M. Tume to judge; but muft confider his royal mafter's confidence and friendship as the most ample teftimony in his favour. BUTTNER reprefents him as a ftrict obferver of military dif cipline, and as rather fevere in enforcing it; but, at the fame time, as a man of the most inviolable honour, of an humane and beneficent difpofition, irreproachable in his morals, and animated with a lively fenfe of the excellence and importance of religion. In 1760, the King conferred on him the Provoftship of the Cathedral of Brandenburg, in which city he spent the last eleven years of his life; and the correfpondence between the King and him during this period, which is here published, is highly honourable to both, and contains the most striking proofs of his Majefty's efteem and friendship for the Baron. A few days before his death, he seemed to have a kind of prescience of its approach, which, from his age, may eafily be accounted for. His behaviour on this occafion, though fomething peculiar, does honour to his character as a Chriftian; and M. BUTTNER has related the circumftances in an interefting man ner. After attending divine worship on Sunday, at the French church, as was his conftant cuftom, he fixed on the fpot in which he was determined to be interred; and, the next day, gave orders to have his grave prepared, with particular directions concerning the manner in which it fhould be done. After this, he refolved to have his coffin made; and one day, when he feemed to be rather more than commonly cheerful, had eaten heartily, and expreffed great fatisfaction in the pleasure which this circumftance gave to thofe around him; he fuddenly difmiffed the fervants that had attended, and defired M. BUTTNER to order his coffin; when this came home, he went into the apartment in which it was placed, examined it with great compofure, then uncovering his white hairs, fat down on it, and ordered one of his attendants to read a German hymn, which begins with an expreffion to this purpose: "Behold the grave! this is the bed on which I muft embrace death." Never, fays M. BUTTNER, fhall I forget this venerable old man, this knight without fear and without reproach, thus fitting, furrounded by his family, who in vain endeavoured to conceal their tears. He then fettled all his temporal affairs, and thought of nothing, but his approaching paffage to eternity. Four days before his deceafe, he defired that the Lord's Supper might be publicly adminiftered in his chamber; and, after partaking of this with his whole family, and feveral members of the community, he folemnly bleffed his children, and took leave of all the attendants. On the fecond of May 1774, as his attendant was reading a prayer to him, his fon, the prefent Baron, came into his chamber, and offered to relieve the reader. His father tenderly S 2 preffed pressed his hand, and turning himself on one fide, fell asleep. I make use of this expreffion,' adds M. BUTTNER, because I know none more proper to reprefent the infenfible tranfition of this great man from life to death.' M.'s Visar ART. III. Voyages intereffans, &c. i. e. Interefting Voyages in different Colonies, French, Spanish, English, &c. Containing important Obfervations relative to thefe Countries; and a Memoir on the Maladies that are moft common at St. Domingo, the Remedies for them, and the Means of preventing them, both moral and phyfical. With remarkable Anecdotes, never be fore printed. Collected and published from a great Number of Manufcripts, by Monf. N. 8vo. Paris. 1788. Notwithstanding this very long title, we have ftill to learn from an advertisement that the manufcripts to which the anonymous author alludes, were collected by his uncle, Monf. B. member of the Academy of Rochelle. In proceeding toward the conclufion of the work, we find that Monf. B. is a Monfieur Bourjeois, Secretary to the Chamber of Agriculture at the Cape -which appears afterward to be Cape St. François-fo little regard has this author to the time and patience of his reader. The work is ill-written; we fhould fufpect Monf. N. not to be a native of France. His remarkable anecdotes are neither amufing nor inftructive. They relate to perfons unknown, whofe names are continually expreffed by initials, not worth decyphering. Compared with the pompous title, this work is. one illuftration among many of the "Parturiunt montes—” &c.Gil-s. ART. IV. Mémoires Philofophiques, &c. i. e. Philofophical and historical * In the treatife on the diseases prevalent at St. Domingo and the remedies for curing them, we find the following defcription of a well-known plant: The body of this tree is very branchy; its leaves are of a middling fize, of a deep green, and rough to the touch; and it is covered all over with little bunches of flowers, whofe colour is nearly that of marigolds; its root purges tolerably well.' After fuch a strange defcription of RHUBARB, which is literally tranflated, let our readers form their own judgment of the author's knowlege of the Materia Medica, and his qualification as a writer on diseases, and their cure. Hiftorices Hiftoricos fobre la America Meridional y la Septentrional Oriental ; and they are frequently quoted by Dr. Robertfon, in his Hiftory of America; where that ingenious author has given the most valuable part of the information which they contain. They relate chiefly to the climate and natural hiftory of that continent, and were tranflated into German by Profeffor DIEZ of Gottingen, and published with notes by M. SCHNEIDER; which notes confift, moftly, of extracts from the feveral writers who have defcribed thofe countries. These notes are reduced into a more fyftematical order, and confiderably enlarged by M. LEFEBURE DE VILLEBRUNE, the French tranflator of this work, and of Count CARLI's American Letters *. This gentleman seems to be exceedingly defirous of establishing fome hypothefis to account for the population of America; but he appears rather inconfiftent in his opinions on this subject. In this work, he seems to adopt the theory advanced by its ingenious author; according to which, America was peopled, foon after the Deluge, by fome adventurers from the old world; who having, from the prefervation of Noah in the Ark, acquired fome ideas of fhip-building and navigation, were accidentally driven from the coaft of Africa, and carried, by the trade-winds, first to the Weft Indian iflands, and afterward to the continent of America. In his tranflation of the American Letters, he endeavours to confirm COUNT CARLI's hypothefis, which is of a very different nature, and indeed directly oppofite to that of Don ANT. DE ULLOA; but the most extraoardinary circumftance is that, in each of thefe tranflations, he refers to the other, and recommends both as mutually illuftrative and fupplementary; whereas, in fact, these two works are very different in their defign, and have nothing in common except their tranflator. M's Vicar. See our laft Appendix, p. 579. We did not then know that M. DE VILLEBRUNE was the name of the tranflator. Copy of a Letter addreffed to the Authors of THE MONTHLY REVIEW, relative to a paffage in M. DE PAUW's Recherches Philofophiques fur les Grecs. GENTLEMEN! In Mr. Pauw's Researches concerning the Greeks +, a work on which he prefumes to beftow the epithet philofophical, and in which he promises to relate all that great hiftorians have omitted, and all that they did not know, there is a chapter on the Amphityonic Council, on which he feems chiefly to value himself; boafting his difcoveries on this fubject above thofe of all former writers. He tells us, + Of which you gave an account in your last Appendix. I. That I. That the Amphictyons regulated only little matters, fuch as the repairs of the Temple of Delphi, and the celebration of the Pythian games. II. That these pretended states-general of Greece had fo little influence in public affairs, that they are not once mentioned by Thucydides, in his Hiftory of the Peloponnefian War. III. That the ruling paffion of the Amphictyons was a spirit of fuperftition. They undertook three facred wars against the little villages of Phocis and Locris, for having levied tolls on those who entered their harbours, and for having cultivated fome fields which the Amphictyons pretended ought for ever to remain barren and defolate. Nothing can be more abfurd than to imagine that a piece of land fhould produce neither corn nor fruit trees, because it had been dedicated to Apollo. IV. That foreign ftates treated, not with the Amphictyons, but with Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, which republics became fucceffively as powerful as all the rest of Greece together. From which circumftances Mr. Pauw concludes that a defect in the federal union occafioned the ruin of Greece. As if this was a new difcovery, Mr. Pauw avails himself of the imaginary triumph which it affords him, to decry all modern writers who have inveftigated the hiftory of Greece they all repeat after one another, and even Dr. Gillies has not failed to copy the prejudices of his predeceffors respecting the Amphictyonic Council. : That Dr. Gillies, however, has not copied his predeceffors, but that Mr. Pauw has copied him, will appear from the following quotation from Gillies's Ancient Greece, 8vo edit. vol. iii. p. 466. "During the fuperiority, or, in the language of ancient writers, during the empire of Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, the majefty of the Amphictyonic Council had degenerated into an empty pageant. Its deliberations were confined to matters of mere form; it regulated fome ceremonies of fuperftition; it fuperintended games and fpectacles; it preferved peace and good order among the crowd of ftrangers, who affembled at ftated times to confult the oracle of Apollo. But for more than a century paft, the public manners of the Greeks had been directed by councils held, not at Delphi, the refidence of the Amphictyons, but in Athens, Sparta, or Thebes, in one or other of which the allies convened on every important emergency, acknowleging the refpective authority of thofe capitals as the heads of their several confederacies." Had Mr. Pauw attentively read the work which he prefumes to criticife, he would have feen that the authority of the Amphictyonic Council varied at different times; he would have feen thefe variations diftinctly marked; and he would have avoided an error which deforms his work throughout, the confounding all chronology, and referring to one period the customs and inftitutions of another. His conduct is the more reprehenfible, as it is totally repugnant to the maxims of German honefty. Proceeding in the fame ftrain, Mr. P. obferves, "That the writers of ancient history have fhewn a wonderful ingenuity in difputing things that are trifling or fabulous. They have collected the moft minute circumftances refpecting the Trojan war, and the Argonautic expedition-and Dr. Gillies knows the value of the Golden Fleece in sterling money." After After reading the hiftory of that expedition in Dr. G.'s work, how aftonishing does it appear, that Mr. Pauw fhould blame him for faying, what he has not faid, either directly or by any poffible implication! To elude this accufation, fhould Mr. P. pretend that his criticifm is only a joke (mauvaise plaifanterie !) after the manner of the French, whom he is fo ill qualified to imitate, let him seriously confider the fable of The Afs and the Spaniel I am, Gentlemen! Your moft obedient Servant, CRITO.' MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For MARCH, 1789. AMERICA. Art. 22. A fummary Review of the Laws of the United States of North America, the British Provinces, and West Indies. With Obfervations, Precedents, &c. By a Barrister of the State of Virginia. 8vo. 2s. 6d. fewed. Robinfons. 1788. HOSE who expect to find a clear account, in this performance, of the prefent fyftem of laws in the American provinces, will meet with a disappointment; for on that head we have only a few detached obfervations. The bulk of the work is taken up with defining the nature of the jurifdiction of the Courts of Westminster-hall over the British provinces, and other fimilar matters, that now have no respect to the independent American States. The changes that have taken place in thefe provinces in respect to jurisdiction and jurifprudence, fince they became free ftates, are very imperfectly recited; only a few particulars, in fome of the provinces, being specified. However, though it be, in this point of view, imperfect, the work may ftill prove ufeful to thofe who intend to form connections. with any of the Weft Indian islands, or other dependencies of this country; as it will affift them in forming an idea of the mode of procedure when it becomes neceffary for them to fue for juftice.Some particulars likewife occur refpecting the recovery of debts by British fubjects in the United States, which deferve to be attended to by merchants who are engaged in commercial connections with thefe New States. Anwinn. Anderson. MEDICAL and CHIRURGICAL. Art. 23. The Spectator began his lucubrations, by gratifying his readers. with a defcription of his abilities, difpofition, and perfon; which S4 laudable |