what must have been the fituation of Ruffia during the space of fixteen years, governed as it was by four Sovereigns, who either found themfelves unfettled on the Throne, or acceded to it in consequence of fome revolution. It is not in times of fuch uncertainty that men of abilities will apply themselves to any important work, while they are to depend for the fole reward of their merit and their labours on the gratitude of the Prince. The Members of the Commiffion, which ftill fubfifted, thought it fufficient, on their parts, to order the Secretaries to continue their business. But as these fubalterns knew nothing but the common run of business, were neither skilled in the laws, nor had ftudied their conftitution, their labours were unlikely to produce any valuable effect. The peaceable revolution which brought Elizabeth to the Throne of her father restored the hopes of the people, when, in the year 1754, a new Commiffion for the purpose of forming a new Code was established, composed of men who had attended the different Courts of Juftice, it was not to be wondered that the Commiffion prefented a plan to the Senate which promised to be perfect in its kind. The abolition of capital punishments alone is fufficient to characterise the humanity that would have diftinguished the work of this new Legiflatrefs. During the whole of her glorious reign, however unfavourable to the business of rectifying the laws the part which Ruffia took in the troubles of Germany might be thought, there were ftill the fairest hopes of bringing the work to perfection. The three first parts, it is faid, were finished by the Commiffioners, and approved by the Senate, when the death of the Sovereign, before the had confirmed them, gave the fcepter to Peter III. Grandfon of the Founder of Ruffia. No fooner was he declared Sovereign than he trod profeffedly in the fteps of his grandfather. He not only invited foreigners to fettle in his dominions, but, the more ftrongly to induce them, he abrogated a law which, when once they had entered, forbad them to return. He did more. He permitted his own Nobility to vifit foreign countries in order to cultivate their understanding and manners. To give thefe new regulations all the extent his predeceffors had been defirous of, he propofed to form a new Code, and took for his model that of Frederic King of Pruffia, which he caufed to be translated into the Ruffian language, that, combining with the cuftomary regulations of the Empire, a body of juft and permanent laws might be the refult. Seeing, and lamenting the ignorance under which. his fubjects groaned, in concert with the Archbishop of Novogorod he founded public fchools; and, to introduce order into the military, he gave uniforms to the troops, and caused the regiments to be called after the name of their Colonels. Such were the alterations that Peter III. made, during a reign of fix or seven months, at the end of which a revolution placed his wife on the Throne. On the twenty-eighth of June, 1762, the Ruffians thought proper to dethrone a Monarch, to whom, a few months before, they had thought of erecting ftatues. APP. Rev. Vol. 1. M m It It enters not into my defign to inquire by what fecret measures Providence placed Catharine II. on the throne of all the Ruffias. I confider only the advantages which the empire may have derived from its fovereigns, without dwelling upon the evils attendant on its revolutions.' Such is the Chevalier D'Eon's account of the progreffive state of the laws in Ruffia; the more curious, as whatever relates to the conduct or memory of Peter the First, the greatest Prince of modern times at leaft, muft be extremely interesting to every reader of fentiment. The fequel of the fifth volume, gives us a memoir on the commerce of Ruffia. The fixth volume contains, amongst other fubjects, the hiftory of Eudoxia Federowna, firft wife of Peter the Great. This article is too entertaining to be omitted, and too long to be inferted here; we therefore promise our Readers the substance of it in the next Appendix. At the fame time we are fenfible that the attention we have already paid to this publication is fufficient to convince the Public, that the very ingenious Author has done honour both to himself and to the Republic of Letters. AR T. III. ན.. Fragments fur l'Inde, &c.-Fragments concerning India, General Lally, and the Count de Morangies. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Printed in London, by Nourfe. 1773. IN N thefe detached pieces, which are faid to be written by Voltaire, we find incidental obfervations on the commerce and history of the Indies, with fome topographical accounts of the coafls, and remarks on the military operations and fate of General Lally. From these we shall felect two fhort articles, on the manners and customs of the Gentoos and Bramins. Of thofe ancient Indians, whom we call Gentoos, there are in the Mogul's country, according to Mr. Scrafton's account, about a hundred millions. This multitude is a fatal proof that a great number may be fubdued by a small one. Yet thefe innumerable herds of pacific Gentoos, though they would give up their liberty to any hord of robbers, would never part with their religion and customs. They have fill retained their ancient worship of Brama. The reafon of this, it has been faid, is, that the Mahometans, content with being their mafters, never gave themselves any trouble about the direction of their fouls. Their four ancient orders ftill fubfift in all the rigour of the law which feparates them one from another, and in all the force of first prejudices fortified by time: The firft order is that of the Bramins, who once governed the empire; the fecond that of the military; the third of the hufbandmen, and the fourth of the merchants. We do not include the Hallacores, or Parias, who do the menial offices; they are confidered as unclean; they confider themfelves as fuch, and would -1 would by no means prefume to eat with a man of another tribe, nor even to touch or come near him. It is probable that the inftitution of thefe four claffes was imitated by the Egyptians; because it is, in fact, very probable, or rather certain, that Egypt was but indifferently peopled, or policed, till long after India. It was a work of ages to fubdue the Nile, to divide it into diftinct channels, and.conftruct buildings above its inundations; whilft India enjoyed, in the mean time, every thing that was necessary to the fubfiftence of life. We find all the greatnefs and all the weakness of the human mind exhibited in the ancient Brachmans, and in the Bramins their fucceffors. On one hand, the moft obftinate virtue fupported by the feverest abstinence; a fublime though fantastic philofophy, under the veil of ingenious allegories; an abhorrence of bloodshed, and an invariable charity to mankind and the animal creation.-On the other hand, fuperftition, the moft contemptible in its kind; that calm but atrocious fanaticifm which has taught them, through innumerable ages, to encourage the voluntary murder of fo many young widows who have thrown themfeves into the burning piles of their deceased husbands. This horrid extravagance of religion and magnanimity ftill fubfifts with that famous maxim of the Bramin faith, that God requires nothing from us but charity and good works. But the whole world is governed by contradictions. "Mr. Scrafton adds, They are perfuaded, it is the pleasure of the Supreme Being that different nations fhould have different modes of worship. Such a perfuafion might feem to promote indifference; nevertheless they have as much enthufiafm in their religion, as if they thought it the only true one, the only one that had been inftituted by the deity." The greater part of them live in a kind of effeminate apathy. Their great axiom, taken from their ancient books, is, that it is better to fit than to walk, to lie than to fit, to fleep than to wake, and to die than to live. Yet we fee many of them on the coaft of Coromandel, whỏ rife out of this lethargy into active life. Some of them take part with the French, others with the English. They learn their lánguage, and ferve them as interpreters and brokers. There is not a merchant of any confideration upon the coaft who has not his Bramin. They are in general faithful, but fly and cunning. Thofe who have had no commerce with ftrangers, preferve the ancient virtue and fimplicity of their ancestors.. At • Mr. Scrafton and others have seen in the hands of fome Bramins, ephemerides of their own compofition, in which eclipfes were calculated for many thousands of years. They have good mathematicians and aftronomers; yet they retain the abfurdities of aftrology, and carry that extravagance as far as the Chinese and the Perfians. this, however, we have no reason to be furprised. It is not two centuries fince our own Princes had the fame follies, and our aftronomers the fame quackery. The Bramins, who poffeffed thefe ephemerides, must have been men of science at leaft. They are philofophers and priests, like the Brachmans of old. The people, they fay, ought to be deceived and kept in ignorance. In confequence, they give out that the nodes of the moon, in which the eclipfes happen, and M m 2 which which the firft Brachmans expreffed by the hieroglyphics of the head and tail of a dragon, are the actual efforts of a dragon who attacks the fun and the moon. The fame filly notion is adopted in China. In India, you fee thousands of men and women plunging into the Ganges during the continuance of an eclipfe, or making a prodigious noife with inftruments of various kinds, to release the captive luminaries from the clutches of the dragon. Upon fuch principles as these the whole world has been governed, [the Author adds] in every refpect. Many Bramins have treated with miffionaries concerning the interefts of the India Companies; but religion was never in the queftion. Yet many miffionaries there have been who, the moment they arrived in India, were induftrious in writing to their respective focieties, that the Bramins undoubtedly worshipped the devil, but that they would all shortly be converted to the faith. Nevertheless it is afferted, that no European monk ever once attempted to convert a Bramin, and that no Indian ever worshipped the devil, of whose exiftence they are wholly ignorant. The rigid Bramins have conceived an inexpreffible averfion to the monks, on account of their obvious indulgence in the contents of the fhambles and the cellar, and of their taking young girls upon their laps during confeffion. Our practices appeared to them to be crimes, though theirs have been confidered only as ridiculous idolatries. One of the most confiderable miffionary jefuits, whofe name was Lalane, wrote in 1709, "there is no doubt but the Bramins are real idolaters, because they are worshippers of strange gods." (Lettres Edifiantes, tom. x. p. 14.) And he fays, p. 15. "the following is one of their prayers, which I have tranflated literally. "I worship that Being who is expofed to no inquietude, and fubject to no change; that Being, who in his nature is indivifible, in his fpiritual effence incapable of compounded qualities; that Being who is the origin and the cause of existence, and who, in excellence, furpaffes all that does exift; that Being who is the support of the univerfe, and the fource of power." This is what the miffionary calls idolatry! What is really aftonishing is, that we can neither in the books of the ancient Bramins, nor in those of the Chinese, nor in the frag ments of Sanconiathon, nor in thofe of Berofus, nor in the Egyp tian of Manethon, nor among the Greeks, nor the Tufcans, find the leaft trace of that facred Jewish history which is our facred history. Not a fingle word of Noah, whom we look upon as the restorer of the human race; not a word of Adam, the father of that race, nor of any of his firft defcendants. How came it to pafs that all nations loft the names of this great family; that no one has transmitted to pofterity a fingle action, a fingle name, of thefe his ancestors? How came all the ancient world to be ignorant of this? And how came a little upstart generation alone to know it? This extraordinary circumftance might feem to merit attention, if one could poffibly come at the bottom of it. All India, China, Japan, Tartary, and three parts of Africa, have ever been ignorant of the exiftence of fuch men as Cain, Jared, and Methufelah, who, neverthelefs, lived almost a thousand years. And other nations were unacquainted with their names till after the time of Conftantine. But thofe thofe questions which arife in the department of philofophy, have nothing to do with history.' Nothing more easy than to refute this bagatelle, and to prove that those very nations have had their Adam and their Noah, whom the Author represents as ignorant of their exiftence. But we have no time to enter into controverfies of this kind. Since writing the above article, we have met witb an English translation of this book, which appears to be fufficiently faithful and correct. ART. IV, L. L'Evangile Du Jour.-The Gofpel of the Day. Vol. X. London. WE 1773. ERE it not owing to that wonderful zeal and attachment which Mr. Voltaire profeffes for every thing that has the air of religion, this volume had never come by its Christian name; for with as much propriety might it have been called the Gardener's Calendar, or the Complete Country Housewife, or a Differtation on Clear-ftarching-Paffing the title, however, which, like the number affixed to the front of your house, serves only to diftinguish it from your neighbour's, the first article that prefents itself is a new old tragedy, called THE LAWS of MINOS. This, Mr. V tells us, appeared in fuch a miferable trim, patched as it was, and stitched and taylored all over by a knave of a bookseller, that, in justice to himself, and in compaffion to his offspring, he thought proper to fend it into the world in its prefent form. The purport of the tragedy is to prove, that it is neceffary to abolish laws when they are unjust; and the laws of Minos enjoined human facrifices. Ancient hiftory (that is to fay fable) informs us, that this great lawgiver, Minos, the son of Jupiter, on whom the divine Plato has lavished fuch high encomiums, certainly inftituted fuch facrifices. This wife legiflator facrificed annually feven young Athenians; at least fo Virgil fays, In foribus Lethum Androgeo tum pendere Panas Corpora natorum. These facrifices are rather uncommon with us now-a-days, and the reason, no doubt, is, that variety of opinions which the fage commentators have entertained refpecting the exact number * For our accounts of the former volumes, fee Appendixes for feveral years past. Mm 3 of |