be compofed with precifion, and must be more especially of ufe to those who trade with the French islands in America.

AR T. XII.

L'Intrigue du Cabinet fous Henri IV. et Louis XIII. terminée par la Fronde-The Political Intrigues or Negociations of the Cabinet. Council under Henry IV. and Lewis XIII. ending with the Troubles of the Fronde. By M. ANQUETIL, Regular Canon of the Congregation of France, Correfpondent of the Royal Academy of infcriptions, &c. 4 vols. in izmo.

HIS interefting Work comes from the fame hand to which the public is indebted for the juftly-applauded piece of modern hiftory, intitled, The Spirit of the League, which unfolds with fuch accuracy and candour the scenes of blood and horror that were exhibited by the ambition and bigotry of the faction of the Guiles. The prefent Work, though lefs ftriking, is not however lefs inftructive; for if it does not exhibit a feries of warlike exploits, which aftonish, it opens useful views of the workings of ambition, and the other human paffions, that neftle in the cabinets of princes, and from thence fpread their pernicious influence through human fociety.

The Work is divided into nine Books. In the first, we fee the painful efforts of Henry IV. to restore order and fubordination in his kingdom-the fpirit of faction and the remains of the League forcing this prince to acts of feverity, against his natural propensity to clemency and indulgence-the progress of navigation and agriculture, and the flourishing state of the kingdom. In the fecond, we fee this monarch, victorious over his enemies, enjoying peace at home and abroad, but imbittering his felicity by an inconfiderate paffion, which cafts a cloud over the remainder of his days, and furnishes a pretext for the Queen-Confort to perfevere in a line of conduct that is pernicious to the kingdom.In the third, Mary de Medicis, devoted and abandoned to infolent favourites, adopts all their prejudices against the princes, who arm, and the parliaments, who murmur. Here we meet with a variety of objects, prefented in a very interefting manner; fuch as, the character of Mary de Medicis, the triumph of Condé, the remarkable hiftory of the Marefchal D'Ancre, the difgrace of the QueenMother, the contest between her and Condé, &c.—In the fourth, Mary de Medicis regains her credit, opposes her fon, who, incapable of governing without a leader, falls into the hands of Richlieu, whofe influence and afcendency, after having fuffered feveral checks, is confirmed by the difgrace of his principal enemies.In the fifth, the genius of this minifter difplays all its powers, and renders him mafter of the King. His accumulated fucceffes excite envy-powerful cabals are

formed,

formed, into which the Queen-Mother, the King's brother and nearest relations, and feveral magiftrates and military commanders of the firft rank enter; all of whom are punished, for their attempts to overturn the minifter, by exile, imprisonment, or death. In the fixth, the Frondeurs, though fupported by the parliament, and become mafters of the metropolis, by the famous four des Barricades, are obliged to conclude a peace, which is followed by a variety of intrigues, in which the political operations of Richlieu are curious, and well reprefented. The death of that cardinal and Lewis XIII. the rife, favour, and qualities of Mazarin, and the beginning of the regency of Anne of Auftria, make alfo an interefting part of the contents of this book. -The feventh, eighth, and ninth books exhibit to us a kind of moving picture, in which the figures, fometimes vifible and fometimes concealed, advance, retire, unite, feparate, change fides, every moment, and espouse different and oppofite plans and interefts with the utmost inconftancy. Here we fee Paris blockaded by Condé, through the inftigation of Mazarin, this prince arrefted by the joint efforts of the Frondeurs and the minifter,-fet at liberty again by the former, in fpite of the latter, who is obliged to quit the kingdom,-the Frondeurs joining the court to deftroy Condé,-the return of Mazarin, the re-union of all the factions against him,-civil war, the flight, return, and triumph of Mazarin,-while the Fronde, like a fire-work, after throwing out, for a while, fquibs and rockets, confumes itself, and goes out in smoke.

-

The events related in thefe Volumes, when joined with the Spirit of the League, form a regular and connected hiftory of the cabals and factions that agitated the court and kingdom of France during the course of a century. Our Author obferves, in his Preface, that thefe events exhibit to us important truths and useful leffons, relative to the true ends and methods of government. Some of thefe leffons are relative to the French nation; but the following feem to be of much more general application and utility: ift, That the monarch must be unhappy who is implicitly governed by his minifters, and becomes, in their hands, a crowned flave, forced to maintain, against his difcontented fubjects, principles and meafures that have not his own approbation; 2dly, That as authority has its limits, fo has refiftance its limits alfo; and that it is therefore the indifpenfable duty of the fupreme councils of a nation, whose proceedings are the objects of public examination and attention, to follow measures and rules of conduct, equally remote from a fervile condefcenfion and an inflexible and factious obftinacy.

At the head of this inftructive and entertaining Work we find a catalogue of the principal political writings that have been published,

002

published, relative to the reigns of Henry IV. Lewis XIII. and the wars of the Fronde, with obfervations on each article. These observations alone are a fufficient proof of the concifeTM eloquence, the accurate judgment, and the candid impartiality of this excellent Author: they are fenfible, elegant, and mafterly, and discover the niceft touch in appreciating the merit of hiftorical publications.

ART. XIII.

Memoire fur un Para-Tremblement de Terre et un Para-Volcan.—' A Memoir concerning a Counter-Earthquake and a Counter Vol. cano (by which the Author means a Method of preventing these Convulfions in the Bowels of the Earth). By M. BERTHOLON DE ST. LAZARE, Member of the Royal Academies of Montpellier, Beziers, Lyons, Marfeilles, Dijon, &c.

T

HIS learned academician, after an eloquent defeription of the horrors that accompany earthquakes and volcanos, gives an hiftorical lift of these tremendous phenomena, from the feparation of Offa and Mount Olympus, to the present times; and indeed their number is fo great in all parts of the world, as to justify that emphatic faying of an ancient writer, that we walk upon the carcaffes of cities, and inhabit only the ruins of our globe. The deftruction of twelve cities of Afia, at once, by an earthquake, as the fact is related by Seneca, Strabo, and Tacitus, fills the Reader with aftonifhment; and the frequency of earthquakes in our days is adapted to excite apprehenfion and terror. It is more peculiarly adapted to excite the inquiries of natural philofophers into the means of preventing thefe dreadful explosions, or of avoiding their fatal effects. Such is the object of the Memoir before us, whofe ingenious Author flatters himself with having fucceeded in this inquiry. His ideas on this fubject are as follows:

He confiders earthquakes as electrical phenomena; and this he proposes to prove and illuftrate in a separate differtation, though it be an hypothefis already adopted by the most eminent obfervers of nature. An earthquake is no more (as Pliny observed long ago) than fubterraneous thunder; and when we confider the extent of the fhock of the earthquake that deftroyed the Afiatic cities, and of that which fome years ago laid Lisbon in ruins ;-when we reflect how the deep moving power muft have been below the furface of the earth, to affect fuch a confiderable part of that furface, and what an enormous mass of folid matter was fet in motion by thefe dreadful earthquakes, we fhall perhaps be engaged to think, that the electrical commotion alone can operate at fuch distances, and produce fuch aftonishing effects. This, at leaft, is the conclufion to which

Our

our Author defigns to lead us up by calculations and reafonings, for which we refer the Reader to the Memoir itself.

It is, therefore, according to our Author, the interruption of the equilibrium between the electrical matter which is diffused in the atmosphere, and that which belongs to the mass of our globe, and pervades its bowels, that produces earthquakes. If the electrical fluid be fuperabundant, as may happen from a variety of causes, its current, by the laws of motion peculiar to fluids, is carried towards thofe places where it is in a smaller quantity; and thus fometimes it will pafs from the internal parts of the globe into the atmosphere. In fuch a case, if the equilibrium is re-eftablished with facility, the current produces no other effect than what our Author calls afcending thunder; but if confiderable and multiplied obftacles oppose this re-eftablishment, the confequence then is an earthquake, whofe violence and extent are in exact proportion to the degree of the interruption of the equilibrium-the depth of the furnace of the electrical matter-and the obstacles that are to be furmounted. If the electrical furnace is large and deep enough, fo as to give rife to the formation of a conduit or iffue, a volcano will be produced, whofe fucceffive eruptions are no more in reality, fays our Author, than electrical repulfions of the matters contained in the bowels of the earth.

Having thus inveftigated the caufe of the evil, our Author thinks it not difficult to find out a prefervative or remedy ;as it is the electrical matter which caufes this evil, he proceeds in his method of preventing or removing its fatal confequences, upon the fame principles that have been followed in preventing the pernicious effects of thunder-ftorms. Long, or rather enormous metal-conductors, funk as deep as poffible into the earth, and having both their extremities armed with feveral divergent harp points (verticilles), are the effential parts of our Author's method. The inferior points, confiderably difperfed and lengthened, in order to render their influence more extenfive, will draw out from the interior parts of the earth, the fuperabundant electrical or fulminating matter, which being transmitted along the metallic fubftance or conductor, will be discharged into the air of the atmosphere under the form of tuffs (aigrettes), by the divergent points at the fuperior extremity of the conductor. Our Author enters into a long detail in defcribing the conftruction, and pointing out the effects, of this prefervative againft earthquakes and volcanos: he acknowledges, that his method must be attended with confiderable expence, as a great number of thefe enormous electrical rods or conductors will be required; for the number must be proportioned to the permanent quantity of electrical matter in the district that is to be preferved, and to the extent of that district. But

003

great

great as this expence may be, provinces laid wafte, cities over turned, and thousands of their inhabitants buried in their ruins, testify how indifpenfably neceffary it is, at least, in certain parts of the globe; befides, it is the bufinefs of princes and fovereign ftates, and hot of particular perfons. We refer our Readers to the Memoir itself for a more circumftantial account of our Author's method; where alfo they will find a chronological hiftory of the earthquakes and volcanos, that have produced havock and defolation in many countries. This Memoir is published in the Journal de Phyfique of the Abbé Rosier, for the month of August 1779.

ART. XIV.

Recherches fur le Commerce, ou Idies relatives aux Interets des Peuples de l'Europe.-Inquiries concerning Commerce, containing Ideas relative to the Interests of the European Nations. Vol. II. Part I. Amfterdam.

W

1779.

E mentioned the firft Volume of this Work with the high efteem to which it has so just a title *, as it difcovers, in its Author, a moft extenfive knowledge of the subject of commerce, and large and philofophical views with respect to its connection with the interefts of humanity.

The ingenious Author fhewed, in his firft Volume, in oppofition to the affertion of Mr. Hume, that the great quantity of gold and filver that has been poured into Europe fince the difcovery of America, and the variations confequent upon this that have taken place in the value of money, have been really detrimental to fociety in general. He obferved, moreover, that this evil has been confiderably increased by paper-circulation and credit;-he promised to fhew this at length in a fubfequent Volume, and he fulfils his engagement, in a masterly manner, in that now before us; at leaft in part: for of the three Parts into which this fecond Volume is divided, we have only the firft in this publication; and we cannot-difguife a fentiment of uneafinefs, which we really feel, at receiving this precious Work piece-meal, and, as it were, difmembered. When an eminentartift uncovers the contour of one fide of his statue, we are impatient to fee the whole.

Be that as it may, what we fee pleases us much, and gives us a full perfuafion, that the reft will answer our utmost expectations.

The firft Part, then, of this fecond Volume contains fome difcuffions and ideas relative to modern banks and paper-credit in general. Thefe difcuffions, which are not exempt from

See in our Review for July 1778, the first article of Foreign Literature.

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