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tryman Mr. Reuben Burrow, who is now in the Eaft, applying himself, diligently, to the ftudy of the Sanfcrit language.

The moral philofophy of the Hindoos is fo mixed with religious fables and fo obfcured by metaphyfical jargon, that it is in reality a compound of a very peculiar form, and it is, perhaps, held in veneration as much for its intricacy and obfcurity as for its pretended divine original: we fhall only obferve, in general, that it contains many important truths, and that its practice feems well calculated to promote the happiness of mankind.The laws which are established on its principles have the general recommendation of equity; though, perhaps, fome objection may be made to thofe which compofe the ceremonial code: fome of them, however, like thofe of the Jews, are calculated to promote the health of their obfervers, by compelling them to govern their paffions, and by prefcribing a wholesome diet.

Having now gone through the contents of the Ayeen Akbery, our readers muft fee, that, in feveral points of view, it is a moft ufeful and interefting work. To the hiftorian, it must be peculiarly acceptable; more especially as all the accounts that have been tranfmitted to us, either by ancients or moderns, of this (hitherto little known) people, are replete with evident contradictions: We are now prefented with their hiftory, manners, religious creed, laws, ceremonies, philofophy, and government, by one who lived among them; and for this acquisition we are obliged to the zeal of an Haftings, an Halhed, a Wilkins, and a Gladwin, who, with the powerful affiftance of the East-India Company, have, at leaft in part, removed the veil, which concealed the literature of the Brahmins from European eyes. By promoting the ftudy of the eaftern languages, and by encouraging an intercourfe between the learned of the different nations, they have enabled us to read the Hindoo books, fo that we are no longer obliged to credit, implicitly, different travellers, who, unacquainted with the language, and having little or no communications with the natives, muft, in courfe, give imperfect accounts of the country, and mifreprefent, perhaps through ig norance, the manners of the people, together with their religious and philofophical tenets. But befide the advantages that the cause of literature may derive from the labours of these gentlemen, an intimate acquaintance with Hindoftan and its inhabitants, muft, in a commercial and political view, be a matter of confiderable national importance; for trade and focial intercourse can never be fo well carried on with a people of whose real character, and modes of thinking, we are, in many respects, ignorant, as with thofe whom we intimately know; and the better we know them the more advantageous will the commerce

*For fome particulars of it, fee p. 591. in the article of the Bagavadam.

become.

become. Humanity, alfo, rejoices to fee, as we now do, by the affiftance of our tranflators of the Hindoo books, that the inhabitants of these diftant countries are not an ignorant people, but men endowed with ftrong natural faculties,-men of learning and difcernment,-men who have inculcated the obligations of morality, and who, in regard to fincerity in the practice of what they profess, are, at least, on an equal footing with ourfelves.

In fine, the Ayeen Akbery will be admired by the scholar, as a literary curiofity; it will be confulted by the hiftorian as an authentic record; and ought to be perused by all who have any commercial, or other, connexions with the country to which it relates. To this end, it is to be hoped, that either the work will be reprinted here, or that a fufficient number of copies, of the prefent edition, will be transmitted to England. At prefent, we have not heard of more than one other copy that hath been imported from Bengal, befide that which now lies before us *; for the use of which we are obliged to a worthy friend. The fubfcription was 40 rupees per volume; or about £15 fterling, for the fet.

ART. XI.

Recherches Philofophiques fur les Grecs: i. e. Philofophical Inquiries concerning the Greeks; by M. DE PAUW. 2 Vols. 8vo. Berlin. 1787. [Imported by Meffrs. Robfon and Clarke, London.]

THE

HE gratitude with which the learned of every age have looked up to Greece, as the nurse of arts and sciences, has fometimes infpired an enthufiaftic partiality in her favour, and led them to ascribe to her more wisdom and virtue than she really poffeffed. To counteract prejudices of this nature, to strip facts of thofe delufive ornaments with which poets, orators, and even hiftorians, have embellished them, and to reprefent them in the lefs flattering, but more ufeful, light of truth, appears to be M. DE PAUW's defign in thefe volumes; in which he has, with no fmall degree of critical fagacity, detected many mifreprefentations in ancient, and many errors in modern, writers; but there is, in the whole of his work, a fupercilious, dogmatical manner, which disgusts the reader; and he treats those from whom he differs with a contempt which is the lefs excufable, becaufe, from the nature of the fubject, he, as well as the authors who fall under his cenfure, is often obliged to have recourse to conjecture, in order to fupply the want of historical evidence,

* Exclufive of fuch copies as may have been brought hither, by fubfcribers, who have lately returned to Europe.

The

The work is divided into four parts, three of which relate to the Athenians, to whom, more than to any other nation of Greece, we are indebted for arts and fciences; whole pursuits and ftudies tended to inftruct later ages, not only in the culture of the liberal arts, but also in thofe more important, objects of philofophy and legislation, without which mankind may indeed exift, but cannot be truly happy or refpectable.

M. DE PAUW's inquiries relate to the following particulars: the country of Attica, and the city of Athens;-the phyfical conftitution of the Athenians;-their moral and intellectual character; their education; the fchools of the philofophers; the diftinctions of rank among them; their luxury; their commerce and finances;-their laws and tribunals; their political conftitution, and their religious inftitutions.

Thefe fubjects have indeed been often difcuffed; but M. de PAUW's diligence in collecting every article of information that can be gathered from the works of orators and dramatic poets, as well as from hiftorians and politicians, has enabled him to confider fome of them in a light in which they have not generally been viewed; and his peculiar turn of thought and expreffion gives him an air of originality, even where he follows the opinions of preceding writers.

According to the accounts collected by this Author, Athens could not have been a very beautiful or elegant city. Ariftotle informs us, that the upper ftories of their houfes projected over the ftreets, which must have deftroyed their fymmetry, and impeded the free circulation of air *. We are told by Dicæarchus, that, on entering the town, a ftranger had reafon to doubt whe ther he was really in Athens; that the ftreets were remarkably irregular, the city ill provided with water, and the houses, in general, mean t. Indeed, the nature of the government, as M. DE PAUW well obferves, prevented the wealthy from dif playing any great magnificence in their town habitations; and it is remarked, with approbation, by Demofthenes, that in the best times of the republic, the houfes of Themiftocles and Ariftides could not be diftinguished from thofe of their neighbours. Hence the nobles of Attica conceived an averfion to the city, and chofe to indulge their tafte for fplendour in a folitary villa, or retired village, rather than to live undiftinguished among, what they ftyled, an infolent populace, whofe pride it was, to crush that of all others. But the circumftance which must have been molt detrimental to the beauty of the city, was the spaces which, Xenophon tells us, were left vacant, wherever houses had been either destroyed by fire, or razed by a decree of the

Ariftot. Oeconomic. lib. ii.

+ Dicæarch. Fragment. cui titulus BIQE 'BAAAAQZ.

people;

people; for the ground on which these had stood being deemed fatal and execrable, none were permitted to build on it.

With these defects, M. DE PAUW obferves, Athens could not be rendered a beautiful city. The great magnificence difplayed in the temples and public buildings, made the meanness of private houfes appear more confpicuous. The eye was rapidly carried from one extreme to its oppofite, without difcerning any intermediate point on which it might repofe; and as there was neither proportion nor connection between the several parts, there could not be beauty in their affemblage as an whole. The three thousand ftatues, erected in the public places, and under the porticoes, of Athens, could not atone for the deformity of the streets; because ornaments cannot atone for defects.

Among the Athenians, beauty of perfon feems to have been the portion of the male, rather than of the female fex: the latter, however, difdained not the affiftance of art, to improve thofe charms, of which, in M. DE PAUW's opinion, nature had not been very liberal. Their morals were under the infpection of the Gyneconomi, who were always members of the Areopagus; and their drefs, under that of another tribunal, the magiftrates of which were diftinguished by the appellation of Gynæcocofmi, who punished, with great feverity, thofe that were careless and flovenly in their external appearance: hence the ladies ran into the oppofite extreme, ruined their families by their expences in drefs, adopted the most extravagant fafhions, and at length plaiftered their faces and bofoms with paint, in a degree so disgusting, that it has never yet been equalled in any civilized country. Quære, Has M. DE PAUW vifited Paris lately?

Dr. Gillies, in his Hiftory of Greece, has dwelt with a degree of enthufiafm on the advantages, both natural and moral, refulting from the gymnaftic exercifes and public games: but the pretent author is of a very different opinion, and asserts that nothing could be more pernicious, or tend more to enervate the human race, than these exercises. With refpect to the moral advantages of the public games, what Dr. Gillies has faid is rather eloquent declamation than folid argument; but, on the other hand, we cannot help thinking that M. DE PAUW, in his eftimation of their medical effects, fhews but little knowlege in phyfiology, and reprefents the accidents which fometimes happened to the athlete as the natural confequences of their exercises.

From comparing the feveral accounts of the population of Attica, in the time of Pericles, of Demofthenes, and of Demetrius Phalereus, M. DE PAUW Conjectures, that the number of citizens was preferved nearly at the fame level, in confequence of the adoption of ftrangers, to repair the extraordinary devaftations

2

tions of war and difeafe, and of emigrations, when the number exceeded that which the rules of policy had eftablished: this was twenty thousand men; and he fuppofes that there was an equal number of women. In the time of Demetrius Phalereus, the ftrangers fettled in Attica amounted to ten thoufand, and the flaves to four hundred thousand; fo that the whole may be estimated at four hundred and fifty thousand, to about eighty-fix fquare leagues of territory, or above five thoufand, on an average, to each fquare league. This, M. DE PAUW obferves, is a much greater population than that of France, which, according to M. NECKER's calculations, contains not more than nine hundred inhabitants to a square league.

fa

Öf the Athenian matrons this Writer gives us no very vourable ideas. The retirement in which they lived before marriage deprived them of the advantages of education, infomuch that the courtezans, who could frequent the fchools of philofophy, were much more accomplished than married women of the first quality, few of whom could even speak their own language with tolerable propriety. After marriage, however, their confinement was by no means fo rigid as fome have fuppofed. Xenophon (in the Dialogue between Hieron and Simonides) fays, that provided their conduct was mild and peaceable, the mothers of families were treated with great refpect; that much compaffion was fhewn to the infirmities of their fex; that a first inftance even of their conjugal infidelity was eafily pardoned, and a fecond foon forgotten. On the authority of Atheneüs and Plutarch, M. DE PAUW reprefents them as addicted to drunkenness, and the moft diffolute fenfuality; he fays, that they were turbulent and quarrelfome, and that, notwithstanding all the conceffions of their husbands, domeftic peace was very feldom found in their habitations. It is certain that the feafts of Bacchus, and fome other religious inftitutions which the women claimed a right to celebrate, could not tend to inspire either gentleness of manners or purity of morals.

In his obfervations on the diftinctions of rank in fociety, M. DE PAUW has introduced a judicious comparison between the nobles of Athens and of Rome; and has fhewn how greatly fuperior, in this refpect, the conftitution of the former was to that of the latter, where the oppreffive power of the patricians was an inexhaustible source of civil difcord, and of every evil which can refult from that worst kind of government-an ill-conftituted republic. He afcribes this fuperiority, in a great meafure, to the regulations eftablished by Solon, according to which, the Archons were excluded from the command of the army, and the office of Senator was limited to a year, instead of being held for life: it was likewife owing to the mediocrity of fortune pof

fefled

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