or carried him into any action that wore but the femblance of tyranny, or that trenched upon thofe to whom he owed his diftinctions, he was inftantly marked and controlled as one who had violated his truft, and incurred the penalty of fuch forfeiture.

The legiflature of the country demands a few more obfervations; for even the infancy-the baby hood of Batavian jurifprudence-the most wholesome laws were framed, though their code was little more than what was taught by a fenfe of natural juftice: and, perhaps, that is conscience at the fame time. The very people who, in their moft barbarous ftate, fed their indolence by invafion of publick and private rights, in process of time began to contemplate with horror and with fhame, a life of lazinefs and rapacity. They were induftrious; and on industry grew the fentiments both of property and probity, and they foon enacted laws to reftrain themselves as well as others, from the farther violation of these.

They were, however, fimple and concife. The fuperior magiftrates in the great districts, and the inferior ones in the towns and villages conducted the process. It was carried on without any fort of difficulty or delay, and, what will equally confound our modern lawyers, without any expence. The cause was tried in open court, and invariably ended the day it was begun, without a poffibility

of

of farther appeal. Neither written laws, nor printed statutes were known, or neceffary to be known, Privileges, rights and wrongs, when well defended and fettled in foro confcientiæ remain for ever clear, and were men as honeft as they are artful, would require but one hearing and one decifion. A twentieth, or even a fifth year's fuit in Chancery, would have founded in Batavia like putting off the final iffue to the day of judgment. But I am aware that society in its highest state of population, power and paffion, must have its wrongs mingled with its rights; and they are fo twifted together by a variety of interefts, that we must take them, juft as we find them worked into the piece. Só may the laws flourish and we enjoy their protection, my friend, without either incurring their cenfure, or wanting their active interference; for, perhaps, as many honeft men have been ruined by their friendship as there have been knaves destroyed by their enmity,

LETTER

LETTER XXV.

TO THE SAME.

HAVING thus taken a tranfient view of "the family canvafs" in the long picture-gallery of times paft, we fhall be more amused to look at, and better able to judge of the portraits of the lineal defcendants; in fine, we fhall, with more profit and more pleasure, catch the refembling fimilitudes, obferve where the impreffion of original character has been preferved or loft; and from this progreffive furvey inveft ourselves with the power of comparing progenitors with their pofterity in all that regards the principles and purfuits of both. These, as I find spirits and leisure to arrange and parcel out, (for remember I have now the pickings of half a year in my portable ftorehoufe, but lying in heaps) fhall be sent you.

Meantime, as what I have already exported, will make a pretty confiderable fheaf, I fhall beg of you to look upon this letter as the band to make it up! and as every harveft home is accompanied by figns of fatisfaction that the grain is got in, fuch as garlands, fongs, &c. &c. as not even the

1

hnmbleft

humbleft Gleaner, who has picked her fcanty portion from day to day through all the leafing feafon, but adorns the last handful with a few field flowers, and carols over them as the bends her way to her cottage. I propofe to crown our little harvest-home, my friend, with a wreath of poetry, to which there appertains a long ftory; but which, I perfuade myself, a mind like yours will find fhort in the narration, when the time is ripe to "ask your hearing patiently," as the player fays in Hamlet.

Much have I for your fancy, your feelings, your affection; much for your information, and fomething for your ufe. Matter for my affections in Holland! methinks, I hear thofe who have found, or determined to think it barren foil, tauntingly exclaim! Any thing that can interest my fancy in that region of fogs, bogs, and vapours! then fhall the fpices of the caft eject their fragrance from the ditch! and the rofes of Paradife bloom in the fen!

You remember Yorick's beautiful paffage, beginning" I pity the man who can travel from Dan "to Bathfheba, and cry all's barren; and fo it is, " and fo is all the world to him who will not cul"tivate the fruits it offers," &c. Be that my answer to all fuch children of fpleen, prejudice, or wilful blindness. Be the rest of the fentenge implicating a tenderness of nature, and a candour

of

of spirit fo expreffive of your heart, a pledge to you, that whenever you make a refidentiary tout of this country, your affections, your imagination, your feeling, will not want their proper objects. You will not be reduced to "faften them on the

"fweet myrtle;" or on the "melancholy cy"prefs;" but be presented with many opportu nities of enjoying

"The feaft of reason, and the flow of foul;"

notwithstanding what has fo often, and by fo many different people, been faid to the contrary, that dulnefs and the Dutch nation are become fynonimous.

I am really concerned to find every where, and about every thing, the reprefentations of a truth in many respects fo different, and in not a few fo diametrically oppofite to the truth itself. Men, women, places, people, manners, cuftoms, are all fo drawn into this falfe colouring, and are fo thrown out of their due proportions of mind and body, fituation and circumftance; here a caricature, there a figure, fo fulfomely flattered, that a friend that loves one would be difgufted; and, in fhort, things, as they are, fo very generally differ from what they are said to be, that in whatsoever I can, I am fully refolved to form my opinions on the evidence of my own fenfes; as in all human cafes the only proof pofitive; and in whatever falls

fhort