~ 
654 
husband, and several subjects have been 
actually finished by her. 
After this, it is ‘easily to conceive, and 
we may be permitted tu observe, that the 
famous operations of the cabinet of Flo- 
rence, formed under the inspection of. 
Fontana, by the skill of Mascagni and 
other celebrated artists, have been great- 
ly surpassed by Laumonier; and all those 
who nea exainined the arteries, veins, 
nerves, and absorbent vessels, in the pre- 
parations of both, bestow the palm of su- 
periority on the former artist. 
“ There is only one wish which remains 
to be gratified, and it is that able pupils 
may be educated under, and attain to 
the talents and knowledge of such a 
master. In this respect he is far from 
being desirous to imitaté the example of 
Ruysch, who was jealous of, and zealous 
to conceal his art, not only from his con- 
temporaries, but even from posterity. 
“ The Committee of Public Instruction 
have engaged him to construct. complete 
systems of the absorbent vessels and 
nerves, for the School of Health. When 
these are finished, our country will net 
have any. oecasion to envy Florence; and 
the travellers who have admired the chefs- 
deuvre of Mascagni, will not be satished 
unless they have also examined those of 
Laumonier, in the cabinets of Rowen and 
Paris.” 
The following paper will serve to shew 
that the French have always viewed our 
possessions in the East Indies with a jea- 
Jous eye:— 
“ Observations relative to the Oriental 
Languages, in a Commercial and Diplo- 
matic Point of View; by Laxanat. 
** Would not the neglect Of the orien- 
tal languages, which serve as the organ 
of diplomatic proceedings be no less than 
abandoning our consulships im the East, 
to men incapable of stipulating for the in- 
terests of the empire? Would ~not this 
break off all correspondence with distant 
nations? I say more—it would be to- 
outrage humanity, which enforces it a 
duty to commit the destinies of the 
French nation to the wisdom of negocia 
tions, as well as to the decision of the 
sword. 
The most useful of the oriental lan- 
guages may be divided into two classes: 
the living and the dead, comprehending 
the sanskrit and the pakrit, languages of 
Hindostan; the zend, pazend and pehivy, 
languages of Persia; the Hebrew Chal- 
dean Samaritan, Syriac, and all the other 
biblical languages. 
“Phe knowledge of the latter, is in- 
ele made 
‘and a grammar. 
Retrospect of French Literature—Miscelianies. 
dispensable for obtaining an eee 
knowledge with the antiquities of : Asia 5 
but they are not to be attained, except 1n 
the bosum of tranquillity: during the agi- 
tations that uel ly accompany and 
follow 35) revolutions, every subject is 
accountable for every moment of his 
time to his country. itis not the same 
with the former, for it is necessary to ob- - 
tain them, if we intend to negociate ad- 
vantageously with the natives of Asia. 
On the other hand the learned will be en- 
abled to extract from the different orien- 
tal works on astronomy, chemistry, medi- 
cine, &c. materials fa will be erml~ 
nently serviceable in respect to the arts 
and sciences. 
“« Let us take a geographical survey of 
the pode yal living oriental languages. 
The Japanese is a dialect of the Chinese; 
and consequently presents great difficul- 
ties; in addition to this, the natives are 
prohibited from teaching it fo the Dutch, 
who are the only Europeans admitted into 
their country. We only possess a hittle 
Japanese vocabulary, published at Rome, 
by father Collado, ‘and a grammar and 
vocabularly, which are contained in vol: 
TTT. of Thunbere’ s Voyages. 
“ The Chinese presents insurmount. 
able dificulties, notwithstanding the ef- 
to obviate these by Kircher, 
John Webb, Bayer Fourmount, and se- 
veral missionaries. Chinese literature 
is prodigiously rich, as may be seen 
from the notices contained in the fifteen 
volumes entitled “* Mémoires concernant 
les Arts & les: Sciences chez les Chinois.” 
and by the catalogue of the numerous 
works 1n this language deposited at the Im- 
perial Library. 
“ These literary treasures would have 
been useless to foreigners, if the Munt- 
choux Tartars, masters of China: since 
1644, had not erected several tribunals 
of learned, men, who were solely employed — 
in translating Chinese books into Bont- 
chou; thelatter language is incomparably 
less dificult, for it pessesses an alphabet: 
It is capable ef sup- 
plying the place of the Chinese in com- 
mercial operations as well as in letters; 
it is the mother language of all the Tartar 
idioms made use of in the north of Asia, 
and we possess a Mlanichou dictionary in 
3 vols. 4to. Events have hitherto re- 
tarded the publication of some other good 
works destined to render the knowledge 
of this language popular. 
“ The Thibetan, which is spoken 
only in Thibet, but cultivated in most of 
the eastern Ree northern countries of 
Asia, 
