THERE are few writers of books in this new world, and amongst these very few that deal in works of imagination, and, I am sorry to say, fewer still that have any success attending their lucubrations. Per­haps, however, the world thinks justly on this subject. [Page 43] The productions of the most brilliant imagination are at best but mere beautiful flowers, that may amuse us in a walk through a garden in a fine afternoon, but can by no means be expected to engage much of that time which God and nature designed to be spent in very different employments. In a country, which two hun­dred years ago was peopled only by savages, and where the government has ever, in effect, since the first esta­blishment of the white men in these parts, been no other than republican, it is really wonderful there should be any polite original authors at all in any line, especially when it is considered, that according to the common course of things, any particular nation or people must have arrived to, or rather passed, their [Page 44] meridian of opulence and refinement, before they con­sider the professors of the fine arts in any other light than a nuisance to the community. This is evidently the case at present in our age and country; all you have to do the [...], my good friends, is to graft your au­thor [...] upon some other calling, or support drooping genius by the assistance of some mechanical employ­ment, in the same manner as the helpless ivy takes hold of the vigorous oak, and cleaves to it for sup­port—I mean to say, in plain language, that you may make something by weaving garters, or mending old sails, when an Epic poem would be your utter de­struction.

BUT I see no reason that, because we are all striv­ing to live by the same idle trade, we should suffer ourselves to be imbittered against each other, like a fraternity of rival mechanics in the same street. Au­thors (such I mean as are not possessed of fortunes) are at present considered as the dregs of the community: their situation and prospects are truly humiliating, and any other sett of men in a similar state of calamitous adversity would unite together for their mutual defence, instead of worrying and lampooning each other for the amusement of the illiberal vulgar.—And I cannot do otherwise than freely declare, that where the whole profits of a company amount to little or nothing at all, there ought not, in the nature of things, to be any quarrelling about shares and dividends.

As to those authors who have lately exported them­selves from Britain and Ireland, and boast that they have introduced the Muses among us since the conclu­sion of the late war, I really believe them to be a very good natured sett of gentlemen, nowithstanding they, in the course of the last winter, called me poctaster and scribbler, and some other names still more unsa­voury. They are, however, excuseable in treating the American authors as inferiors; a political and a literary independence of their nation being two very [Page 45] different things—the first was accomplished in about seven years, the latter will not be completely effected, perhaps, in as many centuries. It is my opinion, ne­vertheless, that a duty ought to be laid upon all im­ported authors, the nett proceeds of which should be appropriated to the benefit of real American writers, when become old and helpless, and no longer able to wield the pen to advantage.

IF a coach or a chariot constructed in Britain, pays an impost of twenty pounds at the custom-house, why should not at least twice that sum be laid upon all im­ported authors who are able to do twice as much mis­chief with their rumbling pindaric odes, and gorgeous apparatus of strophes, antistrophes and recitativos?—I, for my own part, am clearly of opinion, that these gentlemen should be taxed; not that I would wish to nip their buds of beauty with the untimely frost of excise, but merely to teach them that our own natural manufactures ought to be primarily attended to and encouraged.

I WILL now, gentlemen, with your leave, lay down a few simple rules, to which, in my opinion, every genuine author will make no difficulty to conform.

1. WHEN you write a book for the public, have no­thing to do with Epistles dedicatory. They were first invented by slaves, and have been continued by fools and sycophants. I would not give a farthing more for a book on account of its being patronized by all the no­blemen or crowned heads in Christendom. If it does not posses intrinsic merit enough to protect itself, and force its way through the world, their supposed protec­tion will be of no avail: besides, by this ridiculous prac­tice you degrade the dignity authorial, the honour of authorship, which ought evermore to be uppermost in your thoughts. The silly unthinking author ad­dresses a great man in the stile of a servile dependent, whereas a real author, and a man of true genius, has upon all occasions a bold, disinterested and daring con­fidence [Page 46] in himself, and considers the common cant of adulation to the sons of fortune as the basest and most abominable of all prostitution.

2. BE particularly careful to avoid all connexion with doctors of law and divinity, masters of arts, pro­fessors of colleges, and in general all those that wear square black caps. A mere scholar and an original author are two animals as different from each other as a fresh and salt water sailor. There has been an old rooted enmity between them from the earliest ages, and which it is likely will forever continue. The scholar is not unlike that piddling orator, who, cold and inanimate, not roused into action by the impelling flame of inspiration, can only pronounce the oration he has learned by rote; the real author, on the contrary, is the nervous Demosthenes, who stored with an im­mensity of ideas, awakened within him he knows not how, has them at command upon every occasion; and must therefore be disregarded as a madman or an en­thusiast by the narrow and limited capacity, as well as the natural self-sufficiency of the other.

3. IT is risquing a great deal to propose a subscripti­on for an original work. The world will be ready enough to anticipate your best endeavours; and that which has been long and anxiously expected, rarely or never comes up to their expectations at last.

4. IF you are so poor that you are compelled to live in some miserable garret or cottage; do not repine, but give thanks to heaven that you are not forced to pass your life in a tub, as was the fate of Diogenes of old. Few authors in any country are rich, because a man must first be reduced to a state of penury before he will commence author. Being poor therefore in externals, take care, gentlemen, that you say or do nothing that may argue a poverty of spirit. Riches, we have often heard, are by no means the standard of the value of a man. This maxim the world allows to be true, and yet contradicts it every hour and minute [Page 47] in the year. Fortune most commonly bestows wealth and abundance upon fools and idiots; and men of the dullest natural parts are, notwithstanding, generally best calculated to acquire large estates, and hoard up immense sums from small beginnings.

5. NEVER borrow money of any man, for if you should once be mean enough to fall into such a habit you will find yourselves unwelcome guests every where. If upon actual trial you are at length convinced you possess no abilities that will command the esteem, ve­neration or gratitude of mankind, apply yourselves without loss of time to some of the lower arts, since it is far more honourable to be a good bricklayer or a skilful weaver than an indifferent poet.—If you cannot at all exist without now and then gratifying your itch for scribbling, follow my example who can both weave stockings and write poems.—But, if you really possess that sprightliness of fancy and elevation of soul which alone constitute an author, do not on that account be troublesome to your friends. A little reflection will point out other means to extract money from the hands and pockets of your fellow citizens than by poorly bor­rowing what, perhaps, you will never be able to repay.

6. NEVER engage in any business as an inferior or understrapper. I cannot endure to see an author de­base his profession so far as to submit to be second or third in any office or employment whatever. If for­tune, or the ill taste of the public compels you even to turn shallopman on the Delaware, let it be your first care to have the command of the boat. Beggary itself, with all its hideous apparatus of rags and mi­sery, becomes at once respectable whenever it exhibits the least token of independence of spirit and a single spark of laudable ambition.

7. IF you are in low circumstances, do not forget that there is such a thing in the world as a decent pride. They are only cowards and miscreants that poverty can render servile in their behaviour. Your [Page 48] haughtiness should always rise in proportion to the wretchedness and desperation of your circumstances. If you have only a single guinea in the world be com­plaisant and obliging to every one: If you are abso­lutely destitute of a shilling, immediately assume the air of a despot, pull off your hat to no one, let your discourse, in every company, turn upon the vanity of riches, the insignificancy of the great men of the earth, the revolution of empires, and the final con­summation of all things.—By such means you will at least conceal a secret of some importance to yourself—that you have not a shilling in the world to pay for your last night's lodging.

8. SHOULD you ever be prevailed upon to dedicate your book to any great man or woman, consider first, whether the tenor and subject of it be such as may in some measure coincide with the age, temper, educa­tion, business and general conversation of the person whose patronage is requested. A friend of mine once committed a great error on this score. He wrote a bawdy poem, and dedicated it to the principal in the department of finance.

9. NEVER make a present of your works to great men. If they do not think them worth purchasing, trust me, they will never think them worth reading.

10. IF fortune seems absolutely determined to starve you, and you can by no means whatever make your works sell; to keep up as much as in you lies, the ex­piring dignity of authorship, do not take to drinking, gambling or bridge-building as some have done, there­by bringing the trade of authorship into disrepute; but retire to some uninhabited island or desert, and there, at your leisure, end your life with decency.

THE above is all that has yet been sound written by Robert Slender relative to authors and authorship—and further the copyist at this time sayeth not.

IT is full six months since I was persuaded by a friend to pay a visit to a certain picture gallery in a country town, upon his assuring me it was much frequented by people of taste, and that the views and entertainments there exhibited would well reward me for the expence and trouble of attending them. At our first entrance I was struck with a vast number of half-finished faces, hung up on the wall on either side of me, the originals of several of which, however, I recollected to have seen before in different parts and places of these States.—The person whose business it was to attend upon stran­gers in this gallery and explain matters to them, being ignorant of this circumstance, and taking me for a fo­reigner, began immediately to give me, very circum­stantially, a short history of these worthies, one by one, concluding the account of every individual with assert­ing that this one also had a very great share in accom­plishing the American Revolution.

THIS one (observed I to my friend) I very well know, and this one, and him yonder on horseback, but who are these?—I recognize exactly the features of his excellency the commander in chief, and here is Reed, and Moultrie, and Marion; and there is Lincoln, and Montgomery, and Greene, and some few others I might name—but who are yonder fat headed animals that are also putting in their claim for immortality?—To tell you the truth, replied my friend, there are too many placed here who are remarkable for nothing but their wealth, their impudence, or their meanness; and [Page 50] who, instead of having really contributed to the esta­blishment of the liberties of America, grew fat upon the miseries of the soldiery, and approved of the Ame­rican Revolution only as it promised to bring about a revolution in their own fortunes for the better.—This was their virtue, this was their patriotism.—Find­ing little or nothing worth detaining us any longer in this school of art, except some few miniatures, we took our leave and returned home.—Having been somewhat fatigued with the walk, I went to bed earlier than common in the evening, and, amongst other dreams and visions of the night, I once more, in imagination, paid a visit to the pictures and heads we had been looking at the preceding day.

I IMAGINED I saw the painter standing in the en­trance of his gallery, which was besieged by a num­ber of humble petitioners, each in his turn recapitu­lating his own merits and services, and earnestly re­questing the artist to take their likenesses for the sa­tisfaction and information of posterity, as they pre­tended they had, individually, a very great share in accomplishing the American Revolution.

THE first that particularly attracted my attention was an honest shoemaker.—‘Ah, God bless your honour, (said he to the painter) you cannot possi­bly have already forgot the services of John Bull­skin, cordwainer, who once mended a pair of boots for his excellency General WASHINGTON when he was marching to besiege little York!—it is likewise well known that I risqued my life and ventured my awl for the good of the country when I made shoes for Captain Sturgeon's company—indeed, had the enemy taken me prisoner, while employed in mak­ing rebel shoes, you know I should most certainly have been sent to England and beheaded!’—

THE painter at first seemed inclined to comply with the applicant's request, when a person whispered in his ear that this fellow was not only low in the world, but [Page 51] had, on a certain occasion, been entrusted with a par­cel of shoe leather belonging to the public stores and designed for the use of the soldiery, more than half of which he had been convicted of embezzling and applying to his own use and emoluments.—The pain­ter then observed to him, that to be a rogue and poor at the same time was truly despicable—‘Go, said he, go, thou son of Crispin, acquire five or six thou­sand pounds by speculation, extortion, or how you please; make me a handsome present; out of it, and thy swarthy visage shall brighten up in my gallery, and command the veneration of thy fellow citizens for ages and generations to come.’

THE next personage that presented himself was a harmless taylor: the moment I saw him, I knew, and could have sworn to his occupation, not only from his aukward gait, but also from a large pair of shears he carried under his left arm. It was sometime before he could find an opportunity to make himself known to the painter, but at last taking advantage of a small and momentary opening among the throng of petition­ers, he boldly presented himself, and demanded au­dience.

AND pray, friend, said the painter, what are your merits and pretensions?—I see nothing in your face that entitles you to a station in my gallery of immor­tality—Have you served in the army and been cheated out of your pay—so much for revolutions, my lad.—When you wielded the sword in defence of liberty you thought you were somebody, but you must be a simple­ton if you are not convinced by this time that you were nothing. If you have been cheated, I indeed pity your case and condition, but I suspect there is no­thing so particular or uncommon in either as to coun­tenance a claim to everlasting remembrance.

I HAVEN [...] served in the army, replied the tay­lor, nor am I acquainted with the use of any weapon but this, and this (first pointing to his shears, and then [Page 52] to a large needle in his sleeve) yet by these two have I amassed thousands, and without shedding a single drop of blood I have therewith gained more real honour than ever attended the spontoon, the dagger, the short dirk, or even the long three edged sword.

I BEG pardon, cried the painter, I really did not know I had been all this time conversing with so con­siderable a personage as you seem to be. Will you do me the pleasure to acquaint me with your name and quality.

MY name, answered the other, with some warmth, is Galumpus; a name that cannot be otherwise than familiar to you, if you are in the least conversant in the affairs of the great world. Without my assistance the American Revolution must undoubtedly have been nipped in the bud, and left to be accomplished by the men of future ages. What a savage and con­temptible appearance would our armies have made, had not I, the renowned and ever memorable Galumpus, stepped in to their assistance, in the hour of distress and misery, and with this right hand stripping off their Indian blankets and shapeless attire, arrayed them in the robes of comeliness, and distinguishable only from the men of Europe by the different colours of their garments!

IF what you say be true, replied the painter, you indeed deserve the acknowledgments and recollection of late posterity—but I must make some enquiry about you from those who are not so much interested in your behalf as you yourself appear to be.—A person then advanced, who assured the painter, in the hear­ing of the whole assembly, that this man had, on a certain occasion, been entrusted with a large quantity of the public cloth, intended for the use of the army in the time of the late war, and that, by appropriat­ing about one third of it to his own use, he had ac­quired a handsome estate, while many of the soldiers, [Page 53] in consequence, perished by the severity of the wea­ther, and for want of the stipulated supply.

THE petitioner was a good deal disconcerted at this information, which he seemed to suppose had been forgotten; he nevertheless soon after repeated his re­quest with a face of unparallelled impudence, and of­fered no less than forty guineas as the purchase of immortality.

THE painter hesitated:—at last a by-stander sug­gested that the picture should be drawn, and hung up in the gallery, provided a naked soldier, perishing with cold, was added to the piece in one corner of the back ground, and a gallows with a ladder, and a rope sus­pended from it, in the other.

THE crowd was by this time increased to a very great number, all bound hither on the same errand. But I could not avoid observing, that the men of real merit and virtue, the maimed and unrewarded soldier, and the honest and disinterested patriot, hung back in the rear of the throng; while impudence, avarice, selfishness, ignorance, cowardice and villainy were foremost, and most vociferous in arrogating those ho­nours to themselves which were due to those only who had the modesty not to be perpetually troubling the world with the history of their merits; and whom ex­perience had taught to consider the neglect and ingra­titude of their countrymen as the most honourable badge of distinction.

I SHOULD doubtless have been witness to number­less other applications to the painter, but unfortunate­ly, in the midst of my dream, a favorite spaniel, that sleeps every night at the foot of my bed, suddenly barked at something that disturbed him, and thus de­prived the world of the remainder of my dream.

I WAS some time since (perhaps twenty months ago) prevailed upon to pass an evening at a beer-house in a certain populous town of a neighbouring state, where there happened to be a cheerful fire and a good deal of company, but little or no conversation. The wea­ther I remarked, was unusually wet and heavy, the wind had blown some days at east-north-east, and we had been drinking our pints of strong beer a piece, the efficacy of which was not, however, powerful e­nough to dissipate this drowsy and fullen humour.—John Shovelshoes smoked his pipe by himself in un­social silence; David Doolittle played with the tavern keeper's spotted dog; Richard Timbertoe sat in silent admiration of the landlady's favourite cat; and Ro­bert Slender amused himself with drumming on the great dining table with the four fingers of his right hand. At this instant my good friend Adam Blackbeard started up from his seat in a passion, called aloud for a glass of honest grog, leaped up on the table, and with an audible voice, delivered the following extempore lecture. As it is as good as some others I have seen published, and the subject equally important, I have kept a transcript of it, faithfully taken from the gen­telman's own mouth, at the time of delivery; and sincerely hope its publication may prove of general utility.

PERMIT me, gentlemen, to address you on a subject which I do not remember to have seen hand­led by any one of the celebrated writers of antiquity, and which I am sorry to say, few or none of the mo­derns have deemed worthy of their serious attention. It is a subject upon which Aristotle himself, that admi­rable naturalist, has thought fit to be uncommonly sparing in his observations; which Titus Livy has not once mentioned in any of his decades, neither has it been descanted on in the almanac of John Nathan Hutchins, who, if I am rightly informed, suffered nothing else of similar importance to escape him.

THE subject, which has thus forcibly impressed it­self on my ideas at this present time, is, gentlemen, nothing more or less than that of beards.—Beards, you will say!—what can possibly be said on this most barren of all topics that will command silence only for one quarter of an hour?—Lend me your attention but that short space of time, and I will endeavour to con­vince you that the subject has been hitherto shamefully neglected, and that it contains far more pith and ener­gy than the world has been willing to suppose.

THE word beard, sayeth the celebrated Isaac Casau­bon, is derived from bard, under which denomination the poets of former ages generally passed, These personages, I suppose for want of a barber, constantly suffered the hair upon the chin and upper lip to increase to its full natural length, from which custom this ex­crescence acquired the appellation of beard, from the bards that encouraged its growth by their own example.

HOWEVER, Salmasius. Heinsius, Aldrovandus, Ju­lius Scaliger, Dr. Bentley, and several other learned men are of a different opinion. ‘The word beard, (say they) is undoubtedly derived from bear, an animal often met with in the forests of America, [Page 56] and by no means unknown in many parts of Eu­rope and Asia. The bear has been noted for a tuft of hair upon his chin, strikingly analogous to what we call the beard in the human species’ Hence; then, comes the name, by only adding the letter d, as in the former case they wickedly interpolated an e.—But, if any one should presume to deny that bears have beards, (says the acute and celebrated Bentley) he must be extremely ignorant, not only in the history of animals; commonly termed Zoology, but must have been criminally negligent in perusing the story of Da­vid, the son of Jesse, as preserved in the Jewish re­cords; for there, we are expressly told, that a bear was caught by the beard, and afterwards smitten with the edge of the sword.

THUS far the critics and scholiasts. I come now, in the first place, to enumerate the several grand di­visions of beards.—Beards, gentlemen, at least to a superficial observer, are, in their essence, similar. It is therefore from the colour only, which is nothing more than a quality, that we can make the several distinctions, and the rather, as it is my fixed determi­nation to reason only from what we know. Beards, I say, may be primarily divided into black, yellow, red, and grey; and to these I shall speak, each in its turn and order, only premising that Nature seems to have entertained a mortal antipathy to the colour of blue in her distribution of beards. What was the foundation in the eternal reason for this antipathy, is not for such as me to [...]ay, neither will I be so bold as to assert that a total negation of blue beards is absolutely the case in rerum natura, inasmuch as a wild man with a blue beard is said to have been actually caught some years ago in a trap, in the desolate and mountainous parts of the king­dom of Poland. Why a sample of this man's beard was not sent to be deposited in the cabinet of curiosities belonging to the Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, is hard to determine. I am therefore inclined to be­lieve [Page 57] that the man with the abovementioned blue beard did never really exist. I come now to the first division of my subject, which was, to say something upon the excellence of black beards.

AND here I cannot be sufficiently thankful, that I myself, who am gifted to talk thus learnedly on so new and intricate a subject, as this, am also blessed with a beard of this most excellent colour and order. Beards of the other three divisions may, without all manner of doubt, have their particular and individual merits, but I do assert, and I defy any man to prove to the con­trary, that all the male worthies of antiquity, the Alexander's, the Pompeys, the Scipios, &c. were all men of your right glossy black beards. Should any of you ask me what Nature saw in this colour, or rather in this absence of all colour, that she should make it, in this case, the criterion and standard of so much excel­lence; I answer, that black bodies are ever observed to absorb the largest quantity of solar rays. Thus, by a natural and easy analogy, the blackness of the beard gives us to understand that your black-bearded men have sucked in the largest quantity of the divine intel­ligence, or that fine etherial matter which is said to constitute the souls of the animated creation, and ac­cording to the distribution of which we become capa­ble of the different degrees of wisdom, valour, good­ness of heart, honesty, and other virtues. Rejoice then, ye men of black beards, in being so particularly distinguished by the patron of all excellence; but take not the merit to yourselves, inasmuch as your beards have not been spun with the distaffs of this world, nei­ther have your own hands twisted them, even as a thread of silk is twined.—I must now proceed to the second head of my discourse, which was, to speak a few words relative to yellow beards.

I SHALL make no secret of it, that I am always particularly upon my guard in my dealings and con­nexions with this second class of beards; and sorry I [Page 58] am that it is not my power to plunge the whole race of yellow bearded into the staining pot of blackness itself, yea, into the pickling tub thereof, thereby darkening their beards even as mine own is darkened!—I have, upon many occasions, observed that yellow beards are for the most part vehemently inclined to overreaching, wrangling, schism, rebellion, and other evil works, which are not convenient. Whether this be owing to a natural thinness of the blood, which transmits too many aqueous particles into the small tubes of each particular hair, and thereby deadens those virtuous principles which are so apparent in black beards, and thus prevents them from attaining to the same degree of maturity; or whether dame Nature, when she was busy in spinning out beards from her invisible distaff, kept a pinch of snuff between her thumb and forefinger, and therewith soiled the thread, I shall not pretend to determine; but certain it is that yellow-bearded men are addicted to numerous evil practices.

THIRDLY, the red beard is, of all others, the most mischievous and intolerable—but it is meet that I should make some preliminary explanations.

THE ignified, igneous, or fiery particles which are contained in the whole mass of the blood of man, and which are equally disseminated throughout the entire human system, do, like the base and worthless indivi­duals of a nation, sometimes find means to form and collect themselves into certain globules or little bodies and juntos of hot sanguinary matter, and these glo­bules again uniting, do at length become formidable in the regions bordering on the heart; from whence, mounting aloft with extreme rapidity, they pass the narrow channel of the jugular vein, and soon after seating themselves in the vicinity of the brain, do produce daring designs and mad purposes of treasons, murders, rapes, and what not?—Here, then, they propagate and bring forth abundantly other fiery par­ticles, precisely of their own nature and temperament, [Page 59] till the region of sentimentalism and intelligence is overstocked. They then make a disposition to emi­grate, and finding no other outlet, pass into the great world through the barbicular tubes; and hence, gen­tlemen, red beards acquire their dangerous menacing appearance.—There is something so terrible and shocking in this species of beards, that I must beg to be excused from dwelling any longer on so disagreeable a part of my subject. I sincerely pity the man whom Nature has thus distinguished to this own detriment. Such a one is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils— the shaking of her beard is terrible; let no such beards be trusted!

THIS leads me to the fourth and last general head of my discourse, which was to say something, though unworthy, upon grey beards. Grey beards, gentle­men, are nothing more than the decay of beards in general. What renders them the more dangerous to the community, at large, is the extreme difficulty of distinguishing to which of the three former classes they did originally and truly belong. The man that pos­sesses a decent black beard at sixty, and is accordingly respected for the same among his friends and acquain­tance, as well as the public in general, is nevertheless in danger of being considered an arrant scoundrel at eighty, by the rising generation, unless he can make it appear his beard was not originally red or yellow. Hence, it would be advisable for every man that lives long enough to acquire a grey beard, to procure a cer­tificate in due season from the parson or chief magi­strate of his parish, ascertaining to which of the three original ranks, or orders, his beard formerly apper­tained and belonged.

GENTLEMEN, I have spoken sufficiently on beards at this time, and remain your most devoted humble servant.

THERE is no individual that has a greater claim to the commiseration of benevolent minds than the woman whose lot it is to marry a man of learning and science, but whose natural judgment of men and things is not equal to his studied acquirements in literature. This, nevertheless, was the hard fortune of a female acquaintance of mine, the amiable and good-natured Amelia, who in her younger days had imbibed an opi­nion that people of deep erudition, or those that had the appearance of it, were the only persons in the world, that, next to the virtuous and wealthy, were to be chosen for agreeable companions in the journey through life.

IN conformity with this mistaken notion she was af­terwards united to a man, at that time a preceptor in a college, who was so very learned that he could talk Greek in all its dialects with the most flowing volubi­lity, and could tell the name of every thing in He brew or Syriac, at the same time that he could not seat himself in a chair in a genteel company, without do­ing it in the most aukward and disagreeable manner possible.—After several years absence in foreign coun­tries, I paid this lady a visit some time ago, soon after my return, when in the course of an afternoon's chat, while her husband was at his studies in another apart­ment, she gave me the following history of her situation.

"GOOD Mr. Timbertoe, I was in a great error when I formerly imagined every excellence was includ­ed in a thorough knowledge of Greek: but this was [Page 61] the fault of the person that superintended my education. He persuaded me to believe that a scholar was every thing; whereas I find to my vexation that, from the pattern I have in my possession, they are the most insi­pid companions in the universe. A plain honest heart­ed farmer's son once paid his addressed to me, but I foolishly rejected him because he could talk nothing but a little homespun English, in the plain modern stile. By this error in judgment, or rather this pre­judice imbibed from education, I sacrificed a plentiful living on a decent farm for the sake of a parcel of old moth eaten books, musty manuscripts, metaphysical perplexities, dreams of pagan superstition, and a man whose business and conversation has far less to do with the people of the present age than with those who lived eighteen or twenty centuries ago. Talk to him of mat­ters that have passed almost under his nose; mention the battle of Germantown or of Brandywine; bring into view the capture of Burgoyne or the masterly manoeu­vres of Washington, and he is either wholly silent or pays very little attention to what you say. These things are modern, and events like these seem to him to have been of trifling moment in the world, while the remotest mention of his beloved ancients, the least hint of the retreat of Xenophon with the ten thousand Greeks out of Persia, of the wars of Alexander, Caesar, Scipio, or Pompey, in a moment engages his whole attention, and then we are sure to hear of nothing but of them and their marches and counter-marches for days toge­ther.—But this is not the worst of it, Mr. Tim­bertoe; I am perishing for want of company. The gentlewomen, formerly of my acquaintance, will not any longer venture to come near the house, having been more than once affronted for not dressing accord­ing to the antiquated fashions of the Spartan dames mentioned in history. Hence, whenever I am sick, I see few or none besides my husbands and the physician, who is also an antiquarian, and altogether as [Page 62] unwelcome to me as the ghost of Aristotle or Socrates. Excepting him, as I said before, we have very few male visitants. The parson himself has almost forborne our house on account of an angry, but well conducted dispute, he lately had with my husband, relative to the education of the Persian youth in the time of Cyrus, the son of Astyages and Mandanè. There was also a master of a vessel who used to call now and then to pass an evening with us, but we have differed terribly with him, in my opinion on a very trivial matter, some­thing relative to the rigging of Mark Anthony's ships; to the best of my remembrance, whether they carried what are called top-gallant sails or not; which my hus­band positively affirmed they did, and the other as obstinately denied, till blows had almost decided the contest.

"As to the schoolmaster of the neighbourhood, who is allowed to be something of a philosopher, as well as an excellent instructor of youth, he has been our inveterate enemy, ever since my husband and he had a warm dispute together in Latin (which lasted the whole evening) about the antiquity of temple-spectacles, which the schoolmaster affirmed to have been in use among the ancient Romans, grounding his opinion on the following verse attributed to Virgil:

Nocte pluit tota: redeunt spectacula manè which the unfortunate preceptor construed to mean, that spectacles are of little or no use very early in dark rainy mornings.

"AND yet these continual bickerings, silly as they are, my dear Mr. Timbertoe, are not the only vexations I endure from this man of extensive eruditi­on but weak judgment. He is almost continually in a childish fret, loudly complaining that the least noise or conversation, when as his studies, totally deranges and perplexes his ideas. This being the case, one would think the garret, or some retired part of the house would be his choice.—No such thing:—he will [Page 63] commit his ideas to writing no where but in the hall, where we are constantly passing and repassing, and of course the least noise or stir, the crying of a child, the fall of a cup, or the sudden shutting to of a door, throws him into agonies of rage, which are frequently accompanied with the sudden destruction of his whole sheet of scribbled paper, and a general flagellation of the domestics.—Thus am I confined for life to a most whimsical companion who, with his peculiarity of temper and present stock of knowledge, might have been tolerable good company two or three thousand years ago, but hates and despises every thing modern, and affects to think no author worth reading that is not at least eight or nine hundred years old; and no per­son worth talking to who does not carry the whole load of learned trash, and lumber of antiquity in his head."

WHILE I was sympathizing with Amelia on her unfortunate choice, the learned man at last came in, with the weight of at least three thousand years sus­pended from his eye brows. Instead of accosting him in the usual manner, I made free to ask, What news from the south side of the Alps, and whether he be­lieved i [...] true that Hannibal had really hollowed out a passage through the rocks, by the application and ope­ration of vinegar only?—He answered me dryly, that such a report was in town, and it was not impro­bable there might be truth in the story, as he believed the vinegar of the ancients to have had much more strength and spirit in it than the thin watery trash so called, that is in use among the moderns; he then ad­ded, that he intended shortly to compose a Latin trea­tise on this subject, which would prove beyond a doubt that the Alpine rocks might have been really dissolved in the manner, and by the means mentioned in the public prints.—After having said this, he left us abruptly, and returned to his books and papers.—I am persuaded many characters of this kind do really exist among us: Every thing that has been written by [Page 64] the ancients, and any thing that is brought from the other side of the globe, is, with them, inestimable; every thing modern or home-made is in their opinion contemptible, merely because it is modern, and hap­pens to be of our own manufacture.

NOTHING has, at all times, exercised the wit and ingenuity of speculative writers more than that seemingly simple question, what is the soul of man?— [Page 88] The metaphysicians define it to be the power or faculty of thinking within us; which is just saying nothing at all, as it still leaves us to decide what that power is, or in what its essence or nature consists. The anato­mists suppose it wholly to exist in the nerves, and pre­tend that upon the proper tone or tension of the nervous system depend all the flights of wit or fancy, profound genius, common sense, or deplorable stupidity. Plain Johan Shovelshoes, the Conestogoe waggoner, imagines the soul to be a thin airy substance, somewhat of the nature of a fine mist, enclosed somewhere about the centre of his pericranium, and from thence, like a spider in her web, watching every thing that passes within and about him. This man's hypothesis, pos­sibly, comes nearest to the truth, for how can any one in his senses assert or believe, with the Platonists, that an immaterial being (which by the bye, is what, at present we can have no conception of) can be shut up in a material skull?—For my own part, I take the soul to be as really substance as the body, and do con­ceive that it is matter only modified, like water and earth, a different way: or, in other words, man is a machine, moving, acting, and thinking by the help of certain springs originally contrived for those purposes, and still sustained in the necessary perfection by the wisdom of the deity.

THE matter, then, or substance of the soul may be compared to a fluid or distillation of liquors, con­taining within themselves a principle of life and ani­mation, and imparting their genial influence to others of a colder nature, when mingled therewith. And this is all that can possibly be meant by the union be­tween the soul and the body.

LET us, by way of explanation, suppose a dozen of pint tumblers arranged on a table, and nearly filled with that cold and spiritless element we call water. Let us also suppose there to be placed upon another part of the same table, a dozen bottles of different liquors, [Page 89] geneva, wine, rum, brandy, cider, small beer, &c. &c.—The water, while it continues in its natural state, we will suppose to represent an inanimate human body, or a fcetus not yet informed with life. In comes the waiter, and pours a glass or two of your best old Madeira into one of these pint tumblers that had been partly filled with water.—Immediately it is diffused throughout, and this water becomes as it were, ani­mated with life and spirit: its motions are more lively than before, its effects more perceptible, and cold has no longer the same power of congelation over it as for­merly. This glass, if you please, shall represent one of your fellows of fine wit: a brisk, airy blade, whose natural constitution inclines him to warm all around him, with his benevolence and generosity of soul.

YOUR worship takes up another of these bottles, suppose of Jamaica spirits, and impregnates a second glass of cold water. This mixture represents one of your hot headed touchy fellows, who is in a violent passion of rage three fourths of his time, and read to cut the throats of half the world for every supposed flight or affront that whim or caprice suggests has been put upon him; one who imagines that every arrow in the creation is pointed at his mighty self, and all man­kind in conspiracy against his worthless carcase.—We will suppose the third bottle contains Metheglin.—This, you will all allow, is a dead heavy liquor. Such rapid trash will discolour the water, 'tis true, but does very little more: it imparts something like life to the aqueous body, but, after all, the mixture is dull and spiritless, and typifies one of your stupid fellows, who has neither life, sentiment or activity; one, whose whole existence, as the great writer in our motto elegantly expresses it, is rounded with a sleep!—and which, when that little portion of animation is eva­porated that once barely discoloured this phlegmatic fluid, remains still that dull and lifeless mass, which boasts not a spark of inspiring flame, and whose very [Page 90] perceptions are not sufficiently animated to render it even sensible of the sweets of repose.

PUT some vinegar into that water, fellow—ah! what sad trash it is—this tumbler of water has a sour soul indeed—an ill natured, squabbling soul, the very quintessence of acidity itself!—For what purpose didst thou, O Jupiter, permit this strange unpalatable in­gredient in the lord of thy inferior creation—this glass neither pleasures the taste, gratifies the smell, or de­lights the eye.—We make another attempt, and put one third of small beer to two thirds of water—This produces the soft and milky soul, equally fitted to be the dupe of the nurse and the priest, and which will yield its assent to any thing, provided its great grandmother previously believed in the same doctrines. Pour a little high proof brandy into this mixture, and enthusiasm is instantly kindled into being, upon the dregs of dullness, insipidity, and nonsense.

BUT what has this good natured bottle of American Whisky done that we should conclude our discourse without trying its efficacy on the watry fluid?—No sooner do we taste of this divine mixture, O Plato, than we are—not touch'd but rapt, not waken'd but in spir'd!—we are carried beyond ourselves into those joyous regions where the first source of generosity, bravery, benevolence and good-nature is displayed to our enraptured view. Whiskey has accomplished re­volutions in empires, and carried us successfully through myriads of toils and difficulties, that water alone would have taught us to consider as wholly unsur­mountable!

BUT is the soul nothing more, you will jocosely say, than a little wine or vinegar—and does every na­tural virtue, and difference of ability and inclination, arise from nothing more than a varied temperament of the blood, and a different tone of the nerves?—Many are inclined to think so, and I hope you will not esteem me the less for giving my opinion candidly on this sub­ject. [Page 91] —That power, be it what it may, which ordained one tree to produce sour apples, and another sweet, though, perhaps, within ten paces of each other; that same power, by nearly the same means, makes one man radically a pattern of good nature and benevolence, another, of rancour and villainy.

IN the course of my observations upon men and man­ners, I have frequently remarked, that every reader seems curious to know something of the private cha­racter, circumstances, and leading features of an au­thor, previous to the perusal of his writings. I shall therefore, in compliance with this humour, confine this my first paper, to some account of my life, situa­tion and fortunes.

I DREW my first breath upon the borders of Switzer­land, on the south side, and within view of that stu­pendous range of mountains known by the name of Jura. Here, in a solitary valley, my ancestors had for many ages taken up their abode, having, as I have been told, ever supported the character of plain, industrious people, who were acquainted with no other than the rural life; perhaps nearly resembling that so much celebrated in the early ages of innocence and rustic simplicity.

MY father and mother dying, their little estate fell to me, their sole heir; and for aught I know, might [Page 282] have continued in the family for ages to come, had not some unfortunate events rendered it fatally neces­sary for the descendent of the famous William Tell (for from him I was derived in the maternal line) to remove from this enchanting scene of rural bliss; and experience the vicissitudes and vexations of a very dif­ferent kind of life.

WHETHER I possess any drops of the antimonarchi­al blood of this, my ever honoured and renowned an­cestor, or whether it hath been an actual view of the effects of regal tyranny in different parts of Europe and Asia; or be the cause what it may, I have always entertained an extravagant affection for republics, and could never find myself long at ease under the domini­on, or even in the vicinity of kings, emperors, stad [...] ­holders, vice-roys, or aristocratists; all which, in my opinion, are but different terms at this day for tyrants and oppressors. Whenever I happened to be a witness to the miseries of despotic governments, What simple­tons, thought I, are the herd of the human race, to sur­render up so many of their just, necessary, and natural rights forever, and without power of recall, into the hands of one or more men; which, unless they all prove just, wise, patriotic, and benevolent (a miracle not to be looked for in this world) commonly renders the people the miserable slaves of ambition, avarice and oppression.—But I must revert to the history of my misfortunes.—A beautiful grove of ancient oaks had grown and flourished for many centuries adjoining my before mentioned progenitor's little estate, which he held in see simple. His farm-house was situated almost under the shade of these oaks, but, unfortunate­ly, the soil they grew upon belonged to another person, residing in a neighbouring canton, who now took it into his head to have the whole forest cut down, and the land cleared for the purposes of agriculture.—From the earliest days of my childhood I had experi­enced the most lively emotions of pleasure in rambling [Page 283] uncontrouled and at full liberty, among these venerable [...]ades; I had therefore conceived an unspeakable af­fection for this tall and delightful grove, and heard the sound of the fatal ax with the most painful sensati­ons of grief; and had a favourite nymph or hamadryad of the forest (according to the opinion of the ancients) resided in every tree, I could not have been more sen­sibly afflicted.—All my endeavours to dissuade the proprietor of these trees from his fatal resolution, proved vain. He obstinately persisted therein, calling me, at the same time, fool and madman for repining at the advantages of so enlarged a prospect. The days of my felicity were, therefore, now at an end. Gloomy thoughts took possession of my soul, and I soon formed a design of quitting my native land forever, and retir­ing to some other part of the world.

WHAT soon after confirmed me in my purpose, was the additional mortifying circumstance of his erecting a large stone building within two hundred paces of our old and venerable habitation, which he peopled with a set of animals, whose humour, sentiments and conver­sation were, in every respect, diametrically opposite to, and engaged upon different objects from my own.

LABOURING under such accumulated misfortunes, which I confess, notwithstanding, will appear to most men to be little better th [...]n imaginary, I soon disposed of my paternal inheritance, and with a dejected heart and a tearful eye, took my leave of it forever.—The charming solitude and privacy that was wont to reign through this delightful haunt, was now lost and va­nished. It was no longer sheltered from the bleak north-east wind. It was laid open to the view of the adjacent country, and crowds of travellers—a misfor­tune indeed; as rural quiet and unobserved retirement were ever the darling objects of my soul. There is something in woods and solitudes congenial with my nature—it was in these the VISIBLE DEITY took leave of man when he left him to the mercy of the [Page 284] elements, and to the vanity of his own inventions; and it is in these that I conceive the mind still finds itself in the best humour to contemplate, in silent admi­ration, the great and inexhaustible source of all things. Towns and palaces are my abhorrence, and if at any time I have found it necessary to reside in great cities (as I once did in Moscow in Russia, for more than six months) still, by intervals I retired to the forests, and conversed with the simple genius of the wilderness—a conversation I infinitely prefer to that of heroes, kings, statesmen, or philosophers themselves.—At the time of the abovementioned unfortunate event, I was in the twenty-second year of my age, and having, while a boy, read such books as I could procure, chiefly in the language of the high Germans, they insensibly actuated me with a desire to travel, and learn some­thing more of mankind, and the world upon which they exist, than could be gathered from books only. I therefore set out upon my travels, with the nett pro­ceeds of my inheritance, but in about two years, (although I had observed the most rigid economy, consistent with my views) I found my finances at so low an ebb, having, I fear, been rather too curious in examining cabinets of rarities, and purchasing access into libraries, that I was compelled to strike out some other scheme for prosecuting my design.

A PLACE of some convenience soon offered in the suit of a Neapolitan nobleman, who was then about to embark at Messina, on a voyage of curiosity to the country of Palestine, commonly called the Holy Land. With this person I visited most of the islands, and regions bordering upon the Mediterranean; but he afterwards dying at Damietta in Egypt. I was once more reduced to difficulties in a strange land, and far removed from my native coasts.

AFTER some days consideration, I concluded, by the advice of a trading Jew, to embrace the profession of travelling pilgrim, or religious and philosophical wan­derer; [Page 285] and as my thirst for seeing the world, and observing its customs, manners, and policy, was rather increased than abated, I determined, for the future, to gratify my curiosity at the expence of the public of all the nations of the earth. In pursuance of this plan, I presently provided myself with a broad girdle, a scrip, a staff, and such other furniture as long custom has rendered indispensably necessary to men of this cha­racter; and then setting out, unattended and unaccom­panied, have ever since prosecuted my travels in this mode, without experiencing any event that has better­ed my fortune, or put me long out of humour with myself or mankind.

I HAVE now spent upwards of thirty years wandering up and down the world as a pilgrim; a line of life which I can assure you, has, like all others, its hard­ships, discouragements and difficulties, as well as its pleasures and advantages. In Asia, and particularly that part called China (anciently Cathay) I have been taken for a Spanish Jesuit, sent among them by some European prince to propagate the Catholic faith; in some parts of Europe for a philosopher wandering in quest of natural knowledge; but have ever been con­sidered in America as a rabbinical Jew, collecting con­tributions for the distressed of that nation residing in and near Jerusalem.

IT would be tedious in this place to particularize my various peregrinations: sufficient be it to say, that I have more than once shivered with cold under the arctic circle, where the sun is invisible for several days together in the month of December; have visited most of the countries bounded upon the Indian and Ethiopic oceans; that I have had poetical dreams upon the tomb of Virgil, in the neighbourhood of Naples, and have glowed with the tropical heat in the close and sultry vallies of Brazil.—More than two years have now elapsed since I arrived upon the coasts of North-Ame­rica: the fame of these new and flourishing republics [Page 286] was my principal inducement for coming hither: I had also an ardent desire to see, and converse with those far famed patriots and soldiers, who, by the assistance of a virtuous yeomanry, have established the reign of freedom and equity, in direct opposition to the arms and influence of the most assuming and pre­sumptuous tyranny.

I HAVE now fixed my place of residence in the midst of a forest of considerable extent on the western side of the Delaware, not many miles from the beautiful and populous city of Philadelphia; in which retire­ment, it is likely I may continue some months, and possibly till I set out again for the east, as I am obligated by a solemn vow, which nothing but death can obviate, to visit the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem once more, before I depart to the invisible abodes of the spirits of men.

I AM now in the fifty-sixth year of my age, a time of life at which every man of sense and reflection ought to have settled his temporal concerns, and pre­pared himself for those of the invisible ages to come.—But as long as I reside in the forests of Pennsylvania, the public may expect to receive now and then from my retirement, a piece of writing on political, moral, philosophical, or religious subjects: and were it not that I am engaged in composing a voluminous treatise on a very abstruse and delicate subject, De animâ mun­di, these lucubration should appear much oftener, than it is probable they will. I have been near thirty years in collecting materials for that most extraordinary piece, concerning the divine and incomprehensible intel­ligence which pervades and enlivens the immensity of matter, in the same manner as the body of man is put in motion by the actuating spring within it. I am the more bent upon finishing this treatise, as I am (without va­nity) convinced, no person but myself possesses a stock of resolution and perseverance equal to the task.

[Page 287] THE place of my abode, as I intimated before, is in a dark and unfrequented solitude, exactly coinciding with the melancholy cast and recluse nature of my own mind. From its wild and unpromising appearance, as well as from its difficulty of access, I much question whether this spot has been visited, perhaps for twenty years past, by any human being but myself.—I subsist wholly upon water, roots and vegetables, being con­vinced Pythagoras was right when he forbade his dis­ciples the use of animal flesh. A kind providence has amply rewarded me for my self denial, inasmuch as I have not had an hour's sickness these twenty-five years past, am altogether devoid of vicious ambition, and have never been at all inclined to shed the blood of any man or injure him in the slightest degree. In short, my benevolence is unbounded, and, after the example of a certain order of Bramins in the farther India, extends itself to the most insignificant and con­temptible of the reptile, or insect creation. The ca­vern I possess and inhabit was formed by simple nature, in one of her sportive humours, that has huddled a multiplicity of rocks into a chaotic assemblage indeed, but inclosing among them a vaulted grotto with a long winding entrance; the whole being perfectly sheltered from the severity of the winter, as well as from the violent heats of the summer season. There is also a small stream of water passing by the foot of one of the largest of the rocks, which, to the best of my obser­vation, is never chilled by the cold blasts of January, or rendered disagreeably warm amid the fervours of August.

I AM sometimes, tho' rarely, seen in the city, where I find considerable amusement in observing the hurry and business of the men of the world, their eager con­cern and restless anxiety about matters that [...] to them to be of the greatest moment, but in my [...] are but of secondary importance in our journey through this life. Although I am not at all fond of [Page 288] being known, yet I will so far gratify the curious as to inform them, if that will in any degree contribute to their satisfaction, that I am in stature considerably above the middle size, of a very swarthy complexion, and much injured by the weather; am of an astrabi­larious habit; walk with a staff of black ebony, which I formerly cut with my own hands on the Balegate mountains in East India, and constantly have on a pair of temple spectacles, as my eye sight is none of the best. My eyes themselves are extremely black and penetrating, and the mustachios on my upper lip are of the same colour. I commonly wear a large pair of jack-boots without spurs, but am never seen on horse­back, or in any carriage drawn by cattle. I speak most of the languages of the old world, ancient and modern, with fluency, as having conversed so fre­quently with the various nations thereof. There are indeed a few niceties in the dialect of the Kalmuck Tartars with which I am not s [...] well acquainted; as also, several Chinese characters of inferior note, that I have been rather neglectful in studying; but I ap­prehend an ignorance of this nature to be pardonable.

IF these few particulars, relative to my person, re­treat and qualifications, will at all gratify my readers, they are at liberty to make the best of them. But I hope an idle and unseasonable curiosity will not prompt such persons to undertake the discovery of my sylvan abode. The search would, most probably, be fruit­less, as chance alone, not industry, design or perseve­rance conducted me to it. But if by some unfortunate coincidence of chances this cavern should be discovered while I am the inhabitant, the vexation I formerly felt in Switzerland upon the cutting down of the beau­tiful grove, will undoubtedly return, and hasten my departure on a pilgrimage to the east, which might otherwise have been deferred a considerable time.

A FEW evenings since, as I was reclining in my cavern, by the pale light of a solitary lamp; the train of thought I was then in, led me to form some conjectures on the nature, origin, and design of man. Fatigued at length, with meditating on a subject, in which the farther I pursued it, the more I was bewildered, I fell asleep. Fancy was not long unemployed; and I ima­gined I saw at my bed-side one of those individuals of superior intelligence, which are denominated angels or genii. This divine form desired me to arise and attend him; informing me, at the same time, that he wished to illuminate my understanding as far as he could be permitted.

WHEN we had arrived at the summit of a very lof [...]y rock, he desired me to turn my view eastward, and consider attentively all that offered itself to my ob­servation. I looked as he directed me, and saw a large [Page 291] and beautiful city, whose inhabitants were employed in every species of commerce, as well as in the practice of the liberal and mechanical arts. I perceived also, that the so [...]l of the city afforded no wells, springs, or rivulets of water proper for the use of man or beast; but, at a considerable distance from the suburbs, I saw a cer­tain number of blind mules, labouring at as many wells; and by means of a machine, to which they were at­tached, drawing water perpetually, which was re­ceived into large wooden vessels, and from thence dis­tributed among the citizens, as well as to the cattle and domestic animals.

CONTIGUOUS to the circular path of every mule was stationed an overseer with a large lash-whip in his hand; with which, at least once in every revolution, he gave the mule one or more severe stripes to accele­rate his progress.

Go forward to the grey mule (said the genius) and hear what he has to say. Approaching, as he had desired me, I found the vatt was full, and consequently that the grey mule enjoyed a small interval of rest. To my great surprize, the mule then opened his mouth, and began to speak in the following manner.

"WHAT am I, or where am I?—What means this eternal perambulation in the same tiresome track, as far as I can perceive, without use or design? To what strange purpose am I thus kept busy in turning these wheels and axles: I am lashed and goaded without mercy: have small portions of rest allotted me: am fed regularly thrice a day to prevent my strength failing me: I am attended by a tormentor, never weary, whose whole business is to restrain me from idleness:—and all for what? Can it be that the author of my existence takes pleasure in seeing me wounded and tormented? Or has he some wise and benevolent purpose to answer by my sufferings? I am willing so to hope—but, to me, this present state of existence, as well as the work I am [Page 292] engaged at, is from beginning to end an unsearchable mystery."

HERE the grey mule concluded abruptly, as he heard the driver advancing towards him, and notify­ing to him, with a crack of his whip, to continue his labour. — If this blind mule knew, said the genius, that the lives of the inhabitants of so vast and populous a city as this you see, depended, in a great measure, upon his labours, he would no longer think he had been created invain. And thus it is with the race and generations of man: they were not made without end and design, but the particular view and meaning of their creation I am not, at present, permitted to disclose to you. He then requested me to turn my eyes to a different quarter, where the first object that fixed my attention was a large globe of wax, which seemed to hang, at some distance from the earth, self suspended in the warm beams of the sun. A young person in female attire, of the most beautiful form and features that ever the eye of imagination beheld, was standing by the globe, with a small gol­den instrument in her right hand, bearing some re­semblance to a mason's trowel. I asked the genius the name of this amiable creature, and who she might be?

SHE is, answered my attendant, the mother of all men and animals, and of all the visible creation: her name is NATURE: attend well to what she is about. — I was for some time so smitten with the divine beauty of her features, that I could not immediately obey the last injunction: her fine eyes entirely capti­vated my heart and fancy: I thought I beheld in her the true and admirable origin of all art, science, wit, genius, and understanding, and those powers of the soul, by which we are enabled to soar above inert matter, and the limited capacities of the brute creation. How is it possible, exclaimed I, in the extravagance of my ecstacy, that the works of those who have formed their [Page 293] models from the amiable goddess should be otherwise than immortal, when she herself is no other than the pure source and essence of immortal beauty itself!

I NOW found myself constrained by an invisible hand to attend to her operations.—She appeared to be per­petually busy: not a moment of her time was lost. I saw day and night alternately passing over her like light and shade, at equal intervals, but there was no cessa­tion of her labours on that account. The wax that composed the globe, on which she seemed to bestow great attention, was soft and pliable, tho' not inclined to liquefaction; and consisted of different sorts and qualities. Out of these she was constantly moulding the forms of all animal and vegetable substances, al­most without name or number. Now she fabricated a man, now a horse, next a bull, an elephant, a goat, a snake, a frog, a gnat, and so on. All forms seemed alike easy to her, and if there was any difference in them, it proceeded rather from the fineness or coarse­ness of the waxen materials, than from any slightness or deficiency in the workmanship.

THE genius now left me for a few minutes, and advanced towards the goddess Nature, where she was at work, requesting her to mould, for his gratification, two or three [...] her most favourite designs. — I will grant your request, said she, provided you consent to take that image along with you to the celestial abodes of Jupiter, which you shall most approve, and shall seem best worthy of your choice. — The guardian genius assented.

SHE then took up a small quantity from a stratum of wax most exquisitely tempered, and began her ope­rations. The first she formed was a warrior, or hero: I knew him by his spear and shield, and a mien that betokened exalted sentiments and daring designs; but there was something in his countenance that did not much please the attending genius.—She, next, as far as Nature unassisted by art could go, moulded a great [Page 294] statesman and politician—then a legislator; then an inventor of useful arts; a doctor of divinity; a man of the law; a poet; a philosopher; a physician of the deepest skill—all these were merely such—the last of all, and with the utmost exertion of her skill, formed, in one heart, the seeds and principles of a just, disin­terested, benevolent, upright and honest man.

THE genius then desired her to desist from her ope­rations: "It is enough," said he, ‘for this last image approaches to my idea of the celestial Jupi­ter.’ He then clasped to his bosom the last she had formed, and flew to the courts of Olympus to lay this most excellent piece of Nature's workmanship at the feet of the deity.

THE goddess Nature then took the others into her own possession, and tho' most exquisitely admirable in themselves, mixed them once more with the great globular mass from which they at first had been taken; and in which they thus found their origin and their end.—I could not avoid making a reflection—Such, thought I, is the reward of virtue—virtue and recti­tude of heart are received into the divine abodes when science, wit, poetry, philosophy, and the rest, are resolved into their original nothing!

BY this time the genius had returned. I will now, said he, represent the origin of things to you in a different manner.

I THEN cast my eyes downward, and saw the earth at it appeared after it first emerged from its ancient chaotic state. The genius informed me that the power that had ultimately effected this great and wonderful revolution was of a nature too intensely bright for me to behold; but, continued he, you may, if you please, obtain a sight of the deputies he has employed to trans­act matters under his general agency.

IMMEDIATELY I saw a number of strange forms upon the earth, now solitary, contriving how to people it with living creatures.

[Page 295] IN condescension to the weakness of your under­standing, said the genius, we will call these Nature's Journeymen.

I PERFECTLY understand you, answered I. Let us observe them.—The first thing they set about, was, to make a composition of fire, air, earth, water and sulphur. This mass contained the principles of all life and motion, thought, sentiment and action. Having thus paved the way, they at first diverted them­selves with forming vegetables, minerals and trees of the forest, from this heterogeneous mass. Soon after, Firando, as my conductor called him, the most inge­nious amongst them, and confessedly their superior, made a tree capable of bearing fruit, which upon a closer inspection I found to be the apple. The rest applauded his invention, but were little more than imitators. In a short time every one of them had a tree of his own, and producing a species of fruit of his own contriving. Glandiferino, however, one of their fellow journeymen, was heartily laughed at by the rest for not having ingenuity enough to contrive any thing better on his tree than an acorn. They, nevertheless, allowed on all hands, that the tree itself was of an excellent contexture.

SOME hours had now (seemingly) elapsed, when, after several attempts and experiments, the sensitive plant was the nearest approach their united ingenuity could make towards symbolizing their ideas of animal life.

IN a little time, however, they made great im­provements. A bear was first fabricated: then a hog; a wolf; a fox; a leopard; a lion; and finally a horse, which was for some time considered as a master-piece of ingenuity. The different species of fish were next invented, among which the dolphin was by far the most beautiful, and which several of them endeavoured to excel in that particular, but without effect.

THE inferior orders of animals and insects, such [Page 296] as rats, mice, cats, weasels, birds, musketoes, and the like, were contrived at odd hours in the evening and noon vacations, by the 'prentice boys.

THE horse, as I before observed, was for some time looked upon as the most perfect creature the five ingredients were capable of composing. But Firando alone was not of this opinion. He knew that fire wa [...] an element used also in the composition of the gods, and he declared that nothing in their resemblance was yet produced.—"It is my desire, said he, to form an animal, whose inclinations and appetites shall not be altogether consined to the earth, but to comprehend such a portion of the element of fire as shall carry his ideas upwards to the source of all things." He then retired, sad and solitary, to the forest, with a quantity of the elementary composition, in order to contrive a more perfect animal than had yet appeared, but the utmost stretch of his ingenuity produced, for the present, only a monkey: afterwards a baboon; and lastly, an ouran-outang. The other workmen laughed heartily at these odd animals, and pronounced the horse alone to be infinitely superior to all three.

FIRANDO now gave himself up to the deepest me­lancholy: I must soon depart, said he, to the planet Saturn; but I would willingly leave a nobler creature here upon earth than we have yet been able to compose. Just as he uttered these words he saw the baboon climb­ing a tree, and was struck with the idea of a man.

HE then poured a quantity of the elementary com­position into a small jar, but with an additional porti­on of fire. As he was beginning his work, the mon­key, in playing some pranks on a shelf, overset a cup of lamp-black, which fell directly into the jar. Fi­rando nevertheless went on with his manufacture, and in a little time had formed a man and woman, but they were perfectly black. These, as the genius told me, were the first ancestors of the African negroes. The other journeymen and boys gazed at the negro [Page 297] couple with marks of jealous satisfaction; they, how­ever, admired their black wooly hair, their snow white teeth and dark jetty skin, and at the same time con­fessed that this creature infinitely excelled all that had hitherto been created.

BUT Firando thought he could still improve on his invention. He then took a lash-whip and drove away the monkey, for fear of some other sinister accident happening by his means. Having washed his hands, that he might not soil the pure elementary composition, he resumed his labours; and by now and then infusing additional particles of liquid fire, he at length com­pleted a white man and woman, every way answerable to the original idea in his own mind, except that, at the desire of one of his brethren, he tinged them with a little red.

"THIS is my last labour upon earth," exclaimed Firando. "I must now take my flight to the planet Saturn. You will endeavour, said he, (addressing him­self to the other journeymen) to excel this model. I am convinced, however, the task will be difficult: but should you succeed, the greater will be the honour due to your ingenuity. Consider well this my last work—MAN! he is at the head of all sublunary excellence. His eye is fixt upon the celestial canopy: he reasons upon the design and nature of his own existence: his breast glows with noble and exalted ideas: he measures the distances of the stars from each other, and com­prehends the course and limits of the rapid comet. Make a more perfect creature if you can." — He then departed to people the cold regions of the pla­net Saturn.

HE was no sooner out of sight than Glandiferino attempted to depreciate his work. There is not so much originality in this creature, said he, as Firando imagines. The general idea of its form and structure is taken from the brute creation, and of their nature he must certainly partake in some considerable degree. [Page 298] That is nothing to the purpose, replied Coeligenitus, another of the journeymen: it is the curious organi­sation within that excites my wonder; for, upon close examination, I find that fire, earth, air, water and sul­phur, differently modified and distributed, and nothing else, produce those actions, excite those sentiments, and perform those wonders, a few of which Firando recounted, previous to his departure.

AFTER this conversation, they each went to work, trying every method in their power to excel this mo­del, but could never succeed. They made men, it is true, resembling Firando's pattern in outward appear­ance, but internally they were no other than cats, puppies and weasels. One was a thief; another a bully and a wrangler; a third a dunce; a fourth an idiot; a fifth a monster of avarice or envy; a sixth a syco­phant—and so on, almost without end.

"THESE, said the genius, are the originals of all the villainous and worthless part of mankind; they were constructed by Nature's journeymen and appren­tices, and unfortunately in such abundance, that the first model made by the master workman, can at pre­sent hardly be seen or discovered amongst them." — By some accident, my large book De animos mundi, fell down, at this period of my dream, from the shelf where I usually lay it, after inserting my ob­servations for the day: the noise awakened me, and, for the present, put an end to my dreaming.

HAVING replaced this volume of curious specu­lations, I again composed myself to sleep, and while detained in that silent state, the original globe of the earth was once more presented to my view. I imagi­ned, however, that several hours were elapsed between this and my former visit; but I perceived the jour­neymen artisans still at work and forming animals of every kind and species, almost without number.—Previous to this, a general rule had been laid down among them not to produce any animal except it should have some other for an enemy. By these means, said they, the original genuine nature of the elements will re­main unaltered, as the everlasting and unerring REA­SON has declared they ought to be; but which, when they are compounded and wrought up into one animal, undergo a visible change, and beget not a spirit of friendship and harmony, but the narrow principle of self-love.

THEY had proceeded so far in the practice of this fatal opinion, that the earth and its rivers were every where stained with blood, and the original model of the artist Firando was extirpated from the world.

ALAS, said I to the genius, who still seemed to attend me, what means all this? cannot every indi­vidual exist without perpetually plotting and accom­plishing the ruin of his neighbour?—It is no matter, replied he, it is of no consequence in the estimation [Page 300] of the first cause of all things: their doom is to be once resolved into their original, distinct, composing elements, and when that is effected, it is of small importance in what manner it may have been brought about.

As I was attending to their operations, I cast an eye of particular curiosity at one of the forms who was sitting on the bank of a large body of water. He had been constructing several sorts of fish, some of them offensive, others defensive. At last he complet­ed a sea tortoise, but it was remarkable, that the brains of this creature were, for the size of his body, ex­tremely small: Why, said I, to my attendant, does he take such extraordinary care to shield this animal from the assaults of enemies, when so many others are left naked and defenceless?

THE reason is this, replied the genius: Most of those unarmed animals you talk of, are gifted [...] abilities and cunning which will be generally sufficient for their defence and safety, independent of such a load of armour as you see upon the tortoise. The Cuttle-fish, for instance, when closely pursued, has the faculty of emitting a black liquid substance, which will instantly expand in the surrounding element, and effectually protect him from farther pursuit, [...] bewil­dering his enemy: Again, the Flying-fish, as you may perceive, is naturally weak and defencesess; when, therefore, the dolphin, his natural enemy, is in pur­suit of him, and on the point of snapping him up, the good natured artist has furnished him with wings, by the aid of which he wisely and instinctively quits his native element, and continues his flight thro' the air, till he has baffled and wearied his pursuer.

YES, said I, but the benevolence you talk of, seems in some measure to have missed its aim; for the mo­ment the unhappy animal quits the water, I see my­riads of voracious birds, the manufacture of other journeymen, watching to seize and devour him. His [Page 301] little life is, therefore, nothing else than a prolongation of misery. Terror and apprehension of death are his constant companions: Can existence be a blessing to such a creature; and would not a benevolent mind ra­ther wish him not to have been created at all?

THIS is one of those cases, answered the genius, in which a lesser evil (like the blind mule at the wheel) is permitted for the sake of a greater good. They flying-fish is the principal support of the dolphin, and a numerous species of the feathered creation, which, if his race were annihilated, or did not exist, would speedily perish for want of sustenance."

I COULD not avoid observing to my director, that almost every animal, reptile, and insect they made, was inspired with rancour and enmity to the human race, and which they were constantly manifesting upon every occasion.

YOUR remark is just, said the genius, but the powers of the mind of man are more than a match for the united enmity of the inferior part of animated nature.

How can that be possible, answered I, when one of the artisans is at this moment fabricating a reptile that possesses ample power to destroy mankind unawares, and can infuse inevitable death into them before they have the most distant idea of danger?

THE matter was thus—Several sorts of serpents had been invented, but they were for the most part harmless. At length Altavolo (one of the journeymen, and a snake­maker) seeing two men bearing false evidence, in a dis­pute between two other men, took so great a dislike to the whole human species on account of the perjury, that he raved and stormed with all the madness of ha­tred and passion.—"Would to heaven, cried he, that Firando had been better employed than in contriving an animal that can be guilty of so much premeditated baseness!—and were it not for the irrevocable decree, that no one amongst as shall mangle or extirpate the work [Page 302] of another, I swear I would instantly annihilate the human race:—notwithstansting, I will torment them bitterly: I have hitherto, for my diversion only, turned off the anvil a number of serpents of various natures, but not one amongst them capable of doing much mischief; I will now construct a species that shall carry certain unavoidable destruction in its sting, a death terrible in its nature, but all too little to satisfy my hatred and disgust to mankind!"

HE then, with amazing ingenuity and skill, began to mould that order of the serpentine tribe, since known by the name of the Rattle-snake. It was about five feet in length, and of a yellowish hue. Over and above the teeth designed for mastication, there were two, very small and sharp pointed, fixed in a sinewy substance near the extremity of the upper jaw. At the root of these he placed two small bladders, so con­structed, that at the same instant an incision was made with the teeth, a drop of greenish, poisonous liquid should be emitted into the wound, which in a short time would produce an entire cessation of all animal motion.

As soon as this destructive and irritable animal was finished, the fabricator turned it out at its full liberty. I then saw it retire immediately to the woods and rocks, where it lay in a listening posture, as if watching for its prey. Soon after, a man accidentally coming a­long directly towards him, the snake unperceivedly coiled himself up into a spiral wreath, raised his head from the centre, and sprung at the fleshy part of the traveller's leg. The deadly greenish liquor was in­stantly infused; the man suffered excruciating tortures, and in a short time was dissolved into his original elements.

BY this time the artist Firando had returned from his long voyage to the planet Saturn, and began to ex­amine what had been done on earth during his absence. After he had fully satisfied his curiosity, he addressed [Page 303] his brother artists in the following manner — "You have strangely mistaken my original design; my plan was harmony, and you have universally proceeded up­on the principle of discord. However, that I may not be thought to take a malignant pleasure in mortifying you, I will leave all animated forms in their present situation for the space of eight thousand years; at the conclusion of which period, I will totally annihilate these complicated fabrics of matter, and arrange things anew, and in a more harmonious order, In the mean time, and we must all soon take our flight to a distant system in the creation, by order of the Great Invisible, to operate upon a different kind of substance from any that is found on this earth, let us endeavour to mitigate matters a little, here below; since the period is very remote when a more perfect arrangement is to take place. In all the debased part of mankind, let us im­plant the principle of HONOUR, which will in some degree compensate for the want of innate rectitude of heart: and let us impart such a consistency to the soil and matter of the earth, that mankind cannot subsist upon it, without the exercise of severe and perpetual labour. Thus, by keeping them employed without intermission, excepting the few hours allowed for the repose of nature, there will be the less opportunity and inclination for the perpetration of those crimes; a pro­pensity to which you have so fatally planted within them."

"ALL this will be too little to restrain them, ex­claimed Altavolo; they at present enjoy an ever dur­ing spring and summer conjoined, in one season; be­cause the sun moves continually in the plane of the equa­tor; they must be pinched, like the people in the come­tary worlds, with the extremities of heat and cold, if you would effectually restrain them from idleness. If Firando pleases, who alone has had an interview with the deity, that glorious planet the Sun shall no longer move in the plane of the equator; he shall travel ob­liquely [Page 304] over it, forming an angle of at least fifty de­grees, which will abundantly produce the wished for effect."

"THAT will be too severe a punishment, said one of the others: it will be impossible for the nature of man to support itself under it. Let us be more mode­rate, and have some compassion upon the works of our own hands." So, after some debate, it was agreed, that the sun's utmost declination from the equinoctial, north or south, should never exceed twenty-three de­grees and twenty-nine minutes, till the eight thousand years were elapsed.

BUT as to this deadly and poisonous serpent, said Firando, I must beg of you, most humane Altavolo, to destroy him before he propagates his breed too ex­tensively upon the earth.

THAT I will never consent to on any terms, re­plied the other; I had just and good reasons for con­structing him: he is a curious piece of mechanism: he does honour to my inventive powers, and it is the delight of my eyes to behold him. — Will you suffer me then, said Firando, to suggest some little alterations in him?

PROVIDED, said the other, you do not abate his venomous and destructive qualities: these I am deter­mined shall remain unalterably fatal.

FIRANDO then took up the snake, and suspended a number of small bells near the extremity of its tail; at the same time commanding it to give notice with these, if at any time it had an intention to wound men or certain other animals, that they might have a mo­ment of time to get out of its way. When this was accomplished, the same benevolent artist formed a small plant, particularly adapted to the soils where he observed the rattle-snake fondest of frequenting; the application of which, he intended should counteract the bad effects of the venom, if made in due season; this he planted with great secrecy in a dark forest a [Page 305] little after midnight, for fear Altavolo should [...]ee what he had done, discover the salutiferous nature of the plant, and pull it up.

THE journeymen, artisans having thus settled mat­ters, took their leave of the earth for eight thousand years, directing their flight to the southwestern quar­ter of the horizon. I followed them with my eyes as far as I possibly could, when, desirous of being in­formed, with certainty, how much of this term should have been elapsed at the time when a man, known by the appellation of the Philosopher of the Forest, should appear upon earth, I turned round to the genius to ask him the question, when I suddenly awoke; and found myself reduced to the necessity of relying upon my own speculations in ascertaining this difficult point.

IN the neighbourhood of the forest, in the midst of which I have taken up my abode, and at about the distance of about two English miles from the place of my retreat, resides an honest country parson, the only individual with whom I have yet had an opportunity to contract an acquaintance in this part of the country, unless I should except a benevolent husbandman in the same vicinity, who has more than once supplied me with the fruits of the earth, and such vegetables as are suitable to my plain, frugal, and regular manner life. The clergyman, who shall be more particularly [Page 306] the subject of this paper, is a man of uncommon hu­mility, and is indeed remarkable for every virtue that can be supposed necessary to adorn the pastoral, or any other character. With a small annual income, and a few acres of land, I will undertake to assert that he is one of the happiest men this day existing. While others are seeking vain and transitory honours on oce­ans raging beneath a wintry sky, or in bloody battles by land, in those unjoyous climes where the scorched soldier faints beneath the powerful influence of a ver­tical sun, he enjoys the blessings of content and re­tirement, and experiences more real felicity in having reclaimed one person from vice, than the greatest monarch could enjoy by desolating countries, subduing armies, or reducing innumerable provinces to the most absolute and unconditional submission. Altho' this man is in a situation that places him above real want and contempt, yet still he is one whom an ill-judging world stiles poor; an epithet that could be no way de­basing if applied to the individuals of the priesthood of all nations, with even more justice than it is to my neighbour the rural clergyman: they would then bear a nearer resemblance to that truly illustrious person, who many hundred years ago visited this earth in the cha­racter of a needy and despised stranger.

THERE is not a sight in all the walks of men, that gives me half the disgust, as that of a Christian cler­gyman rolling in his coach, swelling with pride and impertinence, associating only with princes, nobles, and the wealthy men of the land, and courting the favour of kings and Cesars: In words he may indeed profess to be a follower of the humble and patient man of Na­zareth, while his conduct too plainly proves that his heart is set upon a very different object.—My ac­quaintance with this good natured and consistent ec­clesiastic commenced in a very singular manner. The church where he usually, at least once a week, calls his little flock together, is a venerable fabric of some [Page 307] antiquity, for an American structure, situated in a retired valley, on the margin of a large forest. When I first settled myself in the vicinity of this remote solitude, with a design to prosecute my voluminous [...]eatise de anima mundi without interruption, I used now and then, as is indeed still my custom in good weather, to make an excursion to this antique pile, and amuse myself with reading the various inscriptions on the tombstones; in reflecting upon the momentary conti­nuance of the race of man in the present state of being; and in considering the mortifying change that is here effected from what was once estimated vigorous, brave, gay, sensible, or beautiful, to all that was loathsome, deformed, or despicable; with a thousand musings of the same kind that spontaneously arose from the uses, silence, solitude, and other circumstances of the place.

ONE evening, a little before sunset, as I was visiting this wonted scene of my meditations, I happened to meet on the spot with the good clergyman of the parish who was sitting on a grave stone, and as I have since learned, had come thither upon the same design as myself. He at first seemed a good deal surprized at my aspect, figure, and manner of approaching him; for I then wore my Arabian dress, and had on my head a small turban, such as are in fashion among the Greek Christians of European Turkey, and which I have found from experience to be much more convenient than the common hats worn in America, and other western countries.—As my appearance must have been perfectly new to the good man, it is no wonder if he was at first under some disagreeable apprehensions from my approach: he seemed also to fix a very uneasy eye upon the black walking stick I then had in my hand, part of the history of which I have given in the first number of these luc [...]brations. When I at length had advanced within about two yards of him, the honest man desired to know who I was, whether a dead [Page 308] or a living character, and what was my business in that solitary burying ground?

SINCE we have been better acquainted, he has in­formed me, that notwithstanding he had never been one of those who give implicit credit to the idle and ridiculous stories, so common in every country of the world, relative to the apparition of ghosts and spectres, yet when he first beheld me in my outlandish habit, walking toward the church-yard with my spectacles over my nose, he began to think there might be some reality in those tales; and made no doubt but the spi­rit of some one of his departed parishioners, had, for some unknown purposes, been permitted to leave the invisible world, and to re-visit, with an assumed body, these silent mansions of the dead; he has declared also that he, nevertheless, thought it somewhat strange and unaccountable that an inhabitant of the other world should have occasion for a pair of spectacles, or a walking staff; which are commonly supposed to be furniture only necessary for living persons.

To go on with my narrative of what happened in the burying-ground:

I TOOK him by the hand, assuring him at the same time, in answer to the question he had put, That I had never yet been admitted to the unseen abodes of departed men, but was in every essential respect a mere mortal like himself, but one who had nearly worn himself out with travelling over all the known coun­tries of the universe in search of knowledge, and speculating, in the mean time, upon a subject, that Aristotle himself, the prince of philosophers, had never dared, professedly, to meddle with.

THE good man seemed to be agreeably surprized, and after making some enquiry concerning the place of my nativity, and of the occasion that led me to this solitary abode of the dead (in both which points I satisfied him) we walked together to his habitation; and as there happened to be a certain congeniality in [Page 309] our dispositions, this slight accidental acquaintance in a little time ripened into an intimate friendship.—Ex­cepting the honest husbandman I mentioned before, this is the only person I ever visit; they are both men of simple, upright, and blameless lives, strangers to all fantastical politeness, vain ceremony, and insin­cerity; their houses are plain rural edifices, and the most curious observer, even Vitruvius himself, if alive, would be at a loss to discover any thing in their struc­ture, bearing more than a very rude resemblance to any of the five orders of architecture.—This neighbour­hood is remarkably peaceable and civil: how it may be with the other inhabitants I cannot say, but the ecclesiastic and the husbandman both tell me, that neither of them have locked their doors by night for near forty years past; their property being secure, and they sleeping in the utmost safety, without that precaution. One reason, indeed; of their happy se­curity may be, that this district is considerably remote from the more noted and frequented high roads of the country, and is but little known to any more than its simple inhabitants.

NOT even the unhallowed footsteps of a British army have ever been suffered to defile these charming plains▪ the happy rustics have heard of wars, tumults, and bloodshed, but the particularly benevolent hand of providence has so ordered, that the abomination of desolation has been kept at a distance; the dreadful scene has never been realized in the vicinity of these quiet abodes.

WHEN I reflect upon the felicity of the inhabitants of this little territory, fancy ungratefully forces upon my remembrance, with inexpressible regret, the idea of those happy days I once enjoyed in my father's cottage on the romantic borders of Switzerland.—Hence, in spite of my philanthropy, I am often com­pelled to execrate the miscreant, whose cruel ravages in the little groves first banished me from the simple [Page 310] blessings of the rural life, to wander through savage parched countries, over tiresome tracts of unfathomed oceans, and to visit rivers and islands planted on the extremities of the universe, for the sake of observing the various genius of mankind, their manners, customs, and religions, as well in their rude and uncultivated state, as in the polite and civilized; and for the pur­pose of collecting such manuscripts of the ancient Der­vises and Bramins, as might, in some measure, assist me in completing that immense undertaking I have now in hand. But I find the desire of knowledge is insa­tiable, and begin to blame myself for having travelled so far, and suffered so many hardships in pursuit of a phantom, that may indeed be seen but never grasped; and which now at last, when I am sinking under a load of years, gives me but restless days, anxious nights, melancholy musings, hard study, and intense applica­tion of thought; and deprives me of that satisfaction and content of mind, which this simple clergyman so amply enjoys; who has never read perhaps more than three or four volumes of theology, the common au­thors called Classics, a little ancient and modern his­tory, and travelled a few days journey beyond the village that gave him birth.

As I intend in some future paper to give a farther and more particular account of this clergyman, I shall conclude the present with informing my readers, that he has undertaken to send these pieces of writing regu­larly once a week for me to the city. He also receives such letters as are to me directed, which I examine at my leisure, and to which, if any way interesting, I will not neglect to return an answer. I have, how­ever, of late had several handed to me that have given me no small degree of chagrin; one of these was su­perscribed "To the wild man that lives in the woods."—It must have been written by some simple country­man, as it contained a request from the writer, that, "as he made no doubt I was deeply skilled in the [Page 311] science of the stars, I would exert my abilities to the utmost, to discover from the different aspects of these luminaries, where he might find two or three horned cattle, and a grey horse, that had either been stolen or had strayed from him, and been absent some days,"—I hereby inform the author of that letter, whoever he may be, that these sparkling globes of light, that seem, in the absence of the sun, to fasten on the beau­tiful azure of the firmament, have far less connexion with human affairs than he imagines; and I beg, for the time to come, that he will interrupt my meditati­ons with no such useless and impertinent epistles.

WHILE I was yet on the other side of that im­mense body of water which separates the eastern and western worlds, I had imbibed strange opinions con­cerning America in general, but more particularly of that part which at this day comprehends the thirteen United States. From my own reflections, as well as from the conversation of others, I had been inclined to believe that the people of these countries, who had then supported a war for three years against one of the most powerful, enterprising and warlike nations upon the face of the earth, must have been nearly reduced to the original state of nature, that is, were destitute of houses, cloathing, and most of the common neces­saries, not to mention the luxuries and conveniencies [Page 312] of life; had been driven into woods and mountains, where they suffered all the miseries of cold, hunger and nakedness, or at best were clad in buffaloe and bear skins, and supported a miserable life upon acorns or a little parched maize; that their fields were grow­ing up a second time into woods; and, finally, that they were preserved from total extirpation solely by a native obstinacy and invincible love of liberty▪ that set at defiance the most vigorous exertions of their ene­mies.

BUT how were my opinions, in many particulars, confounded, and my expectations most agreeably dis­appointed, when, after my arrival at an eastern port called Newbury, in travelling southwestward through the country, I perceived agriculture in all its glory; towns and cities well peopled, regulated and supplied with every necessary; the harbours crowded with ships of war and commerce; the people obedient to, and cheerfully active, in supporting the laws; and almost every thing in a flourishing condition.

WHEN I beheld all this, I could not avoid asking myself, Are these the republics of yesterday, or are they of a thousand years standing?—Here and there, indeed, where their enemy had been able to penetrate, the most horrid vestiges of devastation were yet to be seen, but like a cut or a bruise in the flesh of a vigo­rous, robust young man, they were healing apace, and promising in a little time to be no longer painful or discoverable.

THE view of these things brought to my remembrance a passage in the writings of Diodorus the Sicilian, who speaking of the exploits of Dion against Dionysius, has, if I recollect rightly, the following reflection:—"Who would ever have imagined that a person with two transports only, should get the better of a prince who had in his pay, and at his devotion, four hundred ships of war, one hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horses, proportionable stores of ammunition and pro­vision, [Page 313] and treasure sufficient for the maintenance of such numerous forces: who, besides all this, had in his possession the most considerable of all the Grecian cities, where he was master of havens, arsenals and citadels that were impregnable, and was moreover strengthened with the most powerful alliances?—The cause of DION'S unparallelled success was, in the first place, his courage and magnanimity, joined to the good will and affection of those for whose liberty he was engaged—these circumstances, concurring in the same instant, produced such a wonderful event, as may by posterity be thought incredible."

IT is hardly possible for an untravelled subject of the old and regular governments of the eastern world to entertain proper conceptions of the wonderful and astonishing efforts that may be made against an enemy by a young and growing country and people, who are actuated by a genuine, ardent sense of the value and blessings of liberty: they may be trampled down re­peatedly, but, like the grass of a fine soil in the ver­nal season, they will rise again in the space of a night, invigorated by that strong principle of life, which, from the minutest fibres of the root, pervades every vein of the stock and branches. (Imperfect.)

IN the year of the Christian era 1765, as I was crossing that part of the Mediterranean which extends between Corsica and Genoa, in a Spanish Felucca, the vessel on a sudden sprung a large leak; an accident that menaced us with almost immediate destruction, particularly as the sea water poured in upon us in such quantities as rendered the incessant working of our pumps of little or no avail. In this distress, just be­fore the vessel went down, we embarked in the boat, to the number of sixteen persons, each taking what he thought most precious: for my own part, I was not on this occasion much incumbered with baggage, hav­ing long before laid down a rule to myself, and which I never yet violated, to be the owner of no other pro­perty than a staff, a scrip, a pair of spectacles, a bundle of oriental manuscripts, and such articles of dress as should not be troublesome to carry with me, and yet of so humble a kind as not to be likely to induce any person to rob or kill me for the possession of them.

[Page 315] As the weather was favourable, we rowed toward the European shore, which was yet, however, at a very great distance, when, after seven or eight hours hard labour, we perceived a sail in the north-eastern quarter of the horizon, which proved to be a trading ship on her return from the dominions of the gr [...]nd duke of Tuscany to the island of SNATCHAWAY. After much intreaty and many disregarded signals of distress, we were, a little before night, taken on board, and, after several weeks sailing, safely arrived at this celebrated island. Perhaps it may not be amiss to mention, that the commander, who was a Snatchawegian, appeared to possess all the importance and despotic authority of an Indian Mogul; and because he had obliged us in saving our lives, treated us with the greatest inhuma­nity and contempt during the voyage: he seemed to be a man totally devoid of all the finer feelings of the mind, and took a pleasure in rendering others as mi­serable as he possibly could, without utterly destroying them. That he might be in some measure indemni­fied for the trouble we had given him, he sent us on shore almost as naked as we came into the world: As to my own part, he sold the very spectacles off my nose, together with my long blue gown which I had received about a year before as a present from an Ara­bian chief: I had even much ado to retain my staff of black ebony, which has been my constant companion for many years past, and I hope will attend me to the grave.

AFTER we were set on shore, I travelled for some months up and down the Snatchaway country, hoping soon to experience the hospitality and generosity, and be a witness to the liberty, which, according to their own writers, this nation enjoys in preference to all others in the world. But I soon discovered that the boasted freedom of the bulk of the nation was but a name; and their whole liberty consisted in their being allowed to rail at their superiors, talking with some [Page 316] freedom of the affairs of the government, and calling the first magistrate a fool, whenever his conduct, or that of his ministry, happened to displease them.

IN return for this glorious privilege, the people at large are the slaves of the rich and great; at saddled with kings, royal families, lords spiritual and tem­poral, and myriads of their needy dependents, who subsist wholly upon the labours of the industrious: while the bulk of the people are oppressed by heavy imposts, are retained in an abject state of poverty by these unsympathizing leeches, and have to struggle desperately to preserve a miserable existence.

THIS nation is likewise said to be charitable beyond all others; a specimen whereof take as follows: An old debauchee or a sordid miser having gathered an estate by the most infamous means possible, when at last he finds himself arrived at those uncomfortable boundaries which separate this world from the world invisible; when he is upon the point of making his entrance into a new and unknown state of existence, instead of bequeathing his ill-gotten hoard to those that may be allied to him, by blood or otherwise; instead of casting an eye of pity upon an helpless or­phan, or the maimed soldier neglected by his country, his last will declares that (by way of bribing the su­perior powers) a hospital shall be built, or a church erected out of that substance which he can now no longer personally enjoy. He takes care, also, not to forget to provide, since an affected charity is always noisy, that a monument for himself be raised in or near this cathedral or hospital, with epitaphs and eulogiums thereon inscribed, to tell the world that so great a patron of benevolence and religion once existed.

THIS island abounds, also, with more odd, ano­malous, and fantastical characters than perhaps are to be found in the whole world beside. One person will form a resolution not to marry till his last hour is [Page 317] come, and then seriously requests his young bride never again to be married to an old man.—Another is the most wretched of all created beings as long as the wind happens to blow from the east: a third, without having ever stirred beyond the boundaries of his native village or farm, takes it into his head that all nations, excepting his own are barbarians, slaves, papishes, cannibals, cowards or monsters of cruelty.—I knew a person, not far from the royal cathedral, so surpri­singly whimsical in his disposition, that he swore an oath (and a terrible one it was) never to rise out of bed while the wind bl [...]w at east, or either of the ad­jacent points. While at home, he ever had it in his power throughout the day to ascertain the direction of the current of air by means of a weathercock on the spire of a neighbouring church, which he could view through a glazed window as he reclined with his head on a pillow. A certain person of his acquaintance having by some accident discovered the whim, con­trived one night to have this index of the winds wedged fast precisely in an eastern and western direction, with the head towards the east. The winds had already blown several days from the reprobated point, and the whimsical man for some time bore very well with this obstinate perseverance of easterly weather, but finding at length, from the unvarying position of his informant, that there was likely to be no end to the easterly weather, actually hanged himself one morning with his garters, out of mere vexation and despair.

THOUSANDS in that country are wearied or dis­gusted with life long before the age of forty. While I resided in the metropolis, hardly a day passed but there were numerous instances of suicide; even their females hanged, drowned, or strangled themselves with the most undaunted resolution, often for some little imaginary slight or affront, that would scarcely have caused a sigh or an hour's uneasiness to the beau­tiful [Page 318] damsels of Circassia, the Levant isles, or even Asiatic Tartary.

BUT what particularly displeased me, was their almost perpetual executions of criminals. Thousands of vicious or unfortunate wretches are annually hurried out of the world in a most ignominious manner, for trifling thefts and other petty crimes, which indeed ought to be discouraged in every community, but cer­tainly cannot be of so heinous a nature as to merit the extremity of death, when murders, highway robberies, and a few other crimes justly reckoned capital, can meet with no greater punishment.

THE men of Snatchaway are also intolerably proud and ambitious. They imagine there are some pecu­liar excellencies in the contexture of their bodies, some precious drops of blood in their veins of a su­perior quality to that of other nations. They suppose themselves animated by a species of courage wholly unexperienced by foreigners, and which is able to break down and carry all before it: it is, in short, Snatchaway courage.—If at any time a native of this island is vanquished in battle or elsewhere, he does not attribute his disgrace to the strength or bravery of his antagonist, but to some unusual and unforeseen defect in himself. In prosperity he is excessively ar­rogant, imperious, and presuming; in adversity he can only suffer with patience when he conceives the world is looking upon him with an eye of sympathy and admiration. The very shoemakers, weavers and pedlars of Snatchaway suppose themselves, by some happy privileges of birth, to be upon an equality with, and can swallow as much flattery as, any first minister or crowned head in Europe or Asia. The Snatchaway men are also of a nature greedy and selfish beyond conception, and look upon the neighbouring nations of the continent as their natural enemies, and treat them as such whenever their wars or commerce interfere with their own private or national interest. They are like­wise [Page 319] destitute of politeness as well as common civility to strangers. The people of Fickle-land, on the op­posite coast of the continent, although, perhaps, the most civilized, brave, generous and humane in the world, are the perpetual objects of their abuse and ridicule: The Snatchaway stage alone is a convincing proof of my assertion. If a coward, a fop, a debau­chee, a miser, or any other contemptible character is to be represented, it is sure to be in the disguise of a Fickle-lander. Even the grammatical blunders of one of these who attempts to speak in the Snatchaway tongue, are an everlasting source of merriment for all ranks, the great vulgar as well as the small. They have persuaded themselves, and endeavour to persuade others who have not an opportunity to judge for them­selves, that this nation (the Fickle-landers) wholly consists of feeble diminutive men, flatterers, boasters, fops and poltroons: If it is objected to them, Why do you not conquer that country, and append it to your own dominions, fee [...]g it is so easy to be effected by reason of the weaknes [...] effeminacy, and cowardice of the natives?—They have a reply ready, viz. "The people of Fickle-land have imbibed such slavish principles, and are such contemptible objects in themselves, that it would be a disgrace for Snatch­away men to rule over them."—Thus excusing their known inability by a mean invective against a nation that has at all times baffled their mercenary designs and mortified their ambition.* * * * * (Imperfect.)

[Written in 1781.]

THERE are so many accomplishments in the per­son, and such an amiable simplicity in the manners of this rural clergyman, that I have often been induced to spend more time in this company than I could well spare from the great and voluminous work in which I am almost perpetually engaged. To make some a­mends for this, which however cannot be called lost time, the lamp in my cavern burns far into the night, and it is not, commonly, till towards the dawn of the day, that I allow myself those moments of repose, of which all persons stand more or less in need in this mor­tal life, to fit them for the duties and labours thereof.

As this man industriously avoids all occasions of speaking much concerning himself, I have been obli­ged to make use of some pains and artifice to collect a few sketches of the history of his life, in which I have by degrees so far succeeded that the following short account may be looked upon as authentic.

HE is a native of the Northern American world, and assures me has never indulged the least inclination to set his foot off the terra firma, or trust himself any considerable time to the watry element (of which he entertains the most horrible ideas) for all the advan­tages that might accrue from visiting the most renowned cities, conversing with the wisest philosophers, or being admitted into all the cabinets of curiosities, assemblies [Page 321] of literati, or celebrated libraries that the eastern con­tinent affords.

HE is now in his sixty-fourth year, and seems to have received a tolerable classical education, as he has more than once explained passages to me from Quintus Curtius, and translated whole chapters out of Titus Livius, the Roman historian, with considerable ele­gance of diction. Although he is arrived to an ad­vanced age, and time has already sprinkled his head with grey, yet such has been his temperance, and re­gularity of life, that few, from his appearance, would suppose him to be more than fifty. One reason for his carrying his years so well may be his never having been known to make free with spirituous liquors; and he is far above the womanish weakness of peevishness, fret­fulness, and falling into sudden and violent passions of rage. He is equally a stranger to melancholy and low­ness of spirits, and is in short of that equality of mind, as having never been much elevated by prosperity, or dejected by adversity, that secures the felicity of con­tent and cheerfulness to the happy possessor. There is an agreeable serenity continually upon his countenance, and his whole conduct in regard to himself, as well as his demeanor in his connections and intercourse with the world, proves that his conversation and hopes are fixed on a better country.

IT is with pleasure I observe that he is an utter ene­my to slave-keeping. The unhappy African was never beheld in his fields to faint beneath the lashes of an unfeeling tyrant, or to groan out a life of bondage and misery to support his vanity, his wickedness, or his imaginary wants. He has preached, too, with such success against this execrable practice, that there are but one or two of his parishioners who are at present known to hold any individual of their own species in slavery, and even these are so entirely convinced of the impropriety of their conduct, that they have not dared for a long time to appear in the church. Such as were [Page 322] convinced by his reasonings on this subject, dismissed their slaves sometime ago, making provision, how­ever, for their sustenance till they should be in a situa­tion to help themselves, and retaining (but perfectly at their liberty) the old and decrepit, who had passed their best days and the vigour of youth in the service of their masters.

HE has often told me that he had once formed a resolution, before he purchased the few acres of land he now possesses, in imitation of an ancient patriarch, never to call more ground his own than would be just sufficient for a burying place. His motive for which resolution I suppose was the same as that of the vener­able Abraham the patriarch; that he might thereby demonstrate to the world, or at least to the little sphere in which he moved, that his mind was so little taken up with this earth and its various enjoyments, that he thought it a species of folly to appropriate to himself a greater share of the soil thereof than would be just sufficient to entomb his bones. — I could never dis­cover with any certainty how he came to depart from this sentiment and design. It is not unlikely, how­ever, that he had penetration enough to observe, that mankind are often ungrateful to whom they are in re­ality most obliged, and nor unfrequently leave those to perish in poverty and obscurity, who, when advanced in years, or enfeebled with toil, ought to be the ob­jects of their tenderest concern.—It must have been for some such reason as this, that while he had it in his power, he made himself master of so much of the perishable substance of this world, as would barely ensure him from suffering by the malice or contempt of mankind, whenever they should think fit to with­draw their favours or attention.

THE principal satisfaction that life affords to this uncommon man is the opportunity of doing a good action, or being in any respect serviceable to the real interests of his fellow creatures.—Amongst other par­ticulars, [Page 323] he lately intimated to me, that in his younger days he had experienced a keen ambition to be known in the world as an author of note and character▪ He accordingly composed several pamphlets and essays on different subjects, and procured them to be published; but as he had the mortification to find that scarcely any one read these laboured productions but himself and two or three very intimate friends, he soon became weary of authorship, left the town in disgust, retired to a solitary abode in the country, and pored over two or three orthodox theological authors for several years, and was then sent abroad with a commission to instruct the western American savages in the doctrines and morality of the Asiatic Messiah. He informs me he was full three years on that mission, but finding little or no prospect of success among these rude and uncul­tivated people, from whom indeed he at last narrowly escaped with life, he retired to these civilized parts of the country, where he ha [...] now resided thirty-seven years, instructing the parishioners by his example, as well as by the doctrine he preaches, which is virtuous and moral, without mystery.

ALTHOUGH, in comparison to my own, the travels of this ecclesiastic have been a mere nothing, yet he is willing to imagine they have been very extensive. He has more than once entertained me with circum­stantial details of his long journies by land, and dan­ger of being shipwrecked in an Indian canoe on the great lakes of Canada. As he has never had an op­portunity of paying a visit to the great salt ocean that washes these coasts, he is often very particular in his enquiries relative thereto, and has more than once asked me whether the navigation of the Atlantic is as hazardous as what might be expected upon those lakes?—He has also been anxious to be informed whether the gallies in use upon the Mediterranean at this day, are of a similar construction with those of the ancient Greeks and Romans, the representation of [Page 324] which he has seen upon medals:—whether any re­mains of old Troy are to be seen in this late age; or if it be true that what is now shown for the ruins of Palmyra, was in reality the ancient Tadmor, the city that Solomon, the son of David, built in the wilder­ness:—what is the present extent of the once famous city of Jerusalem; or whether the spot in Mesopota­mia, where the garden of Eden is supposed to have been situated, retains any traces of its antediluvian beauties and fertility; or, finally, if it be probable that the grand pyramid of Egypt, with the neigh­bouring ones, were certainly within the walls of the ancient Memphis?

As he is a person of an easy comprehension, and a tolerable proficient in ancient and modern history, I now and then pass an evening with him very agree­ably in discoursing upon these subjects. The only question he ever put to me that gave me the least un­easiness, was, that I would so far favour him as to trust him with the important secret, where my cavern was situated?—I immediately desired him to reflect what an unreasonable request he was making, and to recall to his mind a maxim he frequently had in his mouth—"What you would have kept a secret, impart to nobody."—He immediately acquiesced in the pro­priety of my refusal, and at the same time assured me, he would not give me any trouble, for the time to come, on that score; adding, that he supposed I was engaged in abstruse studies, which could not succeed if my retirement was once discovered to the world.

THERE are many other particulars relating to this honest man, of which I make no doubt some of my more curious readers would be glad to be informed; as, "Whether he has a wife or children—how many acres does his glebe contain; to what may his annual income amount; is he a tall or a short man, or middle sized, and what figure does he exhibit in the pulpit; what subjects does he mostly preach on—does he read [Page 325] his sermons, or speak extempore, or does he commit them to memory?—what sect does he adhere to; does he wear a gown, or a plain black suit;—or in what part of the country is the old cathedral and its ceme­tery situated, where our acquaintance began?"

IT is almost needless to say, that for various reasons these queries cannot, or rather must not, be now an­swered. However, the diligent and attentive reader may, from several hints contained in this paper, more easily discover what he is not, than precisely what he is. Sufficient be it to say, that his sentiments, in matters of religion, are far from being narrow or selfish; he execrates, despises, on persecutes no man for the sake of his opinions; is a slave to the more confined notions of no sect or party, and has ever lived upon the best terms with the various Christian denominati­ons in this part of the country.

As to some other points relative to the situation of his rural retirement, his social connexions, and the like; it is not impossible, nay, it is more than pro­bable that time, which brings all things to light, may disclose these matters, as well as several other interest­ing particulars, of which no one has yet the least idea.

FATIGUED with that perpetual hurry of thought, in which my studies had engaged me for some days past, I yesterday morning took up my walking st [...]ff, and as the weather was uncommonly fine for the season, and promised an agreeable day, I determined to make an [Page 326] excursion beyond the bounds of the forest to which I had so long confined myself, in order if possible to shake off that rust and melancholy which is apt to ga­ther upon the mind, when too closely employed in one track of thought or business.—After travelling a few hours, as chance directed, I found myself in the vici­nity of a farm-house, beautifully situated on the south side of a fine grove of poplar trees. The mansion, it is true, had not in itself the appearance of elegance, grandeur or magnificence, but at the same time every thing manifested that use and convenience had been principal objects in the view of the projector.

INDUCED by this favourable appearance of things, and considering that plenty has in all ages and among every people been accounted the mother of hospitality, I walked up to the door, which I found shut, and guarded by a large dog, who, upon my near approach, almost deafened me with his barking, and more than once endeavoured to seize upon the fleshy part of my right thigh with a set of teeth that grinned rage, vengeance and desperation.

AT first it gave me some uneasy sensations to be laid under a necessity of acting offensively against an animal for whose whole species I entertain a most extravagant regard; but when I considered that he had violated the rights of hospitality, in attacking me at such an hour of the day, and in circumstances, as to myself, every was justifiable, I became less solicitous about what might be the event.—Things, however, were not to come to extremities. A venerable old man soon ap­peared at the door, whom I took to be the master, or rather some grey headed ancestor of the family. But it gave me not a little dissatisfaction that this ancient person, instead of inviting me, as a stranger, to enter the house with him, came out himself, and shutting the door after him, made a sign to me to follow him to an out building that stood at some considerable distance [Page 327] from the farm house, where we sat down together on a bench placed on a ground floor.

AFTER the common preliminary conversation which may be supposed to have passed at the first interview between two men of different nations, wholly strangers to each other, and both far advanced in life, I re­quested him to inform me whether he was not the owner and master of the estate upon which we then were?

I SOON perceived, that my question embarrassed the rustic veteran a good deal, and after making several attempts to turn the conversation into a different chan­nel, which I as constantly frustrated, he at length gave me the following little history of himself and the pos­sessions that surrounded us.

"I WAS born on the second year of the present century in one of those grand divisions of this country formerly denominated British Provinces, and adjacent to that government in which we now are. My father was not a husbandman, but a plain mechanic, who had long maintained a large family by dint of his in­dustry. When I had arrived to the age of twenty-one years, finding me averse to pursuing the art or trade, in the practice of which he had passed the best part of his own days, he put twenty pounds into my hands, and turned me out into the world to provide for myself in the best manner I could. After striking out a variety of plans and schemes, most of which were founded up­on the idea of living in the world without personal hard labour, I was at length convinced of the futility of my ideas, expectations, and opinions; and being natu­rally of a robust constitution, resolved within myself to procure, if possible, a comfortable independency in life by a faithful and severe attention to business, while youth, good health and a vigorous arm afforded me the means. With such views I came into this part of the country, which was at that time one entire forest, and having travelled through it and spent several days in thoroughly investigating it, I at length pitched up­on [Page 328] this spot, which particularly pleased my fancy for its fine stream of transparent water, tall groves of beautiful trees, level meadows, gentle ascents, and other ornaments and advantages which may yet occur to every beholder, even after time and unremitted labour have considerably changed the original prospect and scenery.—Having made sufficient observations upon the situation and nature of the soil, I returned once more to the city, and finding out the proprietor of this, at that time, wild and savage territory, I made a purchase of a few acres, reserving to myself only mo­ney enough to provide the tools necessary for agricul­ture, and some coarse cloaths for my own apparel. I then packed up my small property, and with consi­derable fatigue once more reached the bank of yon­der stream, which is now planted with beautiful wil­lows, but at that time was bordered with an almost I [...]penetrable wilderness of ash-trees, red oaks and walnuts. My first care was to erect a small cabbin, which I covered and enclosed with the bark of trees, and made sufficient to defend me from the storms and snows of the winter, and the rains and unwholesome dews of the nights. At the intervals of labour my gun supplied me with provisions of the animal kind, and as to bread, my next neighbour, who lived at the distance of at least five miles from my hut, furnished me with small quantities of maize at different times, for which I paid him with the labour of my hands in the harvest season of the year. The pure water of the stream was at first my only drink, but I afterwards dis­covered an excellent spring, which has never been known to fail in the most dry and parched seasons that this territory has experienced.

"I CONTINUED ten years in this way of employ­ment, incessantly engaged in the innocent toils of the ru [...]al life, and at the conclusion of that period found [...] prospect [...] enlarged. M [...] me [...]dows yielded a most [...] burden of grass, a small [Page 329] though heavy harvest grew yellow upon my fields, and great part of my little purchase was already hand­somely fenced in. I had also in this time become master of several oxen and horses, with other domestic animals, at least a dozen hives of bees, and an abun­dance of tame poultry of almost every kind. With the profits accruing from all these, I made repeated additions to my original purchase, not forgetting in the mean time to build what I supposed to be a conve­nient house from stone dug out of a neighbouring quarry; and most of the other materials were also supplied from my own estate. At length I married, in the thirty-second year of my age. I chose for my companion in this state a young woman six years less advanced in life than myself, a native of a village a­bout twelve miles from hence, sprung from parents of the middling class; and a girl whose character and temper was such as not to be likely to pester me with the follies and fopperies of a town; nor yet one who was only fit to be placed with other useless lumber in the corner of a parlour.

"EVERY thing fell out equal to my expectations. We lived together extremely happy for about thirty years, and during that interval were the parents of several fine children.—God of nature, why could not this happy state have been prolonged to me without alteration or alloy!—About seven years ago, how­ever, my dear wife died, an event which consigned me over to a state of melancholy for a long time, insomuch that I resigned up my plantation and the care of it into the hands of my eldest son, only reserving to myself what should be considered a decent maintenance for the remaining days of my life. As soon as my son found himself legal master of the possessions I had acquired by the sweet of my brow, instead of continuing to im­prove the farm [...] or make additional purchases, [...] set him by his father, the first thing he thought of was to provide himself with a [Page 330] wife. Finding him determined and fixed in this re­solution at rather an early age of life, I advised him to copy from his father's conduct in this matter, and match himself in some plain family, of honest man­ners, not used to extravagance, and, if possible, such as had gained a decent competency in the world by their own proper care and industry.

"THE boy, I am willing to believe, followed my advice as far as he knew how. The family with which he soon after connected himself, were of good repute, and of decent character and circumstances; but times and manners are strangely altered within twenty or thirty years last past, and the fopperies and extrava­gancies, introduced in the time of the late war, have entirely turned the brains of many thousands of honest people. You must know, my friend, my son's wife is extremely fond of grandeur and gay company. She sees nothing but vulgarity in my house and furniture. Upon her first entering the kitchen she ordered the wooden trenchers to be thrown aside, upon which her mother-in-law and myself had made many a comfort­able and contented meal. My beds were abused for their coarse homespun ticking and sheets, and cover­lets of the same home manufacture. My chairs with rush bottom [...] were pronounced execrable, and long since had the fate to give place to others of a new and more expensive construction, seated with cushions of red velvet. Instead of a plain waggon with a light wood­en cover, my son is hourly importuned, or rather, pe­remptorily commanded, to purchase a new coach and phaeton for the more genteel conveyance of my lady on her visits. In short, every thing I ever possessed is, in her [...] mean and unfashionable; nay, I believe I myself am also considered as an old fashioned despi­cable piece of furniture, as it was but the other day I heard her ask my son, "why that old man presumed to sit down in the dining room at a time when he could not but know genteel visitors were there?"

[Page 331] "THE very structure of my old mansion house is a standing occasion of ill nature and morose reflection; [...]he sees nothing in it but inconvenience, and at least once a day execrates the builder or projector for the rusticity of his taste, and has prevailed upon my son already to contract with a person for erecting a large, new and more elegant structure. What all this will end in, is not difficult to foresee! My son's fortune will never support so much vanity and expence for any considerable length of time. I was a foolish old dotard to yield up the fruits of my long and laborious industry out of my own hands, to be expended before my face in the walks of idleness and folly. Should I live two or three years longer, I have now the melancholy pros­pect of being turned out in an extreme old age to the mercy of the world, or of being once more compelled to build a cabbin in the woods at a time when the nerves of my arm cannot possibly be of the same use to me as formerly. My good friend, (continued he) you appear to be a stranger, and in times past my heart would have leaped with joy to have invited you to a participation of my table, my bed, and (if the season demanded it) my fireside; but, as your whole appear­ance is, according to my daughter-in-law's ideas, un­fashionable and outlandish, I dare not introduce you into the presence of the family, as I am positive it would be considered in the light of an insult to the house, and most probably some disagreeable conse­quences, both to yourself and me, might take place."

HERE the old man ended his story, and then bidding me adieu, retired into a small out building, where I had sufficient reason to suspect he was victualled and lodged, and passed most of his time, for fear of bring­ing disgrace upon the master and mistress of the family by his uncouth appearance.

[Written 1783.]

UPON my return homeward, I halted, several miles short of the out skirts of the forest I inhabit, at a solitary cottage a very small distance from the high way, where a painted board, suspended from the branch of a tree, pro­jecting horizontally, advertised me that hospitality was to be sold in that place for money. Upon my entering the inn, I found every thing in uproar and confusion. It seems a wedding was to be held there the same even­ing for a young couple of the neighbourhood, and this event, which is by far the most important of their whole lives among the bulk of mankind, in respect to themselves, had occasioned these preparations for the festivity of the approaching night.—I should have pas­sed on without delay from this fantastic scene of mo­mentary mirth, had not the importunities of a certain blind musician (who was hired to regulate the music, according to an ancient custom still kept up on such occasions) in a manner compelled me to sit down on a bench at the door, and tell him the news of the day. After gratifying him as well as my scanty knowledge of the affairs of the great world would at that moment allow, he further requested me to inform him what might be the opinions of the people in the capital in regard to his own late performances on the violin?—Upon my honour, friend, replied I▪ to the best of my knowledge the people in the capital, at least those with whom I have happened to be conversant, are not as [Page 333] yet sufficiently acquainted with your merits to have made your performances the subject of public conversation: possibly, however, I may be mistaken; I am but very slightly known in the city, and those few with whom I as­sociate are, for the most part, wholly disconnected with, as well as entirely ignorant of music in all its branches and modes of expression.—"Not acquainted with my merits." replied the musician—"Is it possible there are any people in Philadelphia that have not heard of David Quiverstring, the famous blind fid­dler, who can at any time play more than three hun­dred of the newest and most fashionable tunes without the assistance of the book of Notes!—I would wish you to understand, Mr. Traveller, (continued he, some­what angrily) that I am not only known but well re­spected throughout this continent, and even in Europe I have good reason to think my merits are not altoge­ther disregarded or unnoticed!"

WHEN he had uttered these words, he swaggered back to the company, and began to strike up some miserable airs as a specimen of his transcendent abili­ties. Being now at liberty, I pursued my journey homewards, not without reflecting by the way on this unaccountable fondness in mankind for fame and exten­sive reputation. To acquire the esteem and good-will of valuable men is certainly an innocent as well as a laudable endeavour, but to pass sleepless nights and anxious days, to toil in the walks of science, or to exhaust the spirits on the rack of invention, and our principal aim in all this being nothing more than merely to become popular, is certainly absurd in itself, at least so far as regards the peace and happiness of an indivi­dual, but is without doubt a principle implanted in us by nature for the general advantage of the human spe­cies, when formed into societies and civil connexions.

WHEN I had returned to my cavern, after refresh­ing myself with a mess of roots and a draught of pure water from the adjacent rivulet, I at length fell unex­pectedly [Page 334] into a gentle slumber, when the blind fiddler once more intruded himself upon me in a dream, and I now imagined he had arrived to such an insufferable degree of conceit and impertinence, as to request me to recommend him as one qualified for the place of first musician to the royal family of France.

VEXED at his forward and arrogant behaviour, I instantly turned him out of my cave; at the same time desiring him to recollect that merit and modesty have ever been inseparable companions, and that he who is employed in trumpeting forth his own praises, has already anticipated that return, be his merits what they may, which he might have had pretensions to expect from the world.

AFTER the dismission of this visionary personage, I conceived myself to be suddenly transported to a large plain, which was called the Walk of human life. I found myself, I cannot tell how, placed in the midst of this plain, which extended east and west, and was sufficiently enlightened; but what most surprised me was, that it began and ended in darkness. I was now apparently carried westward by a propensity of self­actuating motion, which I could neither resist nor ac­count for; and, in my way, saw at a distance a large black building, over the marble gate of which was written in capital letters, THIS IS THE TEMPLE OF OBLIVION. The spirit that superintended the affairs of this melancholy edifice, appeared soon after at the middle gate, and fixing his eyes full upon me, beckoned to me to advance towards him. A strange horror immediately took possession of my soul; not­withstanding which, I obeyed his intimation, advanc­ing towards him with a trembling step. He then made an attempt to take me by the hand, as if to welcome me to the environs of his dreary abode, when I shrunk back from his grasp, alarmed at the idea of any of my limbs coming into contact with the cold substance of an inhabitant of the world of spirits. He [Page 335] smiled at my fears, bidding me, at the same time, to attend to what he should say, and he would teach me wisdom. "This plain (said he) is the passage of all mankind into the ocean of forgetfulness, and through this temple, which is dedicated to oblivion, every in­dividual without exception is once doomed to pass. That other spacious building which you see at a dis­tance, and situated some miles off to the right, is called the Palace of Fame. Cast your eyes eastward, and observe what millions of the human race are tra­velling this way! They are, to a man, conscious that the palace of oblivion may finally receive them all: and yet, strange to behold, there is not a single indivi­dual among them that does not make use of his utmost endeavours to take the Temple of Fame in his way, notwithstanding the distance is much more consider­able, and the road full of sharp rocks and other dan­gerous obstacles, with which the direct path to the Pa­lace of Oblivion is not in the least encumbered. Let us go towards them, and observe their designs and motions." — After a long walk we at last came to the place where the two roads separated, one leading directly west, and following the course of the sun, to the Palace of Oblivion; the other, by a circuitous and difficult rout, to the Temple of Fame. The road to the latter appeared to be very little worn, being al­most overrun with briar and thorn bushes; and I could not help taking notice of a number of sour looking spirits, in the several shapes of owls, asses, monkies and wolf-dogs, inhabiting the confines of this region, whose whole employment seemed to be the driving back, and otherwise ill treating, such as attempted to pass this way. In consequence of their malicious acti­vity, most of those who had entered the road, and had even made some progress towards the Temple of Fame were soon discouraged by so much ill usage, re-mea­sured their steps to the spot where the two roads sepa­rated, and then passed quietly on with the innumer­able [Page 336] multitude that were irresistibly hurrying away to the Palace of Oblivion.—There were some few, however, who, either by a daring and animated per­severance, undaunted fortitude, a native pride and dignity of soul, or by some fortunate circumstance, evaded the activity of these morose spirits, and with immense difficulty reached the Palace of Fame.

"LET us walk thither, said the superintending spirit, and we shall soon discover whether their enter­tainment in the airy Temple of Fame is at all worth the trouble, anxiety and vexation they experienced and underwent in attaining to it." He had no sooner ut­tered these words, than we were at the place he men­tioned.

I WAS surprised on our first approach, when I ob­served that this spacious building consisted of scarce any thing else than doors and windows. No refresh­ment of any kind was offered, and the only person we could hold any conversation with was the Genius of the Temple, who was almost constantly employed in blowing upon a trumpet, and looked so miserably meagre and gaunt, that I could have sworn that, from all appearance, a meal of solid food had not entered his stomach in half century.

THE rooms within were all arched and circular, and the least whisper was re-echoed a thousand times from wall to wall, and from chamber to chamber. Here and there, labels of paper were suspended, in­scribed with the names and titles of former visitants; and I saw a very few persons loitering about in differ­ent parts of the palace, whose countenances bespoke hearts full of disappointment and chagrin.—"These are some of the few, said the superintending spirit, who with so much difficulty and vexation surmounted all obstacles and discouragements, and foolishly ima­gined they should be completely happy if they could but by any means attain to these abodes: Alas, they are as discontented as ever! here is nothing that can [Page 337] sufficiently reward them for their nights of labour and days of anguish, for their pains, and solicitudes, and loss of pleasures which might have been better seized while opportunity permitted. First image and reflec­tion of the Deity, O Virtue; such shall be the lot of all who do not make thee, simply, the end and basis of all their actions.—How happy would they have been had they passed contentedly with the herd of mankind in the short and easy road to the dark valley of obli­vion! But the spirit of deception had been busy among them, and not a few were persuaded that their final and most felicitous abode would be in this place.—That was delusion indeed! I shall permit them to re­main here but a small number of hours, they shall have time given them to inscribe their names upon a few bits of paper, and suspend them from the wall—this is in reward for their perseverance and heroism—they shall then pass through the back part of the Palace of Fame, and disappear with the rest of mankind in the dark cloud that verges on the Palace of Oblivion." — The superintending spirit had scarcely uttered these words when a violent wind began to blow thro' the temple, and tore away a great number of the paper labels that had been tacked to the walls, cielings, door­posts, and other parts of the building, inscribed with the names of celebrated men of different ages. — "It is thus, continued the spirit, that even the me­mory of these candidates for everlasting fame is dissi­pated and lost forever: Those vain labels of paper are mostly blown away with their owners into yonder dark and impenetrable cloud, and those that remain will, by some future commotion of the elements, be treated precisely in the same manner."

THUS it is then, said I, that mankind are the sport of endless deceptions! Tell me, kind spirit, for what wise purpose could man have been [...] and [...]hy is he continued in his present [...] of [...] to be actuated by desires which [...] [...]ever meant to be [Page 338] gratified, and tormented with expectations which, in the end, are answered only by delusions?

"THE miseries of your species, replied the spirit, are principally owing to the suggestions of the spirit of pride. What is the race of man, that they should be panting for habitations beyond the stars! You ima­gine yourselves the most curious work of the Deity be­cause you possess five distinct senses—Believe me, there are beings in the universe that possess as many thou­sands. The qualifications that Nature designed for man in his present state, are ever in his power. It is by seeking for things that are beyond him, and incom­patible with his abilities for enjoyment, that he be­comes miserable. While the horse is satisfied with the herbage of the plain and the wholesome spring or ri­vulet of clear [...] he is happy, because he has the full enjoyment of all that Nature intended for him; but should he once loath his natural food, and be only anxious to attain the fruits that hang on the boughs of lofty trees, or strong spirits produced by the arts of distillation, he would instantly become wretched, be­cause he would desire what his station and condition did by no means entitle him to. At the same time, I could wish you to understand and remember, that this discontent with himself and his situation, so peculiar to man, ought to be an undoubted evidence with you that there is something within him different from mere material mechanism, totally distinct from the element­ary principles, and which shall live again in after ages in the bright regions you see beyond the skies.—Yet to himself, continued the spirit, man is an absolute mys­tery: he emerged from yonder cloud of darkness in the east, and in a similar state of obscurity he must be again involved. The wisest among you have never yet been able to unravel the designs and views of the great original Spirit in permitting existence to man: I will, however, be so candid as to acknowledge that some few have been born possessed of souls of so much [Page 339] sagacity as to be able to look thro' yonder dark cloud that bounds the visible existence of man, so far at least as to have some faint glimmerings of the real intenti­ons of the Deity in this matter: but whenever I dis­cover any such I am obligated by a most sacred [...] to kill them in their infancy, lest the secrets of the Cre­ator should be unseasonably revealed.

"YOU must know that this plain lay, for a prodi­gious succession of ages, a mere lifeless mass of mat­ter. There was not a tree nor a bush to be seen, not a blade of grass, nor an animal, nor running streams, nor vegetables, much less the majestic race of man. At last Volatilio, the spirit of activity, came to spend some ages in these remote parts of the universe, after having passed twelve thousand years of the first order in traversing the immensity of space, and in erecting a prodigious variety of mundane systems in the course of his travels. One day, in looking around him, he cast his eyes upon this plain, but it did not please him. The perpetual solitude that reigned here did not agree with his active and sprightly imagination; and he soon after applied to the first principle of animation for leave to people it with several ranks of beings com­pounded of the soil of the plain and the water of the ponds; the whole end of whose existence should be his own amusement, in the same manner as the characters on a theatrical stage are employed to entertain their evening audience. It is but just, said he, that I should have something to divert my fancy after so many ages of fatigue and wandering through the cold and com­fortless regions of inanity.

"THE spirit of animation had never been averse to gratify every reasonable request of the spirit of activity, who was exceedingly dear to him, but could not on this occasion reconcile himself to the notion, that creatures compounded of two such mean princi­ples as dust and water, should be admitted to a know­ledge of the harmony and beauty of the universe, and [Page 340] to a view of those operations of Nature which he sus­pected would afford them too clear an idea of the DE­ITY, for beings of their wretched and despicable ori­gin. At last, however, upon repeated solicitations, he complied with the request of Volatilio, on condi­tion that the faculties of the principal creature should be extremely limited and narrow; that they should have a glimpse of the wonders around them only thro' a medium of [...] and that, after displaying a little while on the stage of human life, they should, as the law of their nature, individually revert into the identical substances of which they were originally com­posed; after passing thro' the Temple of Oblivion, where the perceptive faculties, according to their pre­sent organization, should forever be destroyed, and the principle of REASON alone remain.

"VOLATILIO accordingly formed numberless ani­mated substances of various shapes and qualities; but man he contrived with a particular view to his own amusement, a compound of contradictions and absur­dities, virtues and vices, sorrows and joys, wisdom and folly. All their disputes in philosophy, their ideas of the operations of the superior nature, their systems of astronomy, their legislation, their commerce, their wars, their massacres, their bloody devastations, their religions—all were to him matter of laughter and mer­riment. He saw nothing in the affairs of mankind that ever cost him a sigh or a tear, or one uneasy sen­sation; as some compensation, however, for the amuse­ment they afforded him, he gave them every enjoy­ment that could in any way be deemed suitable or ne­cessary to their natures; and if they still chose to per­plex themselves with aiming at more than he intended for them, it only added to his pleasure, or at most ex­cited his pity.—But I will be so candid also as to ac­knowledge, they were not designed to be completely happy. This gave the spirit of animation a moment­ary idea of sorrow, not could it be otherwise, since he [Page 341] is benevolence itself. He, therefore, as some allevi­ation of their misery, bestowed upon them the divine present of sleep, by the influence of which, one third at least of their sufferings in annihilated before the final and unalterable sleep is brought upon them. Moved, also, with compassion at the view of those evils which, in some sense, are unavoidable, as being casual and incidental to the nature of man, he has deigned to relieve them further by different means. Cast your eyes over the plain, and you will see two personages, designed for consolation."

IN compliance with his request I looked among the crowd, and saw two females of the most enchanting beauty, playing upon harps, and lutes, and other mu­sical instruments, and reciting songs and airs, which every now and then seemed to brighten up the coun­tenances of those that paid their attention to them.

"THESE, said the superintending spirit, are the heavenly arts of Music and Poetry. Without them, how dull and tedious would be this journey of human life! The spirit of animation has not given the hea­venly Muse invain, except to [...] who, incapable of tasting the consolation she affords, are amusing them­selves with the grunting of swine, and the croakings of ravens."

BUT was it not cruel, replied I, in the spirit of Activity to tantalize the human race with a view of those wonderful realities of Nature they are so capable of admiring, and which they must nevertheless forever part with after gazing at and admiring them but a moment? — "You wrong the spirit of animation, said my attendant, in calling it cruelty. What ho­nour could there be in remaining in the torpid state of the clods of the valley? Who would not prefer a momentary illumination into life and perception, to an eternity of unconscious sleep? This sun, this moon, these stars, this beautiful fabric of land and water, this whole system of animation; are they not well [Page 342] worth the trouble of beholding, though it be but for a moment?—What are all the miseries and perplexities of life when put in competition with a single glance of these stupendous wonders, that are continually passing before you on the great ocean of matter? But what am I saying! Are not the pleasures that always attend upon virtuous actions a full recompence for the short­ness, the wretchedness, and the uncertainty of life? The Deity is pleased with the exercise of virtue, be­cause that is the essence of his nature; and the reward of virtue is constantly found in the composure and fe­licity that is, or ought to be, enjoyed by every virtu­ous mind.

"I MUST now return to the Palace of Oblivion, continued the superintending spirit, to give those their eternal dismission into the abyss of darkness who have been collecting and loitering at the portal since I have been talking with you. Your time of dismission is not yet come, so that I must once more leave you in the region of human life, where I would, however, wish you to be as happy as you possibly can: Give me your hand, then, and I will conduct you into that charming part of the country that is dedicated to silence and so­litude; abodes where the men of sentiment and vir­tue were ever inclined to dwell, and where I, as the superintending spirit of this fantastical region, would wish to leave you."

HAVING spoke these words, he offered to take me by the hand, but I shuddered at the idea.—I had ever (said I) a secret dread of the inhabitants of the spiri­tual world: your hand must be so cold! Kind spirit, you are of so strange an aspect I tremble to touch you. Grant me at least one of my own species to direct me to the charming solitudes you mention, and there I will remain till I am destined to behold you once more in the palace of forgetfulness.

"BE not afraid," said the spirit, with a good na­tured smile; "all the inhabitants of the world of [Page 343] spirits are, without exception, friendly to mankind: you are your own enemies in affixing ideas of mischief and malevolence to a class of beings that would cease to exist the moment they ceased to be virtuous."

HAVING said this, he seized me by the left hand to conduct me to the habitations of virtuous men, when the fright, occasioned by the sudden grasp of so for­midable a spirit, awakened me just as the dawning of the day began to glimmer through the apertures of my cavern.

DISTANCE has a strange delusive effect upon the mind, and its errors and deceptions can only be cor­rected by the strictest severity of judgment. A tra­veller on the brow of a lofty hill sees nothing but de­formity around him. Shapeless rocks, caverns of tre­mendous depth, rugged roads, and solitary echoes are his only companions. When he has gained the sum­mit he looks forward over an immense valley, and sees other mountains at the distance of several leagues.—The prospect is delightful. The woods appear to be of a beautiful blue. The rays of the sun are reflected in colours of gold, and every object that can be dis­cerned on these distant hills awakens the idea of en­chanted groves and retreats of felicity.—The traveller descends rapidly from the gloomy scene around him, hurries over the intervening valley in all the raptures of expectation, but has no sooner approached these [Page 344] painted objects than the enchantment vanishes, and a similar group of rocks, caverns and other disagreeable objects, are once more presented to his nearer but dis­appointed view.

THESE ideas were suggested to my mind in attend­ing to the history of a traveller with whom I happened to meet some days ago at the house of my friend, the rural clergyman. He was a peasant from the remote corners of Poland; not, by his appearance, more than thirty years of age; and frankly assured me he had, while at home, entertained the absurd imagination from his very childhood, that if he could once find means to cross the Atlantic and set his foot on the shores of this western world, he should without any other trouble become at once completely happy, and sit down at his ease.

BUT I will give his history in his own words.—"What first bewildered my ideas, and misled me in regard to my notions of this country was hearing my mother read certain books giving a detail of the first discovery and settlement of the British Provinces in America. As my father was only a vassal or tenant to a certain great man, possessing no more than three acres of ground, and had never been and never expect­ed to be in a better situation, I was perfectly charmed to hear him tell of immense tracts of the most fertile territory, totally uninhabited and unoccupied, except by the natives of the soil, who now and then ran over it in small parties for the purpose of hunting deer and other wild animals of the forest.—When to this de­scription was added the prospect of beautiful rivers a­bounding with the most delicious fish of every kind; wild turkeys wandering in prodigious flocks over plains covered with luxuriant herbage, and yet so weary of life as to offer their throats almost voluntarily to the knife of any person that wanted his supper; when I heard of buffaloes rambling in the forests, thousands in a herd, and so tame and gentle as to [Page 345] suffer themselves to be knocked down by a lad with a small club whenever my appetite should relish a beef steak—when I heard all this and had convinced my­self of the reality of these and a thousand other par­ticulars of the same delusive nature, by having read, or heard them read, in print, (and what was in print was the same to my father's family as the evidence of their senses) my fancy was fairly captivated by the al­luring prospects. I could no longer go out to work on our little garden spot with a contented mind. Our landlord became my utter aversion; I considered him in the light of a detestable tyrant whose business and interest it was to restrain and detain us forever from these glorious scenes of liberty and affluence, and out of the little we could extort by hard labour from the surface of his three acres could retain to ourselves but a very small [...]h [...]re, to prolong a miserable existence. At last, in my eighteenth year, I disclosed my inten­tions to my father, and desired his permission to leave our little habitation, where there were also several of my junior brothers growing up to be the support of his old age; as it was my whole desire and inclination to visit and settle in that distant charming country of which I had heard both him and my mother read such enchanting descriptions in the long winter evenings, after the labours of the loom or the spinning-wheel were laid aside.

ALAS, my son, said the good old man, what an unreasonable inclination are you cherishing in your bosom! cannot you be satisfied with the simple lot of your ancestors, who have always been happy in the humble vale of life, and through several generations have peaceably possessed this little spot of territory, paying ten golden ducats of Poland yearly to the Lord of the Soil, as an acknowledgement that our tenure is of him?

THIS does not at all satisfy me, replied I. I am anxious, exceedingly anxious, to set my foot in those [Page 346] vast and unbounded regions, where I can also assume the native dignity of man, and become likewise the Lord and Possessor of many fertile lands, where none can come in to demand a share of my labours against my consent, and where my descendents may, in time, arrive to a condition of opulence and esteem.

ALL I could say, however, did not obtain my fa­ther's consent that I should leave him, and I soon af­ter set out privately with a design to travel to Ham­burg, and there take shipping for America; having only three rix dollars in my possession, upon which were founded the whole fabric of these mighty de­signs.

THERE was, at that time, a law in force through­out the kingdom of Poland, that no subject should leave the dominion without a permit signed by the intenda [...]t of the province to which he should belong. As I had neglected this precaution, and indeed could not have made sufficient interest to obtain any such permission, I consequently became liable to all the pe­nalties to be inflicted in case of discovery. I was, accordingly, apprehended, before I had crossed the river Odor, and not being able to give a satisfactory account of myself, was committed to prison, where I lay several weeks, and after it was discovered to what family I belonged (for I was obstinate enough to confess nothing) I received the punishment of the strap­pado, and was sent back to my father, who soon after hired me out to the landlord, and in this service, which was very severe, I continued upwards of four years.

BUT finding slavery more intolerable every day, I once more bade adieu to my native country, my ty­rant, my father and my friends. Small indeed are my obligations to the latter, said I, if they brought me into the world and nourished me up only to be a slave. I will quit them forever, and boldly assume the rights of man.—I once more set my face towards [Page 347] Hamburg, and with better success than formerly. I took care to avoid all high roads, travelling for the most part only in the night, ventured into no public ferry, or passage boats, for fear of examination, and swam over all creeks and rivers that lay in my way, till at last, by repeated efforts, and using all the cun­ning I was master of, I had the good fortune to reach the free city of Hamburg in safety. Here I wrought by the day for such as would employ me, till I could find an opportunity to embark for the country I had so long considered as the true seat of human felicity, and where I supposed the fables of the golden age were realized upon earth. After essaying several dis­appointments, and making many fruitless applications to masters of vessels employed in the western naviga­tion, I was fortunate enough, after three months un­remitted endeavours, to ship myself on board a vessel bound to Philadelphia, upon condition of working on the passage and paying sixteen dollars, the fruits of my day-labour, while detained in the rich and flou­rishing city of Hamburg.

I LOST sight of all European shores without the least sentiment or idea of regret. I had long considered my native continent as a region where, in general, the rights of men are slighted or forgotten; where the principal care and concern of the directors is to en­slave the mind, as they well know that the more sub­stantial slavery of the body must speedily and inevit­ably follow; where superstition has made ravages which the most exalted exercise of human reason will not be able to repair for centuries to come, and where every thing is for sale if a sufficient price is but once offered.—With these ideas I lost sight of the Da­nish and German shores, and thought I beheld even on the inhospitable and unnatural wastes of the ocean something more favourable to the spirit of LIBERTY, than in the wretched plains and vallies of the coun­tries I had now left behind me.

[Page 348] NEAR three weeks had elapsed before we were quite clear of the English channel, our progress having been much interrupted during this interval by contrary winds. The first land we saw after leaving the land's end of England, was the islands called Salvages; we had also a view of several of the Canaries, and in the course of the next month found ourselves on the coast of Carolina. A gentle westerly breeze now blew from the shore, and brought with it certain strong effluvia from the forests of the pine trees. The gales of Ara­bia, impregnated with all the odours of the east, were never half so grateful to the Barbarian in the sandy deserts of Africa. These (said I with myself) are in­deed the gales of Paradise: how happy must those persons be who are at this instant wandering in the de­lectable groves from whence these divine perfumes are momently wafted on the wings of refreshing ze­phyrs! Here are no task-masters, whose merciless fangs are employed in wresting the pitiful morsel from the desperate clench of poverty! all are happy because all have enough. Nature has showered down her stores of abundance upon them; pining hunger, and severity of labour, and dejection of spirit, and dread of pover­ty, are totally unknown in yonder happy scenes! It is not possible I can be unhappy when once I shall have acquired a property among, and have formed an ac­quaintance with, the virtuous people of these delight­ful and ever joyous climes!

IN the midst of these luxuriant ideas of a permanent felicity, we reached the bay and river of Delaware. I saw nothing to cast a shade upon the scenes wrought up into so much excellence by my distempered ima­gination, till we dropped anchor opposite a small vil­lage on the water side of the great river, where by or­der of the ship master I was sent on shore, with seve­ral others, to purchase poultry and other fresh provi­sions, our stock of which was already wholly consumed. Although the inhabitants of this place appeared to live [Page 349] much at their ease, they still complained bitterly of poverty and the unparallelled hardness of the times, and to the best of my observation were as dexterous in the little arts of over-reaching, and putting off indif­ferent provisions at an extravagant price, as any I had seen on the other side of the water. This circum­stance was no confirmation of the opinions I had hi­therto entertained in regard to the happiness and vir­tuous dispositions of the people on the western shores of the Atlantic. Upon a little further inspection I was struck with the view of a jail at a small distance from me, through the iron grates of which a great number of confined persons were bawling aloud to every pas­senger for charity. Upon enquiry I was told that the greater part of these were villains, guilty of the black­est crimes, and that it was expected a number of them would be hanged soon after the next assizes. As to the others, I was informed they were for the most part unfortunate debtors, detained there till time, chance, or death, should accomplish their deliverance. — This last scene convinced me I had been pursuing a phantom, and that virtue, honesty, sincerity and com­plete felicity are not to be discovered in any country, without a very large mixture of the dregs of baseness, villainy and misery. Upon my arrival in Philadelphia, nothing occurred that came up to my original idea of the American cities, excepting the regularity and con­venience of its streets and buildings. Friendship I found to be little more than a name, merely selfish and interested; and as to Brotherly Love, the term was un­derstood here in a very limited sense. Hospitality was sold for ready money; sheriffs and constables were as busy and as brutal as in Europe; landlords as op­pressive and rigorous as can be imagined; and, in short, I found at last that mankind were the same here as on the other side of the ocean, a few refinements in vice only excepted, in favour of the people of the west. I soon after determined to bid adieu to the [Page 350] city, and fix upon some unappropriated spot of land in the remote parts of the western territory, which I might cultivate by my own industry, as the likeliest means to make some approaches to that happy state of life which has been ever uppermost in my thoughts, the life of a free and independent farmer, or tiller of the earth. Indeed I am convinced that man was never designed for a state of inactivity; if we are not indus­triously employed we by no means answer the design of the Creator in giving us an existence.—I am now on my way towards the waters of the Ohio, and as I ad­vance, I think I can perceive that things alter for the better. The first twenty or thirty miles of my jour­ney were rather disagreeable. The farmer's sons would now and then set their dogs upon me, when I attempt­ed to walk over their fields of wheat, and if I asked at a farm-house for a draught of milk and water, the good woman would always take care to charge me three­pence before I left her. But I am happy to find that I am now considerably to the westward of this odious and paltry custom, for I am of opinion that country is not worth possessing, nor that soil worth the trouble of cultivating, which cannot, or does not, enable the industrious inhabitant to bestow a night's lodging, or a meal of victuals, or a draught of milk and water, on a friendless and moneyless stranger, without expec­tation and condition of a pecuniary reward." —

"THIS is all folly," said the benevolent cler­gyman; "you are indeed wrong, my friend, because you are seeking in the great world for that felicity which is not to be found or enjoyed at all, if a man's own bosom is not its occasional repository in all pos­sible situations and circumstances of life. What are to me the vallies of Euphrates, or the blooming gar­dens of the star of the morning, if I do not possess [...] taste and relish for those divine abodes? What are the sounds of the organ when addressed to the ear of [Page 351] deafness; what are the beauties of material nature to the eye that, since its formation, has never imbibed a ray of light?—Such is the felicity of the world to him that has not a capacity to enjoy it. I want words to express how much I pity the man who cannot be gay in adversity and sincerely cheerful even when banished into the gloomy deserts of Tartary. God and Nature never meant to limit the happiness of the mind to the fortuitous circumstances of place or condition. He has rather placed its felicity beyond the power of chance and accident. The virtuous man cannot be en­tirely miserable unless he lays aside his confidence in vir­tue and reposes it in shadows and objects of delusion. How wretched is that man who expects full content from ex­ternal things!—he will most certainly find himself de­ceived at last when this transitory world slips from under him, and the invisible wonders appear!"

HERE the poor stranger looked somewhat confused, and I felt really sorry for him.—The beauties of vir­tue, her consolation, and virtue considered as its own reward, are undoubtedly pleasing subjects of discourse to men of innocent lives and little acquaintance with the nature of the world; but, after all, as virtue has but a small share in the general composition of man, her real rewards may be hoped for, but are not often completely enjoyed in the present state of being. The senses can only be acted upon by material ob­jects; how then is it possible that we can at pleasure abstract our affections entirely from matter, and fix them on idle objects of which we know nothing, and which were never yet explained, nor pretended to be explained, except by comparisons drawn from the vi­sible world? A man perishing with hunger cannot be satisfied with a lecture on the virtues of abstinence, however excellent it may be in itself; and pride, I am convinced, is at the root of most religions in the world, since they agree in supposing a certain perfec­tion in mankind which the author of nature has im­parted to a much nobler order of beings.

1. THE great advances which the moderns have made in the walks of art, in these latter ages of the world, I imagine to have arisen not so much from any natural superiority of intellect they possess over the ancients, as from the circumstance of every individual being laid under a necessity to confine himself to the practice of some particular branch of business. When the whole attention of a man's life is bestowed upon the formation of a pin or a needle, a button or a brace­let, how can it be otherwise than that these articles will soon be brought to their utmost state of perfec­tion? Society at large has profited by this regulation, but the individual suffers miserably whenever accident or necessity obliges him to step out of his accustomed path. Set the pin-maker to build a house, or the car­penter to make a needle, and they are equally auk­ward and helpless.—Early antiquity proceeded in a very different manner. The education of their youth was upon such a plan that they should not be at a loss how to be useful upon every emergency. Homer, I re­member, gives the hero of the Odyssey several diffe­rent trades, to that when he was cast ashore on the solitary island where Calypso afterwards detained him, he was not at a loss how to build and rig a vessel with his own hands, after the Goddess had taken pity of him and supplied him with the necessary instruments of [Page 353] labour, cordage and sail cloth. What a pitiful figure would a modern of the same rank exhibit on a similar occasion!

2. ISBECK-IMAN, the celebrated Indian poet, during the wars between the tribe to which he belong­ed, called Raja-kol, and that of Samar-ban, originally from the deserts of Thibet, had composed many ver­ses to the disparagement of the latter, bitterly satyriz­ing their chiefs and adherents, and not even sparing Melek-Muli, the prince of the tribe, who usually rode upon a great white elephant. Isbeck-Iman being at last taken prisoner by the enemy, was conducted to a dungeon seven fathoms deep in the earth, and was there treated in the severest manner for a long time, in revenge for the liberties be had taken with the charac­ter of Melek-Muli, and those of some other great men that had fought under his standard. When the tribe of Raja-kol had, however, at length conquered their inveterate country, and peace was restored in those parts, they remembered the sufferings of Isbeck-Iman, and promised to bestow on him a small piece of land, upon which he might end his days in peace, and as a recompence for the many miseries he had experienced on account of his patriotic attachment. This bene­volent design was, nevertheless, forgotten, and a bro­ther poet having one day reproached him for his ne­glecting to urge this matter with the great men, "Let them first reward the maimed soldier, replied Isbeck-Iman, and do justice to the widows and orphans of those who have perished in their service; as to myself, my verses will always gain me a subsistence as long as the sound of the harp is heard with pleases on the plains of Jess [...]lmere, and when these fail, the art that was taught me by Ha [...]un, the fisherman and sailor of Bengal, will still secure me from beggary."

ISBECK, no doubt, intimated by this answer, that men of genius and literature ought to be the last per­sons in the world to consider themselves as fit subjects [Page 354] for public benevolence, and that an independency of spirit should at all events be preserved, particularly in men of his profession, if they would wish to support and act consistently with the divinity of their character. How few are there in these days that possess the inde­pendent spirit of Isbeck-Iman! Most men of ability at this day in Europe choose rather to shadow them­selves under the wing of the great, or subsist by the mean arts of flattery and sycophantism, than to rely upon themselves and their own exertions for support.

3. COUNTRIES newly settled, or such as may have lately emerged from the horrors and devastati­ons occasioned by war, are rarely much troubled with polite authors or other retainers to the fine arts. It is not that Nature is more niggardly of her gifts in such situations than elsewhere, but it is the general want of taste and encouragement that occasions this artificial scarcity of genius. Long peace, opulence, and lei­sure beget taste in a nation, and it is the prerogative of taste to distinguish true excellence from its mere re­semblance.

STRANGE as it may seem, want of reflection has pestered the world with more authors than any other cause whatever, and more particularly so for a century or two past. Did every man that sits down to write a book for the public consider, that in the space of one hundred years both himself and his book must perish and be forgotten, I do not say he would weep like the Persian general when he observed the same thing of his immense army, but I am positive he would throw aside the pen forever, unless some prospect of imme­diate advantage overbalanced the whimsies of fame and immortality. The world is at present overrun with book-makers rather than authors: finding compilation a much easier task than striking out new and original ideas, they go on serving up the old mess under a va­riety of disguises, every thing remaining the same, except the stile and manner, which may possibly be [Page 355] adapted to the humour and fancy of the age in which they live.

I HAVE ever been of opinion that good fortune is no less necessary to the success of an author than to that of a great military commander. How many po­ems of equal, and perhaps superior merit to the Iliad or Odyssey have wholly perished from the knowledge and remembrance of mankind, only for want of the accidental advantage of being expressed in so beauti­ful a language as the Greek. The Arabians, as well as the Indians of the east, are people of a strong and vigorous fancy, the soul of poetry lives and breathes through their writings, but the uncouth languages in which these divine ideas are contained are disgusting to an European ear, and thus these sublime producti­ons are confined to the perusal of a few tribes wander­ing up and down in woods and deserts, or to the stu­dious and unsocial Bramins in the solitary recesses of the mountains. Time, like distance, paints imagi­nary colours of excellence upon some objects, which in reality they do not possess. A piece of writing upon the most ordinary occasion, which we could be assured upon decisive evidence was penned by the hand of Alexander, the son of Philip, would at this day be rec­koned inestimable, and, were matters properly ma­naged, would procure a comfortable living, if not an immense estate, to its owner. In the same manner, many things that have been really handed down to us from remote antiquity are idolized and admired, not so much for any internal excellence, as because they are, simply; ancient. Sir Richard Blackmore's poem of Prince Arthur is at present held in detestation by the readers of English Poetry, and is indeed almost wholly neglected and forgotten, except when mentioned in ridicule. Let some great revolution in literature take place, suppose Europe to be once more overrun by the most savage and wasteful barbarians, and continue a scene of havock and confusion for eight or nine cen­turies; [Page 356] suppose farther, that every book of poetry pe­rishes in this long interval of ruin except Blackmore's poem just mentioned, which by some strange accident is preserved till the revival of science and taste; in such case, I make no doubt this execrated poem would be read, admired, commented upon, and extolled by all, as a most divine performance in itself; and re­commended as a valuable fragment of antiquity,—Such is the silly caprice of mankind. — The dis­covery of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope has not proved more fatal to the commercial prosperity of Egypt and Venice than the invention of the art of printing has proved to authors, I mean those really such. The world is at present so entire­ly surfeited with books on every subject, that a reader's attention is confined a very short time to any one in particular, This was not the case two thousand years ago. One favourite author (and almost every author was such to somebody) then formed a complete libra­ry, books being both very scarce and very dear. By continually poring on this volume beauties were dis­covered which the author never intended, and the de­fects overlooked as bearing no proportion to the beau­ties. We that live in this late age can lay claim to no such attention. After an immensity of labour we pub­lish our book to the world; if it takes, a crowd of co­temporary authors instantly set their brains to work to produce something better on the same plan, and thus the resemblances soon eclipse the original, or at least go shares in the honour. If it is of no value, it falls to the ground of course, because no one will read an indifferent book when thousands of better ones may [...] read at the next library for a trifle. Every subject has been ransacked to the bottom, and even the dregs have not been refused.

4 THE influence of riches has more to do in bringing an author into reputation as times are now, than almost any other cause. A countryman of my [Page 357] own once candidly told me that he had ever found an additional, specific pleasure in reading the works of Horace, from a consideration that this elegant poet was intimate with Augustus, the master of the world, and his first minister Mecenas. Preposterous as this may seem, I am of opinion almost every man is in­fluenced more or less by similar prejudices. I re­member when I lived some years ago at Leyden I pub­lished a treatise, entitled, The Harmony of the visible Creation illustrated. At the time I was employed in writing that book I lodged in a small house belong­ing to a widow woman, near the military barracks, and I will be so ingenuous as to acknowledge it was in the garret or upper apartment thereof, an apart­ment in a house that I prefer to all others when I en­gage in works of deep research and intricate specula­tion. To my great mortification, I found that my book lay dead upon the printer's hands, notwith­standing our utmost and united endeavours to get it off. Not a dozen of them sold in as many weeks, and I began to conclude that either my ideas of har­mony were very absurd, or that it was a subject not un­derstood by the college or citizens. I was at last, however, relieved from my perplexity by a sympathiz­ing news-hawker, who whispered me one morning as he handed me the Gazette, that nobody would read books written by an author in the upper story of a small wooden building. This hint was sufficient: although I could ill afford it, I instantly took new lodgings in a house five stories high, bowed to great men in pub­lic with whom I had not the least acquaintance, and began a correspondence with the governors of the col­lege, who were utterly unknown to me, when to my great surprise as well as satisfaction the whole impres­sion was sold off in less than twelve weeks after this change of situation and behaviour.

5. AN author should always study the turn and hu­mour of the age in which he lives, before he sits down [Page 358] to write, especially if his views terminate in his own personal interest and emolument. If a man belonged to a nation of fanatics and enthusiasts, he would be a madman to publish discourses on the efficacy and supre­macy of human reason; and if none but boys and girls were to be his readers, he would hardly trouble him­self with Aristotelian metaphysics and philosophical researches. In short, if he would effect his purposes, he must find out who are the majority of readers, and accommodate his works to the taste of those who are most likely to peruse them. A too great regard to the reigning taste is nevertheless oftentimes attended with fatal effects to reputation in a subsequent age. The most shinning abilities, if employed only in super­ficial speculation or on mysterious and perplexing sub­jects, meet finally with but little regard from the bulk, by which I mean the busy part of mankind. It is only when an author is employed in reducing spe­culation into a sort of mechanical practice, and visible and permanent advantages accrue from his studies, that they can lay claim to a lasting and universal at­tention.

6. THE northern nations of the eastern continent have ever succeeded in their attempts against those of the south, as being of more robust bodies and hardy constitutions, and consequently invigorated by an un­daunted daring spirit that seems peculiar to most na­tions inhabiting cold climates. We might bring nu­merous instances from history to support this opinion. The northern tribes of Asia and Europe have, in dif­ferent ages, overrun and subjugated the people in more southern situations, forced them to receive their laws, often their habits, languages and customs, till insensibly incorporating with them, they became through the influence of climate the same soft, vo­luptuous and enervated people they had conquered, and perhaps again submitted in their turn to another swarm of northern invaders.—Whatever truth the [Page 359] foregoing remark may have in respect to the eastern world, it is considerably corroborated by the amazing difference of genius, that, with a few exceptions, is ob­servable in certain points, between the northern and southern American United States—What a supe­rior spirit of activity, boldness and enterprize in­spires that former?—With a resolution and ardour, undaunted by discouraging or vexatious obstacles, they plan and execute what an inhabitant of Georgia or Florida imagines himself and his countrymen natu­rally disqualified from attempting.—It has never­theless been questioned by some whether the climate of a country alone, that is, the different degrees of heat or cold, dryness or moisture, have any real agency on the constitution and economy of the human frame, so as thereby to influence its actions. I must confess I am a retainer to the affirmative of the question.

We know very well that the oak tree only grows naturally in the more northern latitudes, but as we ad­vance south another race of vegetables, and a different species of trees constitutes the groves of the torrid zone. Several new sorts of birds, insects, quadru­peds, and reptiles, also meet our view. Nature has not a less vigorous vegetation there than here; she has only changed her mode of acting, in some parti­culars, and instead of the oak or the pine raises trees equal in bulk, but different in quality the cypress, the mahogany, the cabbage tree, or the cinnamon. They are still, however, trees, though in some things varying from ours—they have roots, trunk, and branches, but those juices that are continually flowing upwards produce different leaves, flowers and fruits. It is the same with the race of man; at least, a very striking analogy is to be observed. The mind is in­fluenced by the body; and the body, as it is a mere animal production, and draws its nutriment from the earth, as well as animal and vegetable substances of an inferior kind, must in some measure be influenced [Page 360] by soil and climate, and be varied accordingly, or we must allow that the complexion of the body has no­thing to do with that of the mind.

WHEN nature first brought forth her infant, the American world, to enjoy the blessings and vivi­fying influences of the new created sun, as if conscious of the injuries this part of her creation was to suffer in future ages, she seemed particularly industrious, she took especial care to plant it in such a situation that many hundreds of centuries, an immense number of years must elapse, before it could possibly be discovered by the greedy natives of the eastern continent.—"Till more than five thousand years have passed a­way (said she) it shall be inaccessible to all, except a few tribes of wandering Tartars, who from time to time may find their way thither by accident; literal­ly the children of nature, wild as the wind and waves, and free as the animals that wander in the woody or the watry waste. The magnet alone, continued she, shall enable the polished people of the eastern regions to discover and ravage the delectable lands I have formed in the opposite hemisphere; but that fossil, the invaluable loadstone, I will bury deep in the earth, unobserved its wonderful properties, till desti­ny and over-ruling fate, whose decrees no one can ob­viate, to my extremest grief, shall disclose it to the eye of avarice, ambition, and scrutinizing curiosity, [Page 361] and prompt a bold and daring Columbus to go in quest of those shores which it will not be in my power any longer to conceal." —

So spoke NATURE, the mother of all men, and all things. In the mean time ages rolled away: the old world was peopled, unpeopled, and peopled again. Nations grew and flourished: they quarrelled, they fought, and made peace: the four great monarchies succeeded each other, and fell again into decay, with their emperors, kings and heroes, by far less durable than the lifeless marble columns which to this day mark the spot where their proudest capitals stood, or where their most famous battles were fought. These nations had their ages of politeness and barbarism, ignorance and science, mis [...]ry and felicity: the fol­lies of one age were acted over again by another, and each retired in its turn to the receptacles of silence, solitude and darkness, to make room for succeeding generations.

BUT still America lay unknown and undiscovered, with all her islands, lakes, mountains, woods, piains, capacious harbours and extended shores. Here the fish sported in the waters, undisturbed by hooks or nets, and the beasts of the forest enjoyed a secure repose. The poets of the eastern world were in the mean time amusing their iron hearted cotemporaries with the fictions of a golden age; their fabulous Arcadias and Saturnian kingdoms; the ideas and notions of which must have owed their existence to the magic power of fancy alone, as they were wholly ignorant that the happy scenes, the innocent people and pastoral ages, of which they sung, were at that moment realizing in another quarter of the globe, as yet unexplored and unknown.—But, in process of time, as nature had for seen, this immense continent was at length raised from its long night of obscurity to the view of asto­nished nations: the inhabitants, like the country, seemed to be a new race of mortals, of different na­tures, [Page 362] ideas and inclinations from those already known. They, also, gazed at the Europeans as a species of men differing in all respects from themselves, and, as far as regarded power and abilities, beings of a supe­rior nature.

As the Europeans had the means, they of course conceived they had also the right to extirpate the in­nocent natives, or drive them from the sea coasts to the interior parts of the country. The most specious pretext for this procedure seems to have been, that the Aborigines, or old inhabitants of America, did not sufficiently exert themselves to cultivate and im­prove the lands nature had so liberally bestowed upon them: they were content with the productions of the simple genius of the earth, and therefore were scarce­ly to be considered, according to these casuists, as legal proprietors of the immense territories that were now discovered.

FULL of this idea, the Europeans flocked over, and carefully examined the soil and productions of this new-found region: the best lands in North Ame­rica were observed to lie in a temperate climate, and the new-comers soon found it their interest to cultivate and improve a soil that promised so much to the hand of industry. This roused the jealousy of the natives, who, unwilling to part with their pleasant abodes in the neighbourhood of the sea, made many attempts, (and sometimes not unsuccessfully) to annihilate these intruding strangers; but, as the several divisions of the old world were at that time overstocked with inhabit­ants, who constantly waged bloody wars with each o­ther, notwithstanding the devastation and destruction of the human species occasioned thereby, it became ab­solutely necessary that many should emigrate. Provi­dence gave permission to the arm of tyranny to expel thousands from their native lands; and many, in hopes of bettering their fortunes, submitted to become vo­luntary exiles. Among the rest, Britain seemed very [Page 363] busy in virtually banishing and expelling her subjects to this remote region, who chose the northern coast, as knowing of no other asylum, excepting the grave, from the scourge of oppression. These, with a mix­ture of adventurers from various nations, at length humbled the savage tribes, and by the mere force of industry rendered a large proportion of this new coun­try rich and flourishing. Britain soon cast a greedy eye upon the hard-earned possessions of this exiled race; she claimed them as subjects, and took them under her protection; but at the same time said in her heart, They shall hereafter be my slaves.

THE children of the first emigrants immediately forgot the wrongs and injuries their forefathers had experienced, and strictly united themselves to her, not as yet aware of her insidious designs: but nature dis­regarded the connexion; and whispering in the ear of reason, was heard to say, "The union cannot be lasting."

HER words have proved true: the people of the pre­sent age have seen the unnatural bonds in a moment dissolved, the union broken, and the connexion at an end! Tell me, ye advocates for the dependence of these states upon the remote island of Britain; ye who assert that their happiness, their interest, and their glory is bound up in such a dependence, would you not esteem him a madman who should attempt amidst the rage of contending winds and waves to bind toge­ther two bulky ships with a single thread of silk for their mutual safety? Just as reasonable is it to suppose that America and the comparatively paltry and op­positely interested island of Britain can be happily united under one and the same sovereign.

WHAT a spectacle of derision do the infatuated Britons now exhibit to the world. in seriously at­tempting to subjugate a country to which nature never gave them a shadow of right, and whose immense ex­tent is, of itself, a standing and insurmountable ob­stacle [Page 364] to their success! An island, situated on the ex­tremities of the ocean, on the verge of polar darkness, incumbered with rugged mountains, traversed by un­couth savages of horrid mien; barren heaths, and use­less, broken lands; a spot, whose strength is merely artificial, sending out on impracticable conquests her fleets and armies, the flower of her youth and her ablest commanders, who, the moment they come within the vortex, the sphere of attraction of this huge unwieldy body, the American world, are instantly swallowed up, like straws in a whirlpool, and irrecoverably lost!

WHAT a nation of numerous and ingenious me­chanics and manufacturers were the English only ten years ago! With the fleeces of their sheep they warm­ed the inhabitants of either frigid zone: the fine lin­nens of their island were in high estimation in every clime; but in order to prosecute their mad scheme of reducing to unconditional submission or desolating a country naturally invincible, they have taken the weaver from the loom and the cobler from his stall; the back of the pedlar is released from its burden, and he who of y [...]re was honestly and profitably occupied in fitting garments to the shoulders of his brethren, fan­cying himself on a sudden an Alexander or an Her­nando C [...]r [...]ez; in search of glory, in quest of never­fading laurels, and for the support of his idol, Roy­alty, traverses the wide extended ocean, and leads to imaginary conquests and devastations in the trans-Atlantic world!

IT is not easy to conceive what will be the greatness and importance of North America in a century or two to come, if the present fabric of Nature is upheld, and the people retain those bold and manly sentiments of freedom, which actuate them at this day. Agri­culture, the basis of a nation's greatness, will here, most probably, be advanced to its summit of perfecti­on; and its attendant, commerce, will so agreeably and usefully employ mankind, that wars will be for­gotten; [Page 365] nations, by a free intercourse with this vast and fertile continent, and this continent with the whole world, will again become brothers after so ma­ny centuries of hatred and jealousy, and no longer treat each other as savages and monsters. The iron generation will verge to decay, and those days of fe­licity advance which have been so often wished for by all good men, and which are so beautifully described by the prophetic sages of ancient times.

MY friend, the clergyman, informs me, that after pas­sing a ridge of lofty mountains extending on the western frontiers of these republics, a new and most enchant­ing region opens, of inexpressible beauty and fertility. The lands are there of a quality far superior to those situated in the neighbourhood of the sea coast: the trees of the forest are stately and tall, the meadows and pas­tures spacious, supporting vast herds of the native ani­mals of the country; which own no master, nor expect their sustenance from the hands of men. The climate, he says, is moderate and agreeable; there the rivers no longer bend their courses eastward to the Atlantic, but inclining to the west and south, and moving with a gentle current through the channels that Nature has opened, fall at length into that grand repository of a thousand streams, Mississippi, who collecting his waters, derived from a source remote and unknown, rolls on­ward through the frozen regions of the north, and stretching his prodigiously extended arms to the east and west, embraces those savage groves and dreary so­litudes, as yet uninvestigated by the traveller, unsung by the poet, and unmeasured by the chain of the geo­metrician; till uniting with the Obio and turning due south, receiving afterwards the Miss [...]ri and a hundred others, this prince of rivers, in comparison of whom the Nile is but a small rivulet, and the Danube a ditch hurries with his immense flood of waters into the Mex­ican sea, laving the shores of many f [...]rt [...] countries in his passage, inhabited by savage nations to this day almost unknown and without a name.

[Page 366] IT is a standing rule in philosophy, that Nature does nothing invain. A potent nation, now at war with these republics, has proclaimed her resolution to lay waste what she cannot reclaim by conquest, and schemes are projected to oblige such to re-emigrate to Europe as shall escape the fury of the destroyer:. But if this new world was not to become at some time or another the receptacle of numerous civilized nations, from one extremity to the other, for what visible purpose could Nature have formed these vast lakes in the bosom of her infant empire, which surprise and astonish the traveller, who, leaving the salt ocean behind him to the east, finds, unexpectedly, new oceans of a prodi­gious extent in those tracts where Fancy would have surmised nothing but endless hills, inhospitable wilds and dreary forests existed? These lakes having, se­verally, a communication with each other, and lastly with the Atlantic ocean, towards the north-east; ap­proaching also very near, by the west, to several of the navigable branches of the Mississippi, from an easy communication through a long tract of country, the intercourse between the various parts of which would, in future times, at least for the purposes of commerce, be extremely difficult and laborious, were it not for this continuation of waters, that for ages have been waiting to receive the barque of traffic, urged forward by the sail or the stroke of the springy oar; as the soil bordering thereon has no less impatiently expected the operations of the industrious plough.

DURING a very considerable part of the year, the south west wind blows unremittedly on the face of this serpentine river, the Ohio; and even at other times, the current of air is more prevalent in that direction than in any other, which being directly opposed to the course of the stream, moving at the rate of one mile hourly, is it not evident that Providence, Nature, of Fate, has so ordered this matter, that the commercial vessels hereafter sailing northward thereon may have favour­able [Page 367] gales to make an answerable progress against a current that is still contrary and the same, and that those bound to the south may have the assistance of the ebbing stream to combat the adverse winds with more advantage. — It would carry me far beyond the bounds of a short essay, to point out every particular, indicating the future importance of this newly disco­vered country; and it is really astonishing, as I inti­mated before, that a nation endued with the divine gift of reason, if they would exercise that gift, should at this day entertain a serious thought of reducing, by force of a [...]ms, this immense continent to their absolute sway; a continent beholding two hemispheres, abound­ing with a hardy and active race of inhabitants, pro­ducing every thing within itself proper for its own maintenance and desence; a continent extending thro' such a number of degrees of latitude and longitude, from the limits of the torrid zone, the circle of the northern tropic, to those frozen streams and icy moun­tains, where, chilled with the extreme rigours of per­petual winter, Nature seems to have lost her vegeta­tive powers; and where a few of the human race, the natives of the polar regions, that are found to exist in those unjoyous climes, bears so little resemblance in the features of the mind to what the civilized world calls a man, that they scarcely deserve the name.

(First published in Philadelphia, Jan. 9, 1782.)

FROM what I have observed, I will undertake to affirm there are no two parties or descriptions of men [Page 368] in any country, that entertain a more sincere antipa­thy for each other, than those denominated Whig and Tory, in North America. It seems as if Fortune, willing, on her part, to carry the affair to the utmost, had so ordered, that the very words which symbolize those two characters should be totally dissimilar both in aspect, composition, and pronunciation. In the words whig and tory there is not a letter alike. If the one is a monosyllable, the other is a dissyllable; and the sounds of the two words, when pronounced, are as different as can be well conceived: one is short and smart, the other long and tremulous.—Whatever may be the radical derivation, or the primitive meaning and import of these terms, whether Whig is formed from a Saxon word, signifying sour milk, or from the horse-driving Whiggamores of Scotland, who, upon a certain occasion, in the days of the first Charles, op­posed themselves to the royal party; or whether the appellation, Tory, owes its origin to the miserable Irish banditti, or certain highway robbers so called; which­ever of these be right or not right, it is to be regret­ted that these opprobrious terms, so far fetched, fo­reign and insignificant in themselves, are so generally applied in these republics as I have frequently observed them to be. Because the people of England, who are everlastingly at variance among themselves, as well as quarreling with the rest of the world, thought fit in the last century to stigmatize each other with contemptuous denominations of this sort, must the American revo­lutionists of the present day for that reason assume the appellative, Whig, a name they are no way concerned in, and the origin of which is, at best, local and ob­scure?—It is true, names are only those arbitrary sounds or marks, by means of which we distinguish one thing, individual, or collective body from another; and if that purpose be answered, it is sufficient, as far as regards [...]e mere purpose of discrimination: but, in the present case, the terms Whig and Tory, from [Page 369] their former appropriation, convey an idea that these two classes of men are liege subjects of one and the same monarch, and are only at variance about some contested points of civil or domestic polity. There was some reason, indeed, for distinguishing in this manner the ministerial and royal party from the genu­ine assertors of liberty prior to the immortal DECLA­RATION, which at one stroke severed this country from the chains of despotism and dotage; but upon that event, these appellations, as well as a hundred others of the same kind, should have been instantaneously a­bolished. The free republican of America, and the base mercenary adherent to the cause of tyranny and despotism, or two words expressing those characters, should alone have formed the distinction.

FOR my own part, although I profess myself a ci­tizen of the world, and am not easily prejudiced against any man or body of men, merely for the sake, or on account of the name that malice, ignorance, party-spirit, or ill-nature may have endeavoured to fasten on them, yet I cannot but admire at the stupidity or obstinacy of those, who, although born and educated in these States, and favoured with the blessing of rea­son to discern right from wrong, and their own inte­rest, with that of their country, from what would be ruinous to both, are nevertheless to this hour faithful adherents to the infamous cause of Britain, or in the common stile, Tories.

SOME time ago I was overtaken in one of my ex­cursions by a well dressed person, pretty far advanced in years, mounted upon an elegant horse, whom I afterwards discovered to come properly under this de­scription.—Stopping his horse short, he accosted me by the common and usual enquiry, What news?—There was something in the man's countenance that immediately prepossessed me with an unfavourable opi­nion of him, and not happening at that time to find myself in a talking humour, I replied hastily, That [Page 370] "there was no news worth mentioning that I knew of"—hoping that by thus evading his question the fel­low would pass on, and leave me to my meditations. I was, however, fated to be disappointed: whether he took me for a person of an uncommon reach of un­derstanding and profound knowledge, because I then wore a large grey wig, (a mistake not unfrequent) or whether he was one of the two-legged, unfeathered animals that cannot travel a mile on a road with any satisfaction unless they have some other person in com­pany, he seemed resolved to stick by me to the last. Finding his determination, after travelling more than half a league by the side of his horse, I thought it best to change my ground, and with an air of quick recol­lection, said, "There is indeed one trifling piece of intelligence that I accidentally picked up this orn­ing at an inn on the road-side—Advice is received that the island of St. Eustatius has been lately retaken by the French, together with he British garrison station­ed there, consisting of seven hundred effective men, or thereabouts."—"Death and the devil!" re­plied he, taking me up short (for he had not heard the news before) "what do you talk of trifles? that is news of importance, if it be really so; but I yesterday perused the Royal Gazette from beginning to end, and it maketh no mention of any such thing."

IT is in the Philadelphia papers, however, replied I.

"No man of sense, returned he, will give atten­tion or credit to half they read in the Philadelphia Gazettes. I wish the compilers of those papers would pay a little more regard to truth and modestly, in fu­ture, than they have hitherto done—it is insufferable that the public should be thus imposed upon by those fellows!" — Whether the intelligence I give you be true or not, rejoined I, it matters very little: if the island is not taken, things will only be as they were; if it is taken, I hope the monarch of England is able enough to lose seven or eight hundred men and [Page 371] a barren rock, which he hardly ever knew to be his own, without feeling it very sensibly.—"That is more than I know, answered my new acquaintance, in a fit of ill humour—these repeated losses come damn'd heavy upon us—eight or nine thousand men captured in Virginia with their leader, Cornwallis, and seven or eight hundred in St. Eustatius, as you report—with these losses and discouragements, I do not see how the devil we are to stifle the rebellion in such a hurry nei­ther."—You give credit then, cried I, to the re­ports of the British army in Virginia having been made prisoners of war?—"Why, faith, betwixt you and me (said Mr. Tory) myself and two or three of my next neighbours laughed heartily at the accounts of that affair as published in Philadelphia, and for more than three weeks after the day of Earl Cornwal­lis's surrender, considered the whole narrative as fa­bricated by the journeymen of the Congress, and con­sequently fictitious; but, when we saw it also in the Royal Gazette, uncontradicted, we began to think there was some reality in the matter: For my own part I bore it patiently, smoked my pipe, shook my head, looked wife, and sat still in the chimney corner: but my wife took it hard enough, for she loves king George dearly; she sighed and sobbed three whole days till her eyes were bloated with tears, and I really thought she would have killed the parish schoolmaster with the churn-stick for only coming to consult me on the true and genuine import of the eighth article of the capitulation. As she had previously locked the door to prevent his escape, he thought himself supremely happy to leave his newspaper in my possession, and dart out of the window with whole bones, though not with­out receiving several blows and bruises, which I think will firmly imprint that unlucky article in his remem­brance till his dying day."

HERE he paused, and I thus went on:—"After the surrender of the island of St. Eustatius to the arms [Page 372] of France, the prisoners were sent off under guard to Martinique: the same day the Marquis de Bouillé de­tached a number of vessels and troops, who, in a few hours, with little or no opposition, made themselves masters of Saba and St. Martin's."—"Yes, replied my comrade hastily, (coughing aloud at the same time that he might not be mortified with hearing what I said) but have you not been notified that the whole continent of South America has revolted from the crown of Spain, and proclaimed a new monarch of its own?—There is also a famous Indian priest, who, I hear, is likely to do great matters.—This revolt will so embarrass the persidious house of Bourbon, that for the future it will be wholly out of their power to sup­port and abet the rebellion in these colonies as hereto­fore. But, do you hear any thing new from Mr. Greene, or from Count Rochambeau?—the Royal Ga­zette adviseth that the former is killed, and his army cut to pieces; and that the last mentioned has hoisted the standard of France in Virginia, and taken posses­sion of that province in the name, and for the benefit, of the French king, his master. The same paper asserts that Louis the sixteenth intends to oblige us all to turn Roman Catholics. I hope he will be disap­pointed, for neither my wife nor myself could ever think of worshipping wooden images and paying ho­mage to St. Gregory's beard. But the English nation is not reduced to so low an ebb of consequence as many are willing to suppose. The natives of South Ame­rica have a predilection for Britons, and as soon as they begin to dig in the mines of Potosi, upon their own account, will doubtless supply old England with the bullion and dollars that were formerly transported to Spain in the annual Flota and Flotilla."—You need not be under any concern about the mines, said I; for it is now almost a month since undoubted advices have been received, that this revolt, so magnified by the English and their partisans, is no more than a petty [Page 373] insurrection of a few turbulent and insignificant tribes of Indians, that have been tampered with, and induced to take up arms, by the emissaries of the British nation. The insurgents are already dispersed, and the princi­pal leaders put to death.

"YOUR intelligence must be ill founded, replied he, (remounting his horse in a pet) the Royal Gazette mentions nothing of the sort. But, from my late pe­rusal of several numbers thereof I suspect terrible scenes will be exhibited next summer on this continent? Bri­tain is now thoroughly provoked, and the thunder­storm is gathering that will speedily burst upon us. Nothing could have happened more fortunately for her than the capture of Lord Cornwallis, and his brave ar­my. The nations that have hitherto appeared indiffer­ent to her fate will now up-rush, like a giant from his slumbers, take an active part in her favour, and settle matters entirely to her satisfaction, and the confusion of revolutionists."

THE disaffected man then dismounted from his horse a second time, and whispered in my ear (although no one was in sight) that seventy-five thousand, two hundred and fifteen Russian soldiers, embarked in four hundred and eleven transports, convoyed by thirty-eight ships of the line, might be looked for on these coasts a­bout the middle of April next.

YOU must certainly have been misinformed, my friend, interrupted I; the numbers you mention are far from being just — here he looked confused — I have been told of sixty line of battle ships, one thousand one hundred transports, and at least one hundred and ninety thousand land forces — "Why, indeed. replied my companion (his visage suddenly clearing up,) it is pos­sible I may have been mistaken in this matter — let me see — upon the whole, to the best of my remembrance, you are right — perfectly right — one hundred and ninety thousand — I recollect that you are entirely and [Page 374] indisputably right! The British Lion is not easily roused; but when he is, let rebels beware!"

THIS latter piece of intelligence put my compa­nion into so good a humour, that, to my inexpressible joy, he once more mounted his beast, bade me adieu, and rode off on a gallop, I suppose to impart what he had heard to some confidential friend.

THUS would these blind and obstinate men rejoice in the political downfal of the country that gave them birth, and to which they are bound by every tie of nature and honour. Men of this stamp would gladly see these promising republics shackled in the chains of slavery, despotism and tyranny, not considering that in pulling down this beautiful structure of liberty and virtue, raised with immense toil an cemented with the blood of heroes and patriots, themselves and their posterity must also be involved in the general and un­distinguished ruin. But, ye Republicans of America, as long as your British enemies are suffered to occupy the least spot of territory among you, know that so long there will be retainers to their cause: similarity of language, manners and customs, together with old and rooted prejudices, will abundantly suffice for that purpose: while your adversaries can poison the stream thousands will drink of it. Weak people are the mul­titudinous offspring of every age, and credulous people are to be met with every moment; timid people are seen in droves, and the prejudiced in opinion are with­out number. It must be, however, some satisfaction to the friends of universal liberty that the present race of Americans that are disaffected to the independence, the freedom, the honour and the true interests of their country, are comparatively few, are also for the most part well stricken in years, and are daily and hourly disappearing from this great stage of action: People of this character may justly be compared to those un­believing Jews mentioned in the records of Moses, who wandered forty years in the wilderness and pe­rished [Page 375] there at last, because, after a thousand miracu­lous interpositions of Providence in their behalf, they still doubted that their divine leader was able to con­duct them to the promised land. They wished rather to return, and be once more slaves in Egypt, than as­sert their right to Canaan. Their hearts failed within them, because of the Giants, the sons of Anak.

(First published in Philadelphia, January 1782.)

THERE is nothing that detracts so much from the character of rationality that some men are perpe­tually talking of, as distinguishing the human species from the inferior ranks of created beings, than the practice of the savage profession of war, which has constantly vitiated the morals of mankind, misled their understandings, promoted a spirit of pride and bar­barity, and rendered irksome and unwelcome to the far greater part of them that small portion of time which was certainly lent us for nobler ends than to be employed in violently driving each other from the borders of this material existence, antecedent to the hour that nature may be supposed to have allotted.—This was the sentiment of Ho-ang chi-ampti, a Chinese pilgrim, and a strict i [...]herent to the morality and opinions of Confucius, the famous ancient [...] philosopher. — They who are acquainted with the writings of Moses, the [...] legislator, do there find that no sooner had man placed his foot upon this [Page 376] earth, than he wantonly raised his arm against his brother, and basely slew him; at a time, too, when the world was yet solitary, when unsolicited nature poured out her stores in abundance, and necessity could feign no pretence of hostility; and when he might have been expected, had he been influenced by reason, to have considered his brother as a second self, and regarded the welfare and safety of an individual of his own species as a point of the first and greatest im­portance. But this was only a specimen of what was to come. Every age has produced its Cains, whom divine Providence, in its unsearchable designs, has of­ten permitted to oppress, enslave and destroy the more peaceable and well disposed part of the human race.

THERE is no man that thinks at all, but must have considered the intimate resemblance that subsists be­tween men as individuals, in respect to the features of the mind and disposition, and those collective bodies called tribes or nations.

EVERY town and village produces a person who en­deavours to render himself superior to his fellow towns­men or villagers, and accordingly, as they are weak enough to submit, humour, and give way to him, his impudence and insolence increases. Thus, too, it is with aggregates or bodies: such were the Romans and Carthaginians two thousand years since; such are the modern British in Europe, the Malays in Asia; the Dahonims in Africa (who are perpetually at war that they may have prisoners to sacrifice to their gods) and such were the Mohawk Indians in America, whose restless, warlike and overbearing spirit has produced its natural effect, their almost universal extirpation.

SOME sentimental persons have passed half their lives in contriving plans of universal and perpetual peace; and indeed some of their plans, at first view, seem plausible enough and easy to be carried into exe­cution; but till the interests of all nations are the same, and till all mankind are brought to be of one [Page 377] way of thinking, we may reasonably despair of such speculations being realized. Discord and disorder are interwoven with the nature and constitution of the human race; and I am well convinced that we may as rationally expect to see an ocean unruffled by tem­pests, or the sky perpetually clear of the iron glooms that so often infest it, or to find individuals without private quarrels, jealousies, and bickerings, as the world at large delivered from rapine, dissention, ty­ranny, discord, violence and bloodshed. — This is a sad prospect, but at the same time a real one. What has been will be again. The rivers that flow to the ocean are also eventually supplied from thence; and indeed all things are in a state of constant circum­volution, which caused a sage of antiquity to remark, "That there was nothing new in the affairs of this world." If one generation, wea [...]y of the little squabbles of their day, at length returned to that mortifying dis­solution common to all corporeal substances, the same passions, interests and resentments rise with a succeed­ing age from the ashes of the past, and produce, suc­cessively, the same tumults and disorders.

SINCE then the seeds of di [...]cord are so unhappily sown on the soil of human nature, fatally fertile in hastily rearing them to a rank maturity, every wise na­tion will endeavour to smooth the rugged brow of war, so for at least as to murder with decency, and by shewing such little complaisances and civilities as are nor incompatible with our sacred regard to virtue and liberty, convince the dubious, that the nations of the earth have not entirely forgotten that they are bre­thren, derived from ancestors, although not precisely of the same, yet of a similar and kindred nature, and created alike rational beings by the enlivening breath of the divine author of all things; from the immense ocean of whose ideas the many myriads of mankind continually exhale their existence, and to which, like drops of rain in a clouded atmosphere, they again as certainly return.

[Page 378] How barbarous and shocking to humanity were the European wars several centuries ago! A happy immor­tality is reserved only for those (said the Scandinavi­ans) who die bravely with their swords in their hands. They imagined the principal pleasure of this immor­tality would be to drink beer out of bowls made of the sculls of the enemies they had slain in battle, ac­cording to the number of which every one was to be esteemed and honoured in the mansions of another world. Their war songs were particularly horrible to the imagination, and full of those savage notions of valour and romantic heroism that is at this day ob­servable in the American Indians. What evil demon has been let loose among mankind to defile the temple of REASON with the odious scenery of devils! Is it possible that a being illuminated by the rays of that spiritual sun could, in his senses, write the following lines: they were composed (with a great deal more) by one of the warrior chiefs of the Scandinavians, more than eight hundred years since, a few hours be­fore he expired:

I THEREFORE admire and respect the Spanish na­tion for having introduced into camps the good natured spirit and civilities of chivalry; a spirit of courteous­ness which, although ridiculed by the inimitable pen [Page 379] of Michael Cervantes, for the extravagance to which it was carried, has nevertheless continued to this day to have a good effect in alleviating the horrors of war among the more civilized nations of the world.—And yet the civilities of war have something extreme­ly ridiculous in them. Would not an inhabitant of some other more happy planet, suddenly arriving here, pronounce all warriors lunatics, when he beheld them this hour tearing each other to pieces with their dia­bolical machines of destruction; and the next, smi­ling upon and embracing their vanquished opponent with all the tenderness of bosom-intimacy and friend­ship! This, however, is an inconsistency that is praise­worthy: the vanquished are ever entitled to kindness and compassion, and none but savage, brutal, unprin­cipled and uncivilized communities treat persons in captivity in a different manner.

ALL wars are in a great measure produced by re­gal pride originating in regal power: monarchs are the children of discord. and to [...]umour their ambition the world is forever in a state of distraction.—If the king of one country is naturally a bad man, he of con­sequence makes it his business to excite jealousies and promote encroachments; and, in the vulgar phrase, picks a quarrel with his neighbour, that, by getting the better of him in battle, he may have more slaves to bow down before him, while living, and more rea­son to have something great said or written about him after his death.—If another be humane, honest, be­nevolent, and is possessed of all the public and private virtues of a prince, the duty he owes his subjects com­pels him to resent such injuries or encroachments; and thus, between the two characters of good and bad, virtuous and vicious, the world is held eternally at variance.—The stupid notions also, of fame and un­fading immortality, have incited many that wore dia­dems to become monsters and murderers; but alas [...] the laurel wreath and the cypress bough never yet [Page 380] flourished to perfection on the same tree; and to what­ever honour, emolument, or satisfaction the survivors and conquerors in these bloody contests are entitled, I am convinced the dead have no participation in that empty and visionary enjoyment. — I shall pursue my ideas on the irrationality of war at another time, for at present I am really in doubt whether a man that is constitutionally a lover of fighting, if my such there be, can be justly called a rational animal, or not, (for so Logicians define him) whether he, as one of man­kind, is an emanation from the all perfect Spirit, as Plato and many later writers have asserted him to be; or, on the contrary, a mere mass of those vexatious, discordant, chaotic atoms which are doomed to be ever­lastingly at enmity with each other, till the soul of the universe, the great principle of harmony and beauty, shall again move upon the superficies of these troubled waters, and bring light our of darkness, beauty and regularity from confusion, darkness and disorder.

AT the present time, when people in general find so much difficulty in paying their taxes for the support of civil government, owing, as they say, to the small chance the farmer has of selling the produce of his lands to any advantage; I would beg leave to ask the public, or their representatives, what impropriety there would be in laying duties, discouragements and imposts upon the undoubted and indisputable articles of luxury and superfluity so much in vogue amongst us, and imported so liberally from the British islands in Europe?

[Page 381] As to myself, I am a plain countryman possessed of about two hundred acres of but tolerable land in the state of Pennsylvania, and do aver and assert, that by proper economy, industry, and not suffering a single superfluous article, really so, to come within my doors, I have hitherto been enabled to pay my taxes cheer­fully in specie, and could have done it, notwithstand­ing the small demand there generally is for the pro­duce of the lands, had they been half as high again as they are. — Many of my neighbours who complain the most, are people, I observe, that must have their teas of different kinds, their coffees, their sugars, their gauzes, laces, ribbons, &c, &c. regularly bought with ready money, which, although seemingly trifles, a­mount in their cost to five or six, or, I may say, often ten times the value of the taxes of which such heavy complaints are made. — But it will be said, "The consumption of these articles encourages an intercourse with foreign countries, and employs a very consider­able number of seamen, and others, who would in all probability be a burden to the community were it not for the trafficking spirit of the public, which in all countries is founded rather on private vanity than any ideas of general convenience."

To this I answer, that as to the seafaring men whom this traffic supports, they are for the most part natives of foreign countries, and in the service of other pow­ers, so that upon the old principle of the head of every family taking care for its own, we are no way interest­ed or concerned in their support; and, even if this were not the case, it would be pre [...]erable for every state to maintain them, when out of business, at its own expence, than keep them employed in a species of commerce so detrimental to the public and their country.

I WAS lately at Philadelphia, and as I sat in my waggon, or traversed the streets, I could not but ob­serve, with some concern, the extravagantly rich body [Page 382] dresses, as well as the idle imported fopperies upon the heads of both sexes. The money, thought I, that has been needlessly thrown away (perhaps a great part of it sent to the dominions of an inveterate enemy) for these trinkets and ridiculous gewgaws, must be im­mense.

I AM certain, for I shall now descend to particulars, that a moderate tax imposed upon all high-heeled shoes in use amongst the ladies of this state, would build a frigate yearly (supposing the present fashion to continue) for the protection of the trade of this port. If ladies are determined to walk upon wooden pegs five or six inches in length, thereby risquing the breaking of their necks and limbs every step they take, it is their own choice; but I say let them be made to pay for their temerity. — Again, an easy tax laid upon all head dresses and high rolls in Pennsylvania (excepting those of a more moderate size at present in use among the young Quaker ladies) would, I assert, produce cash enough, supposing them not to decrease in consequence of the tax, to raise and support a full and complete regiment of light dragoons.

THE CALASH ought also to pay something, as it is piece of furniture that, in my poor opinion, is wholly unnecessary. A country housewife's plain bonnet, made of homespun linnen, serves all the pur­poses of the Calash, and being manufactured amongst ourselves, would come cheap: add to this consideration, the dangers and difficulties to which this unwieldy machine, the Calash, exposes the wearer in high gales of wind, squalls, and sudden flaws; there being no method yet discovered, as I am told, of diminishing its quantity of surface by way of single, double, or balance reef, in proportion to the increase and vio­lence of the storm. — However, far be it from me to discourage the use of this monstrous production of art, even if it should increase to the number of yards in the Royal Louis's mainsail, provided it be subjected to [Page 383] due taxation. — But the articles of vanity and needless expence are by no means confined to the la­dies. What is a tye-wig, or the tail thereof, that it should contribute nothing towards carrying on the war? The double rows of gilt buttons also upon coats and waistcoats ought to be taken notice of by those in au­thority, because one single row is sufficient; and all wanton superfluity should suffer sever taxation: a penny, or even a half-penny imposed upon every needless button, annually, would be but a trifle to the owner, but, in the aggregate, a vast deal to the com­munity at large. In the next place all laced garments, except those worn by people belonging to the army, might, if properly attended to, be made to produce something clever. He that can afford to purchase a suit of laced or embroidered cloaths for his own pro­per use, it is to be supposed is also able to pay some­thing handsome to his country for the gratification he feels in displaying his peacock's feathers to the view of the gazing multitude.

THERE are an hundred other supernumerary ar­ticles, both amongst men and women, that ought to be timeously discouraged, altogether, or made to turn out to the benefit of the public. Were these evils on­ly to be found in towns and cities, the consequences would not be so dangerous, but I am sorry to find from late experience that the fancies of many young persons in the country also are fascinated and bewil­dered by these new modes of dress and ornament. My girls, indeed, having never yet been in town (and I hope they never will have an opportunity) still retain their rural simplicity of dress and manners, and in my eyes are more truly amiable in their plain attire than the gaudy cit with her flowers and furbelows, and all the rustling geer that she so well knows how to display to the best advantage. But my eldest son, having spent several weeks in this city last fall, came home a mere baboon. His hair besprinkled as white with [Page 384] powder as an old man's of eighty-five with extreme age; a pair of ruffles reaching from his wrist-bands to the extremities of his nails; a strip of gold lace en­circling his hat with a loop and button of the same ma­terials; a huge stock on his neck containing almost muslin enough for his winding sheet; a suit of super­fine cloaths wrought off in a wonderful glaring manner, and to complete the jest a long piece of cold iron, that he called a sword, dangling after him, in imitation, I suppose, of some coxcomb he had seen or been acquaint­ed with in town. — My wife, my daughters and my­self were quite out of humour at the sight of this ridi­culous metamorphosis, especially when we considered that the silly fellow had put more upon his back in one superfluous suit than would pay our taxes for two years. I remember one of my girls, his sister, look­ing at his sword with a contemptuous sneer, asked him if he had brought us a new spit to roast meat upon?—This so mortified poor Jerry that he has hung up his sword in the garret, (as the Hebrews of old time did their harps on the willows by Babel's stream) and has never ventured to gird it upon his thigh from that day to this.

Philadelphia, July 10, 1782.

NOTWITHSTANDING all that has been said and remarked of the unparallelled rage of the lower and middling classes of people in Britain, for planning and scheming and breaking their rest for the advance­ment of the public good, and the ardent desire they manifest upon all occasions to be instructed in the [Page 385] depths and mysteries of political science; notwithstand­ing all this, I do not believe there is a country in the world that produces more of these imaginary Solons and Lycurgus's than this, called the United States of America. Every common fellow that has been taught to snuffle a little over a school book, or to make a scrawl or scratch he calls writing, thinks himself am­ply qualified to reform and regulate the affairs of the great world. — There was a striking instance of this in a late performance, said to be the production of a certain Mr. Clodhopper, a man from some re­mote part of the country, who, it seems, whenever he comes to town, has the impudence to lie in his wag­gon, making observations upon our dresses and fashions as we walk the streets or ride in our carriages. How narrow and diminutive must that soul be, which can voluntarily restrict itself merely to those articles (I pity his poor wife and daughters) that may just keep soul and body together, as the saying is, and cover them from the inclemency of the air and seasons, in con­tempt and disregard of the comforts and conveniencies of life. Avaunt, ye Clodhoppers of the age! enjoy in peace your wretched fare and still more wretched attire, but come not henceforward into public view with your execrable croakings, to do your utmost to rob us of our teas and our sugars, our calashes and our shoe heels, and other blessings, which, if with-held, as your niggardly hands are itching to do, would ren­der life itself an unsupportable burthen, not worth owning or enjoying on such miserable terms of depri­vation.