Of all the writings of Mr. Guibert, his éloge of the King of Pruffia, forming a volume of 300 pages, is that to which he has paid the greateft attention. It gave the best opportunity of difplaying his military and political knowledge, and was, to ufe the expreffion of Mr. Toulong on, un héritage qui lui étoit légué. His account of him cannot, however, always be regarded as an éloge; as, for inftance, where he fays, vol. i. p. 164:

Société de ce prince, en tout pitoyable; ne peut être que mal entouré. Son caractère éloigne à la longue tout homine de mérite et furtout homme de caractère. Point de fociété pour les étrangers et furtout pour les miniftres; les princes n'ofent les voir, ne les reç ivent jamais chez eux, crainte de déplaire au roi. Inquifi ion fecrette, pire que celle des dix à Venife: roi maître, maître abfolu, jufqu'au point qu'on ne peut difpofer de fes propriétés fans lui, quand elles font un peu confidérables; il a fouvent gêné un particulier dans le vente de fa mailon, dans la difpofition de fa fille."

Again, he informs us, that a certain Colonel intimately connected with the King, told him, that:

toute l'Europe avoit de fauffes idées fur la caufe des fuccès de ce prince.... Qu'une hiftoire de la dernière guerre écrite par un homme impartial et placé à la fource des événemens, étonneroit bien les militaires étrangers; qu'ils y verroient fouvent l'inverfe de tout ce qu'ils imaginent."

Enfin ce prince étoit perdu, fans la mort de l'impératrice de Ruffie Elifabeth; comptoit réunir toutes fes forces en un point; fe feroit fait tuer; l'avoit dit au colonel Quintus. Portoit toujours du poifon fur lui. Ne fe montroit plus, n'alloit plus à la parade. Impreffion de tant de dé reffe n'eft point effacée de fon efprit.”

After he had been introduced to him, and very graciously received, the traveller does not change his opinion. His first observation is, that the phyfiognomy of the King of Pruffia:

"careffe à droite et ménage à gauche. Cette mobilité existe dans fon efprit, dans fon caractère, dans une infinité de détails de fa conduite: jamais il n'eft le même, jamais on ne fait ce qu'il fera: toujours cependant ces bizarerries, ces inconféquences apparentes ont un principe. On retrouveroit, en l'obfervant de près, la génération des idées qui le font agir dans des fens contraires.... Ne voit la reine que trois ou quatre fois par an, ne lui parle jamais.... Eft jaloux du prince Henri, fon frère, qui n'a jamais fait de fautes. La feule diftinction qu'il lui ait accordée, après les très-grands fervices qu'il a rendus à la guerre, a été une escorte de douze huffards. Le prince Henti ne peut aller à Potzdam que quand il y eft mandé."

The Abbé Baftiani, a Canon of Breflaw, a man of difcernment and in the familiarity of the King of Pruffia, fpoke to Mr. Guibert with confidence concerning the King, his adminiftration, and his private life. The refult was:

"que l'amour du pouvoir et la vanité étoient les paffions dominantes et exclufives de Frédéric. Il ne jouit, difoit l'abbé, il n'eft heureux que par le coup d'œil de l'espace qu'il remplit en Europe et de l'influence qu'il y a fur les affaires. Il fe combloit dans l'idée de ce qu'il étoit en arrivant au trône, et de ce qu'il eft aujourd'hui.

Il médite, il combine fans ceffe les moyens d'y ajouter: l'attente de l'effet d'un reffort qu'il fait jouer eft tout l'intérêt de fa vie. Mufique, beaux arts, littérature, philofophie, amitié, tout cela n'eft pour lui que délaffement, rempliffage ou charlatanerie. L'amitié, il ne l'a jamais connue, et il eft incapable de la fentir. Les hommes, ils ne font rien à fes yeux. S'ils l'amufent, il les careffe; s'ils le fervent il les nourrit. C'est toujours plus par rapport à lui, que par rapport à la chofe, et relativement à l'avenir que relativement au paffé qu'il récompenfe. Ne peut-on plus lui être utile d'aucune manière ? il nég lige ou foule aux pieds.

Le roi de Pruffe n'a point de religion; il n'en a jamais eu; it déclame fans ceffe contre elle. Mais depuis deux ans, difoit l'abbé Baftiani, (c'étoit au mois de Septembre 1773), j'obferve avec furprise qu'il n'eft plus auffi affermi fur l'opinion de l'extinction totale après la mort. Cette idée l'agite; il m'en a parlé quelquefois. C'eft de bonne foi qu'il s'eft élevé à cet égard contre l'auteur du Systême de la Nature..... Ses doutes ne le meneront jamais certainement à fe ré concilier avec la religion qu'il méprife; mais s'ils augmentoient avec fes années, s'ils éveilloient en lui des remords; fi ces remords tourmentoient fa vieilleffe, s'ils rendoient fon agonie douloureuse, je n'en ferois pas étonné, terminoit l'abbé Baftiani."

Ibid.

ART. 49. Mélanges phyfico-mathématiques, ou Recueil de mémoires contenant la defcription de plufieurs machines ou inftrumens nouveaux de physique, d'économie domeftique, &c.; par J. B. Berard, juge au tribunal de Briançon, du jury d'inftruction publique des hautes-Alpes, des fociétés d'agriculture de Paris, Grenoble, Carpentras et Gap. Publiés par ordre du miniftre de l'intérieur. Paris; viii. et 224 pp. in 8vo. with 4 Plates.

This Collection contains the following Memoirs: 1. the defcription d'un nouveau photophore, ou Porte-lumière, according to Plate I.; 2. The defeription d'un nouveau poèle économique, reprefented in Plate II.; 3. The defcription d'une nouvelle ferrure à configne, in Plate III.; 4. The defeription d'un nouveau moulin rape, according to Plate IV.; 5. A Memoir fur la meilleure conftruction d'un manomètre, or an inftrument intended to measure the denfity of the air, and which is not to be confounded either with the barometer which measures the weight of the column of air, or with the thermometer which fhows its temperature; 6. The defcription d'une nouvelle échelle fémographique, which unites the double merit of fimplicity and of fatety; and which Mr. Forfait, then minister of the marine, had adopted in his particular correfpondence; 7. An account of fome objects of palpable mathematics, for the ufe of the blind, fuch as their modes of calculating, of learning geography by means of figures in relief, of their books and mutical characters printed in relief, &c.; laftly, 8. The defcription of a new pocket nocturlab, for the purpose of telling the hour by the ftars, and more perfect than that mentioned by Ozanam, in the third volume of his Récréations mathé matiques, &c. &c.

Ibid.

GERMANY

GERMANY.

ART. 50. Gefchichte der Deutfchen, mit befonderer Rücksicht auf die Preuffifchen Staaten, tabellarisch bearbeitet, von Friedrich Strafs, Prof. am königlichen Cadetten-Corps.-Hiftory of the Germans, particularly with relation to the Pruffian States, prefented in the form of tables, by Fr. Strafs. Berlin. 1802. 8vo.

Thefe tables very much facilitate refearch, and give this elementary book a great degree of utility. Jena ALZ

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The book mentioned by a Correfpondent from Bath came to hand, not laft October, but within the laft fortnight. A small tract of Poetical Argument has alfo been received, and fhall not be overlooked.

We are obliged to Fidelis for his hint, and affure him that he may depend upon our vigilance. We truft, that we are not apt to be remifs concerning objects that are important.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

The projected work of Meffrs. D. and S. Lyfons, on Great Britain, will be arranged alphabetically, beginning with the Counties of England. The three firft Counties will probably be ready for publication by February next. It is to be in quarto, and probably will be entitled Britannia,

The Rev. E. Davies's Book on the Origin of Language, Writing, and Science, is in the prefs. It is much patronized, and is expected to be a work of much refearch and ability.

An edition of the Letters and Writings of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, which will extend to five volumes, octavo, is proceeding, with the fanétion of the Earl of Bute, under the care of Mr. Dallaway.

The completion of Boydell's grand edition of Shakspeare, by the delivery of the eighteenth Number, now approaches; and the editors, with a liberality peculiar to themselves, are preparing a Medal to be prefented to the fubfcribers at the clofe of the work. Mr. Boulton has undertaken the execu tion of the Medal.

THE

BRITISH CRITIC,

For MAY, 1803.

"Neque in bonâ fegete nullum effe fpicum nequam, neque in malâ, non aliquod bonum." VARRO,

The best harvest produces fome bad ears, and the worst is not with. out a share of good.

ART. I. Travels through Sweden, Finland, and Lapland, to the North Cape, in the Years 1798 and 1799. By JoJeph Acerbi. Two Volumes. 4to. 31. 35. Mawman.

1802.

A JOURNEY through the countries mentioned in this title-page, countries which, though neither unexplored nor unknown, yet retain enough of novelty in them to intereft the beft feelings of the man of tafte and science, could not but be welcomed by us with complacency. We recollected the pleasure with which we accompanied the adventurous Linnæus, who grows poetical in his defcriptions of the lakes and mountains of Lapland; we recalled the Ruffian and Siberian journies of Pallas, and the general Northern View of our countryman Mr. Coxe; and we thought it an enquiry of fome curiofity, how the terrific grandeur of thefe arctic regions would imprefs the mind of a traveller who had been nurfed amidst the natural and artificial beauties of Italy.

The Dedication to the author's father, at once dutiful, manly, and affectionate, is followed by a short Preface, in which we were peculiarly struck by the following paffage.

I i

BRIT. CRIT, VOL. XXI. MAY, 1803.

"The

"The first part of thefe Travels, written for the gratification of a finall circle, who were curious to learn the prefent state of arts, sciences, and manners in Sweden, contains an account of circumstances too bold, perhaps, to meet the public eye. But to have re-compofed and foftened it; by the fuppreffion of fome particulars, however perfonally prudent for the author, would have been to withhold from the reader a just and accurate idea of the flate of facts. It was incumbent upon him to facrifice all inferior contiderations to a respect for the public and for truth." Pref. p. viii.

The affumption that his ideas of the ftate of facts were just and accurate, feemed to argue a degree of confidence in a young traveller (for this work, he tells his father, “is the firft fruit of his education") not altogether irreprehenfible; and we were convinced, long before we reached the end of the first volume, not that the circumftances were "too bold to meet the public eye," (for this is a phrase we do not wifh to underfland) but that they were either fo doubtful, or fo incorrect, that the writer, in his own words, would have done better to re-compofe and foften them.

It appears that Mr. Acerbi made this journey accompanied by Colonel Skiöldebrand. This gentleman, who is thrust completely into the back ground, and whofe name feldom occurs, is however a Swede of high worth and great ability. In the interval which has elapfed fince the appearance of the prefent Travels, Colonel Skiöldebrand has published his account of the expedition, under the title of a Picturefque Journey to the North Cape. This has not yet fallen under our infpection; but we have feen a fmall pamphlet attached to it, in which the Colonel anticipates our office, and becomes the reviewer of his companion's publication, to which we now return; premifing only, that we fhall, as oft as we fee occa fion, avail ourselves of the Colonel's ftrictures.

The author begins with a few remarks on the partiality and inaccuracy of tranflators, in which there is much to praife; though, when he defcends to particulars, he evinces no flight fymptoms of the fame qualities.

"Thus, when a Swede fimiles at Mr. Caxe's reprefenting Walmerland as a moft delightful country, beautifully interfperfed and variegated with lakes, charming vales, and well cultivated fields, we think bim jut fied in differing from that gentleman's defcription; and admis that, on the contrary, it is a dreary and unpleasant tract, diverfified only by naked rocks and barren hills." P. 4

Mr. Acerbi is generally unfortunate in his encounters with Mr. Coxe. We are not aware of any Swede that smiles at his defcription; but we know feveral travellers, both foreigners and Englishmen, who have gone over the fame ground, and

who