In my very imperfect sketches to my friends I have taken up such detached subjects, as accidentally presented themselves. In my last letter to you I enumerated many of the extraordinary instances of that blind credulity and superstition, for which this country has been distinguished during the later ages, and from the tyranny of which it has not yet been liberated. I could multiply these proofs without limit, but I fear that I have been already too diffuse on this point. I cannot however restrain myself from mentioning two paintings, which made a strong impression upon me to the no small disorder of my risible muscles. The one is a figure of Saint Charles Borromeo, (for whose merits and character you may consult my letters from Milan) who is represented upon his knees before the Virgin Mary, very piously and liberally presenting to her his own heart, which he holds in his hand, The other is a representation of Saint Dennis, and his extraordinary dying miracle. This saint, who is the protector of France, is described as standing with his head in his hand, in a most firm and dignified posture. The painter has taken no poetick license in this representation. He has conformed himself strictly to Catholick history, which states, that St. Dennis, having suffered martyrdom by decapitation, instantly arose, heroically seized his dissevered head, and walked upwards of a mile in that situation, to the utter confusion (no doub:) of his murderers.

But enough of these absurdities, it is more interesting to a man of reflection to learn the effects of such a system on manners and national character. To you it would be needless to remark, that the character of the Italians, and more es

pecially of the Romans, is now in its Nadir. This opinion is too universally admitted to require proof; but general opinions are less interesting, than the facts and details upon which they are founded, especially when these can be obtained from persons, of whose veracity we can form a correct estimate. The country around Rome on every side is in the most deserted, forlorn, and miserable situation, of which the imagination can form any conception. Except where some rich nephew of a pope has erected a princely villa, the country perfectly responds to the description of the ruins of Palmyra or of Babylon, where, as travellers relate, you are compelled to take a guide and wander along the banks of the Euphrates, amidst tygers and other beasts of prey, to discover the spot, where the richest city in the world once reared its proud and lofty turrets.

You will naturally inquire, is the soil miserable? Far from it. Independent of the well known fact, that it was once the most populous and best cultivated country in the world, I assure you, that the soil appears to me to be at present very strong, and capable of producing most abundantly. Naturalists say, and I think the colour and nature of the soil fully support the opinion, that the soil in this part of Italy is the product of ancient volcanoes, or at least that, upon analysis, it is found to be the same with that in the vicinity of Naples, which is known to have been produced by volcanick eruptions. These soils, we know, are remarkable for their fertility, and the gardens and pleasure grounds of the ecclesiasticks and nobility around Rome are incontestible proofs of the excellence of this soil even at the present day. The

climate also is the most favourable for successful culture. It lies in the happy medium between the cold northern and scorching tropical climates.

But this country is said to be unhealthy. This is but too true. No country is more ravaged by autumnal diseases, than the environs of Rome, and even the city itself is not exempt from this calamity. In the vicinity Famine and Misery, Disease and Death surround you; and in the city the pallid countenances of the inhabitants pronounce most eloquently the fatal insalubrity of the air. An official statement, which I have just seen, will give you some idea of this extraordinary city. There are about eighty parish churches; five thousand ecclesiasticks or religious devotees, of both sexes, in celibacy; twenty thousand more males than females; and, for a century past, one thousand more deaths, than births. Still this city was constantly on the increase, till the French revolutionized it and annihilated the ecclesiastical authority, when, losing its only support, it suddenly decreased twenty thousand.

The result of the foregoing statement appears to be, that Rome is a vast gulf, which annually brings within its vortex the population of its neighbours, who there fall victims to its climate. But to what causes are we to attribute this ill state of the atmosphere ?It is well known, that the city itself was healthy in the time of the ancient Romans, and the air of the Campania was more salubrious, than that of the city. Horace, Virgil, Pliny, Cicero, all praise the country air. They retired thither in summer to enjoy the cool shades and refreshing breezes. In autumn it would be, at this day, cer

tain death. A Danish writer, who passed through this country last year, has just published an ingenious treatise on that part of Latium, which is the scene of the six last books of the Æneid. This writer attributes the mortality to the miserable state of the poor inhabitants of this part of Italy, who, after working in their enervating climate, are obliged to lie down, exposed to the chilling night air, without proper covering; and also to the destruction of the woods, which formerly covered a very considerable portion of the country. You know, it is the modern fashion to attribute great virtue to woods, particularly evergreens. They are said to imbibe the noxious particles of the atmosphere, and to emit oxygen, or the salubrious part. I should add, (as still more important) to the causes above cited, the superiour industry of the ancient Romans, who drained the meadows and morasses, with which the Campania abounds, but which are now suffered to exhale putrid miasmata to the destruction of every living animal.

But, it may be asked, why are the modern citizens of Rome so indolent? why have they not inherited the spirit and enterprize of their predecessors? The impediments are ecclesiastical and political.

Ecclesiastical, because the numerous festivals, saints' days, perpetual masses, and pompous ceremonies of the Roman Catholick Church distract the attention, consume the time of the devotees, and prevent that steady and serious attention to their temporal affairs, which the gospel not only permits but enjoins. Ecclesiastical, because the example of two thousand monks, who make mendicity a profession, who perform no manual labour, exercise no useful calling,

but who subsist and build magnificent churches and monasteries by alms, procured in forma pauperis, produces a very ill effect upon the common people, who do not deem it dishonourable to subsist on charity, when some of the orders, whom they venerate, obtain their support by such means. Political, because the lands in Italy are seldom or never owned by the cultivators, but are held in mortmain by the convents and other ecclesiastical establishments. They are therefore never sold, and seldom leased upon long leases or on favourable terms. The tenants in the Ecclesiastical State, where there are tenants, (for in many parts there are none) unable to acquire a title to the property they cultivate, and by their superstition rendered as dependent on the clergy, as the cerfs in Poland on their lords, are idle, indifferent about their residence, and perpetually removing from place to place. The lands by these means are constantly impoverished, and are reduced to the miserable state, in which we now find them.

In addition to these obvious causes, the Papal government, weak and inefficient from its very constitution, always administered by old, and generally feeble superannuated men, aided by constitutional advisers of the same character, has never adopted and probably never will adopt vigorous steps to remedy these radical evils, and to give activity to commerce, without which agriculture must languish.

Having made these remarks on the indolence and wretched culti vation of the inhabitants of the Ecclesiastical State, let me briefly state a few facts, which elucidate and confirm these opinions. The Campania, instead of supplying Rome with provisions, as it for

merly did, and as it is now abundantly capable of doing, actually subsists by bread, drawn from the capital; and it is unquestionable, that the few wretched villagers would perish, if this aid was withdrawn. With this assistance it is nevertheless true, that the inhabitants of the Campania often suffer, and frequently perish of hunger. It is also certain, that Rome itself is crowded with beggars, whose misery need not be represented by complaints, their countenances speak too powerful a language. Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Bordeaux united, cannot exhibit so many objects of real distress, as meet you in every direction at Rome. It is the most distressing picture I ever beheld. You are pursued at every corner by these wretched beings, and if you relieve the necessities of one, you are instantly thronged with twenty oth ers, who will receive no refusal. Importunity would give you but a faint idea of their eagerness and entreaties, it amounts to compulsion. While the heart is thus constantly agitated by the picture of the most complete human misery, it is at the same moment roused to indignation by seeing dapper priests in stockings of bright purple, with hats ornamented with the same rich colour, tripping it lightly along from the shop of the frisseur, unassailed by these poor wretches, who have solicited them too often in vain, or who find by experience that the language of nature pleads more powerfully with strangers, not hardened by familiarity with such scenes of horrour. The rich and luxurious cardinal too, wrapped in his double folds of the richest purple, with princely magnificence, and followed by a long train of liveried do mesticks; rolls along, unheeding

these objects of horrour. You find the poor, at this inclement season, almost without clothes, and you are told, that death often frees them from this complicated distress, produced by famine and nakedness. You may judge what a man of any sensibility, accustomed to seeing the comfort and ease, enjoyed by the lower classes of the people in our country, must feel at such scenes. How can we restrain our indignation at the blindness or indifference of a government, which, neglecting the wise measures of political economy, upon which the prosperity of states depends, suffers the richest and finest portion of the globe not only to remain almost a desert, but to be the scene of the most complicated misery?

What! and are the men, who thus govern this fertile country, and who are thus arrayed in scarlet and fine linen, those who boast that they are the only legitimate representatives of the lowly Jesus, who endured persecution and poverty with meekness and humility, and who commanded his disciples especially to regard the hoor? Yes: And these very magistrates, conscious of this duty, have placed upon all their coins some good maxim, commemorative of the poor; and yet in no part of the world do the poor receive so few of these charitable coins. Is it that they think it necessary to fulfil the words of our Saviour," the poor you have always with you"? But they appear to forget his denunciation against the hard hearted, "I was naked, and ye clothed me not," &c. &c.

I ought in justice to say, that the Roman clergy reply to these objections, that in no city are there so many hospitals and publick. provisions for the poor. But ex

perience teaches us, that there are other institutions, much more useful than hospitals and alms-houses, those which prevent poverty, rather than those which alleviate it after it is produced by a bad system of policy.

The necessaries and even the luxuries of life are not dear at Rome. This will not appear strange to you, who have been accustomed to reflect profoundly on these subjects. Labour is always cheap in wretched countries. Luxuries, for the same reason, are always cheap, the demand being small; and those, who labour for the few, are numerous. In flour, ishing countries, like Great Britain, luxuries are extremely dear. The common people in Italy subsist upon the meanest food, an apple, a pear, and a roasted chesnut, and, on gala days, a fried fish! Behold the sum of Italian luxury !! Bread and meat are too extravagant for the labouring poor.

It is said, that the old practice of using the stiletto for private revenge is still prevalent among the common classes of people. While I was at Milan, one man stabbed and murdered his brother-in-law, and upon inquiry, I was told, that seven cases of that nature had taken place in the course of that month. Whether this is exaggerated or not, I will not undertake to say; but it is certain, that the ancient, abominable privilege of sanctuary, or protection in the churches, palaces of cardinals, and of foreign ambassadors, still exists; so that a man must be very stupid indeed, who cannot find an asylum even for murder. That this practice is as contrary to every principle of sound policy, as to justice, I think no man can deny. Every thing, which tends to facilitate impunity for crimes, must be

injurious to a state. What then must be the condition of a country, when these facilities are so multiplied that every man may, if he chooses, escape capital punishment?

I shall give you some further sketches of the Italian character and customs in a future letter. Adieu.

AN attempt was made in a former paper to expose the evils, arising from our numerous literary institutions; and to show the cause, which so greatly multiplied them. A more arduous task remains, to point out some plan, which may correct those evils, without depriving any of the benefits,now enjoyed. With the present disposition of our country, when exertions are constantly making to increase the numbers of our colleges, it would be the extreme of folly to think of diminishing that number. But

although we cannot stop the torrent, which is ready to overwhelm the whole country; yet we may direct its course, and cause it to fertilise those fields, that it threatened with desolation. Upon the same principle we shall seek, from reform, a power to convert the numerous institutions, which threaten to overwhelm the literary world, into useful establishments for the promotion of science, and the welfare of the community. By this specious word, reform, democracy has undermined the most venerable fabricks of antiquity, and has, in a moment, levelled with the dust the labour of ages. Modern philosophy, supported by it, makes every thing subservient to the pretended useful, and affects to despise whatever does not promote the common arts of life, although

it may tend to its embellishment, or even to the improvement of the human mind. It imposes upon a large portion of the community the belief, that the lowest mechanick is a more useful citizen, than the most polished scholar; and it would relieve youth from the drudgery of learning the dead languages, that their time may be more usefully employed in mathematical studies. While therefore we join in praise of reform, it must be our duty to make publick prejudices subservient to the publick good.

In conformity with these opin ions, we would banish classical literature from our minor universities; but we would transfer the funds from its support to the more ample maintenance of the present instructors, or to the foundation of new professorships, that, by lopping off the decaying branches, the tree might afford sufficient nourishment to the remaining boughs. We would even with some allow, that students might be admitted, without any previous qualification, or for any specifick time, only barring them from any of the honours of the college; in order that every citizen, who was desirous of the acquisition, might obtain information upon any subject of science. Honours and degrees might be liberally distributed to