unnecessarily practised, and my biloquial faculty did not lie unemployed. What has happened to yourselves may enable you, in some degree, to judge of the scenes in which my mystical exploits engaged me. In none of them, indeed, were the effects equally disastrous, and they were, for the most part, the result of well digested projects. To recount these would be an endless task. They were designed as mere specimens of power, to illustrate the influence of superstition: to give sceptics the consolation of certainty: to annihilate the scruples of a tender female, or facilitate my access to the bosoms of courtiers and monks. The first achievement of this kind took place in the convent of the Escurial. For some time the hospitality of this brotherhood allowed me a cell in that magnificent and gloomy fabric. I was drawn hither chiefly by the treasures of Arabian literature, which are preserved here in the keeping of a learned Maronite, from Lebanon. Standing one evening on the steps of the great altar,this devout friar expatiated on the miraculous evidences of his religion; and, in a moment of enthusiasm, appealed to San Lorenzo, whose martyrdom was displayed before us. No sooner was the appeal made than the saint, obsequious to the summons, whispered his responses from the shrine, and commanded the heritic to tremble and believe. This event was reported to the convent. With whatever reluctance, I could not refuse my testimony to its truth, and its influence on my faith was clearly shewn in my subsequent conduct. A lady of rank, in Seville, who had been guilty of many unauthorized indulgences, was, at last, awakened to remorse, by a voice from Heaven, which she imagined had commanded her to expiate her sins by an abstinence from all food for thirty days. Her friends found it impossible to outroot this persuasion, or to overcome her resolution even by force. I chanced to be one in a numerous company where she was present. This fatal illusion was mentioned, and an opportunity afforded to the lady of defending her scheme. At a pause in the discourse, a voice was heard from the ceiling, which confirmed the truth of her tale; but, at the same time revoked the command, and, in consideration of her faith, pronounced her absolution. Satisfied with this proof, the auditors dismissed their unbelief, and the lady consented to eat. In the course of a copious correspondence with Ludlow, the observations I had collected were given. A sentiment, which I can hardly describe, induced me to be silent on all adventures connected with my bivocal projects. On other topics, I wrote fully, and without restraint. I painted, in vivid hues, the scenes with which I was daily conversant, and pursued, fearlessly, every speculation on religion and government that occurred. This spirit was encouraged by Ludloe, who failed not to comment on my narrative, and multiply deductions from my principles. He taught me to ascribe the evils that infest society to the errors of opinion. The absurd and unequal distribution of power and property gave birth to poverty and riches, and these were the sources of luxury and crimes. These positions were readily admitted; but the remedy for these ills, the means of rectifying these errors were not easily discovered. We have been inclined to impute them to inherent defects in the moral constitution of men: that oppression and tyranny grow up by a sort of natural necessity, and that they will perish only when the human species is extinct. Ludloe laboured to prove that this was, by no means, the case: that man is the creature of circumstances: that he is capable of endless improvement: that his progress has been stopped by the artificial impediment of government: that by the removal of this, the fondest dreams of imagination will be realized. From detailing and accounting for the evils which exist under our present institutions, he usually proceed. ed to delineate some scheme of Utopian felicity, where the empire of reason should supplant that of force: where justice should be universally understood and practised; where the interest of the whole and of the individual should be seen by all to be the same; where the public good should be the scope of all activity; where the tasks of all should be the same, and the means of subsistence equally distributed. No one could contemplate his pictures without rapture. By their comprehensiveness and amplitude they filled the imagination. I was unwilling to believe that in no region of the world, or at no period could these ideas be realized. It was plain that the nations of Europe were tending to greater depravity, and would be the prey of perpetual vicisistude. All individual attempts at their reformation would be fruitless. He therefore who desired the diffusion of right principles, to make a just system be adopted by a whole community, must pursue some extraordinary method. In this state of mind I recollected my native country, where a few colonists from Britain had sown the germe of populous and mighty empires. Attended, as they were, into their new abode, by all their prejudices, yet such had been the influence of new circumstances, of consulting for their own happiness, of adopting simple forms of government, and excluding nobles and kings from their system, that they enjoyed a degree of happiness far superior to their parent state. To conquer the prejudices and change the habits of millions, are impossible. The human mind, exposed to social influences, infiexibly adheres to the direction that is given to it; but for the same reason why men, who begin in error will continue, those who commence in truth, may be expected to persist. Habit and example will operate with equal force in both instances. Let a few, sufficiently enlightened and disinterested, take up their abode in some unvisited region. Let their social scheme be founded in equity, and how small soever their original number may be, their growth into a nation is inevitable. Among other effects of national justice, was to be ranked the swift increase of numbers. Exempt from servile obligations and perverse habits, endowed with property, wisdom, and health, hundreds will expand, with inconceivable rapidity into thousands and thousands, into millions; and a new race, tutored in truth, may, in a few centuries, overflow the habitable world. Such were the visions of youth! I could not banish them from my mind. I knew them to be crude; but believed that deliberation would bestow upon them solidity and shape. Meanwhile I imparted them to Ludloc. (To be continued.) CRITICAL NOTICES. NO. V. I TOOK up lately Goldsmith's Traveller, the favourite of every philosophical and poetical reader. The most charming part of this poem is, to me, that which relates to Swisserland. When I came to this I could not forbear pausing at each line, and indulging, at leisure, the thoughts which the sentiment, epithet or image suggested: perhaps these spontaneous meditations may possess the merit of novelty at least to some of my readers. The subject is unhackneyed, while at the same time, few performances in the English language are more read and more commended. vision from the country of ancient The poet turns his moralizing virtue and modern effeminacy, array, But winter lingering chills the lap of May. Torpid is another example of an epithet, truly happy and poetical: and indeed the four phrases of the bleak Swiss; churlish soil; of torpid rocks; and lingering winter; are delightful samples of the power characteristic of poetry, by which it animates the dead and impassions the insensible, in the concisest and most rapid, and consequently the most cogent manner. I have, however, tried in vain to form a distinct image from the last line: perhaps a reader of more taste may not object to that confusion that arises from winter, lingering, which is making winter a person, and at the same time, chilling, which it can only perform in its original and unpersonified capacity. The same mistake, if it be one, is committed by the poet who, in order to descsibe the same circumstance, tells us that the buds of spring are-nipt by the lagging rear of winter's frost, nei And as a child, when scaring sounds molest, Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, If few their wants, their pleasures are but few; For every want that stimulates the breast, Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest. Whence from such lands each pleas. ing science flies, That first excites desire, and then supplies; Unknown to them when sensual pleasures cloy, To fill the languid pause with finer Unknown those powers that raise the joy; soul to flame, Catch every nerve, and vibrate thro' the frame. So the loud torrent, and the whirl- Their level life is but a mouldering wind's roar, But bind him to his native mountains more. Few of my readers, I trust, will refuse to share my admiration of this passage. I am particularly struck with the beauty of the similie; nothing can be happier than the language and numbers in which it is conveyed. Some doubt, however, may by some fastidious critic, be expressed of the propriety of this comparison. Admitting that the mountaineer's attachment to his natal spot, is stronger than that of the tenant of the plain to the place of his nativity, which is a very questionable point, and even admitting that the peculiar features of a hilly country the tempest and the torrent, constitute this tye, they do not influence him as scaring sounds influence the child. The terror of these sounds makes the latter cling more closely to the mother's breast, but it is not the fear of the torrent and the whirlwind, that makes the Swiss cling closer to the mountain. The poet thus proceeds to exhibit the influence of soil and climate, on the temper and manners of the Swiss. fire, rally passes on to inquire into the theory the poet designs to inculcate, the justness of the reasonings by which he supports it, and the fidelity of his pictures to na ture. The poet appears to think that, barren states, such as Swisserland, create few wants and few wishes: that their pleasures are proportionably few, since pleasure arises from supplying wants; that from such land, the sciences that excite and supply desire, depart. That they know not how to fill the intervals of sensual pleasure with finer joy. Not only their joys, but their morals it seems, are slow. Love and friendship and the gentler morals, absent themselves from such rugged and are only found in milder skies. In short that civilization, with its vices, makes greater progress in fertile soils and mild climates, than in the barren and cold, and that this different influence, is exemplified in Swisserland and France. After thus stripping the poet's sentiments of the imbellishments of poetry, they appear to be remarkably crude, injudicious and erroneous. It is universally agreed, that the Swiss possessed, while an independant nation, more genuine refinement, more knowledge, more liberty, more of the gentler virtues, more sensibility of heart and fancy than their neighbours. Swisserland is composed of plains and valleys as well as hills, and as the manners of the nation are the same, or essentially the same in all its districts; it is impossible to prove that certain sort of temper or manners is connected with particular soils or phazes of the country. A barren soil will maintain fewer people than a fertile one, but the number of people that actually live upon it, and the degree of affluence and ease and refinement they enjoy, depend on other circumstances; on their religion, govern, ment, laws, their facility of commercial intercourse and their arts. The numbers which derive their subsistence from any soil, are pro portioned to the quantity of product. The barren affords as plentiful a subsistence to a few, as the fertile does to many, the portion of each one, being the same, and as easily obtained in both cases. From the most fruitful soil, the bad cultiva, tion of some nations, draws a less quantity of food, than the good cultivation of other nations draws from the sterile. The country too barren and irregular for tillage, is devoted to pasture and the shepherd's life, being easier than the tillers, ought, in itself considered, to be more favourable for improvement of the taste and sensibitity, and accordingly the Swiss mountaineers possess more intelectual and moral pleasures than the husbandmen of Piedmont and Flanders. What pity is it, that every poet is not a philosopher, that he, who is most capable of adorning and enforcing truth, does not most clearly discern it. No less a pity is it, that every philosopher is not a poet; that he who reasons in the soundest manner, does not speak or write in the most engaging stile. REVEIW. A brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, first part; containing a Sketch of the Revolution and Improvements in Science, Arts,and Literature, during that period....by Samuel Millar, A.M• &c. &c. New-York, Swords, 1803, 2 vol.8v. THE origin and history of this work are detailed by the author in |