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ART. XX.

Saggio full Educazione dè Principi, &c.-An Effay concerning the Education of Princes. By Sig. ANTHONY PLANELLI, Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerufalem: With this Motto: Ita nati eftis, ut bona malaque veftra ad Rempublicam pertineant. Tacit. 8vo. Naples. 1779.

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HIS work, which difcovers an extenfive knowledge of human nature, and a well-directed zeal for public felicity, ia divided into fourteen chapters. In the first, the Author points out three kinds of education, which he diftinguishes by the epithets of natural, civil, and political. The two first are common to all men, the third ought to be adapted to the rank and offices which different perfons are defigned to fill in fociety. It is of this latter that our Author treats. To fhew, therefore, what fort of education a prince ought to receive in his political character, as a perfon defigned to hold the helm of government, he confiders, in his fecond chapter, the effential duties of a prince, with the branches of knowledge and virtue that ought more efpecially to form his understanding, and take the lead (if we may ufe that expreffion) in his heart. "It is not, fays he, by "the study of the Greek and Latin authors, as fome fcholaftic "pedants will have it, that the great and important art of government is to be learned, but by a careful study of man in general, and a ftrict examination, in particular, of the nature and genius of the state and people that are to be "governed." In good time. But are the Greek and Latin authors of no use in facilitating the ftudy of man, and the knowledge of the various fprings that actuate and fet in motion that mifcellaneous being, commonly called Human Nature? If hiftory (however fallacious when confidered as exhibiting a finished picture, a full length of MAN) be nevertheless a faithful mirror of human nature in many of its characteristics, and an inftructive reprefentation of thofe that more efpecially concern a prince; and if Grecian and Roman hiftory are filled with thofe active and tumultuous fcenes, which, arifing from the extremes of licentioufnefs, anarchy, and defpotifm, have occafioned alternately bold and artful exertions of all the virtues, vices, paffions, capacities, and refources of the human mind, we do not fee why the Greek and Latin authors should be banished from the library of a prince,-if he is to have any library at all. If books are to be entirely difcarded, the study of man will be long and laborious to every individual, and totally inacceffible to a prince, who can only look at the world through the key-hole of his cabinet, or through the very fal

le reprefentations, which are given of mankind in general, Ly the few individuals that furround him. If our Author's objection

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objection be founded on the time that a prince must employ in the study of the dead languages,—he ought to have faid fo:and, indeed, we acknowledge, that in good tranflations (if fuch were to be found) of Thucydides, Xenophon, Livy, Salluft, Polybius, and Tacitus, a prince may acquire the fame measure of useful knowledge that is to obtained from the originals the difference here is only a matter of tafte. However, we have a ftrong (perhaps, it may be a whimsical) notion, that tafte, good tafte, is a friend to humanity, and, therefore, by no means, a matter of indifference in the education of a prince. Let Sig. PLANELLI reflect for a moment, why the ftudy of the ancient Greek and Latin authors was called ftudia humanitatis, and its object, humaniores literæ.

For the reft, the notions of Sig. PLANELLI feem accurate and judicious, with refpect to the general tenor of political education. When he defines political fcience, the art of influencing the actions of a multitude of perfons united in fociety, in Such a manner as to make them concur in promoting the public good, he defines it well. This art, according to him, supposes an acquaintance with the intellectual conftitution of man. The prince (and every able statesman) must be a logician, a moralist, a metaphyfician, fays our Author; and if he fays right, the fubjects of fome monarchies are furely to be pitied. But the knowledge of the capacities, paffions, and wants of men would, in his opinion, be of no use; nay, it would be even dangerous to a prince, if it were not accompanied with the knowledge of the local circumftances of the country which he is to govern: thefe circumftances are the five following,-the fundamental conftitution, or form of its government-its civil laws-the qualities and nature of the foil-the national character of its inhabitants—the forms of government alfo, and forces of neighbouring states, and of those nations from whence a country has any thing to hope or fear, or with whom it is its intereft to be in any way connected. Thefe branches of knowledge will enable a prince to fulfil his destination, and to promote the true felicity of his country.

It is not, however, only the duty of a prince to promote the happiness of his country, by wife arrangements, that tend to internal order, peace, union, and opulence; he is, moreover, called to fecure a country, thus happily governed from within, against all danger, violence, and calamity from without. He muft defend his country, as well as govern it; accordingly, our Author enlarges on this part of the duty of a prince, and difcuffes, among other things, the nice queftion, Whether a fovereign fhould himself march at the head of his armies, or give the command of them to his generals? He decides in

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favour

favour of the former, againft fome writers of note; and maintains, that a war will be fooner terminated, and in a manner more advantageous for a people, when the fovereign commands his armies in perfon.

Our Author confiders all branches of knowledge, except thofe already mentioned, not only as prejudicial, but even of the most pernicious confequence both to a prince and the state, at the heal of which he is placed. The demonftration of this paradox (for fuch at leaft the violence of Signor Planelli's expreffion renders it) is the fubject of the third Chapter; in which this Author, though learned himself, exerts all his power of argument and perfuafion to banish learning from the throne, or rather, ought we to fay, to prevent its making its way th ther. We think that this exclufion of learning from Royalty is fufceptible of restrictions and modifications, to which our Author has not given a proper degree of attention, and which refult from the natural character, genius, and capacity of a prince, as well as from the conftitution of the government over which he prefides. We fhould not like to fee a monarch writing commentaries on Terence or Aristophanes, or making bad or middling poems himself; but we should rather be edified than offended, if we met with annotations of a royal pen on certain paffages of Livy, Tacitus, or the Commentaries of Cæsar.—Eft modus in rebus.

After having finifhed his plan of education for the head, our Author proceeds to that part of his plan that relates to the heart. He points out the manner in which a wife governor may rectify the irregular propenfities, improve the good difpofitions of his royal pupil, and form in his mind that love of his fubjects, and that spirit of active application to business, that are the two effential conftituents of the character of a good prince. This is the fubject of the fourth Chapter; and in the fifth and following Chapters he fhews, that from these two qualities all other princely virtues naturally flow. His illuftrations of this plan of royal or princely education discover a confiderable fund of knowledge, and more efpecially an intimate acquaintance with the hiftory and interefts of the European ftates.

ART. XXI.

Fai fur la Mufique Ancienne et Moderne.-An Effay on Ancient and Modern Mufic. In Four Volumes, 4to. (containing 1681 Pages.) With Cuts. Paris. 1780.

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HIS is the work of a scholar, a performer, a composer, and a man of exquifite tafte. It is the refult of thirty

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years reading, as the Author tells us, and of the extracts made from fome thousands of volumes on the subject of mufic, accompanied with his own reflections on the nature, power, and branches of that charming art. It was originally defigned to occupy a place in another work, by the fame hand, intitled, A Voyage through Switzerland and Italy; but its bulk increasing beyond expectation, required its being published apart.

The Introduction contains an interefting inquiry concerning the mufic of the ancients. Of the aftonishing effects of that mufic accounts have been given, which, if genuine, our Author is rather difpofed to attribute to the extreme fenfibility of the Greeks and Afiatics, than to the tranfcendent excellence of their art, or the extraordinary merit of their performers. A warm climate, lively paffions, a keen tafle for pleasure, fineness of organs, and above all, perhaps, the cuftom of joining perpetually with mufic the charms of poetry, all these are circumftances which account more or lefs for the extraordinary effects of mufic in ancient times. Plato maintained, that the inmoft feelings and thoughts of the mind might be diftinctly represented and expreffed by different notes of the lyre: our Author proves this to be impoffible; he expofes alfo, with learning and judgment, the ignorance of the Athenian fage, with refpect to this branch of the fine arts; and though he acknowledges, that the ancients cultivated mufic with zeal and affiduity, that they looked upon it as an object of great importance in the education of their children, who were taught to fing before they were taught to read, and that fome of their greatest men made mufic a serious object of ftudy; yet he is perfuaded, that the ancients made very little progrefs in the fcience of found; and he appears to us to have proved this point with a high degree of plaufibility, if not with irrefragable evidence. That the Greeks had the art of painting founds, or writing mufic, is certain; but what can be more fabulous than Ariftotle's story of the horfes of the Sybarites, throwing their riders, by dancing to the flutes of the Crotoniates, who had ufed that ftratagem to conquer their enemies, as they knew the education of these animals, and how much they were affected by the harmony and melody of founds?

This idle ftory, which Athenæus took from a book of Ariftotle +, long fince loft, is adopted by Pliny; and another Roman author of high note tells one, ftill more ridiculous, of

M. DE LABORDE, who comes indeed fomewhat late after Dr. BURNEY, and other able writers on this fubject, but not too late to be read with pleasure and inftruction by the lovers of this fine art. This book treated of the republic of Lybaris, Varro de Re Ruftica.

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certain floating islands in Lydia, which first danced into a circle at the found of a flute, and afterwards came gently together, and formed a line along the borders of the lake.

M. DE LABORDE's Work is, divided into fix Books. The firft treats of mufic in general, its divifion, its antiquity, its origin, the ufes to which it was firft applied, the ftate of that art among the Jews, Chaldeans, and other Oriental nations, as alfo among the Egyptians, Grecians, Romans, and Italians. It also treats of the dances, geftures, and the public plays of the ancients, &c. We find, moreover, in this first Book a compendious hiftory of mufic, from the Gauls down to the prefent time, an account of the origin and progress of that art among the Chinefe, the Hungarians, the Perfians, Turks and Arabians. The details here are learned, entertaining, and furnish a great variety of agreeable inftruction. The Author has made confiderable ufe of Father Amiot's Memoir concerning the Chinese music *, and of the excellent Memoirs of M. Burette and the Abbé Rouffier, concerning the music of the ancients. At the conclufion of this firft Book he has placed fome precious remains of antiquity relative to the fubject of his Work, as, 1ft, The only Fragments of Grecian mufic that are known, with a Tranflation by M. Burette ;-they confist of three Hymns; one to Calliope, another to Apollo, and a third to Nemefis (fet to Mufic, in four Parts, of which the Greek found or tune makes the treble), and the first eight verses of the first Pythic Ode of Pindar. 2dly, A Table of the Notes of the Grecian Mufic, vocal and inftrumental, compared with the Notes of Modern Mufic. This Table, perfectly well executed, exhibits the 1620 characters which have been preferved by Alypius, and it will certainly be of great ufe in decyphering the pieces of Grecian mufic that may be found in the manufcripts of Herculaneum and Pompeia.

In the fecond Book we meet with a hiftory, accompanied with figures, of the mufical inftruments of the ancients, divided into three claffes; wind-inftruments, pulfatile, and ftringed. His obfervations upon the defects of the harpfichord in particular are learned and ingenious. The fubjects that employ our Author in the remaining part of this book are-the Mufic of the Ruffians-the Opera-the Comic Opera-the Opera (called by the French) Bouffon-the Spiritual Concert-the Fraternity of St. Julien de Menétriers-the Mufic of the Modern Greeks-the Sounding Stones of China--the Mufic of the Siamefe—the Lyric Poetry and Mufic of the Morlachians.

*See in this Appendix the mention made of this treatise, in our extract of the fifth and fixth Volumes of the Memoirs of the Chinese Millionaries.

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