the mists of gothic ignorance, if the love of novelty, the desire of conquest, or rather the impulse of the Deity, had not invited them to exchange their hardy wilds for a more productive soil, and transferred to their possession the relics of Roman refinement and Roman magnificence.

It is easy to distinguish the principal events which concur in overthrowing the reign of ignorance, and the particular epochas when civilization succeeds; but the intermediate steps to this succession; the minute gradation from one to the other, are entirely concealed from the observations of the most acute inquirer. The reason of this deficiency is found to consist in the intimate conection between the cultivation of science, and the progress of civilization; the chain of reciprocal dependence is never broken; the retardment or promotion of the latter unerringly follows the depression or rise of the former: But, the study of history is that branch of science which is most incompatible with the manners and occupations of a savage life, and the last which is resorted to; for scarcely can those uncouth hieroglyphicks be dignified with the name of history, which Cortez upon his first invasion of the Mexicans found to be their only attempts of

transmitting to posterity the remembrance of their early atchievements. The very wish indeed of preserving to distant ages the relation of present occurrences, implies a considerable advancement in knowledge; it is therefore truly observed by Robertson, that "Whoever attempts to trace the operations of men in more remote times, and to mark the various steps of their progress in any line of exertion, will have the mortification to find that the period of authentic history is extremely limited."

Although I am not desirous of appearing a champion of those times, when the overbearing insolence, or violent ambition of any individual could involve his country in the miseries of a civil war; when society was connected by no tie, and property protected by no regulation; yet I cannot but consider them as more favourable on the whole to the excursions of poetical genius. The unrestrained licence of the actions communicates its influence to the productions of the imagination, and impresses them with a wildness of sublimity, an original spirit, which characterize the poetry of the earlier ages. When the laws of society are more clearly established, the rights of property more accurately defined and respected, the conceptions of the mind be

come also more regular, and consequently more limited, and to the lofty effusions, the irregularity of genius, succeed the temperate calmness, the methodical arrangement of more refined composition, Numerous reflections crowd on the mind when surveying this wonderful revolution in the ideas and pursuits of mankind. I have always thought it a part of history most replete with interest and instruction; it teaches man the real strength of his faculties, the efforts and improvement of which they are capable; and above all, the necessity of exertion. The record of sanguinary contests, of "empires lost and won” may dazzle the imagination, and amuse the fancy; but the gradual advancement of society from rudeness and confusion, to refinement and order; the tardy but certain progress of the arts and sciences to perfection, are objects far more worthy the attention, more important to the interests of humanity. When we look on the present condition of the European states, who seem to have surpassed every possible degree of elegance and knowledge; when we observe the nicety to which the rules of taste are reduced, and the exact discrimination with which the least infringement of them is detected, and exposed to the severity of criticism, can we think it credible that their citi

zens are the lineal posterity of those unsettled tribes, whose very name conveys the idea of savage, unlettered barbarians, whose actions demonstrate that the term is not wrongly applied? Who then will refuse the proper tribute of praise to that art, and to the professors of it, which has been most instrumental in introducing and perfecting this momentous improvement? Poetry is the first of the finer arts, into which uncivilized nations deviate, and the veneration which they universally attached to the character of their bards and minstrels, proves the influence which ît possessed over their hearts. The Orpheus, the Amphion of antiquity, were the first civilizers of their native country; the first who united their countrymen in the bonds of society, who softened the uncouth asperity of their manners by the power of their strains, added to the attraction of the art which they had invented.

N.

THE

MINIATURE.

NUMB. IV.

MONDAY, May 14, 1804.

Sic omnia fatis

In pejus ruere, ac retro sablapsa referri.

Virg. Geor. 1. v. 200.

Thus all below, whether by nature's curse,
Or Fate's decree, degenerate into worse.

DRYDEN.

HAVING already examined the slow progress

of nations to civilization, and the various obstacles or impediments which the weakness of human nature, or attendant circumstances might oppose to their rising from darkness into light; I am now led on to consider, (and it is a melancholy consideration) how rapidly those very nations which have been thus slowly cultivated into perfection, sink from the heighth of grandeur,