philofophers of Greece, draw many of their fimilitudes, nay, by far the most of their fimilitudes that refer to mechanical art, from that of making fhoes.'- They do fo,' faid he; and, in comparifon of their barbarous neighbours, they were good fhoemakers. Homer tells us, as a triking characteristic of the Grecian tribes that went to the fiege of Troy, that they wore excellent boots. In reality, you may judge, by the neatnefs of one's fhoes, of the progrefs of arts among any people, more than from any other part of their drefs. Savage nations have no fhoes. The head and the feet, the extremities, as being the fartheft removed from the vital and most fenfible parts, are the last members of the body that are clothed. Scotch highlanders, in the remoteft parts of the islands, as the Macraes and Macgillihones, and others, have neither fhoes nor bonnets; and others have only coarfe brogues made of raw hides and leathern thongs.'

The

The old man, the father of the fhoemaker, here tells fome merry ftories, with many a circumftance, after the manner of old age, concerning the highland army that made an irruption into England in 1745, many of whom were without shoes altogether:

I now took my leave of this philofophical maker of shoes with tears in my eyes, and many payers for the profperity of his family. Farewell, moft humane and wife of mankind, whofe knowledge feeks not, with vain oftentation, to vie with maffy volumes, but wifely courts the thade, and ftudies to follow nature, and to distinguilh truth from falfehood; truth, the picture of nature; falfehood, an ignis fatuus that leads into conftant confufion. Farewell! innocent, blooming, and happy partner of his joys and forrows. Farewell! fweet children, and happy relations and domestics of every denomination, farewell! And thou, awful preacher of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, I bow in reverence to thy filent but expreffive admonitions; a teacher thou, never clamorous for thy tithes, never diverted from thy gracious talk by pleafure, eafe, or any other human confideration! O how unlike the fair, fleek, round faces of ordinary divines, fwelled out by the fat of the land, and fmoothed by the filly contentment of liftless infenfibility! Fixed in thy pulpit, thou attendeft not either on elections, or electioneering cabals, the levees of a chancellor, a minifter of ftate, or a king.' The queen faluted the whole family bathed in tears. The children too cried; and the affectionate houfe-dog, greatly difcomposed, couring and howling, ran from one to another, and, by various geftures and agitations, plainly discovered how deeply he shared in the foft diitrefs.'

The Man in the Moon, alias the doctor of the gypfies, in the progrefs of his company through England, meets again with the queen of the gypfies, from whom he had parted for fome years, as related in his former travels. Her ftory, during the period of their feparation, forms a tender and pleafing epifode in the history

7

history before us. Our author and his queen are deputed by the British gypfies to reprefent them in a congrefs of Egyptian kings and queens from all nations of the world, at a jubilee held once in fifty years. They meet in the plains of Tunis. Their drefs, equipage, manners, principles, converfation, feasts, and other particulars, are defcribed, and fome lively anecdotes are introduced.

The gypfies record proverbs, or maxims, in a kind of numbers, by way of fongs or pfalms, handed down from generation to generation. They speak with derifion and contempt of many of those customs and opinions which governmen tied to fixed 'habitations.' They expatiate on the advantages of their own erratic mode of life; and, in the character of fpies on other nations (whom they confider in fome fort as enemies), exult over their vices and follies. Here our author has an opportunity of furveying the ways and fentiments of men and nations from a pretty lofty eminence. But he afcends to a height ftill greater, and attempts to difplay human nature on a fcale ftill grander, when he travels into the unexplored regions of Africa, and converses with men of antediluvian fize and longevity, the fathers of philofophy, men of fublime genius and pure minds, who have made a proficiency far beyond any that has been attained in Europe in fcience.

Separated, by a train of natural though unforeseen events, from the company of the gypfies, he falls into a ftate of the moft humiliating and brutal flavery in a region of Africa, not far from the confines of Tripoli. Having accompanied his masters to a territory more inland, on the bufinefs of ftealing gigantic goats.' Extricated from his deplorable fituation by the approach of the holy Hierophant, already defcribed, riding on Mammuth, an animal of enormous fize and ftrength, of which we have indeed fome veftiges in the cabinets of the curious, but whofe fpecies had been erroneously fuppofed to be extinct. This creature with his rider, large in the ufual proportion of men to horses, is defcribed. The facred priest and king takes up our affrighted traveller behind him on his Mammuth, and converfes with him, as he journeys homeward, concerning the countries he had left, and those into which he had entered. Their converfation affords us an idea of the general contour of the Mammuthian countries, their natural productions, ftate of government, industry, and mode of life. Every thing here is on a great fcale, fuch as that of the Mammuthian men and women, who are from twenty to thirty feet high, and broad in the usual proportion of human bodies:

They are woolly-haired, like the reft of the African nations. They have eight toes on each foot, and eight fingers, including the

N 3

thumb,

thumb, on each hand; an organisation which gives them great advantage in becoming acquainted with the properties of material objects. There is a tradition amongst them, that their remote anceftors, who were much wifer and fironger than they, were endowed with a ftill greater number of fingers and toes. The vulgar have a fable amongst them, that there was a time when they had an eye in their neck. This is rejected by the learned men. However, the fuperior attainments of mind, and bodily qualities of the ancients, are affirmed by all. The men of quality among them refide chiefly upon mountains, feparated from each other by fertile plains, generally about forty leagues in length, and five in breadth; divided longitudinally by an artificial canal, which receives the rivulets that fall from the fides of the mountains, and which ferves to convey the produce of one part of the country to the other. It is common, in our parts of the world, to live in the plains, and to use the adjoining hills for fhooting, pafture, hermitages, and fo on. It is not fo in the interior parts of Africa. In that fultry climate, the natives, whenever they can afford it, wifely live upon the tops of hills, for the fake of cool air. They are at great pains too to plant clumps of trees that grow to an enormous height, as well as thickness, on the fummits of hills; and ftretching planks of the fame from the clefts of the one to the other, form the moft enchanting fummer-houses, or aviaries, or whatever you please to call them, in the air. They make it a rule never to multiply mechanical invention where the purpofe can be ferved by any of the fimple contrivances or productions of nature. There is more beauty, fay they, in these trees which fupport our nefts, than in the proudeft pillars. They hold it as the greatest mark of ingenuity to fupply all their wants without mechanical inventions; and in this refpect, although humane, goodnatured, and indulgent to human folly and weakness to a most wonderful degree, they may be faid to be Cynic philofophers. The learned caft, for like the Gentoos they are divided into cafts, wear no kind of clothes, man, woman, nor child. The great aim of this caft is to be as independent on matter, and all the cravings and pleafures of fenfe, as poffible. They, for the most part, live in a state of warfare, as it were, with flesh and blood, and ftudy to elevate themselves above fenfation, and to mix, by the energy of abstracted or metaphyfical ideas, with the mysterious world of fpirits. There is a fect among them, however, who make no great account of fpeculative attainments, and place the chief happinefs, as well as glory, of life, in following unadulterated nature. In all things they study to refift the allurements of fenfe, and to be governed folely by reafon.'

By the evening, foon after the fun went down, the Hierophant, whose name was MELEK-AMMON-BAHAUDER, with his little guest MOUSSIN-POUSSIN [fo he called our traveller], arrived at his palace, or neft, where he is moft hofpitably entertained by the queen and her children, who, with the father and aunt of the Hierophant, compofed the whole royal family.

We

We have been fufficiently particular to infpire our readers with a defire of feeing this bizarre performance, which certainly discovers genius, reading, erudition, and reflection; and minds congenial with the author's will not be difappointed in their expectations of reaping inftruction and amusement from the perufal of MAMMUTH; or, Human Nature displayed on a grand Scale.

ART. VI. An Account of the principal Lazarettos in Europe; with various Papers relative to the Plague; together with further Obfervations on fome foreign Prifons and Hofpitals; and additional Remarks on the prefent State of thofe in Great-Britain and Ireland. By John Howard, Efq. F. R. S. 4to. 12s. Cadell. London, 1789.

[ Continued. ]

AFTER thefe important communications Mr. Howard pre

fents us with the anfwers to a fet of queries refpecting the plague, which were drawn up for him by two of his medical friends, Dr. Aikin and Dr. Jebb. The gentlemen of the faculty to whom thefe queries were propofed are, Raymond, phyfician at Marseilles; Demollins, furgeon at Marseilles; Giovanelli, physician to the lazaretto at Leghorn; the physician to the lazaretto at Malta; Morandi, phyfician at Venice; Verdoni, physician at Triefte; a Jew phylician at Smyrna; Fra. Luigi Di Pavia, prior of the hospital of San Antonia at Smyrna. The answers of thefe gentlemen, though they differ on various points, all unite, however, in confirming the author in his perfuafion that the plague is communicated by near approach to, or actual contact with, infected perfons or things. And this, he fays, is a point which it is a great pleasure to him to be fatisfied upon, as the propofed means of prevention by cutting off communication with the fources of infection must depend upon it.

We must not forget to mention that his confinement in the lazaretto at Venice had nearly proved fatal to our author. The offenfive fmell in his apartment afflicted him with a conftant headach, his appetite failed him, and he began to apprehend the approach of the hospital fever. His refource in this melancholy fituation was his favourite scheme of white-washing the walls of his room, which operated fo fortunately and inftantaneously that he was at once delivered from the noxious effluvia, and restored to health and strength, to the great furprise and admiration of the inhabitants of the lazaretto, who had imbibed trong prejudices against the measure. N 4

After

After having endeavoured to develope the real caufes of the plague, he goes on to inquire into the beft modes of cure, and prefents us with an abftract of a curative and preservative method to be obferved in the plague, drawn up by order of the magiftrates of health at Venice, at the requeft of the court of Ruffia. After fome further information as to the most fuccefsful means of arrefting this dreadful fcourge in those parts of the world, wherein its progrefs is marked with its crueleft triumphs, he proceeds to his account of the hofpitals and prisons

on the continent.

He begins with a defcription of those in the fouth of France, in each of which he generally finds fomething to commend; but feems almost univerfally diffatisfied with the small attention paid to thofe most important articles of health, cleanliness, and a free circulation of air. We were much struck with the noble defign of a religious affociation called La Confrairie de mifericorde, whofe principal object is to vifit, confole, and fuccour their fellow-creatures in prifons and hofpitals. In following our author to the gallies at Toulon, we felt an involuntary depreffion; to the minds of thofe who are in the enjoyment of the most perfect freedom of which humanity is capable, no object gives birth to fenfations more painful than the forrowful condition of hopeless flavery; and a fenfible spirit can breathe with greater cheerfulness the close and contaminated air of hofpitals, than the purer atmosphere which in vain furrounds thefe melancholy outcafts. Pallid countenances and fresh graves are fights lefs painful and difpiriting; yet fo full of refources is the mind of man, when properly exercifed and fuftained by religious contemplation, that fome have paffed their lives with ferenity even in these situations. The author met with a proteftant flave, whose name is Francois Condé, who had been confined in the gallies at this place fortytwo years, for having been concerned with fome boys in a quarrel with a gentleman, who loft his gold-headed cane in a private houfe at Paris. He had been condemned at fourteen years age, and, after four years confinement, had procured a Bible, by the aid of which he learnt to read, and rendered his mind fuperior to the abfurdities and errors of the Romish faith; fince which time he has been as remarkable for the steadiness of his religious opinions as for his amiable and upright conduct among his fellow-prifoners. There are, however, fome circumstances to be confidered which deduct a little from our fenfibilities in behalf of thefe miferable culprits. While common reafon convinces us that their own hardiness and atrocity have occafioned the fufferings of the greater part, it is a comfortable deliverance to our feelings to be affured by the author that their clothing

of

and