PLATE LXXXI.

Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fig. 8. Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Fig. 11. Fig. 12. Fig. 13. Fig. 14. Fig. 15. Fig. 16. Fig. 17. Fig. 18.

Published by A. Constable & Co Edin' 1820.

Engraved for the Supplement to Encyc. Britan' by W. Archibald. GAS LIGHT

PLATE LXXXII.

Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fig. 8. Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Fig. 11. Fig. 12.

Published by A. Constable & Co Edin. 1820.

Engraved for the Supplement to Eng. Britains by W. Schubald

PLATE LXXXIII.

Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6. Fig. 7. Fig. 8. Fig. 9. Fig. 10. Fig. 11. Fig. 12.

Published by A. Constable & Co. Edin. 1820.

Engraved for the Suppl'd to Engg. Britains. by W. Archibald.

PLATE LXXXIV.

VERTICAL SECTION.

PLAN. Italian; that Genovesi should be the first professor; and that, after his death, no ecclesiastic should succeed him.

Genovesi opened his first course of lectures on the 5th of November 1754, with great success. The novelty and the interest of the subject, the eloquent style and agreeable manner of the professor, attracted a crowd of auditors, and made a deep and lively impression. Nothing was talked of but agriculture and commerce. To gratify the taste of the public for these new inquiries, he afterwards published his Lectures on Commerce, and Carey's Account of the Trade of England, translated into Italian by his brother, and enriched with Notes by himself. His Lectures on Commerce was indisputably the most interesting work he had hitherto published. There are some errors, indeed, in his method, and even in his doctrines; but the work contains many important truths relative to every department of public administration, and a good application of analysis to subjects which had not hitherto been sufficiently investigated. Finally, it had the merit of being the first work which introduced into Italy, and particularly into the kingdom of Naples, a taste for the study of political economy.

The great success of these lectures, which were delivered in Italian, induced Genovesi to draw up a complete code of philosophy in that language. It was at this time the custom in Italy, and particularly at Naples, to teach everything in Latin; a practice which prevented knowledge from spreading among those classes to whom that language was not familiar; and the Neapolitans, at that period, wanted education perhaps more than any other people. He had published, in Italian, his Meditazioni Filosofiche, on religion and morals, and his Lettere Accademiche, on the utility of the arts and sciences; a treatise written in opposition to the well known work of Rousseau on that subject. Following out his plan, he began to recast all his Latin works, to improve their form, and to give them a more interesting character. The first which he published was his treatise on Logic; a work which went through several editions. He afterwards published his Metaphysics, divided into three parts; the first containing an essay on cosmology, the second on theology, and the third on anthropology. In 1767, he published part of a work on the Science of the Rights and Duties of Man; but this work was never completed. In all his writings, and particularly in his Meditations and Letters, the style is somewhat affected; at the same time, they present us with a good exposition of the ideas and systems of the most celebrated philosophers.

After the suppression of the order of the Jesuits, when it became a question with the government, whether they ought to be reinstated in their superintendence of public instruction, Genovesi was consulted, and his advice was, to replace the scholastic chairs, by schools of mathematics, physics, and history; and he proposed one chair for the illustration of Cicero's Offices.

From the commencement of the year 1763, Genovesi had felt the symptoms of a dangerous malady; but he continued to teach and to write to the last day of his life; and before his death, he had the satisfaction of witnessing the great success of his labours. Since the days of Telesius and Campanella, no School had more credit and celebrity at Naples than that of Genovesi. Pupils, some of them men of the most illustrious rank, flocked to his lectures; and those who heard him generally adopted his ideas and followed his maxims. He handled the most abstruse subjects in the most agreeable manner, and in a style almost poetical; a circumstance which gave him a great command over the attention, as well as over the judgment, of his pupils. Indeed, all that Italy has since produced in philosophical and economical science may be said to have originated in the School which he founded. He died of an attack of dropsy, on the 22d of September 1769, aged about fifty-seven.

Such is the account of Genovesi given in the Biographie Universelle. (Tome XVII. p. 86.) The following list of his works is taken from Fabroni: * 1. Disciplinarum metaphysicarum Elementa mathematicum in morem adornata, 1744—1751, 4 vols. 8vo. 2. Elementorum artis logico-criticae libri quinque, Naples, 1745. 3. Discorso sopra alcuni trattati d'Agricoltura, Ibid. 1753. 4. Lettere Accademiche, Ibid. 1764. 5. Storia del Commercio della Gran Bretagna, &c. 1757. 6. Delle Lezioni di Commercio. 7. Discorso sopra l'Agricoltura, with a translation of Tull's Husbandry. 8. Discorso sul volgarizzamento del Saggio Francese sull' Economia de' grain, Naples, 1765. 9. Meditazioni Filosofiche sulla religione e sulla morale, Ibid. 1766. 10. Della Diceosina, o sia della filosofia del giusto e dell' onesto, 1766—1776, 3 vols. 11. Universae Christianae Theologiae elementa dogmatica, historica, critica, a posthumous work, Venice, 1771, 2 vols. 4to.

* Fabroni, Vitæ Italorum doctrina excellentium qui sæculis 17 et 18 floruerunt.