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and who has been for many years employed in constructing a map of his native state, North Carolina. He has encamped, hundreds of times, on the borders of the dismal he describes, and has penetrated further into it than any of his countrymen. His calculations, therefore, though, from the nature of the subject, not infallibly or mathematically true, may yet claim a considerable degree

of credit.

That part of the Great Dismal, lying between Albermarle Sound and the frontier of Virginia, contains about two hundred and fifty square miles. It is a vast plain, slightly inclined, the greatest elevation of the highest above the lowest part being about thirty feet. This inclination, though insufficient to drain off all the moisture, does yet occasion a considerable flow of waters, south-eastward, into a space called Lake Drummond. This lake is a sort of standing pool, whose bottom resembles the soil of the swamp. It is apparently motionless, and transparent as air; thronged with fish, and between three and four feet deep. The banks or borders of this lake are of somewhat firmer footing than the neighbouring spaces, the timber is taller, and the undergrowth less perplexing. They have even afforded an asylum and subsistence to fugitive negroes for several years.

The margin of the swamp abounds with pine, oak, poplar, gum, and an evergreen called laurel, all of gigantic size. The swamp itself produces the same species, but here they degenerate into pigmies, whose height is from fifteen to twenty feet, and whose trunk is generally equal to the wrist. The smallness of the trees is compensated by their number, and the exuberance of flowering or berry-bearing plants amazing. Lake Drummond, though supplied chiefly by that part of the dismal now under our view, lies within the frontier of Virginia. Exclusive of this, and of the Virginian part of the swamp, the area of the Great Dismal is 250 square miles, or 160,000

acres.

VOL. III. NO. XVIII.

For the Literary Magazine.

VISIT TO THE PRISONS OF VE

NICE.

DR. MOSELY has given the forlowing account of the prisons at Venice:

"I was conducted," says he, "through the prison, with one of its inferior dependents. We had torches with us. We crept along narrow passages, as dark as pitch: in some of them two people could scarcely pass each other. The cells are made of massy marble, the architecture of the celebrated Sansovino.

"The cells are not only dark, and black as ink, but, being surrounded and confined with huge walls, the smallest breath of air can scarcely find circulation in them. They are about nine feet square, on the floor, arched at the top, and between six and seven feet in the highest part. There is to each cell a round hole, of eight inches diameter, through which the prisoner's daily allowance of twelve ounces of bread and a pot of water is delivered to him. There is a small iron door to the cell. The furniture of the cell is a little straw, and a small tub: nothing else. The straw is removed, and the tub emptied, through the iron door, occasionally.

"The diet is ingeniously contrived for the perpetuation of punishment. Animal food, or a cordial nutritious regimen, in such a situation, would bring on disease, and defeat the end of this Venetian justice.

"Neither can the soul, if so inclined, steal away, wrapt up in slumbering delusion, or sink to rest, from the admonition of her sad existence, by the jailor's daily return.

"I saw one man, who had been in a cell thirty years; two who had been twelve years; and several who had been eight and nine years in their respective cells.

"By my taper's light, I could discover the prisoners' horrid countenances. They were all naked. The man who had been there thirty years in face and body was covered with

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long hair. He had lost the arrangement of words, and the order of language. When I spoke to him, he made an unintelligible noise; expressed fear and surprize; and, like some wild animals in deserts, which have suffered by the treachery of the human race, or have an instinctive abhorrence of it, he would have fled like lightning, if he could."

Here, in several circumstances attending the fate of one of the prisoners, we perceive a close resemblance between what I suppose is a faithful relation, and Sterne's fancied description of his "Captive." The latter describes his situation in the most pathetic and affecting manner. "I beheld," says he, his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it is which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish. In thirty years, the western breeze had not once fanned his blood. He had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time; nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. His children-but here my heart began to bleed, and I was forced to go on with another part of the portrait."

Where is that being who can read unmoved this pathetic description? where is the heart unaffected by the miseries of the unfortunate captive? It affects even to weeping, and we melt at the recital of such intolerable misery.

But how are we affected by the doctor's relation? here is only a statement of facts, plain and unadorned. "He was covered in face and body with long hair." The hardships he had endured were too terrible for nature; her noblest work, the form, was defaced; the general outline still remained, but like some noble edifice defaced by the hand of war, its shattered remains exhibited but the shadow of its former glory. He was rendered like a wild beast, a monster; an alien from his species, and an outcast from society.

Shade of the sentimental, the pa

thetic Sterne! if still thou wanderest amidst the scenes of earth; if still thou art sensible of what is passing among thy fellow creatures; if still thy sensibility can suffer beneath the attempts which envy may make to depreciate thy merit; think not I rank among those who would endeavour to exalt the living, by attacking the dead. No: thou wilt rather receive pleasure at beholding justice rendered to thy fellow mortal, though it may partially interfere with thy own claims. But the effusions of so humble a scribe can never pain thy spirit, or interrupt its repose.

"He had lost the arrangement of words, and the order of language.” This simple relation paints at once his situation, better than whole pages of elaborate description. If we are melted at the picture of Sterne, here we are completely overpowered; we are struck dumb with horror, pity, and indignation; it strikes with the force of a thunderbolt; a dreadful weight of inexpressible sensations suspends the use of every faculty. Before we wept; here our feelings are too painful, too intolerable, to be relieved by tears, or vented by utterance.

"When I spoke to him, he made an unintelligible noise; expressed fear and surprize; and, like some wild animals of the desert, which have suffered by the treachery of the human race, or have an instinctive abhorrence of it, he would have fled like lightning, if he could." To him language had become useless ; he had none to converse with, none to whom he might impart a knowledge of his sufferings, or communicate his ideas. For thirty years he had not heard the sound of the human voice. For thirty years, reflection alone could present him with any subject for contemplation; the view of nature was obstructed by the narrow and blackened walls of a loathsome and detested cell. "He had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time, nor had the western breeze once fanned his blood." Language could only employ itself in curses on

his tyrants, or in petitions to his God. Memory sunk beneath a load of miseries, and words were no longer recollected.

Alas! to him the sight of man was dreadful. His detested prison had not for thirty years been cheered by his presence. He remembered him only as the author of his woes, as a cruel and unrelenting tyrant. To him he came not as a friend, as a brother, to pity and assist him, or sympathise with him in his sufferings; no wife, no children came to comfort him in his inexpressibly horrid confinement. The appearance of man, who ought to be the friend of man, was torture to his soul. He rushed not to his embrace; he folded him not to his bosom; to him he looked not for friendship; he knew him not as a man, but as an object of terror; he fled from him like a wild beast; he had lost all his native dignity; his mental faculties were destroyed by the sufferings he had endured. Oh horrid picture!

March 5th, 1805.

VALVERDI.

For the Literary Magazine.

A STAGE COACH ANECDOTE.

TWO passengers set out from their inn in London, early on a December morn. It was dark as pitch; and one of them, not being sleepy, and wishing for a little conversation, endeavoured, in the usual travelling mode, to stimulate his neighbour to discourse. "A very dark morn, sir." "Shocking cold weather for travelling." "Slow going in these heavy roads, sir." None of these questions producing a word of answer, the sociable man made one more effort. He stretched out his hand, and feeling the other's habit, exclaimed, "What a very comfortable coat, sir, you have got, to travel in!" No answer was made, and the enquirer, fatigued and disgusted, fell into a sound nap,

nor awoke until the brighest rays of a winter's sun accounted to him for the taciturnity of his comrade, by presenting to his astonished view a huge bear, luckily for him muzzled and confined, in a sitting posture.

For the Literary Magazine.

ADVERSARIA.

NO. VI.

PROPERTY AND MARRIAGE.

ALMOST all the relative duties of human life will be found more immediately, or more remotely, to arise out of the two great institutions of PROPERTY AND MARRIAGE; they constitute, preserve, and improve society. Upon their gradual improvement depends the progressive civilization of mankind; on them rests the whole order of civil life. These two great institutions convert the selfish as well as the social passions of our nature into the firmest bands of a peaceable and orderly intercourse; they change the sources of discord into principles of quiet; they discipline the most ungovernable; they refine the grossest, and they exalt the most sordid, propensities; so that they become the perpetual fountain of all that strengthens, and preserves, and adorns society; they sustain the individual, and they perpetuate the race. Around these institutions all our social duties will be found, at various distances, to range themselves; some more near, obviously essential to the good order of human life; others more remote, and of which the necessity is not, at first view, so apparent; and some so distant that their importance has been sometimes doubted; though, upon more mature consideration, they will be found to be outposts and advanced guards of these fundamental principles; that man should enjoy the fruits of his labour, and that

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My great attention to the interests of those of my female friends who may honour my scraps with their notice, has, no doubt, been discovered before now, and, I hope, has received its merited thanks. As few things excite their curiosity so much as the dresses of their neighbours, I copy, for their amusement, Homer's description of the garments of Irene, when employed in a much more important undertaking than an exhibition at a birth-night, or an attack on the heart of a beau; and I beg them to imitate her simplicity, whatever they may think of her nudity. A modest commentator, the learned Eusebius, exults not a little at finding that Irene resorted to none of those contemptible artifices to embellish her face, and that she could decorate herself without the aid of a mirror or a maid.

Her artful hands the radiant tresses ty'd;
Part on her head in shining ringlets

roll'd,

Part o'er her shoulders wavy'd like melted gold.

Around her next a heavenly mantle flow'd,

That rich with Pallas' labour'd colours glow'd;

Large clasps of gold the foldings ga

thered round;

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make of the familiarity and levity which distinguish the behaviour of their beaux. The fact is, the evils they lament they themselves create. It is in the power of any lady to command the respect of her admirers. It is they who polish the manners and soften the rugged nature of man. In ancient times, in the gallant days of chivalry, the slightest favour was prized with a sort of reverence, because it was rare, and was only the reward of merit. But by degrees such marks make a well turned compliment, were bestowed on all who could and according to the degree of its absurdity. As women value their favours so will they be prized.— There is an old proverb on this subject, but it is musty.

The din of politics, in all companies, makes one sometimes envy the Carthusian monks, of whom it is said, they lived a life of tranquillity, amidst the general tumults which distracted the rest of the world, of mours, and knew nothing of the which they hardly heard the rumighty sovereigns but by name, Hist. iv. 128. when they prayed for them. Volt.

The same writer makes use of a simile, which is as happily conceived as it is elegantly expressed.

The artificers and merchants, them from the ambitious fury of the whose humble station had protected great, were like ants who dug themselves peaceable and secure habitations, while the eagles and vultures of the world were tearing one another in pieces.

Although retirement is my dear delight, says Melmoth, yet, upon some occasions, I think I have too much of it, and I agree with Balsac, Que la solitude est certainement une belle chose, mais il y a plaisir d'avoir quelqu'un a qui on puisse dire de tems en tems que la solitude est une belle chose. Solitude is certainly a fine thing, but there is a pleasure in having some one whom

we may tell, from time to time, that solitude is a fine thing.

It is the disadvantage of retirement and solitude, that men fall into erroneous and fantastical opinions, for want of sifting and proving them in conversation and friendly debate.

I observe a turbulent and factious spirit is just beginning to manifest itself, in some parts of this still unsettled country, which would tear up the ancient land marks of government, and eradicate every principle of a really free constitution. Innovations are always dangerous, and innovators have always been feared. Diodorus Siculus informs us of a regulation of Charondas, the legislator of Thurium, in Magna Græcia, which, with some mitigation of its severity, I should be glad to see in force here.

Charondas is said to have instituted a most strange regulation, with regard to the amendment of laws; for, observing, in most states, the established forms and government disturbed, and the people drawn into insurrection, by the number of persons who undertook to reform the constitution, he made this singular and unprecedented law. He ordained, that any person who wished to amend any law, should attend, when the senate met to consider it, with his head in a noose, and there continue till the sentiments of the people on the proposed amendment were declared. If it was confirmed by the assembly, he was released; but, if it was negatived, he was immediately strangled.

The mistakes which some of the English, whose pronunciation is vitiated by habit or affectation, may commit, are ludicrous. A wellmeaning politician might endanger his neck, by wishing the present administration was all haltered; and a whining lover be driven to despair

and a duck pond, by wishing to conquer the art of his mistress, and pointing out to her the haltar of 'ymen.

Matthew Paris has left us an account of the "Devil's Stage-Plays,” as he terms them, said to have been exhibited, with many other curious sights, to the soul of a pious catholic rustic, under the special patronage of the saints. The following is a specimen of this very singular performance.

The scene, Hell.

"First, they (the devils) introduced a very proud man, in his robes, strutting along big, cocking his eye-brows, uttering swelling words; in short, braving all the manners of imperiousness and arrogancy: but while he was threatening horrible executions, and priding himself in his trappings, all on a sudden they turned into a flame around him, burning him most dismally, and then the devils seizing him, tormented him beyond what human malice can imagine."

The other characters, composing this diabolical drama, were a priest, a soldier, a lawyer, his rib, an adulteress with her gallants, two backbiters, and, lastly, a chorus of thieves, incendiaries, and violators of holy places.

No less a personage than St. Anthony, in propria persona, is marshal-general of the troops of Portu-, gal! In 1706, the saint was made a soldier, subaltern, and captain; and being dressed up, he was at length elevated to that of marshalgeneral, with a pension of one hundred and fifty ducats. The first cannon ball, fired by the army of the duke of Brunswick, unfortunately took off the head of the holy general, who had been placed in an open chaise. It is said, that the

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