ADVERTISEMENT

RESPECTING

THE PRESENT EDITION,

AND THE

WORK IN GENERAL.

HE first Edition of this Work, published

THE

in December 1784, was nearly out of print in December 1785. It run it's natural course,

in about the space of a year, without my having employed any one trick of the trade to puff it off, to accelerate the sale, or to send it abroad for a market: I may, therefore, flatter myself that it has been graciously received in my own Country. It appears, likewise, to have been relished by strangers; for, within these six months, pirated impressions of it have appeared at Geneva and Avignon; and this literary plunder might have injured me, had not M. Laurent de Villedeuil, then Director-general of the Press, now Intendant of Rouen, and universally known for the strictest honour and probity of character, given, on my simple request, the most peremptoryorders to prohibit the admission of those pirated copies VOL. I.

b

into

into the Kingdom*. Farther, the publication of this Work afforded an opportunity to Messrs. the Count de Vergennes, the Baron de Breteuil and de Calonne, my ancient and illustrious subscribers, at the solicitation of my respectable friends, Messrs. Hennin and Mesnard, of Conichard, of procuring for me, or for my family, some annual marks of the KING'S benevolence.

This success ought, undoubtedly, to have satisfied me, but I am no less so, with the honourable professions of friendship which have been tendered to me,by persons of all conditions, and of both sexes, most of whom are unknown to me. Some distinguished me by their visits; and others by epistolary addresses the most affecting, conveying their thanks for my Book, as if, in giving it to the Public, I had conferred a personal obligation on themselves. Several of them have invited me to take up my residence at their country seats, and to enjoy those rural scenes, of which, as they are pleased to say, I am so passionately fond. Yes, undoubtedly, Ishould dearly

* I have been informed, that, within these four months, they had found their way to Lyons, to Marseilles, to Toulon, and, undoubtedly, to other places; so that the booksellers of those cities have not been provided, for four months past, with copies of my Edition, by which the sale of it has been considerably checked. An infringement so unjustifiable of the rights of property of Authors, and of their privileges, and so contrary to Royal authority, ought certainly to be discouraged. And I look for redress against such acts of injustice, from the equity of the Magistrate who presides over the Press.

love a country residence, but a residence which I could call my own, and not another man's.

I made the best acknowledgement in my power, to tenders of service so flattering; but could avail myself only of the good-will which they breathed. Benevolence is the flower of friendship, and it's perfume always lasts so long as you let it remain on the stem, without gather ing it. The afflicted father of a family has informed me that my Studies were to him the sweetest source of consolation in his distress. An Atheist, of a city far distant from Paris, has paid me frequent visits, struck even to admiration, as be said, at the harmonies of plants which I had indicated, and of which he had recognised the extistence in Nature.

Personages of real importance, and others who wished to pass for such, have endeavoured to allure me to them, by holding out gilded prospects of melioration of fortune: but as long as I can attain the rare felicity of being beloved, and, what is of still greater importance to me, the power of being useful, so long shall I fly, if I can, the calamity so common, and so humiliat ing, of being under protection. I speak not thus out of vanity, but to express my gratitude in the best manner I am able, as my custom is, for the slightest mark of kindness shewn me, provided I can believe it sincere.

1

I have reason to believe, then, from these concurring suffrages of persons of character, that GOD has been pleased to bless my labours, though chargeable with manifold imperfections. I consider it to be my duty to render the Work as worthy of the public esteem as I can: accordingly, I have corrected in this new Edition, the errors of the Press, the blemishes in point of style, and the obscurities in point of meaning, which I remarked in the first; and this partly by myself, partly with the assistance of certain well-informed friends, without, however, retrenching any thing material, and this too in conformity to their wishes. I have only taken the liberty, for the sake of perspicuity, to make some transpositions in the notes. In the same view I have added some others, and among these, in the explication of the plates, a geometrical figure, which renders perceptible tothe eye the mistake of our Astronomers, respecting the flatness of the Earth at the Poles, and affords new proofs of the alternate and half-yearly course of the Atlantic Ocean, by the melting of the polar ices. Finally, I have employed a set of new and beautiful types of the foundry of M. Didot, the younger, that the reputation of this Artist might contribute its share toward the celebrity of the Work.

I should have deemed myself happy to derive information respecting the subject of my Book, from

from the illumination, and from the candid decisions of literary Journalists. Gentlemen of this description have been left, for this purpose, entirely to their own discretion; for I have neither by myself, or by others, solicited approbation, or deprecated criticism; but they have, for the most part, confined themselves to observations of no essential importance. That Journal which contains, of all others, the greatest variety of articles, and which, from the great talents of the persons engaged in conducting it, seemed most likely to instruct me, finds fault with me for having affirmed, That animals were not exposed, by Nature, to perish, like Man, by famine; and is has objected to me, the case of partridges and hares, in the vicinity of Paris, which sometimes die of hunger in the Winter. But as, on the one hand, these animals are multiplied without end, all around Paris; and as, on the other, we mow down every thing, even to a blade of grass, it necessarily must, sometimes, happen, that they perish with hunger, especially if the Winter is somewhat long. The famine, therefore, which they endure in our fields, is occasioned by the inconsiderateness of Man, not the improvidence of Nature. Partridges and hares do not die of hunger in the forests of the North, where the Winter lasts for six months together they know well how to find under the