4

an old and creaking stair-case, when, as he mounted to shew me the way, he demanded, whether I delighted in prospects, to which answering in the affirmative, Then, says he, I shall shew you one of the most charming in the world out of my windows; we shall see the ships sailing, and the whole country for twenty miles round, tip top, quite high. My lord Swamp would give ten thousand guineas for such a one; but as I sometimes pleasantly tell him, I always love to keep my prospects at home, that my friends may see me the oftener.

By this time we were arrived as high as the stairs would permit us to ascend, till we came to what he was facetiously pleased to call the first floor down the chimney; and knocking at the door, a voice from within demanded, who's there? My conductor answered that it was him. But this not satisfying the querist, the voice again repeated the demand: to which he answered louder than before; and now the door was opened by an old woman with cautious reluctance.

When we were got in, he welcomed me to his house with great ceremony, and turning to the old woman, asked where was her lady? "Good troth," replied she, in a peculiar dialect, "she's washing

66

your two shirts at the next door, because they "have taken an oath against lending out the tub "any longer." My two shirts, cries he in a tone that faultered with confusion, what does the ideot mean! "Iken what I mean well enough," replied the other," she's washing your two shirts at the next "door, because-" Fire and fury, no more of thy stupid explanations, cried he,-Go and inform her we have got company. Were that Scotch hag to be for ever in the family, she would never learn politeness, nor forget that absurd poisonous accent of hers, or testify the smallest specimen of breeding or high life; and yet it is

very

very surprizing too, as I had her from a parliament man, a friend of mine, from the highlands, one of the politest men in the world; but that's a secret.

We waited some time for Mrs. Tibbs's arrival, during which interval I had a full opportunity of surveying the chamber and all its furniture; which consisted of four chairs with old wrought bottoms, that he assured me were his wife's embroidery; a square table that had been once japanned, a cradle in one corner, a lumbering cabinet in the other; a broken shepherdess, and a mandarine without a head were stuck over the chimney; and round the walls several paltry, unframed pictures, which he observed, were all his own drawing: What do you think, Sir, of that head in a corner, done in the manner of Grisoni? there's the true keeping in it; it's my own face, and though there happens to be no likeness, a countess offered me an hundred for its fellow: Irefused her, for, hang it, that would be mechanical, you know.

The wife at last made her appearance, at once a slattern and a coquet; much emaciated, but still carrying the remains of beauty. She made twenty apologies for being seen in such odious dishabille, but hoped to be excused, as she had staid out all night at the gardens with the countess, who was excessively fond of the horns. “And, indeed, my "dear," added she, turning to her husband, "his "lordship drank your health in a bumper." Poor Jack, cries he, a dear good-natured creature, I know he loves me; but I hope, my dear, you have given orders for dinner; you need make no great preparations neither, there are but three of us, something elegant, and little will do; a turbot, an ortolan, or a. Or what do you think, my dear, interrupts the wife, of a nice pretty bit of ox-cheek, piping hot, and dressed with a little of my own sauce. The very thing, replies he, it will eat best with some smart bottled beer; but be sure

to

to let's have the sauce his grace was so fond of. I hate your immense loads of meat, that is country all over ; extreme disgusting to those who are in the least ac quainted with high life.

By this time my curiosity began to abate, and my appetite to increase; the company of fools may at first make us smile but at last never fails of rendering us melancholy; I therefore pretended to recollect a prior engagement, and after having shewn my respect to the house, according to the fashion of the English, by giving the old servant a piece of money at the door, I took my leave; Mr. Tibbs assuring me that dinner, if I staid, would be ready at least in less than two hours.

LETTER LV.

From Fum Hoam to Altangi, the discontented wanderer.

THE distant sounds of music that catch new sweetness as they vibrate through the long-drawn valley, are not more pleasing to the ear than the tidings of a far distant friend.

I have just received two hundred of thy letters by the Russian caravan, descriptive of the manners of Europe. You have left it to geographers to determine the size of their mountains, and extent of their lakes, seeming only employed in discovering the genius, the government, and disposition of the people.

In those letters I perceive a journal of the opera tions of your mind upon whatever occurs, rather than a detail of your travels from one building to another; of your taking a draught of this ruin, or

that

that obelisk; of paying so many Tomans for this commodity, or laying up a proper store for the passage of some new wilderness.

From your accounts of Russia I learn, that this nation is again relaxing into pristine barbarity, that its great emperor wanted a life of an hundred years more to bring about his vast design. A savage people may be resembled to their own forests; a few years are sufficient to clear away the obstructions to agriculture; but it requires many ere the ground acquires a proper degree of fertility; the Russians, attached to their antient prejudices, again renew their hatred to strangers, and indulge every former brutal excess. So true it is, that the revolutions of wisdom are slow and difficult, the revolutions of folly or ambition precipitate and easy. We are not to be astonished, says Confucius*, that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue, than fools in their passage to vice; since passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way.

The German empire, that remnant of the majesty of antient Rome, appears from your account on the eve of dissolution. The members of its vast body want every tye of government to unite them, and seem feebly held together only by their respect for antient institutions. The very name of country and countrymen, which in other nations makes one of the strongest bonds of government, has been here for some time laid aside, each of its inhabitants seeming more proud of being called from the petty state which gives him birth, than by the more wellknown title of German.

This government may be regarded in the light of a severe master and a feeble opponent. The states

*Though this fine maxim be not found in the Latin edition of the morals of Confucius, yet we find it ascribed to him by Le Comte. Etat present de la Chine. Vol. I. p. 342.

which

which are now subject to the laws of the empire, are only watching a proper occasion to fling off the yoke, and those which are become too powerful to be compelled to obedience, now begin to think of dictating in their turn. The struggles in this state are therefore not in order to preserve but to destroy the antient constitution; if one side succeeds, the government must become despotic, if the other, several states will subsist without nominal subordination; but in either case the Germanic constitution will be no more.

Sweden, on the contrary, though now seemingly. a strenuous assertor of its liberties, is probably only hastening on to despotism. Their senators, while they pretend to vindicate the freedom of the people, are only establishing their own independence. The deluded people will however at last perceive the miseries of an aristocratical government; they will perceive that the administration of a society of men is ever more painful than that of one only. They will fly from this most oppressive of all forms, where one single member is capable of controlling the whole, to take refuge under the throne which will ever be attentive to their complaints. No people long endure an aristocratical government, when they could apply elsewhere for redress. The lower orders of people may be enslaved for a time by a number of tyrants, but upon the first opportunity they will ever take a refuge in despotism or democracy.

As the Swedes are making concealed approaches to despotism, the French, on the other hand, are imperceptibly vindicating themselves into freedom. When I consider that those parliaments (the members of which are all created by the court, the presidents of which can act only by immediate direction) presume even to mention privileges and freedom, who, till of late, received directions from the

throne