fore, as I despair of any thing stirring, worth your hearing, I can no longer defer paying my tribute, so long due, of duty and affection; but I should begin with asking a thousand pardons, for having so long kept in my hands the inclosed, from prince Zartoryski, to your lordship; but, as I knew it included no business, I put it off from day to day for the aforesaid reasons. The longer I am acquainted with this man, the more I like him, the more I admire his talents; a retentive memory, solid judgment, and quickness, are seldom united in the same person, yet they are so superlatively in him. To be master of several languages, and possess likewise an extensive knowledge of things, is miraculous, yet he is possessed of one and the other. It is a pity that he has not a better theatre to act on; but really this country is a wretched one; nor do I think there is the least chance of bettering her situation; for, any attempt either on the part of the king, of the leading men, or the common gentry, to mend the constitution, are protested against by her kind neighbours, through a tenderness for her interests;-though, it must be confessed that, were her neighbours not to interfere, there would be no great probability of a reform, for the general run of their gentry, who have such an insurmountable negative power, (as a single veto dissolves the diet) are, if possible, more ignorant, obstinate, and bigoted, than the Hidalgos of Portugal; and those few who are better informed than the herd, whether it is from despair, or their natural disposition, pass their hours in such consummate idleness and dissipation, that our Macaroni club, or Betty's loungers, are, comparatively speaking, men of business and application.Were I to call the common people brutes, I should injure the quadruped creation, they are such mere moving clods of stinking earth. This certainly must be the effect of slavery; there cannot be so monstrous a physical difference between man and man. I would to God that our tory writers, with David Hume at their head, and the favourers of our damnable administration, were to join this noble community, that they might reap the fruits which their blessed labours intitle them to, and that the effects might not fall on harmless posterity. I have, if possible, since my passage through Germany, and my residence here, a greater horror of A very illustrious and most accomplished Polish nobleman, highly esteemed by lord Charlemont, and well known to the principal literati throughout Europe. He corresponded with sir William Jones, as appears from lord Teignmouth's life of that extraordinary man. Prince Zartoryski is father to the minister of that name, who was lately secretary for foreign affairs in Russia, and the beautiful countess Zamoyska, who visited London some few years ago. slavery than ever. For God's sake, you patriot few at home, principiis obstate; for absolute power is a serpent of that wriggling, penetrating kind, that, if it can but introduce its head, it is in vain to pull at the tail. It is curious to hear me converse on these subjects with the king; to hear me advance my doc. trines, not the most favourable to monarchy, to defend even the beheading the martyr Charles; but it is still more curious. to hear his opinions, which are singular for a crowned head; in short, he is as warm an advocate for the natural rights of mankind, as was Algernon Sidney himself. It is not to give you a specimen of my proficiency in the trade of a courtier, when I assure you, that this king is really an accomplished person, he is competently conversant with books, his notions are just, his intentions honest, and his temper not to be ruffled. What he is most faulty in is, that he passes too much time with the women; but that is the vice of the place. Italy is no thing to this country in cicisbeism; the men and women are ever together, taking snuff, yawning, groaning with ennui, without a syllable to utter, but cannot separate. You may be assured, therefore, my dear lord, that I, who think that dang. ling should be punished with the pillory, pass, if possible, for a more odd fellow than I have done in other countries; but I am not satisfied with appearing absurd myself, I have broke into their parties by prevailing upon Wroughton, our resident here, who was as determined a yawner as the rest, sometimes to mount a horse, and look into a book. In a few weeks I set out for Breslaw, to be present at an anti-yawning party, a review of the king of Prussia's, where I may possibly collect materials for a letter to you, somewhat less dull than the pre sent. In the mean time, my dear lord, if you have a spare half hour, dispose of it charitably in preparing me the smallest dish of politics; but chiefly inform me of your health and welfare, which cannot be more devoutly wished for by any man than by, your most obliged, and Humble servant, CHARLES LEE." "P. S. Prince Zartoryski is much, and I believe warmly yours; it is to his house you must have the kindness to direct to me, that is, "Chez Le Prince, General de Podolia, Var Bovie." 128 An Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and Figure in the Human Species, &c. &c. By Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D. L. L. D. &c. &c. WERE it possible for an individual to be translated to a situation sufficiently commanding, and indued with optics sufficiently powerful, to take, at once, a clear and discriminating survey of the whole earth-could he examine with accuracy and distinctly perceive the appearance and sensible character of every thing existing on its surface-diversities of color, of form, of dimension, of motion, and all other external properties of matter-were such an event possible, we say, one of the most curious and interesting objects that would attract our spectator's attention would be, the variety discoverable in the complexion and feature, the figure and stature of the human race. He would behold, in one section of the globe, a people lofty and well proportioned, elegant and graceful; and in another not far remote, a description of men diminutive, deformed, unsightly, and awkward. Here would rise to view a nation with flowing locks, a well arched forehead, straight and finely fashioned limbs, and a complexion composed of the carnation and the lily; there a race with frizzled hair, clumsy and gibbous extremities, a retreating forehead, and a skin of ebony. In one region he would be charmed with a general prominence and boldness of feature, an attractive symmetry of form, a liveliness of air, and a vigor of expression, in the human countenance; while in another, he would be disgusted by its flatness, vacancy and dulness, offended with its irregu larity, or shocked at its fierceness. Between these several extremes would appear a multiplicity of intermediate gradations, preserving the chain of nature unbroken: so diversified and, no doubt, beneficent and wise, have been the operations of the Deity, in peopling the earth with suitable inhabitants. But although there exists in relation to our globe no such mount of vision, as our fancy has been figuring-and though it does not belong to mortal organs to embrace at a single view the whole earth clothed by its inhabitants as with a partycolored vesture-yet still, the existing diversity in the complexion and figure of the human race is a circumstance of such familiar notoriety, that we are permitted to bring it before the eye of the mind, and dwell on it as if it were present in a visible shape: in a manner so clear and definitive has the fact been established by the pursuits of ambition, the enterprise of discovery, and the cupidity of gain. A mere knowledge of facts is not however alone sufficient to satisfy the generous cravings of a mind enamoured of science, and devoted to research. Such a mind, eagerly grasping at higher honours, and under the influence of more comprehensive views, derives a superior delight from the classification and arrangement of facts, the deduction of principles, and the exposition of causes. By an intellect of this description facts are employed as necessary, but subordinate, instruments-they are, at best, but the gradus ad Parnassum the means of ascent to the hill of the Muses. Hence it is, that at an early period in the history of nations, the variety in the external appearance of man having arrested the attention and excited the wonder of the multitude, its causes became a subject of inquiry with the enlightened and the curious. Nor have they ceased, even down to the present day, to furnish themes of speculation, and exercise a spirit of liberal research among the votaries of science. It is not our present intention, nor would it comport with the limits of this article, to exhibit a detailed view of the several hypotheses, explanatory of the diversities in the human complexion and figure, which, in different ages and countries, have received for a time the homage of philosophers. It may not, however, be amiss to observe, that as far as the opinions of the primitive fathers of science have come to our knowledge, we are intitled to believe, that the dark complexion of the Ethiopian, with the various intermediate shades of coloring between that and the fair, was originally attributed to the agency of heat. The countenance of jet was discovered, as a national characteristic, only beneath the fervors of the torrid zone. That burning region was, therefore, very confidently (and, in the then existing state of mental cultivation, not without strong apparent ground) considered as its birth-place. It was regarded as a fierce, inhospitable climate, calculated from its intemperature alone, to give rise to the phenomenon. An excess of heat when applied to wood and various other inanimate substances, was observed to imprint on them. a sable color; and, the difference between the susceptibilities of living and dead matter not being attended to, it was, hence, supposed to be capable of producing a similar effect on the human skin. But it is rare that the mind puts the finishing touches to absurdity at once. To the completion of the monstrous picture reiterated efforts are, for the most part, indispensable. Strange too as it may appear, it is notwithstanding true, that such efforts are oftentimes persevered in with wonderful pertinacity. In VOL. II. R after ages, therefore, the folly and superstition, no less than the ingenuity of man, became active in the invention of other causes more congenial to the spirit and temper of the times. During this state of things to such a pitch of extravagance was the wildness of conjecture carried, as to fall but little short of insanity. Hence this sable stain was even alleged to be the result of a species of leprosy, or some other loathsome cuticular disease. While Ovid, in one of the fine sallies of an unbridled genius, ascribed it to the conflagration kindled by Phaeton in his rash adventure in the chariot of the sun-an adventure which according to the poet menaced with ruin the whole empire of nature. "Sanguine tum credunt in corpora summa vocato, Perhaps it may be, as we well know it has been said, that this flight of the poet is to be received somewhat allegorically -that it amounts, in fact, to nothing more than mere evidence of his belief, and of the general belief of the Augustan age, in the hypothesis which attributes to the agency of heat, the different shades of the African complexion. Another hypothesis long since erected, and which even now draws around it numerous partisans, is, that the complexion of man was changed at the same time and on the same occasion when his speech was supernaturally turned to confusion. The advocates of this conjecture (for we cannot dignify it by a higher name) allege, that man, as originally created, or at least as possessing the constitution he did, when he meditated hostility against the skies from the battlements of his tower on the plain of Shinar, was unfit to become an inhabitant of a tropical or an arctic climate-and in particular, that he was unqualified to bear the fervors of tropical Africa, a region sustaining the fiercest of the solar fires. The confusion of tongues was however a prelude to the universal dispersion of mankind, an event destined to make them take up their abode in every climate. In order, therefore, to preserve from inevitable destruction such of them as might penetrate into the torrid or the arctic zones, the Deity, with that wisdom and beneficence which characterize every dispensation of his providence, changed their complexion and fitted them for the opposite extremes of their newly selected places of abode. By changes of constitution and color less striking and less radical, other tribes of them were fitted to become the inhabitants of intermediate climates. Hence the origin of the widely scattered nations and different varieties of the human race. With respect to the general truth of this hypothesis we |