You have made the experiment to attain liberty without the above-mentioned ladder; if you do not succeed, descend upon a more contracted base, to found the constitution; and there, by means of a good education and free press, cultivate wisdom and virtue, and let your approach to democracy, or perfect government, be parallel to their increase.

*

England, possessing the latent powers of extensive thought, demands the aid of a great country, which by a reciprocal freedom of the press, may find a steel for her flint, from whose collision, sparks of wisdom may be produced, to illumine the whole world, and bring mankind to a state of intellectual existence, liberty and happiness, through the tranquil and only medium of wisdom and virtue.

To prove that liberty cannot exist, or be established without virtue in the people, look to the Belgic provinces, where fanaticism has armed the people against her; look to Holland, where the zeal of loyalty to the House of Orange has done the same; in both countries the liberty of the press is destroyed, to keep the moral horizon in a state of darkness, congenial to the reign of despotism and superstition. Had the liberty of the press been established under the new forms of government which these countries assumed, I should then have applauded a wise and cautious constitution, that held power by trust, as a guardian of the subject in a state of minority or ignorance, with intention to prepare their minds for their estate of liberty, when they arrive at the adult age of wisdom and virtue. But the violation of the liberty of the press, proves the one to be detestable bigots, and the other contemptible slaves, both meriting the universal execration of mankind.

When I contemplate the state of wisdom and virtue in France, I feel more doubt than hope for the establishment of a perfect association, or organization of society,

A country reasoning from its own prejudices and habits, is a flint without a steel.

by an universal representation. Though they have triumphed over bigotry and slavery, the great enemies to reason and truth, yet there is such an aversion in the mind, to reflect or invert its faculties of thought upon self, from which operation wisdom and virtue can alone be produced, that I predict and pronounce it impossible for that country to establish any system of constitutional government, and anarchy, dreadful anarchy, will bring it to its only repose, in the tomb of despotism. No constitutional form can be built, but upon the basis of confidence, and this noble affection of the human heart, the result of wisdom and virtue, is almost unknown in France. Hasten then, O Frenchmen! to learn to think; for he who knows not how to think, knows not how to live. I never saw a Frenchman, but would decide in a moment upon the most important questions, when the deliberation of a year would not be long enough for a reflective mind to determine truths of less moment. Necessity may demand decision, but then a reflective mind calls that action necessary and true, only as relative to that necessity; whereas a thoughtless contracted mind looks upon its decisions as absolute truths.

I wish for the sake of human nature, interested in this important revolution of France, that virtue and wisdom may be as rapid in their progress, as the necessity of their aid is urgent, lest liberty, the soul of Nature, infected by the morbid humors of selfish ignorance, may be come a plague more dreadful than despotism, to destroy mankind. Surrounding nations are already alarmed at the concussions and portentous commotions of this country, though that germ of Nature, to produce perfection in the moral world, is guarded as an enemy; and lest it should spread its powerful roots into their domains, Despotism, trembling, draws out all its powers, and Wisdom, fettered, testifies her doubts and interest in the cause of Liberty and Nature, in the suppressed eloquence of deep-fetched sighs, as the gag of Despotism checks her lamentations.

I rejoice exceedingly and congratulate in ecstacy this

country in its triumph over the most formidable enemy of humanity, abhorred and cruel priestcraft; and this would alone compensate all the evils of an unsuccessful revolution; though I hope that liberty will give birth to virtue, virtue to confidence, and confidence to good government; for twenty-five millions of people must be organized by a constitution, which demands much virtue and confidence for its basis; but democracy can have no repose in the efficient powers of contracted delegation, till the dangerous spirit of aristocracy and monarchy is totally abandoned and lost.

ITALY.

THOUGH this subdivision of Europe contains various states; yet, as the individual inhabitants differ but in fine and scarcely perceptible shades, I shall speak of them, as participating of the same general character, and nearly the same nature of arbitrary government, though different in form.

The peculiar constitution of the mind of the inhabitants of this country, furnishes observation with a number of curious effects, to facilitate a knowledge of the human intellect, and that by a very extraordinary contrast of strength and weakness. The imagination, memory, and judgment of the natives have most extensive pow ers; and the monument that attests the efforts of their combination, to produce all that is wonderful in the province of art-St. Peter's church at Rome, the wonder of the world, at the same time furnishes a most humiliating evidence of the most deplorable ignorance and folly, by the Eucharistical sacrifice on its altar, where the Cause of all Nature is devoured every day, in the form of a crust of bread, by its creatures.

It is here that human reason seems to preserve order

m a state of madness; here the best blood of the best hearts is wantonly and vainly spilt by the assassin's dagger. Here Insanity commands and menaces the mild and timorous infant Love, and says, "love me, or I will put you to death!" and Jealousy, with a thousand daggers, heaps piles of victims at the feet of his mistress, and adding the horror of ferocity, to the deformity of person and turpitude of mind, courts in this array the smiles of beauty, the consent of virtue, and affection of love.

While the male monsters pay such homage, there are female monsters to receive it; nay the operations are inverted, and the female not having the courage to wield the dagger, conceals a surer vengeance in the treacherous draught of liquid death, and menaces with poison the infant, love, upon the wing of flight and departure. But does this connection or association, the effect of vice and horror, proceed from love? No, true love is the affection of sympathy, which can be known only in virtuous minds. Pride, ambition, interest, and other passions may tolerate the assassin, as a lover, and induce hatred to put on the mask of affection; but he can never obtain esteem. Though the knight-errant could, by contests of blood, gain the hand of a mistress, he could never expect to detain or preserve the heart, but by being lovely in mind and person; for the moment a more lovely or congenial object presents itself to the mistress, daggers and bolts may keep the lover at a distance, but the heart will fly to him, and leave the body alone to be a prey to the brutal lust of the tyrant possessor.

The mind of the inhabitant of this country possesses all the technical powers of intellect, which operate outwardly, to procure all the advantages of art, and all the joys of invented pleasures; but of the internal operation, called reflection, which creates sympathy and probity, the only source of happiness, it is totally devoid.

The cause of this is to be found in their education, which here in common with every nation in the world,

England excepted, burdens the memory of the infant and corrupts the heart by a familiar communication of age to infancy, of all the chicane, treachery and falsehood transacted in society, of which, by the want of dignity in man, they are made to participate, as soon as their faculties are capable to render them useful to their parents. Whoever has travelled into foreign countries, with the least observation, must have remarked this social familiarity between men and children, which enables the latter, at the age of ten, to have more worldly knowledge than a youth of twenty in the island of England. The continental child is acquainted with all the anecdotes of its family; their concerns made up of envy, treachery, falsehood and selfishness; while the English youth, if rich, has nothing in his memory, but Latin and Greek, foot-ball and cricket; and if poor, knows only the technical part of the trade to which he has been brought up; and the only communion he has had with men is, to receive from them moral admonitions, to instil into him principles of rectitude and truth. Thus the heart and intellect escape being corrupted and distorted; and enlightened Nature contracts not, but compresses its powers into the narrow and necessitated form of social convention, and disciplines the corps of society, to secure it from the violence of those unhappy nations, whom the menaces of a tyrant unite, to reduce others to their own state of misery and slavery.

O nation! favored with all the gifts of Nature, change the operation of your superior mental faculties, and transfer them from their outward, to an inward exercise, and instead of animating canvass and stone, humanize yourselves; call into exercise the anticipative and reflective powers of the mind-the pre-eminence of man over beast. It is the faculty of mind, called reflection, or internal operation of mental faculties upon self, that gives a consciousness of existence, and teaches that wisdom, which procures all the happiness and well-being which the essence of man is capable of attaining. The means to procure, or bend back your faculties to