not Atheists, that the Jews borrowed their religious tenets and ceremonies from other nations, and the Chriftians partly from them, and partly from the Bramins. There is not, fays the Author, one word in the Old Teftament concerning the fall of angels. There are about four lines in one of the epiftles attributed to Peter concerning them, and upon this paffage alone the whole Chriftian religion is founded. He refers the paffage in Ifaiah, which has been translated, "how art thou fallen from heaven, Lucifer, thou fon of the morning," to a king of Babylon, who in the fame parable is called a rod of iron, and at whofe death the cedars are faid to rejoice. He fays that the exiftence of a foul diftinct from the body, its eternity, and metemfipcofis, are Indian inventions. He endeavours to prove, that the Jews were idolaters in the defart, and that they had no fixed religion during the time of their kings, nor till after Efdras; that the immortality of the foul was not a dogma of the Jewish law, that the Jewish law required human facrifices, and that they were never required by any other. Some reafons are then offered to fhew that the Pentateuch was not written by Mofes, and even that no fuch man as Mofes ever exifted. He enquires whether the hiftory of Bacchus was borrowed from that of Mofes, and examines the cofmogony attributed to Mofes, and his account of the deluge. He gives a fragment from a Chaldean author, who wrote, he fays, before the books attributed to Mofes were written, which contains the prediction of a deluge, directions to build an arc, and many other circumftances of the Mofaic relation, which he therefore fuppofes to be borrowed from it. He alleges that there is fcarce a page in the Jewish books that is not a plagiary, and cites fome inftances. He endeavours alfo to prove that Jefus lived and died a Jew, and that he had never formed any delign to establish a new worfhip upon the ruins of Judaifm. That more than thirty texts of the Old Teftament are falfified in the New; that Jesus was called the Son of God, as a juft man; in a language in which a wicked man was called a fon of Belial; he is however compelled to acknowledge that Jefus is called the Son of God in another fenfe in the Evangelift attributed to St. John, because the high-pricft thought the expreffion blafphemous. He infifts alfo that the firft difciples of Jefus were nothing more than Jews of a particular fect, as the Lollards were a particular fect among Chriftians. He endeavours to trace the feveral principles and doctrines in which Chriflianity differs from Judaifm to their fource, and expatiates on the frauds and malfacres which it has produced. APP. Rev. vol. xlii. He He concludes by convening all fects of all religions, to join in adoration to God, and benevolence to men; come, fays he, my rational Socinian, my dear Quaker, my good Anabaptist, my fevere Lutheran, my gloomy Prefbyterian, my careless Epifcopalian; come ye Memnonifts, Fifth-monarchy-men, Methodists, Pietifts, and come even ye Papifts, filly and abject as ye are, if ye have not a poignard in your pocket, and let us proftrate ourselves together before the Supreme Being, and bless him for having given us poultry and venison and bread for our nourishment, reason to know him, and an heart to love him, and after having thus faid grace, let us fup together with the cheerful benevolence of good fellowship. To this every good man, whatever he may think of this Author or his principles, will certainly fay Amen. The eighth of these books contains a tract called The Praifes of God. A request to all the magiftrates of the kingdom. Detached thoughts of the Abbé de St. Pierre. A confeffion of faith by a difinterested man. Of the sentiments contained in the first of these pieces the reader may judge from the following extract: I adore, fays one of the worshippers to another, with you, the Supreme Being; I acknowledge him to be the caufe, the end, the circumference and the center of all things; but I cannot speak of him without fearing to offend, if indeed a finite being can offend him that is infinite, if a worm groveling in the duft can offend "the high and holy one who inhabiteth eternity." I perceive and tremble, that while I adore and love him as the eternal Author of all that has been, and that hall be, I make him the author of evil. I confider with grief that all fects who like me have believed in one God, have fallen into the fnare, which I fear my own reafon cannot escape. I am every moment touched with gratitude and joy, but other ideas neceffarily prefenting themselves, my thanksgivings are followed by involuntary murmurs; fighs ftruggle in my breaft, and I melt into tears, like a child, who is this moment laughing, and the next crying in the arms of its nurse. To account for evil. fome have fuppofed rebellious angels, and fome an evil principle equal to the good. Let unhappy mortals, overwhelmed with mifery and forrow, if, in the few moments when a fufpence of pain has given them leisure to think, they have fo ill " juftified the ways of God to man," be forgiven ! Who can without horror confider the whole earth as the empire of deftruction! It abounds in wonders, it abounds alfo in victims; it is a vaft field of carnage and contagion. Every fpecies is without pity purfued and torn to pieces through earth, and air, and water; in man there is more wretchedness than in all other animals put together; he fmarts continually under two fcourges, which other animals never feel anxiety and a liftlefs inappetence, which make him weary of himself: he loves life, yet he knows that he muft die: if he enjoys fome tranfient good for which he is thankful to heaven, he fuffers various evil, and is at laft devoured by worms. This knowledge is his fatal prerogative; other animals have it not; he feels it every moment rankling and corroding in his breaft. Yet he fpends the tranfient moment of his existence in diffufing the mifery that he fuffers; in cutting the throats of his fellowcreatures for pay; in cheating and being cheated, in robbing and being robbed, in ferving that he may command, and in repenting of all that he does. The bulk of mankind are nothing more than a crowd of wretches equally criminal and unfortu nate, and the globe contains rather carcafes than men. I tremble yet again upon a review of this dreadful picture, to find that it implies a complaint against providence, and I wish that I had never been born. The request to the magiftrates is for the abolition of Lent and Holidays. With the defence of Louis XIV. we have little to do. The detached thoughts relate principally to the errors of popery and their confequences, which to us are happily subjects of mere fpeculation. The reflections upon the progrefs of our ideas are intended principally to fhew that mankind believe, or think they believe, a thousand abfurdities, merely in confequence of their being obtruded upon the mind before it is able to examine them: if many things refpecting our religion, were first offered to the mind when it is able to compare and judge, they would be rejected, with the fame fentiments, as thofe with which we reject things of the like kind that relate to the religion of other nations. The letter to D'Alembert relates wholly to the literature of France. The difinterested man's confeffion of faith is faid to be tranflated from the English, and is wholly fatirical. It confifts of fuch articles as the following: I believe that all priefts are deficient in faith, because I fee none of them remove mountains. I believe that our bishops are not fucceffors of the apostles, who poffeffed nothing, and that they do not hold what the king gives them by a divine right." The epiftles are in verfe. Three are to an actress at Marfeilles; the other is to a friend. They are not objects of general curiofity, and this article being already more than equal to the place allotted for it, we muft refer our readers to the original if they wish to fee more than it is in our power to exhibit. ART. XI. Effai fur les Maladies des Gens du Monde. An Effay on the Difeafes of the Great, by M. Tiflot, M. D. 12mo. Lau fanne. 1770. TH HE Author, whofe fkill in his profeffion is univerfally acknowledged, obferves in his preface, that during the Jaft one hundred and fifty years, many volumes have been written on the diseases of the poor, and that he was himself employed ten years upon the fame fubject, which gave him more pleasure than any other. See Vol. xxxiii. p. 46. That Ramaz zini, a celebrated phyfician of Italy, has written an excellent treatife on the difeafes of artificers, in which there is a chapter relating to thofe of Ecclefiaftics; that there are many excellent works on the difeafes of foldiers; that Meffrs. Cockburn, Lind, and Poiffonnier have written on the diseases of failors, and that a little library might be formed of books written on the difeafes of the literary and ftudious; but that no book has hitherto appeared on the diseases of the Great, (whose manner of life is more productive of difeafe than any other) except a treatife entitled, The Phyfician of the Court, by M. Carle, phyfician to the king of Denmark, which the Author has not read, and which having never been tranflated,can be of use only in one nation, and is very little known even in that. This work therefore, fays M. Tiflot, with refpect to the greatest part of Europe, is new, and the principal defign of it is, to expofe the faults in regimen, and the mischiefs they produce; not to indicate the remedies which they require, any further than to convince the fick, that if they do not act in concert with their phyfician, it will be impoffible that he fhould cure them. In the introduction M. Tiffot remarks that the conftitution and ftate of healt whhich we diftinguish by the name of delicate, prevails chiefly among the Great. A conftitution is faid to be delicate when the party is difordered by flight variations in meat and drink, air, exercife, reft, the paffions, fleeping and waking, and the fecretions and excretions. Delicate perfons are indeed fometimes well, but they are never well long together; they are condemned to a kind of perpetual flavery, always watching over themselves with an anxious and often fruitless attention, to avoid what hurts them without certainly certainly knowing it, and which when it is known is fometimes inevitable. · Delicate perfons frequently became valetudinary: in this ftate the vital functions are performed fo irregularly, that without any fpecific difeafe, they are very frequently out of order when there is no poffibility of gueffing the caufe: thefe perfons are scarce ever well; the health of one day is purchased by the languor of a month, and the diforder being fometimes general in all the functions, without being diftinguifhed in any, they fuffer a univerfal disorder without knowing what ails them. As the Great are in general delicate and valetudinary, fo have they fome diforders not often to be found among other claffes. The Author proceeds to enquire what renders the Great deli cate and valetudinary, what difeafes are in a manner peculiar to their condition; and what are the remedies as well for their general ftate as their particular diseases. By the Great, the Author means all who lead the fame kind of life, though not of the fame rank; all who have no employment or occupation; who being by perpetual idlenefs fecluded from natural pleafures, have recourfe to factitious enjoyments, or rather feek for pleasures in art, which in art they can never find. A child that is in health will amuse itself though it has nothing, but a fick child cannot amufe itself though it is furrounded with playthings. The Great, or rather the rich and the lazy, eat and drink things that by an acrid quality gratify the palate, and ftimulate the appetite. They eat what is not wholefome, and they eat more than fhould be eaten even of wholefome food; they are immediately fenfible of an irritation in the ftomach which pro. duces an univerfal unealinefs: the chyle, confifting of highrelifhed food, and poignant fauces, carries on the irritation to the veffels, and the quicknefs of the pulfe fometime after a meal is a proof of their effect; this quicknefs is the indication of a fever, to a certain degree, which recurring with every day must of neceffity gradually debilitate the conftitution: all the organs of fecretion being irritated, all the functions become irregular, and the whole animal oeconomy is difordered. This Author confiders falt, leven, and fermented liquors, as the principal things which fhorten human life; but what difference, fays he, is there between the irritation produced by falt, by leven, and by the fermented liquors firft in ufe, and that of the food and liquors which are found at what is called a good table? thefe are fuch as have an immediate and powerful tendency at once to imbitter and fhorten life. The people who thus convert their food into poison, suffer alfo with refpect to another great principle of life, the air; they never breathe it in a morning, when a kind of volatile balm O03 rifes |