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live in perfect union, without division or discord. entire social equality; they are born free, and continue in a state of freedom, without being subject to any superior power. In their army there is complete regularity, without discipline or commanders. They enjoy all the means of subsistence, without either parsimony or forethought. They wear no clothes, which they consider contrary to nature; they eat no animal food, and they are free from diseases. (100)

$ 19 Fenelon's descriptions, in his Télémaque, of the happy land of Bætica, in Spain, and of the city of Salentum, in Italy, (101) likewise serve to embody his ideas of a well-governed kingdom and a blissful state of society. The same style of political fiction, for purposes of instruction, is pursued by his imitators and admirers, the Chevalier Ramsay and the Abbé Terrasson-the former in the Voyages de Cyrus, the latter in the Egyptian romance entitled Sethos.(102) The happy valley of Rasselas belongs to the same class of fictions, though its scope is ethical rather than political, and it does not profess to deal with historical or mythological names.

Montesquieu, in his Lettres Persanes (xi.-xiv.), gives an account of the virtuous community of the Troglodytes, whose state was originally vicious. Like the happy valley of Rasselas, they are placed in Africa, which is also the seat of the ideal nation of the Mezoranians, described in the imaginary travels of

(100) See Voyages Imag. tom. xxiv. pp. 301, 302, 315, 317-8, 320, 321, 334, 364, 372.

(101) Salente, near Tarentum, liv. vii. and x. Mr. Stewart (First Dissert. p. 83) commends the enlightened opinions on government in Télémaque. Terrasson, in the preface to Sethos, p. v. says: 'Je n'ai pas lieu de me repentir d'avoir dit autrefois, en parlant de Télémaque, que si le bonheur du genre humain pouvait nâitre d'un poème, il naîtroit de celui-là: quoique ceux qui gouvernent le monde s'appliquent rarement à la lecture.' Dumont, in his edition of Bentham's work on Legislation, remarks: Le Télémaque ne dut ses succès éclatans ni à sa morale, ni au charme du style, mais à l'opinion générale qu'il contenait la satire de Louis XIV. et de sa cour.'-Traités de Législation, tom. i. p. 20.

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(102) See the dialogue between Cyrus and Solon, in b. v. of the Voyages de Cyrus, and that between Cyrus and Pythagoras in b. vi. Also, the description of the nation of the Atlantes, and the sacred people of the Hesperides, in Sethos, b. viii. On political romances, see Dunlop, Hist. of Fiction, c. 10, vol. iii. p. 132-56.

Gaudentio di Lucca.(103) This people, governed by a magistrate named a pophar, divided into five nomes, and having for its capital the city of Phor, dwell in a fertile territory in the centre of Africa, where they are visited by Signor Gaudentio. Their government is simple and patriarchal ;(104) but what chiefly distinguishes them is the system of community, fraternity, and equality according to which they live. The whole country is only one great family, governed by the laws of nature, with proper officers, constituted by the whole, for order and common preservation. Every individual looks on himself as a part of that great family. The grand pophar is the common father, esteeming all the rest as children and brothers, calling them universally by that name, as they all call one another brothers, bartering and exchanging their commodities as one brother would do with another. . . . . Every man, wherever he goes, enters into what house he pleases, as if it were his own home. .... One may say of them, that they are all masters and all servants; every one has his employment. Generally speaking, the younger sort wait on the elders, changing their offices as is thought proper by their superiors, as in a well-regulated community. All their children universally are taught at the public expense, as children of the government, without any distinction but that of personal merit. . . . They are the freest, and yet strictest, people in the world, the whole nation being more like one universal regular college or community than anything else.' (105) They likewise enjoy perpetual peace, and rest from external and almost from internal broils. (106)

Lastly, it may be mentioned that Baron v. Holberg, a

(103) This well-written fiction, which has been erroneously ascribed to Bishop Berkeley, was in fact the work of Simon Berington, a catholic priest. The statement in the Gentleman's Magazine, which assigns to him the authorship of this work, is confirmed by the tradition of his family in Herefordshire, as I have ascertained from authentic information. See Notes and Queries, vol. ii. p. 247, 298, 327. That the Reverend Simon Berington lived as chaplain with the family of Fowler in Staffordshire, and was the author of Gaudentio di Lucca, is also stated in the Description of the Parish of Tixall, in the County of Stafford, by Sir T. Clifford and Mr. Clifford (Paris, 1817, 4to), p. 40.

(104) P. 209.

VOL. II.

(105) P. 215-7, 232.

(106) P. 188.

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Danish writer of some reputation in dramatic literature, thinking that the region of undiscovered countries on the surface of the globe had been exhausted, published, in 1741, a satirical description of certain communities in the centre of the earth, under the title of Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum-a singular fiction, which belongs to the Utopian class. (107)

§ 20 The speculations on an ideal and perfect state are so closely connected with the notions respecting a golden age, or blissful state of nature, as really existing at the primitive age of the world, and have been so much influenced by the descriptions of that supposed condition of mankind, that the subject requires some mention in this place.

The notions of the ancients respecting the primitive state of mankind assumed a double form. The two representations were equally unhistorical: neither was derived from positive tes

(107) Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum, novam telluris theoriam ac historiam quinta monarchiæ adhuc nobis incognitæ exhibens, e Bibliothecâ B. Abelini: Hafniæ et Lipsia, 1741. An English translation of this book, under the title of A Journey to the World underground, by Nicholas Klimius, was published at London in 1742. It was translated into all the other modern languages. Besides the works mentioned in the text, there are three political romances by Albert v. Haller, the celebrated physiologist, named Usong, Alfred, and Fabius and Cato. The first describes an Oriental, and the second a moderate monarchy; the third describes an aristocracy. See Jördens, Lex. Deutscher Dichter und Prosaisten, vol. ii. p. 323. Usong was translated into English by Jos. Planta, Lond. 1772, 2 vols. 12mo; and Alfred, by F. Steinitz, Lond. 1849, 1 vol. 12mo.

There is likewise a feeble Utopian fiction relating to communities of monkeys and dog-headed men, by a Venetian named Zaccaria Seriman. It was printed at Venice in 1749, and again in 1764, and a third edition, with the title of Viaggi di Enrico Wanton alle terre Australi, was printed at London in 1772, in four vols. 8vo, with a dedication to George III. by Enrico Wanton.

It is

The Encyclopédie Methodique mentions another fiction of this class, entitled, La République des Philosophes, ou l'Histoire des Ajaoiens, &c. It describes an imaginary state in an isle of the Indian ocean. not included in the collection of Voyages Imaginaires, nor is it in the Brit. Mus. Library. It has been erroneously attributed to Fontenelle.

The work of J. B. Say, Olbie, ou Essai sur les Moyens de reformer les Mœurs d'une Nation: Paris, an viii. de la République, 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 132, was written for a prize proposed by the National Institute, on the question of What are the institutions fitted for establishing morality in a people ?' He lays down certain principles of government and public economy, and illustrates the application of them by a few examples, taken from the practice of the Olbians, an imaginary people.

There are some other works of inferior note, belonging to the Utopian class, which do not deserve a separate mention.

timony, handed down either by oral or written tradition. They were not, however, equally improbable, inasmuch as the one was to some extent confirmed by analogy, and such experience as was accessible, whereas the other was contrary to both.

According to one conception of the original state of the world, mankind were in a condition scarcely superior to the lower animals. They lived in woods, either without any certain union of males and females, or separately in families, where the husband was supreme ruler; they dwelt in caves, were exposed to the attacks of wild beasts, and were ignorant, not only of the use of fire, and of all the arts of life, but even of language and numbers. At length some beneficent demigod, such as Prometheus-some poet or musician, as Orpheus-or some wise lawgiver, taught them articulate language and numeration; the use of fire, of metallurgy, and of the other useful arts; reclaimed them from their barbarism; showed them how to build houses; enclosed them in walled cities, as a protection against men and wild beasts; established fixed marriages; restrained their violence by legislation, and founded a system of political government. (108)

(108) See Plato, Politicus, c. 16, p. 274; Leg. iii. 1-4, p. 676-82. In the former passage, Plato combines the brutish conception of mankind with the golden age, by supposing the latter to have been the state of a previous extinct race of earth-born men. This Platonic notion is alluded to by Aristotle, Pol. ii. 8: εἰκός τε τοὺς πρώτους, εἴτε γηγενεῖς ἦσαν εἴτ ̓ ἐκ φθορᾶς τινὸς ἐσώθησαν, &c. Compare Polyb. vi. 5.

Aristoph. (Ran. 1032-3) attributes civilization to Orpheus and Musæus. Horace assigns the same function to Orpheus and other poets, De Arte Poet. 391-401; also to Romulus, Bacchus, and the Dioscuri, Epist. ii. 1, 5-8. Somewhat similar functions are assigned to Menas, first king of Egypt, by Diod. i. 45; also to Evander and Hercules, by Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. i. 33, 41; to Janus, by Plutarch, Num. 19; Quæst. Rom. 22. According to Eschylus, the advance from the rude and helpless state of mankind to the arts of civilization is due to Prometheus.-Prom. 451-515. Euripides (Suppl. 201-15) attributes the same change to 'some god.'

In the long passage of Moschion, from a lost tragedy (in Stob. Ecl. Phys. i. 9, 38, vol. i. p. 240; ed. Heeren), the transition from the savage and cannibal state of primitive man to a state of arts and civil order is ascribed to Prometheus, or to the lessons of necessity.

A rationalized account of the same change, from which all divine agency is excluded, is given by several writers.-See Lucretius, v. 923, to the end of the book; Diod. i. 8: Lucian, Amores, c. 33, 34. Critias, in the verses preserved in Sert. Empiric. adv. Phys. i. 54 (p. 403; ed. Bekker), speaks of mankind as having been originally in a brutish state, from which they were rescued by the institution of laws for the punishment of open offenders. The gods (he thinks) were a subsequent invention of

According to another more poetical and legendary conception of the primitive state of the world, mankind was in a state of innocence and bliss. The Greek mythology represented this period as the reign of Cronus, or Saturn, when the gods lived among men, and exercised a direct dominion over them. Other legends of the same mythology portrayed it under the form of the golden age the first of a cycle of ages, designated by the names of metals, and forming, on the whole, a descending scale in happiness and virtue. During this mythical period, the earth produced its fruits spontaneously and without labour; the temperature rendered clothing superfluous; there was no agriculsome wise man, for the restraint of hidden offences.-See Bach, Crit. Tyr. Carmina (Lips. 1827), p. 56. Cicero (Pro Sext. c. 42) describes the change from primitive wildness and anarchy to a state of civil society, as having been effected by men eminent for virtue and wisdom. He speaks of the savage state as a time nondum neque naturali neque civili jure descripto.' In the treatise De Invent. i. 2, he attributes this change to 'quidam magnus vir et sapiens,' who is endowed with eloquence as well as with wisdom. The power of eloquence as well as of reason, in reclaiming men from their primitive wildness, is also mentioned in De Orat. i. 9. In the Tusculan Disputations, v. 2, this merit is ascribed to philosophy: Tu urbes peperisti, tu dissipatos homines in societatem vitæ congregasti,' &c. Lactantius (Div. Inst. vi. 10) recites and condemns an explanation, which refers the origin of civil society to the fear of wild beasts. Compare on this point, Lucret. v. 980-5. Horace (Sat. i. 3, 99) comprehends in a few verses some of the principal items of the change in question:

'Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris,

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Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter
Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus, atque ita porro

Pugnabant armis, quæ post fabricaverat usus.

Donec verba, quibus voces sensusque notarent,
Nominaque invenere: dehinc absistere bello,
Oppida cœperunt munire, et ponere leges,

Ne quis fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter.'

Polybius describes the human race as renewed after some great catastrophe, and emerging from its original state of rudeness. Like the irrational animals, they are at first governed by the strongest man, who becomes a monarch.-vi. 5. Compare Sen. Epist. 90, § 4, 5.

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The description of the Arcadians in Ovid. Fast. ii. 287-98, embodies the idea of primitive rudeness; and compare Art. Am. ii. 467-78. Sallust (Catil. c. 6) says of the aborigines of Italy: Aborigines, genus hominum agreste, sine legibus, sine imperio, liberum atque solutum.' Compare Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. i. 9, 10. Vitruvius (ii. 1) describes the introduction of building, and of the other arts. Concerning the food of men in their primitive state, see Elian, V. H. iii. 39.

On the notions of the Greeks respecting the primitive state of mankind, see Bernhardy, Grundriss der Griech. Litteratur, vol. i. p. 162. The Greeks conceived the first men as having been formed from trees, stones, or clay.-See Odyss. xix. 163, cum Schol.; Hesiod. Op. et Di. 144; Aristoph. Av. 686; Asius, ap. Pausan. viii. 1, 4; Virg. En. viii. 315; Juven. vi. 12; also the mythus of Prometheus, who, from being the maker

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