a word lately introduced to express a view or survey of any kingdom, county, or parish.

A Statistical view of Germany was published in 1790 by Mr B. Clarke: giving an account of the imperial and territorial constitutions, forms of government, legislation, administration of justice, and of the ecclesiastical state; instances of good and bad seasons; quantity and value of each species of crop; total value of the whole produce of the district; total quantity of grain and other articles consumed in the parish; wages and price of labour; services, whether exacted or abolished; commerce; manufactures; manufacture of kelp, its amount, and the number of people employed in it; fisheries; towns and villages; police; inns and alehouses; roads and bridges; harbours, ferries, and their state; number of ships and vessels; number of seamen; state of the church; stipend, manse, glebe, and patron; number of poor; parochial funds, and the management of them; state of the schools, and number of scholars; ancient state of population; causes of its increase or decrease; number of families; exact amount of the number of souls now living; division of the inhabitants; 1. by the place of their birth; 2. by their ages; 3. by their religious persuasions; 4. by their occupations and situation in life; 5. by their residence, whether in town, village, or in the country; number of houses; number of uninhabited houses; number of dove-cots, and to what extent they are destructive to the crops; number of horses, their nature and value; number of cattle, their nature and value; number of sheep, their nature and value; number of swine, their nature and value; minerals in general; mineral springs; coal and fuel; eminent men; antiquities; parochial records; miscellaneous observations; character of the people; their manners, customs, stature, &c.; advantages and disadvantages; means by which their situation could be meliorated.

If similar surveys (says the public-spirited editor of this work) were instituted in the other kingdoms of Europe, it might be the means of establishing, on sure foundations, the principles of that most important of all sciences, viz. political or statistical philosophy; that is, the science, which, in preference to every other, ought to be held in reverence. No science can furnish, to any mind capable of receiving useful information, so much real entertainment; none can yield such important hints for the improvement of agriculture, for the extension of commercial industry, for regulating the conduct of individuals, or for extending the prosperity of the state; none can tend so much to promote the general happiness of the species.