ence and future State, with references to Dr. Paley's || An Account of the late Improvements in Galvanism, Natural Theology, 8vo.

What have we to fight for? An Address to the Freeholders of Middlesex, who met at the Crown-and-Tales of an Exile. By W. F. Williams, Author of Anchor Tavern, on July 29, 1803.-To celebrate Sketches of Modern Life, Fitzmaurice, &c. 2 vols. the last Election of Members of Parliament for that 12mo. 78. County, on their duty as Britons at the present Important Crisis, 8vo.

BIOGRAPHY.

Biographical Sketch of the late Mr. Frisi, the celebrated Italian Mathematician, extracted from his Memoirs written by Count Verri, a Milanese Nobleman. Paul Frisi, one of the greatest philosophers and mathematicians of the last generation, professor in the Palatine University of Milan, fellow of the Royal Society of London, and of the academies of Paris, Berlin, Petersburgh, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berne, Haarlem, Upsal and Bologna, was born in Milan, on the 13th April, 1727. He received his earliest instruction in the schools of the Barnabite fathers in that metropolis; and so uncommon was his progress in the classes, that it was soon predicted by his teachers and school-fellows, that he would one day excel in polite literature, in poetry, and in pulpit eloquence: nature, however, had more unequivocally designed him to be, what he really proved, a philosopher and a mathema-assistance and by his own extensive learning, Father tician.

In the year 1743, (the 16th of his age) he embraced the monastic life among the Barnabites of Lombardy; where he passed so rapidly through all the remainder of his studies, that he had the honour of being appointed, while still in the inferior orders, to the professorship of philosophy in the college of Lodi, and afterwards promoted, in the same capacity, to the royal school of Casale, in Monferrat, as a successor to the late celebrated Cardinal Gerdil.

step in the higher paths of literary honours to other
pursuits than those which were his favourite, and
which have so deservedly immortalized his name.
It is, perhaps, equally curious that even when
metaphysics and ethics had become his professed
avocations, he never so much indulged in the study
of them as to produce any other work in their
several departments. He rather availed himself of
his situation at Pisa, in cultivating natural science
with greater ardour than before; and fortune seemed
to have thrown in. his way the best opportunity for
the purpose. The veteran professor Perelli was still
alive, and still retained his amiable disposition of
communicating to his friends those valuable discove-
ries which were the fruits of his long meditations,
and which, from his great modesty, had never been
published under his own name. By this powerful
Frisi, whilst at Pisa, was enabled to publish the two
volumes of dissertations which appeared at Lucca
under the title of Dissertationum Variarum &c.
1759 and 1761, and the two hydraulic performances
relative to the preservation of the provinces of Ferrara
and Ravenna, from the inundation of rivers, which
were likewise published at Lucca, in 1762. We
must not omit to mention that among his disserta-
tions, the most remarkable were that De Atmosphæra
Calestium corporum, which in 1758 obtained the prize
from the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, and
that De inæqualitate Motus Planetarum, which in 1768
received the honour of the accessit from the same
corporation. The last work published by Mr. Frisi
at Pisa, was a tribute to the memory of his respectable
and beneficent friend Perelli, which appeared in the
53d volume of the Journal of that university.

This great and respectable man unfortunately possessed a violent and atrabilarious temper, and a lofty, disdainful, and independent character. And to this unfavourable disposition it is owing that he was never raised to eminent stations in church or state; and that he was perpetually involved in the most disagreeable contests with every person with whom he happened to be connected. In fact, no sooner had he The Milanese government, duly sensible of the sutaken possession of his chair in Casale, than he perior merit of Mr. Frisi, and most likely jealous of quarrelled with his colleagues, and was compelled to so many honours received by him in Tuscany, inwithdraw; his Sardinian Majesty having declared, induced him to return to his native place, by tendering the most unequivocal terms, that he did not like such a turbulent character in his royal schools.

The superiors of the order, warned by this unfortunate event, did not choose to employ father Frisi any more in the scholastic department; they therefore sent him to Novara, in the capacity of annual preacher. His merit, however, as a scientific man, had already become so conspicuous that he was not suffered to remain in that station, or in any other, within the circle of claustral preferments. In the year 1755, (the 28th of his age) he was requested by the superintendant of the university of Pisa to fill the vacant chair of metaphysics and ethics in that literary corporation, then in the zenith of its glory.

Father Frisi had indeed given some specimens of his knowledge in the philosophy of the human mind. by his essays on moral philosophy published at Lugano, in 1753; but he had exhibited, before that time, still greater proofs. of his superior abilities in mathematics and natural philosophy by his two excellent works, Disquisitio Mathematica in causani phy sicam figuræ et magnitudinis telluris nostra, and the Nova Electricitatis theoria, &c. which were published at Milan, the former in 1751, and the latter in 1755; and it is curious that he was thus indebted for his first

him the chair of mathematics in the Palatine schools of that metropolis. This offer was made in 1764, and was soon accepted by Mr. Frisi, who flattered himself, that he should there be of greater assistance to his family than he had been in a foreign place; it was here he wrote his two capital works-De gravitate Universali, in three books, and the Cosmographia Physica et Mathematica, in two volumes, both of which were afterwards published at Milan, in 1768 and 1774.

Many years had now elapsed without his being involved in any of those quarrels which were the result of his temper; but as he was threatened with an event of this kind, soon after his return to Milan, he was advised by his friends to escape the storm by a temporary peregrination. He consequently made the tour of several European countries; and it was during this excursion that he attained the friendship of some of the greatest characters, in those times, especially in England and France, and acquired those honours with which we have described him at the beginning of this article.

In vain, however, did he escape the then impending evils by a long absence-the danger of incurring, new ones was inherent to his nature. The famous periodical work, entitled The Coffee-house, was at that time

fect analysis of this drama. It is enough to say that
it is founded on the well known recent incident of the
Maid of the Haystack, and this the author has made
the foundation of what, in the old language of the
stage, is called a plot of much interest. But of the
change of fortune which is to produce the happy ca-
tastrophe, we may say in the words of the poet :
"Facilis descensus Averno

publishing by some of the most eminent Milanese literati, among whom was Mr. Frisi himself; who had already been invested by the government with the office of Royal Censor of new literary publications. In this capacity, he did not scruple to give his approbation to a book of a pernicious nature, entitled The curious Lanthorn, which was supposed to have issued from the above-mentioned society; and when the book was afterwards suppressed by ecclesiastical and civil authority, he had the imprudence, or rather the effrontery, to become its apologist- -a step which could not fail to bring upon him the indignation of the most emi-plots well, but are not so happy in the denouement; nent individuals, in the church and in the state.

Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras
Hoc opus hic labor est."-

Aristotle has observed that some poets form their

and to the superior difficulty of this in the drama It appears that Mr. Frisi, already sensible of the which ends happily, Dryden bears testimony in one of dangers impending on him from the animosity of these his prefaces. The dagger and the cup of poison," powerful persons, resolved to withdraw from the pub- he says, are always in readiness, but to bring the lic, and to spend some years in retirement. A new action to the last extremity, and then by probable 'field of exertions however, was opened to him in his means to recover all, will require the art and judgment retreat, which perhaps proved more beneficial to so- of the writer, and cost him many a pang in the perciety, and more glorious to himself, than any he had formance." Of this, the piece before us is a labefore cultivated. His uncommon talents in hydrody-mentable instance, for we do not recollect in the namics were already celebrated in Italy; and as many course of our whole dramatic reading, a catastrophe hydrostatic operations had been projected at the time, brought about in so unartificial a manner. The poet by the several Italian governments, he became the here has a new and easy mode pointed out to him of chief director and almost the oracle of such under-obviating the difficulty complained of by Dryden, and takings. The Venetian senate, and the late Pius a palsy or apoplexy are as readily in his power to rethe Sixth also, wished in latter times to have his opi-move oppressive tyrants, or prosperous rivals in the nion on the projects which they had respectively last act, as the dagger and the poison were to destroy adopted for the course of the river Brenta, and for the the hero or the heroine. exsiccation of the Pontine marshes. . . . . . ... Let us remark, by the way, that even in these extraordinary and honourable commissions, he disgusted all persons in power with whom he had to deal, and far from receiving any marks of respect and gratitude from them or their manifold dependants, he only caused a regret that an application was ever made to him on the subject. He was recalled from obscurity, by the Milanese government, about the year 1777, and appointed director of the Royal School of Architecture, then founded at Milan. Since that period we find him as active in the republic of letters as ever. He published in the same year 1777, his Course of Mechanics, for the use of the royal school; in 1781, his Philosophical Tracts; from 1782 to 1784, his Opera Varia, in 3 'vols. 4to: and, as if not satisfied with his fame as a great mathematician, he aspired to the glory of an elegant biographer; for, in the same interval, from 1778 to 1783, he wrote the eulogies of Galileo, Cavalieri, Newton, of the Empress Maria Theresa, and of the illustrious Count of Firmian. The first two of these eulogies were, by the late celebrated Montuclas, in his History of the Mathematics, properly denominated two finished specimens of scientific biography."

Paul Frisi died on the 22d November 1784, in the 57th year of his life. He was unquestionably one of the greatest men of his age, in Europe; and happy would it have been for him could he have commanded his impetuous and turbulent disposition!

We will take Thomson's Tancred and Sigismunda as an example. If the poet had chosen to give a happy ca tastrophe, the omitting merely the death of Sigismunda would not have done; for Sigismunda could not decently have given her hand to Tancred, after his killing her husband; but if Osmond had died in a fit, between the fourth and fifth acts, the audience might be dismissed with the hope at least, that, to quote the words of Dryden again:

"When the year of widowhood expires,” the lovers might be united.

To the sentiments abounding with strokes of humour and patriotism, so characteristic of the British seamen, and so congenial with the feelings of the time, we give our ample tribute of applause; and if, as Bayes says in the Rehearsal, the chief use of a plot is to introduce good things, the plot of this play is unexceptionable.

CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. EDITOR,

Fungar vice cotis, acutum Reddere quæ ferrum valet, expers ipsa secandi. In the last Number of your miscellany. I have seen, with infinite satisfaction, the hints which your correspondent U. I. has offered for an original work on the ancient Venetian Commerce with India. I agree with him not only that "this subject forms a most important, but hitherto neglected article in commercial history;" but I consider it also as one part of a great desideratum, in the department of historical As the complete fable of every new play is always science. A methodical disquisition, ought to be ungiven to the public in the newspapers of the succeed-dertaken, on the commercial system of the republic ing day, it will not be expected of us to give a per- of Venice in the middle ages; and it should be con

DRAMATIC CRITICISM,

The Maid of Bristol.

ducted on a scale so extensive, as to comprehend the trade which the Venetians carried on with the several parts of Europe, Asia. and Africa; the vicissitudes of the arts and manufactures in their dominions; and the settlement of their commercial factories in the north and the south of Europe. In hopes, for my own part too, “ that some one, who has more time, may direct his attention towards this object," I am happy in having it in my power to present some farther hints to the notice of literary men.

tries of Italy, and two centuries before the rest of Europe. She was the protectress of the neighbouring states, on every occasion of public calamities, the exclusive seat of industry and opulence, and absolute mistress of commerce as far as it could be extended in the then imperfect state of geography and navigation. It is literally true, as your Correspondent states, that the Venetians-employed at that time 40,000 seamen ; and that no less than 16,000 workmen were constantly engaged in their arsenals. By treaties with different Through mere accident, many years ago, I obtained powers, they had erected large buildings, and estabsome knowledge of the amazing activity and wealthlished a consular jurisdiction in the most important of the Venetians, in the times to which we allude. I sea-ports in the Mediterranean; they had settied nuhad, when in Italy. conceived the plan of a philoso- merous factories in many cities of the Hanseatic phical and political history of the two Sicilies, from league, through which they exchanged the productions the foundation of the monarchy to its restoration un- of the south with those of the north of Europe, and der the house of Bourbon, which history, by the way, what is most remarkable, although very little known, is also a desideratum in the annals of Europe: and as they were the first. to establish a public Bank under my chief position, in that intended performance, was the authority and responsibility of the government, to evince by what internal vicissitudes, and by what and thus gave the example, and perhaps the model, of external revolutions, a monarchy so powerful, and so such establishments to modern Europe. In short, so justly renowned, in the middle ages, had dwindled to interesting and instructive did this object of the comthat degree of insignificance in which she is now seen, mercial grandeur of Venice appear to me, that it alI paid peculiar attention to that uncommonly eventful most made me deviate in my research, and make that period of modern times, in which the invention of a principal which was before a secondary matter of the art of printing, the discovery of a new world, investigation. the decay of religious opinions, and the balance established among the different nations, had, in a great measure, changed the face of Europe. Some farther steps in these inquiries led me to the discovery of what hitherto is pretty generally, although indirectly known, that, except a share in the benefit of the progress of civilization, Italy lost her all in that universal change; as the most remarkable provinces in the centre of it fell under the dominion of the church; Tuscany was deprived at once of her liberty and industry; the two Sicilies were incorporated with the monarchy of Spain; the dukedom of Milan likewise became an appendage to the immense power of the House of Austria, and what was most unfortunate. the Republic of Venice became almost annihilated, by the famous league of Cambrai. Although no person conversant in history is uninformed that this league was the result of the envy with which the several powers of Europe beheld the prosperity and wealth of the Venetian States, and although a de- The connection between the Sicilian and Venetian tailed notice of that event and of its results was history, made me at the time conceive some further not within the circle of my exertions: yet from the ideas on the subject, which I shall likewise subunit to consideration that, in order to break the power of a your readers. The relations subsisting between the a Republic which was but a small section of Italy, Venetians and the Crown of Sicily, in the middle nothing less was required than the confederacy of ages, were remarkable at four different periods:Germany, of France, of Spain, and of ecclesiastical ist. When, at the very rise of that monarchy, they Rome, then in the zenith of her domination; and wrested its commerce from the Amalphitans;—2d, from the accurate and interesting description, given When, under the Norman and Suabian kings, they by our unrivalled historian, Guicciardini, of the gallant || took the silk manufactures from Sicily, and pre-defence, patriotic exertions, and prodigious expendi- tended to the exclusive dominion of the Adriatic sea ;--ture of the Venetians during the assaults of the league, 3d, When in their long and obstinate contests with the I felt an irresistible curiosity to acquire some particular Genoese, they obliged the latter to place themselves information on the state of their country previous to under the protection of king Robert, of Anjou;-and that period. lastly, when they quarrelled with Alphonso of Arragon with respect to the rights of his daughter, the queen of Cyprus. These four epochs constitute as many prominent features in the economic annals of the Venetians. In the first we may consider them as

My trouble was amply repaid!. I saw before me the most charming perspective of public happiness that I could possibly expect to see. It seemed to me that Venice was then a century before the other coun

Thus was my mind employed, when the late Dr. Robertson published his masterly Disquisition concernng the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India. The third section of this work being entirely devoted to the narrative of the progress of trade with that country from the conquest of Egypt by the Mahomedans to the discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, the learned author filled, as was to be expected. the greatest part of it with details on the commerce of Venice, and such hints on the other branches of the economy of that republic, as to make me hope, that some time or other, the subject would engage the systematic attention of some able historian. Hitherto, I have been disappointed: as nothing of the kind has yet been undertaken, and even M. d'Anquetil, who in the Abridgement of Universal History published four years ago, seems to have been sensible of its importance, has scarcely bestowed upon it two pages of his work.

active in attaining a share in the commerce of the Greek empire, and struggling against the Pisans, the Genoese, and even against the Marseillois, who were their competitors. In the second, they were become masters of the trade of Constantinople, and possessors of part of the Peloponnesus, by the favour of the Latin emperors, their friends and allies. In the third, their commercial grandeur, and their very political existence were long disputed by the Genoese. And in the last, owing to the memorable event of the establishment of the Ottoman power in Constantinople, and to their exclusive intercourse with the ports of Egypt and Syria, they ultimately became the sole merchants of the known world. If to these four remarkable periods the other is added which includes the rapid decay of this wealth and glory, from the discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope to the league of Cambray, the outlines of the history proposed are, in my opinion, already traced.

its importation to seven, so that there was a balance of three millions in its favour, which, according to the high price of money at that period, constituted a surprising wealth. The appearance of such a work as your Correspondent proposes, would, perhaps, silence the dogmatism of the French philosophists, and of their superficial disciples in the rest of Europe, with regard to the necessity of religious and political freedom to the wealth of nations; as it would evidently prove, that Venice had reached the highest degree of activity, opulence, and prosperity, under the most galling yoke of religious intolerance, and under one of the most absolute governments in the annals of mankind! London, Sept. 8, 1803. ITALICUS.

Mr. EDITOR,

The remarks of your Correspondent I. on the gradual alteration of our poetry by the introduction and progress of classic literature, must be acceptable to I do not, like your correspondent, apprehend that every reader of taste. He has traced the gradual imthe plunder of the Venetian archives by the Corsican provement of our poetical language from the rude Genseric, occasioned any loss of documents towards numbers of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, and to the this investigation, nor do I think that the person, who correct and melodious versification of Pope, with equal might undertake it, would find it necessary to resort judgment and genius. To pursue this track will be to the copious collection of Italian history possessed an employment of a very different nature. As he adby Sir Richard Hoare; as we are abundantly supplied vanced, new beauties and improving scenery broke on with Italian books of this kind in London, and as I him at every step; but the future traveller, as he goes have reason to think that, besides the regular well- on, will find either fanciful improvement succeed to known historians on the subject, few other works ornamented nature, or attempts to imitate nature, by would be requisite for the purpose than the valuable laying aside all ornament and trying to exhibit her in compilation of Muratori, with his supplement in 2 her rudest forms. To speak without a figure, to trace vols. from the famous library of Magliabecchi. And, the state of our verse from the time of Pope to the on this head, I feel it incumbent on me to warn those present day, will be to exhibit either meretricious reof your Correspondents, who are not intimately ac- finement substituted for the rich majestic flow of his quainted with Italian literature, not to pay the least poetry, or else a recurrence to the harsh and prosaic attention to the historical compilations of the kind lately arrangement that disfigured the verse of our earlier published in Italy; all of them being, without excep-writers: and such an attempt might be styled, Remarks tion, devoid of interest and barren of information. A work, among others, had appeared, before my departure from Italy, under the pompous title of Universal History of Commerce, from the earliest to the present times. By Michael Iorio. The part then published consisted of four quarto volumes, and scarcely reached the age of Augustus! I know not if it has been continued, but am sure that it will never be of the least use to the learned.

on the rapid Alteration of our Poetry, from the Decline of Classic Literature.

I am aware that I may be asked, have we fewer classical scholars now than we had half a century ago? To this I shall certainly answer in the negative; but the proportion of classical scholars to writers even of respectability is less, infinitely less, than it was half a century ago. Formerly no man attempted to set up for a critic, who had not a knowledge of ancient literature. The case is now very different. There are so many channels to knowledge opened in our own language that those who have not had the advantage of a learned education, will not easily be persuaded of the want of it, neither will the want of it be ever felt strongly in any case except in that before us, viz. the

I cannot conclude this article without giving a short answer to the questions of your Correspondent, and without pointing out some peculiar benefits which might result from such a work as he proposes. The commerce of Venice was never restricted by companies; it was open to all citizens, and encouragements were indiscriminately given to any classes or indivi-corruption of our poetical language. As the paintings duals. The government itself carried on a consider- of modern Italy afford the best school to the artist, so able part of the trade, on terms of equality, and in the writings of ancient Greece and Rome are the best competition with any of its subjects, and thus it con- school for the poet; and though a great genius may siderably increased the public revenue. The laws and shine once in a century, without the aid of either, the regulations relative to public economy were master-general taste in each will decline if these models cease pieces of good sense and prudence in those times, and to be studied. It would, I own, be bold to suggest that such as even to deserve great consideration in the any learning could have improved the writings of present. From the chronicle of the Doge Mocenigo, Shakspeare, but it would also be equally bold to assert quoted by Anquetil, it is known that about the begin- that the classic learning and the enthusiasm with ning of the 1th century, the annual exportation of which he cultivated it, was of no advantage to the subthe Republic amounted to ten millions of ducats, and limest of all poets, Milton.