A DESCRIPTION OF A SWEDISH ENTERTAINMENT, FROM ACERBI'S TRAVELS. THE Swedish dinner parties are expenfive arrangements of fhow and formality. It will often happen that out of forty or fifty people, who appear in confequence of an invitation fent with all poffible ceremony, and perhaps a week or a fortnight before the appointed day, scarcely three or four know one another fufficiently to make the meeting agreeablé. A foreigner may itill fare worfe, and have the misfortune of being feated near a person totally unacquainted with any language but his own. Before the company fit down to dinner, they firft pay their respects to a fide-table laden with bread, butter, cheese, pickled falmon, and Liqueur, or brandy; and by the tafting of these previous to their repast, endeavour to give an edge to their appetite, and to ftimulate the ftomach to perform its office. After this prelude, the guests arrange themselves about the dinner table, where every one finds at his place three kinds of bread, flat and coarte rye bread, white bread, and brown bread. The first fort of bread is what the peasants eat; it is crifp and dry: the fecond fort is common bread; but the brown bread, laft mentioned, has a sweet tafte, being made with the water with which the veffels in the fugar houses are washed, and is the natieft thing poffible. All the dishes are at once put upon the table, but no one is allowed to afk for what he likes best, the dishes being handed round in regular fucceffion; and an Englishman has often occafion for all his patience to wait till the one is put in motion on which he fixed his choice. The Swedes are more knowing in this respect, and, like the French, eat of every thing that comes before them: and although -the different dishes do not feem to harmonize together, yet fuch is the force of habit, that the guests apparently find no inconvenience from the moft oppofite mixtures. Anchovies, herrings, onions, eggs, paftry often meet together on the fame plate, and are fwallowed promifcuously. The sweet Sed non ut placidis coeant immitia. An Italian is not very much at a lofs at these feafts; but an Englishman finds quite uncomfortable and out of his element he fees no wine drank either by the ladies or the gentlemen during dinner; but must take it himself in a folitary manner: he is often obliged to wait for hours before he can help himself to what he prefers to eat, and when the meat arrives, he generally thinks it not dreffed plain enough, but difagreeable from the quantity of spices with which it is seasoned. After dinner the ladies do not leave him to his bottle; he is expected to adjourn immediately with them to the drawing-room, where the company, after thanking the mafter and mistress of the house with a polite or rather ceremonious bow for their good cheer, are regaled with tea and coffee. I have not entered into a circumftantial defcription of these long dinners, but only given the general outline, that I might not inflict upon my readers that ennui, which I confess I have myself sometimes experienced when I was among the number of the guests. In the interval between dinner and fupper, which however, from many hours that are thought neceffary for the acts of eating and drinking, is not long, there is no amusement whatever but playing at cards. If you cannot join in this rational recreation, you are abandoned to your fate, and may fit in fome corner of the room, indulging in meditation on whatever fubject you please. The ftiffness which prevades the Swedish manners feems to originate in court;-the most formal, certainly, in Europe, and intrenched in ceremonies and etiquette. The dress, however, being the national coftume, is not expenfive. A drawing-room terminates commonly in a public fupper for the royal family, who fit alone at table, all the nobility and officers of the kingdom ftanding round as mere fpectators. The ladies of the fenators, and others of equal rank, have the privilege of being feated on tabourets, placed in femicircles at a distance from the table, in front of the king and queen. The household officers of the different branches of the royal family stand behind the chair of the perfonage to whom they belong: the fenators at his Majefty's left hand, and the ambaffadors with other foreigners of diftinction at his right. The king fpeaks to every one according to their rank, the degree of favour they poffefs with him, or other circumftances. The dishes are ferved, and the plates prefented to the royal family by an officer called gentleman of the court. The marshal ftands directly oppofite the king during the whole of the entertainment, and the fteward of his Majesty's household a little to the right behind him. Though the prefence of these officers be wholly useless, it is thought neceffary to complete the groape. When the king has dined, he makes a fign to the queen and to the reft of the family, and all having anfwered with a bow, he rifes from the table, takes a moft gracious leave, and withdraws to his own apartments, followed by the officers of the court. The rest of the royal family do the fame; and no one prefumes to retire before they have quited the room. FOREIGN LITERARY NOTICES. M. Clavier is preparing for publication a French tranflation of Herodotus. The geographical part is to be executed by Barbie du Bocage, who drew the maps for Barthelemi's Anacharffs.-The public is already in poffeffion of an excellent French translation of Herodotus, by M. Augér. M. Dargelas has lately prefented the Society of Sciences, Belles Lettres, and Arts of Bourdeaux, with the defcription of two infects not mentioned in Fabricius, and other entomologists. The infects were found in the neighbourhood of Bourdeaux. The one of them he names Carabus Cancellatus, and the other Scarabæus Burdigalenfis. A proteítant clergyman in Hungary is preparing a new verfe tranflation of Homer, in the Sclavonic language. A valuable collection of the editions of the Greek and Latin claffics has lately been imported from the conti ment. M. Aldini of Bologna, nephew to the celebrated Galvani, proposes to publifh in this country, before he returns to Italy, a work on Galvanifm, and on the manner of its application in the cure of difeafes. The Rev. Dr Williams of Rotherham, and the Rev. Mr Parfons of Leeds, are engaged in printing, on a new and beautiful type, the whole works of the celebrated Dr Doddridge, in ten vols, royal octavo. Mr Woodhoufe, of Caius College, Cambridge, is printing, at the Univerfity prefs, a work entitled, Principles of Analytical Calculation. This gentleman is author of fome valuable papers in the Philofophical Tranfactions. Dr Beauford of Collon, in Ireland, is preparing for publication, a work in two vols. 4to. entitled, "A Sketch of the prefent State of Ireland, Statistical and Picturefque," to be illuftrated with maps, and a variety of ornamental engravings. This work will form a valuable addition to the literature of our country. A new edition of Cumberland's Calvary, in two pocket volumes, ornamented with fine engravings, will appear immediately. Dr Wendebern's German Grammar and Excercifes, a new edition, with confiderable additions and improvements by the author, is in press. The The Life and Posthumous Works of William Cowper, Efq; with an introductory letter to the Right Hon. Earl Cowper, in two vols. 4to. by Mr Hayley, will foon be published. A poem entitled The Temple of Nature, or the Origin of Society, in four cantos, with Notes, by Dr Darwin, is in the prefs. The poem will be in one volume 4to. embellished with plates. Mr Stockdale is preparing for publication three Grand Imperial Topographical Maps of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; to be publifhed by fubfcription on 48 large fheets of Atlas paper, each sheet measuring two feet two inches, by two feet ten inches. The expence of the whole, it is thought, will not amount to less than L. 20,000. A volume of practical fermons, by Theoph. St John, is in the prefs. Mr Nathaniel Bloomfield, brother to the author of the Farmer's Boy, is preparing for publication a small volume of poems, containing an Effay on War, in blank verse, and Hanongton Green, &c. in rhyme. The Rev. E, Nares, author of the book entitled Ores is μsciens, on the plurality of worlds, is about to pubJith a fet of plain practical difcourfes, written for a country congregation. An octavo volume of effays, entitled "Materials for Thinking," by Mr Burden of Northumberland, is in the press, and will speedily be published. The Law Journal, No. 1. a new pe riodical work, embracing every alteration and improvement in the theory and practice of contemporary law, and commencing with the proceedings of Hilary term 1803, to be continued monthly under the conduct of J. Mor gan and Thomas Walter Williams, Barrifters at Law, will be published on the ift of March. The price of each number will be half-a-crown. "When it is recollected, that there are Journals in England which address themselves with acknowledged utility to every other profeffion, and to every other clafs of readers, it cannot fail to excite a confiderable degree of furprife, that the profeffion of the Law should hitherto have been without a refpe&table Journal, whose exclufive province it ought to be, to record and exemplify the great variety of important changes, improvements, and modifeations which are perpetually taking place in the statutes, and in the practice of the feveral courts of judicature. Such a work is, in fact, rendered of more peculiar importance to practitioners of the Law, than to those of any other profeffion, from the nature of their complicated and multifarious engagements, which deprive them of the time neceffary to perufe and digeft the volumnious publications which are continually iffued from the prefs." The work is to confif, 1. Of Reports. 2 Of Valuable Tracts and Communica tions. 3. Of Reviews of Law Books. 4. Of Commentaries upon all new Sta tutes. count of Surry, by Manning, is now in The long expected topographical acgreat forwardness. ding a review of the ftate of fociety, The life of Geoffrey Chaucer; inclucentury, with characters of the princimanners, and the fine arts in the 14th pal perfonages who figured in the courts of Edward III. and Richard II. by Mr Godwin, will be published in February. The price of the book will be three guineas in boards. The fecond volume of the much improved edition of Hutchison's history of Gloucestershire, will be published immesliately. Another volume of the Hiftory of Leicestershire, by Mr Nichols, will be ready in the spring. The Rev. Ifaac Milner, Dean of Carlifle, is engaged in preparing a fecond edition of the first volume of the late Dr Milner's Church Hiftory. He has also begun to print a fourth volume of the fame, from the author's manilfcripts. The fourth volume will carry down the work to about the middle of the fourteenth century. A third edition of Dr Curric's Medical Reports, with additions, is in the prefs. Proposals are iffued for publishing by fubfcription, "A Treatife on the Art of Shooting," by an old fportfman. The work will be printed in one volume 4to. illustrated with plates from entire new designs, and engraved in an elegant ftile. A history of the wars which arose out of the French revolution, from their commencement in 1792, until the figning of the preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and France, by Alexander Stephens, is in the prefs, and and will be published in February. A review of the causes and early progrefs of the French revolution will be prefixed. Don Raphael, a romance in three vols. by G. Walker, is in the prefs, and will be published immediately. A work entitled, Addisoniana, in two volumes, will speedily be published. It will confift of curious anecdotes, and facts connected with the literary life of Addison, his contemporaries, and the period when he flourished. Addifoniana, we hear, will be followed by Miltoniana, Swiftiana, and Wilkefiana, on a fimilar plan. A fmall tract upon the impropriety of the prefent method of teaching Chriftian theology, by the Rev. John Simpfon, is in the prefs. At Paris there is announced for sale a fuperb cabinet of medals, collected during forty years, in Asia, Africa, and Europe, by D. Ballyet, ci-devant Bithop of Babylon, and French Conful at Bagdad. This collection confifts of nearly 6500 medals of gold, filver, and bronze, claffed and arranged by the Bishop's nephew, a diftinguished amateur of Befançon, to whom they defcended by inheritance. We hear that an establishment has been formed at Vienna, under the direction of M. Schregvogel, called the Repofitory of Arts and Induftry, comprehending the art of defign, mufic, and literature. A curious piece of very antient mar ble was lately found thrown afide in the poultry yard of the late earl of Belborough, at Rochampton. It contains a large infcription in the Greek lan guage, upon a man who had paffed through various fituations in life. Mr Townley, who is fo defervedly elteemed for his taste and knowledge in the reliques of antient art, has had an engraving made of it for his private friends, and the infcription has been elucidated with great learning and acumen by the Rev. Mr Kydd. M. Jean Schweighoufer has lately publifhed at Strafburg, a new edition of the text of Athenæus Naucratites, the Deipnofophift, with commentaries, &c. The first printed edition of Athenæus was that of Aldus, publifhed at This edition Venice in the year 1414. is confidered inaccurate both by Calaubon and the prefent editor. The second edition was published at Bafil in 1535, by Jean Bedfot, and Christian Herlin. This was little elfe than the edition of Aldus reprinted, much to the worse. After thefe two editions appeared, Athenæus being in the hands of all the learned, was foon tranflated by Noel le Comte, the only advantage of whofe labour, according to Cafaubon, was the filling up, by the help of MSS. a confiderable deficiency which had remained, till his time, in the fifteenth book. The verfion of Delachamp was printed at Lyons in 1583. The edition of Cafaubon appeared afterwards in 1597, the original of all thofe now in ufe, which was followed three years after by his great commentary. The great merit of this new edition confifts in its having been revised by two excellent manufcripts, one of which was almoft forgotten; the other feems hitherto to have been altogether unknown. We learn that M. de la Rochette is reviling a famous MS, from which he propofes to publish the Greek Anthology entire; a work hitherto known but very imperfectly. The fird volume of a new work, entitled the Annual Keview, or Register of Literature, to be continued annually, under the direction of Dr Aiken, will appear immediately." The great aim of this review is to fupply the acknowledged deficiences which detract from the merit of the prefent journals, as impartial regifters of the literature of the country. For this purpose, an annual volume appears to poffefs feveral advantages, that diftinguish and recommend it in preference to a monthly fe ries. The reviewer, with all the books of the year before him, difpofed according to their respective subjects, has an opportunity of more juttly apportioning the degree of notice to be allotted to each clafs, than is poffible to be done according to the prefent method." It is the intention of the editor to devote each volume to the review of the works of the preceding year alone; "fo that the reader will be prefented with an uninterrupted history of the annual advancement of fcience, and of the rife and progrefs of those disputes on literary or grave fubjects, which are from time to time brought forward to general notice." It will be a leading object with those engaged in this publication, to give a fair and fufficiently ample a nalytis nalyfis of the works that come before them, together with characteristic and useful or entertaining extracts, fo as to enable the reader to form his own opinion on their merits and defects. Mr Ezekiel Walker's cheap method of producing light, noticed in our laft number, confists in ufing candles of ten to the pound, which are to be placed at an angle of 30 degrees with the perpendicular. A method is faid to be invented by the Rev. T. D. Foserbrooke of saving the whole, or greatest part of the lives of the crew, in cafe of a fhipwreck, without altering the prefent form or conftruction of veffels. The profeffors of the Museum of Natural History in the garden of plants at Paris, have formed themlelves into a fociety, with a view of publishing whatever occurs new and interefting in this branch of national education. The extenfiveness of the collection, and the conftant accumulation of new and interefting phenomena, will afford ample matter for their new publication, continued monthly, which they entitle "The Annals of the Museum of Natural Hiftory." The first number has already appeared. It confifts of ten fheets and four plates, 4to; so that this pub lication will form, at the end of the year, two large quarto volumes of the neweft matter in the several branches of natural history, such as comparative anatomy, Chemistry, &c. The plates will be principally copied from nature, and executed by artists of known merit. Hence they cannot fail to become important to thofe who have not an extenfive cabinet to which they can refort. The Cow Pox Inftitution has probably given the idea of another establishment in London, on a plan fomewhat fimilar, entitled the "Perkinean Inftitution.' The immediate object of it is ftated to be, The application of Perkin's Metallic Tractors to the disorders of the poor, and the extenfion of the knowledge of the principle of the Metallic Practice. It is proposed to publifh their tranfactions annually, which will confift of the practice with the tractors at the inftitution, and correfpondence to be opened with literary characters both at home and abroad, on Perkinifm, or rather Galvanism, which is the fame principle. The long controverfy respecting the merit of the metallic tractors may now perhaps be confidered as decided in their favour. SCOTISH LITERARY NOTICES. WE hear that a life of the late Dr James Hutton, by Profeffor Playfair, will foon be given to the public. Profeffor John Hill, is engaged in a Life of the late Dr Blair. There is in the prefs, and will foon be published, in 2 vols, 8vo. Spallanzani's" Tracts on the Natural History of Animals and Vegetables," tranflated from the original Italian: to which are added fome Memoirs on Animal Reproduction, In thefe volumes are the author's hiftory of the Animalcula Infuforia, which is inveftigated with great acuteness, and and is the first tract; secondly, the hiftory of Seminal Vermiculi, animals which have been equally the object of VOL. LXV. curiofity and admiration ever fince their difcovery. In the third tract are difcuffed various theories on the caufe of death in ftagnant air. But the moft wonderful of all philofophical enquiries is engroffed in the following tract, which is a treatise on certain animals which may be killed and revived. There it is demonftrated, by rigorous experiment, that animals exift which may remain dead feveral years, and then be capable of refurrection. The fifth and laft tract is an enquiry into the origiu of mould. It is proved to be a real plant, poffeffing fome uncommon properties. The Memoirs on Animal Reproduc tion relate to the regenerations of Inails H and |