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ed to the tomb of their ancestors, putably an ex ftent people. The fourth which are always within a small space are a mongrel breed of every size, exof the fea. They are decked in their cept that of the original standard; de belt robes, adorned with plumes and bafed by intermixing with the puny beads, and placed fitting in a deep tribes of the country, and by their fquare pit, parallel with those buried intercourfe with Europeans. betore, with different weapons placed by them, and the fkins of their favourite horfes ftuffed and fupported by flakes. A woman is appointed to attend them, keep the skeletons clean, and new-clothe them annually. Widows black their faces for a year after their husband's decease.

They allow polygamy; but whoever takes more than three wives is reckoned a libertine. Their caziques, or chiefs, are hereditary: they have power of life and death, but every individual is at liberty to choose a new cazique whenever he pleases; but no one is allowed to live out of the protection of fome chief. Eloquence is in high esteem with them. If a cazique wants that talent, he keeps an

orator.

This clofes the hiftory Mr Falkener favoured me with; but I must not quit that gentleman without in. forming you, that he returned to Europe with a fuit of Patagonian cloth, a cup of horn, and a little pot made of Chilian copper, the whole fruits the Spaniards left him after the labours of a thirty-eight years miffion.'

Mr Pennant divides the men inhabiting the country of Patagonia into three different claffes, and obferves a fourth may be added, which is a mix ture of the former. The first is a race of men of the common fize. The fecond exceeds them by a few inches, or perhaps the head. The third is compofed of those whofe height is fo extraordinary as to have occafioned great controverfies; yet they are indif

At the end is a thort paper fent to Mr Pennant from Admiral Byron, after he had perufed the manufcript of the above. M. Bougainville having con fidered it as a proof that the people whom he faw were the fame met with by Mr Byron, that he found English knives in their poffeffion, and which people meafured only from five feet ten inches to fix feet three; the latter afferts, in this paper, that he never gave a knife to any of the Patagoni ans, nor even carried one afhore with him when he faw them. We must obferve, he fays nothing of having measured them, only that he at this inftant believes there is not a man that landed with him, though they were at fome distance from them, but would fwear they took them to be nine feet high; and adds, I do fuppofe many of them were between feven and eight, and strong in proportion.'

Since we extracted this account, we have been informed that the ingenious M. Odham has published a paper, in the Stockholm Gazette, on the fame fubject, in which his ideas agree almoft exactly with thofe of Father Falkener and Mr Pennant. After collecting the various opinions on the Patagonians, he concludes in favour of the reality of the existence of this gigantic people; and fays, the reason why many travellers have miffed feeing them is, that they only came to the fea-coaft at one period of the year, and live the rest of their time in the inland country.

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On Frederic the Great, and my Converfations with Him a little before his death. By Dr Zimmermann, Knight, Body Phyfician, and Counsellor to the King of Great Britain. 8vo *.

HIRTY-three tête-a-têtes be kindnefs in coming to fee me, and for THIRTY-hrer tète-2-test and the difpatch which you have ufed,

Dr Zimmerman. What a feast for this age of reftlefs curiofity, and for a public long accustomed to be fed with anecdotes !

It is unneceffary to dwell on the importance of one of the interlocutory characters. The other is well known as a man of science-His Life of Haller, his Treatife on National Pride, on Solitude, and above all, the multipli ed editions of his medical works, give to Zimmerman all that celebrity which can be conferred by writing, among thofe who are not within this fphere of practice; but a fingular and fplendid teftimony is conferred on him by a dying monarch, who, when given up by all his phyficians, requested his af fitance. He arrived at Potfdam, June 23, 1786, where he remained till the 11th of July; during this time he had thirty-three converfations with the King, on various interefting fubjects; of thefe all that could properly be publifhed is contained in this book. We have just been favoured with a copy of it, and fhall felect, for the entertainment of our readers, a few of the converfations here related.

Dr Zimmerman thus introduces the account of his first interview;

June 24, at eight o'clock in the morning, I found the King feated on an armed-chair, with the back of it towards me he had an old large worn-out hat and feather on his head; he was dreifed in a jacket of blue fattin, tinged brown and yellow before with Spanish fnuff; he was in boots; one of his legs, dreadfully fwelled, was fupported on a ftool. With great eivility the king took off his hat, and, in a gracious tone of voice, thus addreffed me:

K, Sir, I thank you for your

I was not fenfible that I had used much difpatch; but, thought I, the King cannot be ignorant, that the fands and heat of Branden. burgh prevent expedition, and that most of the poft-horfes are lame; 1 therefore made no apo. logy for my fnail-paced progrefs. 2. The Duke of York, Sire, has commiflioned me to give your Majesty this letter.

The King read the letter, and then commenced the following con verfation :

K. I am much obliged to the Duke of York, for having permitted you to come hither.

Z. The Duke of York wishes as heartily as myfelf, that my coming may be ufeful to your Majetty.

K. How does the Duke?
Z. Very well; he is merry, brifk,

and lively.

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K. I love him with the affection a father.

Z. The Duke is fenfible of it.
K. You fee me very ill.

'Z. Your look is the fame as it was when I had the honour of feeing you fifteen years ago: the fame fire, the fame vigour, fparkles in your Ma jefty's eyes.

K. O, I am grown very old, and very fick.

Z. Germany and Europe feem not to be aware that your Majesty is either old or fick.

K. My affairs go on in their u fual train.

Z. Your Majefty rifes at four o'clock in the morning, and thus prolong and double your life.

K. I do not rife, for I never go to bed; in this arm-chair, in which you fee me, I pafs my nights. • Z. Your

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7. Your Majefty wrote to me, that your refpiration has been greatly in peded for these feven months.

K. I am afthmatic, but I have no dropfy; and yet you fee how my legs are fwelled.

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Z. Will your Majefty permit me to look a little nearer at your legs? The valet was now called in to pull off the King's boots. I knelt down and examined the King's legs, which were filled with water up to the thighs,- and faid nothing!

K. I have no dropfy. ⚫Z. Afthmas and fwellings of the legs often go together, Will your Majefty permit me to feel your body?

K. My body is diftended with wind; water there is none.

Z. Your body is diftended but not hard. May I feel your Majefty's pulfe? (The pulfe was full, ftrong, and feverish the King feemed to be greatly oppreffed in his breaft, and coughed inceffantly.) Your pulfe is not weak.

K, I cannot be cured! tell me the truth!

Z. You may be relieved, Sire! K. What do you advife? Z. Nothing immediately. But when your valet has told me the hif tory of your malady, and I have read what your Majefty's phyficians have written upon it, I fhall have the ho nour to give my opinion.

K. Right. My feryant Schoning knows the whole.

The King then took off his hat very condefcendingly, and defired me to come again at three o'clock. June 25, half paft fix. This morning the King did not fay a word about his diforder; he was ferene and goodhumoured, tho' he spit blood at intervals; and entertained me with converfing on English and French literature.

K. Locke and Newton were the greatest thinkers, ftill the French have the best knack at giving a happy turn to a thing.

Z. No doubt, the English lan

guage is eminently fitted for fpeculative philofophy and the higher fcien ces; yet in their parliament one Demofthenes rifes out of the afhes of ano. ther in an uninterrupted feries. Their language is equally capable of the calm dignity of history, and the gayer phrafe of wit and humour.

K. Hume and Robertfon are hif torians of the first rank. I esteem them both.

Z. Gibbon perhaps excels them. All the dignity, all the charms, of hiftoric ftyle, are united in Gibbon ; his periods are melody itfelf, and all his thoughts have nerve and vigour. K. What did Gibbon write?

I now epitomised the history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The King heard me. for a long time without interrup ting me, and feemed highly pleafed. He then turned to our domeftic literature.

K. How goes it with fciences at Hanover?

Z. We have many fhrewd heads at Hanover; they are flint and steel to each other, and fometimes emit a fpark. The Hanoverians owe their progrefs to the inftructions of Got tingen.

K. Gottingen has always been foremost; but no Hanoverian was cver profeffor there.

Z. Weisberg and Meiners are of Hanover,

'K. I know Meiners; he has writ ten a good book on Switzerland.

Z. A very good one, and with much attachment to the country; for which the thirteen cantons attempted to blow his brains out.

After a few more words on Switzerland, Haller, and other men of letters, the King wifhed me a good morning.

June 26th, in the morning. The King was in very good humour, and our converfation began thus:

K. Have you written the plan by which you mean to treat me ?

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. Z. No,

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meadow.

K. I fhould be glad to know the lion for which that tooth was made. • Z. (Smiling) Sire, that lion shall foon be found.

K. But are you acquainted with the effects of that plant from your own experience?

Z. I know it from perpetual experience.

K. Then I will take it. And now, faid the King, in a fe, rene, and at this moment, comic humour, adieu, my dear Sir, I fhall obey all your orders. The valet, M. Schoning, who stood at the door, and had heard our converfation, was all amazement as I came out. Never, faid he, did I know the King on any point of medicine fo, eafy and fo pliant. Never did he, in his

life, ufe a physician with so much civility.

About four o'clock in the afternoon I faw the King again; he was very polite, and entertained me for near an hour and a half with a variety of obfervations, fome of which I may communicate. often? what do you think of him? K. Do you fee the Duke of York

Z. I fee him, Sire, as often as he is in want of me; and perhaps once a week befides. He ufes me with the greatest condefcenfion. I am always at my eafe when I am with him. By his English education he has added humanity to his native dignity: he is a ftranger to that fultan pride of the fmalleft German Princes, who use their phyficians like flaves. He has diffeminated in Hanover all the rights of humanity; in forming ourselves after him, we have acquired a gentleness of manners, of which before we were ig‐ norant. Ariftocratic stiffness, and the infolence of nobility, are vanished; though it must be owned, that his milder method was rendered more ef

fectual, by the blunt example of his bold brother, the young mariner, William. It is much to be wished, that the fons of our king might remain amongst us, to fweep away entirely thofe barbarous remains of half German, half Spanish manners, which still pervade every rank.

K. It always ftruck me, that there was fomething Spanish in the Hanoverian manners, and I am pleased with the Duke for reforming them. He is very much advanced for his age, he has fenfe, and he has knowledge: this is faying much for a prince, for princes, in general, have no merit at all. I often obferved him in trifles, when he could not fufpect that I noticed him; these are the moments to decide on a character; and in thefe 1 always found him as I wished to find him.

'Z. The Duke of York has the

greatest affection for your Majesty,

aad,

and, I am fure, would be glad to facrifice his life for you.

K. I hope he will, fome day or other, make a good general.'

The King now promifed me to take, early in the morning, the lion's tooth.

In an Appendix, the Doctor gives an account of a dangerous operation the King underwent in 1771, at Ber

I

lin, and of the converfations which then paffed between them, which having been mifreprefented in feveral publications, are now, for the first time, given to the public in a genuine manner.

We are informed that an English tranflation of this work is preparing for prefs.

Obfervations made in a Tour in Swifferland, in 1786.
By Monf. de Lazowski*.

ALWAYS find in the apparent profperity of a country, fomething to confirm the truth, That general profperity follows, the circumftances being the fame, nearly the degree of liberty. Alface is better than Lorraine, and Bafle is better than Alface. It is not by the number of country houfes, which ought to be frequent, and which are fo, in the environs of a rich city, in which the inhabitants have the fimple and republican manners, by which I judge of the degree of its profperity. That fign often deceives in a monarchy; it proves luxury, and a great inequality of fortunes; but the strength and the profperity of nations can only exift in the eafe of the people and the culture of their lands. It is, therefore, by other figns that I have been able to examine. It is in the apparent riches of the farm-houses, it is in their ornaments, which prove that the citizen is at his eafe, and that the farm is his retreat and his pleafure; a fact which has been confirmed at Bafle. It is the multitude of houfes of every kind which tells me that the number of citizens which can allow themselves the pleasure of the country, was great, and that the competition for becoming proprietors was great; a fact which carries with it the idea of a mafs of capitals employed.

ferland: I was not there long enough to multiply obfervations; and as I find fo much in books concerning it, I have the lefs to minute, writing as I do only for myfelf; but as I have obferved, perhaps, fome detached facts, which have relation to fome leading inqui ries, I fhall limit myself to them.

At Basle, as in the other Swiss republics, there are fumptuary laws, and they are kept, like other laws, exactly to the letter; but they are null, becaufe luxury employs itself upon objects which the laws have not foreseen, and could not forefee. I have, therefore, been more confirmed in the opinion, which I had formed in England, that manners were the only effective laws againft luxury; and it would ftill remain a fubfidiary question to know, if luxury is not the vehicle of commerce in whatever states are fupported in a great meafure by their manufactures.

ift, Since luxury is relative to the circumftances of the times, above all to the advancement of the age, of circulation, of the fituation, and the condition of the neighbouring nations; it is evident, that the laws ought to vary in refpect to all thefe circumftances; for, that which was luxury two ages paft, is but mediocrity at prefent; and is it not a thing contrary to the fpirit of a popular government to have a principle *Europ. Mag.

Much has been written on Swif

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