seem probable, that England was cultivated by a million of servants, or villains, who were attached to the estates of their arbitrary landlords. The indigent barbarians were often tempted to sell their children or themselves into perpetual, and even foreign, bondage ;° yet the special exemptions, which were granted to national slaves, sufficiently declare that they were much less numerous than the strangers and captives, who had lost their liberty, or changed their masters, by the accidents of war. When time and religion had mitigated the fierce spirit of the Anglo-Saxons, the laws encouraged the frequent practice of manumission; and their subjects, of Welch or Cambrian extraction, assume the respectable station of inferior freemen, possessed of lands, and entitled to the rights of civil society. Such gentle treatment might secure the allegiance of a fierce people, who had been recently subdued on the confines of Wales and Cornwall. The sage Ina, the legislator of Wessex, united the two nations in the bands of domestic alliance; and four British lords of Somersetshire may be honourably distinguished in the court of a Saxon monarch.r Manners of the His subordinate ministers, the masters and disciples of vocal and instrumental music, visited, in their respective circuits, the royal, the noble, and the plebeian houses; and the public poverty, almost exhausted by the clergy, was oppressed by the importunate demands of the bards. Their rank and merit were ascertained by solemn trials, and the strong belief of supernatural inspiration exalted the fancy of the poet, and of his audience.' The last retreats of Celtic freedom, the extreme territories of Gaul and Britain, were less adapted to agriculture than to pasturage: the wealth of the Britons consisted in their flocks and herds; milk and flesh were their ordinary food; and bread was sometimes esteemed, or rejected, as a foreign luxury. Liberty had peopled the mountains of Wales and the morasses of Armorica: but their populousness has been maliciously ascribed to the loose practice of polygamy; and the houses of these licentious barbarians have been supposed to contain ten wives, and perhaps fifty children." Their disposition was rash and choleric: they were bold in action and in speech; and as they were ignorant of the arts of peace, they alternately indulged their passions in foreign and domestic war. The cavalry of Armorica, the spearmen of Gwent, and the archers of Merioneth, were equally formidable; but their poverty could seldom procure either shields or helmets; and the inconvenient weight would have retarded the speed and agility of their desultory operations. One of the greatest of the English monarchs was requested to satisfy the curiosity of a Greek emperor concerning the state of Britain; and Henry II. could assert, from his personal experience, that Wales was inhabited by a race of naked warriors, who encountered, without fear, the defensive armour of their enemies.' By the revolution of Britain, the limits of science, as well as of empire, lous state of Briwere contracted. The dark cloud, which had been cleared by the Phoenician discove The independent Britons appear to Britons. have relapsed into the state of original barbarism, from whence they had been imperfectly reclaimed. Separated by their enemies from the rest of mankind, they soon became an object of scandal and abhorrence to the catholic world. Christianity was still professed in the mountains of Wales; but the rude schismatics, in the form of the clerical tonsure, and in the day of the celebration of Easter, obstinately resisted the imperious mandates of the Roman pontiffs. The use of the Latin language was insensibly abolished, and the Britons were deprived of the arts and learning which Italy communicated to her Saxon proselytes. In Wales and Armorica, the Celtic tongue, the native idiom of the west, was preserved and propagated; and the Bards, who had been the companions of the Druids, were still protected, in the sixteenth century, by theries, and finally dispelled by the arms of Cæsar, laws of Elizabeth. Their chief, a respectable officer of the courts of Pengwern, or Aberfraw, or Caermarthaen, accompanied the king's servants to war; the monarchy of the Britons, which he sung in the front of battle, excited their courage, and justified their depredations; and the songster claimed for his legitimate prize the fairest heifer of the spoil. From the concurrent testimony of Bede, (1. ii. c. 1. p. 78.) and William of Malmsbury, (1. iii. p. 102.) it appears that the Anglo-Saxons, from the first, to the last, age, persisted in this unnatural practice. Their youths were publicly sold in the market of Rome. P According to the laws of Ina, they could not be lawfully sold beyond the seas. q The life of a Wallus, or Cambricus, homo, who possessed a hyde of land, is fixed at 120 shillings, by the same laws, (of Ina, tit, xxxií. in Leg. Anglo-Saxon. p. 20.) which allowed 200 shillings for a free Saxon, 1200 for a Thane, (see likewise Leg. Anglo-Saxon. p. 71.) We may observe, that these legislators, the West-Saxons and Mercians, continued their British conquests after they became christians. The laws of the four kings of Kent do not condescend to notice the existence of any subject Britons. r See Carte's Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 278. At the conclusion of his history, (A. D. 731.) Bede describes the ecclesiastical state of the island, and censures the implacable, though impotent, hatred of the Britons against the English nation, and the catholic church, (1. v. c. 23. p. 219.) t Mr. Pennant's Tour in Wales, (p. 426-449.) has furnished me with a curious and interesting account of the Welch bards. In the year 1568, Obscure or fabu tain. again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province was again lost among the fabulous islands of the ocean. One hundred and fifty years after the reign of Honorius, the gravest historian of the times describes the wonders of a remote isle, whose eastern and western parts are divided by an antique wall, the boundary of life and death, or a session was held at Caerwys by the special command of queen Eliza. beth, and regular degrees in vocal and instrumental music were conferred on fifty-five minstrels. The prize (a silver harp) was adjudged by the Mostyn Family. u Regio longe lateque diffusa, milite, magis quam credibile sit, re ferta. Partibus equidem in illis miles unus quinquaginta generat, for titus more barbaro denas aut amplius uxores. This reproach of Wil liam of Poitiers (in the Historians of France, tom. xi. p. 88.) is disclaimed by the Benedictine editors. Giraldus Cambrensis confines this gift of bold and ready eloquence to the Romans, the French, and the Britons. The malicious Welch man insinuates, that the English taciturnity might possibly be the effect of their servitude under the Normans. The picture of Welch and Armorican manners is drawn from Gir. aldus, (Descript. Cambria, c. 6-15. inter Script, Camden. p. 886-891.) and the authors quoted by the Abbé de Vertot. (Hist. Critique, tomii. p. 259-266.) See Procopius de Bell. Gothic. I. iv. c. 20. p. 620-625. The Greek historian is himself so confounded by the wonders which he he. lates, that he weakly attempts to distinguish the islands of Brittia and Britain, which he has identified by so many inseparable circumstances. tish world was seldom connected, either in peace or Fall of the Ro the west. more properly, of truth and fiction. The east is a fair country, inhabited by a civilized people: the air is healthy, the waters are pure and plentiful, and the earth yields her regular and fruitful increase.rious narrative of the decline and fall man empire in In the west, beyond the wall, the air is infectious of the Roman empire, from the forand mortal; the ground is covered with serpents ; tunate age of Trajan and the Antonines, to its total and this dreary solitude is the region of departed extinction in the west, about five centuries after the spirits, who are transported from the opposite shores christian æra. At that unhappy period, the Saxons in substantial boats, and by living rowers. Some fiercely struggled with the natives for the possession families of fishermen, the subjects of the Franks, of Britain: Gaul and Spain were divided between are excused from tribute, in consideration of the the powerful monarchies of the Franks and Visimysterious office which is performed by these Cha- goths, and the dependent kingdoms of the Suevi rons of the ocean. Each in his turn is summoned, at and Burgundians: Africa was exposed to the cruel the hour of midnight, to hear the voices, and even persecution of the Vandals, and the savage insults the names, of the ghosts; he is sensible of their of the Moors: Rome and Italy, as far as the banks weight, and he feels himself impelled by an un- of the Danube, were afflicted by an army of barknown, but irresistible, power. After this dream barian mercenaries, whose lawless tyranny was of fancy, we read with astonishment, that the name succeeded by the reign of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. of this island is Brittia; that it lies in the ocean, All the subjects of the empire, who, by the use of the against the mouth of the Rhine, and less than Latin language, more particularly deserved the thirty miles from the continent; that it is possessed name and privileges of Romans, were oppressed by by three nations, the Frisians, the Angles, and the the disgrace and calamities of foreign conquest; Britons; and that some Angles had appeared at and the victorious nations of Germany established a Constantinople, in the train of the French ambas- new system of manners and government in the westsadors. From these ambassadors Procopius might ern countries of Europe. The majesty of Rome was be informed of a singular, though not improbable, faintly represented by the princes of Constantinople, adventure, which announces the spirit, rather than the feeble and imaginary successors of Augustus. the delicacy, of an English heroine. She had been Yet they continued to reign over the east, from the betrothed to Radiger king of the Varni, a tribe of Danube to the Nile and Tigris; the Gothic and Germans who touched the ocean and the Rhine ; Vandal kingdoms of Italy and Africa were subbut the perfidious lover was tempted, by motives of verted by the arms of Justinian; and the history of policy, to prefer his father's widow, the sister of the Greek emperors may still afford a long series of Theodebert king of the Franks. The forsaken instructive lessons, and interesting revolutions. princess of the Angles, instead of bewailing, revenged her disgrace. Her warlike subjects are said to have been ignorant of the use, and even of the form, of a horse; but she boldly sailed from Britain to the mouth of the Rhine, with a fleet of four hundred ships and an army of one hundred thousand men. After the loss of a battle, the captive Radiger implored the mercy of his victorious bride, who generously pardoned his offence, dismissed her rival, and compelled the king of the Varni to discharge with honour and fidelity the duties of a husband. This gallant exploit appears to be the last naval enterprise of the Anglo-Saxons. The arts of navigation by which they had acquired the empire of Britain and of the sea, were soon neglected by the indolent barbarians, who supinely renounced all the commercial advantages of their insular situation. Seven independent kingdoms were agitated by perpetual discord; and the Bri a a Theodebert, grandson of Clovis, and king of Austrasia, was the most powerful and warlike prince of the age; and this remarkable adventure may be placed between the years 534 and 547, the extreme terms of his reign. His sister Theudechildis retired to Sens, where she founded monasteries, and distributed alms, (see the notes of the Benedictine editors, in tom. ii. p. 216.) If we may credit the praises of Fortunatus, (1. vi. carm. 5, in tom. ii. p. 507.) Radiger was deprived of a most valuable wife. b Perhaps she was the sister of one of the princes or chiefs of the Angles, who landed in 527, and the following years, between the Humber and the Thames, and gradually founded the kingdoms of East Anglia and Mercia. The English writers are ignorant of her name and existence: but Procopius may have suggested to Mr. Rowe the character and situation of Rodogune in the tragedy of the Royal Convert. In the copious history of Gregory of Tours, we cannot find any General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West. THE Greeks, after their country had been reduced into a province, imputed the triumphs of Rome, not to the merit, but to the FORTUNE, of the republic. The inconstant goddess, who so blindly distributes and resumes her favours, had now consented (such was the language of envious flattery) to resign her wings, to descend from her globe, and to fix her firm and immutable throne on the banks of the Tiber. A wiser Greek, who has composed, with a philosophic spirit, the memorable history of his own times, deprived his countrymen of this vain and delusive comfort, by opening to their view the deep foundations of the greatness of Rome. The fide traces of hostile or friendly intercourse between France and England, except in the marriage of the daughter of Caribert, king of Paris, quam regis cujusdam in Cantia filius matrimonio copulavit, (I. ix. c. 26. in tom. ii. p. 348.) The bishop of Tours ended his history and his life almost immediately before the conversion of Kent. a Such are the figurative expressions of Plutarch, (Opera, tom. ii, p. 318. edit. Wechel,) to whom, on the faith of his son Lamprias, (Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. iii. p. 341.) I shall boldly impute the malicious declamation, περί της Ρωμαίων τύχης. The same opinions had prevailed among the Greeks two hundred and fifty years before Plutarch; and to confute them, is the professed intention of Polybius, (Hist. 1. i. p. 90. edit. Gronov. Amstel. 1670.) b See the inestimable remains of the sixth book of Polybius, and many other parts of his general history, particularly a digression in the seventeenth book, in which he compares the phalanx and the legion. was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long. The victorious legions, who, in distant wars, acquired the vices of strangers and mercenaries, first oppressed the freedom of the republic, and afterwards violated the majesty of the purple. The emperors, anxious for their personal safety and the public peace, were reduced to the base expedient of corrupting the discipline which rendered them alike formidable to their sovereign and to the enemy; the vigour of the military government was relaxed, and finally dissolved, by the partial institutions of Constantine; and the Roman world was overwhelmed by a deluge of barbarians. The decay of Rome has been frequently ascribed to the translation of the seat of empire; but this history has already shown, that the powers of government were divided, rather than removed. The throne of Constantinople was erected in the east; while the west was still possessed by a series of emperors who held their residence in Italy, and claimed their equal inheritance of the legions and strength, and fomented the vices, of a double reign: the instruments of an oppressive and arbitrary system were multiplied; and a vain emulation of luxury, not of merit, was introduced and supported between the degenerate successors of Theodosius. Extreme distress, which unites the virtue of a free people, imbitters the factions of a declining monarchy. The hostile favourites of Arcadius and Honorius betrayed the republic to its common ene lity of the citizens to each other, and to the state, was confirmed by the habits of education, and the prejudices of religion. Honour, as well as virtue, was the principle of the republic: the ambitious citizens laboured to deserve the solemn glories of a triumph; and the ardour of the Roman youth was kindled into active emulation, as often as they beheld the domestic images of their ancestors. The temperate struggles of the patricians and plebeians had finally established the firm and equal balance of the constitution; which united the freedom of popular assemblies, with the authority and wisdom of a senate, and the executive powers of a regal magistrate. When the consul displayed the standard of the republic, each citizen bound himself, by the obligation of an oath, to draw his sword in the cause of his country, till he had discharged the sacred duty by a military service of ten years. This wise institution continually poured into the field the rising generations of freemen and soldiers; and their numbers were reinforced by the warlike and populous states of Italy, who, after a brave resist-provinces. This dangerous novelty impaired the ance, had yielded to the valour, and embraced the alliance, of the Romans. The sage historian, who excited the virtue of the younger Scipio, and beheld the ruin of Carthage, has accurately described their military system; their levies, arms, exercises, subordination, marches, encampments; and the invincible legion, superior in active strength to the Macedonian phalanx of Philip and Alexander. From these institutions of peace and war, Polybius has deduced the spirit and success of a people, in-mies; and the Byzantine court beheld with indiffercapable of fear, and impatient of repose. The am- ence, perhaps with pleasure, the disgrace of Rome, bitious design of conquest, which might have been the misfortunes of Italy, and the loss of the west. defeated by the seasonable conspiracy of mankind, Under the succeeding reigns, the alliance of the was attempted and achieved; and the perpetual two empires was restored; but the aid of the orien violation of justice was maintained by the political tal Romans was tardy, doubtful, and ineffectual; virtues of prudence and courage. The arms of the and the national schism of the Greeks and Latins republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always was enlarged by the perpetual difference of lanvictorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the guage and manners, of interest, and even of religion, Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the Ocean; Yet the salutary event approved in some measure and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might the judgment of Constantine. During a long period serve to represent the nations and their kings, were of decay, his impregnable city repelled the victosuccessively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome. rious armies of barbarians, protected the wealth The rise of a city, which swelled into an empire, of Asia, and commanded, both in peace and war, may deserve, as a singular prodigy, the reflection the important straits which connect the Euxine and The foundation of Constanof a philosophic mind. But the decline of Rome Mediterranean seas. was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate tinople more essentially contributed to the presergreatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of de- vation of the east, than to the ruin of the west. cay; the causes of destruction multiplied with the As the happiness of a future life is the great obextent of conquest; and as soon as time or acci-ject of religion, we may hear without surprise or dent had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman empire Sallust, de Bell. Jugurthin. c. 4. Such were the generous profes sions of P. Scipio and Q. Maximus. The Latin historian had read, and most probably transcribes, Polybius, their contemporary and friend. d While Carthage was in flames, Scipio repeated two lines of the Iliad, which express the destruction of Troy, and acknowledged to Po. lybius, his friend and preceptor, (Polyb. in Excerpt. de Virtut. et Vit. toni. ii. p. 1455-1465.) that while he recollected the vicissitudes of human affairs, he inwardly applied them to the future calamities of Rome. (Appian. in Libycis, p. 136. edit. Toll.) scandal, that the introduction, or at least the abuse, of christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusil e See Daniel ii. 31-40. "And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces, and subdueth all things. The remainder of the prophecy (the mixture of iron and clay) was ac complished, according to St. Jerom, in his own time. Sicut enim in principio nihil Romano imperio fortius et durius, ita in fine rerum nibil imbecillius: quam et in bellis civilibus et adversus diversas nationes aliarum gentium barbararum auxilio indigemus. (Opera, tom. v. p. 572.) which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome. Perhaps the same reflections will illustrate the fall of that mighty empire, and explain the probable causes of our actual security. I. The Romans were ignorant of the extent of their danger, and the number of their enemies. Beyond the Rhine and Danube, the northern countries of Europe and Asia were filled with innumerable tribes of hunters and shepherds, poor, voracious, and turbulent; bold in arms, and impatient to ravish the fruits of industry. The barbarian world was agitated by the rapid impulse of war; and the peace of Gaul or Italy was shaken by the distant revolutions of China. The Huns, who fled before a victorious enemy, directed their march towards the west; and the torrent was swelled by the gradual accession of captives and allies. flying tribes who yielded to the Huns, assumed in their turn the spirit of conquest; the endless column of barbarians pressed on the Roman empire with ac The lanimity; the active virtues of society were dis- | still threatened with a repetition of those calamities, couraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes, who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and the more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody, and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies, and perpetual correspondence, main-cumulated weight; and, if the foremost were tained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the gospel was strengthened, though confined, by the spiritual alliance of the catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obey-three hundred walled towns: the christian kinged, which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine influence of christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the north. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors. This awful revolution may be usefully applied to the instruction of the present age. It is the duty of a patriot to prefer and promote the exclusive interest and glory of his native country; but a philosopher may be permitted to enlarge his views, and to consider Europe as one great republic, whose various inhabitants have attained almost the same level of politeness and cultivation. The balance of power will continue to fluctuate, and the prosperity of our own, or the neighbouring kingdoms, may be alternately exalted or depressed; but these partial events cannot essentially injure our general state of happiness, the system of arts, and laws, and manners, which so advantageously distinguish, above the rest of mankind, the Europeans and their colonies. The savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilized society; and we may inquire with anxious curiosity, whether Europe is The French and English editors of the Genealogical History of the Tartars have subjoined a curious, though imperfect, description of their present state. We might question the independence of the Calmucks, or Eluths, since they have been recently vanquished by the Chinese, destroyed, the vacant space was instantly replenished by new assailants. Such formidable emigrations can no longer issue from the north; and the long repose, which has been imputed to the decrease of population, is the happy consequence of the progress of arts and agriculture. Instead of some rude villages, thinly scattered among its woods and morasses, Germany now produces a list of two thousand doms of Denmark, Sweden, and Poland, have been successively established; and the Hanse merchants, with the Teutonic knights, have extended their colonies along the coast of the Baltic, as far as the Gulf of Finland. From the Gulf of Finland to the eastern ocean, Russia now assumes the form of a powerful and civilized empire. The plough, the loom, and the forge, are introduced on the banks of the Volga, the Oby, and the Lena; and the fiercest of the Tartar hordes have been taught to tremble and obey. The reign of independent barbarism is now contracted to a narrow span; and the remnant of Calmucks or Uzbecks, whose forces may be almost numbered, cannot seriously excite the apprehensions of the great republic of Europe. Yet this apparent security should not tempt us to forget that new enemies, and unknown dangers, may possibly arise from some obscure people, scarcely visible in the map of the world. The Arabs or Saracens, who spread their conquests from India to Spain, had languished in poverty and contempt, till Mahomet breathed into those savage bodies the soul of enthusiasm. II. The empire of Rome was firmly established by the singular and perfect coalition of its members. The subject nations, resigning the hope, and even the wish, of independence, embraced the character who, in the year 1759, subdued the lesser Bucharia, and advanced into the country of Badakshan, near the sources of the Oxus. (Memoires sur les Chinois, tom. i. p. 325-400.) But these conquests are precarious, nor will I venture to insure the safety of the Chinese empire. of Roman citizens; and the provinces of the west | Persia, who neglected, and still neglect, to counterwere reluctantly torn by the barbarians from the balance these natural powers by the resources of bosom of their mother country. But this union military art. The warlike states of antiquity, was purchased by the loss of national freedom and Greece, Macedonia, and Rome, educated a race of military spirit; and the servile provinces, destitute soldiers; exercised their bodies, disciplined their of life and motion, expected their safety from the courage, multiplied their forces by regular evolumercenary troops and governors, who were directed tions, and converted the iron, which they possessed, by the orders of a distant court. The happiness of into strong and serviceable weapons. But this a hundred millions depended on the personal merit superiority insensibly declined with their laws and of one or two men, perhaps children, whose minds manners; and the feeble policy of Constantine and were corrupted by education, luxury, and despotic his successors armed and instructed, for the ruin of power. The deepest wounds were inflicted on the the empire, the rude valour of the barbarian merceempire during the minoritics of the sons and grand-naries. The military art has been changed by the sons of Theodosius; and, after those incapable princes seemed to attain the age of manhood, they abandoned the church to the bishops, the state to the eunuchs, and the provinces to the barbarians. Europe is now divided into twelve powerful, though unequal, kingdoms, three respectable commonwealths, and a variety of smaller, though independent, states: the chances of royal and ministerial talents are multiplied, at least, with the number of its rulers; and a Julian, or Semiramis, may reign in the north, while Arcadius and Honorius again slumber on the thrones of the south. The abuses of tyranny are restrained by the mutual influence of fear and shame; republics have acquired order and stability; monarchies have imbibed the principles of freedom, or, at least, of moderation; and some sense of honour and justice is introduced into the most defective constitutions by the general manners of the times. In peace, the progress of knowledge and industry is accelerated by the emulation of so many active rivals: in war, the European forces are exercised by temperate and indecisive contests. If a savage conqueror should issue from the deserts of Tartary, he must repeatedly vanquish the robust peasants of Russia, the numerous armies of Germany, the gallant nobles of France, and the intrepid freemen of Britain; who, perhaps, might confederate for their common defence. Should the victorious barbarians carry slavery and desolation as far as the Atlantic ocean, ten thousand vessels would transport beyond their pursuit the remains of civilized society; and Europe would revive and flourish in the American world, which is already filled with her colonies and institutions." III. Cold, poverty, and a life of danger and fatigue, fortify the strength and courage of barbarians. In every age they have oppressed the polite and peaceful nations of China, India, and g The prudent reader will determine how far this general proposition is weakened by the revolt of the Isaurians, the independence of Britain and Armorica, the Moorish tribes, or the Bagaudæ of Gaul and Spain, p. 112. 141, 142. 527, 528. h America now contains about six millions of European blood and descent; and their numbers, at least in the north, are continually increasing. Whatever may be the changes of their political situation, they must preserve the manners of Europe; and we may reflect with some pleasure, that the English language will probably be diffused over an immense and populous continent. i On avoit fait venir (for the siege of Turin) 140 pieces de canon; et il est à remarquer que chaque gros canon monté revient à environ 2000 ecus: il y avoit 110,000 boulets; 106,000 cartouches d'une façon, et 300,000 d'une autre; 21,000 bombes; 27,700 grenades, 15,000 sacs à terre, 30,000 instrumens pour le piounage; 1,200,000 livres de poudre. Ajoutez à ces munitions, le plomb, le fer, et le fer-blanc, les cordages, tout ce qui sert aux mineurs, le souphre, le salpêtre, les outils de invention of gunpowder; which enables men to command the two most powerful agents of nature, air and fire. Mathematics, chemistry, mechanics, architecture, have been applied to the service of war; and the adverse parties oppose to each other the most elaborate modes of attack and of defence. Historians may indignantly observe, that the preparations of a siege would found and maintain a flourishing colony; yet we cannot be displeased, that the subversion of a city should be a work of cost and difficulty; or that an industrious people should be protected by those arts, which survive and supply the decay of military virtue. Cannon and fortifications now form an impregnable barrier against the Tartar horse; and Europe is secure from any future irruption of barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous. Their gradual advances in the science of war would always be accompanied, as we may learn from the example of Russia, with a proportionable improvement in the arts of peace and civil policy; and they themselves must deserve a place among the polished nations whom they subdue. k Should these speculations be found doubtful or fallacious, there still remains a more humble source of comfort and hope. The discoveries of ancient and modern navigators, and the domestic history, or tradition, of the most enlightened nations, represent the human savage, naked both in mind and body, and destitute of laws, of arts, of ideas, and almost of language. From this abject condition, perhaps the primitive and universal state of man, he has gradually arisen to command the animals, to fertilize the earth, to traverse the ocean, and to measure the heavens. His progress in the improvement and exercise of his mental and corporeal faculties' has been irregular and various; infinitely slow in the beginning, and increasing by degrees toute espece. Il est certain que les frais de tous ces préparatifs de destruction suffiroient pour fonder et pour faire fleurir la plus nombreuse colonie. Voltaire, Siécle de Louis XIV. c. xx. in his Works, tom. xi. p. 391. k It would be an easy, though tedious, task, to produce the autho rities of poets, philosophers, and historians. I shall therefore content myself with appealing to the decisive and authentic testimony of Diodorus Siculus, (tom. i. 1. i. p. 11, 12; 1. iii. p. 184, &c. edit. Wesseling.) The Icthyophagi, who in his time wandered along the shores of the Red sea, can only be compared to the natives of New Holland. (Dam. pier's Voyages, vol. i. p. 464-469.) Fancy, or perhaps reason, may still suppose an extreme and absolute state of nature far below the level of these savages, who had acquired some arts and instruments. 1 See the learned and rational work of the president Goguet, de l'Origine des Loix, des Arts, et des Sciences. He traces from facts, or con Jectures, (tom. i. p. 147-337. edit. 12mo.) the first and most difficult steps of human invention. |