they did it from the fame principle that would have compelled us to do it, they did it from neceffity.

• Individual infufficiency united men in fociety. Society fhewed the neceffity of making known the wants of individuals, and of pointing out fuch means of affiftance as might either relieve or remove them. Hence a primitive language, and from the formation of that language, the neceffity of transmitting it from age to age, and of preferving it entire, notwithstanding all popular feparations and migrations. Hence the invention and prefervation of the arts, laws, &c. and hence their perfection, because the fum of human wants accumulating with the difcovery of the means of gratifying them, every means made use of for that purpose, became at once the fource of new wants and of new means.

We are not to fuppofe, nevertheless, that these means were fo invariably neceflary, that man had neither power to chufe, nor to deceive himself in the choice; or that his conduct in this point was the immutable effect of neceffity: that would be reasoning upon falfe and delufive principles. Such are the riches of Nature that he always prefents to man a multitude of means for his fubfiftence, and thus it is that the employs his understanding and fagacity in difcovering her laws and operations. Hence the infinite variety of human induftry: yet every means made ufe of in the compass of that variety was first drawn from Nature, and when fome were preferred to others, the motives were not eafy to be accounted for. The different means employed by each people exhibits the difference of their genius and fituation, and empowers us to judge of the success that must have attended their application. This variety was the fource of that perfection which has been advancing from age to age, fometimes availing itself of the means already known and employed, and fometimes of the difcovery of more fruitful expedients.

The tranfmiffion from age to age of thefe accumulated difBoveries must have been attended with great embarrassments; but a divifion of the arts, and different clafles of profeffions, took place and removed this. At the fame time all inventions were exercifed and preferved by real or artificial wants on one hand, and by the choice that each individual made of fome occupa tion on the other.

Thus every art that administered to the primary wants of fociety, as language, agriculture, &c. ftill retains both what it has been, and what it is become by human industry. Its firft elements ftill remain entire and the records relating to it are to us only fo many monumental tokens of the times when it re..ceived any capital improvement.

On following these principles we are more and more convinced that in labouring to day open antiquity by means of antique remains alone, we do nothing more than remove a map of incumbrances that will fucceffively fall back upon us: whereas, by confidering them only as fo many proofs of the wants of human nature, and of the means whereby those wants were fupplied, thefe principles, these primitive and neceffary facts will challenge the feveral monuments of antiquity refpectively, and each will fall into its proper place. The number, or rather to say, the immenfity of thefe, far from being, as in the fyftems where they have already appeared, an obitacle 40 their re-union, will rather promote it. They will concur in compleating the edifice by filling up the void spaces. Illufions and obfcurity follow all artificial arrangements. Uncertainty and contradictions attend. every thing that is fabricated by the hand of man. Enquire of Nature; her anfwers are precile and determinate. The fame inherent light that illuftrates every natural object around us, extends itself without interruption to the monuments of remotest ages.

Nature, the fame for ever, is that eternal clue which leads us in the right and easy path wherein we propofe to conduct our Readers. They will fee all human notices, all monumental remains mutually explain and clafs themselves, while the nature of every object determines its proper place by its relations and wants; and the more preffing those wants are, the more confpicuous the object will be found.

When we have taken good obfervation of man himself, phis neceffities, and of the means with which Nature has furnifhed him to fupply them, it is impoffible to confider thofe effential words, which we still find fubfifting in all languages, as the effect of a merely fortuitous choice. It is evident that they are the precife paintings of determinate objects, the neceffary effect of the natural wants of man, and of the natural organs of the human voice.

'Univerfal grammar is no longer confidered as the eventual refult of the cultoms or humours of different nations. It appears to be infeparably connected with the neceffity of being properly understood, of defcribing correctly and circumftantially the object in view. Of courfe it stands upon the basis of antiquity, unfhaken by caprice, and evermore the fame.

It is equally evident that the art of afcertaining the reproduction of fubftances, an art which diftinguishes man from other beings almost as effentially as language itfelf, and all the other arts which have their origin and fource in him, are the neceffary production of our wants, and of the refources wherewith fucceffive obfervation of the properties of different animals has furnished us.

It is by this route, conftantly followed from the first ages to the present time, that history acquires a degree of certainty which neither the dignity nor unanimity of hiftorians could give it. It is connected through all its parts by comparative circumstances, not only analogous but identical, existing through all times, and among all people. By this means we reduce to indifputable principles all that antiquity has tranfmitted to us concerning the population of the earth, and respecting the profperity, the revolutions, and the fall of empires. By this means hiftorical facts, eftablished or fet afide by these demonftrative principles, feparate themselves from fables, and in the various mythology of different nations, exhibit only circumftances that announce the fame wants, the fame arts, without any other alteration than fuch as might be occafioned by local influences and the effects of different climates. All exiftence, in short, prefents only fo many different rays fhooting from the fame centre, and inclofed in one circle which connects the whole, arranges the whole, and fhews not only the relations of things, but their origin and causes.

The work we now announce to the Public will ferve as a key to all ages, and to all human intelligence. It will demonftrate that the remoteft, the middle and the present eras are only infeparable parts of each other, and that they form but one entire whole.'

We have now laid before our Readers the general principles on which the Author proceeds. The plan of his work, and the fpecimens he has given, we shall attend to hereafter.

[To be continued.]

ART. IX.

น.

Les Saijons, Poëme.-The Seafons, a Poem. 8vo. Amfterdam. 1773

WE

E think it incumbent upon us to acquaint our Readers, and we take pleasure in doing it, that this is the fifth edition of this excellent poem. The ingenious Author has taken great pains to correct and improve it, by emendations throughout; by adding feveral new lines, and by leaving out many more. He has likewife added a few notes, one of which, upon gardens, deferves particular notice he compares the English and French taste in gardening, and gives the preference to that of the English, upon which he beftows the highest commendations.

The first perfon, he obferves, who introduced fymmetry into gardens was an architect, who, for want of knowing the limits of his art, was defirous of extending them too far.-Architecture, fays he, of all the fine arts, is that which gives least pleasure to the fenfes, and makes the weakest impreflion upon the mind.. Si vous lui étem la grandeur & l'utilité, elle ne vous dit rien.

The theory of gardens, continues he, has been perfected by the English; they knew, wonderfully well, the effects of mountains,

rocks,

rocks, forefts, groves, torrents, rivers, rivulets, cafcades, vallies, &c.; and it is by contrasting, combining, mixing, and feparating thefe different forms of Nature, that their gardens make correfpondent impreffions upon the mind, and inspire it with correspondent fentiments.

In the most beautiful gardens in France, the principal effe& produced upon the mind of the fpectator is aftonishment, while the Englifh gardens fill the foul with a variety of ideas and fentiments.-The French gardens, with their angles and their circles, feem defigned for geometricians to sport and amuse themselvesin; while the Engglish gardens feem intended for poets, and philofophers endowed with fenfibility.-The plan of our gardens is impreffed at once upon the memory; but the English gardens infpire us with a defire of ftudying them. The English gardens promife us ufeful productions of different kinds; they are the luxury of a wife and public-fpirited people while ours only fhew the power of Art over Nature, the riches of the poffeffor, and a tafte which facrifices productions that are ufeful to mankind to arbitrary forms, and barren ornaments.

There are, undoubtedly, inftances in England of bad tafte in gar dening; but, in general, the fyftem of their gardens is that of an ingenious people, who ftudy Nature, and are fond of her.

We have only to add, that, in the profe-pieces which are fubjoined to this poem, there are fix new oriental fables; the titles of which are-L'Esprit des differens Etats; Les Lumieres; Le Befoin d'aimer; La Vifite; Le Danger et l'Esperance.

Those who have been converfant with our late Appendixes, will remember that we gave a very ample account of the first edition of this excellent poem, in the Appendix to our 41ft volume; with a tranflation of a paffage, in which the Author admirably defcribes the effect produced by a fine morning in the spring: in which tranflation we endeavoured to render fome degree of justice to the genius and spirit of the original; and if our friends are not flatterers, we were not wholly unfuccefsful.-The Author of Les Saisons, is, if we mistake not, the Marquis de Lambert.

ART. X.

Recherches fur les Modifications, e-Enquiries into the different Modifications of the Atmosphere; containing a critical History of the Barometer and Thermometer, &c. By J. A. De Luc, Citizen of Geneva, &c. 2 Vols. 4to. with Figures.

[Continued from the Appendix to our last Volume, page 576.]

E return with pleasure to the confideration of this ingenious experimental Enquiry, from which we have already extracted fome of the more material particulars, relating to the history of the barometer, contained in the two first chapters of the work. The Author's hiftorical defcription of that inftrument is followed by an enquiry into the cause of the light which is obferved in the upper part of the tube, on caufing the mercury to vibrate in it; and which M. De Luc takes more pains than perhaps are neceffary to prove to be an electrical APP. Rev. Vol. xlix.

pheno

R

phenomenon. In the next chapter he gives his readers a concife but perfpicuous and inftructive hiftory and difcuffion of the different hypothefes which have been invented to account for and explain the motions of the mercury in the barometer, as correfponding with the changes in the atmosphere; particularly the hypothefes of Wallis, Halley, Leibnitz, Mairan, Bernouilli, Mufichenbroeck, and feveral other philofophers of the laft and prefent century. He fhews the infufficiency of thefe theories to account for the phenomena, and proposes his own; in which he supposes that the changes obferved in the weight of the atmosphere are principally produced by the prefence or abfence of vapours floating in it.

According to M. De Luc's theory, a compound of air and vapours is fpecifically lighter than an equal bulk of pure or dry air. His reafonings on this fubject, are accordingly founded on this poftulatum, or principle; that vapours diminish the specific gravity of the air, or, to use nearly his own words, that the introduction of vapours into the air diminishes the fpecific, and, confequently the abfolute, gravity of thofe columns of the atmosphere into which they are received, and which, notwithstanding this admixture, remain of an equal height with the adjoining columns which confift of pure or dry air. The Auhor here only briefly indicates the principles of this new theory; but he afterwards enlarges upon it, and endeavours to fhew that it is confonant to experience, and well adapted to explain, with the greatest facility, the principal phenomena of the barometer, as connected with, or produced by, the varying density and weight of the atmosphere.

In the following chapter M. De Luc enters into an historical and critical difcuffion of the various attempts which have been ade, at different times, to apply the motion of the mercury in the barometer to the meafuring of acceffible heights: beginning with the firft trials of the celebrated Pafcal and Defcartes, who originally fuggefted the idea of applying that inftrument to this purpose; and concluding with the more accurate experiments made by M. Bouger and the other French academicians in Peru. In the courfe of this examen, M. De Luc fhews the difagreement obfervable between the principles, rules, or for mula given by the different enquirers into this fubject; and finds fufficient reason to attribute these differences, in part, to the imperfection of their inftruments, and partly to the fmall. number of good obfervations.

The abundance and variety of matter contained in these two volumes, and the very complicated nature of fome of the Author's enquiries, particularly those relating to the measuring of heights by the barometer, prevent us from attempting a regular or circumstantial analysis of this performance. Indeed the work