influence upon manners: feuds and war, the offspring of wealth, call forth into action friendship, courage, heroifin, and every focial virtue, as well as many selfish vices. How like brutes do we pass our time, without once reflecting on the conduct of Providence operating even under our feet!

*

Diversity of manners, at the fame time, enters into the plan of Providence, as well as diverfity of talents, of feelings, and of opinions. Our Maker hath given us a tafte for variety; and he hath provided objects in plenty for its gratification. Some foils, naturally fertile, require little labour: fome foils, naturally barren, require the extremity of labour. But the advantages of fuch a foil are more than fufficient to counterbalance its barrennefs: the inhabitants are sober, industrious, vigorous; and confequently courageous, fo far as courage depends on bodily strength The difadvantages of a fertile foil, on the contrary, are more than fufficient to counterbalance its advantages: the inhabitants are rendered indolent, weak, and cowardly. Hindoftan may seem to be an exception; for tho' it be extremely fertile, the people however are industrious, and export manufactures in great abundance at a very low price. But Hindoftan properly is not an exception. The Hindows, who are prohibited by their religion to kill any living creature, must abandon to animals for food a large proportion of land; which obliges them to cultivate what remains with double industry, in order to procure food for themfelves. The populousness of their country contributes alfo to make them in

That a barren country is a great fpur to industry, appears from Venice and Genoa in Italy, Nuremberg in Germany, and Limoges in France. The fterility of Holland required all the industry of its inhabitants for procuring the neceffaries of life; and by that means chiefly they become remarkably industrious. Cambden. afcribes the fuccefs of the town of Halifax in the cloth-manufacture, to its barren foil.

VOL. I.

Tt

dustrious.

duftrious. Arragon was once the most limited monarchy in Europe, England not excepted: the barrenness of the foil was the caufe, which rendered the people hardy and courageous. In a preamble to one of their laws, the ftates declare, that were they not more free than other nations, the barrennefs of their country would tempt them to abandon it. Opposed to Arragon stands Egypt, the fertility of which renders the inhabitants foft and effeminate, and confequently an eafy prey to every invader *. The fruitfulness of the province of Quito in Peru, and the low price of every neceffary, occafioned by its distance from the fea, have plunged the inhabitants into fupine indolence, and exceffive luxury. The people of the town of Quito in particular have abandoned themselves to every fort of debauchery. The time they have to fpare from wine and women, is employed in exceffive gaming. In other respects also the manners of a people are influenced by the country they inhabit. A great part of Calabria, formerly populous and fertile, is at prefent covered with trees and fhrubs, like the wilds of America; and the ferocity of its inhabitants correfpond to the rudeness of the fields. The fame is vifible in the inhabitants of Mount Etna in Sicily: the country and its inhabitants are equally rugged,

Fear impreffed by ftrange and unforeseen accidents, is the most potent caufe of fuperftition. What then made the ancient Egyptians fo fuperftitious? No c ther country is lefs liable to ftrange and unforeseen accidents: no thunder, fcarce any rain, perfect regularity in the feafons, and in the rife and fall of the river. So little notion had the Egyptians of variable weather as to be surprised that the rivers of Greece did not overflow like the Nile. They could not comprehend how their fields were watered: rain, they faid, was very irregular; and what if Jupiter should take a conceit to fend them no rain? The fertility of the foil, and the inaction of the inhabitants during the inundation of the river, enervated both mind and body, and rendered them timid and pufillanimous. Superftition was the offfpring of this character, as it is of strange and unforeseen accidents in other countries.

SKETCH

331

THE

SKETCH VIII.

Progress and Effects of LUXURY.

no

has a

'HE wifdom of Providence is in no inftance more confpicuous than in adjusting the conftitution of man to his external circumstances. Food is extremely precarious in the hunter-state ; fometimes fuperabounding with little fatigue, fometimes failing after great fatigue. A favage, like other animals of prey, ftomach adjusted to that variety: he can bear a long faft; and gorges voraciously when he has plenty, without being the worfe for it. Whence it is, that barbarians, who have scarce any fenfe of decency, are great and grofs feeders *. They are equally addicted to drunkennefs; and peculiarly fond of fpirituous liquors. Drinking was a fashionable vice in Greece, when Menander, Philemon, and Diphilus, wrote, if we can rely on the tranflations or imitations of those writers by Plautus and Terence. Diodorus Siculus reports, that in his time the Gauls, like other barbarians, were much addicted to drinking. The ancient Scandinavians, who, like other favages, were intemperate in eating and drinking, swallowed

* In the Iliad of Homer, book 9. Agamemnon calls a council at night in his Before entering on bufinefs, they go to fupper, (line 122.). An embaffy to Achilles is refolved on. The ambaffadors again fup with Achilles on porkgrifkins, (line 271.). Achilles rejects Agamemnon's offer; and the fame night U lyffes and Diomed fet out on their expedition to the Trojan camp: returning before day, they had a third fupper.

large cups to their gods, and to fuch of their countrymen as had fallen bravely in battle. We learn from the 25th fable of the' Edda, which was their facred book, that to hold much liquor was reputed a heroic virtue. Contarini the Venetian ambassador, who wrote ann. 1473, fays, that the Ruffians were abandoned to drunkenness; and that the whole race would have been extirpated, had not strong liquors been discharged by the fovereign. The Kamfkatkans love fat; and a man entertains his guests by cramming into their mouths fat flices of a feal, or a whale, cutting off with his knife what hangs out.

A habit of fasting long, acquired as above in the hunter-state, made meals in the fhepherd-state less frequent than at present, tho' food was at hand. Anciently people fed but once a-day, a fashion that continued even after luxury was indulged in other respects. In the war of Xerxes against Greece, it was pleasantly faid of the Abderites, who were burdened with providing for the King's table, that they ought to thank the gods for not inclining Xerxes to eat twice a-day. Plato held the Sicilians to be gluttons for having two meals a-day. Arrian (a) obferves, that the Tyrrhenians had a bad habit of two meals a-day. In the reign of Henry VI. the people of England fed but twice a-day. Hector Boyes, in his history of Scotland, exclaiming against the growing luxury of his cotemporaries, fays, that fome perfons were fo gluttonous as to have three meals a-day.

Luxury undoubtedly, and love of fociety, tended to increase the number of meals beyond what nature requires. On the other hand, there is a caufe that abridged the number for fome time, which is, the introduction of machines. Bodily ftrength is effential to a favage, being his only tool; wonders. Machines have rendered

(a) Lib. 4. cap. 16.

and with it he performs bodily ftrength of little

importance;

importance; and as men labour lefs than originally, they eat lefs in proportion *. Listen to Hollinfhed the English historian upon that article: "Heretofore there hath been much more time spent σε in eating and drinking than commonly is in these days; for "whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoon, beverages or nuntions after dinner, and thereto rear fuppers when it was time to go to reft; now these odd repafts, thanked be God, are very well left, and each one contenteth himself with dinner and fupper only." Thus before cookery and luxury crept in, a moderate ftomach, occafioned by the abridging bodily labour, made eating less frequent than formerly. But the motion did not long continue retrograde: good cookery, and the pleasure of eating in company, turned the tide; and people now eat lefs at a time, but more frequently.

Feasts in former times were carried beyond all bounds. William of Malmsbury, who wrote in the days of Henry II. fays, "That "the English were univerfally addicted to drunkenness, conti"nuing over their cups day and night, keeping open house, and

spending the income of their eftates in riotous feasts, where eating and drinking were carried to excefs, without any elegance." People who live in a corner, imagine that every thing is peculiar to themselves: what Malmsbury fays of the English, is common to all nations, in advancing from the selfishness of savages to a relifh for fociety, but who have not yet learned to bridle their appetites. Leland (a) mentions a feaft given by the Archbishop of York, at his installation, in the reign of Edward IV. The following is a fpecimen: 300 quarters of wheat, 300 tons of ale, 100 tons of wine, 1000 fheep, 104 oxen, 304 calves, 304 fwine,

* Before fire-arms were known, people gloried in addrefs and bodily ftrength, and commonly fought hand to hand. But violent exercises becoming lefs and lefs neceffary, went infenfibly out of fashion.

(a) Collectanea.

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