some distance from great towns; and, to get the cheapest, he must take it uncleared. But was not this a very obvious consideration?

In like manner does he complain of the want of corn-merchants, and the distance from market towns evils which are common to America with every extensive country, ill peopled and deficient in capital.

It may be worthy of remark, that the grain raised in those parts of America passes through a number of hands before it comes to the consumer, which must lessen the grower's gains. He first sends it one or two hundred miles, and from that to eight hundred miles, to market, and commissions a man to sell it; then the miller gets hold of it: there is a cask to put the flour in, which is nearly a waste: there is an inspector to examine the flour: then there is frequently another commission to buy the flour to ship it: then there is the ship's freight to pay, and another commission, warehouseroom in England, &c. All these certainly are great disadvantages: they shackle the commercial interests of those parts called the eastern shore, and lessen the profits of the land's produce."

He complains, also, that most of the common trades are unprofitable in America. A miller's used to be reckoned a good one; but our author asserts, that two millers will not say so. A brewer's business he thinks among the best; but tells a story of an attempt made by one to impose upon him and in Baltimore, where he wished to settle, there were too few inhabitants to render a brewery worth while; nevertheless, he made money by teaching some people who had established one. The leather made in America is bad, though tanning is reckoned profitable; but people make rich by importing leather from England: and he asserts, that more is saved by retailing English hats, at 500 per cent. advance, than by making them in the country. It was surely his own folly, if he expected to find flourishing manufactures in America, or

indeed to see any thing made here, which was sufficiently valuable, in proportion to its bulk, to bear the expence of a voyage from Europe.

In various instances, he betrays his disgust at the inelegant manner of living, common among the cultivators in remote settlements; nor is he satisfied even with the style of the best societies. He seems to be offended with the practice of having early suppers of tea and beef steaks: in short, he is resolved to be contented with nothing that is not English. No one certainly ever thought of recommending America as the land of elegance and refinement; but by his own account the author has no right to complain of New York, or even Baltimore, in this point, and he surely saw no living, in the woods themselves, less choice than his own Lincolnshire regimen thirty years ago, according to the description he has given of it.

"I was accustomed to eat what may be termed black bread, for which the small wheat, called hinder ends, or light wheat, taken out of the best sent to market, is used, and kept for family use; which, being ground, was afterwards passed through a wide sieve, with the small bran searced out of the best wheat flour, and put amongst the bread meal; altogether making a sort of coarse or black bread, and the fine flour used for puddings, pies, &c. Yeast not being then in general use, a piece of dough was kept out of the last baking, and salted; which, before the time of using it for the next batch, becoming sour, this sort of bread acquired the same quality."

"Very fat bacon was the chief of our diet, garden stuff not being in such general use as at this time, excepting the large Windsor beans in summer, and potatoes occasionally in the winter, with pease-puddings. I know no greater dainty to me than these beans and fat bacon, or pease-pudding to the offal of pig's flesh in the winter, or some of the black and fat bacon."

The climate of America is the

to prevent them from "taking a few peaches and apples in a friendly way." All this is merely a proof of abundance, and not of the bad police to which he ascribes it.

Parkinson's turnip crop yielded him three hundred and sixty bushels an acre, which brought in from three acres one hundred and sixtytwo pounds. He had as many bushels of potatoes in an acre. He does not deny that the Indian corn is a most profitable crop; and that a dairy-farm yields very great returns. Even from breeding, which he is most inclined to undervalue, he shows that large gains may be obtained. The American hogs pay most for food, he says, of any he ever saw; and from one sow, he had in eleven months above one hundred and twenty-five pounds. The sheep, too, thrive extremely well, in spite of all his invectives against American stock-farming.Their wool is in general soft and fine; and they might clip for as good clothing-wool as in any part of the world, were the proper at tention bestowed on the breed. The rapid increase of population in America is a more general fact, utterly subversive of all his declama tions against the soil; and his only answer to the obvious refutation which he receives from the great exportation of wheat, is nothing more than an explanation of it. He says, nearly all the wheat grown there is exported, and its place supplied by Indian corn, to which the natives give the preference. How strangely will this sound to those natives, of which there are vast numbers, who do not taste any preparation of maize three times in a year!

What Parkinson means by good land, is land which can support the fat cattle known in the breeding districts of England; and he has confounded the qualities of the soil with the stages of cultivation and the progress of society. He evidently chose the parts of the country where he was sure of meeting with appearances of want and comfortless living. "I was very much at

tached," says he, "to Baltimore, finding that New York and Philadelphia were much cheaper supplied with the land's produce than that city; they having great plenty of hay, more clover than could be sold, excellent beef, good veal (the mutton but middling), pork very fine, turkeys very fine, and all sorts of poultry; vegetables in great plenty. I returned, therefore, from New York," &c. And again, "In my journey between New York and Philadelphia, along that road, the farm houses seemed to be as thickly planted as in most parts of England, and had a greater show of produce than I ever saw any where else in America; but from the best information I could get, land was very dear." Now, where such improvements can proceed, it is manifest that there is no curse upon the soil; that a little time only is required for spreading the same wealthy aspect over the less cultivated districts; and that Mr. P. may possibly live to see, in the neighbourhood of New York, even an imitation of Mr. Bakewell, whom he considers as the greatest man that ever lived. "There is no record,” says he, blunderingly," of such a man existing upon earth, in any age whatever."

In the course of his narrative, we meet with a great deal of low scurrility, sometimes approaching to the nature of libels against individuals; a few specimens occur of the propensity, too common among travellers, to repeat in print what was committed to the confidential intercourse of private society. When general Washington gave him permission to dedicate his book on farming to him, he desired that this might not be mentioned in the dedication, because he had refused a similar request to many of his own countrymen. Our author only half complies with this condition, when he prints it in the body of the present work. He elsewhere relates some comments of his particular friend, an American magistrate and judge, highly disrespectful both to

congress and his country in general. And he tells the whole story of the impositions which his host practised in his trade. The invective against Mr. Cooper is almost actionable. The cause of our author's rage at this gentleman is, that he praised the land in America. The following passage is truly singular, and forms the climax of this traveller's absurdities. "I am persuaded that there are thousands of Americans who, for want of education and attending divine worship, think that man a fool who pays any attention to those duties, believing that cunning is the most necessary qualification for mankind to possess. From their unfortunate independency be ing obtained by artifice, it strengthens their mind much in the practice: the reader may conceive this to be more likely, when it is known that their chief teachers are Tom Paine, doctor Priestley, and others of the same description. Mr. Jefferson, the president, is by many gentlemen in America believed to be an atheist; though, from my own knowledge in being in his company, I have no reason to say so. There are in his writings some allusions to it; and I saw a paragraph in the newspaper, of his having given Tom Paine a pressing invitation to return to America. If so, I should think the report to be true."

For the Literary Magazine.

ANECDOTES OF WASHINGTON.

THE following relations are to be found in the American tour of Mr. Parkinson, lately published. Whether authentic or not, the reader must judge.

"I think," says this traveller, "a large number of negroes to require as severe discipline as a company of soldiers: and that may be one and the great cause why general Washington managed his negroes better than any other man, he being brought up to the army, and by nature in

dustrious beyond any description, and in regularity the same. There are several anecdotes related of him, for being methodical. I was told by general Stone, that he was travelling with his family in his carriage across the country, and, arriving at a ferry belonging to gene ral Washington, he offered the ferryman a moidore. The man said, "I cannot take it." The general asked, "Why, John?" He replied, "I am only a servant to general Washington; and I have no weights to weigh it with: and the general will weigh it; and if it should not be weight, he will not only make me the loser, but he will be angry with me." "Well, John, you must take it; and I will lose three pence in its value :" the ferryman did so ; and he carried it to general Washington on the Saturday night following. The general weighed it; and it was not weight: it wanted three half-pence: general Washington carefully lapped up the three halfpence in a piece of paper, and directed it to general Stone, which he received from the ferryman, on his return. General Stone told me another of his regularities; that, during the time he was engaged in the army in the American war, and from home, he had a plasterer from Baltimore, to plaster a room for him; and the room was measured, and the plasterer's demand paid by the steward. When the general returned home, he measured the room, and found the work to come to less by fifteen shillings than the man had received. Some time after, the plasterer died; and the widow married another man, who advertised in the newspapers to receive all and pay all due to or by her former husband. The general, seeing the paper, made a demand of the fifteen shillings, and received them. Another time, a man came to Mount Vernon to pay rent; and he had not the exact balance due to the general: when the money was counted, the general said, "There wants four pence." The man of fered him a dollar, and desired him

to put it to the next year's account. No, he must get the change, and leave the money on the table until he had got it. The man rode to Alexandria, which is nine miles from Mount Vernon; and then the general settled the account. It was always his custom, when he travelled, to pay as much for his servant's breakfast, dinner, or supper, as for his own. I was told this by the keeper of a tavern, where the general breakfasted; and he made the bill three shillings and nine pence for the master's breakfast, and three shillings the servant's. The general sent for the tavern-keeper into the room, and desired he would make the same charge for his servants as for himself, for he doubted not that they had eaten as much. This shows he was as correct in paying as in receiving. It is said that he never had any thing bought for his use that was by weight, but he weighed it, or any thing by tale, but he had it counted: and if he did not find the due weight or number, he sent the articles back again to be regulated. There is a striking instance related of his condescendency: he sent to a shoemaker in Alexandria to come to measure him for a pair of shoes; the shoemaker answered by the servant, that it was not his custom to go to any one's house to take measure for shoes. The general being told that, mounted his horse, and went to the shoemaker to be measured.

"It may be worthy the reader's notice, to observe what regularity does; since there cannot be any other particular reason given for general Washington's superior powers, than his correctness, that made him able to govern that wild country for it was the opinion of many of his most intimate friends that his intellects were not brighter than those of many other men. To me he appeared a mild friendly man; in company rather reserved; in private speaking with candour. His behaviour to me was such, that I shall ever revere his name. Be fore he died, general Washington

VOL. V. NO. XXX,

himself, with his own hands, closed his eyes and mouth.

"General Washington lived a great man, and died the same. He rode into his plantation in the fore part of the day, came home, and died about eleven o'clock at night, of a putrid sore throat, an inflam matory complaint frequent in America. I conceive it to be occasioned by a poisonous insect received in with the breath. I am of opinion that the general never knowingly did any thing wrong, but did to all men as he would they should do to him. Therefore, it is not to be supposed that he would injure the negro. Cowards only act cruelly to those beneath them. There was an instance of his giving encouragement to duelling, which much surprised military men: two officers had fought a duel; and, according to the laws and regulations of the army, one of them was broke: but in four days afterwards, the general promoted him to a much higher rank. The officers I heard speak of it, said it was done with an intention of making the inferior officers obey their superiors. There is a remark frequently made, of the general's exposing his old white horse to sale, which he rode during the war; which shows that he treated every creature according to its nature; a horse as a horse, a negro as a negro."

For the Literary Magazine.

THE ADVERSARIA, Or Winter Evening Amusements.

NO. XIV.

FEW of our readers have forgotten a fracas, which happened, some years since, between two English poets, in the shop of the respectable Mr. Wright, in Piccadilly. In this encounter, the cowardly attack of Peter Pindar, another name for all that is profane and infamous,

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