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he Sieur Longueval, the then executioner, and accofting him with great civility, defired to know whether he had the honour of speaking to the high finisher of the law? He was anfwered in the affirmative by Longueval, who took his vifitor at first for an humble fuitor for fome preferment under him, but was foon undeceived by the following question. Pray, Mr. Longueval, what may be your fee for hanging a man; Trifling, indeed, Sir, if compared to the trouble it gives one. Well I fhall make it worth your while if you will do me the favour to hang me. How! Sir, I hang you without a legal authority for fo doing? In confcience I must not; obtain a proper warrant from fome of the courts of justice, and you will find me ready to oblige you in the best manner I can.

"Incensed at the refufal, he upbraided the hangman, telling him that he was not worthy of fo eminent a truft, and declared that if he perfifted in refufing his good offices, he would make him repent; for, fays he, I shall hang myself, and then deprive you of that part of your falary, and fave fo much money. My dear fir, rejoined Longueval, you are blinded by your paffion : but let me beg you to con fider: 1ft, That it is not only illegal but dishonest to encroach on any man's property: 2dly, In regard to faving of money, and robbing me of my due, you are totally mistaken; for I fhall have you to hang again, after I have dragged your carcafe on a fledge about the streets; (a cuftom practifed in France against the body of fuicides) and thus earn a double fee, and whilft the cost of fuit will be levied on your forfeited goods and chattels. This laft obfervation determined our miser to bear up with the miferies of life, and he contented himself with curfing a country where a man could not die gratis whenever he thought proper."

The Compilers are very fevere on the verfality of their countrymen in point of drefs, and reprobate it highly as the index to the inftability of mind with which they have so often and so justly been accufed. They reckon two hundred different forts of fashionable caps, and one hundred and fifty trimmings for gowns; fome of the latter are as whimfical in their make as they are ridiculous by the names given them, fuch as Plantes indifcres, Grande réputation, infenfible, defir marqué, &c. Among the modifh ribbands are the following: attention, æil abattu, foupir de Vénus, conviction, &c. &c. But to form a juft plea of this tranfcending nonfenfe, et lus hear the authors themselves.

"On compte aujourd'hui, deux cens fortes de bonnets à la mode, cent cinquante efpeces de garnitures de robes; voici les noms de quelques-unes: Les plaintes indifcretes, la grande réputation, l'infenfible, le defir marqué; il y en a à la préférence, aux vapeurs, au doux fourire, à l'agitation, aux regrets, à la compofition honnête, &c. Les rubans à la mode s'appellent attentions, marque d'espoir, œil abattu, foupir de Vénus; un inftant, une conviction, &c. &c. &c. ... On a vu derniérement à l'opéra une dame avec une robe soupir étouffé ornée des regrets fuperflus, avec un point au milieu de can

deur

deur parfaite, une attention marquée, des fouliers des cheveux de la reine, brodés en diamant en coups perfides & le venez-y voir en éméraudes, frifée en fentimens foutenus, avec un bonnet de conquéte affurée, garni de plumes volages, avec des rubans d'œil abattu, ayant un chat fur 1,épaule, couleur de gens nouvellement arrivés, derriere une Médicis montée en bienséance, avec un défepoir d'opale & un monchon d'agication momentanée.'

Speaking of those wretches mifcalled women of pleasure, the authors obferve that formerly they formed a body, or kind of corporation, and were burthened with taxes. They every year went in proceffion, on Mary Magdalen's day, and feveral ftreets adjoining to each other were allotted to them. Lewis VIII. ordered them as a badge of their profeffion, and a diftinctive mark to wear a girdle of golden tiffue, whence the French proverb Bonne renommée vaut mieux que centinture dorée. The 10th article of the ordinance of the States, affembled at Orleans, in 1560, fuppreffed all places of proftitution; but the ladies were reftored to their former right and privileges upon a memorial prefented in their favour to the Parliament of Paris, by Dr. Cayet, preceptor to Henry IV. it is a difficult matter to ascertain what might be the number of those women folles de leur corps (fportive of their bodies.) But by the police records it appears that in the year 1773 it amounted to 28,000 fair traders only; the fmugglers not being entered at the police.

We fhall difmifs this article with the following quotation, which we give in the author's own words, that those of our readers, who understand the language, may judge of the ftile in which the whole work is written. The paffage refers to a custom which is now out of use in the Parliament of Paris.

"Les ducs et pairs, foit qu'ils fuffent princes ou même fils de France, les rois et reins de Navarre, étoient obligés de donner des rofes au parlement en avril, mai et juin. Nous ne favons pas la caufe d'une telle coutume, ni le tems où elle commença. Nous ne fommes pas non plus fort inftruits de la maniere dont elle l'obfervoit. Nous favous feulement que le pair qui préfentoit ces fleurs, faifoit joncher de rofes, de fleurs et d'herbes odoriférantes, toutes les chambres du parlement, et avant l'audience donnoit fplendidement à déjeûner aux préfidens et aux confeillers, même aux greffiers et huiffiers de la ceur. Il elloit enfuite dans chaque chambre, faifant porter devant lui un grand baffin d'argent, plein d'aurant de bouquets d'œillets, de rofees ou d'autres fleurs de foie ou naturelles, qu'il avoit d'officiers, et d'autant de couronnes de méme, rehauffées de fes armes. On lui donnoit enfuite audience dans la grand chambre, puis on entendoit la mefler Les hautbois jouoient pendant tout ce tems-là, excepté durant l'audience; ill alloient même jouer chez les prefidens avant leur dîner. Il faut obferver de plus, 1o.

que

que celui qui écrivoit fous le greffier avoit fon droit de roses; 2°. que le parlement avoit fon faifeur de rofes; appellé le rofier de la cour; 3. que les pairs achetoient de lui celles dontils faifoient leurs préfens. Le parlement de Paris ordonna le 17 de Juin, 1541, que Louis de Bourbon, prince du fang, duc de Montpedfier, créé duc et pair au mois de février 1538, lui préfenteroit des roses avaht François de Cleves, créée duc de Nevers, pair de France, au mois de janvier de la même année 1538. La préfentation des rofes fe faifoit généralement par tous ceux qui avoient des paires dans le reffort du parlement. . . Cette redevance a ceffé dans le fiecle dernier, fans que l'on puiffe en fixer précisément l'époque. Il y a ap parence que c'est fous le miniftere dr cardinal de Richelieu.'

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Hiftoire de Laurent Marcel, &c.-The Hiftory of Laurent Marcel, or the unprejudiced Obferver, 4 vol. in 12mo. Lile apud Le Houcq, 1780.

The matters contained in this kind of moral novels, are reflections on monaftic life and government, public education, religious tolerance, quackery, hipocrify, war, luxury, the relicks of Romifh faints, various monuments in Italy, &c. &c. Although thefe obfervations do not offer any thing new, they have a great fhare of merit, in that they are for the most part bold and very judicious.

Memoires, &c.-Memoirs on Mathematicks and Natural Hiftory, prefented by feveral learned Men to the Academy of Sciences in Paris, and read publicly in their Affembly. 4to. Paris, apud Moutard and Pankouke, 1780, with 9 Copper-plates, price, ftitched, 15 Livres 10 fous; bound 18 Livres.

Traité contre l'amour des Parures, &c.-A Treatife against the love of Drefs and Luxury, by the author of a Treatife against Dancing and Immoral Songs, in 12mo. Paris, apud Lotin, Senior.

The very vox clamantis in deferto, preaching good and found moral to a deaf congregation.

Vou. XII.

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-Les

Les Contes de Jean Bocace, &c.-Tales by J. Bocacio, together with the Life of the Author. Paris apud La Porte.

There have been before this two French tranflations of the above tales; the one as indelicate, as it is incorrect; in two volumes, 12mo. the other in 8vo. more chafte and compleat; but written in the most barbarous ftile. The present one feems to us to poffefs a very great fhare of merit, and that in particular which is the criterion of all good tranflations, faithfulness without a disgusting severity.

Before we conclude the article of French books, we think ourselves bound, by the laws of that impartiality which it is our duty to obferve, to publish part of a letter which was fent to us from Paris, (it appeared laft February in the Esprit des fourneaux) as it will afford an opportunity to one of our celebrated naturalifts of vindicating himfelf from the charge brought against him by the writer of the letter, of which the following is an exact tranflation :

"I believe I am the first who has proved that there is a volcano towards Andernac, fituate on the left shore of the river Rhine. As Sir William Hamilton feems to be ignorant of this circumftance, and gives himself for the author of fuch difcovery, boasting of it to the Royal Society at London, in a letter to Sir John Pringle, printed in the Philofophical Tranfactions of the year 1778, give me leave, in my turn, to inform the public, that I fpoke of the above difcovery fome years ago, viz. in the year 1774, on the 7th of February, in an Effay on the Natural History of Fetfils in the Netherlands, read before the Imperial and Royal Academy of Bruffels, and printed in the ft. vol. published by that learned company in

1777.

"Sir W. H. being at Spa, in 1777, I had the honour to speak to him about that volcano, and he, together with the Marquis of S. and Mr. L. paid me a vifit at Theux, in order to view the pieces from the fame, which I had in my collection, it is fomewhat afto. nishing that Sir W. fhould have forgot this at his departure from Spa, whence he fet off to go up the Rhine, and write his letter to Sir J. P. &c. Signed ROBT. LIMBOURG, M. D. of Montpellier.

Here follows the quotation from the ift. volume of the Memoirs of the Imperial and Royal Academy for 1777, page 396* ... Quoiqu'il

"Quoiqu'il paroiffe que l'érection des bancs de nos rochers, puiffe être attribuée à une éruption fouterraine, on ne voit aucune matiere propre aux volcans, qu'à Steffen, village fitué entre Malmedi & Andernac, où il y a des rochers noirs, femblables à des briques que le feu a vitrifiées & bourfoufflées en cellules: ces rochers dont on fait des meules, ne different en rien de quelques laves que j'ai vues en Italie au Mont-Vefuve, & au Pui-Dome, ancien volcan en Auvergne : ils font une preuve affez forte qu'il pourroit y avoir eu un volcan renouvellé dans ces endroits, dont Tacite (V. Annal. lib. 23, à la fin :) rapporte que de fon tems le pays fut brûlé par des feux fortis de la terre. Jufqu'aux murs de Cologne, dit encore cet hiftorien. (ibid.)

GERMAN Y, &c.

Job. Dav. Heilmanni, Theologi nuper Gottingenfis, &c. The Work of the late John David Heilman, a celebrated Di vine of Gottingen, moft Part of them on Subjects of Divinity. Published by Donavius. 2 vol. 8vo. Fene apud Gollaer.

Heilman has been looked upon not only as one of the profoundest divines that ever graced the celebrated university of Gottingen, but even the whole proteftant church. He was born at Oinaburgh, in 1727, and in 1754 chofen rector of the schools at Hamelen; two years after promoted to the directorship of the college of Ofnaburgh, and in 1758 our author was made profeffor in the univerfity of Gottingen. He died in the year 1764. Befides the theological matters contained in the collection we fpeak of, he is author of a justly esteemed tranflation of Thecidicles, and an excellent compendium of dogmatic divinity. He also affifted the late Mr. Baumgarten, who had chofen him his librarian, in writing his novels, the German Miero; the univerfal hiftory and other works of that truly learned divine. Most of the opufcula in the above collection are in latin, and twenty-two in number.

Alberdie, &c.-An Effay on the taking of Oaths. Berlin. 8vo. 1779.

In a dedicatory epistle to the council of ftate, Mr. Oesfeld avowed himself the author of the above effay; which is pro

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feffedly