compensation for the waste occasioned by those employed in fabrication, and is, therefore, no addition to national wealth; and that that nation would become quickest rich, which should consume every thing in the simplest possible form. This introduction contains useful information concerning the weights and measures of many a country; it is extensive enough to fill a considerable octavo volume, and well deserves a separate translation and publication. The dictionary, on the contrary, can only de

serve to be done into English in a very abridged form.

The supplement contains the treaty of commerce between Great Britain and North America, signed 19th of Novem ber, 1795; and an article concerning Boulogne, which the inhabitants transmitted from dissatisfaction with that which had been published.

Mr. Peuchet has also edited for the Encyclopédie Méthodique, the Dictionnaire de Police.

GEOGRAPHY bears to history the relation which space bears to time. The one is occupied with all the cotemporary, the other with all the successive phænomena of nations. The one introduces us to the living world, and teaches the arts of intercourse with men : the other leads us by torch-light into catacombs, and proses over the pedigree of carcases. The one is all eye, ear, hand, instructing us every instant about important realities: the other is memory, or dream rehearsing ideal transactions. Nor is geography alone superior in the intensity, it is also in the diffusiveness of its utility. Here and there a statesman, or a general, borrows from history some precedent of legislation, or some plan of a campaign: but the travels of opulence, which polish rulers into philanthropy; and the speculations of commerce, which distribute plenty among myriads, apply to geography for their road book and their chart.

Public opinion scarcely confers on the geographer his due share of gratitude and reputation. What the historian records, preserves its value undiminished: hence the pursuers of fame willingly apply in that line of literature their provident industry. But the geographer must renew for each generation his perishable toil. From every new travel, from every new voyage, he draws something to interpolate in his system war ploughs up the land-marks he had mapped; death dethrones the sovereign he had characterised; plague thins the

population he had enumerated; commerce forsakes the emporium he had indicated; learning retires from the uni versity he had extolled; fashion abandons the health-wells he had advertised; earthquake mars the city he had described; usurpation expatriates the liberty he had praised; every annual register, every newspaper even, urges the alteration of pages-how can he hope for more than a metonic cycle of celebrity? He ought then to find, in the warmth and multiplicity of his applause, an indemnity for the probable want of its perpetuity.

But

From this unfair scantiness of praise it has no doubt arisen that so few eminent writers have appeared in the geographical department. In the Bereshith, in the Ezechiel of the Jews, some displays of topographic knowledge occur, derived, perhaps from a Babylonian record cotemporary with the new distribution of the Persian provinces, by Darius the son of Hystaspes. Herodotus is the earliest writer of moment, whose accounts have descended to us entire. His work is rather a tour than a history, which incorporates chronological facts, because they were ob tained by local inquiry; it contains information respecting the interior of Africa, obtained apparently from merchants of Cyrene, which modern curiosity has not yet corrected, or superseded. No assistance had then been derived from astronomical observation, to as ertain the distance and bearings of places;

he infers their nearness, or remoteness, from the ground crossed, or the time spent in the journey. The sphericity of the earth, if already discovered by Chaldean astronomers, and taught in the school of Thales, appears unknown to Herodotus. To Anaximander, the pupil of Thales, is ascribed the invention of maps: notice occurs of one, (Herodot. v. 49) perhaps, of his constructing, engraved on a copper-plate, in the possession of Aristagoras of Miletos. Some fragments of instruction have also been derived from Hanno of Carthage, Scylax of Carya, Pytheas of Massilia, who first applied the length of solar shadows to the estimation of the latitude, and from Aristotle.

The conduct of Alexander furnished occupation and instruction to geographers. He disturbed the boundaries of the whole civilized world. He extinguished the liberty of Athens, the commerce of Tyre, the magnificence of Persepolis. His armies brought home the names of many Asian cities, which they found inhabited and left in ruin. Dicæarchus began the new compilations, which these changes had rendered requisite. Eratosthenes, a mathematician and philosopher, collected the foregoing accounts, corrected them by his own observations, and proceeded to ascertain the circumference of the earth by the actual measurement of some degrees. Hipparchus improved the mathematical, Artemidorus the historical knowledge of the earth; but without injuring, or rivalling the reputation of Eratosthenes. What Alexander had performed for geography in the east, Julius Cæsar repeated in the west: he desolated and surveyed vast provinces before unknown. During the peaceful reign of Augustus, the official inquiries of Rome explored what remained indefinite of its dominion. The commerce of Alexandria contributed its experience of the coasts of Lybia and Asia. India was visited by sea. The north west coasts of Europe, and of the Euxine, were approached by garrisons and by ships. Many a periplus, many an itinerary was published. Of these helps, at the beginning of the christian æra, Strabo availed himself. Judicious and informed, he has stated within convenient limits, what it was most interesting to record of the known condition of countries; but he indulges in some digressions which taste would

have shunned; and, like a land surveyor, seems more troubled about the length of his chain, than the soil of his field. His comparison of Rome with Athens, is in very many respects now applicable to London and Paris. Pliny deserves high praise for accuracy and extent of information; but Marinus of Tyre, by introducing the practice of assigning to each place its specific longitude and latitude, may be considered as the father of geographical precision. Ptolemy of Alexandria, corrected and completed the labours of Marinus, and reduced the over-rated measures to a narrower and more probable scale; combining, in rare and convenient alliance, descriptive and mathematical skill, he became, and remained the canonical geographer of the antients., Agathodæmon may somewhat have improved his maps; but, in general, his successors could only abridge, transcribe, and praise.

In modern times, D'Anville, as a mathematical, and Büsching as a descriptive geographer, have obtained the highest praise. D'Anville is properly a map-maker. His excellent memoirs have for their object, not to detail the past or present state of the inhabitants of a country, but to ascertain the position and boundaries, and alternate de nominations of its cities and provinces, and rivers. With all his learning, and all his sagacity, he is, perhaps, too much the antiquary, and wastes more indus try in ascertaining the latitude and longitude of a forsaken ruin than of a frequented mart. He estimates importance by celebrity, and prefers investigating the site and bearing of towns and highways, whereon desolation has sown the wall-flower and the thistle, to tracing the course of streams, or the trend of coasts, of which commerce fears the shoaliness, or covers the navigation. Bsching is, properly, a topographer. His subdivided schedules of contents, enumerate the mennonist chapels and half-dozen militia-men of every German principality, trace the bounds of their parish sovereignties, and note whether the presiding justice r be entitled a prince, a baronet, or an esquire. But, like our country-historians, he stifles attention beneath innumerable insignificant sandgrains of information; and forgets, over barrows and gravestones, among charters and pedigrees, the objective utility of his survey.

Mr. Pinkerton has a sounder glance, and a juster sense of proportion. He views the earth, neither through the telescope of antiquarianism, nor the microscope of topography, but with the observing eye of a philosopher. It is not in celebrity or triviality, but in availability that he places importance. He has executed his vast survey with a selection of research which D'Anville, with a comprehension which Büsching might

envy.

"No period of time," observes our author, "could be more favourable to the

appearance

of a new system of geography, than the beginning of a new century after the lapse of the eighteenth, which will be memorable in all ages, from the gigantic progress of every science, and, in particular, of geographical information; nor less from the surprising changes which have taken place in most countries of Europe, and which, of themselves, render a new description indispensa ble. Whole kingdoms have been annihilated; grand provinces transferred; and such a general alteration has taken place in states and boundaries, that a geographical work, published five years ago, may be pronounced to be already antiquated.

"After a general war of the most eventful description; after revolutions of the most astonishing nature, Europe at length reposes in universal peace. The new divisions and boundaries no longer fluctuate with every campaign, but are established by solemn treaues, which promise to be durable, as at no former period has war appeared more sanguinary or destructive, and at the same time more fruitless even to the victors. These treaties not only influence the descriptions of European countries, but of many in Asia, Africa, and America.

A new system of geography is also specially authorized and authenticated, by the singular advantage of several important books of travels having appeared within these few years, which introduce far more light and precision into our knowledge of many regions. The embassies to China, Tibet, and Ava, for example, present fresh and authentic materials, without which recourse must have been had to more remote and doubtful information; and the Birman empire is unknown to all systems of geography. The researches of the Asiatic society, and all other late works, diffuse a new radiance over Hindostan, and the adjacent countries. The labours of the African society; the travels of Parke, Browne, and Barrow, have given more precision to our imperfect knowledge of Africa: and the journies of Hearne and Mackenzie have contributed to disclose the northern boundaries of America. In short, it may safely be affirmed, that more important books of travels, and other sources of

geographical information, have appeared with in these few years, than at any period whatever of literary history.

In this work the essence of innumerable

books of travels and voyages will be found to be extracted; and such productions have been the favourite amusements of the most distinguished minds, in all periods and countries, as combining the variety, novelty, and adventure of poetical and romantic narration, with the study of man, and the benefits of practical instruction."

To the preface succeeds an introduc tion to astronomical geography, or an account of those peculiarities of our earth, which distinguish or assimilate it with other heavenly bodies, its sphericity, dimensions, motions, division, and satellitious attendance. This dissertation is executed with the known skill and science of Dr. Vince. Perhaps too much is said (p. xxv.) of the horizontal ern climates, its appearance alters commoon: in frosty weather, and in southparatively so little, that it must depend

on the haziness of the lower strata of atmosphere. Even the zodiacal light is possibly also an atmospheric phanomenon, although otherwise explained (p. xxxvi) by this author: for, if the light of a taper be received through a hole in a card on a watch-glass, opposite the eye, and somewhat inclined toward it, the luminous speck, answering to the sun, will appear surmounted by a curvilinear pyramid of fainter whitish light, answering to the zodiacal light. If this theory be true, the appearance should be called the equinoctial light: it should be seen in these climates only during spring and autumn: and it should be of perpetual recurrence, but of smaller extent, at the equator.

Mr. Pinkerton treats of the greater and smaller subdivisions of the earth, in the order of their weight in the political balance; first of Europe, next of Asia, then of America, and lastly of Africa. He proposes, with Strahlenberg, to con sider the Ural ridge of mountain as the oriental limit of Europe. Why not include Natolia also, as far as the coast of the Caspian sea? Why not make the Euphrates or the Tigris, as of old, the separation between the eastern and western world? It would be expedient too to throw the Arabian peninsula into Africa. A very false idea of the relative size of countries is impressed on the mind by engraving on so differen: scale the maps of Europe, of Asia, and

of Africa. Allotting more territory to Europe would favour the adoption of a uniform scale.

The account of the British Isles, being here of most consequence, occurs first: it is subdivided into four parts, and in this respect it serves as a model to subsequent accounts, which successively treat, of the progressive, the political, the natural, and the civil geography of the country. In the enumeration of the stem-tribes of the British nation, Mr. Pinkerton justly discriminates (1) the Gaelic, who have bequeathed a peculiar dialect to the Irish and Scottish highlanders; (2) the Cimbric, who have bequeathed a peculiar dialect to the Welsh and Cornish mountaineers: and (3) the. Gothic, who would have supplied language and population to the eastern and central parts of England. But he very singularly classes the Belgæ, not in the second, but in the third of these divisions: although the Belge appear, from Cæsar's account, to have been subject to the druidical discipline, which was peculiar to the Cimbric tribes, as Owen has shown; and although the Belgæ, by the admission of our author, p. 252, dwelled in Britanny, at Vannes, where they have left behind a Cimbric, and not a Gothic patois. If the Belge were Goths, Cæsar would not have contrasted them with the Germans; nor would Strabo have described their language as differing little from that of the Gauls; nor would Ariovistus have needed a long consuetude to acquire it. That the Caledonians and Piks were Goths, is a highly probable position; and it originates with Mr. Pinkerton. The settlers on our eastern shores, appear to have furnished the main body of English population. The oldest monuments of the dialect which might be called Northumbrian, (for it extends from the Firth of Forth to the Humber) approach much nearer to the vernacular English, than equally ancient fragments of the patois of the Flemings, who ought to Be remnants of Mr. Pinkerton's Belge; or than the Anglo-Saxon and Danish monuments of the age of Alfred and

Canute.

The second chapter, on political geography, terminates with a sort of diplo matic creed, in which the author recommends the consolidation of Germany, In the hands of Prussia, no doubt. This country entertains an idle jealousy of Frussian greatness; her maritime power

ag

is very remote, even if she were to hold the whole coast from the Weichsel to the Rhine: she is the most mutable of the allies of our hereditary enemy, and, could she be induced to usurp Holland, she would set limits to the northern grandizement of France. Prussia, it is true, covets Hanover; but this province might be purchased of its owner, and exchanged with the Danes for Iceland and Greenland; it could then be obtained by the Prussians, and would cease to form an obstacle to cordiality.

The third chapter includes an interesting history of English language and literature. More influence should have been ascribed to the reformation, which introduced the present vulgar English to our worship and our literature: it is a dialect simpler in its inflections than the Norman-English cultivated by Chaucer. One is surprized too, that an examining writer should speak of Hooker's as good prose: his sentences are most unskilfully eked out with useless particles and inept included phrases.

The fourth chapter, which delineates the natural geography, is a very useful subdivision, almost peculiar to Mr. Pinkerton: he is himself a well-read mineralogist, and has been assisted, in the botanical department, by the comprehensive science of Mr. Arthur Aikin. A hydrographic sketch of the contiguous sea, was perhaps to have been wished. There are situations in which the cur rents of the deep are accumulating considerable shoals: these might probably be assisted in their increase, by sinking ponderous and immoveable masses at the varying extremities: and especially by the transplantation of shell-fish, the artificial multiplication of which has been insufficiently attended to here, though in use in the Mediterranean.

The

In describing France, Mr. Pinkerton has avoided to include the new departments, and consecrates a separate chapter to the Netherlands, as if they were still an independent territory. natural limits of an empire are those of its language. As far as the same writers, orators, and lawgivers, can inspire sympathy of opinion, and consentaneity of will; so far can one senate conveniently extend its sway. It is probable that the French literature and language are familiar to all the educated classes in the provinces west of the Rhine; more so than the German literature and lan guage; and, consequently, that the re