OR,

A DEMONSTRATION

OF THE

BEING AND PERFECTIONS OF GOD;

FROM A CONSIDERATION OF

THE STRUCTURE AND ECONOMY OF

INSECTS.

ILLUSTRATED WITH A COPPERPLATE..

Friedrich Christian
BY M. LESSER:

=

WITH NOTES,

BY P. LYONET

EDINBURGH:

DIVINITY SCHOOL
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Printed for WILLIAM CREECH; and T. CADELL, Jun.
and W. DAVIES, London.

1

ADVERTISEMENT.

B

EFORE entring on the perusal of the following Work, it will not perhaps be difagreeable to the Reader, to have fome account of the authors of it.

Of the learned and pious LESSER few particulars are known. He was of Nordhaufen in Germany, and published in 1736, a LITHO-THEOLOGY.

Of the author of the NOTES, we are enabled to give the following account, which was published in the Gentleman's Magazine for September 1789:

MR PETER LYONET, secretary of the Cyphers, translator and patent-master to their High Mightinesses, was born at Maestricht in 1706, and was descended from a very refpectable and ancient family in Lorrain. His ancestors were frequently obliged by the wars and troubles occafioned by the Reformation, to abandon their habitations, and their native country, on account of their zeal for the reformed religion. His great grandfather, after having seen his eftates and poffeffions destroyed and burnt to ashes, and his wife and all his children murdered, was at last reduced to the neceffity of flying. He took refuge in Switzerland, where he was afterwards re-married, and had by his second wife a fon, of whom was born Benjamin Lyonet, French minifter at Housdon, the father of our author.

Mr Peter Lyonet had scarcely attained his seventh year before he difplayed an uncommon strength and agility in all bodily exercises; but he was not less diligent in the improvement of his mind. Being placed at the Latin school, he learned chronology, and exercised himself in Latin, Greek, and French poetry, as alfo in Hebrew, Logic, and the Cartesian Phyfics. He was particularly fond of the study of languages, and understood no less than nine, living and dead; viz. of the former, besides the Dutch and French, the Italian (which he had acquired without the aid of a mafter,) the Spanish, German, and English. Having entered the University of Leyden, he studied the Newtonian Philofophy, Geometry, Algebra, &c. but his father defiring he should attach himself to divinity, he reluctantly abandoned the former studies, as his paffion for them was not easily to be overcome. He at the fame time applied himself toanatomy, and alfo to mufic and drawing. He began afterwards to practife sculpture, and performed several pieces in wood, one of which in particular, which is preserved, is uncommonly admired by the artists. It is a basso relievo, cut in palm-wood, representing Apollo, with the Nine Muses; a most gloririous master-piece, and which the painter Van Gool, in the iecond volume of his "Review of the Dutch painters, &c. under the article Lyonet, styles a wonder-piece.' It excited also the admiration of the painter le Chevalier de Moor. After this, he betook himself to drawing portraits of his friends from life, wherein, after three or four months practice, he became a great proficient. Having attained the degree of candidate in divinity, he refolved to study law, to which he applied himself with so much zeal, that he was promoted at the end of the first year. On this occafion he delivered an academical treatise on the proper use of the torture, which was published, and gained him the esteem of the learned. Arrived at the Hague, he undertook the study of decyphering, and became fecretary of the cyphers, translator of the Latin and French languages, and patentmafter master to their High Mightinesses. Meanwhile, having taken a strong liking to the study of infects, he undertook an historical description of such as are found about the Hague, and to that end collected materials for several volumes; and having invented a method of drawing adapted thereto, he enriched this work with a great number of plates, univerfally admired by all the connoiffeurs who had feen them. In the year 1742 was printed at the Hague a French tranflation of the following work. The love of truth engaged Mr Lyonet to defer the publication of his above-mentioned defcription, and to write the Notes now translated. This performance caused his merit to be universally known and admired. The celebrated M. de Reaumur had the French translation reprinted at Paris, not more on account of the work itself, than of Mr Lyonet's observations; and bestowed on it, as did also many other authors, the highest encomiums. He afterwards executed drawings of the fresh water Polypus for Mr Trembley's beautiful work published in 1744. The ingenious Wandelaar had engraved the first five plates, when Mr Lyonet, who had never witnessed this operation, concerned at the difficulties he experienced in getting the remaining eight finished in the superior style he required, refolved to perform the task himself. He accordingly took a lefson of one hour of Mr Wandelaar, engraved three or four small plates, and immediately began upon the work itself, which he performed in fuch a manner as drew on him the higheft degree of praise, both from Mr Trembley and from many other artists, particularly the celebrated Van Gool already named, who declared that the performance astonished not only the amateurs, but also the most experienced artists. The authors of the " Bibliotheque Raifonnée," 1744, have. likewife certified their admiration of him; for after a long panegyric, they express themselves thus; "We may justly apply to him, what Fontenelle fomewhere says of the famous Leibnitz: "Of many Herculesses antiquity made only one, but of a fingle Lyonet, we may make many learned men."