allegations of the English writer: But the fum of the defence urged for the latter feems to be, that he twice faved M. Baudry's life in the West Indies. The fecond volume is, if poffible, lefs peculiarly connected with Louisiana than the first; but it contains fome information of confiderable value to Weft Indian colonifts; as, a Congo vocabulary; a lift of medicines, with notes of their properties; a Botanical manual, and a variety of directions refpecting regimen, the fruit of our author's experience in tropical countries. In a fcientific point of view, this volume is alfo entitled to notice. It prefents us with a very curious account of the infect which produces the animal-cotton. The procefs is fingular: A worm of confiderable fize, which our author calls Porte-mouches, (well known to planters as the Manioc or Indigo worm), is, at one period of the year, attacked by fwarms of the Ichneumon fly. They depofit their eggs in every pore of the unfortunate worm, which now becomes a hot-bed for hatching them. The infects, produced all at once, immediately fpin each a very minute white cod, which envelopes it. The manioc worm is now covered with a white pod, which he, with confiderable difficulty, thakes off; and, in a few days, the infects are again hatched from it, but in the form of flies, leaving the animal-cotton behind them. Our author defcribes this production as very abundant in all the colonies, and as poffeffing great advantages over the vegetable cotton. It would undoubtedly be a moft valuable acquifition to thofe plantations which at prefent fuffer fo much from the ravages of the manioc worm. M. Baudry's fcientific obfervations, however, are not always fo happy. He talks of the parabola defcribed by falling ftars, though with fome contempt of the vulgar, for giving the phænomenon that name; and he can fee only one difference between the phlogiftic and the modern fyftem of chemistry, viz. the fubftitution of the term caloric for phlogifton. The only other matter worth attending to in this work, is the account which it contains of the colonial chambers of agriculture, as new-modelled by the confular government. The object of this inftitution is the improvement of the whole body of colonial affairs. Thefe Boards, by correfponding with their deputies at Paris, who form a council to the minifter of marine, are authorifed to denounce every abuse in the administration of the fettlements. That fome of the alterations on the inftitution are likely to produce beneficial effects, we do not deny. But it would be abfurd to expect any material advantages from this fyftem of espionage, when the members of each Board are effectively named by thofe whofe conduct they are appointed to watch. M. M. Baudry does not appear quite fo conftantly in the fecond, as in the first volume; but we have been malicious enough to derive some amufement from the frequent recurrence of his lamentations over a Colonial Encyclopædia, in twenty-five volumes quarto, which he had toiled at during eighteen years, and which he loft in the troubles of St Domingo. His argument, in favour of establishing a Board of ruined Planters (ces êtres intereffans), to affift the government of the mother country with advice upon colonial affairs, is alfo fomewhat original: If I (fays he) alone, in the midst of my own ideas, without affiftance from any otherwithout the leaft communication with a living foul-have been furnished with fo many materials by my imagination, and my other intellectual faculties, what might not government expect from a whole commiffion of advifers!" vol. ii. p. 345. ART. VIII. Cours de Morale Religieufe. Par M. Necker. M. The man, however, who acted fo confpicuous a part at the commencement of the French revolution, and who may reasonably flatter himself that his opinions must ftill have fome weight with the people whom he once governed, is certainly entitled to attention; efpecially when he speaks upon a fubject of inconteftible importance, and which he feems to have had very much at heart. M. Necker, we believe, ftill refides at Copet, near Geneva; but the difcourfes here offered to the public are not addreffed to his immediate countrymen the Swifs. He fuppofes himfelf placed in the heart of France; and it is to the peculiar circumstances of that country that this publication is accommodated, (Prel. Refl. p. 44. vol. i.) France, indeed, exhibits at prefent an aspect altogether new among civilized nations. From the beginning of the revolution to the year 1802, France may be faid, to have had no religious education, and f ny education whatever within the the reach of her youth. The confequence is, that the most active part of her population, and nearly three fifths of her foldiers and failors, have attained the maturity of bodily ftrength, without any moral, and with very little intellectual culture. Inheriting all the advantages which are derived from the fuccefsful cultivation of the arts, and poffeffing every imaginable phyfical capabi lity, a numerous nation of this defcription would be an object of terror, under any degrees of latitude or longitude; but muft excite ftill greater alarm in the centre of the civilized world! That fuch men may gain battles, and, when flimulated by the hope of plunder, may aftonifh or overwhelm other nations, has been fufficiently proved. But whether they can enjoy rational freedom at home, and discharge, in times of tranquillity, the duties of good citizens, is yet to be tried. Conftitutional liberty, indeed, is now out of the queftion: and M. Necker feems to have had a prophetic intimation of the ftate of the government, when, in the year 1798, he declared It is not, indeed, the reestablishment of our ancient flavery in its former fhape which we have now to dread, but the approach to it in a difguifed form, as foon as it fhall he difcovered that the moft vigorous exercife of authority is unable to restrain a people who have shaken off all religious controul. The filence and fubordination of flavery will be attained, by raifing and maintaining immenfe armies; by filling up their ranks with our young men; by making thofe young men exchange the conflict of other paffions for the rigour of military difcipline; and by employing those armies, in all their violence and energy, to infpire univerfal terror. What a fad substitute for religious morality! What an exchange for that authority, of which the injunctions were fo mild, and the exercife fo indulgent! How dreadfully have we been deceived!' Prelim. Refl. p. 24. vol, i. The avowed defign of M. Necker's work, therefore, is to coun teract the operation of this tremendous evil, and to revive religious impreffions in France, by an appeal to the united powers of reafon and revelation. In this defign, every good man will with him fuccefs, though many will doubt if he be qualified to obtain it. He divides his courfe of religious morality into five fections; in all, containing twenty-nine fermons. The first fection has four fermons, which treat of the bafes of natural religion and morality. These fermons are on the existence of a God; the union of morality with the divine perfections; the doctrine of a Providénce; and the immortality of the foul. The fecond fection difcufles the duties common to all men, fuch as truth, juftice, charity. The third fection is taken up with the relative duties of the different ages and fituations of focial life; fuch fuch as thofe of husband and wife, parent and child. The fourth contains fermons on the fentiments and habits of mind which render men guilty or miferable; as, envy, vanity, ambition, &c. And the fifth and laft fection treats of the Christian religion, and of irreligious fyftems. He does not touch on any of the peculiar doctrines of Chriftianity; nor does he enter upon any inveftigation of the external proofs which are ufually adduced in fupport of the Christian fcheme. The internal evidence is only cafually glanced at. appears indeed to have affumed the Chriftian character, rather from a fenfe of its utility or expediency, than from a conviction of its truth; and his fermons are to be confidered as deiftical effays witten in a Chriftian country. M. Necker explains his motives for adopting the plan juft mentioned, in fifty-two pages of preliminary reflections, which are better written than any other portion of the work. He feems to think that his method is new, because the difcourfes have a fort of connexion with one another, and because he draws from natural religion alone the authority of his inftructions; and contents himself with hinting, in a very general way, at the aid which Christianity affords them. (Prel. Refl. p. 43. vol. I.)There is certainly nothing new, or very meritorious, in all this arrangement; and it is indeed inconfiftent with the author's eulogy on Scripture in p. 40. It is equally inconfiftent with the fuppofition, that the difcourfes are addrefled to a popular audience in France. He does not fpecify the rank or education of his fuppofed hearers; and, while he fays that he confiders himself as preaching like an aged paftor to a popular audience, he confeffes that he has not omitted any philofophical reflection that occurred, and that his fuccinct code of religious morality is to be dif tinguished from other collections of fermons, by its being intended to be read, and by its containing a connected train of moral aud religious inftruction.' (Prel. Refl. p. 44.) This is challenging a more rigorous criticism than, we are afraid, M. Necker is able to ftand. The greater part of his difcouries are compofed in fo diffufe and declamatory a ftyle, as could only be juftified by the defign of pronouncing them in a popular aflembly; and even upon this fuppofition, they will often be found deficient in dignity and confiftency of expreffion. To us, indeed, it appears that he fometimes, in his introductions to his difcourfes, dreams of addreffing a numerous and motley audience; but, in the courfe of his fermon, many are perceived to fall asleep, or to flip out of the church, until at length he fees only a couple of politicians or falfe philofophers, to whom he addreffes himself for a long time, in a whining ftrain of lyric voci, feration; feration; and then concludes as he began. Making every allowance for his good intentions, how fhall we reconcile fome of the following paffages with M. Necker's judgement and good sense? In order to prove the existence of a God, he makes choice of Exodus, ch. 3. v. 14. for his text, (our author preaches, like others, from texts of fcripture)- Je fuis celui qui fuis,' a still worse tranflation than our I am that I am;' and breaks out into the following addrefs: How great, how impofing is this expreffion, for giving us an idea of the Effence of the Creator and Master of the world! It is as if he had faid to the children of Ifrael, and by them to the whole earthNo definition, no image, can explain to your minds, or reprefent to your fenfes, an eternal Being, who has placed an immenfe diftance between himself and the higheft period of your moral faculties, between himself and the laft boundary of the refearches and conquefts of ge nius. Yes, the heavens of heavens are between God and man,' &c. Vol. I. p. 3. Now, whatever the idea may be, the mere French expreflion, Je fuis celui qui fuis, is neither more nor lefs than an identical propofition. It is neither great, therefore, nor impofing; nor does it give any idea of any effence whatever. Amidft his other exclamations of wonder at the greatnefs of the works of nature, which he confiders as a conclufive proof of the being of a God, we find the following fatisfactory reflection: O prodigies! prodigies! and which furpass our understanding !-But every thing is done, every thing is explained in the univerfe by two eternal principles, the Almighty power of its Malter, and his imineufe beneficence. Vol. I. p. 14. And afterwards, We may perceive the fyftem of final caufes developing and extending itfelf in an univerfal manner, with as much regularity as precifion. Vol. I. p. 21. This precife developement of all final caufes, muft undoubtedly prove very confolatory to the minds of M. Necker's difciples. In truth, whoever perufes this difcourfe on the existence of a God, will find neither philofophical reafoning nor fcriptural authority in his matter; nor in his ftyle, that clearness and fimplicity that is requifite in fo high an argument; but must reft contented or difcontented with a goodly ailortment of les grands mots qui epouvantent l'oreille.' In his difcourfe on Providence, the author fays, ---' he had shown that morality was founded upon our knowledge of the perfections of God, upon our knowledge of the perfections of a Matter, |