O wisdom! it is in this land, that the all-devouring monster avarice has fixed its throne, and appears with all its deformity through the flimsy veil of commerce and industry; O, dart thy benign rays through the dark clouds of error, formed by human institutions-show them that they are in pursuit of happiness by the road which leads to misery; approach them with that temperate light that may not dazzle their weak sight, which has hitherto been found too feeble to admit even those milder rays, which bave been received with efficacy in other countries.

Enlighten their minds in the present state of a confounded policy, and let them not fall a sacrifice to the treachery of a despot, and the ambition of a perfidious ally, who, in open violation of the rights of nations, dares to attempt, (and audaciously avows that he dares,) the empire of the sea, the free domain of Nature. Rescue them from the chains of error and avarice, and place them in the silken bonds of sympathy and probity; so shall they first become men, and then citizens; and triumphing over the demon, discord, who with its scorpion goads excites to civil war, they may repose with universal union in the arms of peace and liberty.

DENMARK.

The country on this side of the Baltic, agrees with the moral description of Germany.

NORWAY possesses a character differing from the rest of Europe except Sweden. This is my conjecture, corroborated by information. Having never visited that country, I shall proceed to the description of its resemblance, where I have travelled.

SWEDEN.

THIS Country's connection with Europe is interrupted by the Baltic sea, and from this cause, the moral character of its inhabitants is uncultivated.

The Swedes have not that animal tenacity to customs, that limited contemplation, and that sordid avarice, which are the prominent features in the character of their German neighbors. The heart is agitated with a greater variety of desires, as the mind is filled with a greater variety of ideas, which is caused by their maritime communication with other nations; and this variety divides impulse, and deprives energy of its force, so that the Swedish character has no prominent feature.

As the Swedes live mostly an agrestic life, and their wants are for the most part supplied by the labor of the earth, their probity is preserved from the treachery and falsehood acquired by commerce or barter. Sympathy or virtue (for they are synonymous) is ever found where the heart is unagitated by selfish desires, and the head uncorrupted by falsehood."

Whenever wisdom descends upon this land, it will meet with a hearty welcome, and make a more rapid progress than in any country upon the face of the globe. The mind has but few errors to unlearn, and the heart but feeble passions to combat; And I could almost form a wish, that wisdom should choose this country to establish its inceptive empire. For woe be to the inhabitants. of the earth, if wisdom should be defeated in her first onset. and the trembling despots of the earth, like the brutal and cruel Herod, who destroyed whole generations to sacrifice a suspected rival, should deprive her of her arms, the liberty of the press, and destroy the power of Nature in its moral source. The communication of mind or thought being cut off, men would remain in a state of

vicious knowledge and enslaved civilization, and retrograde from that state, to which wisdom, if triumphant, must ultimately conduct them-the state of enlightened Nature and happiness.

RUSSIA.

THIS Country participates of the European and the Asiatic characters, and derives from the former the activity and factitious wants, which its extravagant civilization introduces; and from the latter all the treachery and falsehood which arises from an ignorant selfishness, assuming the character of self-love, which consequences prove to be self-hatred.

The present empress, [Catharine II.] when her comprehensive mind is employed in taking a general view of her empire, feels her pride and compassion equally affected. While the latter forces her to weep over the destiny of millions of her subjects, existing in the most abject slavery, the former is humiliated by the degraded rank of an empress over a herd of beasts.

Happy is it for these people, that the glory of their sovereign cannot exist till the subjects are elevated to the rank and rights of men. But there is a formidable body of aristocratic tyrants, called nobles, (or more properly ignobles, as possessing a greater share of vice and villainy,) that are dangerous enemies to both those events.

The empress has made some happy laws to effect these purposes, and they have been well administered only by herself, on her own personal domain; but she dares not enforce them nationally; and if she had the resolution, she would find no one willing or capable to assist her in the execution.

The arts and sciences have been transplanted into this country with an intent to correct the minds of the people, the source and basis of all happy government; and their progress forms a better apology for Rousseau, than all his letters, to justify his satire on the arts and sciences.

Astronomers, botanists, antiquarians, mathematicians and zoologists have arrived to instruct the wretch, whose understanding is debilitated and whose body wounded and ulcerated with the galling chains of the most cruel tyranny. The astronomer presents his telescope to the weeping eye of a father, deploring the loss of a son, sold into captivity, like a beast; and while his soul demands, “O! where is the lost object of my love, and support of my wretched existence !"-answers by relating where to find the constellations in the zodiac. The botanist approaches, and while the Russian peasant groans with the pangs of hunger, strows flowers upon his iron couch, and answers his demands for sustenance, by explaining their virtues to relieve disease. The antiquarian directs his attention to a truncated marble column, while he is contriving to repair his ruined and deserted cottage. The mathematician relates to him the Newtonian calculation of infinities, while he is contriving to number and divide the loaf of black bread, to furnish a twenty-four hour's subsistence to himself and family and the zoologist is teaching him to preserve the bodies of beasts, while he is studying and laboring to preserve the expiring animation of his naked and famished children.

The only sciences that can improve this country are, philosophy and agriculture; the one to suppress factitious, and the other to supply real wants. The sciences, though they give exercise and energy to the mental faculties, propel the mud in a tangent from its own orbit, and it is philosophy alone which attracts that force back to its own centre, and shows mankind that the first and most useful of all study is man and self.

POLAND.

THIS Country from its situation, partakes more of the European than the Asiatic character; and the people have less treachery than the Russians, and less luxury than the Germans. The form of government, a mixture of aristocracy and monarchy, has introduced the passion of pride, a friend to virtue, and this has induced the nobles to treat their peasants with less brutality and tyranny than the Russians.

Literature, more cultivated here than in Russia, gives the Poles more knowledge, and opens a national communication, without which a body of people are better described by herd or flock, than the dignified title of a nation, which Russia by no means merits. This communication and knowledge is every day increasing, but the impediment to its extending to the great body of the people is, the vice of drunkenness, propagated by the Jews, who have over-run the provinces, and act as pumps in the hands of the nobles, to draw from the spring of exhausting labor, drops of perspired blood, that coagulate into gold, and form the revenue of the Polish lord.

The diet of this country holds forth to mankind a dreadful scene of the conflict of private and public good. A spectator might imagine himself in the area of a Roman amphitheatre among gladiators, rather than citizens discussing the general interests of this society. The various members seem to have no common centre; some move in the attraction of the king; some are propelled by the corruption of foreign gold; others agitated by family attachments; and every one revolving on the axis of unknown self. The orbit of society is unknown, and the sharpest scimitar being judged the best reason, the result of this assembly, while it marks the different epochs of increasing misery, gives as it were, a despondent hope from the extravagance of its anarchy!