admire. The tents of the wild Arab are even now pitched among the ruins of magnificent cities; and the waste fields which border on Palestine and Syria, are perhaps become again the nursery of infant nations. The chieftain of an Arab tribe, like the founder of Rome, may have already fixed the roots of a plant that is to flourish in some future period, or laid the foundations of a fabric that will attain to its grandeur in some distant age.

Great part of Africa has been always unknown; but the silence of fame, on the subject of its revolutions, is an argument, where no other proof can be found, of weakness in the genius of its people. The torrid zone, everywhere round the globe, however known to the geographer, has furnished few materials for history; and though in many places supplied with the arts of life in no contemptible degree, has nowhere matured the more important projects of political wisdom, nor inspired the virtues which are connected with freedom, and which are required in the conduct of civil affairs. It was indeed in the torrid zone that mere arts of mechanism and manufacture were found, among the inhabitants of the new world, to have made the greatest advance; it is in India, and in the regions of this hemisphere, which are visited by the vertical sun, that the arts of manufacture, and the practice of commerce, are of the greatest antiquity, and have survived, with the smallest diminution, the ruins of time, and the revolutions of empire. The sun, it seems, which ripens the pine-apple and the tamarind, inspires a degree of mildness that can even assuage the rigours of despotical government. and such is the effect of a gentle and pacific disposition in the natives of the East, that no conquest, no irruption of barbarians, terminates, as they did among the stubborn natives of Europe, by a total destruction of what the love of ease and of pleasure had produced.

Man, in the perfection of his natural faculties, is quick and delicate in his sensibility; extensive and various in his imaginations and reflections; attentive, penetrating, and subtle in what relates to his fellow-creatures; firm and ardent in his purposes; devoted to friendship or to enmity; jealous of his independence and his honour, which he will not relinquish for safety or for profit; under all his corruptions or improvements, he retains his natural sensibility, if not his force; and his commerce is a blessing or a curse, according to the direction his mind has received. But under the extremes of heat or of cold, the active range of the human soul appears to be limited; and men are of inferior importance, either as friends or as enemies. In the one extreme, they are dull and slow, moderate in their desires, regular and pacific in their manner of life; in the other, they are feverish in their passions, weak in their judgments, and addicted by temperament to animal pleasure. In both the heart is mercenary, and makes important concessions for childish bribes: in both the spirit is prepared for servitude; in the one, it is subdued by fear of the future; in the other, it is not roused even by its sense of the present.

COMPARISON OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS, ETC.

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2. COMPARISON OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS WITH MODERN

NATIONS.-(" CIVIL SOCIETY," PART IV., SECT. IV.)

The Greeks and Romans are indebted, for a great part of their estimation, not to the matter of their history, but to the manner in which it has been delivered, and to the capacity of their historians and other writers. Their story has been told by men who knew how to draw our attention on the proceedings of the understanding and of the heart, more than on the detail of facts, and who could exhibit characters to be admired and loved in the midst of actions which we should now universally hate or condemn. Like Homer, the model of Grecian literature, they could make us forget the horrors of a vindictive, cruel, and remorseless treatment of an enemy, in behalf of the strenuous conduct, the courage, and vehement affections, with which the hero maintained the cause of his friend and of his country.

Our manners are so different, and the system upon which we regulate our apprehensions in many things so opposite, that no less could make us endure the practice of ancient nations. Were that practice recorded by the mere journalist, who retains only the detail of events, without throwing any light on the character of the actors; who, like the Tartar historian, tells us only what blood was spilt in the field, and how many inhabitants were massacred in the city; we should never have distinguished the Greeks from their barbarous neighbours, nor have thought that the character of civility pertained even to the Romans, till very late in their history, and in the decline of their empire. To form a judgment of the character from which they acted in the field, and in their competitions with neighbouring nations, we must observe them at home. They were bold and fearless in their civil dissensions, ready to proceed to extremities, and to carry their debates to the decision of force. Individuals stood distinguished by their personal spirit and vigour, not by the valuation of their estates, or the rank of their birth. They had a personal elevation founded on the sense of equality, not of precedence. The general of one campaign was during the next a private soldier, and served in the ranks. They were solicitous to acquire bodily strength; because, in the use of their weapons, battles were a trial of the soldier's strength as well as of the leader's conduct. The remains of their statuary show a manly grace, an air of simplicity and ease, which, being frequent in nature, were familiar to the artist. The mind perhaps borrowed a confidence and force from the vigour and address of the body; their eloquence and style bore a resemblance to the carriage of the person. The understanding was chiefly cultivated in the practice of affairs. The most respectable persons were obliged to mix with the crowd, and derived their degree of ascendency only from their conduct, their eloquence, and personal vigour. They had no forms of expression to mark a ceremonious and guarded respect. Invective proceeded

to railing, and the grossest terms were often employed by the most admired and accomplished orators. Quarreling had no rules but the immediate dictates of passion, which ended in words of reproach, in violence, and blows. They fortunately went always unarmed; and to wear a sword in times of peace, was among them the mark of a barbarian. When they took arms in the divisions of faction, the prevailing party supported itself by expelling their opponents, by proscriptions, and bloodshed. The usurper endeavoured to maintain his station by the most violent and prompt executions. He was opposed in his turn by conspiracies and assassinations, in which the most respectable citizens were ready to use the dagger. Such was the character of their spirit, in its occasional ferments at home; and it burst commonly with a suitable violence and force against their foreign rivals and enemies. The amiable plea of humanity was little regarded by them in the operations of war. Cities were razed or enslaved; the captive sold, mutilated, or condemned to die.

When viewed on this side, the ancient nations have but a sorry plea for esteem with the inhabitants of modern Europe, who profess to carry the civilities of peace into the practice of war, and who value the praise of indiscriminate lenity at a higher rate than even that of military prowess, or the love of their country. And yet they have, in other respects, merited and obtained our praise. Their ardent attachment to their country; their contempt of suffering and of death in its cause; their manly apprehensions of personal independence, which rendered every individual, even under tottering establishments and imperfect laws, the guardian of freedom to his fellow-citizens; their activity of mind; in short, their penetration, the ability of their conduct and force of their spirit, have gained them the first rank among nations. If their animosities were great, their affections were proportionate; they perhaps loved where we only pity, and were stern and inexorable where we are not merciful, but only irresolute. After all, the merit of a man is determined by his candour and generosity to his associates, by his zeal for national objects, and by his vigour in maintaining political rights; not by moderation alone, which proceeds frequently from indifference to national and public interests, and which serves to relax the nerves on which the force of a private as well as a public character depends.

XXIII. HENRY MACKENZIE.

The writings of HENRY MACKENZIE belong to the third period of our literature, both in point of time and style, though he himself survived till long after the extinction of the taste which prevailed when his works were issued. He was born in Edinburgh in 1745, and re

ceived his education in the High School and University of his native town. He was destined for the law, and to qualify himself for some departments of his profession, he resided for some time in London, and there probably he acquired his literary tastes. On returning to Edinburgh, he resumed the duties of his profession, without however abandoning the pursuit of literature: in 1771 he published his first novel, "The Man of Feeling," and he subsequently wrote "The Man of the World," and another novel. In the years 1779 and 1780, he engaged in the publication of a periodical similar to the "Spectator," entitled "The Mirror," which was received with marked approbation; and in 1785-6, it was followed by "The Lounger," a work in the same style, which enjoyed even higher popularity than its predecessor. Having defended the government of Pitt, he was in 1804 rewarded with a lucrative office, which he continued to enjoy during life. He died in 1831. The popularity of Mackenzie in his own country was no doubt owing in some measure to his being the first Scotch writer who exhibited any of the lighter graces of style, still it must be in the main attributed to his sterling merits. His works display something of the pleasant humour of Steele, in union with a command over the feelings worthy of Sterne, whom Mackenzie, indeed, seems to have adopted as his model. His "Tale of La Roche," which originally appeared in "The Mirror," has been always admired as not inferior in beauty and pathos to anything which the language contains.

STORY OF LA ROCHE."-" MIRROR," NOS. XLII.-IV.)

More than forty years ago an English philosopher, whose works have since been read and admired by all Europe, resided at a little town in France. Some disappointments in his native country had first driven him abroad, and he was afterwards induced to remain there, from having found, in this retreat, where the connections even of nation and language were avoided, a perfect seclusion and retirement highly favourable to the development of abstract subjects, in which he excelled all the writers of his time. One morning, while he sat busied in those speculations which afterwards astonished the world, an old female domestic, who served him for a housekeeper, brought him word that an elderly gentleman and his daughter had arrived in the village the preceding evening, on their way to some distant country, and that the father had been suddenly seized with a dangerous disorder, which the people of the inn where they lodged feared would prove mortal: that she had been sent for, as having some knowledge in medicine, the village surgeon being then absent; and that it was truly piteous to see the good old man, who seemed not so much afflicted by his own distress as by that which it caused to his daughter. Her master laid aside the volume in his hand, and broke off the chain of ideas it had inspired. His night-gown was exchanged for a coat, and he followed his housekeeper to the sick man's apartment.

'Twas the best in the little inn where they lay, but a paltry one

notwithstanding. The philosopher was obliged to stoop as he entered it. It was floored with earth, and above were the joists, not plastered, and hung with cobwebs. On a flock-bed, at one end, lay the old man he came to visit; at the foot of it sat his daughter. She was dressed in a clean white bed-gown; her dark locks hung loosely over it as she bent forward, watching the languid looks of her father. The philosopher and his housekeeper had stood some moments in the room without the young lady's being sensible of their entering it. "Mademoiselle," said the old woman at last, in a soft tone. She turned, and showed one of the finest faces in the world. It was touched, not spoiled with sorrow; and when she perceived a stranger, whom the old woman now introduced to her, a blush at first, and then the gentle ceremonial of native politeness, which the affliction of the time tempered but did not extinguish, crossed it for a moment, and changed its expression. It was sweetness all, however, and our philosopher felt it strongly. It was not a time for words; he offered his services in a few sincere ones: "Monsieur lies miserably ill here," said the housekeeper; "if he could possibly be moved anywhere." "If he could be moved to our house," said her master. He had a spare bed for a friend, and there was a garret-room unoccupied next to the housekeeper's. It was contrived accordingly. The scruples of the stranger, who could look scruples though he could not speak them, were overcome, and the bashful reluctance of his daughter gave way to her belief of its use to her father. The sick man was wrapt in blankets, and carried across the street to the English gentleman's. The old woman helped his daughter to nurse him there. The surgeon, who arrived soon after, prescribed a little, and nature did much for him; in a week he was able to thank his benefactor.

By that time his host had learned the name and character of his guest. He was a Protestant clergyman of Switzerland, called La Roche, a widower, who had lately buried his wife, after a long and lingering illness, for which travelling had been prescribed, and was now returning home, after an ineffectual and melancholy journey, with his only child, the daughter we have mentioned. He was a devout man, as became his profession. He possessed devotion in all its warmth, but with none of its asperity; I mean, that asperity which men, called devout, sometimes indulge in. The philosopher, though he felt no devotion, never quarrelled with it in others. His housekeeper joined the old man and his daughter in the prayers and thanksgivings which they put up on his recovery; for she, too, was a heretic, in the phrase of the village. The philosopher walked out with his long staff and his dog, and left them to their prayers and thanksgivings. My master," said the old woman, "alas! he is not a Christian; but he is the best of unbelievers." "Not a Christian," exclaimed Mademoiselle La Roche, "yet he saved my father! Heaven bless him for it; I would he were a Christian!" "There is a pride in human knowledge, my child," said her father, "which often blinds men to the sublime truths of revelation; hence opposers

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