation with which they have endured a reverfe of fortune fo great, and, to people imbued with the moral poifon of luxury, fo ferrible. Many a noble, accustomed from infancy to have menials at his beck, to be nurtured in the caprices of indulgence, and to thine himself a star in the firmament of courts, has been seen to retire even to a garret, there to maintain himself by fome effort of ingenuity, or fome art which he had been taught as an accomplishment;, and, having thus acquired a morfel, generously to divide it with a ftill more wretched brother in affliction. Oh ! it is a noble picture! a lessen to futurity, and at once an honour and a reproach to France.

It is, indeed, a noble picture! and when the conduct of thefe nobles.

is contrafted with that of the upstarts who have ufurped their honours and eftates, the most democratic must acknowledge that nobility is fome thing more than a name, the nurse of generous feeling, and of heroic virtue; while they must admit the truth of the homely adage, fet a beggar on horfeback and he'll ride to the devil.' The following anec dote is not wolly foreign from these reflections. While our author was reading one of the infcriptions on a Church or Palace, Liberty and Equality, he was thus addreffed by a by-ftander, whofe language muft be injured by tranflation; part of it indeed sets the powers of tranflation at defiance.

Monfieur, j'ai une fingulière et fautive maniére de lire nos inscriptions publiques. Quand je passe le vaste palais, où demeure notre grand homme de petite taille, et où l'on trouve le môt EGALITE écrit en beaux caractères, j'ajoute toujours par mépris, je veux dire par méprise, une fyllabe: Je lis machinalement Au contraire, au lieu de lire L'IMMORet L'INDIVISIBILITE DE tranchant le môt, il m'est impoffible de lire autrement que L'IMMORALITE/ LA REPUBLIQUE,' en de L'ame, et L'INVISIBILITE de la Republique."

TALITE DE NEGALITE.

We agree with Mr. H. that "the true fpirit of the phrases par me pris and en tranchant le môt cannot be rendered in English," but in tranflating that part of the sentence which includes the former of these phrafes, he has neither given the Spirit nor the fenfe of the original: he has totally omitted the word par mepris, and has rendered Je veux dire par meprife," as if correcting a mistake;" whereas the meaning is this I always add, from contempt, I mean by mistake, a syllable," &c.

In our remarks on the first volume of these travels, we had occa fion to notice the author's opinion of the improved ftate of the coun-. try, &c. but whatever favourable impreffions he might have received on his firft entrance into France, they appear to have undergone a. material alteration during his refidence in the metropolis. His meditations on his return from a vifit to Montmartre, a hill in the vicinity of Paris, to which Mount Calvary, the former refort of Parifian Pilgrims, (which was four miles diftant from the capital,) was removed by ecclefiaftical authority, prefent the following refult.

"As I defcended the hill how full of meditation was the mind! The dirty cabaret, hidden in a hole that proclaimed itfelf the rendezvous of the nation; the bald arts of the priefts, whofe forlorn condition as men excited! nity; their infantine vacuity of intellect; the fimple credulity of the poor creatures, who ftill remain their faithful adherents; the state of ignorance. through France; the want of cleanlinefs; the diforder; the poverty; the wretched villages; and the general picture of lagging slow civilization, which proves that the common conveniences of life were fo little esteemed or underftood; thefe collectively made an impreflion fuch as not the palaces and temples in view, the oftentation of the conftituted authorities, the confuls and the armies of France, the victories gained, the conquefts made, nor all the empty boasts of man, could efface!

Previous to the revolution there exifted in Paris alone three thousand

three