concerning the greatness of our colonies and commerce; that we have colonies enough, and more than we know what to do with; that commerce will be our ruin; that we should content ourselves with lefs; that moderation is in every thing à virtue. These are moft erroneous doctrines, which can only arife from taking a very fuperficial view of things.-Are Jamaica, Barbadoes, and Antigua burthenfome to this nation? Is the poffeffion of Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and Maryland too much for her? Suppofe fhe gives up fome of them, will she better preserve and make the greater profit of the reft? She has found difficulties of many forts with her colonies, but it has been with those which are fituated in a climate like her own, and of course have rivalled her this was a grand error in the first fettling, but wife and active meafures in transferring the inhabitants would do much to remedy it.'

But we must now leave Denmark, that we may take a little notice of Sweden, which is the next country vifited by our Traveller. Among other obfervations on the agriculture of this country, he particularly mentions the large Swedish turnips, brought originally from Lapland, which have the property of refifting the fharpest and most continued frofts, and are therefore of excellent ufe for the winter food of cattle. They reckon an acre of thefe turnips to be fufficient to maintain, during winter, from one to four head of cattle. One of the greatest advantages, we are told, of the culture of this root is, its being as good a preparation for corn as a fallow of mere ploughing, which is an object, it is added, of infinite importance.'

At Upfal our Author vifited the celebrated Linnæus, and from thence proceeded to Stockholm, which, fays he, is a finer city than I expected to fee from the defcriptions I had received of it. The fituation is beautiful and picturesque.It is very well built, the streets in general are broad, strait and regular; and the public buildings are many of them great ornaments to the place.'

The state of commerce, arts, agriculture, government, &c. in Sweden, are particularly noticed; the principal accounts of which this Writer received in his converfations with Baron Miftler and Sir Charles Linnæus. His progrefs through the unfrequented province of Dalecarlia appears to have afforded him much fatisfaction; concerning the inhabitants he speaks in these terms: I do not remember any where to have seen a people that had more appearances of perfect content and happinefs among them. They are bleffed with almost an unin terrupted flow of health, which is owing to the hardiness of their lives, attended with wholefome diet: a bolder, braver, hardier race of men, I apprehend, do not exift than the DaleREV. July 1772. carlians.

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carlians. They appear to be a very honeft, fimple, but plainly fenfible people; they are as hofpitable as can well be conceived, infomuch, that had I been eager and attentive to take advantage of this good difpofition, I fhould have travelled through their province fpending nothing but good words: indeed, money is fo fcarce here, that paying them what they demanded, without the leaft hefitation, and forcing money upon fome of them, ftill my expences in travelling were low beyond conception. I have feveral days travelled forty miles, and paid for myfelf, man, and five horfes, with two or three meals and a night's lodging, only the value of three fhillings English. Indeed I took up with the food of the peafants, fat at their board, and was particular in nothing but fetting up my own bed. This was a mode of travelling, extremely defirable in fo wild a country, where the peafants are the only people in it that demand the leaft attention; and whoever is fond of feeing the strong variations of human life and manners, would, with the utmost pleasure, accept the company of Dalecarlian peafants: but I had another ftrong motive for relishing this method of travelling, which was, the opportunity it gave me of making enquires into the domeftic economy of the country through which I paffed; and by habituating myself to look with fome degree of curiofity upon every piece of cultivated land, and by asking many questions concerning their management and fuccefs, I came at length to find real entertainment in the bufincfs, and gained a fmattering of knowledge in the art of agriculture.'

In the beginning of the third volume we have a very agreeable account of the country-feat and confiderable improvements of M. de Verfpot, who, after having for twenty years attended the government of Sweden as a fenator, retired hither, and determined to make country occupations the only business of his life.

But paffing over many other particulars, we fhall only extract a part of what is faid concerning the manners and character of the Swedes. I have attended to them, fays this Writer, with as much affiduity as I was able, and—I think they seem to have as good parts as any other nation in Europe, and much fuperior to fome. They are by no means dull of apprehenfion; are ready in their anfwers upon any fubject with which they are acquainted; have nothing of phlegm in their character; they are in general as chearful a nation as I know, not a noify buffling people, that are one moment in grief and the next laughing: they have not fo much vivacity as the French, but, I think, they have, upon the whole, as much as the English. They are in general a very patient and an induftrious

induftrious people, and capable, with proper encouragement from the government, of making a great progrefs in the arts and sciences, and in manufactures and commerce; all waich are very valuable qualities, when they meet in a nation of tuch acknowledged bravery.-The manners of all ranks of people in Sweden are very agreeable: the fuperior claffes have an ealy natural politeness, which prejudices you in their favour at first acquaintance. They have not a fwift, or formal, nor pert or foppish, but a plain eafy carrriage and manner, which is the refult of good fenfe and humanity. Their converfation is agreeable, and they pay great attention to foreigners, without troubling them with national customs and ceremonies.—I remarked that the peasants in general are a very contented happy people; there are few cottages in Sweden that have not lands annexed to them, by which means they raise many products which are of infinite ufe to them in keeping themselves and families. England, it will certainly be allowed, is as free a country as any man can with; and yet our labourers have very feldom more than a small spot for a garden, which is too inconfiderable to be of much fervice to them; nor are the English near fo well fatisfied with their lot as the Swedish pealants; they are not fo tightly dreffed, their cottages are not near fo good, and their poverty, in general, is much more apparent; all which I attribute to the circumftance of the Swedes having those small farms with herds of cattle on the wafte, which are of infinite more value to them than all the amount of those taxes which they pay, and from which their brethren in England are not only exempted, but have alfo the advantage of rates publicly raised for their affiftance; of which there is nothing of the kind in Sweden: I know not three peasants in that kingdom, that have not a farm of twenty or thirty acres of land at least, and several herds of cattle. Here, indeed, I fhould give an explanation; for if this was the cafe in England, we fhould have no fuch thing as a labourer to be hired; all would attend merely to their lands; but in Sweden there is no inconvenience in this, for the peasants who work reguJarly in the woods for hire have the fame; but their wives and daughters manage their farms, fo that the men are not taken from their ufual labour, three days out of forty.'

Our Author proceeds to an account of Ruffia, which, like the other parts of his work, is entertaining and inftructive. Concerning the Ruffians, he fays, they are a ftrange people, that carry in all the lower claffes the marks of civility juft emerging from barbarity. They are obedient and very patient, but have a morofeness that feems as if it would never be tamed, The loweft among them live in conftant feverity, yer that does not feem to bow down their fpirits or activity.-The higher claffes,

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claffes, however, appear in fome measure like other people, which is the effect of luxury among them, that every where foftens and humanizes the people among whom it comes. It may be thought odd I should talk of luxury among the Mufcovites, but, allowing for fituation and other circumftances, no court in Europe has more; and particularly in the articles of drefs, equipage, fervants, and the table.-I have been three times at court, which is what we commonly call very splendid; the dreffes of every body are more expensive than I have any where feen all in gold and filver and jewels, but fcarcely any tafte; they have in their dreffes but one ambition, which is to be as rich as poffible, and to have a great change: but as to having any idea of tafte and real elegance, even the nobility feem not to know what it is."

Concerning Mofcow, we are told, it is very irregularly built; but it is a beautiful city, from the windings of the river, and from many eminences which are covered with groves of fine tall trees, and from numerous gardens and lawns, which opening to the water, give it a moft pleafing airy appearance. I expected to fee nothing but wooden houses, but was agreeably furprised at the fight of many very fine fabrics of brick and ftone. It is beyond comparison a finer city than Petersburg. The number of churches and chapels, amounting, it is faid, to eighteen hundred, make a great figure in the printed descriptions of this city; but from the appearance of them I fhould fuppofe the fact false, and that out of great numbers very few are worthy of note. I faw the great bell, which is the largest in the world, and indeed a moft ftupendous thing it is. They have many other bells in the city, which much exceed any thing that is elsewhere to be met with; the Ruffians being remarkably fond of this ornament of their churches.'

In his account of the Ukraine, Mr. Marfhal obferves, it is the territory which raifes nine tenths of the hemp and flax which at a great expence we import from Ruffia. : We pay, he fays, three or four hundred thoufand pounds a year to the Ruffians for those commodities which our own colonies would produce; and the difference is, that now we pay in cash, but to our colonies we should pay in manufactures: consequently, for want of this measure being effected, we lofe the employment of fo many of our poor as could earn the whole amount of that fum; and we alfo lofe the general profit resulting to the nation at large by their earning fuch a fum of money; for any increase of our national income, raised by an increase of indul try, is beneficial to us in a much greater degree than the mere amount of it.'

Several parts of Poland, through which this Author travelled, Forded him the melancholy profpect of deferted and defolated

eftates

eftates and villages. Warfaw, the capital of the kingdom, he mentions in no very high terms. The royal palace, he says, is a noble building, and beyond comparison the finest edifice in Poland; feveral of the apartments very fpacious, fitted up and furnished in the English manner, by London artists, brought from thence at the King's expence: and notwithstanding the troubles which diftract the kingdom, there is yet, we are told, a magnificence and a brilliancy difplayed around the king of Poland, which fuits very ill with the ftate of his mind, than which by all accounts nothing can be more unhappy.'

Silefia, which our Author next vifited, made a very different appearance from the Polish territories; full of villages well peopled, the land all cultivated, the houfes and cottages in good repair, with the afpect of eafe and happiness, forming fuch a contrast to the wretchedness he had lately feen, that this country appeared like a Paradife. At Berlin he made fome ftay, hiring as good private lodgings for fifteen fhillings the week, as at London would have coft him five and thirty. He faw the King of Pruffia, and expreffes a furprife at finding his health fo good, confidering the great fatigue of body and mind which he has paffed through.-He laments the devaftations of the late war at Drefden, which, he fays, he can eafily conceive, before the deftruction of the fuburbs, was one of the finest cities in Europe; but the Pruffians have much reduced its beauty, by burning down a great part of its most beautiful quarters.' The amazing difference of the event of the war, he adds, to Brandenburg and Saxony, is ftriking. The latter is fo ruined and exhaufted as to lie almoft at the mercy of any invader, without people, trade, revenues or forces, on a com parison with what all those articles were before the war: on the contrary, the King of Pruffia is in poffeffion of as great an income as ever; a finer army than when he began the war: his dominions fuffered indeed, but the wounds seem to have been but fkin-deep: certainly his country was not made the feat of war in the manner he made that of the Elector of Saxony. The contralt indeed is fo ftriking, that if ever a new war breaks out between Prufha and Auftria, Saxony most undoubtedly will not join the latter.'

Among his obfervations upon agriculture in Germany, we find the following juft reflections: The owners of extensive landed eftates, in poor countries, have all an opportunity, like Baron Skulitz, (who has confiderably improved and enlarged his lands and plantations in Germany,) of increafing their income; and it is very amazing they do not oftener take the advantage of it. If, like the nobleman here mentioned, they would refide upon their estates, instead of spending all their time in the capital, fquandering their revenues in a gulf of

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luxury,