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a shade to travellers. The husbandmen, I know, allege, that the shade, so grateful to passengers, is injurious to their standing corn. They are undoubtedly in the right, as to several sorts of grain; but there are some which thrive better in places somewhat shaded than any where else. Besides, the farmer would be amply indemnified by the wood of the fruit trees, and by the crops of fruit. The interests even of the husbandman and of the traveller, might farther be rendered compatible, by planting only the roads which go from north to south, and the south side of those that run east and west, so that the shade of their trees should scarcely fall on the arable lands. p. 469.

The Chinese sow every where corn and rice, and feed their cattle with the straw. They say it is better that the beasts should live with man than man with the beasts. Their cattle are not the less fat for this. The German horses, the most vigorous of animals, feed entirely on straw cut short, with a small mixture of barley or oats. Our

farmers are every day adopting practices the direct contrary of this economy. They turn, as I have observed in many provinces, a great deal of land which formerly produced corn, into small grass farms, to save the expense of cultivation, and especially to escape the tithe, which their clergy do not receive from pasture lands. p. 470.

Bodily labour soothes to rest the solicitudes of the mind; fixes its natural restlessness; and promotes among the people health, religion, and happiness. p. 475.

Our public spectacles farther concur toward the increase of the spirit of division among us. Spectacles draw together the bodies of the citizens, and alienate their minds. p. 479.

Comedy, we are told, cures vice by the power of ridicule: this is false; comedy teaches us to laugh at another, and nothing more. No one says, when the representa tion is over, the portrait of this miser has a

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strong resemblance of myself; but every one, instantly discerns in it the image and likeness of his neighbour. p. 480.

It is a fact easily ascertained, that wherever advocates and physicians peculiarly abound, lawsuits and diseases there likewise are found in uncommon abundance. Though there be among them men of the best dispositions, and of the soundest intellect they do not set their face against irregularities which are beneficial to their corps. p. 492.

What mischief has not been practised in the name of God! All acknowledge the one Supreme Being, who created the heavens, and the earth, and man; but each kingdom has its own, who must be worshipped according to a certain ritual. To this. God it is that each nation, in particular, offers thanksgiving, on occasion of every battle. In his name it was that the poor Americans were extirminated. The God of Europe is clothed with terror, and de

voutly adored. But where are the altars of the God of Peace, of the Father of Mankind, of Him who proclaims the glad tidings of the Gospel?-Human life, so fleeting and so wretched, passes away in this unremitting strife; and while the historians of every nation, well paid for their trouble, are extolling the victories of their kings and of their pontiffs, the people are addressing themselves, in tears, to the God of the human race, and asking of him the way in which they ought to walk, in order to reach his habitation at length, and to live a life of virtue and happiness upon the earth.

p. 496. I shall consider myself as amply recompensed for the labour which my researches have cost me, if so much as a single one of my hints of reform shall be adopted.

EXTRACTS

FROM THE THIRD VOLUME

ог

THE STUDIES OF NATURE,

BY JAMES HENRY BERNARDIN,

GENERALLY KNOWN BY THE TITLE

DE ST. PIERRE.

I AM fond of Paris. Next to a rural situation, and a rural situation such as I like, I give Paris the preference to any thing I

have ever seen in the world. I love that city, not only on account of its happy situation, because all the accommodations of human life are there collected, from its being the centre of all the powers of the kingdom, and for the other reasons which made Michael Montaigne delight in it, but because it is the asylum and the refuge of the miserable. There it is, that the provincial ambitions, prejudices, aversions, and tyrannies are lost and annihilated. There

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