man it is suited to them, and calculated to im prove them. The better therefore these faculties are understood, the more succefsfully will its precepts and doctrines be applied to their cultivation. We should not then hear of cold and abstract disquisitions, on uninteresting points of controversial theology; but our duty would be explained, as naturally arising from the powers which we pofsefs; it would be confirmed by the sacred precepts of religion; and the practice of it enforced by its awful and commanding sanctions. It was in the retirement of a country manse, that Dr Reid laid the foundation of that fame which he so justly acquired, as a metaphysical writer; Dr Robertson, I believe, in a similar situation, commenced his brilliant carreer in history; and I think I have heard that Dr Blair did the same in the department of belles lettres. The inclosed contains two extracts from a work published some years ago by Dr Zimmerman of Hanover, which you can insert in your Bee, if you think proper. I beg leave to ask you, or any of your correspondents, through the medium of your miscellany, whether the work be translated into English; I mean the doctor's publication, in four volumes octavo, on Solitude. If I am not mistaken, a smaller work of his on the same subject has been translated; but I believe from a French translation by M. Mercier. I acknowledge I have been disappointed in finding so little in the Bee, on the subject of foreign literature; I direct my attention sometimes that way. you accept of my correspondence, I have a few articles, which I pick up from time to time, at your If service in the mean time an acknowledgment of the receipt of this, will oblige, Sir, yours, &c *. EIN LIEBHABER. THE TRAVELLER. No. I. For the Bee. THE advantages to be derived from travelling have been already so often pointed out, that it would be impertinent in me to attempt saying any thing new upon the subject. When they go abroad, the most of our countrymen are too young to digest what they see or hear, and are more eager after amusements, than solicitous to improve themselves by making observations on the various humours, habitudes, and modes of life of the inhabitants; or on the climates, laws, and governments of the countries which they visit. If we consider how few there are capable of reflecting on these matters, even in advanced life, we will not be surprised at the small number that are benefitted by it. But surely a man of parts will reap more advantage from judicious travelling, than from any other mode of instruction. John William Spencer is a person of this descrip tion. Born to a plentiful fortune in the west of The Editor will be much obliged to this writer, for future communications. Some foreign correspondents from whom much with good reason was expected have proved unfaithful. Others are now coming forward, and there is reason to hope they will increase; but the number of communications that prefs for insertion give little room for other articles, many of which have been long postponed. There is reason to believe that the Solitude by Zimmerman is not translated. England, he had the advantage of a better education than is generally bestowed on those of his rank. His natural taste for study and reflection, was directed and encouraged by an indulgent father, who, at the age of twenty-five, sent him on the grand tour, with an allowance that enabled him to move in the first circles at Paris, Versailles, Rome, Venice, Vienna, Bonne, Cologne, Brufsels, and the Hague. Hitherto he had been conversant only with persons in high life: but not considering these as the best specimens, or most faithful representatives of national character, he determined to make himself acquainted with the manners of the middling and lower classes; and immediately after his return to England he set out on a new tour on foot and unattended. In this plight he rambled over England, Scotland, Italy, France, and Spain; and he has often declared that this last excursion afforded him more rational amusement than that which he made in a much more exalted sphere. He kept no regular journal; but when any thing remarkable occurred, he wrote it down on loose fheets of paper. Eighteen of these are now in my possession. It is needlefs for me to take up your time in telling how they came there; but if you think they deserve a place in your Bee, I will send you copies of them in the order they are tied up; for they make no narrative, and are no way connected; and, as they chance to lead us, we must jump at once from England to Spain, or from Italy to Scotland. Extracts from the journal, containing the opinions and observations of JOHN WILLIAM SPENCER. Leiceister. A HEAVY fhower chaced me into the tollkeeper's house this morning, where the people were so civil that I was pleased the rain furnished an excuse før prolonging my stay. A greasy fellow of a stocking maker came down stairs to dinner. A very plain batter pudding was all their fare. The good woman gave me to understand her husband had gone to market, and that they always dined poorly that day. She regretted my ill luck, and with much natural civility asked me to taste with them. I thanked her, and took up a spoon. at our backs. A beautiful servant maid sat Notwithstanding that fate has placed me in a very desirable situation, I am sometimes so ungrateful as to repine at my lot; but two or three comparisons of my situation with that of others, generally reconcile 'me to my own, and send me home to myself well pleased. My heart sickens when I see the Irishman at his potatoes, the Scotsman at his porridge, the Englishman at his batter pudding and his broth, and the Frenchman at his brown bread and garlic. The rich, in excuse for their want of feeling, say that happiness in this life is more equally distributed than is commonly imagined. If, they add, the rich have mɔre numerous, and more sensible feelings of pleasure, so have they likewise of pain. I fhall never try to persuade any poor man, who with hard labour earns a precarious and scanty meal of coarse fare, that he has as much reason to be satisfied with his lot in this world as I have. He might, perhaps, be unable to answer the arguments I brought to prove him happy, but he would not be convinced. It gives me the spleen to hear people exclaim against the increase of luxury, and the alteration in the mode of living now-a-days. The labourer lives as well as the farmer did forty years ago; the farmer as well as the man of little fortune; and so on; and is not this so much the better for them all? But all cry out most loudly against the rank immediately below them, without recollecting that they have changed their own mode in nearly the same proportion. Labourers in the country do not live so well as those in London, where they have better wages. This is not surprising. But it is surprising that people say that labourers in London have high wages because they live well. It is mistaking the cause for the effect; and this is done every day. That beloved king, Henry iv. of France, wished to see the time when every man in his kingdom should have a fowl in his pot on a Sunday. In the beginning of their empire, the Romans far exceeded in riches, magnificence, and refinement, any thing that modern ages can boast of. I have often wondered how they catched all those snipes and curlews that their emperors were so fond of. I forget how many thousand curlews brains Vitellius had in one dish at supper: he certainly paid well for them, as in lefs than a year he spent upwards of seven millions sterling on eating and drinking. His brother Lucius |