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Notwithstanding there is no police, robberies are fcarce murders fcarcer, and executions, more fcarce than either. The author did not hear of one in three years, though, a little before his time they had at laft executed one Pignero for his 33d murder, the laft of which was committed on the body of the gaoler, whofe wife he has married and lived comfortably with in prifon feveral years. This fellow would not have been hanged at Taft, if he had not been fool enough to appeal from the fentence of an inferior tribunal, who had only "con demned him to the mines. His laft ftroke was giving up a knife, with which he had intended to have ftabbed the man who was to read him his fentence; but, luckily for the fellow, another came in his ftead. If any body wonders how a gentleman, who had committed 33 murders, came to have a knife, he must be informed that at all the windows of the Spanifh prifons there are cords and baskets, into which the friends of the prifoners put what they pleafe.

As to Spanish agriculture it is very bad, owing not fo much to the want of population as of farms: you of ten go 90 leagues without meeting with a fingle habitation, and fee ten or twelve oxen at work in one field, and ten or twelve men in another. Notwithstanding this, the ground yields enough in one year to fupport Spain for a year and a half, and tlfough there are often famines, and that bread is dearer than in France, owing to bad management of the exportation, yet the Spanish peafant always eats white bread made of the best wheat.

The laft chapter bur one contains a curious_account of the body of men known by the name of Mefta, thefe are the proprietors of theep, who have the priviledge of going through Caftile and fome other parts of Spain, in fearch of pafture for their flocks. The author thinks, that the fineness of the Spanish wool is in a great meafure owing to the journeys which the beafts that yield it take, as they travel upwards of 300 leagues every year. They reckon about five miltion of thefe beafts in Spain, but if their travels are useful to the woolen trade, they are very prejudicial to agriculture, no inclofures being allowed in any other coun

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try, through which they are to pafs. Things indeed were much worse till very lately, that the council of Caftile took off the prohibition of taking away from the Mefta the lands farmed by them, or railing the price of any of them. A flock of about 24,000 head brings. in, all expences paid, about 2500l. a year, to the proprietors. The author gives us feveral particulars about the mode of managing them, but thefe are too long to infert here.

The Spanish revenue is eftimated at 100,000,000, piafters. People differ about the proportion of it collected from America, which fome lay at 14 or 15 156 and others at 45 or 50 millions.

It must be observed that this ftate of the finances goes on the fuppofition of a population of feven millions, whereas fince M. Daranda's laft numeration, it turns out to be from ten to eleven millions. The national debt, is very inconfiderable yet the government has no cre dit, owing to Philip V, debts never having been paid.

The land forces are extremely bad: they confift of a militia, which is forced to ferve for fix years, but the foldier conftantly goes home as foon as he is free, notwithstanding all the methods that can be used to make him like the service. In regard to naval affairs, after having changed their large and heavy fhips, which the English were fo much afraid of, for light failers, which, for want of knowing how to manage them, were all taken in the laft war; they have now adopted the French mode of conftruction, which is the proper medium between the two.

The author promifes us a fecond account, which is to 'contain his travels into the Afturias, and the kingdoms of Leon, Arragon, and Galicia; but he does not chufe to publish it before he has carefully gone through the coun try, a circumftance which much confirms my good opi nion of his accuracy.

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LITERARY CURIOSITIES.

WARBURTONIANA.

ERHAPS your comparifon of Printers to Taylors is more pat than you intended: For why can't you get your cloaths from a rafcally Taylor, but because he is working for half a dozen Fops in the fashion? And why can't you get your fheets from the Printer, but because he is working upon News-papers, Journals, and Magazines, the delight of the town, and the daily bread of town fcriblers?"

"You mention John of Antioch, with two writers contemporary to the fact, Ambrofe and Greg. Naz; but I' fuppofe he did not live till the 5th or 6th century. One thing I find recorded of him is, that, like many of our modern bishops, he was not known or heard of till after his confecration. His modefty does him honour with me, therefore I fhould be glad to know what this respectable perfon fays about this matter; if he lays any thing particular. For, to tell you the truth, I did not find him in my brief, as the lawyers fay; but I fufpect him to be a thag-rag.

Another thing I beg of you is, to tranfcribe for me (if you can catch him) Ruffinus's teftimony. He is fuch a vagabond I can't lay hands on him; I fuppofe him fkulking in fome Bib. Patrum. As for that forlorn hope Theodoret, Philoftorgius, Nicephoras, and Theophanes, I fhall put them where they can do no hurt; as to good, little is to be expected from fuch poltroons, who are ready to run away to the enemy.

As to Meric Cafaubon's ftory, I could have wished to have had not only the cooking but the catching of that game..

At Oxford, Mr. Forfter fays, they expect a delugè of anfwerers against Middleton, by the firft froft; for our cold and barren heads run not like thofe of the Alps in fummer, but in winter, except that which over

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tops us all, the hoary brow of Whifton, which, like mount Jura, runs both in fummer and in winter."

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introduces his abufe on you, by faying, that you got a receipt for him of Sir Edward Hulfe, that faved his life. Poor Mr. Pope received juft fuch a favour from Southcot, and he never was eafy till he got him a rich abbey in Flanders, which he did by the intereft of Sir Rob. Walp. and his brother Horace, with the court of France, on which account it was, he always fpared thofe two in his fatires, and highly complimented the elder. Let my foul be with a philofopher like this, rather than fuch a Chriftian as

وو

"I took notice of an article in the News Papers, which faid, it was not true that you had received a living from Lord Ailefbury; who this Lord Ailesbury is, I know not; but I was pleafed with the novelty of the paragraph, as if it was a fcandal that your friends were willing to remove you; and indeed, as Lords go now, there is no great honour to receive favours from them."

"Lauder has offered much amusement for the public, and they are obliged to him. What the public wants, or fubfifts on, is news. Milton was their reigning fa vourite; yet they took it well of a man they had never heard of before, to tell them the news of Milton being a thief and a plagiary; had he been proved a it had pleased them much better. When this was no longer news, they were equally delighted with another, as much a stranger to them, who entertained them with another piece of news, that Lauder was a plagiary and an impoftor; had he proved him a Jefuit in difguife, nothing had equalled their fatisfaction. We bear with this humour in the public; but when particulars have imbibed this public fpirit, nothing is fo deteftable as fuch a character, and a man without a heart needs a public expiation more than a beaft without one. I know fome of these monsters, and fo do you, I dare fay, more than you esteem them. It is a pity that they should be fometimes men of wit."

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LITERARY INTELLIGENCE

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ROPOSALS are come over from Paris for printing by fubfcription, a new edition of the French Encyclopoedia, and digefted and methodized into twenty-feven regular claffical dictionaries, by men of the first reputation in every branch of learning, and with confiderable alterations and additions.

It cannot admit a doubt but that this is a very ufeful undertaking to the literary world, as, according to the prefent plan of the Encyclopoedia, there is no gaining the information it is replete with upon every fubject, without being obliged to turn over the twenty-one vo lumes, whereas, according to the new formi, one, two, three, or fix volumes at most, will contain a complete treatife of the fcience you want. The dictionary form it was impoffible to change entirely without changing the whole, as the articles were written with that purpose,

There will be two editions of this work, the one quarto, the other octavo; but the plates, the number of which will be fomewhat reduced (as they may very well be, great complaints having been made of their be ing much too numerous) will be given only in quarto...

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The price to fubfcribers, and to fubfcribers only: (for we are affured, in the most folemn manner, that it will, immediately after the clofing of the fubfcription, be raised to 798) will be 672 livres (i. e. 28 guineas); of in cafe there fhould be four volumes more than it is at prefent believed there will (for all above will be given gratis) 30 guineas.

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This money is to be paid by installments, i. e. 36 livres or a guinea and a half between this and the first of July-1782, when the fubfcription will be finally and irrevocably clofed, and the reft as it is called for, i on receiving the first two or three volumes a new sub fcription and fo on, but never above a guinea ora guinea and a half at most at a time; nor will the calls be very frequent, as there will be twenty-three of them

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