perspicuity of mind. In the performance of his respective duties he was indefatigable. There were few national committees of which he was not appointed a member, and none in which he did not take a prominent part. When, on the first establishment of the National Institute, he was nominated a member, he did not relax from the superior demands of his political functions; yet was he punctual in his attendance at its sittings, and eager, by his own writings, to promote its literary reputation. It was Baudin who first protested against the indecency of the common mode of sepulture.

At the first movement,' says his biographer, of his virtuous indignation against so cruel an indifference, a committee was unanimously appointed, of which Baudin was a member. In two memoirs, full of philanthropy, his eloquent voice impeached this truly moral depravation, which drives back into eternal oblivion those sacred spoils of the dead, without honouring them with a tear, without conceding to them those tender remembrances which are so imperiously demanded by nature and by gratitude.'

The memory of Baudin deserves therefore to be cherished by his countrymen. May his virtues form an object of their imitation! He died suddenly on the twenty-first of Vendémiaire, year VIII, shortly after the debarkation of Bonaparte at Fréjus; overpowered, in the opinion of M. Champagne, by the excess of joy which such an event, in conjunction with several other circumstances equally advantageous or glorious to his country, had produced upon his mind; but more probably, though more prosaïcally, from a sudden paroxysm of the gout, to which, notwithstanding the simplicity of his life, and the multiplicity of his literary pursuits, he had long been a martyr.

In the chapter containing the catalogue of prizes, which immediately follows the biography of M. Baudin, we find that the greater number of those proposed in the last volume are renewed in the present, with little or no alteration in the terms, in con sequence of no adequate solutions having hitherto been returned. The two following questions are new. The prize for each-but their amount in either case is not mentioned-is to be distributed at the public sitting, Messidor 15, year IX.

By what causes has the spirit of liberty been developed in France from the period of Francis I. to the year 1789?

What are the principal changes (geographical) which the globe has sustained, and which are either indicated or demonstrated by history?'

The history of the class closes with the list of printed books presented to it since the publication of its last volume. These

consist of fifty-four articles only-none of them very recondite, and few of them very valuable. All but one, which is an American publication, are indeed of the language of the country, and of very modern date. We proceed to the Memoirs.

I. Discourse on social Science. By M. Cambacérès.' Another leaf taken out of the Social Contract of Jean-Jaques.

Mutual want engenders the first links of society. Incapable of sufficing for himself, man is compelled to seek his fellow man. It is want which whispers to mankind to unite their faculties, that every one may enjoy the faculties of the whole. Hence sciences and arts-all produced from the same mother, to embellish and exalt her-all the progeny of Nature, who, by the aid of Genius, unfold their talents, and generate a new nature in their turn. But, without protection and personal safety, of what use are these first links of society, since our chief want is to defend ourselves against ourselves? Hence, the first social relations being once established between individuals, it is necessary to introduce a rein,-to impose a rule of restraint. Thus authority issues and commands all by laws. Frequently impotent however, and more frequently still improvident, the law stands in need of an assistant, a helpmate. The wise and benevolent Author of Nature has given her morality,-imperious governess of mankind by hopes and fears. Arts, laws, morality, in these three behold, then, the chief means of civilisation, the true elements of social science!'

All this has been said a thousand times before, and in nearly the same language.

II. Geographical Considerations on the Southern Limits of French Guiana. By M. Buache.'

By the eighth article of the treaty of Utrecht, the northern boundary of the Brasils, or territory appertaining in that quarter to the Portuguese, is determined by the river Oyapok; and the object of the present memoirist is to prove that there are two rivers of this name, one situated on each side of the equator, at a distance from each other of something more than five degrees; and that the Portuguese, by pretending that the treaty of Utrecht refers to the northern Oyapok, have not only unjustly claimed possession of some of the most valuable part of Guiana, which ought to appertain to France, but have possessed themselves of a country to which they have no possible pretensións, and which they never were intended to possess by the treaty of Utrecht, whose decision relates to the southern Oyapok, or that situated in the embouchure of the river Amazon. This subject is well managed. M. Buache has read much, and examined closely; but it is probable that his arguments would have had little avail, had they not been powerfully seconded by the talismanic threats of Bonaparte. The writer observes, however, that the same name of

Oyapok, by which these two distinct rivers are confounded together, is referred to in several treaties between Spain and Portugal; but that the Oyapok is in these occasionally denominated, from its discoverer, the river of Vincent-Pinson. His object is to decide to which of the two Oyapoks the name of Vincent-Pinson will best apply; and he clearly proves that it can only appertain to the southern Oyapok, for that VincentYanez-Pinson never touched, as is obvious from all the accounts we have of his voyage, on the northern side of the equator. He refers, moreover, to the Spanish and Portuguese treaties, in which the latter Oyapok alone is thus expressly designated; and concludes that the natural as well as the intentional boundary of the treaty of Utrecht, with respect to the French and Portuguese territories in this quarter, is the river Amazon. 'I leave it,' says he, to politicians to calculate what France has lost by the continuation of such an error; I will only observe that the interior of Guiana is in many respects one of the most interesting spots of all America.' The French government seems since to have thought the same, or perhaps thought the same beforehand, and merely communicated its ideas through the medium of the present memoir. The disputed line of coast is well illustrated by a chart.

III. Historic Essay on ancient and modern Navigations into high Northern Latitudes. By M. Bougainville."

Of what length this essay is to consist, when concluded, we know not, for at present we are favoured with the first part alone; the object of which is to prove, first, that geography is a science altogether modern; and, secondly, that of all the voyages hitherto attempted or actually accomplished in these high latitudes, not one has proposed to itself a mere arrival at the north pole-the inducement having been either to find out a more expeditious course from Europe to the East-Indies, or to extend the lucrative traffic of whale-fisheries. It is to the immediate region of the north pole that our author wishes to direct the public attention, as a spot likely, if once attained and investigated, to be productive of infinite advantage to a variety of the most important sciences pursued by the mind of

man.

1 To the navigation of the ancients M. Bougainville appears to give too slender a degree of commendation, excepting in the instance of the very questionable voyages of Pytheas, the whole of whose statements are supposed, in opposition to his own countryman, M. Gosselin, to have been founded on personal observation. With the more extensive and intrepid voyages of modern circumnavigators he is better acquainted; and among these the English, and especially the unfortunate Cook, come in for a due share of eulogy.

We have often had occasion to animadvert on the illiberal

conduct of the Hudson's Bay Company, who have not only, in many instances, impeded every attempt at obtaining additional information in their own quarter, but, like the Carthaginians of old, have been suspected, at times, of garbling facts themselves, and of purposely propagating gross misintelligence with respect to the course of different bays and rivers in their vicinity, in order to destroy all competition in their own gains. We are sorry to perceive the same observation advanced in the memoir before us, and in a manner that too fully confirms the truth of the rumors so repeatedly communicated to us on this head. The reading of M. Bougainville extends no later than to the voyages of captain Cook and his associates on the one side of the pole, and the expeditions of Pickersgill and Young on the other; and he has still doubts, therefore, of the existence of the passage which has been so frequently attempted, notwithstanding the confidence with which its existence is conjectured by the two latter in their statement communicated to the Royal Society. Had he been acquainted with the voyages of Vancouver, and espe cially of Mackenzie, of which latter some account will be found in our number for June last, these doubts would no longer have existed; since, although no continuous sea has yet been de tected, the communication of immense rivers, whose course and conjunction are there clearly laid down, affords a complete inland navigation, and gives at least something of the passage which has been so long inquired after.

Here the limits of a periodical analysis compel us to rest. We. shall resume the subject in our next Appendix; but must now hasten to vol. III of the class of Literature and Polite Arts.

The historical division commences with a notice of memoirs, either not printed or published separately, by M. Villar, secres tary. Among these, the two which principally strike our atten tion are, Observations on a Greek Manuscript, containing a Work on the Chemistry of the Ancients, erroneously attributed to Democritus of Abdera; and an Essay, by Professor Ancillon of Berlin, on Psalm lxviii; proposing, as the report avers, an Interpretation more natural, more intelligible, and more satisfactory, than any which has yet appeared. MM. Ameithon and Langles are appointed commissaries for the examination of this work; and the account closes with the following observation:→ We doubt not that every man of learning will unite his wishes to receive from M. Ancillon a similar labour, if not of the Psalms at large, at least of those which have most need of illustration.' So much for the return of biblical criticism.

The biographies follow. They consist of three: and of these we are sorry to find that the first announces the death, and gives us, in consequence, a notice of the life and labours, of Charles Dewailly. Of the literary powers of this celebrated

character our readers may form some judgement for themselves, by referring to the history of the Institute, as progressively given in several of our anterior numbers. The notice or éloge here introduced is from the pen of his friend M. Andrieux, secretary to the class, and, though brief and simple, does equal credit to his taste and feelings. Charles Dewailly was born at Paris, Nov. 9, 1729: he was educated by one of his uncles, and from his earliest infancy discovered an unconquerable partiality for the study and practice of architecture, in which he afterwards became so admirable a proficient. His chief master was Lejay, who at this period had just established a new school of the profession, and recovered it from the contempt in which it had been held from the age of Lewis XIV. In the year 1752 Dewailly obtained the chief architectural prize, and herewith a right of studying at Rome for three years, at the expense of the nation. Upon this success, his biographer notices an action so truly generous and laudable in the mind of an emulous young man, that we ought not to omit it. The student to whom the second prize was decreed, and whose name was Moreau, appeared extremely sorrowful. Dewailly interrogated him upon the subject of his chagrin; and learning that it proceeded from his having lost the opportunity of prosecuting his profession in Italy, he flew to the president of the architectural committee, and earnestly solicited permission that his unfortunate rival might be allowed to travel to Rome as well as himself. On an objection being adduced from the established rules—' Well, well,' replied he, I yet know a mode of reconciling every thing. I am myself allotted three years; of these I can dispose as I like-I give eighteen months of them to Moreau.' This generous sacrifice was accepted; and Dewailly received an additional prize in the public esteem which accompanied so distinguished a transaction. In most of the modern buildings of taste and magnificence in his own country, Dewailly was a party employed. Many of his designs are engraven in the Encyclopédie and in Laborde's Description of France. He was a member of the Academy of Painting, as well as that of Architecture; in the latter of which he was at once admitted into the higher class, without having, as is customary, passed through the inferior. Of the National Institute he was a member from its establishment. He died on Brumaire 12, year VII, having been spared the affliction of beholding one of his most exquisite pieces of workmanship, the magnificent hall of the Odeon, destroyed by fire-a catastrophe which occurred but a short time after his demise.

A notice on the life and labours of Etienne-Louis Boullée, by M. Villar, follows. Boullée, like Dewailly, was an architect of great merit and celebrity. Born at Paris nearly in the same year (1728), he had the advantage of the same tuition, for