confiderable differences; for in Great Britain and Hungary, monarchy has the afcendant; in Sweden and Poland, ariftocracy; and the Germanic conftitution, in many things, refembles a body of united nations.

'Among Europe's free ftates are four ariftocracies. 1. Venice. 2. Genoa. 3. Lucca. 4. Ragufa: one arifto-democratical republic, San Marino: and two ftates of united people. 1. The United Netherlands. z. The Swifs Cantons.'

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Mr. Totze imagines that even under unlimited fovereigns all European kingdoms have their fundamental laws, which their fovereigns are bound to obferve, because, says he, moft, if not all, the prefent abfolute monarchies in Europe having been limited governments, fome inftitutions were left standing at the change of form. Among thofe limitations he mentions, first, the established religion, which, he fays, a monarch cannot alter. The hiftory of the English reformation may, perhaps, furnish fome matter of difpute as to the fundamentality of that article. Second, he is not to alter the legal fucceffion to the throne, nor inveft improper or difqualified perfons with a pretenfion to it.' Without having recourfe to the hiftories of Lewis XIV. of France, Henry VIII and Edward VI. of England, we may find very strong exceptions to this fundamental, in the history of Spain. Upon the whole, therefore, all that can be faid with regard to thofe fundamentals, are that, however they may bind the king, they do not bind the ftates. The hiftories of England and Ruffia furnish instances where the states complimented their fovereigns with difpenfations from that fundamental.

The next fundamental laws mentioned by our author, is, thirdly. That he shall administer justice according to the laws; confequently, he cannot decide any caufe arbitrarily.' We cannot help thinking that a prince limited by the laws cannot be faid to be an unlimited monarch, and we imagine that Mr. Totze has here confined his ideas entirely to the Germanic conftitution, without extending them to what has been the practice of almost all unlimited monarchies. It being a maxim, continues our author, generally received in Christendom, that only the administration of the state, with proper rights and honours, is committed to the fovereign, and that it is by no means his property; another fundamental law confequential to this is, that the domain, or crown-lands fhall not be alienated. Thus the fovereign is not allowed to parcel out the fame or difpofe of them at his will.'--For a commentary upon this doctrine we must refer our readers to the prefent practice of England, even though it is a limited monarchy. We are, however, a little furprized that Mr. Totze, in laying

down

down those fundamental laws, did not give his readers fome better reason than he has done, for the French omitting out of their king's coronation oath, ever fince the reign of Charles VIII. the following claufe, Superioritatem, jura et nobilitatis corona Francia inviolabiliter cuftodiam, et illa nec transportabo nee alienabo. In English, " I shall neither transfer nor alienate, but inviolably preferve the fuperiority and rights of the nobility of the crown of France,"

Our author next proceeds to treat of the particular fundamental laws in limited monarchies. The nature of the fucceffion, elective kingdoms, regencies, the right of the states, the depofition of kings, and the fingular good fortune of the French royal family, which, our author fays, has held the throne near 800 years in an uninterrupted male fucceffion. He obferves that the royal family of Bourbon, at prefent, fills the thrones of France, Spain, and Naples. The like good fortune, continues he, has attended the illuftrious house of Oldenburg: it is in poffeffion of the two crowns of Denmark and Sweden, to which, in time, will be added that of Ruffia, in the person of a prince; and thus the fceptres of all the three northern monarchies will be in its hands.' This fuppofes the houfe of Holftein to be defcended from that of Oldenburg.

The titles of fovereignty, orders of knighthood, and fome other articles, not extremely material, fucceed; and then the author proceeds to religion, and thinks the popish is by much. the strongest with regard to number and the extent of countries. His ftate of fciences in Europe is worth perufing, as are his accounts of the Roman and canon law, and the law of nations.

In the account of the military force in Europe, and his ftate of the marine, the author is often indebted to Bufching. He fuppofes the royal revenues of France to exceed that of any other European power; and the reader will find fome amufement in perufing his alterations and prefent ftate of the European commerce, which finishes his preliminary difcourfe.

Mr. Totze opens his Prefent State of Europe with an account of Spain, which feems to be very carefully selected from the best authors; but as it contains little or nothing that is new, it is fufficient to fay that Mr. Totze has been circumftantial on the antient forms of each government, and particolarly happy in afcertaining the ftate of the coinage, antient and modern. He clofes his account of each kingdom with an enumeration of the feveral treaties concluded between the respective powers; at one view, pointing out both the mutual relation between different ftates with regard to certain rights

and

and obligations, and at the fame time their greater or leffer share in the general tranfactions.

The character given of the Spaniards by Mr. Totze is as follows. The Spaniards, as to their perfons, are in general of a middle fize, or low ftature, and withal lean and meagre. They are well limbed, but with weak eyes, which makes fpectacles fo common among them. They are of a brown complexion, with fomething grave or ftern and forbidding in their afpect; which, however, relates only to the men; the women, befides their beauty, being more lively and agreeable in their manners. Among the difeafes of both fexes, the venereal is the most common; but they make light of it.

They are naturally penfive and melancholy; in their deliberations and refolves flow; and in converfation fufpicious, difcerning, and referved. They have a large fhare of ambition, but likewife of firmnefs and fortitude; are very temperate in eating, and still more in drinking they are celebrated for magnanimity, probity, conftancy in friendship, and punctual obfervance of their word.

This is the bright fide of the Spaniards. On the other hand one fes, and fometimes amidst the moft fordid poverty, an intolerable haughtinefs, and a contempt of other nations. They are likewife charged with extreme avarice, feizing every opportunity, however iniquitous, of enriching themselves; an art in which their viceroys, governors, and other officers in America, not excepting even the mithionaries in that country, are most infamously expert. Lewdnefs is one of their capital vices. Married and unmarried youths and boys, keep miftreffes; and from this propenfity fprings their great veneration and complaifance to the fair fex, together with that jealousy which is fo predominant in them, that they ftick at nothing to gratify it. In revenge they are equally vehement, and generally have it executed by bravo's or murderers; looking on duelling, fo much practifed by other nations, as giving advantages to an enemy, at one's own peril. The proceedings of the Spaniards towards the Moors, the Indians, and the Flemings, leave an indelible brand of cruelty on their name.

Though avaricious, they are flothful, and hate work, by which they might be earning fomething, and particularly handicrafts and agriculture. The fource of this indolence lies in their pride, all pretending to be defcended from the Visigoths; and that to ftoop to fuch low employments would be debafing their illuftrious origin. This makes the commonalty so very poor; and perfons of rank are often reduced to exigencies by their negligencies and nifmanagement. The grandees are very profuse in fine furniture, and often expend a great part of

their eftates in plate, of which fome have an amazing quantity, though feldom ufed but at nuptials. The Spaniards are very conceited and tenacious of their old cuftoms and manners, and would equally deteft any alteration in their drefs, as in the ceremonies of the church: the public games and diverfions used by their ancestors, fubfift to this very day.

Among these, the principal are the bull-fights; and the pope himself, though fo much refpected in Spain, never has been able to abolish thofe fanguinary entertainments.'

Had Mr. Totze deferred the compilation of this work till the year 1770, he probably would have altered fome part of this character; and we have reason to expect from the difpofitions of his prefent Catholic majefty, farther alterations in the civil and ecclefiaftical deportments of his government and the manners of his people. It is furprizing that Mr. Totze in enumerating the treaties between Great Britain and Spain, should omit that of Seville in 1729.

Portugal naturally follows Spain in this work, and we have no reason to diftruft the fidelity of our author's account of that kingdom. What he fays concerning the veneration of the Portuguese for the papal power, and their flavifh dependence on the court of Rome, has been in a great measure obviated by the spirited conduct of their last two kings, especially his prefent most faithful majefty, who feems to have led the way to a general reformation. We have not feen, however, fo clear and accurate an account of Portugal as that given in the work before us; and it is highly worth perufal, especially by the commercial part of England.

The next kingdom is France, a country which we had almost faid is but too well known to our fellow-fubjects. What is faid of it by our author agrees with the best published accounts. The following is an account of a new order, which, we believe, has been but little attended to.

As the knights of the three orders must be of the Roman Catholic religion, Lewis XV. in the year 1759, instituted a new order for proteftant officers, by the title of Ordre du Merite Militaire. It has two Grand-croix and four Commandeurs; the number of knights indefinite. The crofs of the order reprefents a fword erect, with this infcription: "Pro Virtute Bellicâ ;" and on the reverfe is a wreath with the words, "Ludovicus XV. inftituit 1759.'

Mr. Totze believes that the Weft-Indian and Newfoundland fishery are the best branches of foreign trade France now enjoys; and that France has nothing to fear but from Great Britain, fince her alliance with the house of Austria, and her eftablishment of the family-compact. The duration of that alli

ance,

ance, however, must be very uncertain, and precarious, till the real dispositions of his present Imperial majesty are known. It is pretty extraordinary that this author fhould roundly advance that no state in Europe has produced fo many and fo great statesmen and warriors as France; an affertion which depends upon no authority but that of a French gasconade.

We wish that Mr. Totze had been a little more cautious than he has been in selecting his authorities for the present state of Great Britain. Some of them are scarcely known to an English reader, witness Miege, Murault a Swifs, and Le Blanc a Frenchman, fo uninformed of the English stage, which he pretends to criticife, that he gives us Shakespear's rhyming fcenes, because they are in rhyme, as the higheft fpecimen of that poet's poetical excellencies. We are forry here to make a general obfervation, that the foreigners who have pretended to give an account of the English nation are the people in the world the moft difqualified for fuch an undertaking. They are commonly men who have no access to the beft or even the middling company, and tranfmit the manners of the loweft as characteristics of the English people; the inftances of this in Mr. Totze's notes are too numerous to be produced here, and even many of them are founded upon falfe and miftaken facts. We muft, however, do this writer the juftice to observe, that fome of the authors whom he quotes lived in a time when too many vulgarities prevailed among the English.-His account of the conftitution of England is chiefly extracted from Rapin, and Chamberlain's Prefent State of Great Britain, and confequently not very accurate. He tells us, that no fentence of death can be put in execution without the king's orders; that the laws do not indicate with proper perspicuity and explicitnefs, how far the rights of each order of the ftate extends; that the tories attributed an unlimited power to the king, and that even after the Revolution they harboured a ftrong attachment to the Stuart family, and were never fincerely well affected to king William, queen Anne, or the prefent royal family; and the whigs, fays he, on their fide, after the Revolution, which was chiefly their work, ftanding higher in the prince's favour, and enjoying all the new employments, which they themselves had created, and other advantages, which they could expect to hold only under the now reigning family, have always fhewed themselves votaries to the court; and have complied with, and invented measures which feemed to affect liberty.'

Mr. Totze tells us that the city of London confifts of three parts; first, the city of London, particularly fo called; fecond,

the