Each retiring to its neft, Courts the filent hour of rest. W. CASE, JUN. ON THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN WESTCOTT, WHO FELL ON BOARD THE MAJESTIC, ift W AUGUST, 1798. HILST every fhore re-echoes Nelson's name, And recent conquest swells Britannia's fame; Whilst a glad nation's lö Pœans rise In joyful chorus to the vaulted skies; O let the mufe lament brave Weftcott's doom, W. CASE, JUN GUELPHO AND ERMINIA. OLEAK blew the wind, dark was the night, B Black rolling clouds obfcur'd the light, The barn-dog howl'd-loud fcream'd the gleed, The foreft's track he now purfues, He faw the gloomy turrets rife, He heard the bell toil "ONE"- GUASCO's true-ERMINIA's dead, How!! howl, ye winds! ye lightnings shed And fee the glimmering lights appear, Unbleft with funeral fong. Methinks I view her blood-ftain'd breast, The dagger's grifsly wound; Not mine the deed, but my beheft, Confign'd thee to the tomb. W. MUDFORD, SONNET TO THE OAK. MBLEM of honeft worth, majestic tree, Full oft has friendship carv'd thy knotted fide, And found a faithful regifter in thee. Unlike the foppish flower that rears its head, CIVIS. A SONNET. ND thus is happiness for ever flown! The world affords, and these alone are mine. The faithful hind, in nature's peaceful vale, I envy him alone who envies none That fings to please himself, and not the throng; Renews his daily bleffings, and his fong. My cares muft ftill increase, my happiness decay. Wolverhampton, June 14th, 1799. CIVIS. Literary Review. View of the Ruffian Empire during the Reign of Catharine the Second, and to the Clofe of the prefent Century. By William Tooke, F. R. S. Member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and of the Economical Society at St. Petersburg. In Three Volumes. Longman. l. 75. THE HE Ruffian empire, at the commencement of the prefent century, emerged from its obfcurity, and is now becoming the moft renowned among the nations of the earth. We are glad, therefore, to have recourfe to an author who can fatisfy our curiofity refpe&ting it. Mr. Tooke is already known to the public by his entertaining Life of the late Emprefs, an account of which was given in our laft Review. That the author is well qualified for the task he has here undertaken, will abundantly appear from the perufal of this accurate and laborious work. The Advertifement is fo full and expreffive of the nature and tendency of the work, that we fhall infert it. ADVERTISEMENT. "The Ruffian empire, which in various refpects now fixes the attention of Europe, has for feveral years been the subject of a multitude of investigations and writings, by which the knowledge of that country is confiderably improved and enlarged. The care which Catharine the Second, from her first acceffion to the throne, and during the whole of her reign, devoted to the cultivation of this knowledge, has been attended with so much fuccefs, that Ruffia, which, prior to the year 1762, was a fort of terra incognita in our part of the globe, is VOL. VIII. H now now in poffeffion of a very confiderable store of materials, from which the prefent ftate of this remarkable country may be illuftrated and defcribed. The first and most important step to the elucidation of the natural and moral condition of Ruffia, was the appointment of the academicians of St. Petersburg to travel for the purpose of exploring its qualities in both these refpects; and their journals ftill form the bafis of all that we know with certainty of the internal state of this extenfive empire. These important difcoveries affifted the zeal of fome induftrious foreigners, who either in the country itself, or by correfpondence and connections, collected useful materials, and communicated the refult of their labours to the public. By the introduction of the governments, which, befides the beneficial effects they produced on the political administration of the empire, greatly affifted the knowledge of the country; by the admeasurement and furvey of the districts affigned them, which facilitated the conftruction of fpecial charts on a more accurate plan; by the more adequate enumeration of the people, &c. but, above all, by the wife and enlightened publicity with which it was allowed to treat of these matters, this knowledge acquired fuch a powerful acceffion, that the idea of a fyftematical digeft of all the neceffary materials, was longer to be confidered as a vain fpeculation. Bufching at first, and after him Meffrs. Schloetzer, Herrmann, Hupel, and laftly Storch, drew up their topographies and statistics of the empire; still, however, the voluminous journals of the academicians lay unopened to this country, and the travels of Pallas, Guldenftædt, Georgi, Lepechin, Falk, the Gmelins, Fischer, and others, were in England known only by the occafionał mention of their extraordinary value, with deferved encomiums on the talents and labours of their authors, in the reports of our countrymen on their return from a tranfient vifit to St. Petersburg. "Having paffed the greater part of the long reign of the late Emprefs, in her dominions; favoured for many years with the friendship and intimacy of two fucceffive directors of the academy, with free accefs to its libraries and collections, and being perfonally acquainted with feveral of the travellers themfelves, I prefume to lay before the public this View of the Ruffian Empire, in which I have faithfully followed the au thors |