237 
1821.] Novelties of Foreign Literature . 
Church lane. On his death he recol¬ 
lects to have seen Smollett’s corpse, to 
discover the nature of his disease ; and 
on that occasion remembers to have 
lost all appetite for liis dinner. 
GEORGE ROSE. 
Lord North said to Mr. John- l , 
in reply to the observation that he had 
seen his beautiful house in Hampshire, 
and conversed with Mr. Rose, thus:— 
“ What George Rose gone into the. 
country 4 to bloom unseen, and waste 
his sweetness in the desert air.’ ” 
LETTER of MARY WOLSTONCROFT, 
Author of the Rights of Woman . 
Saturday morning, 
SIR, 
I am engaged to dine with Mrs. Bar- 
low at Mr. Johnson’s next Sunday; but 
I will drink tea with you and Mrs. S. 
on Monday, should you be disengaged, 
for I wish to tell you both, in person, 
that employments, cares, low spirits— 
in short a legion of devils has made me 
put off this visit till it has the appear¬ 
ance of rudeness. My compliments 
attend Mrs, S. Yours, &c. M. W. 
PRESCRIPTION of the late DR. BU¬ 
CHAN for a nervous lady. 
Apply the plaster over the region of 
the stomach, and let it continue on as 
long as it will stick. 
Take a tea-spoonful of the tincture 
of the columbo root in half a glass of 
cold spring water twice or thrice a 
day. 
Walk or ride out every day, eat solid 
diet, take a cheerful glass of wine, and 
keep company with friends of a cheer¬ 
ful temper of mind, and laugh at all 
physicians and physick. 
DOMESTIC SLAVERY 
was not unknown in Scotland at the 
beginning of the 18th century, for it 
appears by judicial records, that Alex¬ 
ander Stewart, found guilty of theft, 
was 44 gifted by the justice as a per¬ 
petual servant to Sir John Areskine, 
of Alva, the 5th of Dec. 1701.” 
NOVELTIES OF FOREIGN LITERATURE. 
notices relative to the Interior of 
AFRICA, by M. walckenaer, of the 
Academy of Inscriptions of PARIS. 
FTHHE city of Timboot, or Timbooc- 
B too, was founded in the year 610 
of the Hegira, or 1213 of the Christian 
aera, and it shortly became the capital 
of a powerful state. Its foundation 
may probably be ascribed to the Moors 
of Spain ; at least it is certain that an 
architect of Grenada erected a palace 
for the king, of stone, and the first 
mosque in the new African city. 
Timbooctoo rapidly became the 
cent re of a considerable commerce, viz. 
that of the Soudan, and of numerous 
caravans repairing thither from Sen- 
naar, Nubia, Egypt, Tunis, Tripoli, 
Fez, and Morocco, and from all the 
Oases of the Desart. 
At the end of the fifteenth century, 
the genius of navigation, which in an¬ 
tiquity had been held in a sort of du¬ 
resse, was all at once invigorated by 
the invention of the compass, the ocean 
being thereby rendered subservient. 
Dias doubled the Cape of Good Hope, 
and Columbus raised establishments in 
a new continent. 
The Portuguese gave the first impul¬ 
sion to these discoveries; they ranged 
along the coasts of Africa, where they 
established rich factories, and even then 
it was an object of their ambition to 
penetrate to Timbooctoo. If credit be 
due to their great historian, John de 
Barros, they actually arrived there, 
and made some unsuccessful attempts 
to establish a regular traffic. Other 
European nations, the French and Eng¬ 
lish especially, have frequently made 
similar attempts. Those efforts relaxed 
about the middle of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury, but towards the end of it, have 
been resumed with fresh vigour. From 
the first formation, in London, of a so¬ 
ciety for discoveries in Africa, (which 
was in 1788) the name of Timbooctoo, 
often resounded in the solitudes of the 
desart, has again repeatedly struck the 
ears of Europeans. 
I expected, by the means of two Arab 
itineraries in my possession, combined 
with other documents, to determine 
the position of the city. These re¬ 
searches I have consigned for a larger 
work, wherein I explore the origin^ of 
the various opinions entertained rela¬ 
tive to divers of the maritime and inte¬ 
rior countries, and the degree of cer¬ 
tainty assignable to them. This is in 
the former part. 
In a second part, l have revised what 
has been done, for the illustration of 
/ 
African geography, since the revival of 
letters. I have compared all the origi¬ 
nal maps of Africa since the first which 
was laid down by John Ruisch, and en¬ 
graved 
