ny in the cities, he obferves, have ruined themselves by attempting, with unequal abilities, to imitate the fplendor and expence of the English. Not to fupprefs a reflection on ourfelves, he adds, tho' they imitate us in that, in being conceited, and having a great opinion of their own country and nation, [which his character of them, by the way, has little tendency to moderate] they are very unlike us with regard to friendship and hofpitality. Poffibly our author may have picked up this farcasm from fome of our own fatirifts or papers, who are often lamenting the decay of old English hofpitality: but we find in the fequel he acknowleges, that one reason why a traveller is feldom fuffered to pay for his lodging there, proceeds from the small number that vifit them; the very reverse of which being the cafe in England, will naturally account for a different conduct. Befides, as far as our experience and reflection have instructed us, thofe countries that are the most thinly fettled (fuppofing no want of the neceffaries of life) are generally the most hofpitable, whatever people inhabit them; in fhort, entertainment, the price or condition of fociety, as in other things, is regulated by the plenty or scarcity of it. However, if there be any juftice in the bishop's fatire, let us defeat it henceforward, as juftly as we can, and so_oblige him for fhame to expunge it in his next edition. The truth is, our author is no Antigallican, as he treats our neighbours, more than once, with more complaifance than ourfelves; but we should not forget, his nation is an ally or penfioner to that complaifant people. There is nothing very extraordinary in the inftances he gives of the Norwegians longevity, if we except that one of a bifhop of Havanger, who is faid to have attained two hundred and ten years, which he does not think certain himself. He had faid before, he believed a greater number of them exceed a hundred years than of any other nation; but this belief concludes nothing, without his giving us fome calculation of the number of the inhabitants. Their diseases are chiefly scorbutical, and leprous, and particularly that fpecies of the Lepra called Elephantiafis. He fays moft people on the mountains die of old age, without having experienced fickness. But in the years 1630, and 1684, Chriftiana, fituated in this fine air, was vifited by the plague. They have no agues, nor tertian or quartan fevers; nor are the rickets known there. The fmallpox, which is annual in Denmark, vifits them once in feven years at Bergen; further north, at Tronheim, every tenth or twelfth; in Nordland feldom more than every fixteenth, whert it makes great havock with young and old. This flow northerly progreffion of this disease reminds us of fome writer, who affirms, that it vifits Iceland every twenty years, which we mention for the contemplation of our medical readers. The farmers do not ufe rye in their bread but at weddings and entertainments, cats being their general corn; and in a fcarcity of grain they add a little oatmeal to a greater quantity of the bark of fir powdered, which makes a bitterish and lefs nutritive bread; but which, however, they accustom themfelves to in plentiful feafons, to be prepared against a time of fcarcity. Indeed, in 1743, and 1744, they improved their bread by fuftituting elm bark, which was better tafted. In parts where there were great fisheries, they attempted to mix codroes with oatmeal, but this gave fome the bloody-flux. It feems odd to us, that they chufe to let their fifh four before they falt it. They make a stock of ftrong ale against Christmas, chriftenings, &c. but at other times regale on Mungat, a very bad small-beer, milk and water, or water and four whey. Our grave author moralizes here with a Que virtus et quanta difcite; and doubtless it is very right and prudent to be content with the best we can get; but we are at a lofs to discover that exalted virtue which is founded merely in neceffity. They are great lovers of tobacco, expending annually feveral thoufand dollars in it, which makes our author, as a patriot, wish for its perfect production there; fnuff they properly enough call Nafe-meel. The Strile farmers have their breeches and ftockings all of a piece; and the peasants of almoft every parish in the province are known by the particular colours of their cloaths: the bishop is lefs acquainted with the womens domestic cloaths, but at church, &c. they have clofe laced jackets, and leather girdles ornamented with filver: they have a filver chain triple or quadruple round their necks, with a gold medal depending from it. Their handkerchiefs and caps are covered as thick with small plates of filver, brass, tin, and with buttons and rings, as we can fuppofe an Indian Squaw to be with beads and thells. To thefe rings they hang others, which jingle and glitter as they move; and a young bride, who is particularly loaded with them, is acknowledged to make a very grotefque figure. Their houtes are commonly built of whole trunks of pine and fir-trees, chopped fo as to make them lie clofe, and joined by mortifes. They are covered first with birch bark, and over that three or four inches th ck with turf, wherein fervice-trecs, and good grafs grows, whence many a farmer mows a pretty load of hay from the top of his house. They are often let to three, three, four, or five families; and have a Staubaret for all their provision at a distance, for fear of fire. Even the rich farmers have seldom any windows, but a fky-light, called Liur, at top of the house, over which they place the midriff (fays our author) of fome animal, in a frame, to keep out the rain. The membrane is ftrong and tranfparent as a bladder; it is called Siaa, and lifted on or off with a pole; which pole, every perfon, coming on important bufinefs, and especially on courtfhip, muft touch before they utter a word. The smoke paffes through the Liur; and kings, till the eleventh century, lived in fuch houses. The mafter of the house, with all his politenefs, always fits at the upper end of the table on the HoySædet, [high feat] where he has a little cupboard to lock up his valuable things. They burn the roots of those fir-trees that have been cut down feveral years, for tar. As a great part of their livelihood is obtained from the water, many spend half their time on that element, and die in it; and tho' their bodies are feldom found, they have a funeral ceremony and fermon, called Gravfæftelse. A minister at Karfund affirmed, that during fifty years of his refidence, there had not died above ten grown men on fhore; and at Chriftianfand they fay moft of the women have had five or fix husbands. Our author is very fond of fuppofing the Norwegians discovered the WestIndies fome ages before the Spaniards, and prefumes very ftrongly, that the Efkimaux Indians are defcended chiefly from a Norwegian colony. This, however, does not feem to us more probable, than the ftory in their Chronicles, of their difcovering land, without the compafs, by taking ravens out with them, and letting them fly; as they fuppofed the raven always turns itself towards the nearest land, and returns not, like Noah's dove, if he finds it.-Every perfon is at liberty to pursue the game, especially in the mountains, which is no unfair prefumption of the thinness of inhabitants, in proportion to the extent of the kingdom.-In mentioning their nobility, of which few are left, he fays a nobleman's eftate has not the privileges belonging to the demefnes of the nobility, longer than he refides on it. An alphabetical lift follows of all the ancient and noble Norwegian families. A fecond contains the names of fuch Danish families as were fent and preferred there about the time of Frederic I. and the laft lift enumerates the names of the Norwegian families ennobled fince the fovereignty of Denmark. This hiftory concludes with fome political obfervations on the freeholds and freeholders of Norway, called Odels-gaard and Odels-mand, the word Odel implying property; a fignifi cation very fimilar to our Anglo-Saxon, Eadel, fignifying noble, at a time when almost all real property, not in the crown, was confined to the nobility. And this is the more probable, as their freeholders are very proud of this tenure, and reckon themselves as good as noble by Odel, or right of inheritance. The author, indeed, exprefly acknowleges it preferable to the freehold of Denmark, both as it is better fecured to their families by right of redemption, and as they poffefs with it the privileges of a nobleman in Denmark, the Odels-gaard being fubject only to the crown.-How may an English freeholder exult then, whose freehold is not subject to the crown, but to the laws he concurs to make, and to the arbitrement of his fellow freeholders! Thus have we made a connected and regular kind of abridgment of this work; tho' a felection of the most exotic appear ances, and the most novel relations it contains, requires confiderable freedom in the execution of it. The author appears to have a strong propensity to natural hiftory, which, from its graphical defcriptive nature, may prove more amusing; while a relation of the great events and revolutions, occurring to any neighbouring people, may imprefs us more. His qualifications for the work are confiderable, his purpose in it very good, and his great industry is at leaft equal to his genius. He is no ftranger to fome of our good phyfiological writers; but, on the whole, appears rather more converfant with the French. When we obferve, that feveral particulars in the book, at large, appear fufficiently minute and trivial to ourselves, we are to make allowance for the natives of that country he describes; to whom he must design to render it agreeable and useful; and this will, in a great measure, qualify his heightening fuch advantages, and extenuating fuch defects, either of the place, or of the people, as an intelligent reader must difcern to be oftner implied than affirmed. As it is tranflated from the Danish, and probably by a gentleman better acquainted with that language than our own, candor will pardon a little incorrectnefs in fome places, fince the whole is very intelligible; and the frequent furprize and imagery occurring in the performance may well atone for leffer inaccuracies of idiom or language, especially as the fubject does not require its highest embellishment. This circumftance reminds us, that the bishop fays nothing profeffedly concerning the language of Norway, which he, or his tranflator, terms a dialect, [of the Danish, we fuppofe]. It is eafy, however, to difcern in those words of both, which we have purposely retained in our abridgment that they often differ from each other; and that both are shoots from the old German or Teutonic stock. E REV. July 1755. K ART. ART. VI. Converfations on Polite Life. Exemplified and illuftrated with eastern and other flories; tending to form in the minds of youth fentiments becoming that ftation of life which gentlemen are educated to adorn. Tranflated from the French. 12mo. 35. L. Davis. WHA THAT Horace has obferved ought to be the principal aim of every good writer, our author appears to have attempted in this performance; wherein entertainment and instruction are fo intimately blended, that there are few readers, except those of the moft refined taste, but may, we apprehend, receive fome pleasure from the perufal of it. With refpect to the form of this work, it confifts of twelve dialogues, between an uncle and his nephew, a young gentleman of family and fortune, and destined to a military life: the former undertakes to inftruct the latter in the duties of that profeffion, and the qualifications neceffary to the attainment of folid glory; their converfations therefore are turned on topics fuitable to this purpose. The 1ft dialogue treats of heroifm and heroes. -2. Of virtue and vice.-3. Of inclinations and paffions.4. and 5. Of the prejudices of infancy and of education.-6. Of ftudies and exercifes.-7. Of entering upon the world, and of love.-8. Of the virtues and qualities of a fubaltern officer. 9. Of the virtues and qualities of a general.-10. and 11. Of riches, their acquifition and ufe.-12. Of the hero's reward. The ftrict philofopher, or fevere critic, may not, perhaps, be pleafed with the manner in which feveral of these fubjects are confidered; but our preceptor profeffes himself an old foldier: as fuch his maxims appear in character; they are delivered with a manly freedom; his fentiments are often juft, and fuch as might be, to no little advantage, frequently carried into practice. His documents are enforced by exemplary tales, appofite to their respective intentions, and not difagreeably told: the reason why he has not taken his examples from the hiftory of his own country, he acquaints his pupil, is, that it would be dangerous to prejudice him against names borne by perfons whom he must respect, who really deferve his efteem: the tender relation,' he continues, who with respect to you [the difciple] often fuppofes himself a ⚫ man of another age, will endeavour to amuse you in obferving on perfons of another world.' * Omne tulit punétum, qui mifcuit utile dulci, ་ As |