tion. The extract too, from GARDINER'S letter to CHEKE, is next to decilive proof in favour of Milton. It would be amufing to trace the defcent of this idle calumuy from bigot to bigot till it reached Dr. Johason; to whom it must have been peculiarly acceptabk, on account of his fuperftitious tura of mind, and innate dillike to the cause and to the assertors of liberty.-As to the clergy, they had no other means in their power to retaliate upon a man, who in several of his prose works had exposed their frauds, and given them to severe a flagellation. Their refentment mult therefore be confidered as a matter of course; and as these gentlemen, con&dered as a collective body, are not very remarkable for their placability and forgiving disposition, no wonder that this idle story has been handed down from generation to generation, like their other idle stories about Cromwell, and the bloody murderers of St. Charles!

A gentleman of Mr. WAKEFIELD'S talte, and extensive reading, can scarcely have overlooked a spirited defence of Milton, prefixed to the second volume of the memoirs of the late patriotic Thomas Hollis? I hall only add upon this fubject, that to those old-fashioned Englishmen, who venerate the genuine principles of our free constitution, the perusal, and perhaps the re-publication of Milton's "Areopagitica," would at this fingularly alarming critis, be a very useful employment.

Page 181. The queries of Dr. WATKINS', respecting the late very learned James Pierce of Exeter, will be partly answered, if he will please to confult the Proteftant Diffenters Magazine, vol. 2d, page 441, in which some brief account of the birth-place, education, ministerial, or literary labours, persecution and death of that good man are recorded. In these memoirs too, there is an extract from one of Mr. P's. publications, well deserving the notice of fuch of your readers as are interested in the repeal of the Test act, as it sets the controversial artifice, and deliberate misrepresentation of Dean Sherlock in a clear point of view. The pallage is too long to be tranfcribed; but as the writer of the above memoirs juftly obferves, it is very remarkable that the ingenious editor of the late abridged edition of Bishop Hoadley's reply to Sherlock should have overlooked it, and permitted his fuppofed right reverend antagonist once more to retaliate the calumny without reprehenfion.

I join with Dr. WATKINS in withing to fee fome memoirs of the learned Hallett.

It would also give me great pleasure to have an account of the late excellent Dr. John Taylor of Norwich.

Dr. WATKINS, in his well written account of the late Mr. Madan, says, no stain was ever fixed upon him, except what he incurred by his publication of a work, entitled "Thelyphthora, S." Without meaning to offend the living, or to lay any thing ill of the dead, I would venture to ask Dr. W. if he has never heard of the affair at Aldwincle? Mr. M. might not deferve the censure then pretty freely cast upon him; yet his condu& was thought a little fingular, as will appear by inspecting the pamphlets published upon the occafion, or the 37th vol. of the Monthly Monthly Review, p. 382, where a judicious, candid summary of the whole business may be found.

In the Monthly Magazine for February, p. 28. W. H. enquires after president Bradshawe? If he has not already obtained the information he wants, I beg leave to refer him to the various volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine, from 1778 to 1788, where he will meet with many curious anecdotes well deserving his notice. It is next to certain that the prefident was of a Chefhire or Derbyshire family, and some of his defcendants by the female side were living not many years ago in the above named counties.

Yours,

A Lover of Biography.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine,

SIR,

IN a work published about two years cal and Literary," I met with the following passage: Granger, who was a remarkable ugly man, contended that he was the handsomest thing in the world." P. 353. The writer then states, what he calls a specimen of logical perverfion; and which, he pretends, Granger urged in support of his favourable representation of his own person. I was perfonally acquainted with Mr. Granger; and know that he was not an ugly man, but his face and perfson were agreeable. A print of him, drawn and engraved by William Wynne Ryland, is prefixed to the second edition of his Biographical History of England; and any man, who examines this, will be convinced, that if the print bears the most distant resemblance to him, he could not be au ugly man. He was far otherwise, I suppose, that the whole story is without any foundation; for Mr. Granger was not a vain man. But if at any

Physical Sciences, read at the last quarterly fitting, by Citizen Lassus, Secretary.

A

MONG the different objects which during the last three months have occupied the class of Physical Sciences, two new genera of plants have been pre fented by Citizen L'HERITIER. The first, discovered at Madagascar, by Citizen BRUGUIERE, an associate member of the Institute, is to affume the name of Bruguiera. Grateful science will be anxious to confecrate to the memory of this learned naturalist, whom death has just taken from us, the plant which was the first fruit of his labours in the voyage round the world which he undertook with Kerguelen.

The second genus, discovered at the ifle of France by the fame author, belongs to the family of the Orchis. As it is a plant parasistical to the trunks of trees, Citizen L'Heretier proposes, for this reason, to name it the Rhizodendrum,

There is a tree, originally of North America, the young branches of which are covered during vegetation, with a vis cous humour, which, if touched ever to flightly, sticks strongly to the fingers and blackens them. Citizen VAUQUELIN CONfiders it as a principle different from all hitherto known in the vegetable kingdom, but which, nevertheless, approaches nearer to refin than to any other substance. The production of this species of glue, has caused the name of Robinia viscosa to be given to the tree here treated of, to diftinguish it from another robinia or false acacia, to which it bears the strongest affinity. Citizens CELS and VENTENAT have shewn, that this tree belongs to a genus which has been described by the Citizens JUSSIEU and LAMARCK. It is to Citizen MICHAUT, affociate member of the Institute, that we owe this

new acquifition, still more important perhaps than that of the falfe acacia,

tageously.

The difficulty of collecting the varied productions of different climates, has been confidered, with reason, as one of the greatest obstacles to the study and progress of natural history. This difficulty exists no longer with regard to the plants which grow in the itates of Tunis and Algiers. The public now poffeffies a Complete Flora of Mount Atlas, a work long defired by botanists; and it is to Citizen DESFONTAINES that the obligation is solely due.

Citizen BROUSSONET, whom the love of the sciences has conducted into the fame part of Africa, has investigated the particular processes employed at Fez and at Tetuan, in the preparations of goats' skins, with which morocco leather of

different colours is made. He has laid down the most precise instructions on this fubject, and has designated the plants which are made use of in Barbary for those kinds of preparations.

Industry, which is able to convert every thing to fome advantage, and which for that reafon ought to lofe nothing, makes use of old ropes and old fishermen's nets to make tow, which serves afterwards to fabricate paper of different thickness and quality. Citizen TEISSIER has shewn how useful it would be, to encourage in our maritime departments, the manufacture of that very thick paper which ferves for the careening of vessels, by always turning to profit the tow made of old cordage, which is moreover used for calking ships.

The fame author has observed a pretty fingular fact, the cause of which is not as yet known. He has obferved in many places, milk newly drawn, and of fine white colour, become blue in the space of two or three days, even after having undergone the operation of boiling. This phenomenon does not appear to depend

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either upon the age or the health of the cows, nor the state of the dairies, nor of the vessels into which the milk is put, nor from any defect of care or cleanliness. All the milk and its produce, although blue, is good, and may be used without any inconvenience. Perhaps some plants of the nature of woad and indigo, on which some cows feed during the fummer, tinge the milk with this factitious colour. But this is merely a conjecture, and Citizen Teiffier proposes, in order to discover the truth, to make the neceffary observations and experiments, in the places where the phenomenon has been observed.

In a memoir on a new classification of shells, Citizen Lamarck has shewn the neceflity of augmenting the number of genera, and of reducing to narrower limits the characters which diftinguish them. He extends this namber to a hundred and seventeen. Linnæus and the other natwralists had only carried it to fixty. This new classification will enable us to refer all the teftaceous animals we wish to investigate, with greater facility to their respective genus.

In the numerous family of spiders, there are some which have been furnamed miners and mafons, because they have the property of burrowing a fubterraneous gallery or cavity, which they shut with wity a fort of trap or moveable door. Citizen LATREILLE, an affociate member of the Institute, has indicated the characters proper to this industrious family, and the means of not confounding it with other infects of the fame name, but of a different fpecies.

It is well known, that phosphorus and many faline combinations of the phosphoric acid, have been found by chemifts in urine. The Citizens FOURCROY and VAUQUELIN, have been enabled to difcover by fome new experiments, alumine and phosphate of magnesia, in this liquid. They have observed, thatda particular animal matter which characterises urine, and which gives it all its properties, very readily formed ammoniac, which caused magnefian phosphate to pass into the class of triple falts, rendered it much less diffoluble than before, and fufceptible of precipitation in crystalline takes or needles. These two chemists have examined the different alterations of which this liquid is fufceptible, and have given an account of the spontaneous changes which it undergoes, and shewn that the investigation of it, as yet scarcely commenced, according to them, is one of the objects which ought the most to fix the attention of physicians; as it presents one of the most important

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problems for them to resolve, relative to the physical state of the healthy or fick person.

The attention of the class of physical sciences, has been further occupied with fome observations of Citizen BEAUME ON the decompofition of calcareous muriate by lime, and fome enquiries into a malady which Citizen Portal has exhibited, by specifying the remedies competent to cure it. NOTICE of the class of Moral and Political Sciences, by Citizen LACUEE.

It will create no surprise to learn, that, among the memoirs which have been read in the class of moral and political sciences, during the course of the last three months, there are three which treat on the properest means of establishing and propagating liberty. Liberty, which was always the divinity of men of letters, ought, under a republican government, to be still more particularly the object of their worship and of their meditations.

Citizen TOULONGEON, convinced that true freedom can only exist where the liberty of the individual is secure from every affault, has been confidering the means of protecting individual liberty in a representative government. The liberty of manifesting nifeiting our thoughts, that of going and coming, and that of carrying arms, have been spiritedly defended by our fellow member. His obfervations on these three fubjects will be always useful to repeat, in countries which enjoy liberty to preserve it there, and to introduce it into those which are deprived of it. The author is further of opinion, that there can be no personal liberty, where the citizen is not at his option, not only to refuse all public functions. excepting those of the foldier and juror, but even to abdicate the right of citizenship; lastly, that to preferve personal liberty, it may be necessary, in certain cafes and under a very weighty responsibility, that the individual should even have the right of disobedience.

Our fellow-member DESALES, has been investigating the liberty of fuffrages; he has expressed his opinion on this fubject in a memoir on the use of fecret balioting among a free people. The author affumes, that the use of a fecret balloting implies a previous fuppofition, that free men would have the weakness to give a vote different from that of their real fentiments; he thinks further, that this form of balloting declares in general, that this mode of expreffing our wish, allowingoit may be proviforily retained in the political world, ought to be banished from from the literary world, and particularly from the National Institute, from that body as free by its essence as it is by its compofition.

The purchase and slavery of negroes have been the subject of the meditations of our brother GREGOIRE. After hav. ing shewn that the buying and felling of negroes, take their date from an epoch anterior to the discovery of the new world, and coincident with the moment in which flavery was abolished in Europe; after having explained the part which the different nations have taken in the traffick, and shewn what people have appeared the least eruel masters, the author traces minutely the efforts of the friends of the blacks; he analyses their writings: he denounces the English government, whose acts in favor of the negroes appear to him rather the effect of a profound machiavelifim, than of the love of humanity; and laftly, attempts to exculpate the friends of the blacks, from the reproach of having carried their attachment to their unfortunate clients so far, as to become the enemies of the white proprietors in the colonies.

In the second part of his work, Citizen Gregoire proposes to treat of what yet remains to be done by the friends of the blacks to complete their work. their

A question of focial science, no less important than those I have just spoken of, has attracted the attention of Citizen VILLETERQUE. In some general confiderations on the natural affections and maternal power, the author examines whether mothers should not possess greater power, than what they have been allowed to enjoy to this day. Our fellow member, on the authorities of Locke, Hobbs, and Condorcet, advances that the higher we augment the power of fathers, which he calls a power of institution, without having respect to that of mothers, which is a power truly natural, the further we ftray from that unity of direction necessary to analogous means which should lead to the fame end; and that it is perhaps from this opposition not rightly adjusted that many disorders rise in civil association: Citizen VILLETERQUE observes further, that it is by uniting the powers of fathers and mothers by equal rights, or the only modifications of which would be relative to different duties, that we may best increase the happy influence which these two authorities ought to have upon manners.

Citizen BOUCHAUD, who had before communicated to the class three memoirs,

relative to the magistrates of Roman colonies and municipal towns, has read, during the last quarter, a fourth on the same subject; thus, the friends of antiquity have no further information to defire on that part of the government and laws of antient Rome.

Although the history of ancient Greece has been written by men celebrated for their genius, or esteemed for their vast and profound erudition, we have on the whole but very inaccurate and incomplete notices relative to the geography of that country, so interesting by the remembrances which it excites, and by the monuments which it contains. Citizen MENTELLE has undertaken to fill up this deficiency, with a view to render the researches of travellers, who should incline to make Greece the object of their studies, less painful, tedious and unprofitable. He has already communicated to the class, two memoirs on this fubject. In the first, he describes the country of Træzene, and the territories of Epidauris; in the second, he discusses some points of geography peculiar to Argolis.

Whilft citizen Mentelle was employed in rendering eafier, the discoveries which yet remain for us to make in the ancient times and world, our fellow member BUACHE has been attempting attempting to furnish us with the means of discovering in the immenfe ocean, men and countries new to us. May his work, which will be read in the course of this fitting, reanimate amongst us the taste for voyages destined to enlarge the sphere of our knowledge, of our commercial relations, and of our glory! And above all, may the nations which this work shall have assisted us to discover, never be convinced by their own experience, that the virtues have made less progress in Europe, than the sciences and arts!

Citizens LEGRAND-DAUSSI and ANQUETIL have been both engaged in refearches on the laws and manners of the first ages of the French Monarchy.

The object of Citizen LEGRAND being to compare together the Salic code, the code of the Burgundians, and that of the Visigoths, he traces the history of each of the codes; he analyses them, examines their defects and their particular merit, their afflictive penalties, and their compositions in money for crimes; their laws concerning the state of the Gauls, women, slaves, and lastly the confirmative sanction which each of them received, before capable of being put in execution; a sanction which for the Visigoth code was that of the clergy; for the Burgundian code, that of