Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

the human mind poffeffes; but without cultivation, how fhall they spring forth? even the most simple and ordinary elements of our lives, with which we are intimately converfant, when fomewhat varied from their ufual courses, eafily perplex the ignorant. Water is not capable of heat, thought the fimple Otaheitean, when he poured his hands full from the boiling tea-kettle: "Water is not capable of solidity," fays the fun-burnt Weft-Indian; "how falfely thefe Europeans report of their walking over its furface!" "Good heavens!" fays a footy African brought to Europe, at the fight of falling fnow, "it rains white rain! no wonder the people are white!"

At a time when the Conclave were affembled at Rome to elect a Pope, the plague broke out in that city (the very name implies devastation and mortality); many of the Cardinals died, many forfook the city; but one abode calmly in his palace, continued his conduct as ordinary, and preferved his dwelling from contagion: this was thought such a miraculous distinction as implied divine election, and, accordingly, he was chofen Pope. What was his fecret? fimply this: he perceived that the disorder was occafioned by stagnated air; he knew that, in confequence, a circulation of air would prevent it, and he knew that fire circulated air; the expence, therefore, of a few fires, to renew the aerial fluid, preserved himself and his household.

we,

I fhall be permitted to obferve, that, in many refpects, in thefe days, poffefs much knowledge, and many opportunities of knowledge, which former ages were unacD quainted

quainted with:-we are not now, as ALEXANDER was on the banks of the Indus, terrified at the retreat of the tide, and ready to confider it as the effect of divine anger; or, what would now be thought of a commander in chief, who, like CÆSAR, fhould omit to provide against the spring tide at a full Moon? and yet this very omiffion coft Cæfar many veffels, and risked the whole expedition in his first voyage to Britain.

[ocr errors]

If we turn our infpection to civil life, we must admit, that not only the materials of every manufacture, but also the principles of art, and of elegance, arise from the study of nature. In a commercial country, like this, I might remark that much of our very neceffaries of life is the product of foreign parts; how should we ever have profited by their ufe, had we continued ignorant of their qualities? We import cotton and filk for our drefs, many kinds of edibles for food, and a variety of other articles that might be named. In the materia medica the ufe of an intimate acquaintance with nature is notorious and undeniable, and a liberal intercourse throughout the globe is, here efpecially, mutually and highly beneficial.

VOLTAIRE, indeed, has faid, it is pity the quinquina (Jefuit's bark) grows in one climate, while the fever is the diforder of another:' but had that ingenious wit recollected, that the neceffity of intercourfe, and friendship, among all mankind is ftrongly implied by giving to one climate what is necessary to another, he would rather have congratulated himself on being able to afcertain, by experience,

the

the virtues of the quinquina, than have murmured against the local appointments of Providence.

Indeed, I venture to fay, that the more we become acquainted with the general distributions of Nature, the less of a repining spirit fhall we indulge: that the highly exalted aromatic might have grown in the cooler climate of the north, is poffible; but could it have acquired that vigour, that power, which its nearer refidence to the Sun has imparted to it? or if, for the fake of that, the folar heat had been augmented, what havock had it made among our milder fruits!

Should I mention the politer studies of mankind, I must needs place an acquaintance with Nature and her productions, as the very foundation of every elegance: it produces a kind of inferior Paradife; wherein (as originally our first parent) WE may behold the infinite variety of creatures, and of objects, may acquire fome kind of knowledge of their properties, manners, and difpofitions; and, by judicious obfervation and remark, may become informed of the natures and the number of our fubjects without travelling over inhofpitable defarts and trackless wastes, over mountains elevated above afcending snows, over burning fands, or over fields of ice.

There is nothing upon which I congratulate myself more heartily, than upon the ease with which information is now acquirable: When I fancy myself a companion of thofe who explored the Andes; when from the fummit of a mountain I survey the clouds rolling below, the lightning

flashing

flashing below; when I hear the thunder bursting below, how interesting the scene! but when the piercing cold cramps the very bones, when the rarefied air render refpiration difficult, but especially, when the defcending mule brings all his feet to a point, when he ftands reconnoitring at the brink of the precipice, when he flides down the mountain's fide, league after league defcending; without a guide, without a path, without a rein, without a possibility of turning, if wrong, and furrounded on every fide by steep down gulphs—not even the Indian Huzza! keeps me from fhuddering terror! Or when, on a wide extended defart of burning foil, I watch the courfe of fome fandy cloud, when it advances, when it obfcures the air, when it envelopes all around, I turn with regret from the general devaftation, and rejoice that the dying groans are only imaginary; Or, if the Samiel breathe its peftiferous vapour, inftant death! I rejoice that I need not proftrate myself to avoid it, or examine the joints of my companions if they retain life enough to crack. In my closet I fear not the fiery glare of northern meteors, nor the fultry beams of a vertical Sun, nor the deftructive damps of deep-funk mines. In my closet I defy the probofcis of the elephant, the roar of the lion, the rapidity of the tyger, the fang of the rattle-fnake, the poison of the serpent: the hungry eagle excites no alarm, the rapacious condour no affright; the enormous whale, the ravenous fhark, I furvey,-but without dread: and, although unable to name every creature according to its properties, as ADAM did, yet, like him,

1

AIR.

London Publish'd by C.Taylor No near Castle Street Holborn Oct 21788.

« AnkstesnisTęsti »