men followed, and kneeling down, they all kiffed the ground which they had fo long defired to fee. They next erected a crucifix, and, proftrating themfelves before it, returned thanks to God for conducting their voyage to fuch an happy iffue. They then took folemn poffeffion of the country for the crown of Caftile and Leon, with all the formalities which the Portuguese were accustomed to obferve in acts of this kind in their new discoveries.

The Spaniards, while thus employed, were furrounded by many of the natives, who gazed, in filent admiration, upon actions which they did not comprehend, and of which they did not forefee the confequences. The dress of the Spaniards, the whitenefs of their skins, their beards, their arms, appeared strange and furprifing. The vaft machines in which they had traverfed the ocean, that feemed to move upon the waters with wings, and uttered a dreadful found refembling thunder, accompanied with lightning and smoke, ftruck them with fuch terror, that they began to refpect their new guests as a fuperior order of beings, and concluded that they were children of the Sun, who had defcended to visit the earth. History of America,

GOLDSMITH.

Between 1729 and 1774.)

Examine a favage in the hiftory of his country and prédeceffors: you will find his warriors able to conquer armies, and his fages acquainted with more than poffible knowledge: human nature is to him an unknown country; he thinks it capable of great things, because he is ignorant of its boundaries whatever can be conceived to be done, he allows to be poffible, and whatever is poffible, he conjectures muft have been done. He never meafures the actions and powers of others, by what himfelf is able to perform, nor makes a proper eftimate of the greatnefs of his fellows, by bringing it to the standard of his own incapacity. He is fatisfied to be one of a country where mighty things have been; and imagines the fancied powers of others reflect a luftre on himfelf. Thus, by degrees he lofes the idea of his own infignifieance, in a confufed notion of the extraordinary powers of humanity, and is willing to grant extraordinary gifts to every pretender, becaufe unacquainted with their claim.

This is the reafon why demi-gods and heroes have ever been erected in times or countries of ignorance and barbarity; they addreffed a people who had high opinions of human nature, becaufe they were ignorant how far it could extend; they addreffed a people who were willing to allow that men fhould be gods, becaufe they were yet imperfectly acquainted with God and with man. Thefe impoftors knew, that all men are naturally fond of feeing fomething very great, made from the little materials of humanity; that ignorant nations are not more proud of building a tower to reach heaven, or a pyramid to last for ages, than of raifing up a demi-god of their own country and creation. The fame pride that erects a coloffus or a pyramid, inftals a god or an hero but though the adoring favage can raise his coloffus to the clouds, he can exalt the hero not one inch above the ftandard of humanity; incapable therefore of exalting the idol, he debafes himfelf and falls proftrate before him. Citizen of the World.

JOHNSON.

(Between 1706 and 1784.)

The place, which the wifdom or policy of antiquity had deftined for the refidence of the Abyffinian princes, was a fpacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, furrounded on every fide by mountains, of which the fummits overhang the middle part. The only paffage, by which it could be entered, was a cavern that paffed under a rock, of which it had long been difputed whether it was the work of nature or of human induftry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was clofed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, fo maffy that no man without the help of engines could open or fhut them.

From the mountains on every fide, rivulets defcended that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake in the middle inhabited by fish of every fpecies, and frequented by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water. The lake difcharged its fuperfluities by a ftream which entered a dark cleft of the mountain on the northern fide, and fell with dreadful noife from precipice to precipice till it was heard no more.

The fides of the mountains were covered with trees, the banks of the brooks were diverfified with flowers; every blait fhook fpices from the rocks, and every month dropped fruits upon the ground. All animals that bite the grafs, or browse the fhrub, whether tame or wild, wandered in this extenfive circuit, fecured from beafts of prey by the mountains which confined them. On one part were flocks and herds feeding in the pastures, on another all the beafts of chace frifking in the lawns; the fprightly kid was bounding on the rocks, the fubtle monkey frolicking in the trees, and the folemn elephant repofing in the fhade. All the diverfities of the world were brought together, the bleffings of na ture were collected, and its evils extracted and excluded. Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.

STUART.

(Between 1742 and 1786.)

The knight while he acquired, in the company of the la dies, the graces of external behaviour, improved his natural fenfibility and tendernefs. He fmoothed over the roughness of war with politenefs. To be rude to a lady, or to speak to her difadvantage, was a crime which could not be par doned. He guarded her poffeffions from the rapacious, and maintained her reputation against flander. The uncourteous offender was driven from the fociety of the valiant; and the interpofition of the fair was often neceffary to protect. him from death. But the courtesy of the knight, though due in a peculiar manner to the female fex, extended itfelf to all the bufinefs and intercourfe of civil life. He ftudied a habitual elegance of manners. Politenefs became a knightly virtue; it even attended him to the field of battle, and checked his paffions in the ardour of victory. The generofity and the delicate attentions he fhewed to the enemy he had vanquished, are a fatire on the warriors of antiquity. His triumphs were difgraced by no indecent joy, no brutal ferocity. Courteous and generous in the general strain of his conduct, refined to extravagance in his gallantry to the ladies, and declared protector of religion and innocence, he was himself to be free from every stain. His rank, his duties, and his cares, made him aim at the perfection of virtue. View of Society in Europe.

GIBBON.

(Between 1737 and 1794.)

The rage of the Donatifts was enflamed by a phrenzy of a very extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them in fo extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any country, or in any age. Many of these fanatics were poffeffed with the horror of life and the defire of martyrdom; and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they perifhed, if their conduct was fanctified with the intention of devoting themfelves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope of eternal happinefs. Sometimes they rudely difturbed the festivals, and profaned the temples of paganifm, with the defign of excit ing the moft zealous of the idolaters to revenge the infulted honour of their gods. They fometimes forced their way into the courts of juftice, and compelled the affrighted judge to give orders for their immediate execution. They fre quently ftopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to inflict the ftroke of martyrdom, by the promife of a reward, if they confented, and by the threat of inftant death, if they refufed to grant fo very fingular a favour. When they were difappointed of every other refource, they announced the day on which, in the prefence of their friends and brethren, they fhould caft themfelves headlong from fome lofty rock; and many precipices were fhewn, which had acquired fame by the number of religious fuicides. History of the Roman Empire.

BURKE.

(Between 1729 and 1797.)

By a conftitutional policy, working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we tranfmit our government, and our privileges, in the fame manner in which we enjoy and tranfmit our property and lives. The inftitutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of Providence, are handed down to us and from us, in the fame courfe and or der. Our political fyftem is placed in a juft correfpondence: and fymmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body compofed

of transitory parts; wherein, by the difpofition of ftupendous wifdom, moulding together the great myfterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable conftancy, moves on through the varied tenour of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progreffion. Thus, by preferving the method of nature in the conduct of the ftate, in what we improve we are never wholly new; in what we retain we are never wholly obfolete. By adhering in this manner and on thefe principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the fuperftition of antiquaries, but by the fpirit of philofophic analogy. In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the conftitution of our country with our dearest domeftic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bofom of our family affections; keeping infeparable, and cherithing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our ftate, our hearths, our fepulchres, and our altars

Reflections on the Revolution in France.

OBSERVATIONS

E

ON

EPISTOLARY WRITING.

PISTOLARY writing' poffeffes a kind of middle place between the ferious and amufing fpecies of compo fition. It appears, at first view, to stretch into a very wide field. For there is no fubject whatever, on which a perfon may not convey his thoughts to the public, in the form of a letter: Shaftesbury, for inftance, and feveral other wri ters, have chofen to give this form to philofophical treatifes Birt this circunftance is not fufficient to clals fuch treatifes under the head of epiftolary compofition. Though they are entitled "A letter to a Friend," yet, after the first addrefs, the friend difappears, and we perceive that it is, in truth, the public with whom the author corresponds. Seneca's

&