heaping unmerited difgrace on the other. If "piety founded St. Marino, with this piety much "fuperftition was intermixed; a fuperftition un

friendly to the best principles of society, and "hoftile to the favourite ends of nature, preaching 66 celibacy, and exacting mortification, the hideous offspring of ignorance and terror, detefting men 86 as criminals, and trembling at God as a tyrant. "But Rome, according to the only historian* "who has circumftantially and authentically de"fcribed its early transactions, was an expansion "of Alba Longa, itself a Grecian colony, which,

66

according to the immemorial and facred custom "of its mother-country, diffused into new fettle"ments the exuberance of a flourishing popu"lation, produced by the wifest and most liberal "inftitutions. According to the fame admirable "hiftorian, the manly difcernment of Romulus "offered an afylum not merely for robbers and "murderers, but for thofe who were threatened "with murder or robbery, who fpurned fubjection, "or fled from oppreffion; for amidst the lawless "turbulence of antient Italy, the weak needed "protectors against the strong, the few against

the many; and Rome, at her earliest age, ❝already fyftematically affifted the weakest party;

* Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus,

"thus adopting in her infancy that politick "heroism, that was destined, by firm and majestick "steps, to conduct her manhood and maturity to the fair fovereignty of confenting Nations. "Both in their origin and in their progress,

Rome and St. Marino form the natural objects, "not indeed of a comparison, but of a ftriking " contraft; and compreffed as is the latter Re"publick between the dominions of the Pope and "thofe of the Grand Duke, to whofe fubjects

St. Marino is bound to allow a free paffage "through its territory, its citizens would deferve "ridicule or pity, did they affect the character,

or imitate the maxims, of thofe magnanimous "Senators, who, for the space of more than two

centuries, fwayed the politicks and controuled "the revolutions of the world. Convinced that "their independence refults from their infigni"ficancy, the Senators of St. Marino fmiled,

when we read in Mr. Addifon, Thefe Re"publicans would fell their liberties dear to any that attacked them. We had not the indelicacy to defire them to interpret this smile; or

to make ourselves any comment upon it, being "perfuaded, that, precarious and fhadowy as their "liberty is, their rational knowledge and their "virtues have enabled them to extract from it both "fubftantial and permanent enjoyment, and make

"them

"them live happier here, amidft rocks and fnows, " than are their Tufcan and Roman neighbours "in rich plains and warm vallies.

"To the inhabitants of this little State, the

Arengo, the Council, the different offices of "magistracy, innocent rural labours, and military "exercises equally useful and innocent, fupply ❝a continual fucceffion of manly engagements, "Hopes and fears refpecting the fafety of their

country awaken curiofity and excite inquiry, "They read the gazettes of Europe with interest,

they ftudy hiftory with improvement; in con"verfation their queftions are pertinent, and "their answers fatisfactory. Contrary to what

has been obferved by travellers of other "Italians, the citizens of St. Marino delight in literary converfation; and Mr. Addifon remarks,

that he hardly met with an unlettered man "in their Republick. In fpeaking of Beccaria's book on Style, then recently publifhed, one of "the Senators faid, that it was a treatise on style in a very bad ftyle, abounding in false ornaments and epigrammatic gallicifm. Another obferved, he wished that fashionable writer, who had been "commented on by Voltaire, an author ftill more

fashionable and more pernicious than him"felf, would confine himself to fuch harmless "topics as rhetoric and ftyle; for his book on " Crimes

Crimes and Punishments was calculated to do

much serious mifchief, at least to prevent much "pofitive good; because in that popular work he “had declaimed very persuasively against capital punishments, in a country long difgraced by capital crimes, which were scarcely ever capitally punished.

"The love of letters which diftinguishes the people of St. Marino makes them regret that

they are feldom vifited by literary travellers. "Of our own countrymen belonging to this de"fcription, they mentioned with much refpe& "Mr. Addifon and Il Signor Giovanni Symonds, "now Profeffor of Hiftory in the University of

Cambridge. We were proud of being claffed with fuch men by the honeft fimplicity of thefe "virtuous Mountaineers, whom we left with regret, most heartily wishing to them the continuance of their liberties; which, to men of their character, and theirs only, are real and folid bleffings.

"For let it never be forgotten, that the ineftimable gift of civil liberty may often be providentially with-held, becaufe it cannot be fafely beftowed, unlefs rational knowledge has been attained, and virtuous habits have been acquired. In the language of the wifeft man of Pagan antiquity, a great length of time is requifite to

"the

the formation of any moderately good Govern"ment; because that Government is always the

beft, which is the best adapted to the genius "and habits of its fubjects. The inftitutions "which fuit the well-balanced frame of mind of "the Mountaineers of St. Marino, who, breathing

a purer air, seem to have divefted themfelves of many of the groffer and more earthly affections, "might ill accord with the foftened tenants of

the Capuan Plains; fince, according to the "fame penetrating fearcher into the fecrets of

human nature, the inhabitants of the Fortu"nate Islands, if such islands really exist, must "either be the most virtuous or the most "wretched of men.' Ariftotle hardly knew the "inhabitants of the British Ifles; but let us, who "know ourselves and our good fortune, confide "in the affurance, that this incomparable Author "would no longer entertain the above geographi

cal doubt, were he to revive in the eighteenth century, and to vifit the British dominions under "the government of George III. As we have "long been the happiest of Nations, let us cherish "the hope, that the caufes of our happinefs are, "morally speaking, inalterable. The character "of our ancestors, uniting, beyond all people on earth, firmnefs with humanity, gave to us our Ariftot. Politics, ii. 6.

"Govern