"What! you have been audacious enough to calculate the treasures of Flora! your great Legiflator has exhibited no more than between feven and eight thousand fpecies of plants; it is afferted that the famous Sherard poffeffed double that number, and a modern calculator imagined he had rated the contents of the vegetable kingdom as high as they can be fupposed to amount to, when he reckoned twenty thousand fpecies. And yet I can, myself, exhibit to you 25,000 species, and dare venture to affirm, that there exifts, at least, four or five times that number upon the surface of the earth; for can I flatter myself, that I have already collected the fourth or fifth part of the fpecies, which the globe contains? There remain, yet unknown to us, the vegetable treasures contained in the fouthern regions, in the inward parts of the vaft empire of China and Afiatic Tartary, in Japan, Formofa, in the Philippine Islands, and thousands of ifles scattered through the Pacifick Ocean, in Cochinchina, the kingdoms of Siam and Sumatra, in Mediterranean India, in the three Arabias, in the interior of Africa, in California, the east continent of America, and the great chain of the Cordillera los Andes, in comparison with which our Alps and Pyrenees are only mole-hills,'

If it be objected to our traveller's calculation, that the fame plants are found in fimilar climates, and that, in confequence of the uniformity that reigns in Nature, the fame vegetable productions may grow in different parts of the world, he anfwers, by granting, that this is true with refpect to common plants, which are not numerous; but he obferves, that the vegetable productions of Brafil refemble, in nothing, those of the river de la Plata, nor those of the latter the productions of the Straits of Magellan,-that Taiti has a botany of its own, that there is no comparison to be formed between the Moluccas and thofe of Java, and that the difference between the vegetable productions of the Ifles of France, Bourbon, and Madagascar furpafs credibility.

M. COMMERSON, in the fame letter, gives an interesting account of the inhabitants of Madagascar, "Who (says he) are indolent and yet fagacious; gentle and yet terrible; who always begin by receiving us kindly, and generally end by cutting our throats.' He lays all the barbarity, that has been attributed to this people, at the door of the Europeans, who by their exceffes and extortions have forced thefe gentle and hofpitable iflanders to become cruel and vindictive.

From Madagascar our botanift fet out for the Isle of Bourbon. The chiefs of the French colony received him with great politeness, and were very defirous that he should acquaint the Europeans with the Natural History and advantages of

their island. The volcano, which burns in the center of that country, prefented to our Naturalift objects of the moft curious and marvellous kind. It is at Bourbon, fays be, as alfo in the Moluccas and the Philippine Iflands, that Nature has fixed her true pyrotechnical furnaces and laboratories. I have collected aftonishing observations on these phenomena, of which the Public may expect a large quarto volume, after I have given the Academy the firft-fruits of my labours.' Monf. Poivre fent to the Duke de Rochfoucault a large quantity of the principal materials contained in this volcano, and these, together with the manufcripts of M. COMMERSON, who had gone great lengths in this branch of natural knowledge, will probably open new fcenes and new treasures in the fcience of Mineralogy.

From Bourbon M. COMMERSON returned to the Ile of France, where, exhaufted with the fatigues of study, and the effects of intemperate voluptuoufness, he funk under the burden, and died, on the 13th of March, 1773. His knowledge was extenfive, his memory prodigious, his converfation agreeable, and his expreffions full of fire and energy. He was ardent, impetuous, violent, and exceffive in every thing, but eating and drinking; M. de la Lande, his friend and panegyrift, does not difguife his defects, but he melts fome of them down into small infirmities, converts others into commendable qualities, and affociates with them all, virtues, that, those who understand moral painting, will pronounce, at least, fingularly placed, and in ftrange company.

M. COMMERSON left by will to the king's cabinet all his botanical collections, which, before he undertook his voyage round the world, amounted to above 200 volumes in folio. The collection made during his voyage, together with his papers and herbal, were brought to Paris, in the year 1774, in thirty-two cafes, which contain an ineftimable treafure of unknown materials for Natural Hiftory, and are deposited in the king's garden, under the care of Meffrs. Juffieu, D'Aubenton, and Thouin, who are employed in examining and arranging them.

M. DE LA LANDE publifhed, at the end of the Paris edition of the voyage of Meffrs. Banks and Solander, the account M. COMMERSON gave of a nation of dwarfs, in the island of Madagascar, that inhabit the high mountains in the interior parts of that country. This race, which feems to be the intermediate, and almoft imperceptible link, that connects the human fpecies with quadrupeds, in the great chain or fcale of beings, was obferved and contemplated by M. Commerfon, though their existence has been called in question, and the fact denied

by others, who have been in the ifland of Madagascar. This fingular race is called Kimoffe, or Quimoffe, in the language of the country. The men are about three feet and a half high, paler than the other blacks, with arms fo long, that they can reach below their knees, without bending their bodies, and with intellectual faculties, not inferior to thofe of the other inhabitants of the island.

If the curious Reader is defirous of a more circumftantial account of M. Commerfon, and his voyage, he will find it by perufing the whole of M. de la Lande's eulogy, of which we have here given only the principal and moft interefting con tents. The eulogy is inferted in the Abbé Rozier's periodical publication, entitled Obfervations fur la Physique, fur l'Hiftoire Naturelle, &c.

CORRESPONDENCE.

R. T. (in his letter to the Reviewers) feems, in fome refpects, to have miftaken the main scope of the Effai fur l'Art Dramatique *.-As to the account of that work, in a publication which it might be deemed invidious in us to name, but to which our correspondent refers, it is-fomething, and nothing. -The writer of that criticism has not fairly stated fome of the French Author's arguments; and he has over-looked the great purpofe of the work, which is to place the Dramas of Diderot, and his imitators, above Molière and Corneille.

The Frenchman has, in our opinion, done great justice to Shakespeare (to whom our Correfpondent is fo laudably partial), and he has fpoken handsomely of English literature, as well as justly of his countrymen, Moliere, Corneille, and Racine. He has made indeed, as moft French writers do, fome mistakes about us; and perhaps he has refined too much in regard to his favourite object la Drame. He praises Foote (not being, we fuppofe, intimately conversant in his works) for the very practice which he properly reprehends in Moliere, perfonal fatire. As to la Drame, we think there is no beauty in it, which might not be introduced into legitimate comedy, or which has not been actually exhibited on our ftage, in many plays of Shakefpeare's age, and even fince.-Sentiments PROCEEDING FROM CHARACTER, furely ought not to be excluded comedy, and even reprobated and ridiculed, as it hath lately been. Miferable writers may attempt the SERIOUS, as well as the COMIC. In fuch cafes, both are bad; one fupifies, the other difgufts;

* See our laft Appendix, p. 634. Art. Du Theatre, Sc.

but

but each in its place is excellent. Nay, thofe have ever been
esteemed the best comedies, that contain a due proportion of
interest and humour. An horse-laugh of three hours is impof-
fible; and whoever attempts it, produces, like Goldsmith, a
farce of five acts.

Our Correfpondent is right in his obfervation, that the
Frenchman feems to be as unjuft in his cenfure of the ancients,
as he is candid in relation to the moderns; and we take this
opportunity of remarking, farther, that his ftrictures on Ho-
RACE and ARISTOTLE are fuperficial as French cream; and
that his giving the Poetique of Diderot (though it has great
merit) the preference to BOTH, is ridiculous.-But La Drame
is his idol. One inftance may ferve to fhew its probability of
fuccefs in this country: Le Philofophe fans le Sçavoir was re-
ceived with the greatest applause at Paris. Obrien tranflated it.
It was acted at Drury Lane, and damned. It wanted force;
and what was meant for fimple nature, was very fimple in-
deed!--For the rest, we refer to the account of Du Theatre,
in our last Appendix.

ERRATA, &c. in this VOLUM E.

P. 5, 1. 7, for Sons, r. Suns.

-

-

94, par. 4, for Gibbons, r. Conder.

103, 1. 7 from the bottom, after 1761, add, together with the
fragments given in our late Reviews.'

168, 1. ult. ftrike out late.

204, 1. 8, for exceptions, r. expreffions.

325 (in part of the impreffion) 1. 7, for this is one of Dr. Smith's
Schemes, x. this is part of Dr. Smith's scheme.

INDEX

INDEX

To the REMARKABLE PASSAGES in this

Volume.

N. B. To find any particular Book, or Pamphlet, see the
Table of Contents, prefixed to the Volume.