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the different feasons of the year: to which is added the ceremonies of marrying in the royal family, their feastings, &c.; the Emperor's manner of holding a divan and receiving his people; the honours they do him; and his method of employing his time. Thefe, with a variety of other curious particulars, form the two first parts. The third part contains a full account of the Gentoo religion, their books, and the fubjects of them, the feveral fects, and the points in which they differ; with the particulars of their worship, purifications, eating, drinking, marrying, &c.

The utility of this performance will be fufficiently apparent from the above recital of its contents. But it comes farther recommended by the encomium beftowed upon it by Mr. Jones, in his Perfian Grammar. That learned and ingenious writer hath inferted it in his catalogue of the most valuable books in the Perfic language: and he obferves, that a translation of it would be extremely useful to the European companies that trade in India.

Thefe circumftances have engaged Mr. Gladwin, a gentleman in the service of the Eaft India Company at Bengal, to undertake fuch a tranflation. What is here published by him is only a specimen of the work, including the fubah or viceroyalty of Bengal. Mr. Gladwin accompanies his translation with explanatory notes, from the accounts of other writers, joined to what may have occurred within the compafs of his particular knowledge and obfervation. He hath made a very confiderable progrefs in the execution of his defign, and is forming a collection of drawings of the most remarkable men, animals, cities, fruits, and flowers, as well as representations of the principal ceremonies defcribed in the Ayin Akbary, in order to illuftrate the work as much as poffible.

The completion of this undertaking will be fo evidently ferviceable in a political, commercial, and literary view, that we hope it will meet with proper encouragement.

To the prefent publication, Mr. Gladwin hath fubjoined a fpecimen of an Afiatic Vocabulary, intended to be printed by fubfcription, in three volumes, quarto. The first part, containing the words of the Arabic, Perfic, and Hindoftany, or Moor's languages, is to be comprized in two volumes. The contents of the fecond part, which will include the Shanferit, Bengály, and Nagry, are to be engraven on plates. The languages are arranged in fuch order as to fhew how the Arabic is incorporated with the Perfic, and the Perfic with the Hindoftany, or Moorish; as well as to difcover fome traces of the Shanfcrit language, both in the laft-named tongue and also that of Bengal. The whole is to be printed in the characters proper to each language, except the Moorish; which, being of most general

ufe,

ufe, will be added in Roman characters, for the benefit of those who are unacquainted with the Perfian.

ART. VII. Dr. WILLIAMS's Hiftory of the Northern Governments, concluded: See last Month's Review.

IN

N our Numbers for the two preceding months, we gave a brief character of this performance; with a sketch of the plan; and fhort extracts from the Author's account of,. I. The Trade and Commerce of Holland. II. The great Revolution, in the Government of Denmark, in the year 1660. II. The extraordinary Story of the late unfortunate Queen-confort of Denmark, Sifter to the prefent King of Great Britain; including the wretched Cataftrophe of the Counts Struenfee and Brandt: we shall now conclude with the Writer's remarks on the causes of the various revolutions in Poland.

K.

When we reflect,, fays our Author, on the hiftory of the rife and progrefs of this government, it will clearly appear that it was originally founded upon the most just and equitable principles, like all the rest of the ancient Gothic governments, and was well calculated for thofe days when mankind dealt honeftly at least with their fellow-fubjects, and united to fupport each other against their enemies. That wicked and ambitious clergy, who under pretence of propagating and fupporting the juft, benevolent, merciful, and humane doctrines of Jefus Chrift, endeavoured to enflave, opprefs, and impoverish their fellowcreatures, did not then difquiet this country; joint-tenants of the fame foil, the Poles knew no mafter but him whom they had elected to be their prince and their general, and submitted to no laws but thofe which they made themfelves; animated by the love of liberty and of his country, every member of the community was ready to facrifice his life in the fervice of the ftate, and his most ardent wishes were to fight for and fall in her defence. But when the Roman Catholic. clergy gained a footing in this kingdom,. the face of things was immediately changed; instead of preaching the religion of Jefus Chrift, founded upon the principles of charity, humanity, and brotherly love, they joined with those who called them felves nobles, to opprefs and gain an afcendancy over the bulk of the people, not only by depriving them of their property by intrigues and artifices, and afterwards excluding them from their right of voting in all public affairs, but, as foon as thefe poor people were denied the enjoyment of their juft and legal rights, they concurred with the nobles in paffing laws to reduce them to a state of flavery, as they have done to the Diffidents in our days; however, fearing that this martial people, thus humbled and oppreffed, fhould refift their measures, they not only threatened

public excommunication and all the thunders of the Vatican to thofe who difobeyed them, and took every measure to keep the bulk of the people in a state of ignorance, but they refused abfolution to those who came to confefs their faults, and fhewed the least inclination or defire to regain their liberties or privi leges. Finding themselves oppreffed on every fide, and seeing no means whereby they could redrefs themselves, the common people, from being bold, active, and enterprizing, fell into a ftate of idleness and defpair; their country was no longer dear to them; they regarded their fellow-fubjects as tyrants, and themselves as the most wretched of all the human race. But although the nobility and clergy had fo far gained their point, and reduced their fellow fubjects to a state of poverty and diftrefs, they were fearful left fome future king, dictated by the principles of justice and humanity, fhould attempt to redrefs the wrongs of thefe poor people, and reftore them to their legal rights and privileges, and therefore they now directed their attacks against the authority of the crown, and before they would permit any future king to be crowned, they forced him to fwear to fupport and to defend them in all their ufurped rights and privileges, and to obferve faithfully all the laws which they had unjustly made, and which they called the fundamental laws of the ftate. Thus did thefe wicked and abandoned clergy, and thefe tyrannical nobles, infenfibly reduce their fellow-fubjects to that state of poverty and abject flavery in which they are at prefent, limit the power of the crown, pave the way to independency, and change the form of government from an elective monarchy to an ariftocracy without controul, the most defective and tyrannical of all governments. We must look back to this fource for the great cause of all the troubles, civil wars, and revolutions which for two or three centuries paft have almost defolated this kingdom, and reduced her to the mean and wretched fituation in which she is at prefent. Difmembering the provinces of the kingdom, and vefting the fovereign authority of different diftricts in different perfons, which was heretofore practifed by feveral kings of Poland, likewife contributed greatly to weaken the power of the crown and to increase the authority and independency of the nobles and clergy. Whenever there is a number of little independent governments, which are bordering upon fovereignties, in a state, the government of that ftate will be always weak and enervated, and as thofe little governors are generally to many, tyrants, who are jealous of each other, the ftate will always be agitated like a troubled fea, and exhibit a fcene of confufion and oppreffion. This has always been the cafe in Poland, and will continue fo to be as long as the prefent form of government exifts in this kingdom; for fo long as confederacies are tolerated, REV. May, 1778. A a and

and there are great numbers of flaves ready to obey the confederates, there will always be ambitious and ill-defigning people enough to keep the government in a conftant fcene of confufion and difcord. A state in such a situation will always be like a general whofe army is ready to mutiny; he never will be in a condition to defend himself against an enemy, whilft his army is in this difpofition, neither can a kingdom fubfift whose government is undermining itself. Poland has experienced this great truth; her own divifions and a viciousness of a part of her inhabitants, who would trample under foot the just rights and privileges of the others, have rendered her the prey of her ambitious enemies. In the year 1648, when this ftate appeared to be very formidable in Europe, her government would have been totally destroyed by the Cofacks and Tartars, if those robbers had not quarrelled about their plunder. Charles Gustavus and Charles the Twelfth of Sweden conquered this kingdom with great facility with a handful of troops, and if they had taken prudent measures might have eftablished what government they thought proper, notwithstanding the boafted forces of the nobility; and we have lately seen a small body of Ruffian troops difperfe all the idle parade of their affociations. Though they have always been furrounded with enemies, the nobility and clergy would never fuffer any regular military forces to be maintained and properly disciplined in the kingdom, fearing that they fhould be a check upon their illegal measures and tyranny: thefe fons of infamy and rapine would rather fee their country deftroyed by the Tartars, Turks, or by any other foreign ftate, than do juftice to their injured fellow-creatures and fubjects: notwithstanding the brave Sobiefki so often faved them when they were at the brink of deftruction, and again placed them upon a respectable footing among the other European states, to fuch a degree of degeneracy and corruption were they then arrived, and fo great were their divifions and animofities againft each other, that they refufed the crown to his fon in order to give it to a ftranger with whom they were almost totally unacquainted; and when Auguftus, from a principle of generofity, attempted to restore the state to its ancient fplendor, they joined his enemies to dethrone him, after he had fhewn his benevolent difpofition towards them in the government of the state, and spent several millions to fave both them and their country from plunder and devaftation.

• This is an exact portrait of the Polish nobility and clergy, to whom we may juftly apply the words of the Holy Evangelift, that a kingdom divided against itself can never ftand.” These reflections may ferve to prove the Author's zealous and laudable attachment to the cause of civil and religious liberty;

a circumftance which is, indeed, strongly marked in all parts of the work; and which, no doubt, will greatly recommend it to many readers in this, as yet, FREE country. E.

ART. VIII. Difquifitions relating to Matter and Spirit. To which is added, the Hiftory of the Philofophical Doctrine concerning the Origin of the Soul, and the Nature of Matter; with its Influence on Chriftianity, especially with refp to the Doctrine of the Pre-existence of Chrift. By Jofeph Priestley, LL.D. F. R. S. 8vo. 4s. Johnfon.

1777.

N republishing Dr. Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind,

Dr. Priestley, in one of the three Introductory Effays prefixed to that performance, expreffed fome doubts of the truth of the common hypothefis, according to which man is faid to poffefs a foul, or a fuppofed immaterial fubftance, diftinct from his body; or to confift of two feparate, independent, and heterogeneous principles, intimately connected together, in fome unknown and incomprehenfible manner. Though thefe doubts, he observes, were expreffed with the utmost hesitation and diffidence; a great alarm was taken, and he was represented as an unbeliever, and a favourer of atheism.

The odium, he adds, which I had thus unexpectedly drawn upon myself, ferved to engage my more particular attention to the fubject of it; aud this at length terminated in a full conviction, that the doubt I had expreffed was well founded. Continuing to reflect upon the fubject, I became fatisfied that, if we fuffer ourselves to be guided in our inquiries by the uni-, verfally acknowledged rules of philofophizing, we shall find ourfelves intirely unauthorized to admit any thing in man befides that body which is the object of our fenfes; and my own obfervations, and my own collection of opinions on the subject, prefently fwelled to the bulk that is now before the public.

The doctrine propofed in the paffage which we have above alluded to, is thus expreffed in different terms, in the present treatise. After having obferved that the Scriptures uniformly fuppofe the fyftem of materialism, which is clogged with none of the difficulties attending the common opinion, he adds'Man, according to this fyftem, is no more than what we now fee of him. His being commences at the time of his concep tion, or perhaps at an earlier period. The corporeal and mental faculties, inhering in the fame fubftance, grow, ripen, and decay together; and whenever the fyftem is diffolved, it continues in a state of diffolution, till it fhall please that Almighty Being, who called it into existence, to reftore it to life again.'

The Author commences thefe difquifitions by an inquiry into the nature and effential properties of matter; and endeavours to prove that the folidity or impenetrability, and confequently the

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