who was in the decline of life and talents or education, whose igno' understanding, without energy, rance multiplied abuses and relax• without abilities to heal the bleed-ed difcipline. The abuse at ⚫ing wounds of his expiring coun-length advanced to that degree, try. Providence, apparently, fee- 'that officers were appointed from < ing its diffolution approach, fent a cardinal king to give it the dying benediction. Thus we find that 'ftates, like individuals, have their infancy, maturity, and decline; and what is not a little remark able of this, it commenced with a Henry, and with a Henry it ex'pired. The first was a hero and a ftatefman, the latter poffeffed neither of thefe qualities, nor fup. plied the want of them by his wifdom. . among the domeftics of noble families. When count de Lippe was appointed commander in chief of the forces of the kingdom, he endeavoured to establish the dignity of the profeffion. One day he happened to dine with a Portuguese nobleman, who was a colonel in the fervice; one of the fervants who attended at table was dreffed in an officer's uniform: 'on inquiry, he found this attend'ant was a captain in a regiment of infantry; on which the gallant 'commander immediately rose up, ' and infifted upon the military fervant's fitting at table next him Philip the fecond now appended the crown of Portugal to that of Spain. It had been the invariable policy of this prince, and of his fucceffors, to render felf. • Portugal fubfervient by reducing its refources, which they were carrying into effect every day, till at length the Portuguese, no longer able to bear the chains of their foreign mafters, revolted; and, by their refolution and unanimity, fupplied the want of forces in cafting off their bondage: and ever fince, the kingdom is gradually advancing to profperity under its native and lawful fove⚫ reigns.. 6 It has always been the policy of the wifeft generals to preferve a degree of honourable dignity in the army; for pride is as commendable in a foldier as humility in a priest; but fervility and military spirit are incompatible. This 'was the count de Lippe's maxim; and fuch was his zeal for the ho'nour of the profeffion, that he de'clared openly it was a difhonour to an officer not to demand, or refufe to give, fatisfaction for an offence. 6 It is evident, however, that the • advancement of the country is by Since the reign of Jofeph the no means proportionate to its vaft first, there has been a great change refources; nor is the ancient mi- for the better, not only in the arlitary fpirit of the people yet re- my, but in almost every other devived. Some remains of the cou-partment of the ftate. When rage of their ancestors may ftill linger among them; but the contempt in which they hold the profetion of arms, is fufficient to extinguish every fpark of military enterprife. For feveral years paft they have admitted officers into the regiments of infantry without that prince afcended the throne, agriculture and manufactures were 'fo much neglected, that the peo'ple depended upon foreign nations for food and raiment; the arts were defpifed, and the revenues unproductive. The English, purfuant to the Methuen treaty, fup. plied the Portuguese with woollen cloths, in exchange for which they were to receive the wines of the country. The encouragement held out by this treaty for the growth of wine, and the facility which long experience has given the Portuguefe in that branch of hutbandry induced the farmers to neglect the cultivation of corn, and convert their fields into vineyards; thus the grape increafed in proportion as the grain dimi rit of indaftry among the colonifts, "who had long felt the inertia of the mother country. But knowing how vain it was to expect either activity or industry from a people groaning with the chains of flavery, he published an edict, 'whereby the inhabitants of Brazil, and of the other colonies appertaining to the crown, were to be restored to their freedom, and to enjoy the fame immunities as 'the natives of Portugal. An act fo replete with juftice and humaThis was partly the state of Por-nity, is fufficient to expiate many. tugal when king Jofeph appoint-of the political fins imputed to the ed fenhor Carvalho, afterwards marquis de Pombal, his rime miniter. The adminiftration of this great ftatefman forms an epoch in the annals of Portugal. He endeavoured, and not in vain, • nifhed. marquis de Pombal, and is a lafting honour to Portugal, which was the first among the modern 'nations of Europe that enflaved mankind, and the firft that fet the humane example of their emanci to direct the attention of the peo-pation. It was alfo the first that ⚫ple to their real intereft; the landholders were compelled to diminish their vineyards, and appropriate a third part of them to grain and other fpecies of culture. This wife regulation was attended with fuch falutary effects, that to this day it is confidered one of the moft beneficial acts of his admi-new. • niftration. taught Europe navigation and commerce upon a comprehenfive fcale: had not prince Henry ex→ ifted, we fhould not, probably, have ever heard of Columbus. it is to the difcoveries of the Portugufe in the old world (fays Voltaire) that we are indebted for the They were, in fact, the firft that explored the coaft of As the natural refult of agricul- 'Africa, that fuggefted the existence ture is population, he prepared of the western world, and difeoemployment for the ring gene-vered the road to India. A peoration, by establishing manufac-ple who have been thus early in 'tories of different kinds; induftry thus excited, the country began 'to wear a new face; the merchant engroffed the trade heretofore carried on by foreigners, and the farmer fe i and clothed nimfelf and his family with the produce of his nativè foil. The marquis's efforts, thus far crowned with fuccefs, urged him to further exertions; he endeavoured to propagate a fimilar fpi fo many enterprising pursuits, and 'exhausted their vigour when most of the furrounding nations were but waking from their flumber, might reafonably be allowed to take a refpite. They are now but commencing their carecranew; and it must be left to time to determine whether they will ever 'more re-establish the once refpect'able name of Lufitanians.' ACCOUNT of NORTH HOLLAND, and of the MANNERS and CHARACTER of the INHABITANTS. "B [From the Second Volume of Mr. PRATT'S GLEANINGS.] given defcriptions with the eyewitneffed facts) I find to be the most faithful. "North Holland is another name for Weft Friefland, paradoxical as that may found. Formerly it was a marfh compofed of many great lakes, feparated from each other only by high roads or dikes; but now nothing remains of them, except their names and dimenfions in maps. With incredible toil, they have been entirely drained, and changed into the delicious place I have just mentioned. Even fir William Temple, who was not apt to speak too kindly of Holland, obferved, that a once rotten marfh, the draining of which was the inceffant labour of four years; a fpace, including highways and dikes, of no more than ten thoufand acres, is fo well planted with gardens, orchards, and majeftic rows of trees, as to form the moft pleafant landfcape he ever faw. It was here,' fays Temple, EYOND difpute, the little country from whence I date this letter, is the moft deferving to be infpected, as a curiofity, of any, not only in the feven, but in the feventeen provinces; and yet, like many other deferving objects in this perverfe world of our's, is the leaft vifited by thofe who have even no other motive of travel than to gratify curiofity. Satisfied with feeing the capital, which they run over as if that time which they throw away, were really precious to them, they shift the scene with the rapidity of our ancient play-wrights, who, in the course of a single act, which takes half an hour in the representation, carry us from one quarter of the globe to another, leaping the fpace between, though whole oceans roll,' to stop them, with as much cafe as if they were stepping over a gutter. Infomuch that a thorough-paced traveller will breakfast in Helvoetfluice, dine at Rotterdam, take fupper at Amfter- that I met with a curiofity yet dam, return the next morning to 'greater than the place itfelf-a breakfast at the Hague; and write poor fellow in an hofpital (a fua tour through Holland, of what perannuated feaman) who proved he has not feen, in good time for to be the only rich man I ever the returning packet. But more faw in my life; for, on offering fedate perfons, as has been well ob-him a crown, as a reward for the ferved by one who deplored it, rarely trouble of fhewing me the hofpivifit the province of North Hol-tal, and giving me with the hiftoland, but turn their backs on the ry of the place, the hiftory of country, as foon as they have himself, as one of its moft vetefeen Amfterdam; thereby lofing a 'ran members, in a very pleafant view of one of the most beau- manner, he abfolutely refufed my tifully romantic fpots in the whole money, faying, he could have no world. ufe for it, being plentifully fupplied with every thing neceffary in the hofpital.' "I will proceed, my friend, to juftify this affertion, by gleaning for you what (on comparing the 6 "The manners and cuftoms of North North Holland are faid to differ effentially from thofe in the South; but I could trace the diffimilitude only in the articles of drefs, and fuperior neatnefs: for though all the provinces are clean on the furface, this of Weft Friefland is fo even to a painful affectation. Saardam, Alkmaar, Hoorn, Enkhuifm, Edam, Monnikendam, Broek, Medenbik, and Parmerende are the principal towns. "The firft is a village, where, inftead of a gleaning, a traveller of curiofity may gather an harveft. The fingle article of windmills and woodmills would afford him a sheaf. The number of each is really incredible. There are not lefs than two hundred and fifty of the mills to cut wood into planks, for the purpose of ship-building, of which the procefs will prove a morning's entertainment to any man, and of which the invention is due to Cornneille Van Uitguft. I have never feen them even in our naval island, where, affuredly, they would prove a powerful auxiliary; or am I miftaken? Have they been adopted by our ingenious countrymen? I recommend them, at all events to every traveller, who, like myself, hath never feen them before. Saardam, like the other towns of North Holland, is almost entirely of wood, painted on the outside with as much care, as to colour and figures, as our choiceft apartments on the infide. Before and behind every houfe, even in this bufy, populous, and commercial town, which contains many thousand inhabitants, are little gardens, the eighth, tenth, and even twentieth of an acre, where flowers, vegetables, fhrubs, grafs-plots, and cockle-fhell walks, are arranged in fo fingular a manner, that they feem rather the property, and indeed the work of fairy fingers and fairy people, than of a hardy, heavy looking fet of men and women, whofe lighteft tread or touch might feem to throw them into irretrievable diforder. You cannot look at a tree of a year's growth, but its bark is painted of all hues, figures, and fancies; nor can you fit down on a bench, with out preffing under you blue tigers, red wolves, green foxes, yellow rabbits, and white ravens. Taste is abfolutely forbid to enter North Holland; but in lieu of it, whim is privileged to play whatever pranks he thinks proper, fo as he makes no dirt. They almoft quarrel with nature, whom they welcome during the fpring and fummer, for dropping her leaves upon their fhell-walks in autumn. But of this more in its place. "The paper-mills of Saardam are the most confiderable in Holland; for, while Louis the XIVth was making an irruption in 1672, many of the moft ingenious papermakers took refuge in this town, carrying with them their families, and the art by which they were fupported. Induftry becomes ftationary where moft favoured, and at Saardam the encouragements were too great to permit a fecond emigration. Near an hundred thousand reams of poft paper are annually fabri cated at Saardam; and a like proportion of grey and blue. "The Saardam veffels are alfo juftly celebrated, and here it was that Peter the great, of Ruffia, gained his elementary knowledge of fhip-building. It is afferted, perhaps with fome boat, that a single fhip carpenter fet a navy of twenty confiderable veffels on float. "But Saardam has vet other attractions, and which fome travellers may think greater objects of cutH 3 riofity riofity, in a country where the Cyprian goddess is not reputed to keep her faireft court, than any I have yet mentioned. The women of this town are generally handfome; and, notwithstanding, on a first acquaintance, there is an air of distance, reserve, and even coldness, they are all, as well as men, replete with an anxious defire to break the ice, and when broken, make up loft time by fuch a flow of questions, and with fuch rapidity, that you must be gifted with urrcommon fpeed yourself not to be overborne by the torrent, which hurries away with your answers almoft before they can get them out of your mouth. This loquacious character is, indeed, a characteriftic mark of a Dutch woman; and yet none but a refidentiary gleaner can difcover it. A firft, fecond, third, and even fourth visit, does not often ferve to thaw the inveterate and chilling air which feems to bind up their tongues. They hear you, at length, with a fixed, dolllike ftare, and anfwer you in fhort, exchanging a mono-fyllable for a fpeech, or more frequently giving only fome nods, of which they are all prodigal, for half an hour's converfation. But when you can once make them affimilate, which the habit of feeing you will effect, by degrees, a knot of Dutch women over their ftoves, equal, if they do not furpass, in fport, chit-chat, and pleafantry, with due proportions of tittle-tattle, any female convention over their tea-tables, and even that which is fuppofed to be appropriate to the tea-table, and indeed a part of its equipage, namely, good folid detraction. The entrance of a ftranger, however, has the power of ftopping them in mid career. The merrieft of the circle, would forego her jeft; and even the moft malicious would let her neighbour's reputation, when he had just got it between her teeth, fall from her lips. I had an opportunity to glean an inftance of this. Some frolickfome Dutch girls ftarted in a converfation, where, as a domeftic friend, I was permitted to mingle, the character of a young woman, who was fufpected of growing more fuddenly corpulent than in the way of general en-bon-point, the ought to do. The whole party followed the trail, and joined in the cry against this poor abfentee, who, by the bye, was a native of this very town of Saardam. Never was any miferable hare more hardly hunted than this lucklefs girl's character. It was fairly, or rather unfairly wor ried by the young and the old. At laft, a lady, who had been hitherto the least violent of the pack, caught it from her next neighbour, who had been giving it fome hearty fhakes herfelf, and determined up on tearing it all in tatters, exclaimed in the most vehement Dutch I ever heard uttered-'tis a terrible language for anger- take it from me, ladies, this girl, as fure as I ' am putting this fire under my 'petticoats, is, and always was, a moft defigning, forward, good for-nothing huffey; and if the is 'not now big with child, I, that am the honeft mother of two-and twenty, am a maid-yes, take it 'from me, fhe is a vile ftrum—' Strum-pet fhe would have faid, but the husband of one of the party leading in a stranger, cut off the laft fyllable, which fell to the ground with the remains of the mangled reputation. "The ftranger remained till the party broke up, but, whether from the feverity of the difappointment, or any other caufe, the loudest and the |