tunity of testifying to him the particular respect he entertained for his great talents, and his admiration of his conduct and performances. The Duke of Cumberland, the Prince of Waldeck, and Marfhal Konigfeg, when they fpoke of him, expreffed the fame fentiments. Count Turpin dining with feveral general officers of the Allies, at Aix-la-Chapelle, afked them what was their opinion of Marfhal Saxe. Their anfwer was, "He commands us as well as you." On this compliment the Marshal made a very pertinent remark, viz. that the best way of being well with your enemies, is to teach them to respect you.

So zealous and fo refpectful was his attachment to the King, that the most advantageous favours he received from him never flattered him so much as the leaft teftimony of the confidence he placed in him; his fole ambition was to please him.

• When Prince Lichtenstein dined with him, on a certain occafion, at the Elector Palatine's, at Manheim, he preffed him to enter into the fervice of the Emperor, where he would find, in Prince Eugene, a ready friend; whereas, in France, where he was a ftranger, he would find it difficult to advance himself. I hope, anfwered the Count, to conduct myself in fuch a manner as to merit the esteem of the French nation, and if I fucceed in that, I fhall make my way with greater facility than elfewhere.

To every conftitution of the political government of France he was inflexibly attached; fo that, when the Calvinifts of a certain province in France transmitted to him a memorial, entreating him to folicit the free exercise of their religion, he threw their petition into the fire. If the King, faid he to the Author of these Memoirs, fhould appoint me to the command of a province inhabited by Proteftants, who fhould convene themselves contrary to his edicts, I would punish them more feverely than another, convinced that the first duty of a subject is obedience to the laws.

He was

He had a foible common to most great men. paffionately fond of women. But, though poffeffed of qualities that might have engaged their affections, they were attached to him more from vanity than from inclination, and fometimes ufed him but very indifferently.

Marshal Saxe died in the Lutheran religion, wherein he was born. And it was on this account that a Princess*, whose memory will always be dear to the French nation, prettily obferved, that it was hard the poor Marshal should not have one De Profundist, who had fo often made them fing Te Deum.'

The late Queen of France.

† A funeral anthem in the Popish service.

We

We shall only add what, perhaps, few are unacquainted with, that this great man was the fon of Auguftus II. Elector of Saxony, afterwards King of Poland, by Aurora, Countess of Konigfmark. He was born at Drefden in 1696. His mother, the Countess of Konigfmark, was defcended from one of the most illuftrious families in Sweden. She came to Drefden to folicit protection from the Elector against the Hamburghers, with respect to her brother's fucceffion. She was a woman of talents as well as beauty, and was entrusted with the education of her fon. The young Count's paffion for glory foon fhewed itself; for, when twelve years old, he eloped from his mother, and marched on foot from Drefden to join the army of the Allies before Lifle. In short, this hiftory of a modern hero, is, in our idea, altogether as interefting as many of thofe that stand upon the annals of antiquity.

ART. V.

Hiftoire Naturelle, generale et particuliere, &c.-M. de Buffon's Natural History; being an Appendix to the Theory of the Earth, and an Introduction to the Hiftory of Minerals. Supplement, Vol. I. 4to. Paris. 1774.

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VER fince the first publication of this celebrated work, learned Author informs us that he has had the fatiffaction of having his ideas concerning the theory of the earth, and the nature of the mineral substances of which it is composed, abundantly confirmed by the unanimous teftimonies of navi gators, as well as by new obfervations which he has collected relative to these fubjects. In this long interval of time fome new ideas have likewife occurred, the juftice of which he endeavoured to ascertain by experiments. The results of these experiments have in their turn given rife to new obfervations intimately connected with his general theory.

Nevertheless, in the numerous editions through which the Author's Natural History has paffed, he has, for the fake of the purchasers of the first edition of that voluminous and expenfive work, conftantly refrained from making the most minute additions to the text, or inferting any corrections or explanations; having formed the refolution, which he has begun to execute in the volume before us, of publishing a fupplement that should confift of two or three volumes, which fhould contain all fuch additions, corrections, and explanations as he might judge neceffary to the further elucidation of the fubjects on which he had before treated.

The prefent, which is the first of these fupplemental volumes, is partly theoretical, and in part experimental. It is not, however, ftrictly a methodical or connected work; the greater part of it confifting of feveral memoirs or detached articles, two or

three

three of which have been before printed in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and elsewhere. Thefe, together with the other memoirs now firft publifhed, are here arranged according to the respective natures of the fubjects; fome of which however bear a very diftant relation to mineralogy. Thefe form the experimental, and largeft, as well as the more valuable part of this publication. The theoretical part, with which it commences, confifts of two difcourfes, in which the Author reafons and conjectures by turns on what are called the elements of bodies; treating, in the firft of thefe differtations, of Light, Heat, and Fire;' and of Air, Water, and Earth, in the fecond; but in a manner which will not be much relished by those fober and circumfpect philofophers who found their inquiries into the caufes of natural phenomena on actual experiments, and legitimate conclufions from them. The Reader may form fome judgment of the ingenious Author's ftyle and manner of philofophifing, from his very firft paragraph:

The powers of Nature, fays the Author, as far as they are known to us, may be reduced to two primitive forces; that which caufes gravity, and that which produces beat. The force of impulfe is fubordinate to these. It depends on the first for its particular effects, and on the fecond for the general effect. As impulse cannot act but by means of the elastic power in bodies, and as the latter cannot exert itself but in confequence of the force which brings together the parts which had before been removed from each other; it is evident that impulse, in order to produce an effect, requires the concourfe of attraction for if the particles of matter ceafed to attract each other, if they loft their mutual cohefion, would not elafticity be totally deftroyed, all communication of motion be intercepted, and impulfe be annihilated? Since in fact motion is not communicated, nor is capable of being tranfmitted from one body to another, except by means of elafticity. In fine, it may be demonftrated that a body perfectly hard, that is to fay, abfolutely inflexible, would at the fame time be abfolutely immovable.'

In perufing this fhort fpecimen the Reader will fancy himself transported back to the age of Ariftotle, or the schoolmen, when words flood for things, and when every philofophical difficulty was at once readily folved by the dextrous application of powers and qualities. The two forces abovementioned form the bafis of the Author's fyftem, in the developement of which he proceeds to affign the diftinct offices and energies of the two powers. On attraction alone, fays he, depend all the effects of inanimate matter; and from the fame force of attraction, joined to that of heat, proceed all the phenomena of living matter.' [Under the denomination of living matter the Author comprehends

comprehends not only all animals and vegetables, while in a ftate of life or vegetation, but likewife light, fire, heat,' and his own organical molecules ;-in fhort, every fubftance which appears to us to be active in itself.']. This living matter,' he adds, always tends from the center to the circumference ; whereas inanimate matter tends, on the contrary, from the circumference to the center. It is an expanfive force that animates living matter; and it is an attractive force that rules inanimate matter. Although the directions of these two forces are diametrically oppofite to each other, each of them nevertheless exerts its proper action; they counterbalance, without ever deftroying, each other, and from the combination of these two powers, equally active, refult all the phenomena of the universe.

Partial as we are to the great and acknowledged talents of the Author, we could not avoid giving thefe fpecimens of the figurative and licentious mode of treating philofophical matters, which runs through the greater part of these two differtations. We shall only add another fpecimen, which we have felected merely as it gives us occafion to exhibit a proper contraft between the philofophy that plays on the imagination, and feems to have scarce any other foundation; and that which is founded on the exercise of the judgment, enlightened by actual and appropriate experiments:-in fhort, between the reveries of the clofet and the philofophy of the elaboratory.

Air,' fays the Author, approaches nearly to the nature of fire, the principal property of which confifts in an expansive motion; and although air is not poffeffed of this motion in itself, yet, as the minutest particle of heat, or fire, is fufficient to communicate it to it, we can be no longer furprised to find that air increases in fo high a degree the activity of fire, and that it is fo necessary to its fubfiftence. The air being of all fubftances, that which is most adapted to acquire the expanfive motion, fire will lay hold of it in preference to every other fubstance, and will appropriate it to itself in the most intimate manner, as being of a nature the most nearly approaching to its own; confequently air must be the most powerful affiftant of fire, the moft proper aliment, and the most intimate and necesary friend. L'ami le plus intime et le plus neceffaire.'

To the foregoing fanciful speculations of the Author, fo far as they relate to the question, why air is neceffary to the fupport of fire, we may very properly oppofe the late fober and fubftantial conclufions of a philofopher of our own country, deduced from direct experiments *. From these it appears, that

See Dr. Priestley's Experiments and Observations on Air; or our Review for Auguft laft, p. 139. APP. Rev. Vol. li.

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the fucceffive accefs of air is neceffary to the fupport of fire, because air is a menftruum for the phlogifton neceffarily emitted by burning bodies, which must ceafe to burn when that menftruum is faturated with it. We must acknowledge, however, that the fancy is more highly gratified by a ready acquiefcence in the Author's more figurative account of the matter; and by confidering fire and air as two very near relations, and fuch intimate friends, that they cannot poffibly live a moment without éach other.

The experimental part of this work confifts of seven me. moirs, in which the Author appears to much greater advantage; divesting himself, in a great measure, of vifionary theory, and affuming the character of an induftrious and even laborious experimentalift. The two first memoirs contain the whole detail of an immenfe number of experiments, diverfified feemingly beyond what was neceffary, and prosecuted, at intervals, through the pace of fix years. His view in thefe experiments was, to afcertain the progress of heat in bodies, by marking the times in which different bodies acquired or loft equal degrees of heat; and from these obfervations endeavouting to discover, on what particular quality the different affinity of various bodies to heat depended.

For this purpose he firft prepared a number of iron bullets, or balls, of different diameters, from half an inch to five inches, to all which he gave a white heat; marking the times spent in their acquiring that heat. He then carried them into an apartment where the thermometer conftantly flood at temperate, and noted two periods, or intervals of time, during their cooling: the firft, when he could handle them during a fecond, without burning himself; and the fecond, when they were.cooled to the common temperature of the air. This laft period he endeavoured to afcertain by comparing them with other balls of fimilar diameters, conftantly kept in the fame place, and which had not been heated. Though this method feems not to be fo accurate or convenient as might be wifhed, it appears to have been the best expedient that occurred towards forming his eftimate of the progrefs of heat in bodies.

The Author afterwards caufed a great number of balls to be made, all of one inch in diameter, and formed of all the different metals, as well as of various femi-metals, marbles, and other ftones and earths, cryftal, glass, porcelain, &c. to the number of twenty-four. Without defcribing the precautions that he took in order to give them the fame degree of heat, or entering into the numberlefs combinations and calculations refulting from the comparing thefe globes with each other, with refpect to their different times of cooling, we fhall only give fome of

the