an idle and profitlefs way of life, and returned, in great impatience, to his ftudies and toils at Venice. For three years, he joined to his other engagements, that of fuperintending the claffical ftudies of a party of twelve young Venetian noblemen. In 1558, he went on an excurfion to fearch for certain unprinted manufcripts in a valuable library at Cefena, and in fome fimilar collections in other parts of Italy. He, about the fame time, declined invitations to the profefforfhips of Latin eloquence, firft at Venice, afterwards at Padua. After a fecond excurfion to Rome, he married, in the year 1546, Margherita Odoni. He had, by this lady, four children, of whom a fon and a daughter are known to have furvived him. In the year 1546, he became profeffor of eloquence and printer in an academy which Fedirigo Badoaro, a rich fenator of Venice, attempted to establish, on a noble and extensive scale, in that city. After the diffolution of Badoaro's academy, Paulo Manucci, at the invitation of Pope Pius the Fourth, went, in 1561, to Rome, and, without relinquishing his bufiness in his native place, was there established as printer to his Holi nefs, in ædibus Populi Romani. He continued in this employment nine years, and printed with great beauty and accuracy a number of valuable ecclefiaftical works. Lofs of health, and difappointments in fortune, inducing him at the end of that time, to leave Rome; he paffed nearly the next two years of his life, from September 1570 till the fummer of 1572, in excurfions to Piove del Sacco, Genoa, Reggio, Milan, Venice, and in temporary refidences in each of thefe cities. At Rome he was graciously received by Gregory the Thirteenth, then Pope, who affigned to him a liberal and honourable ftipend, without any condition of labour on Manucci's part. In 1573, his daughter was, with his approbation, married to a young lawyer. On the 6th of April, 1574, he died, at the age of fixty-one years, nine months, and twenty-fix days. He appears to have been, in all the relations of life, a very worthy man. His letters, his illuftrations of Cicero, and his treatifes on fubjects in Roman antiquities, diftinguish him as one of the best writers, and one of the moft elegant and accurate scholars of the age in which he lived. As a printer he did not, indeed, put in the prefs, for the first time, fo many manufcripts of the Grecian claffics as his father, but he was in no other refpect inferior to him.

His fon, the younger ALDO, was born at Venice, in 1547; educated with the greatest attention and folicitude by his father; early praised by Muretus and others of Paulo's friends, as the most promifing boy they had ever known; introduced to the public at the age of eleven years, as the author of a skilful and copious collection of the comparative elegancies of phrafeology in the Italian and the Latin languages. At the age of fourteen he published an elaborate treatise on the orthography of the Latin tongue. From 1561 to 1563, he explored, under his father's direction, the Mufea and libraries in Rome. A treatife of his, "On the Marks of Abbreviation in Ufe among the Ancients," was printed, together with a fecond edition of his work

upon

upon Orthography, at his father's prefs in Rome, in the year 1566. He gave, allo, at Rome, in this early part of his life, an edition of the two hiftorical pieces of Salluft, with the fragments of that author's other writings, and with notes. To his fteady diligence and premature ingenuity and learning, his father was, then, induced to confide the direction of the prefs at Venice, while he himself continued at Rome. In 1571, he published an edition of the history of Velleius Paterculus, in which it is alledged that he made a great and somewhat pilfering and difingenuous ufe of certain notes and various readings, communicated to him by the learned Dupuis. (Puteanus) of Paris. He publifhed, in 1572, a Treatife in Praife of the Conftitution of the Venetian Republic." That fame year he efpoufed Francesca Lucrezia, a lady of the family of the Giunti, the famous printers of Florence. In 1574, he became fole manager of the Aldine printinghoufe at Venice. In 1575, he brought out a treatife in Italian, "on the Phrafeology of Cicero's Epifles," as, alfo, an "Abstract of his own Treatise on Latin Orthography," and a fmall Differtation on Letter-Writing," which he addreffed to Muretus. In 1576, he publifhed a curious effay, De Quafitis per Epiftolam, in which he endea voured to explain thirty of the molt remarkable difficulties in Roman Antiquities. He was, about this time, nominated Profeffor of Polite Literature, and Lecturer in the Venetian Chancery, to inftruct fuch young perfons as wifhed to qualify themfelves for the functions of fecretaries to the republic. He hade, in 1578, with very little previous study, a very eloquent funeral oration on Bernardo Rottario, Ambaffador from the Duke of Savoy to the Venetian republic. gave, in 1581, an edition of Cenforinus. In 1582, he paid a vifit to Cardinal Borromeo, at Milan. He publifhed, in 1583, an edition of the works of Cicero, in ten volumes folio. In 1584, he wrote and published a small creatife in Italian, which he entituled, "The Perfect Gentleman," In 1585, he accepted an invitation to the Profefforthip of Eloquence at Bologna, then vacant by the death of the famous Carolo Sigonia. The last work he publifhed at Venice, was "a Collection of Phrafes from the Works of Terence;" and his first publication at Bologna, was a Commentary on Horace's Epode De Laudibus Vite Ruftica. He publifhed, at the fame place, in 1586, a valuable" Hiftory of the Life of Cefmo de Medici." Soon after, he was invited by the Great Duke Ferdinand, the fon of Cofmo, to the Profefforfhip of Eloquence in the University of Pifa, with emoluments fo much more confiderable than thofe he engaged at Bologna, that he was induced to embrace the offer. He went to Pifa in 1587; and there took the degree of Doctor in the Civil and the Canon Law. In November 1588, he yielded to repeated folicitations, by which he was called to the Chair of Eloquence at Rome, which had been kept vacant for him ever fince the death of his own and his father's friend, Ant. Muretus, in 1585. He removed his whole library from Venice to Rome; had apartments and a table affigned to him in the Vatican; and, till the year 1597, continued to live there in good reputation, and

He

in the indefatigable profecution of his literary labours. On the 28th of October, 1597, he died, at the age of fifty years, eight months, and twenty-two days. He was the laft of his race; all his children having died young, before him.-This is an abftract of the principal facts in M. Renouard's account of the lives of the three Aldi.

The rest of this volume is filled with copies of public acts executed in favour of Aldo the elder, by the fenate of Venice, and by different pontiffs; with copies of Aldo's earlier catalogues; with lifts of the publications of Andrea D'Afola, of the books printed by Bernard Torregiano at Paris, and of the Lyonnefe counterfeits of the Aldine editions; and with feveral other kindred articles of fufficient import

ance.

The first volume we have chofen to mention after the fecond; because it is fimply a catalogue-full indeed, accurate, and interfperfed with many curious bibliographical anecdotes of all the publications which proceeded out of the Aldine prefs from the time of its first eftablishment to the death of the younger Aldo.

Of this whole work, we must, in candour, acknowledge, that it is evidently executed with diligence, judgment, and tafle, for which its author deferves great praife. It is worthy of the infpection of every fcholar. It deferves a place in every claffical library. It is, in our opinion, the more commendable for being fent out without any of those lofty and extravagant pretenfions by which Frenchmen, when they execute a good thing in literature, too often contrive to make us loathe its merits.

Influence de l'Habitude fur la Faculté de penfer, &c.

The Influence of Habit on the Faculty of Thinking, a Work which gained the Prize on that Queftion propofed by the Clafs of Moral and Political Science in the National Inflitute. By P. Maine Biran. Paris, An. XI. 1802.

THE

HE author fets out by marking a diftinction between fenfation and perception. He obferves that though it is obvious that all our impreffions, of whatever kind, are gradually weakened by continual or frequent repetition, yet while fome feem entirely obliterated by conftant ufe, others, at the fame time that they are weakened, not only retain their perfpicuity, but even acquire a greater degree of precifion. These pofitions are illuftrated by a number of examples. The whole refult of which refult of which may be fully explained by one which the author has not produced. To the ear that is conftantly. ufed to the repetition of any found, as the ringing of bells, the noife of a cafcade, &c. the effect in time will be hardly noticed; but let the mind be directed to any found, fo as to try to analyze its particular nature, as in musical founds, the fame caufe which weakens the force APPENDIX, VOL, XVIII.

Hh

of

1

of the impetus will enable the ear to examine and analyze with greater

accuracy,

This fubject is pursued, through the greatest part of the work, with much ingenuity, and accompanied by many happy illuftrations. The obfervation of the author on the advantages, both the poet and the painter derive from receiving their first impreffions amid picturesque and romantic scenery, are very happy.

"If," he fays, "fometimes a fort of instinct of the beautiful, the grand, and the fublime, of every fpecies, feem to draw the man of genius out of the confined circle of real objects to tranfport him into an imaginary world, where the elements are all of his own creation, and every thing is adorned and arranged according to his own fancy, habit ftill restrains him in his excurfions by a kind of centripetal force. They are the clouds of his native fky that glow beneath his pencil, it is the earth of his native foil that furnishes the materials with which he builds his enchanted palaces. That perfection of nature which he conceives, which he seems to acquire from infpiration, is nothing more than an ornamented copy, of what first attracted his attention, and gave an impulse to his infant sensations."

We have given already an illuftration of our own, we will now give one of the author's, of the accuracy of perception being increased by the deficiency of fenfation. "We may recollect the expreffion of Madame La Sabliere to Le Fontaine, on his noticing a scar on her face, after a conftant habit of intimacy for twenty years. Ah, my friend, you love me no longer. When our minds are animated by any fentiment at all energetic we diftinguish nothing. We feel too much to be able to perceive, and when habit has blunted the fenfations we fee for the first time things as they really are." In this mixture of gallantry with philosophy we recognize a Frenchman of the old fchool.

Notwithstanding this the author makes fome very judicious remarks on the fatal confequence of the paffion of youth being enflamed and prematurely brought forward, by books of a certain tendency, nor do novels, when love is drawn in its moft fentimental form, escape his cenfure. However unfashionable the doctrine may be, we do not entirely diffent, even as to the laft article; but the author writes with too free a hand for us transcribe.

We wish, however, we had no other charge to bring against Mr. Biran than freedom of expreffion employed in a good caufe; we are forry to fee his work ftrongly tinctured throughout with that diflike to revealed religion which is fo much the characteristic of his country. But in this attempt, as muft always be the cafe when the fhafts of human wit are directed againft the impenetrable shield of divine truth, his weapons are unavailing; and we may fay, as the poet fays of the feeble effort of Priam,

Fefchurun, oder unpartheyifche Beleuchtung dem Fudentheume neuerdings gemachten Vorwurfe. In Brief Von Aaron Wolfsfohn, &c. Breflaw. PP. 233. 8vo. 1804.

Or Impartial Expofition of the latest Objections and Reproaches brought against Judaism and the Jews, &c.

THE

HE Jews are numerous, induftrious, and rich, in Germany. Yet, they have, there, against them, even much more than in England, prejudices of religion, of mercantile jealousy, of old habitual contempt and diflike. In this revolutionary age, the Jews have found advocates who infift that all the profcribing laws against them ought to be, in every country, abrogated, as fhamefully cruel and unjuft. The Jews claim to be heard by that humanity which fo ftrongly pleads in favour of the negroes. But, on the other hand, the prejudices and interests of their adverfaries are doubly alarmed, when,-no longer content to enjoy the advantages of fociety, by fufferance, and as it were in ftealth,-the Jews claim to be put, in all refpects, on an equality with the other fubjects of the different governments under which they live. They have recently made fuch claims, in the way indeed. of folicitation, and with the offer of pecuniary compenfation for the new advantages which they afk, at Frankfort, and in others of the free imperial cities in Germany. Their rights, their fufferings, the merits and demerits of their national character, and every topic of odium or favour in their hiftory, have, in confequence of these incidents, become, of late, in that country, subjects of eager literary difcuffion. Mr. Wolfsfohn's work now before us, truely deferves the praise of the candid and rational. It will be read with pleasure by all who take an intereft in the fate of the Jews, and all who are curious in watching the progrefs and the fluctuations of national prejudice and policy.

Reife, Scenee und Abeuthener zu Waffer, und zu Lande. Von Fredrick Launn. Leipc. Junius. Price 1 rtlr., 16 gr.

1

Scenery and Adventures of a Journey, performed by Land and Water. By Frederick Laune, &c. 1804.

THE

HE name of this writer is popular in the light and elegant literature of Germany. From the very title alone of this work, the reader will eafily conceive it to be a combination of defcription, remark, and fentiment, now humorous, now pathetic, fomewhat in the manner of STERNE. It is precifely fuch. We do not deny that it may have afforded good entertainment to German readers of genius. But, we should not think of eagerly recommending it for translation into English.