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Ir is about one hundred and thirty miles from Rome to Capua, and near twenty more from that to Naples. I have taken up my residence at a delightful village about half way betwixt them, where my stay will be determined as it was at Geneva. Abbe Raynal on my first tour afked how long I was to stay there, I said that I did not know how long, but I would stay till I was weary of the place, "'Tis the best rule in life,” said he. He could only mean that it was a very good one.

I might swell this article to a great length, by telling you that this country, famous for its pastures, derives its name from the Greek word Italos, signifying an ox, by mentioning its divisions and subdivisions; its ancient inhabitants the Aborigines, Pelasgi, Rutuli, &c. and matters of that sort; but I don't mean any thing of the kind. 'Tis my journey and opinions that I write, and not the ancient history or the present state of the countries through which I pafs.

I always smile when I hear one pretend to despise or ridicule accomplishments he does not pofsefs. There is a gentleman here who plays well on the violin; he laughs at his friend, and says he is a pedant, because he understands Greek and Latin well

April 17. enough to relish the beauties of their poets. The scholar smiles at the musician; the painter laughs at both; and all three at the historian. "Never, (they say,) never will we stuff our brain with such idle nonsense. Can any thing be lefs important than the knowledge of what is past ?"

Ye country surgeons, grave fhopkeepers, men of sedentary lives, watchmakers, and American refugees, I call upon you all to consider this, and to make the application if ye understand my drift.

The face of nature is always gay, and ever smiling in these happy regions. The soil is fertile, and produces every grain, and every fruit that the influence of a genial sun can pour into the lap of plenty. Every little stream has been sung in days of old, and every field is classic ground. It is pleasing to consider how the climate of this country has changed for the better within these two thousand years. I think I could account for it were this a proper place. Virgil hath given directions how to protect flocks and herds from snow and frost, that can no longer be useful in this part of Italy; and to hear Horace talking of snowy Soracté, and ligna super foco large reponens, one would imagine he was far to the northward of the Alps.

Generally speaking, there is in all mankind a very unaccountable affection for their native country*. Polished European, Caffre, Greenlander, Indian, Samoiede, and Otaheitan, this amor patria is common to you all! But for it many a dreary hill

*Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine cunctos

Ducit, immemores non sinit efse sui. OVID EP. lib. i 1.35.

and barren plain would be forsaken by their inhabitants, who would prefer the mild climate and fruitful fields of this garden of Europe to their own stormy winters and ungrateful soil.

Were we to consider in what grofs ignorance the western world was immersed ten or eleven centuries ago, the spiritual empire which the bishops of Rome found means to establish over so considerable a portion of the globe would appear just what might have been expected in the nature of things. The little knowledge which had escaped the general wreck, was confined entirely to ecclesiastics who were devoted to the see of Rome, and they only were capable of directing affairs of state. In this enlightened age we are acquainted with the power of superstition over the human mind only by the effects which we know it has produced, and we are apt to accuse of weakness those princes and kingdoms that tamely submitted to be so long directed by the papal see, when we ought rather to pity their ignorance. Without the art of printing, knowledge must ever have been confined to those few in whom ability to buy books united with a taste for study. But after that most useful of inventions, which puts books within the reach of almost every one, knowledge. spread over Europe with amazing rapidity. Men soon began to think for themselves, and to reason concerning their civil and religious rights. Princes who had the command of the military force, being more interested in preserving or extending their own power than in protecting that of the clergy, suffered, and in some places encouraged this spirit VOL. xiv.

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April 17. of inquiry. The difsolute lives of the clergy, so contrary to their profefsion, prompted men, heated and eager, &c. &c.

I find this would lead me into a longer difsertation than I dare engage in at present.

'Tis needless to attempt putting that face upon the matter to you, my dear fellow; to you I'honestly confefs it would lead me far beyond my depth.

My feelings are not hurt by attendance on divine worship, even where the ceremonial part is very different from that of my own country; and ever since I could think of matters of the sort, I have believed that a very moderate fhare of learning and knowledge would infallibly lead to this liberality of sentiment. Yet when he was in Scotland, the great Dr Samuel Johnson refused to hear a prefbyterian clergyman. "Let Dr Robertson, (said he,) get up to a tree and preach, and I will hear him; but never by my presence will I sanction a prefbyterian afsembly." Still I fancy the general rule will seldom fail; and some of our most ingenious and learned men have declared a general rule the stronger for a few exceptions. If he is consistent with himself, of this opinion will that gentleman be, who, when he had the honour to represent the city of. Edinburgh, declared in the House of Commons, in the case of Sir Hugh Palliser, that the partial acquittal of the court martial was more to his honour than an unanimous one would have been.

This place swarms with religious persons, both regulars and seculars, who three hundred years ago

e judged equally necefsary. In many countries

251 the seculars have been long supprefsed, without any inconvenience, and some scruple not to think the day is coming, though it be yet at a great distance, when the regulars fhall fhare the same fate. General censures of the clergy might perhaps be construed into disaffection to religion, a fault of which I hope I never shall be justly accused However, I do not deny that I cannot be much pleased at seeing a man puzzling himself and his hearers, in order to explain a mystery that he knows as little of as the meanest of his hearers; or to divide and subdivide a point of morality that requires no division at all; though this, it must be owned, is now seldomer to met with, even in catholic countries, than was not long ago common among the more enlightened clergy of Britain.

The major part of mankind being doomed to labour for their daily bread, deep learning can never become general; but some thousands of years hence, when by means of printing a moderate portion of knowledge shall be difseminated, and when all mankind shall be as enlightened, my dear fellow, as thou art, then may we hope that mankind will unite in being satisfied that true religion consists, not so much in a rigid adherence to this or that particular set of tenets; but that its efsence consists in an unfeigned submifsion to the will of God, and a sincere worship of the Supreme Being in spirit and in truth. W. E.

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