276 
new ones, as emulation is known to pro- 
duce the happieft fruits. 
At the death of VoLTarRE, the apo- 
thecary charged with embalming him, had 
permiffion to retain that part of his brain 
which the French call cervelet (cerebellum. ) 
It was preferved by him, in fpirits of wine, 
with a fort of religious care, from that 
time till the death of the poffeffor ; the fon 
of whom has juft made an offer of it to 
government, who has accepted in This 
interefting remain of the patriarch of 
Ferney, is to be included in a monument, 
and conveniently placed in the midift of the 
chefs d euvres of his works, with which 
the public library is enriched. 
In France, as in England, there have 
been difputes, without end, as to the com- 
méncement of the 18th century. La- 
LANDE, the aftronomer, has been applied 
to on fhe occafion, by a number of perfons. 
He endeavours, in the following manner, 
to put an end to the queftion, which he 
fays was equally agitated at the end of the 
Jaft century. ‘‘ Many perfons,” {ays he, 
‘imagine, that, becaufe after having counted 
feventeen they count eighteen, that, the 
eentury muft be changed; but this is an 
illufion: for when a hundred pounds are 
to be counted, we mult pafs from ninety- 
nine and we arrrive at a hundred ; we have 
changed the ten before we have finifhed 
the hundred. Whatever kind of calcu- 
Jation (he adds) is to be made, we com- 
mence by 1 and finifh by 100: nobody has 
ever thought of beginning at o and fi- 
nifhing by 99; thus he concludes the year 
1800 to belong inconteftably to the eigh- 
teenth, or old century. In the year 1700, 
feveral pamphlets were. publifhed on a fi- 
milar conteft; the aftronomer obferves 
that he has four of them in his library, and 
they are moft. probably not all that were 
written upon it. : 
The Courier of Egypt, of the roth Ven- 
demaire, (30th Sept.) year 8, gives the 
particulars of a féte celebrated at Cairo, 
tor the anniverfary of the foundation of the 
Republic, at which the Aga of the Janif- 
faries, the Diyan, the heads of the law, 
and the Pacha Haflan Muftapha, made 
prifoner at the battle of Aboukir, are faid 
to have been prefent. The General in Chief, 
Kieber, pronounced, on this occafion, feve- 
ral difcourfes, which,when he had finifhed, 
the cries of Vive la Republique, were uni- 
verfally heard ; and the acclamations fol- 
lowed. by a difcharge of artillery, and the 
fire of mufketry. -The. Turks, who ge- 
nerally retire early tq their homes, were 
detained later than ufjal by {plendid fire- 
works, which Grobert, the chief of the 
brigade of artillery, had the direction of, 
Cairo was illuminated in the eyening. 
Literary and Philofophical Iatelligence. 
[April r, 
C. SainTE-Cro1x has juft publithed his 
learned refearches concerning the libraries 
of Alexandria. He has taken pains to de- 
ftroy the too much accredited fable, that 
Omar was confulted by Amrou, concern- 
ing what he ought to do with the hooks 
contained in the libraries, and that having 
ordered him to deftroy them, the latter 
diftributed them to the baths of the city, 
which they ferved to heat for fix months. 
The author thinks that Abulpharage, the 
firft hiftorian who has recounted this anec- 
dote, had no other view in it, than to com- 
pofe a romance to amufe the Arabs, for 
whom he wrote. In fac, Abulpharage 
only wrote fix hundred years after the date 
of this pretended conflagration, which 
took place in the feventh century, and it is 
very unlikely. that he would have been the 
firft to recount fo important a tranfaction. 
The Citizen Sainte-Croix next fhews that 
the moft ancient and the moft confiderable 
libraries of Alexandria did not exi& fur- 
ther back than the fourth century. There- 
fore (he obferves) we are compelled ‘to 
place the anecdote of the baths heated fix 
months by the fide of that which Kotbeddin 
relates. He fays, ferioufly, that at the 
taking of Bagdat by Hulagou (the de- 
ftroyer of the empire. of the califfs) the 
Tartars threwinto the Euphrates the books 
of the Colleges of that city; that the num- 
ber was fo great they formed a bridge, 
over which the foot foldiers and the ca- 
valry paffed, and that the water of the 
river took a black colour from them. 
The Agricultural Society of Seville, in 
Spain, held on the 23d of laft November, 
its annual public meeting, which was molt 
refpectably attended by the nobility and 
gentry of the town and its environs, 
Count del Aguila, Vice-direétor and Pre. 
fident of the Society, opened the meeting 
with an able difcourfe on egotifm, confi- 
dered as the moft deftruétive enemy of pa- 
triotic focieties, at the end of which he 
enumerated the labours of the fociety in 
the courfe of laft year, and pointed out 
their tendency to promote the public wel- 
fare. ‘The meeting took then into confi- 
deration the memoirs prefented to the fo- 
ciety on the prize-queftions, propofed the 
preceding year, one of which only was 
judged worthy of the announced prize, 
treating ‘On the influence of Foreftalling 
upon the liberty of Trade and Commerce, 
and on what Principles, and under what 
Reftritions it may be permitted... The 
prize was accordingly adjudged to the au- 
thor, D. Joachim Yriafte y Landa, an in- 
habitant of Seville, who was alfo elected a 
member of the Society in the department of 
Political Economy. 
~ At Naples there exifts a feminary of na- 
i ; tlvé 
