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against Zimmerman in 1792, for having publicly advanced this propofition, the truth of which was established by fo many authentic documents- The Baron de Knigge unmasked, proved to be an illu miné, a democrat, and a feducer of the people,' and that he was fentenced, in 1795, to make apologies to him for having publicly infulted him; and that, Sir, merely for having juftly afcribed to Knigge a publication which did not bear his name."

The author promises to fupply fome fresh proofs of the afcendancy which these democratical fcribblers had acquired over the late King of Pruffia; and he relates an anecdote of the Emperor Leopold which furprizes us not a little, but for the authenticity of which he pledges himfelf. That prince being one day in his cabinet with Prince R . . . (from whom the author had the anecdote) and one of his principal ministers, made the following obfervation:

"It seems that every attempt to prevent a general revolution will be vain; the impulfion is given. If this calamity be inevitable, will it not be better for fovereigns to begin it themselves, than fuffer it to be begun by the dregs of their fubjects? Would not the true means of avoiding the dreadful fubverfion which has taken place in France be, to make the head march first and not the feet."-Now, Sir, let me afk you, what prince could be better acquainted with all the fchemes of the illuminati than Leopold, who was fully informed of them by Meffrs. Hofman and Zimmerman, and by the denunciations of the Court of Munich; and who had refolved to crush that abomina ble fect, and intended to denounce it to the Diet of Ratisbon ?——— Either, then, he must have been fo much alarmed at the extent and deep roots of the evil which he had just discovered, that he almoft defpaired of his ability to fupply the appropriate remedy; or, he had been perfuaded of what the fophifts have been inceffantly proclaiming for the last fifty years, that the present state of knowledge rendered a general revolution neceffary. In either cafe, what must be the power and the influence of thefe fworn enemies to public peace!

But whatever might be the private fentiments of Leopold, he never rendered them public, nor yet acted on the strange principle here imputed to him. Not fo the late King of Pruf fia, who publicly proclaimed the revolutionary maxims, and in the celebrated Pruffian code, which was circulated throughout Germany in 1791, employed all the cant terms of the Gallic philofophifm, it was, indeed, "fo impregnated with the principles and the jargon of the French revolutionists, that Mr. Becker, in his German Gazette (Deutsche Zeitung, P. 47, 1791) drew a tolerable juft parallel of it with the conftitution of France; and another democratic Journalist observed the following year, This work is a phenomenon, and exactly refembles the conftitution of France (Der Weltbürger,

vii heft,

vii heft, 1792, P. 433').-Pruffia, it appears, was indebted for this code, according to the Abbé Denina, "to the philofophical Spirit of M. de Carmer and his affociates."

But even this inftance of infatuation is exceeded by the incomparable folly of a Prince de H- H- (we wish we knew his name that he might be tranfmitted to pofterity as the prince of blockheads) who faid one day at his Court, "The French are in the right; the people can difpenfe with nobles and princes; I, who am a prince myself, cannot but admit this." The late Prince of Neuwied, too, whofe faculties appear to have been cast in the fame mould with thofe of the candid Prince of H. H., was accustomed to say to every body he faw, "I with to be a downright aristocrate; but when I read the Gazette of that curfed Briffot, I am compelled to say, in spite of myself, -that man is right."

In the anecdote to which we alluded at the beginning of this article, Frederic the Great is accufed, on the authority of a Prince de R... an old philofopher too, of having indulged a most horrid propenfity; and his mind is ftated to have been fo far depraved, that he ordered, by a clause in his will, that his body thould be interred on the fame fpot in which during his life he had caufed the objects of this deteftable paffion to be buried. In order to ascertain the truth of this anecdote, the author procured a copy of Frederic's will, in which he found the following clause.

"I willingly and without regret reftore this breath of life to beneficent nature who lent it to me, and my body to the elements of which it is compofed. I have lived like a philofopher, and I wish to be interred like one, without ceremony, without expence, without pomp. I will not be embalmed. Let me be buried at Sans Souci, at the top of the Terrace, where I have caused a tomb to be prepared for me. Prince Maurice of Naflau was alfo buried in a wood near Cleves. Should I die in the field, or on a journey, my body must be depofited in the neareft place till winter, when it must be conveyed to Sans Souci, and interred in the appointed fpot."

This order, however, was not attended to by the fucceffor of Frederic, who had him buried in the church of the garrifon at Potfdam. If the Anecdote be true, it fhould be preserved in history; if falfe, its falfehood fhould be immediately detected and expofed.

We fhall finish our account of this Letter with the concluding reflections.

"I was on the point of finishing my letter, when I recollected your little difpute with the Monthly Review; 1 fay little difpute, becaufe, although the Reviewer does not fcruple to give you a formal

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contradiction on many points, he is fo completely deficient in proofs, that he is unable to convince even those who are most anxious to be convinced. I have, notwithstanding, met with fome perfons who, not having read your Memoirs, confider the little ftings of the Re viewer as fo many vigorous thrufts of his lance; and, indeed, there is no entering into a controverfy with fuch people. It was my intention to defer to my next letter what I had to say of Profeffor Böttiger, whofe authority, for want of a better, is oppofed to the thousand proofs which your Memoirs exhibit; but, all fuperfluous as it is, I fhall fay it now.

"I was particularly acquainted with this profeffor, who is one of the moft learned men in Germany, in every fpecies of literature and fcience. The fphere of his patriotifm. is not lefs extenfive, for it em. braces the whole world. He is a true cosmopolite, and, in many refpects, a good man; but there is no person in Weimar that entertains a doubt, that he is an ardent republican; and, indeed, he makes na fecret of it. I shall not stop to prove this in form; but fhall, for the prefent, content myself with relating an anecdote, which, if it fail to convince you that he is an illuminé, will, at least, prove that his teftimony refpecting the difappearance of illuminifm fhould be received

with extreme caution.

"On the 14th of June, 1795, I dined at his houfe, I there met with fome of the German literati who are diftinguished for their cofmopolitical opinions, and an amiable and loyal Englishman, who can youch for the truth of what I advance. After dinner, M. Böttiger, in a tranfport of democracy which made him forget that there were fome zealous loyalifts among his guefts, fome foreigners who had the honour of being admitted into the prefence of his fovereign and benefactor, gave-The French Republic! And this toaft was given and drunk with enthufiafm at a time, when the foldiers of his mafter were probably fhedding their blood on the frontiers to preserve their country from the horrors of a French Invafion!

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Among the guests was the fon of the illustrious bard who has celebrated our fit fathers; of that faithful painter of nature, at once fimple, affecting, and fublime, the perufal of whofe works affords an ample compenfation for all the difguft experienced in learning the Ger

"Who that reads this account will not fuppofe that M. Bötti, ger and his companions were all victims of oppreffion? Yet nothing can be more mild, more paternal than the government of the Duke de Weimar, and, in general, of moft of the petty princes of Germany. I have had an oportunity of obferving, of knowing feveral of them, and I ant far from withing to pay vain compliments at the expence of truth. Charles Auguftus de Weimar, head of the elder branch of the illuftrious and ancient houfe of Saxe, is too well-informed, too good, too accefiible, too plain and too familiar in his manners, ever to become a tyrant."

man

man language.* Alas! I little expected to find à violent demagogue in the fon of this incomparable poet!"

We fhall wait, with fome impatience, for the appearance of the volume which we are taught to expect; but we ftrenuoufly recommend it to the author, either to prefix his name to the book, or to accompany his facts with the best proofs of which they are fufceptible.

"The partifans of German literature, whofe numbers encrease every day, will, no doubt, be offended with me for having spoken of the greater part of the German writers as a heap of fcribés and feribblers; and yet I have only adopted the idea of a German critic, whom I have before quoted; and who fays, in another place, the great number of these authors prove nothing more than that there are a multitude of people who- WRITE.' When I fpeak of the authors of the firit clafs, I fhall do them all the juftice they deferve; but I cannot make the greater mafs of German writers better known than by tranf lating the work which I have mentioned; and I fhall the more willingly undertake it, as, in a few pages, the able critic gives a sketch, not only of the prefent ftate of literature, but alfo of the fyftem of education now prevalent in Germany. He cenfures, very justly, the imprudent immorality of three-fourths of thefe writers; the philan thropic inflitutes, the regimen of the univerfities which produce nothing but free-thinkers, infirm and diffolute young men, (fiechen wuftlings); the modish affectation of wit, the butterfly-geniuses; the rage for philofophifing on every fubject; and of deciding every question without any previous examination; in fhort, he complains, that lacqueys, army furgeons or barbers, and players devoid of talent, have fuddenly become profeffors in fome of the Universities."

ART. X. Voyage dans la Haute et Baffe Egypte, fait par l'ordre de l'ancien Gouvernement, et contenant des Obfervations de tous genres. Par. C. S. Sonnini, ancien Officier et Ingenieur de la marine Françoife, et Membre de plufieurs. Societés Savantes et Littéraires. 8vo. 3 vol. Pp. 1266. 1 Vol. 4to. of Plates. Buiffon, Paris, 1799, imported by De Boffe, Gerard Street. Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, undertaken by Order of the Old Government of France. By C. S. Sonnini, Engineer in the French Navy, and Member of feveral Scientific and Literary Academies. Illuftrated with 40 Engravings of Portraits, Views, Plans, Antiquities, &c..drawn on the Spot, under the Author's Infpec

tion. Tranflated from the French by Henry Hunter, D. D. 3 Vol. 8vo. Price 1l. 11s. 6d. London, 1799.

HESE Travels derive an importance from adventitious THES circumstances, to which they are far from being intitled from their intrinfic merit.

The author had been employed by Louis XVI. to travel through Egypt, in order to learn its phyfical and commercial ftate, and form a judgement of its capabilities. The account he wrote after his return has fince aided in inducing the Directory to form their project of conquering Egypt.

Prefixed to the work are two prefaces; in one of them, the author informs us, that his motive for publishing his travels, is to exhibit a view of Egypt, fuch as the French shall have found it :

"To depict the manners of the different tribes who inhabited it, and among whom civilization is going to fucceed to grofs and ferocious ignorance; to defcribe the wreck of august monuments, scattered over a foil rendered proud by their boldness and their enormous maffes; to delineate fome traces of the rich attire which generous nature has inceffantly difplayed before the eyes of ungrateful men, who never ccafed, in their turn, to requite her kindness with outrage; in a word, to prefent a sketch of this portion of Africa, before it shall have changed its appearance."

The object of the ftatement, hinted at in the preceding paragraph, is fully laid before us in that which fucceeds:

"This reprefentation (fays the author,) will enable the reader to follow, with avidity, the progrefs of an unexpected regeneration, and the labours which our compatriots are gone to depofit in the bofor of immortality.

- The tranflator, in his preface, confiders the work, and the political and commercial views which it unfolds, as peculiarly interefting to Great Britain at this crifis; and, therefore, sthought it his duty to lay them before the public in the vernacular language. Subjoined to the tranflation are notes, in -which, if the writer do not difcover very profound fagacity, what he fays is frequently juft, and, indeed, not unfrequently obvious.

- In our critical office, we have generally found, that the ableft works were the most easily analyfed, because the ablest writers, perfectly comprehending their fubject, understanding the whole and all the parts, can, if they choose, and with few exceptions they do choose, fo arrange their materials, as to present them to the reader IN LUCID ORDER. Superficial

and

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