Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum; curâ Eichstadii et Sociorum. M. T. Ciceronis, &c. Epiftolæ, &c.; edidit Joan Aloys. Martyni-Laguna : M. T. Ciceronis Rhetorica; recenfuit et illuftravit C. G. Schutz, Vol. I.-Eutropii Breviarium Hiftoria Romana; recenfuit, &c. C. H. Tzfchucke. Gofchen. Leipfic. 1804.

THES

HESE are the first parts in the publication of a complete and elaborate edition of the works of all the claffical writers of ancient Rome, which has been commenced, this year, at Leipfic. Eichftadt and Boettiger are the principal editors. But they are aided by many learned affiftants. In Cicero's Epifiles to his Friends alone, Mr. Martyni-Laguna has, by the diligent collation of manufcripts and former printed editions, corrected the text in not fewer than four thousand paffages. The fheets are, in the prefs, revised again and again, by different men of learning, with all the care which used to be exercifed in the printing-houfes of the Aldi, the Stephens, the Plantins, the Elzevirs, or the Toulis'. The edition is printed, for every author in the collection, in feveral forms. The moft fumptuous and fplendid form gives the work in a large type, on a rich vellum paper, in fmall quarto, with large margins: of this, few copies are printed and the price is five rixdollars for every fix-and-twenty fheets of the copy. The fame compofition of types is impreffed, alfo, on a fine French writing paper, with narrower margins, and in a large octavo form: this is fold at one rixdollar fix gr. for every fixand-twenty fheets. The text and notes are, at the fame time, printed with a fpecies of neat small types, caft of purpose. Of the copies thus printed, a fmall number are on a fine paper, hot preffed, in a fmall quarto form, and at the price of four rixdollars for every fixand-twenty fheets. A much more confiderable number are on a good white printing paper, at eighteen gr. for the fame quantity of fheets. Such of the claffics as are in more general use in schools, are, alfo, printed without the notes, at the fame price. This undertaking is laubable and magnificent. The execution is, in the parts published, truely worthy of the defign. We fhall be glad to see the whole fuccefsfully completed.

Voliftandiges Lexicon, der Gartnerey und Botanik; oder Alphabetifche Befchreibung vom Wartung und nutzen, &c. Von F. G. Dietrich, Herzog. Weimars Hofgartner. Vierter Bands. gr. 8 Weimar. Gedickes.

THE

HE Germans are, at this moment, above all other people in the world, they who write of every thing, tranflate every thing, imitate every thing, invent every thing. There is nothing almoft in art or nature, with books upon which their preffes do not teem. British nation, the French, the Italians, no fooner make an improvement in any one branch of human knowledge or exertion, than the

The

Germans

Germans eagerly make it their own. The number of difcoveries and inventions which have had their origin in Germany, is perhaps greater than that of the discoveries and inventions to which any other country has given birth. And, as Lucilius of old, whether merry or fad, ufed, upon every occafion that was particularly affecting to his mind, ftill to fummon his brifk but traipfy mufe to extemporaneous verfe-making; fo that thing is not to be named or thought, that fhall intereft a few Germans to-day, and not become the fubject of a printed book in their language to-morrow.

In those arts especially, and that fcience, which enable man to improve the natural fertility of the earth, the Germans, if they have not, of themselves, and as inventors, made, of late, remarkable progrefs, have, however, watched and adopted the improvements of the English, within these laft forty years, with an affiduity and a keenness of attention, the most admirable and the most beneficial. We poffefs no work of merit and popularity, on botany, agriculture, or any other branch of rural economy, which the Germans have not made their own by tranflation. There is fcarce a practice in gardening or hufbandry which has been in this country approved, that is not already either in common use or eager trial in Germany. This Gardener's Dictionary, by Mr. Dietrich, derives its chief value from the English materials which it contains. To thefe it, however, adds fo many particulars of the economy of gardening peculiar to Germany, that, when our author fhall have completed his work, it will certainly deferve a place in the library of every English landholder, farmer, and gardener, who understands the German language.

Voyage de trois Mois en Angleterre, en Ecoffe, et en Irlande pendant l'Eté de l'an IX. (1801, v. ft.) Par Marc-Augufte Pictet, Profeffeur de Philofophie et de Phyfique expérimentale dans l'Acadé nie de Genève, Affocié de l'Institut National, Membre des Sociétés Royales de Londres et d'Elinburgh, de l'Athénée de Lyon et de plufieurs autres Corps littéraires; de la Société de Phyfic et Hiftoire naturelle de Genève et Président de la Sociéte établie dans la méme ville pour l'avancement des Arts. A Genève. De l'Impr. de la Bibliothéque Britannique, et fe trouve chez Manget, J. J. Pafchoud, Libraires; et à Paris, Magimel, Libraire, quai des Aug. No. 73. An XI. (1802, v. st.)

A Tour of three Months in England, Scotland, and Ireland, during the Year IX. (i. e. 1801.) By Marc-Augufte Pictet, Profeflor of Philofophy and experimental Phyfics in the Academy of Geneva, &c. &c.

As the English reader cannot poffibly derive any information re

lative to the ftate of his own country from the observations of a foreigner during a three months tour, a book of this kind can be only interefting, by fhewing in what light many of our customs

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and improvements appear to an intelligent ftranger; and as we conceive that from fuch obfervations both amufement and advantage may be derived, we fhall lay fome extracts from paffages of this defcription before our readers.

The author, who, it appears, had been in England three years before, gives the following account of the alteration he found in our metropolis fince that time, the letter from which it is taken is dated July 1801.

"I find London much enlarged in three years. The streets and the great places, which are called fquares, advance themselves into the country towards the north, with a very rapid progrefs; it is a kind of vegetation of that great polypus which torments England. I am told that the population does not encrease in proportion with this enormous encrease of buildings, and that it is the confequence of a change of manners. The merchants, who before exclufively inhabited the central part of the town, which is called the city, confider it now as part of their happiness to live in another quarter than that where their bufinefs lies; it is poffible that their health may benefit by it; but certainly it is a fashion profitable to the architect. A small house of three windows in front, with the kitchen under ground (as it always is here), with three ftories, viz. ground floor, first floor, and garret [here the profeffor omits a florey], with two rooms in a ftorey, cofts, when finished, 12001. fterling, and if we confider how money has funk in value in England the price is little; but the houfes are in proportion with it, they are built with extreme flightnefs, and give fome unealinefs to passengers, even at that period when the thell only is finished."

Monfieur Pictet gives this description of the stage-coaches about the metropolis.

"Public coaches of every fort, of every form, set out every hour for the environs of the capital, and every day for the principal provincial towns; the great roads afford a continual public exhibition. Some carriages have ten places within, and as many on the top. We fee thefe moving mountains coming at a distance, drawn by four horfes only, at a full trot, whom the coachman never whips, and who excite the envy of more than one connoifeur, by their fine fhape, their fhining coat, and their active and bold pace. We feem at a distance to fee flags of different colours flying on the roof, they are the ribbons, the aprons, and the petticoats, of thofe English women, fo modeft in other refpects, who are not afraid to exhibit themselves aloft, to the inconvenience of the wind, doubled by the celerity of the vehicle; but the enormous vehicle no fooner reaches you than it is already at a distance, and the eye of the most inquifitive observer is disappointed."

The defcription is animated, mais c'eft un pue Française. We have foon afterwards an account nearly as long and particular of the mail coaches, we fhall only quote the introduction. "The invention of

the mail coach, in my opinion, is one of those which may indicate a civilization carried to its maximum."

The account the author gives of a Sunday at Holyhead, where he ftopped, in his return from Ireland, and his reflections on it are fo good, that we fhall lay them before our reader without abridgement.

"When

"When I left it," he says, people was at church, for it was Sunday; I met no one in the streets. The tide was out, and one would have been tempted to fay that the thips, lying on their fides, as they then do, had been alfo obedient to the divine law. On my return, I found all the avenues peopled with walkers of every rank and every age. The day was charming [the author fays superbe], and every body was anxious to profit by it; I met groups of different forts, here whole families, there the children, and a little farther the husband and wife; in every place a population well looking and well dreffed, their countenances animated by gaiety, and bearing the im preffion of happiness. Alas! faid I to myself, when will this day, this Sunday, fo welcomed in this country, return to the Chriftians of France; this day, when the people, ufefully recalled to religious thoughts, by the awful and confoling ceremonies of public worship, find in the employment of the reft of the day a relaxion, an enjoyment that the idle cannot know, and the neceffity of which we feel fo much at prefent? What a happy affociation is that of the duties of religion, with the pleasure of reft earned by labour! In what new institution will this advantage ever be found? The gaiety of thefe good people made me fad ;-I was jealous for my countrymen."

The last sentence is accompanied by a flattering note of the Editor on the restoration of Chriftianity by Buonaparté.

The author defcribes alfo the agricultural exhibition at Woburn, and fpeaks in high terms of the attention and civility he received in this county. Among the perfons whom he praifes for their hofpitality and kindness, he distinguishes Sir Jofeph Banks, Mr. Edgworth and his family, in Ireland, and above all Count Rumford, whofe portrait he has prefixed to the book, and of whofe houfe and way of living, in Brompton-row, he gives a very circumftantial account. We shall infert only one fentence from it. "The household arrangement is managed with the greatest fimplicity, and the greatest regularity; and I cannot even picture to my fancy a life more pleafant, more comfortable (why may we not receive a word which our language wants?) than that which is paffed there." We anfwer the question thus, because comfortable is a word that is not wanted in the language of Frenchmen, fince it is a feeling of which Frenchmen have never had any idea, and which they seem very far from being in the way to acquire.

Fables de Logman, &c.

Fables of Logman, firnamed the Wife: in Arabic; with a French Verfion; and a prefatory Account of that celebrated Fabulift. Cairo, printed in the year 1799. A small volume, in 4to.

FABL

ABLES are, among all nations, one of the species of the literature of fancy, which have been the earliest and the most naturally produced. That fame ignorance of the Laws of Caufation, which makes the favage and the barbarian to afcribe every remarkable

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phænomenon of nature to the interpofition of a particular divinity, leads them to attribute to plants and brute animals, the fame energies of fentiment and reafon, of which they were confcious in them elves. Trees and wild beafts are made to fpeak by nearly the fame error of judgment and imagination, that peoples the woods with Dryads, Fauns, Satyrs, and huntrefs nymphs, that fancies a god to pour the waters of every ftream, that places aflemblies of the gods on the fummit of every mountain, that looks for indications certainly prophetic of the future, in the flights of bi:ds, or the appearances of the entrails of animals which are flain. The origin of apologues and fables, is thus referable to that which has been, every where, the period of the infancy of civil wifdom.

All ancient literature is full of the praifes of Pilpay, Loqman, and Afop. The first is faid to have been the author of the most ancient and the best fables in the Sanfcrit literature of India. The fecond was a Perfian, an Ethiopian, or an Arab, whofe fables have been preferved to us, in the language of Arabia. The third was a Phrygian, the flave of a Grecian mafter, whofe chief merit was, perhaps, that of being the first to make known in Greek, fables before his time old in the languages of Perfia and other parts of the Eaft.

This edition of the works of Loqman was executed in the French prefs at Cairo, when the French were lately mafters of Egypt. As an edition diftinct from others, it poffeffes no fignal merit. It exhibits no Notitia Literaria of the work, its prefervation, its fortunes in manufcript, its first printing, and the feveral previous editions through which it may have paffed: It gives no collations of editions and manufcripts, no various readings, no conjectural emendations. It has but little typographical elegance. The French tranflation is executed without any confiderable merit in the refpects of either clofe fidelity to the original, or beauty and propriety of French expreffion.

Yet, the publication deferves notice, as a fpecimen of what the French attempted to do, while they were mafters of Egypt. The idea of inftructing the Arabian Literati in the language of France, by joining a French verfion to a work fo popular in the Eaft, as the Fables of Logman, was far from being ill-conceived. It was very politic employment for the prefs of Cairo, to put it to work upon fuch a thing as this. Happily, however, the bafenefs, and worfe than barbarian villainy, which the French, in Egypt, mingled with their policy, were fuch as to defeat their enterprize in all its parts.

A few uncertain anecdotes of the life of Loqman, are given in the beginning of this small book. The tradition among the Arabians and Perfians, is, that he was an Ethiopian by birth; was brought by the chances of the Slave Trade, from Africa to Judæa; and, being fold to an Hebrew mafter, there pafled his life, as a fhepherd, at the time when he wrote the Fables. The era in which he flourished, is faid to have been, during the reigns of David and Solomon. He is faid, in the Eaft, to have written apologues, parables, and proverbs to the number of 10,000. Some have found plaufible reafons for fuppofing,

that