2

Gauls. That climate has an important influence, and is the principle cause of the difference in national characters, has been also maintained with considerable ingenuity by Montesquieu, in the fourteenth book of his Spirit of Laws.' That celebrated writer imagines climate to exercise its principal power over the manners; while Cicero, Winklemann, and the Abbé du Bos,3 with equal plausibility, argue for its influence over the mind. But as great events belong exclusively to no age, great genius belongs exclusively to no nation. Neither is there a virtue exercised, a talent cultivated, or a science improved, that may not be exercised, cultivated, and improved, in the torrid and frigid zones, as well as in the temperate. Absurd, then, is the dogma, which would inculcate, that man may be born in too high or too low a latitude, for wisdom or for wit." Both these hypotheses may, therefore, justly be doubted; for Greece has produced its Lycurgus: China its Confucius; and Rome its Pliny France its Fenelon; Spain its Cervantes; Portugal its Camoens; and Poland its Cassimir. England has produced its Newton; Switzerland its Gessner; Germany its Klopstock; Sweden its Linnæus ; and, to crown the argument, Iceland its two hundred and forty poets! This is sufficient for the hypothesis of Du Bos.

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66

1 Machiavel inclines to the opinion, that, in all ages, men, born in the same country, have the same "leading natures." Vide Discorsi, lib. iii. 2 De Fato, c. 4.

3 Reflections on the Imitation of the Paintings and Sculptures of the Greeks. Fuseli, p. 4, &c.

That climate affects the manners is equally ideal: for the crimes of the west have been equal to those of the east; and the vices of the south equal to the vices of the north. They differ not in their number, but in their quality: for what is vice in one part of the world is not considered vice in another. Thus the Jews esteem it a sin to eat swine; and the natives of Rud-bâr regard it an abomination to eat doves. The use of wine is as strictly forbidden in Turkey; as the possession of more wives than one is in Europe. War in Japan is looked upon with horror; in Europe it is associated with glory.

The Moors, in some parts of Africa, have such an abhorrence of a Christian, that they esteem it no more sin to kill one, than any of their animals. In the Tonga Islands1 it is regarded as a slight offence to kill an inferior; to steal; or to commit a rape: provided it is not upon the person of a married woman or, upon a superior. Gargilasso says, in his history of the civil wars of the Spaniards, that fathers in Peru were punished for the crimes of their children. In Bantam2 the king is empowered, upon the death of a father of a family, not only to seize the habitation and inheritance, but the wife and the children. While in the Afghaun nation, if a man commit a murder, his family is allowed to compensate it by giving six women with portions and six without, as wives, to the family aggrieved. Other nations are as criminal in their punishments, as offenders themselves. In England, to steal a sheep is

1 Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands, vol. ii.

• Montesquieu, vol. v. ch. 14.

to incur the penalty of death; to murder a man is no more. In Japan, almost all crimes were once punished with death.1 The Basheans of the North Phillipine Islands even punished some crimes with burying alive. Dampier saw them bury a young man merely for theft. They dug a deep hole; and many persons came to bid him farewell. Among them was his mother, who wept as she took the rings from his ears. He yielded to the punishment without a struggle; he was put into the pit; and they covered him with. earth; cramming it close, and stifling him.

In the Hindoo creed, it is stated,3 that the blood of a tiger pleases a goddess one hundred years; that of a panther, of a lion, and of a man, one thousand years; but the sacrifice of three men one hundred thousand years. And let a Hindoo* commit ever so enormous a crime, he would suppose himself perfectly safe, if he could be assured, that his friends would throw his body or his bones into the Ganges. "To kill one hundred "" cows, says the Dherma Shastra, "is equal to killing a Bramin; to kill one hundred Bramins is equal to killing a woman; to kill one hundred women is equal to killing a child; to kill one hundred children is equal to telling an untruth!"

Men, in some countries, killed their own fathers, under the sanction of custom, or the laws. In Rome,

3 Ward's Account of the Writings, Religion, and Manners of the Hindoos, vol. iv. 4to.

4 Vide Collection of Voyages, contributing to the Establishment of the East-India Company, vol. v. p. 192.

VOL. III.

H

and even in Gaul,' fathers were allowed, not only the lives of their children in infancy, but their liberties in adolescence. This practice arose out of the erroneous idea, that he, who gives, has a right to take away.2 In the reign of Adrian, however, the power was modified; and a father was banished for taking away the life of his son, though that son had committed a great crime. The Jews had the privilege of selling their children for seven years. In Greece, the father pronounced

whether the new-born child should live or die. If the latter, it was instantly put to death or exposed. From this custom rose many of the most affecting and romantic incidents in Grecian history; and Euripides has founded his fine tragedy of Ion upon it.

ION, having been exposed near the Delphian temAs he was one day standing in its precincts, a lady appeared.—

ple, became the priest of Apollo.

ION.-Lady, whoe'er thou art, that liberal air
Speaks an exalted mind: there is a grace,

A dignity, in those of noble birth,

That marks their rank. And yet I marvel much,
That from thy closed lids the trickling tear
Water'd thy beauteous cheeks, soon as thine eye
Beheld this chaste oracular seat of Phoebus.

What brings this sorrow, lady?—All besides,

Viewing the temple of the god, are struck

With joy-Thy melting eye o'erflows with tears.

CREUSA. Not without reason, stranger, art thou seiz'd

With wonder at my tears: this sacred dome

Awakes a sad remembrance of things past.

1 Cesar, de Bell. Gall. vol. vi. c. 19.

2 Cod. viii. 47, 10.

In a subsequent scene Creusa recognizes, in this priest of Apollo, the son, whom, for many years, she had concluded to be dead.

ION.-O my dear mother! I with joy behold thee.
With transport 'gainst thy cheek my cheek recline.
CREUSA.-My son, my son! far dearer to thy mother,
Than yon bright orb;-the god will pardon me;-
Do I then hold thee in my arms? thus found
Beyond my hopes!

ION. O my dear mother! in thy arms I seem,
As one, that had been dead, to life return'd.

CREUSA. Not without tears, my son, wast thou brought forth;
Nor without anguish did my hands resign thee.

Now, breathing on thy cheek, I feel a joy,
Transporting me with heart-felt ecstasies.

Euripides.-Potter.

II.

In Rome,' young children were frequently exposed in the cavity of a column, called the Lactary, for the purpose of being brought up at the public expense: and their right of life and liberty, with some modifications, was acknowledged a sovereign privilege, even so low down as the era, which produced the Institutes of Justinian.

2

In Britain, parents were allowed to sell their children, till the right was abolished in 1015. In Dahomy, the children of the entire territory are still the absolute property of the sovereign. At an early age, they are taken from their mothers and sent into remote villages; where they are appro2 Norris's Journey to the Court of Bossa Ahadee, p. 89.

1 Festus.