reproach England with this want of greatnefs, delicacy, precaution, and forefight!'

Our author fuppofes, (would that his fuppofition fhewed us the full extent of the expenditure!) that the war fhall have cost us 30 millions fterling, and that, with the lofs of that fum, peace and order may be fo eftablished in Europe, that the powers may be able to difarm, without any danger to their governments or property. He then fays that, were we to renounce what he calls the abfurd and useless plan of employing a million annually in reducing the national debt, we might find in that fum a fund for nearly the whole of the intereft of the 30 millions expended on this war: but, supposing that new taxes to the amount of 1,500,000l. annually fhould be neceffary for the purpose of fafely and honourably terminating it, he asks what would be the effects of them on the different articles of confumption? In anfwering this question, he fays that he proceeds not on theory, but on the experience of a whole century:

The American war,' fays he, has loaded the English nation with a debt of, I will not fay 100 millions fterling, which is fometimes really worth 90 millions, fometimes 95, fometimes 60, and fometimes 70; but I will fay it has loaded the people of England with 5 millions a-year in taxes. Scon after they were laid on, the price of every thing was raised, thanks to the freedom left to every clafs of men to balance their various interests, and to the very reafonable efforts that each of these interests made to fuffer as little as poffible by the general advance in the price. If we may judge of the rife on every article connected either with manufactures or agriculture, by that which took place on wheat, it will appear that, on the whole, the rife was from 12 to 15 per cent.; for, at the beginning of the American war, the average price of wheat was at 40 fhillings per quarter; it rofe foon afterward, and has for fix or feven years continued at between 44 and 46 fhillings. I had foretold that it would not exceed 44, for my forefight did not go fo far as to fuppofe a perfeverance in the fyftem of annually facrificing a million fterling to that idol-the reduction of the national debt.

Now let us obferve that, if, while the price of every article produced by husbandry and manufactures was raifed, the price of labour had ftill continued the fame, the unfortunate clafs of men who live by their industry would have loft one-half of their enjoyments, and their employers would have loft the profits which they make every year on this confiderable part of their fales, amounting, perhaps, to a third-but in England people calculate too well to be complaifant or unjust for any length of time. From Mr. Young's Annals of Agriculture, it appears that the price of labour in that line has increafed on an average from 12 to 15 per cent.; and every mafter manufacturer knows that the wages of journeymen have increased in the fame proportion.

Remark, alfo, that the taxes were laid only on luxuries and manufactures, but that did not prevent the different articles fold by

the farmer, and the other neceffaries of life, from becoming just as dear as if they had been taxed directly.

• What difference is there, then, between the prefent condition of the English, and that in which they stood before the mightily difaftrous American war, a war which increafed their imports and exports above 20 per cent.? The only difference that I fee is, that they now fell, buy, and enjoy under the number 112 or 115, instead of felling, buying, and enjoying under the number 100, as they did before the

war.

Now, 5 millions a year produced by additional taxes having raifed the prices of the different articles of agriculture and manufactures no more than 12 or 15 per cent., notwithstanding a system of taxation three times more expensive than that which I have propofed, how much may they be raised when new taxes to the amount of 1,500,cool. a-year are laid on ?--About 4 per cent.; and after this operation, all the pecuniary evils of the prefent war, as far as they affect the English nation, will be at an end, and they will enjoy every thing under the number 116 or 119 instead of the number 112 or 115, as they did before this horrid war. The feptier of wheat will, on an average, coft a fhilling and fome pence more than it costs at prefent : but what is that to the labouring or working man, if his wages be raifed in proportion? It is equally certain that the national debt will be increased but what fignifies that to the nation, fince the value of every article is necefiarily increafed in the fame proportion? Indeed the people would think lefs about this debt, if they would please to obferve that it has been clearly proved that it would be equally abfurd and ufelefs to pay it off.'

When the author fays that the value of every thing increases with the taxes, he may be right enough with respect to moft things but we would wish to know how thofe, whofe whole fubfiftence arifes from rent-charges on eftates, which they can never raife, or from the intereft of certain fums placed in the precarious

In ufing this ironical epithet, the Marquis does not seem to have taken into the account of the expence of war, the value of the great number of brave men who always perish in that TRULY horrid bufinefs! Politicians are generally, and, we fear, justly confidered as cold-blooded men, who, in eftimating the expences of war, confider only the money, not the lives that it will coft; who deem very lightly of butchering their fellow-mortals, and fhedding torrents of human blood, in order to accomplish their defigns. Humanity, religion, (the CHRISTIAN religion!) would view fuch purposes, and their conTequences, in a different light; and would be apt to exclaim, "Perish! for ever Perith! thefe alledged advantages! advantages only to furvivors, which are to be purchafed by the flaughter of hundreds of thoufands of our fellow-creatures!" Including both fides, 150,000 are computed to have fallen in the unhappy conteft with our colonial brethren; and how has that number been already doubled and trebled in the prefent war! What advantage, what recompence, have the SLAIN?

public funds, or from lands or houfes let on long leafes, or from annuities payable on account of the national debt, or otherwise, can increase their incomes, and make them keep pace with the growing demands of the ftate? A working man may demand and obtain higher wages, and fo may enable himself to pay the additional taxes: but the above-named defcriptions of men cannot reimburse themselves, and may therefore be driven to very great diftrefs without a hope of indemnity.

To conclude. It must on the whole be admitted that this work difplays a profound knowlege of mankind, of finances, agriculture, manufactures, and of their different bearings on each other; united with manlinefs of fentiment, energy of diction, and force of argument. With refpect to the Marquis's various pofitions, various opinions will probably be entertained; and readers of different political fentiments will judge differently concerning his very strong ideas and expreffions relative to his own country. That France is his own country, however, will account for his dwelling on her affairs; and that he is an exile from it will prevent our wondering at the acuteness of his feelings. *

ART. III. Atti della Società Patriotica di Milano, &c. i. e. Tranfactions of the Patriotic Society of Milan, directed to the Advancement of Agriculture and the Arts. Vol. III. 4to. Milan. 1793.

T HIS very refpectable fociety begins the prefent volume of its Memoirs with a tribute of praife to the memory of fome of its deceafed members, which is followed by extracts from its truly patriotic regifters, divided into feveral heads of brief information refpecting objects of economy and the arts. Then fucceeds the fecond part, confifting of thofe papers which they have thought worthy of giving to the public, either entire, or in an abridged form. These are, two memoirs on the cultivation of vines, being anfwers to questions proposed by the fociety on that head;-a memoir concerning the best method of making and preferving the wines of Auftrian Lombardy ;— a memoir on the best method of preparing leather and fkins;two memoirs in reply to queries propofed concerning artificial dry meadows;-a fupplementary memoir on the plants of watered meadows;-a memoir on the existence of olive plantations in fome places in Lombardy, from the fourth to the tenth century; defcription of a moveable tablet for the ufe of engravers-on microfcopic lenfes, and a new machine for mak

By turning to the Correfpondence at the end of the Review for April, the reader will find a letter figned S. S. Toms, contraverting Some of the Marquis's affertions.

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ing them;-observations on an inedited antient Milanese monument;-on fome new inftruments for engrafting.

Thefe pieces, many of them of great local utility, are not of a kind to afford much amufement or inftruction to the generality of our readers. We fhail, however, felect a paffage from one of the papers on the culture of vines, written by DON GIULIO BRAMIERI, (a patrician of Placentia,) the reafonings and facts of which may, we conceive, admit of extenfive and ufeful application. It is in reply to the query, "Why, in certain diftricts, are the vines buried under ground in the winter? and why, in the fame parts, do the vines trained on trees and trellifes refift the cold, though not buried?"

Vines are buried in order folely to preferve them from being frozen, in those places in which, by experience, they are found fubject to this accident. By cutting off the communication with the external air by this contrivance, a ftop is generally put to the most powerful caufe of freezing. Long and repeated obfervations have fufficiently fhewn that it is feldom an intenfe and lafting cold increafing by degrees, but often a fudden cold wind, which acts on the vine when wet or full of juice, that damages it by ftrongly freezing it. Cold feems, indeed, the direct caufe of froft, yet it does not operate folely in proportion to its force, but in correfpondeace with concurrent caufes which determine its effects. A very penetrating wind, and a preceding moisture, are the caules which render it fatal; as appears, ft. because the vine, either buried, or fimply defended by an intermediate body, refifts the cold equal to that in which an open and expofed vine perifhes; 2. becaufe a dry one refifts better than a wet or juicy one.

Vegetables fuffer from froft, because their organs are either injured or broken, and the vefiels neceffary to vegetation deranged; and, indeed, lividnefs of the buds or eyes, and cracks in the trunk and branches, are the common effects of frost. Thefe conilant appearances fufficiently indicate that moisture is the minister of the total or partial death of the tree. A fluid, when confolidated into ice, occupies a greater space than before; and no other reason can be given for the cracks, than this internal force; nor for the lividness of the tender fubitance of the eyes, than a mortification proceeding from the contact and preffure of the congealed moisture.

Vines easily receive humidity, and cannot eafily part with it, becaufe of their penetrable and pliant texture. The eyes, fcarcely defended by very thin fcales, enclofe a foft and downy fubftance, in the centre of which the germ is nourished. The twigs of the laft shoot, cloathed with a thin bark, and a flight fearf-skin, include, under few and rare ligneous ftrata, a delicate heart, and an abundant pith; and in the mature wood of the stem and branches, which, however, is always pliant and lax, the exterior bark remains irregulariy dried, and disjoined by cracks, with a fpungy and abforbent dead matter hanging all round it. Such is the aptitude of the vine to receive and retain moisture; which, though ufeful to its growth, and the nutriment of its fruit, is a fatal caufe of its propenfity to be injured by the froft.

- Low

Low lands, in foils either naturally rich, or rendered fo by culture, and which are exposed to moiit vapours, are peculiarly liable to the evils of humidity. Such lands, even in the depth of winter, exhale vapours much more than the barren; and others fall on it, which attach themselves in great quantity to vegetables. Commonly, in cold weather, vapours either rife little, or, if raised, foon fall down again. How often do we not fee them whirling in a thick mist on the furface of the earth, unable to afcend? The vineyards and rows of vines elevated little above the foil, and all immersed in these exhalations, must be much more moistened than those which run up the trees, or are fupported on trellifes. It is eafy to comprehend that the vapours, externally collected about vines, will foon, on account of their fpungy and lax ftructure, pafs into their veffels, to the untimely increafe and dilution of their juices. Nor in thefe circumftances will the lowly-placed vines imbibe more than the high by their trunks. and branches alone, but alfo by their roots.

I am not of the opinion that moisture, attenuated into vapour, can alone penetrate into roots; I rather believe that it may enter them in a lefs rarefied form; yet it cannot be denied that vapour is eafily capable of being imbibed by roots;-and when, as during the winter, the ftrong tranfpiration of plants is ftopt by the lofs of the organs deftined to promote it, the denter juices may be hindered from afcending through the root into the tree, while the subtle and more active vapour may be capable of infinuating itself. The farther, therefore, the limbs of the vine are removed from the feat of the vapour, the lefs, on account of their fluggishness in the winter feafon, will they be attacked by it, and the lefs will it be fucked in by the roots; and only its lighter and more active parts will rife in any confiderable portion into the high branches. Nor for thefe reasons alone, but also on account of the different aptitude of the organs, and the difference of the furrounding atmosphere, will the abforption of highly-feated vines. be different from that of the low. The latter, already moittened by the furrounding exhalations, foftened by their warmth, and having their juices put in motion by the afflux of new fluid, can offer little or no refiftance to their invafion; while the former, reared above the fenfible exhalations, hardened in their ftructure by dryness, and defended by the cold air which furrounds them, will be able internally to refift the fluggish and phlegmatic juice, and to keep it down at the bottom of the item, only appropriating to themfelves the fcanty vivid matter of nutrition.

The winds themfelves, which fometimes are deftructive to vines in frofts, are rather ferviceable, if gentle, to thofe on trees and trellifes. When they are wetted by rains or mits, fprinkled with fnow, or incrafted with hoar froft, a dry wind fucceeding foons fhakes off and carries away the moisture: while the low and creeping vines, fheltered by bushes and mutually by each other, enjoy this faluta: y influence in a lefs degree, and remain longer fubject to be furprized by the froft while in a wet condition.

• It may be concluded, from thefe brief remarks, that the different aptitude of vines to refift or to contract humidity, and their greater or lefs expofure to the free air, will be the meafure of their difpofition to fuffer

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