Mr. Baretti brings the devil very ludicroufly into this political differtation, and with as much impropriety as the elegant Spaniards bring him upon the stage. We pretend not to determine in what words and actions the devil interferes; but private intolerance and invectives feem to be as much his province, as a calm political hypothefis, however erroneous.

We fhall not enter into a minute difcuffion of a curious fubject, nor attempt to unravel the perplexity of our author; but we fhall here fubjoin a few obfervations, and oppofe the crudity of prejudice with the maturity of truth.

Climate, and government, will, in every country, influence the human mind; but the effects of climates and government may be counteracted.

The Italians may be made as brave and as generous as the old Romans, or the modern Britons; but this could only be effected by the flow progrefs, and the fevere difcipline which gained the Romans the dominion of the world.

we

Mr. Baretti talks about the intrinfic nature of man: fhould be glad to know what that intrinfic nature is, exclu five of all external impreffions?

But the writers, whom he contemptuously calls puny philofophers, have not fo much contemplated the different countries of the world in their ideal as in their real ftate; have not fo much confidered what they might have been, as what they are. Education and habit make an individual, or a community virtuous, or depraved; they characterize the man, and the majority of a country; they determine their nature. The Turk, in his political chara&er, is actuated by fear; the Englishman by freedom; and each of them, as he is thus influenced, fhows the formation of his nature, his intrinsic and diftinguishing character. From Mr. Baretti's way of reafoning, we may infer, that continence is as inherent in a woman of the town as in a woman of honour. But the two forts of women will never be looked upon as people of the fame difpofition, because it is in the power of every woman to be

virtuous.

Query. Whether is it more abfurd to affert that the French are lively and gay, and the Dutch and Germans phlegmatick, and heavy, or to deny that these are true characteriftics of thefe nations?

--

Let us fuppofe, fays our author, for arguments fake, the English ftripped of their prefent fuperiority over all the present nations, which they have undoubtedly obtained by dint of fuperior activity: let us fuppofe their influence not extending much beyond their native land, as it is in a great measure the, cafe with the Spaniards; can any body be feriously of opinion that the nature of the English would alter in fuch a cafe, and

their prefent characteristicks undergo any real change; that they would intrinfically be lefs courageous than they are at prefent; lefs liberal, lefs apt to cultivate all sciences; lefs apt to perfect all arts -Moft undoubtedly they would. Mr. Baretti might have paid England many compliments, without departing from reason and found argument. The inhabitants of our island are men; and therefore, fubject, like those of other states, to a defection from private and publick virtue.

The cafe, which he here fuppofes, could not exift without a great alteration in our government; nor, confequently, without a great alteration in our dispositions and manners.

The errors of his theory proceed from his mifapprehenfion, and confufion of ideas and terms. In his fpeculation upon man, he distinguishes not the phyfical being from the moral and political agent our original frame and capacities are not difcriminated in his reafoning from the conftitution into which they are moulded by difcipline and habit, which conftitution, when once fixed, is as inherent in us, is as much ours, as the power of thinking, or the circulation of the blood.

The English have not become fuperior to other nations merely by their activity, but likewife by their excellent form of government, by their genius and valour. Mr. Baretti talks of exerting our faculties in the eafy difcovery of our own perceptions; he fays, that men have no inherent qualities but what are common to the whole fpecies.'-These mistakes deferve no confutation; we shall impute them to his want of a proper knowledge of the English language. If Mr. Baretti had kept to a fimple account of what he heard, and what he faw, he would have done his book more credit than he has, by attempting moral and political difquifitions..

In a great part of this long letter, we have a minute account of the Spanish learning, and the Arabian poetry; which may gratify whimsical curiofity, but it contributes very little to improve the taste, or to enlarge valuable erudition.

Mr. Baretti continues an entertaining account of Madrid; of the manners of its inhabitants; of its new amphitheatre, and royal academy.

For the honour of the ladies of Madrid, we shall extract an account which was given him of their manners by Doña Paula, a lady of that metropolis.

I have heard much, faid fhe, of your Italian, Cicifbeo's, and, as far as I can judge, they are the fame thing with what we call Cortejos; that is, gentlemen who attend on ladies with fome fort of affiduity. But I must tell you, that we have fo far improved upon your countrymen, as to divide our male friends into three claffes, which we call Año's, Eftrecho's, and Santo's,

• I well

I well remember, faid I, that by these words I have fome times been puzzled, especially in reading your comedies, entremefes, and books of wit and humour; but never had an opportunity thoroughly to understand their various meanings.

Know then, interrupted the, that on the last day of the year it is the general custom here for many friends to meet in the evening to draw the Año's. All the names of the gentlemen and ladies prefent, no matter whether married or unmarried, are written upon bits of paper, and feparately thrown, the gentlemen's in one hat, the ladies in another. Then the youngest perfon in company draws a gentleman's name with one hand and a lady's with the other. The two perfons thus drawn are to be Año's (that is, years) during the next twelvemonth. Thus a lady's Año acquires a kind of right to be oftener in her company than he would otherwife have been. He enters her house at any hour; dines with her when he pleases without previous invitation; pays her a regular courtship; and in fhort becomes in a manner aggregated to her family.

There is no other difference, continued Doña Paula, be tween the Año's and the Eftrecho's, but that the Año's are chofen on the laft day of the year, and the Eftrecho's on the twelfth night. Each Eftrecho's name is alfo drawn together with a Copla or Seguedilla, of which there are innumerable compofed by our wits for this purpose and bought ready printed. Thefe kinds of epigrams, commonly fatyrical, excite often the mirth of the company, efpecially when they chance to fquare with the perfonal character of him or her, whose name comes out with the Copla. Eftrecho, means a clofe friend. As to the Santo's, they are likewife the fame thing with the Año's and Eftrecho's. They are drawn on Christmas eve; but, instead of Coplas and Seguedillas, we draw them with the names of faints, from which circumftance they have their name; to the faint that comes out with the lady's name, the gentleman drawn with her is to pay particular devotion during that year, and fo the lady to that which is drawn with the gen tleman's name.

By thefe means, continued Doña Paula, the ladies make fure of conftant vifiters, when they ftay at home, and attendants when they go out; and as thefe drawings of names generally precede a fupper, they always prove very chearful; efpecially when it happens, as was my own cafe this year, that the hufband and wife are drawn together. I am actually my husband's Eftrecha, and of course have a right to command his attendance upon me till next Epiphany day.

I fhould not diflike thefe fafhions, faid I, was I to stay. for years in this town, and the foreigners who refide amongst you, must certainly find it very convenient, to become thus at

once

faves, and dogs, gems and mufcle-pearls, polished horse-bits of bone, horfe-collars, amber toys, and glass veffels.

Such was the nature of our foreign commerce when the Romans fettled among us. And it inftantly received a confiderable improvement from the Romans. This appears fufficiently from that very remarkable particular in the interior history of the island, the sudden rise and the commercial importance of London within a few years after their first. settlement in the island. But the trade was no longer carried on by the two great roads to the fouthern fhore, and the ftaple was no longer fettled in the Isle of Wight. The principal trade ftill appears to have been confined to the fouth in general and to the regions of Middlesex Kent Suffex and Hampthire in particular. But the commerce was diffused over the whole extent of the Roman conquefts, and was carried on directly from the western and the eaftern fhores as well as from the fouthern. Thus new ports were opened on every fide of the island, most indeed about the fouth eastern angle of it, but fome along the eastern and the western coafts. Thus Middlefex had the port of London, Kent the ports of Rhutupa Dubris and Lemanis, Suffex had the ports Adurnum Anderida and Novus, and Hampshire had the port Magnus. And thus Yorkshire had its port Felix on one fide, and Lancashire had its port Siftuntian on the other. Thefe were evidently the commercial ports of the Roman Britons. Had they been merely the useful harbours upon the coafts, as they muft cer tainly have been much more confiderable in number, as they must certainly have been mentioned upon every part of our coafts, fo must they have been equally noticed upon the coafts of Caledonia and the fhores of Ireland. They were all of them harbours first used by the Romans, they had all of them cities first raised by the Romans upon them, and under the Romans they must all have become confiderable ports for commerce. And the articles introduced into the island at these ports were the many particulars which I have previously mentioned to have been introduced into Britain by the Romans, as fugar, pepper, ginger, writing paper, and other fimilar articles perhaps, befides them. The faccharum or fugar of the Romans, like our own, was the extracted honey of a cane, was brought from Arabia or from India, and was used only for medicinal purpofes. And all thefe fpices appear plainly from their Roman-British appellations to have been actually imported among us by the Romans. And the articles exported from the island must have been partly the fame as before, and partly the additional particulars of gagates or jet, the British jet being the beft and the moft copious in Europe, bears for the foreign amphi theatres, baskets, falt, corn, and oysters.

Such was the foreign commerce of the island in general during the refidence of the Romans among us. And fuch must have been in part or in whole the foreign commerce of our own port in particular. This was not merely the port of a fingle county. It was the only commercial harbour along the whole line of the western coast, and had no rival from the Cluyd to the Land's End, And the exports of the neighbouring region, the lead of Derbyhire and the falt of Chefhire, the corn the cattle and the hides of the whole, muft have been all shipped at the port of the Ribble. The British dogs in general were a very gainful article of traffic to the Romans. And as all the interior countries of Britain, then firft turned up by the plough, muft have produced the moft luxuriant harvests at first, fo the whole island freighted no lefs then eight hundred veffels with corn every year for the continent,?

Madrid would dare to entertain the leaft thought to her difad vantage.

•And are your fingle ladies, faid I, vifited with the fame familiarity by their Año's, Eftrecho's, and Santo's ?

In

Not quite fo, anfwered the lady. But they are not kept under that great restraint you may have read of in books. general they pass the morning in their apartments, to which few men are admitted befides their mafters of writing, mufick, and dancing. But they always dine at their parents table, and converfe of course with our daily guefts with as much freedom as with their brothers; and at night we take them to all Vifitas and Tertullias without any fcruple, and let them dance and fing their fill at home as well as at our friends houfes during the longest evenings; nor are we afraid to fee them talk to any gentleman, fully perfuaded that no man would dare to address them but in terms of the highest respect.

I hope now, continued Doña Paula, that you will dismiss your paft notions of us, and believe that our husbands and fathers are far from being fuch jealous and tyrannical brutes, as they are painted in French romances; but as I fee that you want to take the minutest notice of our manners and customs, I will take you to Fuencarral fome day next week, that you may see more and more of us; how freely we live with our friends, and happily with our husbands.

6

And pray, madam, what is it that you call Fuencarral ? It is a village, the replied, about two leagues from town, where gentlemen and ladies refort in parties on fine afternoons, under the pretence of Merendar, that is, of eating a fallad, and tafting a mufcadel-wine, for which the territory of that village is much renowned. We often go there, attended by our Santo's, Año's, Eftrecho's, or any other friend.

But, madam, your husbands

• Our husbands chufe fometimes to be of the party, fometimes not. When they come, fo much the better. However, I must add, that ladies never go there but feveral together, not fo much for the fake of decency, as because the more the ladies, the chearfuller the party. There while the Merenda is making ready, or after it, we commonly dance or fing, or walk about with the greatest hilarity.'

The rest of this volume contains many amufing obfervations and occurrences in his way to Sarragoffa the capital of Arragon; through Alcala de Henares, Torrixa, Daroca, &c.-In this journey too, he takes care to remind his readers how fu perior he is in fenfe and penetration to all preceding travellers.

[To be concluded in our next Review. ]

II. Phile