the mufket and bayonet, to render both of them more fere viceable; and, at the fame time, by the re-establishment of a certain number of pike-men, to prevent a great deftruction of men, and wafte of powder, The mufket, he fays, should be four feet and a half long, and the bayonet three: both being made as light as poffible, confiftent with their due ftrength. Soldiers alfo fhould learn to fire at a mark, and take aim, in the time of action.

As to the difpofition of the pike-men, and method of firing, our Author's fcheme is fingular. He propofes, that the firit rank fhould be furnished only with pikes and targets: the pikes to be from fourteen to fixteen feet long; and the targets four feet by eighteen inches; which, he fays, tho': mufket-proof, might be made fufficiently light and portable: that the fecond rank, only fhould fire at the enemy, at any confiderable distance, and the third join their fire when the t lines approached within eighty pacesen m

Thefe, with fome other regulations being made, Mr. Knoch is of opinion, that battles and fieges, in general, would be lefs expenfive, feldom fo bloody; and, on the whole, much fooner determined, by the defeat of one party or the other, than at present.

Bigarrures Philofophiques. Or, Philofophical Rhapfodies continued from page 251; and concluded.

By our Author's Voyage to Limbo, we are to underftand an imaginary journey taken to a kind of fubterraneous Elyfium, where the fouls of thofe whofe errors in this life have proceeded from ignorance, and therefore deferve neither reward nor punishment, are appointed to take up their refidence.

nether world that at the enold man, whe

By what means our Voyager arrived at this of innocents, is not material; it is fufficient, trance of it, he was accofted by a venerable faluted him in a friendly manner, offered to be his guide, and informed him of the nature of the place, and its inhabitants; affuring him, at the fame time, it was extremely populous; and that the prefent age afforded a furprizing number of new

comers,

Our Traveller was fomewhat furprized at the latter part of this information, fince he was conicious that knowlege was never fo generally cultivated, in the upper world, as in the prefent enlightned age; in, which, almost every man you meet is a Philofopher. He was, if poffible, however, much

more

more fo, when he understood, that fuch (a vaft number of ignorants came all from Europe, where the fciences are, in a manner, concentrated; while, from the extenfive countries of the Eaft, where fcarce a pretender to fcience is to be found, there hardly arrived a single soul in a whole century,

He could not devife the reafon of this phaenomenon, till his new guide gave him to understand, it was extremely plain and fimple; that part of the world, where the fins of ignorance are chiefly committed, being, fays he, neceffarily that where the sciences are moft cultivated. The effential truths of Religion and Morality, continues he, are as obvious to the illiterate as the learned; the only difference between them being, that the former fee the truth, and embrace it, without any further enquiry; whereas the latter are ever profoundly diving for unattainable demonstrations: the confequence of which is, they generally confound themselves in the attempt, and never afterwards fee the truth at all. Hence few of the vulgar err through ignorance, for the truth is clear enough to them, while the blaze of fcience fo dazzles the eyes of the learned, that they might as well be totally in the dark and these are the real ignorants, whofe blindness brings them hither.

You must know, fays Theotime, (for that was the name of our Traveller's friendly guide) that I am, myself, an example of what I tell you. I lived in the decline of the Roman Republic, inhabiting a little house on the banks of the Tiber, far from Rome, from the great, and from the learned. I cultivated a little fpot, my paternal eftate, poffeffing myfelf in tranquillity, regarding Virtue as a pofitive good, and firmly believing Providence would, fooner or later, make a very great diftinction between the virtuous and the vicious.

A Philofopher of the times lighted on my folitary habitation, learned my fentiments, and, taking pity on my fimplicity and ignorance, condescended to enlighten my benighted understanding, with the moon-fhine of philofophy. He taught me, that Matter and Chance had, in conjunction, created the univerfe; that the human foul was a fine thread, a delicate piece of net-work, torn to pieces in death, after which there was no remembrance, no ftate of rewards and punishments; that pain was the only evil, and pleasure the only good. As I could not demonftrate the fallacy of thefe refined notions, I did not reject them; but, as they failed to convince me, I ftill retained my old ones: fo'that, between both, d entertained fuch a medley of irreconcileable opinions,

that I could never after boast of any fettled principles; but lived a Sceptic, and died in uncertainty.

Theotime enquires next, of our Voyager concerning the philofophy in vogue, at prefent, in the upper world: in an fwer to which queftion, occafion is taken to rally the hypothefis of certain modern Phifiologifts, refpecting the organical elements of bodies. You know, fays the Traveller, how long and horribly puzzled our world-makers, who would attribute every thing to material causes, have been, to account for the formation of men and animals. At length, however, and that very lately, the whole mystery is come out, in the difcovery of the primary Animalculæ, from which every kind of animals are generated. It is difcovered, that Nature, teeming one day in the vigour of youth, produced the first animal, a fhapelefs, clumfy, microscopical object. This, by the natural tendency of original propagation to vary, and perfect the fpecies, produced others better organized. These, again, produced others more perfect than themselves; till, at laft, appeared the most compleat fpecies of animals, the human kind; beyond whofe perfection it is impoffible for the work of generation to proceed. On the contrary, Nature being arrived at this ultimate point of perfection, the whole animal race are degenerating; men into beafts, beafts into infects, infects into the primary Animalculæ, and fo forth. How long it will be before they will arrive at this ftate, from which they will, doubtlefs, fet forward again, is not, as yet, quite determined.

Our Voyager's pleafantry on this head being exhaufted, his guide proceeds to inform him further of the ftate of Limbo. He fhews him the extenfive plains of Natural Philofophy, the district of Morality, and the quarter of the Metaphyficians; his defcriptions of which are equally entertaining and ingenious.

Our visionary Traveller vifits them all in their turns; and relates his feveral adventures in this world of Philofophers :` the Author's chief view in this relation, being to ridicule the feveral phyfical fyftems of Des Cartes, Newton, Maupertuis, and others. Nor does he neglect the Moralifts, and Metaphyficians.

The following is part of a Dialogue on Happiness, faid to have paffed among the Moralifts, between Ariftippus and Thales the Milefian.

ARIST. But were you to live again among the inhabitants of the upper world, fhould you not be pleased to be the mafter

fter of your own fortune? Should not you wish to make choice of fome particular ftation, in which you would be happier than in any other?

THA. Not at all, I can affure you: for I am well convinced, that with respect to Happiness, all ranks and conditions of men are equal. The lot of Chance, the very first that prefented itself, would be my choice.

ARIST. Strange! I can, indeed, very well conceive why you would not attempt to feek Happiness, in the troublesome poffeffion of riches and power: but why you fhould deliberately chufe to plunge yourself into the diftrefs of the lower part of mankind, I cannot account for. There is certainly a medium between both, which appears to me the moft eli gible; that aurea mediocritas fo celebrated by the Connoifheurs in Happiness.

THA. For this reason, I do not defire to be a King, and juft as little to be a Peafant; at the fame time, alfo, I am juft as indifferent about your golden mediocrity. I would be Peafant or King, the High-prieft of Jupiter, or the Porter at the gate of his temple, juft as it should happen. It would, I fay, be altogether the fame to me.

ARIST. But, after all, it must be granted, that you should prefer, tho' miftakenly, fome one state to another; or you will have nothing further to defire.

THA. There is no one ftate preferable to another. And, tho' there should be perfons who defire nothing, it is not becaufe nothing is wanting to their station, but, because they know how to do without thofe things they cannot eafily obtain. The world is like a fair, where the generality of people walk about, eye every thing, and cry what a number of things is here that we want! Socrates, in the fame circumftances, was of a different way of thinking: what a number of things are here, faid he, that I do not require! It must not, however, be thence concluded, that Socrates was in want of nothing: but, that he could, very eafily, do without what was not in his power to have; whereas other men cannot put up with the lofs, or abfence, of fuch things, without reluctance and chagrin.

ARIST. You will allow, nevertheless, that, at leaft, in fome certain stations of life, there is lefs to be defired than in others.

THA. Not at all; if you examine carefully the different ftates and conditions of life, you will find they are, in this

refpect,

1

3

refpect, all equal. There are different objects of defire, adapted to thofe different ftates; nor is the Monarch himself exempted from many, which are infeparable from the throne. ARIST. All men are then equally happy, or unhappy!

THA. I do not affirm that. I only affert, that one ftation is as happy as another; and that it would be to no purpofe to place a man in this or that condition of life, in order to make him happy. In our entrance into life, we carry along with us the feeds of our future happiness or mifery, which fpring up, and flourish, in whatever fituation we are placed. If you had been a Pompey, you would have sustained a war, which should decide your own fortune, and that of the univerfe, at the fame time. You would have loft a battle, and taken refuge with a friend, who would have had you affaffinated. Had you been a Socrates, you would have been an indigent Grammarian, have married the devil of a wife, have broached a metaphysical truth, and been put to death for it. Had you been a prodigal, the moft fplendid patrimony would have been wafted in a fhort time. An Oeconomiff, you would have lived at your cafe on a very moderate one. There are the rich, who have no more than an hundred pounds a year, and the poor, who have ten thousand. If a man is ambitious, and is a peafant, he naturally wishes to be a Magiftrate; if a Magiftrate, to be a Prince; if a Prince, to be still greater than other Princes; and if fuperior to some, to be fuperior to all. Thus an ambitious man gets nothing by being a Sovereign; his defires increafing with his promotion; and without ambition, it is exactly the fame to him, whether he be a King or a petty Juftice, a Princé or a Peafant.

- Our Author quaintly ftiles the chapter containing the above Dialogue, Propes. By which, we fuppofe, he means to infinuate, that it is all mere talk. But, if this were really his meaning, it had been better, perhaps, that he had confidered this fubject in a different manner at least he mights Wave done as well to have left the reader a little lefs in the daflod as to the coincidence of his own fentiments with those of his an2 cient Moralift.

Among the Metaphyficians, our Voyager encountered Campanella, with whom he takes a turn or two, and falls into difcourfe about the fytems of that celebrated Philofopher; who appeared to be a much fainted with his old motions when he was alive on S 10 21 1521915 as