360 MONTHLY 11KVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



tocratical devourers of the revenues ; and we cordially concur in the 

 opinion of our author, that colonial reform is not less required for the re- 

 suscitation of our foreign commerce, than is domestic reform, for the allevi- 

 ation of the burthens of the people. 



Upon the subject of the currency, also, the views of the British merchant 

 are clear and valuable. Witnessing the disastrous consequences to England 

 at the contraction of the circulating medium, and the advantages to Scotland 

 at its exemption from this most fatal measure the writer very confidently 

 attributes to this erroneous policy, much of the present distress, discontent, 

 and commercial stagnation of the country. And we agree with him, that the 

 pressure of the national debt, and our consequent enormous burthen of 

 taxation might be very greatly diminished by a recurrence to the medium in 

 which these engagements were originally made. 



Our politicians will, therefore, see many things worthy of consideration 

 in the work of the British Merchant, long resident abroad. 



ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANICUM, PART XXXV. SEVENTH EDITION, WITH 

 THE SUPPLEMENT TO FORMER EDITIONS INCORPORATED. EDITED BY 

 PROFESSOR NAPIER. ADAM BLACK, EDINBURGH. 



THIS is the new edition of this celebrated work, and in addition to the 

 great mass of profound and varied writing which distinguished the early 

 period of its existence, we find that the stream of intelligence is here brought 

 down to the improvements, discoveries, and events of the latest time. We 

 have derived much instruction from the perusal of the articles upon Civil 

 law, climate, and benefit of clergy ; and as a specimen of the powerful talent 

 which pervades the descriptive portions of the work, we give the following 

 extract from the article Cimbri, being an account of the destruction of that 

 the most powerful of the barbarous nations of ancient Germany, by the 

 armies of Rome : " By order of the senate, Marius now joined his army to 

 that of Catullus and Sylla : upon this junction, he was declared commander- 

 in-chief. The Roman* army consisted of 52,300 men. The cavalry of the 

 Cimbri were not more than 1,200, but their infantry seemed innumerable 

 for, being drawn up in a square they are said to have covered a space of 

 thirty furlongs. The Cimbri attacked the Romans with the greatest fury, 

 but being unaccustomed to endure the heats of Italy, they soon began to lose 

 their strength, and were easily overpowered. They had put it out of their 

 power to fly, for that they might keep sheir ranks the better, they had, like 

 true barbarians, tied themselves together with cords fastened to their belts 

 so that the Romans made a terrible havoc of them. The battle, therefore, 

 was soon over, and the whole day was employed in the most unsparing 

 butchery, One hundred and twenty thousand were killed on the field of 

 battle, and sixty thousand taken prisoners. The victorious Romans then 

 marched to the enemy's camp, where they had a new battle to fight with 

 the women, whom they found even more fierce than their husbands. From 

 their carts and waggons, which formed a sort of fortification, they discharged 

 showers of darts and arrows upon friends and foes, without distinction ; and 

 finding themselves about to be overpowered, they first suffocated their 

 children in their arms, and then put an end to their own existence ; the 

 greater part of them hanging themselves on trees. One was found hanging 

 at a cart, with two of her children ar her heels. Many of the men, for want 

 of trees and stakes, tied strings in running knots around their necks, and 

 fastened them to the tails of their horses, and the horns and feet of their 

 oxen, in order to strangle themselves in that way and thus the whole 

 multitude were destroyed." 



