goiter. To judge by the accounts of fome travellers, one might fuppofe, that all thefe people, without exception, were gifted with the above appendage: whereas, in fact, as I have before remarked, the Vallaifans, in general, are a robust hardy race of people; and all that with truth can be affirmed, is, that goitrous perfons, and idiots, are more abundant here than perhaps in any other part of the globe.

It has been afferted alfo by fome, that the people very much refpect these idiots, and even confider them as bleflings from heaven; an affertion which is as ftrongly contradicted by others. I made many inquiries in order to get at the truth of this matter. Upon my queftioning fome gentlemen of this country, whom I met at the baths of Leuk, they treated the notion as abfurd and falfe: but whether they spoke their real fentiments, or were unwilling to confirm what they thought might lower their countrymen in the opinion of a ftranger, will admit perhaps of fome doubt. For I have, fince that time, repeatedly enquired among the lower fort, and am convinced, that the common people esteem them as bieflings. They call them "Souls of God, without fin:" and there are many parents who prefer thefe idiot-children to thofe whofe understandings are perfect; because, as they are incapable of intentional criminality, they confider them as more certain than the others of happiness in a future ftate. Nor is this opinion entirely without fome good effect; as it difposes the parents to pay the greater attention to thofe unhappy beings, who are incapable of taking care of themselves. These ideots are fuffered to marry, as well among themfelves as with others; and thus the breed is, in fome meafure, prevented from becoming extinct.'

We afterwards meet with an interesting recital of the author's excurfion to the glaciers; on which fubject, likewife, he difcovers his taste for enquiry. Some philofophers are of opinion that the glaciers remain always the fame; and others that they are continually encreasing; but Mr. Coxe is convinced, from the following circumftances, that both these hypotheses are equally ill founded.

The borders, fays he, of the valley of ice of the glacier of Montenvert, are mostly skirted with trees: towards its foot a vaft arch of ice rifes to near an hundred feet in height; from under which, the continued droppings from the melting of the ice and fnow are collected together, and form the Arveron ; which rushes forth with confiderable force, and in a large body of water. As we approached the extremity of this arch, we paffed through a wood of firs: thofe which stand at a little diftance from the ice are about eighty feet high, and are undoubtedly of a very great age. Between thefe and the glacier the trees are of a later growth; as is evident as well from their inferior fize, as from their texture and shape. Others, which

re.

refemble the latter, have been overturned, and enveloped in the ice: in all these feveral trees, refpectively fituated in the spots I have mentioned, there feems to be a kind of regular gradation in their age, from the largest fize to those that lie proftrate.

• These facts fairly lead, it should feem, to the following conclufions :-that the glacier once extended as far as the row of tall firs; that, upon its retiring, a number of trees have shot up in the very fpots which it formerly occupied; that, within fome years, the glacier has again begun to advance; and in its progrefs has overturned the trees of later date, before they have had time to grow up to any confiderable neight.

To these circumftances, another fact may be added, which appears to me convincing. There are large ftones of granite, which are found only at a small diftance from the extremities of the glacier. These are vaft fragments, which have certainly fallen down from the mountains upon the ice; have been carried on by the glacier in its encrease; and have tumbled into the plain upon the melting or finking of the ice, which fupported them. These ftones, which the inhabitants call mareme, form a kind of border, towards the foot of the valley of ice, and have been pushed forward by the glacier in its advances they extend even to the place occupied by the larger pines.'

From the whole of this volume, confifting of forty-three Letters, it evidently appears that the author is a gentleman of obfervation. His defcriptions are every where just and lively; his reflexions judicious; and his account of each canton, and capital city, is accompanied with a concife detail of their respective history, and prefent political state.

Six Effays or Difcourfes on the following Subjects: the Balance of Aftrea, or upright Administration of Justice. Ambition in Sovereigns. The Love of our Country, and National Prejudice or Prepoffeffion. The Semblance of Virtue, or Virtue in Appearance. The Virtue of Superior Excellence of Nobility, with Some Remarks on the Power or Influence of High Blood. The Machiavelianism of the Antients. Tranflated from the Spanish of Feyjoo. 8vo. 45. ferved. Becket.

THE

'HE literary world is obliged to this writer for two former publications of the fame nature as the prefent: viz. Four Effays or Difcourfes on, The Voice of the People; Virtue and Vice; exalted and humble Fortune; and the moft refined Policy. And Three Effays, containing a Vindication of the Women; Thoughts on Church Mufic; and a Comparison between ancient and modern mufic.

The

The first article in this publication is a letter from an old. judge to his fon, who was newly raised to the bench. This piece contains many rational obfervations on the upright adminiftration of juftice, the mifchiefs arifing from the receiving of bribes, from the influence of powerful interceffors, from pecuniary penalties, falfe witneffes, and the tedious procraftination of law-fuits. On the laft of these fubjects the author speaks with a proper fenfibility:

• When there are not other reafons to forbid it, the poor should be dispatched in preference to the rich; and those who come from diftant provinces, before those who live in the neighbourhood. St. Geronimo, in his comment on a paffage of the Proverbs, fays, that formerly courts of juftice were placed at the gates of cities; which the faint imagines to have been done,' with a view of preventing the attention of flrangers who come upon law búfinefs, and especially that of the ruftics, from being taken up and confounded by the multitude of strange objects which prefent themselves to their fight, and by the buftle and hurry of the city; from hence it may be inferred, that the difpatch was very quick, and that it was not neceffary for them to take a lodging in town; but things are greatly altered nowa-days, and ftrangers who come from a great distance to profecute their caufes, are detained fo long, that they in a manner become neighbours and inhabitants of the city... I reflect with horror on the mischiefs which these delays occafion; for in confequence of the expence they create, it frequently happens, that both the fuitors are ruined.'

In this paffage the tranflator very improperly calls St. Jerom, Geronimo. The author's quotation from this father is not taken from his comment on the Proverbs, but from his comment on the prophet Zechariah. The original is worth citing, as it illuftrates an ancient cuftom, alluded to by Homer, Odyff. iii. 406, and other writers. • Quæritur quare apud Judæos in portis locus fuerat judicandi. Ne cogerentur agricolæ intrare urbes, & aliquod fubire difpendium, judices in portis refidebant: ut tam urbanos quam rufticos in exitu & introitu urbis audirent; &, finito negotio, unufquifque confeftim ad fedes proprias reverteretur. Hieron. Com. in Zach. c. viii. 16.

There is another flight mistake in this Effay, where the author fays: I remember that great lawyer Alexander of Alexandria, in his treatife called Dias [Dies] Geniales, fays of himfelf, that he abandoned the profeflion of an advocate in difguft, for having obferved in his own practice, that neither the wisdom or abilities of a counsellor, nor the goodness of a caufe, were of any avail in courts, when the opposite parties

were

were espoused by people of power.' The celebrated author of the Dies Geniales ftyles him felf Alexander ab Alexandro; and it is a miftake to call him Alexander of Alexandria. He was

of a Neopolitan family of the name of Alexander, and was called in Italian Aleffandro de gli Alessandri. We meet with many others whofe chriftian and family names are the fame. See Mollerus de Script. Homonymis.

In the fecond effay the author treats of the ambition of fo vereigns and conquerors.

Let a Theodofius, a Charles the Great, a Godfrey of Bouillon, a George Caftriotus, be celebrated as heroes; and, in fine, all thofe in whom fortune affifted valour, and valour justice; thofe, who only drew their fwords in the cause of heaven, or for the good of the public; thofe, who in wars take to themselves the toil and the danger only, and leave untouched as the property of others, the fruits and acquifitions; thofe, who are pacific by inclination, and warriors through neceffity; finally, all thofe, who, as an example to pofterity, have by their actions, impreffed an idea on the minds of men, that they were juft, clement, wife, and animated princes, in whofe fceptres justice reigned, and whofe fwords never wounded their own con

fciences.

But difcard from the flock of heroes, thofe crowned tigers called conquering princes, and let them be numbered with the delinquents. Throw down their ftatues, and tranflate their images, from the palace to the dens of wild boasts, that the copies at least, may be placed among company, and in such a fituation, as fuited the characters of the originals.?

In the third difcourfe, which treats of the amor patriæ, the author fhews, that what is ufually diftinguished by that glorious appellation is nothing but the love of our own convenience, or ease, or fome other fimilar principle; and is not that juft, noble, and virtuous love, fo much celebrated in books.

I do not deny, that by turning over hiftory, you will find thousands of victims facrificed to this idol. What war is undertaken without this fpecious pretence? What field do we fee drenched with human blood, that pofterity, over the carcafes from whence it flowed, has not fixed the honourable inscription, that those men loft their lives for the good of their country? But if we examine things critically, we fhall find the world is much mistaken, in thinking there have been fo many or so refined facrifices made to this imaginary deity. Let us figure to ourfelves a republic, armed for a war, undertaken upon the principle of a juft defence; and let us alfo proceed to examine by the light of reason, the impulfe which animates men's hearts to expofe their lives in the quarrel. Among the private men,

fome

fome inlift for the pay and the plunder, others with the hopes of bettering their fortunes, and acquiring military honour and preferment; but the greatest part, from motives of obedience, and fear of the prince or the general. He who commands the army, is inftigated by his intereft and his glory. The prince, or chief magiftrate, who is at a diftance from the danger, acts more for the fake of maintaining his dominion, than for fupporting the republic. Now admitting that all these people fhould find it more for their intereft to retire to their houfes, than to defend the walls, you would hardly fee ten men left on the ramparts.

Even thofe feats of prowefs of the antients, which are fo blazoned and immortalized by fame, as the ultimate exertions of zeal for the public good, were more probably generated by ambition, and the love of glory, than by the love of their country; and I am inclined to think, that if there had not been witneffes prefent, to have handed down to pofterity an account of their exploits, that from a principle of love to his country, neither Curtius would have precipitated himself into the pit, nor Marcus Attilius Regulus have fubmitted to die a lingering death in an iron cage; nor would the twin brothers, for the fake of extending the boundaries of Carthage, have confented to be buried alive. The incitement of pofthumous fame had great influence among the Gentiles; and it might alfo happen, that fome rushed on a violent death, not fo much with a view of acquiring pofthumous fame, as from the mad vanity of seeing themselves admired and applauded for a few inftants of their lives, of which Lucian gives us a ftriking example, in the death that was fubmitted to by the philofopher Peregrinus.'

In purfuance of this argument the author obferves, that the Scythian, the Laplander, the Canadian, live in their respective Countries with more convenience to themselves, than they would do at Vienna, Paris, or Rome.

Olavus [Olaus] Rudbec, a noble Swede, who had travelled a great deal through the northern regions, in a book that he wrote, intitled Lapland Illuftrated, fays, that the inhabitants of it, are fo convinced of the advantages of their fituation, that they would not exchange their own, for all the countries in the world. In fact, they poffefs fome benefits or conveniencies in it, which are not imaginary, but real. That country produces fome regaling fruits, although they are different from ours; and the abundance of game and fish in it, all of them remarkably fine flavoured, is immenfe. The winters, which with us are fo difagreeably damp and rainy, are there clear and ferene; from whence it follows, that the natives are active, healthy, and robust. Thunder ftorms are fcarce ever known in that region, nor is there a venomous fnake to be found in all the country. They live alfo exempt from those two great fcourges of heaven,

war,