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was higher before the prohibition took place. The exportation of the manufacture fince has been greater, and the fmuggling has been immenfe. '

Author of Obfervations on National Induftry fays, that in ancient times the English wool was in as great requeft abroad as Spanish.

Average price of wool in France is feventeen pence a pound. Price of Spanish wool in Holland is not much lower; whereas price of English wool is not above nine pence, confequently parliament may lay a large duty on exportation without any risk of ftopping the demand.

ART. VII. Confiderations on the American War. By Jofeph Williams, Efq.

REASONS AGAINST AMERICAN INDEPENDENCY.

TH

HE war neither to be purfued as it has been, nor by what is generally understood by posts, for reafons given; but the navy to be recruited from the army, and France to be pursued from fea to fea as the grand object; Bofton, New York, Newport, and Philadelphia to be destroyed, Charlestown to be made the place of arms, and Halifax, Louifbourg, and Quebec, with the plains of Abram, well fortified, to be the only ports. Then America, unable to pay France, and occupied in rebuilding her own towns, will break with her, and return to us. Above all, conduct, fecrecy, and perfeve

rance.

This is the plan, which is explained and defended with modefty, variety of reafoning, and no declamation. Prefixed is the following advertisement:

To the PUBLIC..

Commenced my foldierfhip at the age of fifteen, harged the duty of an officer for twenty years, that time, politics my ftudy.-I therefore have the fruits of that ftudy to my country, hoping ill accrue to the public, than what it afforded and of four years in America, gives me as great on the fubject, as Dean Tucker can claim, by fpeculating

fpeculating out of the pale of his profeffion: and I have a right to think, that, was a minifter to adopt me as his hero, I should acquit myself as well as any that have been employed fince the fate of Wolfe. But fince the occupation of my fword is fword is gone, yet my country, I hope, will not frown at that of my pen.

And fubjoined, is this letter:

"I am perfuaded, your own option decides whether you are to continue the minifter or not.-The rod of JUNIUS has left too feeling a smart behind, to be forgot; nor is there a minifter fo hardy, as to provoke a return of correction, which JUNIUS only can inflict.-I yet think the concealed JUNIUS could render more effential fervice to this country than the avowed minifter.-I fhould advance what I could not prove, were I to pronounce your lordship to be JUNIUS, but I am convinced you can command the pen of JUNIUS."

ART. VIII. Storia della Letteratura Italiana, or Hiflory of Italian Literature. By Father Girolamo Tirabofchi.

THE great portion of room taken up in libraries by what is generally called literary history is amazing. General hiftories of fcience, the hiftories of part cula fciences, those of the eminent men of particular profeffions, or particular towns; thefe, and a number of other ramifications, make up a catalogue which it is itself no inconfiderable labour to be mafter of. There are, however, two material reafons why the fcience is not to be defpifed. In the firft place, because it fhews the different progrefs of the human mind at different times, and under different circumstances of climate, government, and religion; but fecondly, and principally, because in an age in which fcience is becoming more general on all fides, and the different branches of it are fo much better underflood than ever they were before, it is of very great ufe to know what has been done in other countries, as VOL. I.

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well

well as the fources from whence the best information is to be drawn.

What has been done in this country on this fubject by Bale, Leland, Nicolfon, Ward, and the authors of the Biographia, every body knows.

The French,who it must be owned are excellent at teach-. ing the roads, and fhortening the ways to fcience, have gone still farther, Besides father Niceron, Goujet, Teiffier, and many other works of lefs merit, they have two capital works on the fubject, the Literary History by the Benedictines of St. Maur, in twelve volumes quarto, yet unfinished, and the Bibliotheque Hiftorique, in five volumes folio, by father Le Long and Mr. Fontête. This laft contains an account of about fifty thoufand different works, relating not only to the civil, but natural and ecclefiaftical history of France; to each of which are added short judgments of the work, and the degree of credit to be given to it, the whole fo well executed, that it were to be wifhed we had any thing of the kind as perfect.

It was referved however to father Tirabofchi to be the first to compleat a general literary hiftory of his country, from the time of the Romans to the beginning of the prefent century; a work abounding in entertainment, and probably, from the great number of refpectable authorities referred to all along, executed with fidelity. It shall be my business to select such parts of it as I may think more generally useful and entertaining in this country.

The author, after having heftated fome time between the chronological order, and that of treating each fcience apart, determined to unite them both. He has accordingly divided the work into different periods (of. longer or fhorter continuance, according as remarkable revolutions in the hiftory directed) and in each period he has dedicated a chapter to each fcience. Thus, generally fpeaking, after a fhort introductory hiftory of the country during the time, follows a chapter relating to the canon, and another to the civil law, one on medicine, one on mathematics, on history, on poetry, on the fine arts, and on

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the

the difcoveries made during the period, new titles being fometimes introduced when occafion calls for them. Each of the chapters generally contains the history of the science treated of, fhort accounts of the fates of its principal profeffors, with indications of, and judgments on, their principal works. Some of thefe are perhaps too dull for any place; fome are interesting only in Italy, but there are many which may be useful here; I fhall therefore go on abridging and contracting fuch as appear fo to me, taking care to leave out nothing which I think may be ufeful. As to this first extract however, if the claffical reader of this country does not find as much entertainment, or as much inftruction as he expects in it, he is not to be furprized at a difappointment which is owing to his own knowledge of fuch matters, which however could not be paffed over all together, without beginning in the middle of things, a custom not to be commended, as he very well knows, in any work but an Epic poem, and it is hoped the unlearned reader will find fomething to his purpofe in it.

With regard to the Etrufcan literature then (for our author does not chufe to take the matter up any higher) F. Tirabofchi regrets not having feen two differtations on the philofophy and inufic of the ancient Etrufcans, by Monfignor Pafferi, which came too late for his purpose; his own thoughts on the fubject are the following.

Hiftorians of their own the Etrufcans had none; the good Latin hiftorians lived too long after they were a people, for their accounts to be depended on, and from ther monuments which remain, little is to be got. Still, however, there is a glimmering of light, and that glimmering is worth attending to.

And firft, whether the Etrufcans were defcended from the Egyptians, as monfignor Buonarotti pretends, or had only an intercourfe of friendship with them as Winckelman and others have thought, it is certain that they were acquainted with the fine arts. Pliny speaks of pictures by Demaratus in the 18th Olympiad, that is, upwards of 200 years before they were known in Greece.

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Greece. It is well known that two thousand statues were carried to Rome at the taking of Bolfena; and as to architecture, they are fuppofed both by Varro and Diodorus to have been the inventors of that very useful appendage to a Roman nobleman's houfe, called the portico; and it is certain, that Tarquin built the capital, fabris undique ex Etruria accitis, with the affiftance of Tufcan architects. Nor is it very improbable that the Tufcan order, which is the fimpleft of all, may be the oldest too. As to their gems, vafes, &c. there is no end of them, nor any doubt of their antiquity *. But the existence of the arts fuppofes the existence of the sciences even where no pofitive proof can be ad-. duced of it; there is, however, fomething more. Diodorus Siculus fays, they were great philofophers; and Livy tells us, that it was a custom for the young Roman nobility to learn Tufcan, which is ftill farther confirmed by Dionyfius Halicarnaffus, who fays, that Demaratus the Greek, when he fettled at Rome, had his children taught both the Latin and Tufcan. Brucker has gone still gone farther, and afferted, that their philofophy was precifely that of the Stoics; in confirmation of which, he has adduced a paffage from an anonymous writer mentioned by Suidas, about the creation of the world in fucceffive time; but he has been anfwered by Lampredi (Saggio fopra la filofofia degli antichi Etrufchi), and has not I think defended himself fatiffactorily. Whatever their opinion about the origin of things might be, it is certain, from the teftimony of the hiftory, that they were very fuperftitious. That they had fome knowledge of phyfic, is attefted by Martian Capella, who fays, Etruria regio remediorum origine celebrata, and is probable from the great quantity of mineral waters with which the country abounded; but whether the perfon mentioned by the two Plinys under the name of Aquilex, and whofe of ce it was to indicate the places where water might be found, and to

* For more intelligence on this fubject, see Monfignor Maria Guarnacoi delle origine Italliche.