be the very region where spleen delights to dwell; a man not only can give an unbounded scope to the disorder in himself, but may, if he pleases, propagate it over the whole kingdom, with a certainty of success. He has only to cry out that the government, the government is all wrong; that their schemes are leading to ruin; that Britons are no more: every good member of the commonwealth thinks it his duty, in such a case, to deplore the universal decadence with sympathetic sorrow, and, by fancying the constitution in a decay, absolutely to impair its vigour.

This people would laugh at my simplicity, should I advise them to be less sanguine in harbouring gloomy predictions, and examine coolly before they attempted to complain. I have just heard a story, which, though transacted in a private family, serves very well to describe the behaviour of the whole nation, in cases of threatened calamity. As there are public, so there are private incendiaries here. One of the last, either for the amusement of his friends, or to divert a fit of the spleen, lately sent a threatening letter to a worthy family in my neighbourhood, to this effect:

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:

SIR,-Knowing you to be very rich, and finding myself to be very poor, I think proper to inform you, that I have learned the secret of poisoning man, woman, and child, without danger of detection. Don't be uneasy, Sir, you may take your choice of being poisoned in a fortnight, or poisoned in a month, or poisoned in six weeks; you shall have full time to settle all your affairs. Though I am poor, I love to do things like a gentleman. But, Sir, you must die; I have determined it within my own breast that you must die. Blood, Sir, blood is my trade! so I could wish you would, this day six weeks, take leave of your friends, wife, and family, for I cannot possibly allow you longer time. To convince you more certainly of the power of my art, by which you may know I speak truth, take this letter; when you have read it, tear off the seal, fold it up, and give it to your favourite Dutch mastiff that sits by the fire; he will swallow it, Sir, like a butter'd toast: in three hours four minutes after he has taken it, he will attempt to bite off his own tongue, and, half an hour after, burst asunder in twenty pieces. Blood, blood, blood! So

no more at present from, Sir, your most obedient, most devoted humble servant to command, till death." 1

You may easily imagine the consternation into which this letter threw the whole good-natured family. The poor man to whom it was addressed was the more surprised, as not knowing how he could merit such inveterate malice. All the friends of the family were convened; it was universally agreed that it was a most terrible affair, and that the government should be solicited to offer a reward and a pardon: a fellow of this kind would go on poisoning family after family; and it was impossible to say where the destruction would end. In pursuance of these determinations, the government was applied to; strict search was made after the incendiary, but all in vain. At last, therefore, they recollected that the experiment was not yet tried upon the dog. The Dutch mastiff was brought up, and placed in the midst of the friends and relations, the seal was torn off, the packet folded up with care, and soon they found, to the great surprise of all— that the dog would not eat the letter. Adieu.

I HAVE frequently been amazed at the ignorance of almost all the European travellers who have penetrated any considerable way eastward into Asia. They have been influenced either by motives of commerce or piety; and

1 In the Public Ledger this letter is signed "Ebenezer Scragg."-ED. 2 The Ledger version has the following in addition :-" They should have first tried the experiment before they had petitioned the king."-Ed. 3 Afterwards reprinted as No. XVIII. of the Essays.' Prior traces the leading idea of this Letter to the review by Goldsmith of Van Egmont and Hayman's travels, in the Critical Review of June, 1759; which review will be found in our vol. iv. The date of this Letter in the Public Ledger is Feb. 27, 1761.-ED.

their accounts are such as might reasonably be expected from men of very narrow or very prejudiced education, the dictates of superstition, or the result of ignorance. Is it not surprising, that in such a variety of adventurers not one single philosopher should be found? for, as to the travels of Gemelli,' the learned are long agreed that the whole is but an imposture.

There is scarce any country, how rude or uncultivated soever, where the inhabitants are not possessed of some peculiar secrets either in nature or art, which might be transplanted with success. In Siberian Tartary, for instance, the natives extract a strong spirit from milk, which is a secret probably unknown to the chemists of Europe. In the most savage parts of India, they are possessed of the secret of dyeing vegetable substances scarlet; and of refining lead into a metal, which, for hardness and colour, is little inferior to silver; not one of which secrets but would, in Europe, make a man's fortune. The power of the Asiatics in producing winds, or bringing down rain, the Europeans are apt to treat as fabulous, because they have no instances of the like nature among themselves; but they would have treated the secrets of gunpowder, and the mariner's compass, in the same manner, had they been told the Chinese used such arts before the invention was common with themselves at home.

2

Of all the English philosophers, I most reverence Bacon, that great and hardy genius. He it is who allows of secrets yet unknown; who,2 undaunted by the seeming difficulties that oppose, prompts human curiosity to examine every part of nature, and even exhorts man to try, whether he cannot subject the tempest, the thunder, and even earthquakes, to human control. O, did a man of his daring spirit, of his genius, penetration, and learning, travel to those countries which have been visited only by the superstitious and the mercenary, what might not man

1 Gemelli, of Naples. His 'Voyage Round the World' was published in 1699. Baron Humboldt has expressed his belief in its genuineness.— ED.

2.2 Not in the Public Ledger. It is strange that having inserted this in the Citizen,' in 1762, the author should, as it would seem, cut it out on reprinting the Letter in the Essays,' 1765 and 1766.-ED.

kind expect! How would he enlighten the regions to which he travelled! and what a variety of knowledge and useful improvement would he not bring back in exchange!

There is, probably, no country so barbarous, that would not disclose all it knew, if it received from the traveller equivalent information; and I am apt to think, that a person who was ready to give more knowledge than he received, would be welcome wherever he came. All his care in travelling should only be to suit his intellectual banquet to the people with whom he conversed; he should not attempt to teach the unlettered Tartar astronomy; nor yet instruct the polite Chinese in the ruder arts of subsistence. He should endeavour to improve the barbarian in the secrets of living comfortably; and the inhabitant of a more refined country in the speculative pleasures of science. How much more nobly would a philosopher thus employed spend his time, than by sitting at home earnestly intent upon adding one star more to his catalogue, or one monster more to his collection; or still, if possible, more triflingly sedulous, in the incatenation of fleas, or the sculpture of a cherry-stone !

1

I never consider this subject without being surprised, that none of those societies so laudably established in England for the promotion of arts and learning, have ever thought of sending one of their members into the most eastern parts of Asia, to make what discoveries he was able. To be convinced of the utility of such an undertaking, let them but read the relations of their own travellers. It will be there found, that they are as often deceived themselves, as they attempt to deceive others. The merchant tells us, perhaps, the price of different commodities,

Such discoveries, however, in different parts of the world, were soon to be undertaken by the Royal Society, through the energy chiefly of Sir Joseph Banks and Captain Cook, the Asiatic Society, incited by Sir William Jones, &c. &c. See note, vol. ii., p. 95.-ED.

2 Goldsmith himself seriously entertained the design of putting this project in execution, and applied to Lord Bute with the hope of interesting government in his scheme; but his memorial was neglected. See Life,' pp. 25-26. According to Prior (Life,' i., 386), Dr. Farr said that Goldsmith entertained a similar idea in 1756, immediately after his return from the continent. The project then had the form of a journey to the Weitten mountains, the region afterwards (1762-3) traversed by Edward Wortley Montague.-ED.

the methods of baling them up, and the properest manner for a European to preserve his health in the country. The missioner, on the other hand, informs us, with what pleasure the country to which he was sent embraced Christianity, and the numbers he converted; what methods he took to keep Lent in a region where there was no fish; or the shifts he made to celebrate the rites of his religion, in places where there was neither bread nor wine. Such accounts, with the usual appendage of marriages and funerals, inscriptions, rivers, and mountains, make up the whole of a European traveller's diary: but as to all the secrets of which the inhabitants are possessed, those are universally attributed to magic; and when the traveller can give no other account of the wonders he sees performed, he very contentedly ascribes them to the power of the devil.

It was a usual observation of Boyle, the English chemist, "That if every artist would but discover what new observations occurred to him in the exercise of his trade, philosophy would thence gain innumerable improvements." It may be observed, with still greater justice, that if the useful knowledge of every country, howsoever barbarous, was gleaned by a judicious observer, the advantages would be inestimable. Are there not, even in Europe, many useful inventions known or practised but in one place? The instrument, as an example, for cutting down corn in Germany,' is much more handy and expeditious, in my opinion, than the sickle used in England. The cheap and expeditious manner of making vinegar, without previous fermentation, is known only in a part of France. If such discoveries, therefore, remain still to be known at home, what funds of knowledge might not be collected in countries yet unexplored, or only passed through by ignorant travellers in hasty caravans ?

The caution with which foreigners are received in Asia may be alleged as an objection to such a design. But how readily have several European merchants found admission into regions the most suspecting, under the character of

1 The Hainault scythe, Mr. Charles Knight says, which an English writer on agriculture, Martin Doyle, has even in our own day vainly tried to get into use.-ED.