appeared in arms against his enemies, who, in superior force, overpowered him and the remnant of his gallant band. The leader, and the last of his followers, were thrown into a deep and dark cavern, there to perish miserably of broken bones and hunger.-All, except Aristomenes, died.

A fox entered the den, to feed on the dead bodies lying partly on and around the courageous chief, who seized the hind leg of the animal as it was moving off, and by keeping hold of it, as it tried to escape, he discovered the hole by which it had entered the cavern, and again found himself freed from darkness and death. He repaired to where the last of his countrymen and countrywomen held out, besieged by the Spartans, and at length had the glory to deliver them, and lead them safely out of reach of the enemy. This finished the second Messenian war.

There are two states of society of a very opposite nature, which have always been favourable to personal and political liberty: the first is the pure pastoral state-and the second, the artificial and refined condition of a commercial people. Each preserves its freedom and independence by the command which it retains over its means of subsistence. It has always been found impossible by any foreign power to control the food of a pastoral race of people the sheep, the cattle, the goats, and camels, which afford the means of living, are moveable, and can be led into the glens of the mountains, or the recesses of the desert, on the first approach of an enemy. The owners, with their swords and spears, hover around and bid defiance to the best appointed armies, led on by the most celebrated warriors. The answer made by the Scythian to Darius, on his invasion of Scythia, explains the tactics of pastoral tribes. "It is not my disposition, O Persian! to fly from

any man through fear: neither do I now fly from you. My present conduct differs not at all from that which I pursue in a state of peace. Why I do not contend with you in the open field, I will explain: we have no inhabited. towns nor cultivated lands, of which we can fear your invasion or your plunder, and have therefore no occasion to engage with you precipitately: but we have the sepulchres of our fathers; these you may discover, and if you endeavour to injure them, you shall soon know how far we are able or willing to resist you; till then, we will not meet you in battle. Remember farther, that I acknowledge no master or superior but Jupiter. Instead of the presents which you require of earth and water, I will send you such as you deserve; and in return for your calling yourself my master, I only bid you weep.'

"

The pastoral Arabians have preserved an indomitable independence since the days of Ishmael. All the power of France has not been able in twelve years to penetrate beyond a few miles into the African pastoral regions.-And it is to be feared that the treacherous Affghans will escape the vengeance of Britain by simply putting themselves and flocks out of reach of her arms: we cannot touch their food.

But though pastoral tribes and nations are unconquerable by civilized people, they have themselves been the subduers of more enlightened but more enervated races. The ancient Tartars overran and conquered the greater part of southern and eastern Asia; the Turkomans, Western Asia; and the Saracen Arabs, a great part of the north of Africa, and the south of Europe. The movements of such people are armed migrations of nations carrying their food in the shape of live cattle, and seizing as they proceed the subsistence of the conquered people.

* Beloe's Herodotus.

A people under an enlightened commercial system enjoy a great degree of civil and political liberty; hence the jealousy entertained of that state by aristocratic and despotic power. The intelligence, activity, and union of a commercial people are formidable to power; their connections with foreign countries, their ships, their harbours, and storehouses, enable them to supply their wants, and to place their supplies out of reach of danger: they possess a complete command over their own subsistence, and, consequently, are independent. But the commercial principle is apt to degenerate into monopoly; and in some of the Italian states, oligarchies of the most tyrannical and inquisitorial character were seen to spring out of it. The Hanseatic league of towns, in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, forms a memorable instance of how far commerce could be carried, not only to establish the independence of a people, but to become formidable to the most powerful governments of Europe. In the Spanish war, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Francis Drake found in the river Tagus sixty ships loaded for the Hanseatic towns, with corn, which he took out as contraband, and thus made a blow at the league by controlling its food. Other European governments took umbrage at it, and at length, from about eighty cities, the league was reduced to four, and in the present day is entirely dissolved, as each city that formerly belonged to it now acts on its own account, and forms treaties with foreign governments.

Landed Aristocracies sneer at the wealth and greatness derived from commerce, and point with exultation to the fishing-rock of modern Tyre, to the slime that mantles on the canals of Venice, or to the ruins of commercial depots spread over the earth, as standing monuments of the unstable nature of property thus acquired. But, on the other side,

turn the eye to the most favoured spots of the regions yet of primeval fertility of soil; and behold? The alluvial plains of the Euphrates Tigris, once covered with a thousand cities, are haunts of a few wretched tribes of plundering Arabs! Nile still pours its perennial flood over a valley cove with ruins, to which the miserable slaves who crawl among them, look up as the work of magicians. The fertile plains once seized by the proud Roman patricians, are now converted into marshes, whence exhale pestilence and death.

These remarks will serve to convey the great truths, that laws founded on principles to support a small portion of the inhabitants of the country at the expense of the rest, eventually lead to the ruin of all classes-and that institutions and governments resting on just principles, for the general welfare of a people, will become as durable as the ground which sustains every thing, whether within the walls of Hamburgh, or on the soil of Egypt.

This is the proper place to observe, that in all systems of religion, except in the religion of Christ, the prohibition or restriction of articles of food has been one great means of their support. Moses was zoologically precise in his description of beasts, fishes, and birds, which were to be eaten, or to be avoided, as food. Several reasons have been assigned for the great care bestowed on this section of his laws-the chief of which, no doubt, was, to mark the Jews as a people distinguished from all others; and another, to hold up the absurd and contemptible nature of the idolatry of the Egyptians and other nations, by being enjoined to eat the very animals that were actually worshipped as gods by those people. Christianity being a pure faith, addressed to man as a moral and intellectual being, is independent of all such extraneous aids it offers

perfect freedom, and we are told that "whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question for conscience' sake: for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof."*

In the corrupt state of Christianity during the dark ages, the church almost starved its votaries into faith, and, in proportion to the degree of fanaticism was the strictness of abstinence from food. During the wars of the crusades, the fasts were observed by the Christians with such superstitious rigour, "that children at the breast were not allowed the usual nourishment, and the herds of cattle were driven from their pastures." +

In the middle of the fifteenth century, the Pope prohibited Christians and Jews from eating together; which is similar to the policy prescribed by Pharaoh, who prohibited the Egyptians from eating bread with the Hebrews.§

When the Scots, in the time of Cromwell, refused to keep fasts by order of the civil magistrate, there was a meaning in the refusal much deeper than the circumstance appeared to indicate.

Among a rude and unenlightened people, the founders and maintainers of idolatrous worship, with a deep knowledge of human nature, excited the fears and hopes of their ignorant countrymen, and builded thereon a system of spiritual despotism and temporal power. The tricks by which they imposed on the senses of the credulous devotees, inspiring them with superstitious awe, have been discovered by travellers on examining the ruins of ancient temples.

* 1 Cor. x. 25.

† It was asked by the Jews, of the Author of Christianity, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not ?" Matthew ix. 14. Mill's History of the Crusades.

§ Genesis xliii. 32.