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 fublimities of Snowden and Plinlimmon, to the uniform levels of land and water, which fo juftly entitle the greater part of the territory of the Dutch to the epithet amphibious. I write to you amidft profpects and places fo very different from those I have recently left and described, that it almost feems as if I were addreffing you from a new world. The paufe, however, which has been allowed to my communications, more than fix months having elafped 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 present to you tolerable likeneffes. In a word, the stop that has has happened in our correfpondence may serve 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 ifland. 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 resemblance to any other; but of which a fufficient knowledge may be gained, without having seen it at all, for the little inftruction it can fupply." Now this very circumftance of a country refembling no other, is the moft 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 has yielded plentiful crops, but it will ftill yield no fcanty gleanings. Remember this is faid on the experience of half a year's refidence in the Republick, before I even begin to write down what what I have feen, felt, or understood and during this fpace of time I have examined what others affert with no lefs zeal than industry, and with exactly the view that led me to infpect all the publications refpecting Wales, namely, to render my own the better, the wifer, and the more entertaining by their affiftance, 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 trust you will accept of what follows on the rise and progrefs of this fingular country, and its original inhabitants. It will at least fave you a great deal of unprofitable 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 so much as you do to the infancy of men and things. About a century, then, before the common æra, the Cimbrians and Tutons fuddenly expa triated triated themselves from the Cherfonefus, now known by the name of Jutland, and the ifles 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 fupport, or perhaps, an ambition to establish another, induced this fingular emigration. Be that as it may, men, women, and children, of all ages and defcriptions, bade an everlafting 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 speedily affociating, entered into the spirit of this romantick expedition. 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 researches. The old Batavians were the more ready to enter themselves volunteers in this adventure, as their own country, ever more or less 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 these wandering multitudes committed committed in Spain and in Gaul, and how, for a length of time, they triumphed over all the generals which the imperial city sent to oppose them, till that memorable epoch, when Marius exterminated with fire and fword the innumerable fwarms that covered the provinces. A The countries from whence these felf-banished banditti came, remained utterly depopulated; nor was it till feveral ages after that another set of emigrants feized the fame country, and rose by degrees a comparatively happy and fuccefsful nation, on the very ground where fo many thousands of former adventurers had perifhed, the victims of their ambition. The Cimbrian nation, till that period appeared to be annihilated. Tacitus informs us, that in his time there remained only the memory of their enterprize. The Batavians inhabited the banks of the Adriana, now called the Ader, a river which runs between Heffe and the country of Waldec. These people, long haraffed by their avaricious and ambitious enemies, refolved to explore a more peaceable fituation. The great isle of Rhine, as it was then called, and which, as I have already obferved, had loft its inhabitants, was the place to which these new adventurers directed their fteps. Encouraged and conducted by the chiefs of their religion, they landed under favour of a profperous voyage, on that part of the island which had been deferted |