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Obfervations fur la Nature fur le Traitement de la Rage, fuivių d'un Precis Hifterique et Critique des divers Remedes, qui ont ité employés jufqu'ici contre cette Maladie.-Obfervations concerning the Nature of MADNESS, and the Manner of treating it, &c. By M. PORTAL, Profeffor in the Royal College of France, Member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. 8vo. Paris. 1779.

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HIS fmall work is divided into two parts. The first, which relates to the nature of the diforder, is fubdivided into feven articles, which contain the divifion of madness into its various kinds-the circumftances relative to fpontaneous madness an account of the fymptoms of the diforder- fome anatomical details concerning the opening of bodies.-Obfervations on the different fymptoms of the hydrophobia-facts, which throw some light upon the manner in which madness is communicated, and inquiries concerning the feat of the diforder. The fecond part, which relates to the manner of treating this disorder, contains the researches and opinions of M. PORTAL, concerning the local treatment-blood-letting -bathing and potions-the ufe of mercury-emetics, purgatives, and anti-fpafmodics: all which is followed, by obfervations on the cafes of fome perfons that have been bitten by mad animals, and have experienced the happy effects of M. PorTAL'S method of cure. This work, though not exempt from fome defects, is inftructive, and must be useful.

ART. XVI.

Epilogo della Vita del fû Cavaliere Antonio Raffaello Mengs, &c.—A Compendious Account of the Life of the late Chevalier ANTONY RAPHAEL MENG, First Painter to his Catholic Majefty, Member of the Academies of Rome, Bologna, Florence, Parma, Genoa, &c. By CHARLES JOSEPH RATTI, Director of the Academy of Genoa, &c. Folio. 1779.

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HE Abbé Winkelman, who was, certainly, both in learning and tafte, a connoiffeur of the first rate, perhaps at the head of that clafs, never fpoke of the late M. MENGS, without a kind of enthufiafm, and called him conftantly the modern Raphael. It has, nevertheless, been affirmed, and by fome who had it from the mouth of that great artist, that he was not born with a genius for painting, and that he applied himfelf with diligence to that fine art, rather from a regard to the authority of his father, than from tafte and inclination. Be that as it may, his fuccefs was illuftrious; and his works will place him in the rank of thofe, whofe pencils have been as much under the impulfe of genius as under the guidance of art. The gallery of Northumberland Houfe, and the University of

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Oxford, exhibit two fublime fpecimens of the talents and merit of this eminent artift. It was bold, to attempt a copy of the School of Athens (Pindarum quifquis ftudet æmulari, &c.), but it was glorious to execute it in fuch a manner, as to prevent our regretting the impoffibility of feeing the original in England.

MENGS (according to our Author, who has written his life in an instructive manner, and with a noble fimplicity) was born at Auffich, a little town in Bohemia, near the confines of Saxony, the 12th of March 1728. His father, Ifmael Mengs, was a Dane, a painter alfo of note, in miniature and enamel, and died, in the year 1764, Director of the Royal Academy of Drefden. He defigned his fon for his own profeffion, from the very moment of his birth, and gave him the names of Antony and Raphael, after Corregio, and the grand artist of Urbino'; this ftep was not prudent, for had MENGS proved a mean artist, thefe names would have rendered him ridiculous. But this was not the cafe: young MENGS made a rapid progrefs under the care of his father, who was his mafter; and his reputation foon fpread throughout Europe. He died last year, at Rome, and has not left behind him an highly eminent hiftory painter, either in his own country, or in Italy, France, or Germany. It is with fingular pleasure that we find ourselves authorised to except Britain. Kauffman and Cipriani kindly came to adorn the temple of the arts in our ifle: but they found Reynolds, Weft, and many other diftinguished artifts, facrificing with fuccels to genius and the graces, and enriching their native land with the nobleft productions of the pencil.

The Chevalier MENGS left behind him, a treatise concerning painting, written in German, and a lift, in Italian, with ample remarks, of the pictures in the Efcurial, which are both pub lished at the end of M. RATTI's work.

ART. XVII.

Deux Memoires fur la Fertilité de la Paleftine.-Two Memoirs con cerning the Fertility of Paleftine. By the Abbé GUENEE.

HESE two Memoirs, composed by the learned and in

genious Author of the celebrated Letters of the Portuguese Fews to M. De Voltaire, and not yet publifhed, were read to the Academy of Infcriptions and Belles Lettres at Paris, and were communicated to M. De Guignes; and it is to the account given of them by this learned man, that we are indebted for that which we here lay before the public. The fubject treated in thefe Memoirs, is of confequence to the cause of religion; as feveral infidels, and more especially Voltaire, have drawn from the pretended fterility of the land of Judea, difficulties and ob jections against the authority of the facred writings.

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In the first of thefe Memoirs, the Abbé GUENEE prove, that from the captivity of Babylon to the war of Adrian, Judea was always confidered as a rich and fertile country. The pofitive and multiplied authorities of the writers of that period, Jews, Greeks, and Romans, not only atteft, in general, the fertility of that country, but many of thefe writers, entering into a particular detail of circumstances, prove it from the nature of the climate, the qualities of the foil, and the excellence and variety of its productions. These are confirmed by proofs of another kind, and ftill more refpectable and convincing, even those resulting from a great number of medals, ftruck under the reigns of the kings of Syria, under the kings of Judea, and under the Romans, both by Jews and Pagans, and which all bear the fymbols of a rich fertility. Add to all this, a multitude of facts, recorded in the hiftory of the Jews, during this period; the efforts of the neighbouring kings to conquer their country;-the long and bloody wars that the Jews carried on with vigour, and fometimes with fuccefs, against powerful princes and nations;-the tribute and taxes they paid to the kings of Egypt and Syria, to the Romans, and to their own princes;-the magnificence of their fovereigns, and among others, of Herod ;--the troops he raifed and kept on foot;the temples, fortreffes, palaces, and cities, which he built and embellished, not only in his own country, but also in Syria, Afia Minor, and even in Greece;-the immenfe fums he lavifhed among the Romans, the donations he made to his own people, and frequently to his neighbours in time of want, and the vast treasures which he left behind him ;-all these circumftances, which the learned Abbé has illuftrated with his ufual perfpicuity and erudition, concur in proving the fertility and riches of Paleftine, during the epocha now under confideration.

In the fecond Memoir, the Abbé GUENEE confiders the ftate of Palestine, as it was between the time of the emperor Adrian to the caliphate of Omar, which takes in a period of four centuries. He thinks the cause of religion little interested in the fruitfulness or fterility of the Holy Land, during the preceding period, but not at all in the period on which he now enters. "God," fays he, "engaged his promife to give the Hebrews

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a fruitful country, but he did not promise them, that this "country fhould be always fruitful, even when they ceafed to "be its proprietors." We do not much relish this method of avoiding the objections of unbelievers; we think it would do better in the mouth of an attorney (of the pettifogging clafs) than in that of a candid logician. Nor was this reflexion neceffary; for the manner in which our Abbé proves the fertility of Paleftine during this fecond period, and the judicious reafons he gives for the alterations which it may have undergone

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in later times, are entirely fufficient to remove the duft that unbelievers have been endeavouring to raise in the face of Revelation, from this quarter.

This fecond Memoir is divided into two parts: in the first, the learned Abbé collects the principal facts in Jewish hiftory, which tend to fhew, what was the state of Palestine during the period under confideration.

The first of thefe facts is, the project formed by Adrian, of rebuilding and embellishing Jerufalem, of forming it into a Roman colony, and giving it his own name; a project, of which he never could have entertained a thought, if Judea, which he had feen and examined with his own eyes, had appeared to him fuch a barren and wretched country, as it is faid to be by fome, who have neither feen that country, nor examined the matter with attention and care.

The revolt of the Jews, and the war it drew upon them, is a fecond circumftance, which furnishes inductions in favour of the riches and refources of the land of Paleftine. Dion, an hiftorian, warmly attached to the interefts of paganifm, tells us, that in this war, 50 of the ftrong caftles of the Jews, and 980 of their largest towns were deftroyed, 580,000 of the rebels perifhed by the fword, without reckoning, fays he, the innumerable multitudes, who were confumed by fire, famine, and fick. nefs, and great numbers of others, who, as feveral writers teftify, were fold as flaves at the fairs of Terebinth and Gaza. Our learned Abbé concludes from hence, that there were, at that time, in Judea, near two millions of Jewish inhabitants, befides the Hebrew and Gentile Chriftians, and the Syrians, Greeks, and Romans, who dwelt in that country, and took no part in the war.

Among the hiftorical facts relative to Jerufalem, our Author does not omit the embellishments which that city received from the munificence of Conftantine, when Chriftianity became the established religion of the Afiatic provinces. These embellishments were carried fo far, that Eufebius compared the city in queftion, to the heavenly Jerufalem foretold by the prophets. Magnificent palaces were erected in it by order of the Emperor and his mother, a prodigious concourfe of Chriftians repaired thither, from different and remote quarters of the globe, to worship in the holy place. The most illuftrious perfonages of Rome fettled there, and paffed their days in a peaceful retirement, and in acts of beneficence ;-two empreffes alfo fixed their refidence in Palestine, where they built churches, erected monafteries, and endowed hofpitals. The donations alone of the empress Eudoxia amounted to 20,488 pounds of gold.

Under the children of Theodofius, Judea was divided into three provinces. Its ecclefiaftical ftate was composed of a patriarch,

patriarch, thirty bishops, a great number of priests and clerks, and from twelve to fifteen thousand monks and anchorites. At the head of the civil government, there were two prefects under the orders of a confular governor, who, by the external marks of his dignity, his appointments, his retinue, and the number of his affeffors, feemed to rank with the governors of the most diftinguished provinces. The military establishment confifted of between ten and twelve thousand men, cavalry and infantry, under the command of a general officer, whofe poft must have been both honourable and important, as we fee it filled by a king of the Iberians, who was a friend of the Emperors, and whofe title was, Duke of the Marches (or frontiers) of Paleftine.

Finally, among the hiftorical facts that compofe the first part of this Memoir, our Author relares, after Procopius, the invafion of Cofroes, king of Perfia, who, allured by the fame that had been fpread abroad, of the fertility and opulence of Palestine, marched to Jerufalem, befieged that city, carried off from thence an immenfe plunder, and a prodigious number of Chriftian captives, of which the Jews were rich enough to purchafe 90,000, that they might have the pleasure of cutting their throats. He mentions alfo the attempts of the Saracens, twenty-three years after Cofroes, to join Judea to the fertile country of Syria, of which they had finished the conqueft.

After giving a compendious view of the hiftory of the Jews, at the period now under confideration, the learned Author thinks it may be concluded, even from a general view of the fe facts, taken together, that Judea was far from being such a barren and miferable country, as fome have been fond of reprefenting it; that, on the contrary, after all that it had fuffered from the defolations of war, both in ancient and later times, it ftill remained at the period in queftion, fertile, rich, and populous. This alfo is the idea, which the writers of the time, Pagan and Christian, as well as Jewish, have given of Paleftine.

In the fecond part of this Memoir, the learned Author quotes and examines the reports of thefe writers. The only Jewith. writers he quotes are the Talmudifts; and he quotes them with fuch a degree of circumfpection and precaution, as their hyperbolical relations render neceflary. He does not, for example, give them credit, when they tell us, that in the two tribes of Judah and Simeon there were 900 cities, that the ftalks of corn in Judea grew as high as the cedars in Lebanon, and many childish stories still more ridiculous than those: he, however, thinks their teftimony is not deftitute of weight, when it is conformable to that of feveral judicious and refpectable writers. Now this is the cafe, when thefe doctors celebrate the fertility of the plains of Joppa, Jamnia, Sarone, Jezreel, and of Galilee

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