Kotlces respecting New Books. sf 



extensive scale, from the cold or forbidding policy of the 

 LacedEemonians to the capricious yet captivating disposi- 

 tion of the Athenians, The first was too havighty and 

 austere to gain the hearts of those who served ; the other of 

 too unequal a temper to secure or reward the enterprising 

 spirit of those \\ ho commanded. Even among the Atheni- 

 ans, the naval character had not sufficiently emerged from 

 the warehouse of their merchants ; and at LacedcTcmon, 

 where the liighest object of ambition was aconmiand in the 

 cavalry, that valuable nursery for seamen which the ho- 

 nourable avocations of commerce furnish was purposely 

 neglected. The iron coinage of Sparta shackled the specu- 

 lati'oh oi its inhabitants; and when Lycurgus prohibited 

 navigation and commerce throughout an extent of coast 

 that furnished so many excellent harbours, he proved how 

 Impossible it was for a rigid moralist to entertain a due con- 

 viction of those liberal principles which are essential to the 

 character of a legislator." (Sect. iii. p. 123.) The fourth 

 section brings into one point of view all that has survived 

 respecting Carthaginian and Roman maritime discoveries ; 

 the voyages of Hanno, ofHlmilco, of Polybius, of Serto- 

 rius, of Juba, of the freedman of Annius Plocamus, and 

 the Periplus of the eastern coast of Africa, are introduced 

 with considerable judgment, and well connected with each 

 other. The whole of this introductory part is closed by a 

 dissertation on the commerce of the Romans by the author's 

 learned grandfather, which hitherto has not been generally 

 known. 



Afr. Clarke, then enters on the principal subject of the 

 volume ; and in his first chapter gives a general view of the 

 maritime history of Europe and of Portugal, to the begin- 

 ning of the fifteenth century, when the Portuguese disco- 

 veries first began. The second chapter continues the history 

 from the acci-ssion of .Tohn, the first king of Portugal, to 

 the discovery and doubling of the Cape of Good Hope by 

 Bartholomew Diaz ; and the third chapter closes with the 

 arrival of Da Cama on the coast of Calicut, on the 20th of 

 May 1498. The valuable appendix that Ibllows, contains 

 faomc scarce treatises connected with the subject of the 

 work, among which a history of navigation, by the cele- 

 brated Lr)cke, particularly attracted our attention. 



We shall now only proceed to notice souiC of the many 

 philosophical facts which are dispersed throughout the vo- 

 lume, which is enriched with numerous engravings of the 

 coast that comes under consideration ; and u ith an excellent • 

 set of charts by Anowsmith. 



F 4 One 



