he is not in humour with the soprano voices of the Evirati, but was enchanted by the singing of two nuns much celebrated at that time, and with the airs, symphonies, and choruses. He is somewhat offended with the exaggerated praise given to the performers, and the eternal issimos which he heard lavished on all occasions; yet in all probability, he will heartily join in them, before he leaves Italy. The productions of art highly polished, and the abilities of artists far beyond that maukish mediocrity which "neither gods nor men can bear," insensibly elevate spectators and hearers of sensibility into the regions of enthusiasm.

The traveller's account of his voyage to the Borrhomean isles is so curious and entertaining, that we should present it to our readers, if we had not already been liberal in our quotations from this volume. The character of San Carlo, and the list of his public works, with the description of the pyramid of gardens, are interesting and curious.

Letter X. To the President Boutrier.-The account here given of a kind of literary phænomenon is so uncommon, that we cannot avoid transcribing it. The President, in the inflated language of the Italians, says, it appeared to him una causa (cosa) piu stupenda than the Duomo at Milan. young lady about eighteen or twenty years of age, la Signorina This was a Agnesi, whom he calls a walking polyglott; and who, not contented with knowing all the oriental languages, undertook to support a thesis on any science, against any one who chose to contend with her. At a conversatione to which our traveller and his nephew were invited, they found about thirty persons of all the European nations, ranged in a circle, and la Signorina Agnesi, with her little sister, seated under a canopy. This young lady, who was neither ugly nor handsome, had a fine complexion, and an air extremely simple, soft, and feminine.

I had imagined, (says the President,) when I went to this assembly, that it was merely to converse with this young lady, in the usual way, on learned subjects; instead of which, the Count Belloni, who had introduced me, made a fine harangue to the lady in Latin, with college formality. She answered him extremely well: after which they began a disputation in the same language, on the origin of fountains, and on the causes of the flux and reflux which some of them have, like the sea. I never heard it treated more to my satisfaction. I was then desired She spoke like an angel on this subject; and by the Count to discuss any topic that pleased me with her, in the same manner, provided that it was philosophical or mathematical. I was quite stupified with fear, on finding that I was expected to harangue extempore, and to speak for an hour in a language of which I had lost the use: however, such as it was, I made her the best ompliment that I could form; after which we disputed, at first, on

the

the manner in which the soul is impressed with corporeal objects, and afterward communicating them to the organs of the brain; and. then on the emanation of light, and the prismatic colours. Leppin discoursed with her on the subject of diaphonous bodies, and curvilinear figures in geometry, of which I did not understand a word. He spoke in French, and she begged permission to answer him in Latin, fearing that she should not recollect the technical terms which she should want in the French language.

She spoke wonderfully on these points, for which she could not have been prepared more than ourselves. She is much attached to the philosophy of Newton, and it is marvellous to see a person of her age conversant with such abstruse subjects. Yet, however astonished I may have been with her science, I have been much more amazed to hear her speak Latin (a language which certainly she could not have occasion to use often) with such purity, ease, and accuracy, that I cannot say that I ever read any book in modern Latin, written in so classical a style as that in which she pronounced these discourses. After she had replied to Loppin, the conversation became general; every one speaking to her in the language of his country, and she answering him in the same dialect. She told me that she was very sorry that the visit had taken the form of a Thesis; that she very much disliked speaking on such subjects in company; where, for one who was amused, twenty were tired to death; and that such themes were only fit for two or three persons of similar taste. This observation appeared to me at least as full of good sense as her discourses. I was very sorry to hear that she was determined to take the veil; not for want of fortune, because she is rich. After we had conversed, her little sister played on the harpsichord, like another Rameau, some of Rameau's own pieces, and then others of her own composition; concluding by singing some airs in which she accompanied herself.'

Letter XI. Route from Milan to Verona. Description of Mantua.-The road to this city, its insular situation, fortifications, pictures, and public buildings, are well described: as, in the XIIth letter, are Verona and Vicenza.

Letter XIII. Concerning Padua.-Here neither the institute. nor the cathedral of Saint Antonio di Padova is forgotten. The library of the University is said by the author to contain anastonishing number of old books, printed before the year 1500; and he refers to the first volume of Mattaire's (not Maittaire's) Annales Typographiques for a catalogue. After a minute description of the pictures in the church of Saint Anthony, musical readers will naturally expect some account of its famous choral establishment and its four organs; as also of Tartini, who was then living, and was leader of the band: but all this is reserved for a future page of the present volume.

Letters XIV to XVIII give an ample description of Venice and its riches in works of art: respecting which we have no

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1

room for either praise or censure, though the author's opinions would admit of both.

Letter XIX.

the author says:

Route from Venice to Bologna.-In this letter,

At our return from Venice to Padua, we could not help stopping to hear Tartini, who generally passes for the best performer on the violin in Italy; and our time was not ill employed. I have never heard his equal for clearness of tone, neatness of execution, and perfect intonation. His style of playing resembles that of le Clere; there is nothing astonishing in his execution: his excellence is extreme accuracy. In all other respects, la Marianna, of the Ospidaletto at Venice, is his superior: but he has not his equal in good sense. This youth, (Garçon) who was not intended for the profession of music, and who was obliged to have recourse to it for a subsistence, after being abandoned by his parents for having contracted a foolish mariage while he was a student in the university of Padua, is polite, wellbred, and without vanity or caprice; he reasons like an angel, and without partiality, on the different merits of the French and Italian music. I was fully as much satisfied with his conversation as with his performance.'

This account nearly agrees with that which was given of Tartini by Dr. Burney, in 1770; but why the President calls him a garçon in the year 1740, when this celebrated musician was 46 years of age, and not a bachelor, we cannot conceive.

In the subsequent letters, (XX, XXI, and XXII.) of this volume, we have a memoir of Bologna; an account of the author's residence there; and of the principal pictures in that city, with short remarks:-to which, as an appendix, the editor has given a list of the pictures sent from Italy to Paris, by the Commissaries of the French Government. It is alphabetical, and includes a short history of the life and works of the several artists who have produced these pictures, and forms the most ample and complete list of Italian spoils which we have seen. We can afford our readers only the names of the plundered cities, and the pictures of each great master in round numbers.

The cities laid under contribution are, Bologna, Cento, Cremona, Fano, Foligno, Loretto, Mantua, Milan, Modena, Parma, Perugia, Peraro, Piacenza, Rome, Venice, and Verona. The paintings are: of Abani 1, Alfani 2, Bansang 1, Barocci 6, Bellini, Breughel 5, Caravaggio (Mich. Angelo), of six figures bigger than the life; of Annibal Caracci 4, Augustino Caracci 3, Ludovico Caracci 7, of the three Caracci 6, Cavedone 1, Contarino 1, Correggio 5, Dominichini 3, Dossi 1, Ferrari 1, Feti 1, Garofalo 3, Gennari 3, Guercino 28,

* Present State of Music in France and Italy, Art. Padua.

Guison

Guisoni 1, Guido 12, Lana 1, Lelio Orsi 1, Luini 2, Mantegna 5, Mazzola 1, Parmegiano 1, Paolo Veronese 12, Perugino 17, Pordenone 1, Poussin (Nicolas) 1, Procaccini (Camillo) 1, Procaccini (Giulio Cesare) 1, Raphael 8, Sacchi 2, Salvator Rosa 1, Schidone 1, Solario 1, Spada 4, Tiriani 2, Tintoretto 3, Titiano 4, Valentini 4.-Total, 172 pictures; 22 statues of marble and bronze; 12 antique marble busts; and six or eight bassi relievi in bronze.

[To be continued.]

ART. XIII. Lichenographia Suecica Prodromus. Auctor ERIK ACHARIUS, Med. Doct. &c.-8vo. pp. 264. Lincopiæ. 1798. AMONG the numerous improvements which the science of

Botany has received since the era of the immortal Linné, certainly none is more important, nor more remarkable, than the superior knowlege which has been acquired of the almost infinite tribe of vegetables comprehended in his system under the class Cryptogamia. To a botanist of the present day, it cannot fail to be matter of astonishment, that so little had formerly been done in this immense department of natural history; which, until our own times, was almost universally considered as unworthy the notice of a man of science; and in studying which, it had been supposed, no man would waste his attention, who could devote it to any other object. «Muscos et qui muscas legit, huic aliud non suppetit negotium." On this subject, the votaries of natural history in foreign countries, at the same time that they acknowlege the zeal and abilities. which many English botanists display in the study of their favorite science, do not hesitate to arrogate to themselves a considerable pre-eminence; and, if it be by works similar to those which are the subject of the present and following article, that the learned world is to decide on the justice of their claim, we fear that, however national partiality might incline the bias, it would be difficult for us to deliver an opinion in opposition to their pretensions.

Dr. ACHARIUS, author of the volume before us, has been long celebrated as one of the most indefatigable observers of the genus Lichen, on account of the papers which he published on this subject in the Transactions of the Royal Swedish Academy at Stockholm; although these papers, from being unfortunately written in his native language, have been by no

*It was our intention to have accompanied this article by an account of SWARTZ's Muscologia, which we now design for our next Appendix.

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means so universally known as their utility required, and their excellence deserved. It had been his intention to have given to the world a complete Lichenographia Suecica: but the labour of such a task was so incompatible with his other pursuits, and he saw so much probability that, if he persevered in this resolution, the appearance of his work would be protracted to a greater length of time than he wished, that he determined to relinquish this idea, and to publish, the present volume; which being called a Prodromus, we have room for hoping that his more perfect work is only deferred, not abandoned. It is scarcely possible for any author to come forwards with more advantage than Dr. ACHARIUS enjoys; since there is no country, at least in Europe, in which Lichens grow in a more luxuriant profusion than on the bleak rocks and wide-extended hills of Sweden; and since, from having been a pupil of Linné himself, he can justly claim a more certain knowlege of the species designed by that able naturalist, than can be boasted by almost any other botanist: more especially as we have understood that the Herbarium in the possession of Dr. Smith is par ticularly deficient in specimens of this extensive tribe. On this subject, we quote his own words: Sapius exteri scriptores minus ritè cognoverunt species à LINNEO nostro jam pridem commemoratas, ac proinde eis nomina tribuerunt nonnunquam peregrina et prorsus impropria.-Confusionem inde exortam certiori nixus rei notitia, quantum in me fuit, tollere studui. Hinc equidem spero me paulo accuratius explanasse species ab Illustri Viro allatas.

With regard to dividing the Lichens into many separate genera, as had been done by Professor Hoffman and several foreign botanists, we own that we were not displeased to find the present author averse from such a step, till a more accurate knowlege of their fructification and the parts subservient to it shall be obtained.

• Plurimas ob causas, easq. haud spernendas, Ill. Linnæus non nisi unicum statuit Genus. Recentiores avi percelebres Botanici eundem hunc secuti sunt magni nominis antesignanum. Me certe bucusque nec propria indagatior nec aliorum demonstrationes impulere quin devenerandi olim Præceptoris mei sententiam, absque omni partium studio, velut rectissimam sequar. Antequam hac in re aliquod cum successu negotium suscipiatur, me quidem judice, multo perfectior Lichenum fecundationis organorumque propagationis, ac fortassis fructificationis et disseminationis, anteponenda est cognitio. Quanto enim Lichenes a plantis conformatione, indole, atque naturá suâ singulari recedunt, tanto difficilior nostra existit opera, si in plura genera eos dispesceremus, nimirum quando horum characteres ex iisdem fructificationis fundamentis desumere conaremur.'

At the same time, however, that he makes this remark, he gives, with some alterations, a method which he had already published in the Nov. Act. Reg. Acad. Sc. Suec. tom. xv. p. 244 ;

by