TO THE

MONTHLY REVIEW.

VOLUME the SIXTY-FIRST.

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

ART. I.

Voyage Pittoresque de la Grece. Chap. IV. -Travels through the different Parts of Greece, represented in a Series of Engravings. Large Folio. No. IV, Paris. 1779.

I

T may be faid of this noble and elegant work, that it acquires new charms, and new degrees of perfection, as it advances; mobilitate viget. The XXXIId plate, which begins this fourth part, contains a general chart of the ifle of Paros, one of the most celebrated of the cluster called the Cyclades. Its opulence and population gave it a confiderable afcendant over the neighbouring islands. Attacked in vain by Miltiades, conquered by Themistocles, poffefsed by Mithridates, and delivered up to the Romans, in consequence of the victorious arms of Sylla and Lucullus, it became the property of a noble Venetian † after the destruction of the Roman empire, was afterwards invaded by the successors of Mahomet, and subdued by Barbarossa, in the reign of Soliman II. The remains of its ancient opulence and grandeur, which still strike the eye of the curious traveller, are rich, precious, and interesting. Columns, statues, cornices, architraves, of noble workmanship are difcernible, in great abundance, in the walls of modern buildings, where they are lavished without taste, and placed without any order or arrangement. There is an old castle in this island, built of no other materials than the ruins of the most magnificent ancient edifices. Paros was the native country of Archi

* See our account of No. III. in the last Appendix, vol. Ix. page 509. Numbers I. and II. were mentioned in former Reviews.

+ Mark Sanudo.

APP. Rev. Vol. lxi.

Ii

locus,

Tocus, the Aretin of ancient times, of Agoracrites, the disciple of Phidias, and of Polignotes, Arcefilas, and Nicanor, who carried the art of encaustic painting to a confiderable degree of perfection. This island is also famous for having furnished the Arundel marbles, which comprehend the principal epochas of Grecian history, from Cecrops to Alexander; and which are justly confidered as one of the noblest literary ornaments of the university of Oxford.

The XXXIIId plate represents a Grecian dance at Paros.The XXXIV th the entrance of a marble quarry, in which an ancient baffs relievo is placed, exhibiting a Bacchanal figure, ill executed. The XXXVth, which contains an accurate plan of the harbour of Nauffa, where the Russians assembled their main force in the last war, furnishes our Author with an opportunity of entertaining the military reader with details relative to the art of war.

The XXXVIth and the two following plates represent the entrance of the grotto of Anti-Paros, its geometrical plan and dimensions, and a view of its inside. This famous grotto, which, at this time, is such an interesting object to the naturalist, seems to have been unknown to the ancients, whom terror, perhaps, restrained from founding its depth, which fome suppose to be above 250 feet. The inhabitants of the island never attempted to descend into it before the year 1673, when M. de Nointel, the French Ambassador at Conftantinople, went down, with a great part of his retinue, and other travellers, and had mass celebrated in the lowest apartment of that vast cavern: the altar, employed on this occafion, was a stalagmite, whose height was 24 feet, and its base 20 feet diameter. Our Author had also the curiofity to undertake the formidable descent, and he describes, with the pen of a naturalist and a painter, the manner in which those masses of crystallization, which we find delineated in the XXXVIIth plate, are formed and augmented in their fize and dimensions. The stalactites (like icicles, which during the winter hang from rocks that had been overflowed by the swelling torrents) grow and extend incessantly, in length, the conic figure, which they always derive from the mechanifm of their formation; while the drops that fall from them, when the filtration is abundant, form ftalagmites at the bottom of the cavern, which rifing in a contrary direction, exhibit, at first, a range of columns, and at length joining the stalactites, unite with them in one folid mass. Notwithstanding the zealous curiosity of our noble and very ingenious Author, M. de CHOISEUL, to get at the extremity of this fubterraneous cavern, he could not engage the inhabitants of the ifland to affift him in this perilous enterprize. They told him that a goat, which

.:

went aftray in the grotto, after wandering a long time, came out in the ifle of Nio. This story, however improbable, excited still more his curiofity; but he could not fatisfy it.

In the XXXVIIIth plate we have a view of the village of St. George in the ifland of Sciros; and in the XXXIXth a map of that island, in which Lycomedes is said to have reigned, when Theseus, driven from his dominions, fought there a retreat, and perished miferably in the attempt. The superstition of the inhabitants is still more excessive than that of the other Greeks in the Archipelago; it is nourished by the Monks of the convent of St. George, which are a colony of the monaftic republic of Mount Athos. The fuperior of this convent, who is always fent from Mount Athos, governs the ifle of Sciros despotically, and strikes terror into the inhabitants by an image of his faint, which performs wonders of divination and vindictive justice; and thus draws ample contributions from the multitude. This convent is furrounded by 365 chapels, whose saints are a heavy burthen upon the laborious inhabitants.

The XLth plate represents the inhabitants of the island of Lemnos, the celebrated forge of Vulcan, in ancient times. It is natural to think that a volcano, or collection of fubterraneous fire, gave occasion to this fable; and, in effect, our Author found, throughout Greece, evident vestiges of the defolations produced by fubterraneous fires, several of which burn still. But who would have thought, that the Iliad and Odyssey are nothing but the facred and symbolical books of the priests of Siris (in Lucania); and that their Heroes and Deities are allegorical beings, defigned to represent the disasters produced in the territory of Troy by fubterraneous fires, which had before manifested their terrors in feveral parts of Greece! This new piece of critical, or rather volcanic interpretation, is announced by our Author, as the invention of a Mr. Ciro Saverio Minervino, a learned Neapolitan, who has undertaken to prove it clearly in a work composed expressly for that purpose, -nay, who intends also to demonftrate that Homer was a fabulous being, and that the word Homer is no more than the title of the books, which have been attributed to him. - This propensity to torment the immortal Author of the Iliad is not new. - He has already paffed through the hands of the chymifts, who have pretended to discern, in his works, all the secret operations of their art, even the transmutation of metals; and he has been made, by some allegorical theologians, the mystical painter of the events of the Chriftian church, and of the miracles of its founder. This method of interpreting is fimilar to that of those divines and critics in Holland, who follow a certain Cocceius; one of whom, some time ago, spiritualized, in this manner, the labours of Hercules; making this hero pass for Jesus Christ, Alcmena for the Virgin Mary,

Mary, and Jupiter for the Holy Ghost-and the labours of the hero for the exploits of apostles, saints, &c.

Quodcunque fic mihi oftendis incredulus odi.

Lemnos was famous, in ancient times, for its labyrinth; which, according to Pliny, was adorned with 150 columns. There are no traces of it now remaining.-But time, which has destroyed this and other productions of the fine arts, has not effaced the prejudices and superstitions of the inhabitants The earth, or clay of Lemnos, which healed the wound of Philtetes, still maintains its credit in the esteem of the Greeks, who gather it, only one day in the year, with great folemnity and pompous ceremonies, and send it through all Europe in little mafies, in form of loaves, marked with the imperial seal of the Grand Seignior. It is supposed to possess great virtues, and some physicians condescend to make use of it, but the chymist discerns nothing in it but common clay.

The last plate contains a plan of the port of St. Anthony, which is followed by a tail-piece representing a Vulcan, furrounded with the medals found in the places described in this number.

1

ART. II.

Theorie des Etres Infenfibles; ou, Cours complet de Metaphysique facrée et profane, &c. i. e. A Theory of those Beings which do not fall under the Senfes (i. e. the five external ones); or, a complete Course of Metaphyfies, facred and profane, suited to every Capacity, and enriched with an Alphabetical Index, which renders the whole Work equivalent to a Dictionary of Metaphysics or Philosophy. By the Abbé PARA DU PLAUJAS. 3 Vols. 8vo. Paris. 1779. HE title

TH

of this work is singular, but its contents, with

The

all its redundancies and defects, are interesting. Author calls it the Theory of Beings imperceptible by the Senfes, to diftinguish it from a System of Natural Philosophy, which he published under the title of Theorie des Etres Senfibles -If his ftyle was not too declamatory and verbose, if the repetitions were not accumulated almost beyond example, and if some of the most absurd doctrines of the Romish church were not clothed here in a tawdry metaphyfical garb, to conceal their disgusting nudity, we might venture to recommend this work as a useful present to the public, and, more particularly, to students, who are entering upon a course of philosophy. Such as it is, it is far from being unworthy of notice; and those who can distinguish between the dross of philofophy and the pure metal, may find both instruction and entertainment in its perusal. They have only to put it into the crucible, and they will be rewarded for their pains.

The

The first volume contains two treatises. The first of these is

divided into 15 paragraphs, as our Author calls them, which, in their turn, are subdivided into chapters, and have for their subject the General Theory of Beings, that is, the most universal and abstract notions of things. The Author here passes in review the various branches of ontological science, or those ideas that relate to being in general; and which, indeed, are the proper introduction to a complete course or system of philosophical science. Here we find the fundamental and preliminary notions, relative to metaphyfical abstraction, first principles, the scientific methods of demonstration, the truth of things, their possibility, existence, essences, accidental modifications, their properties and attributes, their genera and species, their causes and effects, their essential and accidental relations, their real and formal diftinctions, their universality and individuality; as also the nature of space and duration. The fecond treatise relates to certitude or evidence, the basis of all true knowledge, and which our Author confiders as resulting from four sources of information, from the teftimony of consciousness (le fens intime), the testimony of ideas, that of the senses, and that of mankind: these four kinds of testimony are examined, discussed, and defended, in so many chapters.

The faculty of reasoning, which is a gift of nature, but which art and education are adapted to improve, direct, and ren der less uncertain and fallible in its operations, is the subject of the first treatise we meet with in the Ild volume. There are many excellent things in this treatise of logic, but they are mixed with much verbolity and jargon, and want greatly the hand of a refiner to separate the gold from the dross. What our Author calls the Theory of the Deity (an improper expreffion designed to fignify Natural Theology), fills the remainder of this volume, and is divided into two sections. In the first he de. monftrates the existence of God, -in the second he confiders the intimate substance and essence of the Supreme Creator and Preserver of Nature; and shews that, in that Great Being, there is an effence infinitely simple, a providence infinitely wife, a liberty infinitely independent, an activity infinitely efficacious, an intelligence, in all respects, infinite and unerring. In the course of our Author's reasonings on this fublime subject, he refutes the Epicureans, the Materialists, and their metaphyfical kinsmen, the Atheists; he also afcertains the existence and obligation of a natural law, whose authority is confirmed, in many instances, by the disorders which degrade humanity, and are the infractions of a primitive rule, which circumftance alone could render them deformed and deplorable. The blundering Author of the System of Nature, one of the most unphilofophi

Ii3

cal

;