different orders which compose the Council, in case of absence or sickness, are replaced by persons whom the law appoints for that effect.The Deputies of districts have for proxies those citizens who had the most suffrages, next to themselves. The General Audiences assemble at least once every two years: but the Session, the Convocation, and the duration of these Assemblies, depend upon the Prussian Governor of the Principality, who is also the President. The laws, the business of general administration, and the taxes, can only be discussed in these Assemblies; but none of the Acts which are passed by them, can take effect, without the sanction of the King, in whose name they are published. The State, and particularly the town of Neufchatel, enjoys the greatest liberty in the form of its interior government. The revenues of the King of Prussia, from Neufchatel, never amounts to more than an hundred thousand crowns, according to our author, and consists in the tenth of the corn and wine, which is paid in money, and at a moderate valuation.

The government of Friburgh is aristocratic; but it has undergone important changes during the last Revolution, which the author briefly mentions, as necessary to understand and appreciate the public spirit of this Canton. The sovereign authority is vested in an Assembly, consisting of 144 members, which is called, the Great Council. Admission to this body was formerly only granted to Patrician families. The new Constitution of 1814 has disposed of forty places in the Great Council, in favour of the middle class of inhabitants. Thus the democratical principle, till now excluded from Friburgh, usurps more than one-fourth of the Council. The members are appointed for life. Whenever a vacancy occurs, the Great Council elects the new member from three candidates, appointed by the suffrages of the inhabitants of the Prefecture, which the deceased member represented; and only those can be elected, whose property amounts to twenty thousand francs, about £833. sterling. The Great Council discusses and regulates all subjects of general administration; but the execution of its decrees, and all the Executive

power of Government, are confided to the Little Council, which is subdivided into two sections, each composed of thirteen members. The first section, called the Council of State, is, properly speaking, the body in which public power is vested.

The second section, constituting a Court of Appeal, decides, finally, upon pecuniary matters, and the application of the penal laws. These two sections sit and deliberate separately, except in cases of propositions of law, or capital punishments:then they unite, and the affair, in either case, is discussed before the Great Council. There have been examples, and one very recently is related by the author, where the Great Council remitted the punishment of death, pronounced by the Little Council. It must be observed, that this last tribunal, though invested with the highest executive power, only exercises this power in suits where there is more than four thousand francs depending. At the head of the two Councils, and of the Republic, are two "AvOYERS," elected for life, the same as the Counsellors. The supreme power is divided between them, and each of them, in turn, exercises it every six months.

The reigning " Avoyer" (if this expression can be allowed in a Republic,) presides over the Council of State, and becomes the head of the Government. Another "Avoyer" presides over the Court of Appeal: public consideration is their only attribute of office, and they are not distinguished from their fellow-citizens but by their private fortune.

Have the changes effected in the Constitution of Friburgh had any influence upon the prosperity of that Canton? From the description given by the author, of the character and industry of the inhabitants, and of the nature of the Administration, the affirmative as well as negative may be inferred.

If the Government of Friburgh, can be condemned, it is for want of vigour, activity, and industry. — Much of the land is badly cultivated; the author was informed, that a great part was totally uncultivated. Industry and commerce are not more advanced: every thing languishes, every thing is neglected in the Capital, though a Republican

Government is, in general, favourable to emulation. The roads are badly kept up, and the country wants outlets, which might be easily procured.

The Government, with incredible indifference, has tolerated and even favoured the emigration of many families, which deprives the country of many of its most useful inhabit ants. The Canton of Friburgh alone furnished nearly half the number of the Swiss, who emigrated from Switzerland, and established themselves in Brazil, and yet the want of population is, in no part of the Helvetic Confederation, more sensibly felt than in Friburgh.

According to our author, this agricultural and commercial langour arises from the want of a more extended public credit. The want of a Mortgage Bank deprives capitalists of all security in their speculations, and their funds either remain unemployed, or increase the prosperity of other Cantons, instead of enriching their own. This establishment has been several times proposed in the Council, and rejected by a timid majority.

It would, however, be unjust, says the author, not to acknowledge, that the Administration has, in some respects, improved the state of this Canton, and shewn a little more public spirit. The Opposition, which shows itself in the Little Council and among the citizens, may become useful to the Republic, in contributing to the creation of establishments, the very hope of which proves their importance. An example of this it has recently afforded, in the foundation of a Primary School. May it still continue to procure for its country new resources and knowledge, as the author judiciously observes; and may petty animosities be silenced by the voice of public gratitude!

The resources of the State of Friburgh are very few, and direct taxes are unknown. Every peasant enjoys the entire produce of the fields he has sown, and the vines he has planted. The resources of the Government consist in a few indirect and very small taxes, and these consist in duties on foreign productions, encouraged by an unshackled trade; in hunting-grants; in duties on tim Eur. Mag. Vol. 83.

ber and mutation; and this last has been nearly all redeemed.

With such few resources, the Government could not defray the most indispensable expenses, not even those for which the taxes are levied, without the aid of the revenues, arising from the public demesnes, which are entirely under the management of a Committee of Finance, established in the State Council; which has the care of this national property, and appoints the collectors of the public money, and defrays all State expenses, rendering an account to the Great Council.

Independently of these resources, the city of Friburgh has common property of its own; and its Municipal Council expends the revenue at their discretion, after having obtained the consent of the Council of State, and the approbation of the citizens, to whom, also, all the accounts are submitted.

The author here observes, that in all Switzerland there is not a city, town, or petty hamlet, that has not some common property, which is used for the general benefit. From this circumstance arises that spirit of union and independence which constitutes the prosperity of the Helvetic Republics. The common property of the city of Friburgh is very great: that of Nenfchatel may be said to be immense; and these revenues are always employed for the public good. The building of the Primary School at Friburgh, and all the expenses of the establishment, have been defrayed out of the common property, without any aid from the Great or Little Council, except their consent.

The city of Friburgh has no other guard than one troop, of about a hundred men, taken from amongst the inhabitants, and paid by the State: about the same number of soldiers are stationed on the frontiers of the Republic; this is the only military force of a State which produces, perhaps, more soldiers than several of the Swiss Cantons united. The mountains of Gruyères, so renowned for cheese, are not less celebrated for the fine and vigorous race of men which inhabits them; nearly a third of the Swiss living in France are natives of these mountains. 2Q

The boundary, that divides the Cantons of Friburgh and Berne, is nearly half way between the two capitals. Berne is a delightful city; not so much in itself, as for its situation and the beautiful country which surrounds it. The city consists of one street of extreme length and proportionate width, with smaller streets crossing it at right angles. On both sides are rows of houses built on the same plan, raised upon large arcades, with a space between them and the public road, covered by porticoes, so that foot passengers are sheltered from the sun and rain: this advantage is obscured by the dulness resulting from the uniformity of such buildings, and their heavy and gothic appearance. A canal of fresh water flows through the middle of the streets, intercepted at regular distances by fountains, which are not, as is generally the case, vain and superfluous ornaments, but objects of utility, administering to the wants of a numerous population, and productive of general salubrity: so that, perhaps, there is no city in the world so clean as Berne. In general, the author judiciously remarks, the salutary luxury of fountains is no where greater, nor ronducted with less expense than in Switzerland: the number of springs which run from the glaciers and mountains, furnish the natural means of distributing fresh water every where. Berne possesses few monuments adapted to flatter the pride of the citizens, or to excite the vain curiosity of travellers. The Cathedral, a gothic edifice of the twelfth century, offers nothing remarkable, but that austere simplicity which pervades the city: the gates alone, originally built by the Duke of Zeringhen, founder of Berne, and rebuilt towards the middle of the last century, are quite in the modern taste: all the other edifices in Berne are impressed with the same character of public utility, and noble and severe simplicity: the buildings, containing specimens of natural history and the arts, are constructed with great solidity; which, however, does not altogether exclude elegance; the interior ornaments, especially, are of exquisite taste. The public library is not numerous, but is well chosen;

and the museum of natural history is rich in Swiss productions, almost all the Alpine quadrupeds, as well as minerals, are collected there; the author, nevertheless, thinks that the Parisian museum possesses a still larger quantity of these Helvetic wonders. The botanical garden, laid out some years ago by M. Wittenbach, will still less bear a comparison with the royal garden at Paris. Berne possesses an academy, which was new modelled on a more extensive scale, at the beginning of the present century; M. Schoel is the professor of history and common law: theological studies are cultivated with great success; but the study of the belles lettres does not prevail much with the government or the people of Berne.

What most astonish and charm the traveller at Berne, and what are at the same time a constant source of novelty and enjoyment to its citizens, are the pleasant and magnificent public walks. The author gives a delightful description of them, to which we must refer our readers, confining ourselves to that called the Petit Bastion, which, in the evening, inspires a peculiar interest.

In the large and deep ditches, which surround the eminence on which the Petit Bastion is built, the Government has erected different machines to exercise the strength and agility of the young people. There the young Bernese gather together in groups, and employ the evening hours in active amusements and salutary exercise. Thus, in this Republic, a useful direction is given to infantine plays; the State providing amusement for the young, and pleasure for the old, with equal soli. citude.

One thing only in the city of Berne displeased our author, because it presented a disgusting disparity to the general appearance of public prosperity: troops of male and female malefactors, yoked to a dungcart with iron chains, and employed from morning to night in clearing the streets from dirt. This afflicting spectacle of human degradation is particularly distressing amongst a free people. Is there, he adds, no other means of making them undergo the punishment due to their

crimes than in the heart of their metropolis?

The environs of Berne present some objects worthy of attention to the traveller, such as the celebrated tomb of Madame Langhans, of which the author gives a description. The

author mentions the establishments of rural economy, founded by M. Fellenberg. Hofwil, the chief of these establishments, is not only a school for labourers, but their founder has united all the trades necessary to agriculture. The instruments of husbandry they make use of, most of which were invented by the founder, and amongst them a drillplough of easy and simple mechanism, which he ploughed his land with, are manufactured in their own shops. The population of Hofwil increases every day; and in a few years M. Fellenberg's establishment will be a flourishing village. An inn has been built in the neighbour. hood; and, though very large, it will scarcely hold the strangers whom the reputation of M. Fellenberg attracts. Thus the industry of one man has changed entirely the face of the country. Hofwil also contains a school upon an extensive and methodical plan; there are at pre

sent a hundred boarders, most of them of the first families in Germany, Russia, and England. Thirty-five professors are attached to this school, who, in the midst of a desolate country, and a soil formerly quite uncultivated, enjoy all the pleasures an opulent city could afford. But what is still more honourable to the heart and learning of M. Fellenberg is, a free agricultural school, where thirty orphans, from the age of five years, are taken from the lowest class of people and receive an elementary and practical education, calculated to make them honest men, and excellent farmers. The quadriennial division of arable lands, and other methods adopted by M. Fellenberg, have met with many obstacles, and may, observes the author, be liable to some inconveniences; but the voice of critics must be silent before the benedictions of the poor. M. Fellenberg has not introduced the system of mutual instruction into either of his schools; and though endowed with an inventive genius, which induced him to reform the system of rural economy, he makes innovations in nothing but agricul

ture.

(To be concluded in our next.)