tions which have been given by others; and in this refpect its fuperiority to fome other compilements of the fame fort must be acknowledged. The Work contains a concife account of the feveral provinces; but the Editor, being merely a collector, cannot be supposed to enter into his fubject with the spirit and life of an original hiftorian.

The first book is introductory to the hiftory of each province: it briefly treats of the origin of the British and French fettlements; and proceeds to take notice of encroachments, treaties, infractions of treaties, &c. until the time of the last war, and the definitive treaty of peace in which that war terminated, in the year 1763: by which it is well known, confiderable territories were ceded to the British government.

The account of the ftate of the Indians at the time of our firft discoveries and fettlements in this country, is agreeably written, and fummed up in the following terms:

Thefe barbarous Indians were a lively image of human nature, without the improvements of art and induftry; for though they had inhabited the country many ages, they were ftill uncultivated when the Europeans arrived there.-It is furprizing that in fuch a length of time, no active fpirit fhould rise up among them to introduce and promote a greater degree of knowledge and civilization.-They lived in a country full of iron and copper mines, yet were never owners of fo much as a knife until the English came there, and their name for an Englishman was a knife man; nor were they acquainted with the use of falt until the English brought it among them.-Nature had given them a tolerable complexion, but they spoiled it by daubing themselves with oils and juices which made them tawny. A bow and an arrow headed with the bone of fish, were all their weapons; the skin of a beast was their clothing, and the flesh of it their food. Their principal diverfion confifted in extravagant dancings, hoopings, and howlings.-They were swift of foot, and capable of enduring great hardship and fatigue. All their ambition was to be valiant, which chiefly gave a man reputation among them, and this is fill their character."

We agree with our historian in confidering it as fomewhat furprizing that these Indians fhould not have made a farther progress towards the comforts and conveniences of life as to their spoiling their complexions with oils and juices, we cannot so much wonder at it, because we fee fomewhat of the fame kind practised with paints and washes in the most civilized nations. The valour of the Indians is often fpoken of, as in the above paffage, yet that feems hardly reconcileable with what is faid by this and other writers, of their great floth and fupineness; but there are circumstances and occafions that will

rouze the most inactive, and fometimes, when so animated, they become the most fierce and defperate.

The following fhort paffages are extracted from the account here given of the government, climate, produce, &c. of NewEngland, or rather of Maffachuffet's Bay:

The plantations and farms in the old townships near Bofton, are generally become fmall, occafioned by a provincial act of affembly, which divides the real as well as the perfonal estate of inteftates, among all the children or collaterals. The people there are much bigotted to this province law, and frequently die inteftate: but this humour is attended with fome advantages; as where a farm thus becomes fmall, the poffeffor cannot live by it, and is obliged to fell it to the proprietor of fome adjoining farm, and move farther inland, where he can purchase wafte land in great quantities at an easy rate, to the enlargement of the country improvements. Thus in the townships which now compose the county of Worcester, about half a century ago, there were not above two hundred families; whereas, in the valuation in 1742, there were found in that county about three thousand two hundred taxable white male perfons, though the number has been fince diminished by the late wars on that continent.'

-The farmers in New England, by fowing their feed early, the ground being prepared in ridges to throw off the rains and melting fnows, raife winter wheat and rye with good fuccefs; but their great difcouragement has been the blaft. Sir Henry Frankland, feveral years ago, imported from Lisbon the feed of fummer-wheat, which has been lefs fubject to blast than any other; and it ripens about fix weeks from the fowing, in the Maffachuffets colony. It has been generally remarked, that between the first and tenth of July, the honey-dew falling upon the wheat, causes the ruft or blaft, if the following morning is hot and calm; but ordinarily, if the wheat be fown early, it will be fo forward that the grain will not fuffer by it in that time. An idle opinion prevailed among the populace, that fince the execution of the Quakers, wheat has always been blasted; but this folly was equal to that cruelty.

-Land of a tolerable quality, where English grafs, a name given to all imported graffes, has been mowed, they now find by experience will afford after-feed until the fevere frofts wither the grafs. It has been made a queftion, whether the feed of the white clover is not in the earth in all parts of the country? The New England farmers affirm, and there is no doubt of the fact, that if they break up new ground in the woods where no dung has ever been spread and lay it down the next or the fame year, and give it a thin coat of afhes, the white-honey fuckle comes in as thick as if the feed had been

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fown: but some are of opinion, that the plant and the flower differ from the English honey-fuckle.'

The fecond chapter of the fecond book concludes with the following paffage; extracted, we fuppofe, from fome former: writer on New England:

"It has been recently faid, that Great Britain is a country of manufactures without materials; a trading nation without commodities to trade upon; and a maritime power without either naval ftores or materials for ship-building. That it is this fituation, which renders both trade and plantations fo effentially neceflary, for the fupport of Great Britain, as well as agricul ture, whereby as many people are perhaps maintained in Britain, as by the produce of the lands. When the colonies make: fuch commodities as are wanted in the mother-country, of which there are many, they must depend upon her for the vent of fuch products, on which they rely for their daily fubfiitence; and as, Great Britain is the best market in the world for fuch commodities, that makes their dependence their intereft, and intereft rules the world."

Mr. Cotton Mather's account of the inhabitants of Rhode Inland in 1695 is well known to many of our Readers; to fome it may be new and amufing: He aflerts that Rhode Island colony was a colluvies of Antinomians, Familifts, Anabaptists,, Antifabbatarians, Arminians, Socinians, Quakers, Ranters, and every thing but Roman Catholics, and true Chriftians; bona terra, mala gens.' He fhould have added, fome Brownifts, Independents, and Congregationalists, but not formed into focieties. Afterwards there was a meeting-houfe or two upon the Hland, which gave hopes of a farther reformation.'

In the hiftory of New York fome defcription is naturally given, from different writers, of the Indians generally known to us under the denomination of the Five Nations, by the French called Iroquois; of whom among other particulars, the following paffage is taken from Colden;

There is one custom their men conftantly obferve, which I must not forget to mention: that if they be fent with any melfage, though it demand the greatest dispatch, or though they bring intelligence of any imminent danger, they never tell it at the first approach; but fit down for a minute or two, at least, in filence, to recollect themselves before they speak; that they may not fhew any degree of fear or fürprize by an indecent expreffion. Every fudden repartee, in a public treaty, leaves with them an impreffion of a light inconfiderate mind: but in private converfation they use, and are as delighted with, brisk witty answers as we can be. By this they fhew the great difference they place between the converfation of man and man,

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and of nation and nation; in which, and a thoufand other things, they might well be an example to European nations.'

To the credit of this Writer, we muft obferve, that he difcovers nothing of a party-fpirit; for, although he has drawn his materials from different writers he speaks with decency of every denomination of chriftians. The difputes which have arifen in later years between the colonies and the mother-country, do not come under review in this volume, which only brings the hiftory down to the conclufion of the last peace. Hi.

ART. V. A Tour through Sicily and Malta. In a Series of Letters to William Beckford, Efq; of Somerly in Suffolk, from P. Brydone, F. R. S. 8vo. 2 Vols. 12 S. Cadell. 1773.

ITHIN a few years paft the public hath been favoured

WITHIN a few

with various relations of the travels of men of fense and obfervation, which are always acceptable communications: they never fail to prove extremely entertaining, and they will generally be found to be as useful as they are agreeable.

Of this happy caft are the travels of Captain Brydone; whose letters prove him at once the gentleman, the fcholar, and the man of fcience: a rational obferver, a philofophical enquirer, and a polite and pleafing companion. His ftyle is natural and eafy, his language free and flowing (though not always correct *) and his manner cheerful and lively; yet properly varied

to

* There are fome North British or Irish idioms, which are a little offenfive to an English ear for inftance, vol. I. p. 27, so soon as the ftones, thrown into the air, by the explosions of Strombolo, have fallen down,, the light is extinguished:'-an Englishman would have written, as foon as, &c.' The fame fault occurs in many places; as, in p. 41, fo foon as he discovered the ftraits, he repented, &c.' Again, p. 44, fo foon as our fhip entered the current, we were carried along with incredible velocity.' Again, vol. II. p. 73, the lady promised him an interview, fo foon as the court fhould go to Portici,' In vol. I. p. 55. 1. ult. we have, we fhall leave this (inftead of we fall leave this place) as foon as poffible:' this phrafe is elsewhere repeated. In the fame volume are many little flips of grammar, which the Author will, no doubt, correct in the second edition: fuch as, p. 30, It is probable that Strombolo, as well as all the reft of the Lipari iflands, are originally the work of fubterranean fire.' Again, p. 133, the collection of medals, cameos, and intaglios, are very princely: and, p. 194, the whole courfe of thefe rivers, are feen at once,' &c. In p. 137 we have, the church belonging to this convent, were it finished, will be one of the fineft in Europe;" inftead of when finished, or, if finifhed, would be, &c. Turning back to p. 49, we find that the harbour of Meffina is one of the moft commodious and safeft in the world, after fhips have got in.' Certain phrases, current in common converfation, but not allowable

to fuit the feveral fubjects, whether gay or ferious, as they occur in the course of the Traveller's adventures.

The Author, as we collect from one or two very flight intimations, en passant, in certain parts of the Tour, has travelled in the character of governor to fome young man of fashion; whose friends seem to have made a happy choice in the perfon whom they entrusted with fo important a charge as that of guarding the morals and forming the manners of youth, in the moft delicate and difficult fituations and circumftances. The detail of the Tour commences at Naples; from whence the first letter is dated, on the 14th of May, 1770.

We have often heard great encomiums on the air of Naples ; with which our Author's account of that climate does not well correfpond; but we are inclined to credit Mr. B. who can have no motive to conceal or disguise the truth; and who, refiding there in full health himself, could not be under the influence, or capricious power, of Fancy: to whofe dominion the valetudinary traveller is generally fubject.

I am perfuaded, fays Mr. B. that our medical people are under great mistakes with regard to this climate. It is certainly one of the warmest in Italy; but it is as certainly one of the most inconftant; and from what we have obferved, generally difagrees with the greatest

in works prepared for the prefs (befide one which we have noticed above) are frequently met with in thefe Letters. P. 82, Some of the churches are very well, and there are a few tolerable paintings :" fhould a foreigner, in tranflating this work, inform his readers that the churches in Meflina were healthy, his mistake would not be unpardonable. P. 208, It is the mountain I have ever seen that would be the eafieft to measure.' In p. 255, we meet with the coufingerman to the laft Hibernicifm (as we take it to be) viz. I think it evident that the volcano [Etna] did not burn during the age of Homer, otherwise it is not poffible that he would have faid fo much of Sicily, without taking notice of fo great and capital an object: the one in the world that the daring and fublime imagination of Homer would have been the most eager to grafp at.' And here comes another of the fame family: vol. II. p. 53, I fhall fpeak of one, the like of which certainly never did exist on the face of the earth.' We fhall mention but one other faux pas of this kind, whose birth, parentage, and country, we are more at a lofs to guess at, viz are determined to put no more confidence in that element [the fea] happy beyond meafure to find ourselves without reach of it,' &c.

We

We have noticed these minutia, not with a view to cavil at the little escapes of a pen which feems happily adapted to the ease and fimplicity of epiftolary writing, but merely to remind Mr. B. that although, in private letters, never intended for the public eye, correctneis is not required, yet, with refpect to whatever is addreffed to the world, fcarce any excufe can be admitted for debafing the language in which the addrefs is conveyed.

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