— Retrofpelt of Dometic Literature—Geography, Topography, Se. 585 
The idea of a perfeé& traveller com- 
prizes, perhaps, more excellencies, na- 
tural and acquired, than Cicero exacts 
for his perteét orator, ‘To a body 
which, like St. Francis, can wallow in 
the {now for amufement; bear wet, 
like a patient of Dr, Currie’s; or, like 
Atabalipa, talk of rofes while it roafts ; 
which,. like Mithridates, can fwallow 
poifons in fpart; banquet, like poor 
Tom, on naftinefs; or fak a whole 
Lent in a defert; which is tolerant of 
vermin as Bellarmine; callous to con- 
tagion as a gaol-bird; fond of fatigue 
as Hercules; alert as Mercury, and fo 
forth; muft be fuperadded, the mind 
adapted by nature to obferve, and. in- 
ftructed by education how much is re- 
corded of the obfervable. In his me- 
mory, as in Noah’s Ark, every living 
- thing muft be fyftematically arranged ; 
every vegetable, as in the primitive 
ifland of Linnezus, muft be prefent and 
ready to bloflom; the {wart fairies of 
the mine mutt have fhown him through 
the calcareous, through the {chiftous 
layers down to the granite nucleus of 
the globe, All this he muft know how 
to eftimate, not in the fcales of the na- 
turalift, but of the cofmopolite; not 
inafmuch as it is rare in mufeums, and 
ill-depicted in Floras, but inafmuch as 
it can be made a material of art, an 
article of commerce, a combiner of 
regions, an enricher of man. . Such 
qualities Mr. Barrow realizes in a de- 
gree of which there are few examples, 
perhaps not one. He feems every 
where ta have confidered himfelf as the 
pioneer of the ftate{man; and although 
he lofes no opportynity of adding to our 
knowledge of nature by a very careful 
furvey of the Jand and its growth, yet he 
every where brings out, with predilec- 
tion, the available circumftances of 
foil, irrigation, habitation, and pro- 
duce, and feems only anxious to detect, 
its eventual utility. His whole work 
tends to infpire a regret, that the Cape, 
hitherto fo ill-governed, fo unproduc- 
five, fo little ftudied, fhould not have 
been preferved for the country which 
could alone have committed it to his 
{way, and have rendered the benefi- 
cence of his exiftence commenfurate 
with the benevolence of his views. Let 
us hope that the mouth of the Orange- 
river, ta the nerth ot which the terri- 
torics of the Hollanders no where ex- 
tend, will ftill be thought worthy of 
colonization; and, like another Nile, 
become the waterer of a geoanetrical 
agricultural population. — 
‘¢ BycGe’s Travels in the French 
Republic, 6s,”" 
The moft fatisfactory account of the 
inftructional ftate of France, which has 
been obtained fince the Revolution, 1s 
contained in thefe travels. It appears 
that the clais of men who may be de- 
nominated. civil engineers, are more 
carefully taught than in this country $ 
that their bridge-builders fiudy ma- 
thematics, learn the theory of preffure, 
attend leétures on conic fections under 
the name of ftereotomy, and adapt 
themfelves foremploying public money 
with ‘‘ufeful magnificence.” In Eng- 
land we have yet to learn, not the art 
of doing ufeful things, but of doing 
them grandly. Perhaps magnificence 
coits more than traffic can defray ; if 
fo, the truftees of our turnpikes aét 
wifely, and the permanence of conve- 
hience is better confulted by its. mo- 
deity than by its ftatelinels. 
«© Political Reflections relative to 
Egypt, by G. BaLpwin, 6s.” 
Before Saturn had invented manure, 
and Triptolemus the plough, A®gypt 
was the very place for agriculture te 
flourifh. Accordingly we find the 
fhepherd kings of Arabia felling the 
labour of their vaflals to the Aigyp- 
tians to obtain corn during a cycle of 
dearth. But with every progre{s of 
furrounding nations, Afgypt has di- 
minifhed in relative importance: her 
inhabitants are condemned, by natural 
caufes, like the Arabians, toa ftation- 
ary civilization, and are ftill the fame 
barbarians whom the favages of anti- 
quity admired. It is only by writing 
about obelifks and pyramids, and thus 
imbibing the childifh wonder of the 
primeval world, that any modern na- 
tion can have been, brought to covet 
the pofleffion of fuch a {trip of ooze; 
which is fo ill fituate for the tranfit of 
Oriental commerce, that under Trajan 
and the Antonines that traffic already 
paffed through Palmyra and Antioch, 
and has oniy refumed, by fits, the 
4Egyptian-road, when Syria has been 
iniecure through anarchy or war. If 
indeed it fhould be difcovered, as the 
ancients teftify, that ther lake which 
abforbs the Joliba, overflows into the: 
Nile; if the cataracts fhould be afcend- 
ed by a ftair-cafe of locks, and an in- 
land navigation extended to Tombuc- 
too; if Alexandria is to import for 
uit sthe 
