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LETTER XXII.

TO THE SAME.

THE effect of contraft is univerfally confeffed, and its power could not be well called forth, more impreffively on the eye, the heart, and the imagination, than by a rapid tranfition, from the beautiful mountains of North and South Wales, to the everlasting flats of Holland; from the exquifite woodlands and vallies of Brecknock, and the sublimities of Snowden and Plinlimmon to the uniform levels of land and water, which fo justly entitle the greater part of the territory of the Dutch to the epithet amphibious, I write to you amidst profpects and places fo very different from those I have recently left and defcribed, that it almost seems as if I was addreffing you from a new world. The pause, however, which has been allowed to my communications, (more than fix months having elapfed fince I laft wrote) will evince that I do not prefume to give you new pictures of new people and new places, till I have given time to finish the drawings, and prefent them to you tolerable likeneffes. In a word,

the

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the stop that has happened in our fpondence, may ferve to fhew, that I hold my purpose of continuing to be a refidentiary traveller here, as well as elsewhere, and that I defign to glean the Continent in the fame diligent and deliberate way, that I have gleaned particular parts of our beautiful island.

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A French tourist gives his readers the following curious reafon for not making any remarks upon Holland. "I can give you," fays' he, very little that is new refpecting a country, which, in truth, has no refemblance to any other; but of which a fufficient knowledge may be gained, without having feen it at all, for the little inftruction it can fupply."

Now this very circumftance, of a country resembling no other, is the most convincing one that could be given, that it must afford the greatest novelty of obfervation; and fo far from a truth is it, that he who has not feen, or read of it, can have a competent idea of it, that I do not believe there is a country in the whole world that is lefs to be gueffed at, or that is more fertile of curious, amufing, or inftructive remarks. Much has certainly been faid of it, much remains to be faid.

It

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has yielded plentiful crops, but it will still yield no fcanty gleanings. Remember this is faid on the experience of half a year's refidence in the Republic, before I even begin to write down what I have feen, felt, or understood: and during this space of time I have examined what others affert with no lefs zeal than induftry, and with exactly the view that led me to infpect all the publications refpecting Wales, namely, to render my own the better, the wiser, and the more entertaining by their affistance, whenever it could be called in to ftrengthen, enrich, or illuftrate-a view which will guide and govern me to the end of my journeyings, even though I should pursue them to the end of the earth.

The ancient hiftory of this country is liable to the complaint I brought against that of England, being fwelled from octavos to quartos, from quartos to folios, and running from five volumes to five and twenty per work. Being firmly perfuaded, that the effence of all this may be confolidated in at most five and twenty pages, I truft you will accept of what follows: on the rife and progrefs of this fingular country, and its original inhabitants. It will, at least, fave you a great deal of unprofitable

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reading, and give you in a single morning, or evening, as much information, as I have been able to collect from a month's ftudy. Nor will it, I truft, prove unamufing to one who attends fo much as you do to the infancy of men and things.

About a century, then, before the common æra, the Cimbrians and Tutons fuddenly expatriated themselves from the Cherfonefus, now known by the names of Jutland, and the isles of Conan, at prefent denominated Denmark. A violent and unexpected inundation, as it is faid, but more probably too exceffive a population for their native country to support, or perhaps, an ambition to establish in another, induced this fingular emigration. Be that as it may, men, women, and children, of all ages and defcriptions, bid an everlasting adieu to the places of their birth; and, like a torrent overflowing its banks, they carried away with them almost every thing, and every body in their path; for divers other nations incited by their example, and, perhaps, inftigated alfo by fimilar motives, joined them on the way, and Ipeedily affociating, entered into the spirit of this romantic expedition.

Amongst

Amongst the perfons whom these rovers met with in their paffage, were the ancestors of the people, in whofe country I have now begun to make my hiftorical Gleanings.

The old Batavians were the more ready to enter themselves volunteers in this adventure, as their own country, ever more or lefs at the mercy of the mighty waters, was, at that particular moment, invaded by an influx of the German ocean, which threatened not only their goods and habitations, but their lives. The Roman history fhews us the ravages which thefe wandering multitudes committed in Spain. and in Gaul, and how, for a length of time, they triumphed over all the generals which the imperial city fent to oppofe them, till that memorable epoch, when Marius exterminated with fire and fword the innumerable warms that covered the provinces.

The countries, from whenee thefe felf-banifhed banditti came, remained utterly depopu lated; hor was it till feveral ages after, that another fet of emig feized the fame country, and rofe, by degrees, a comparatively happy and fuccefsful nation, on the very ground where fo many thousands of former adven

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