This memoir still contains two facts deserving the notice of our readers: • Some years since, the ingenious Mr. Rittenhouse was induced to suppose, from the peculiar melancholy cry of a red-winged-maize-thief*, that a snake was at no great distance from it, and that the bird was in distress. He threw a stone at the place from which the cry proceeded, which had the effect of driving the bird away. The poor ani. mal, however, immediately returned to the same spot. Mr. Rittenhouse now went to the place where the bird alighted, and, to his great astonishment, he found it perched upon the back of a large black-snake, which it was pecking with its beak. At this very time, the serpent was in the act of swallowing a young bird, and from the enlarged size of the reptile's belly it was evident that it had already swallowed two or three other young birds, After the snake was killed, the old bird flew away. • Mr. Rittenhouse says that the cry and actions of this bird had been precisely similar to those of a bird which is said to be under the fascinating influence of a serpent; and I doubt not that this very instance would, by many credulous persons, have been adduced as a proof of the existence of such a faculty. But what can be more evident than the general explanation of this case? The maize-thief builds its nest in low bushes, the bottoms of which are the usual haunts of the black-snake. The reptile found no difficulty in gliding up to the nest, from which, most probably in the absence of the mother, it had taken the young ones. Or it had seized the young ones, after they had been forced from the nest, by the mother. In either case, the mother had come to prevent them from being devoured.' A black-snake sometimes finds great difficulty in obtaining his prey upon a tree. In support of this assertion, I could adduce many facts. But my memoir has already exceeded the limits which I originally prescribed to it. I shall content myself, therefore, with relating a solitary fact, which strikingly illustrates my position. A black-snake was seen climbing up a tree, evidently with the view of procuring the young birds in the nest of a baltimore-bird. This bird, it has been already observed, suspends its nest at the extremity of the branch of a tree. The branch to which the bird, of which I am speaking, had affixed its nest, being very slender, the serpent found it impossible to come at the nest by crawling along it; he, therefore, took the advantage of another branch, which hung above the nest, and twisting a small portion of his tail around it, he was enabled by stretching the remainder of his body, to reach the nest, into which he insinuated his head, and thus glutted his appetite with the young birds.' Such is the substance of a paper that contains a variety of interesting information. We have been copious in our extracts, *Commonly called, in Pennsylvania, the Swamp-Black-bird. It is the Oriolus phoeniceus of Linnæus.' on account of the difficulty which our inquisitive readers would probably experience, in attempting to procure the improved edition of the memoir. ART. III. Die Kunst das Menschliche Leben; i. e. The Art of prolonging Human Life. By C. W.HUFELAND, M. D. 8vo. pp. 696. Jena. 1797. T 'HIS work, we understand, has made a considerable impression in the country in which it was published; and although we cannot rank it as the German Journalists do, among the first literary productions, we are ready to acknowlege that Dr. HUFELAND has managed some parts of his subject with considerable address. The reader is not here to expect new projects for the prolongation of life: but he will find overlooked and neglected truths forcibly stated. Many rules of diet, formerly proposed, but coldly received, and scarcely ever followed, are laid down as the foundation of a new science, which our author thinks may properly be called Macro biotice. "Man is greatly subject to moral influences. These tend manifestly to lengthen or to abridge the term of his duration, and they are accordingly very studiously examined in the treatise before us. It is divided into two parts; Theoretical and Practical. The Theoretical part is distributed into nine lectures, in which the following subjects are discussed. 1. The fortunes of the science of prolonging life are deduced from the earliest times to Mesmer, Cagliostro, and Dr. Graham. Impostors of very different talents have ever made attempts to turn the general desire of longevity to their advantage. In this historical introduction, the author endeavours to correct the ideas of the public concerning the duration of life, and thus to guard them. against the arts of the fraudulent. Lect II. Inquiry concerning the principle and duration of life. The representation here given of the vital principle, its laws and actions, inclines much to chemical physiology. The living process, it is said, may be considered as a continual process of consumption. It essentially consists in a perpetual destruction and renovation of the living Being. The process has its limits; and every possible extension of existence depends on strengthening the vital principle and organs; retarding consumption; and promoting renovation. Lect. III. Length of life in plants. An interesting investigation, from which the following deductions flow. The great age of a plant depends, 1. on slow growth; 2. on late and infrequent propagation; 3. a plant destined to last must be provided with organs that have a certain degree of firmness; 4. it must be large and spreading; 5. it must be lofty. The contrary contrary circumstances, cæteris paribus, abridge alike vegetable and animal life. Lect. IV. Duration of animal life. Dr. H. goes through all the classes, to confirm his deductions from plants. In Lect. V. the most remarkable examples of human longevity with regard to nations, climates, and callings, are reported. Lect. VI. Results of experience. Determination of the period of human life. Of the results, the most important is that longevity depends on conformity of conduct to the laws of nature. The author sets down the possible duration of life at 200 years. Lect. VII. More particular inquiry concerning man's life; and the influence of high intellectual cultivation on longevity. Lect. VIII. Disposition of individuals for longevity. Its characteristics. Lect. IX. Examination of various new proposals for the extension of life, and account of the only method applicable to man. The principles of the second lecture are here repeated. Longevity is only attainable by increasing the vital power itself-by hardening or seasoning the organs-retarding the consumption of life, and by facilitating its renovation. This discussion leads to the Practical part, in which the author treats of the several means by which life may be abridged or lengthened. The means of abridgment are, an education tending to weakness; excess in venery; over exertion of the intellectual powers; diseases, and the improper treatment of them; means of violent death; inclination to suicide; foul air; residence in large cities; gluttony and sottishness; certain dispo sitions and passions; moroseness; too much business; fear of death; idleness and listlessness; an overstrained imagination; physical and contagious poisons. On all these the author treats distinctly and he then enumerates and examines their opposites, as the means of longevity. The work does not appear to us to be of that merit which renders a translation very desirable:- but to an English writer, who should undertake to treat the same important subject, it would doubtless afford considerable aid. ART. IV. Oeuvres complettes du General Dumouriez ; i. e. The complete Works of General Dumouriez. Vol. I. containing the Present State of the Kingdom of Portugal. 4to. pp. 306. Hamburgh, 1797. Imported by De Boffe, London. THE HE fortunes of General DUMOURIEZ have naturally procured for his writings a celebrity which they would probably never have attained, had his opinions been delivered only on topics of less pressing interest;-had his energies been expended on a cause of less universal concern. We have sepa rately examined many of these writings already, and shall therefore 10 therefore content ourselves with little more than announcing this collective edition of them: of which the first volume comprises only the statistical account of Portugal, written in 1766, but first published in 1775- It has, however, undergone an elaborate revision, and has been enlarged by copious insertions of information. To this first volume, which contains a map of Portugal, an extensive preface is given: The period of its publication' (says the author) adds to the liberty of my opinions, which have been extended and strengthened by the experience of thirty years, equivalent to three centuries. When I first wrote, many truths were unknown and others dangerous to avow. I neither compose for children, nor for an age that has gone by: but for a period of information, and for men of knowledge. Without affecting to be an enlightener of nations or an instructor of sovereigns, I have still aspired to infuse useful ideas worthy of a reflecting man, and consonant with the principles which have directed my political and military career. I shall alarm only fools; I shall incur the ill-will only of the dishonest, and the abuse of unprincipled partisans of despotism or of anarchy. What matters their opinion? Their force, exhausted by their excessive efforts, is now paralytic. In 1789, I said to those of my friends whose comfortable exist, ence was supported by privileges and prejudices, "Read Plutarch and change your skin."— Every nation must expect a period at which a revolution will be inevitable. When its mass of information gives it an impatience of the ancient institutions, the sovereign, who should ever outstrip the spirit of the times, ought to call around him a small number of sages, and ought himself to abolish without pity the abuses that are contrary to liberty, were they even the ground-work of his power. If he re mains behind either in wit or will, he soon passes for a public enemy, and becomes the expiatory victim. The revolution of America was not a sufficient lesson for sovereigns; because distance lessened the prospect: but let them study that of France, so completely successful in the very midst of them, and in spite of their united efforts at prevention. Let them take motice that all the nations of Europe gave an unprepared but pointed approbation, even to the more irregular movements of this astonishing revolution: that they still seek to palliate its crimes, and to attribute them to aukward circumstances; and let them infer that there still exists a silent irresistable concord among the souls that vibrate to the cry of Liberty. They will find that their numerous hosts have most reluctantly marched against the regenerate people that has braved all dangers in the first great cause of humanity; that these same warriors, electrified by the contact of freemen, have always forgotten the shame of their defeat in admiration of the extraordinary energy of their conquerors, wrapping themselves up in the general diguity of man to cloak their own reproach.' < They • They will find that the unprecedented successes of one people against nine powers, of a people without bread, money, arms, or government, which forged all its means of defence in the ardent furnace of liberty-of a people torn by an inveterate civil war, by internal and external conspiracies, still stifled and still springing up afresh, given up to anarchy, to the most consuming tyranny, to the most bloody barbarism;-they will find, I say, that these successes are the consequence of the fatality of revolutions, the course of which no human effort can stop.' • Those bushes which hide from sovereigns the pit-falls that surround them, those courtiers and ministers who stand between them and truth, will blacken the object of these reflections; which are dictated by philanthropy, by a pure desire of seeing governments supported by the people, and the people made wise and happy by their governments. Foolish men! to place sovereignty in a title and power in mere force! their error will one day be punished. Force is the attribute of the people; and if the agents of the sovereignty abuse it to the prejudice of the people, it will at length be turned against them, and their fall will involve that of the sovereign, who has perhaps only the vices of feebleness and indolence; a famous example is in preparation . . . . . The General says much more to the same purport, and in a still more apocalyptic style. His authorities for believing in fatalism are curiously grouped. Nearly all the great philosophers have been fatalists; so are the Turks and Russians.' He predicts that France will wrest the empire of the seas from England, with as much ease as she has subdued the nations that attacked her by land. He also foretels the success of an invasion, and adds that peace alone can divert this strokę which will crush England. He then proceeds to speak of Prussia, and other European states; which are all condemned without mercy to be leavened by the revolutionary ferment. Superstition, he thinks, is the most formidable impediment to the realization of these terrestrial paradises. This political survey of Portugal is agreeably written. It contains many curious notices, and is probably altogether the best account extant of the country of which it treats. The present is the only volume of this collection that we have yet received. ART. V. Defense des Emigrés Français, &c. i. e. A Defence of the OF eloquence, |