glory and preservation; to have fought their battles, and inspired their teachers: their wizards are said to be familiar with heaven; and every hero has a guard of angels as well as men to attend him. When the Portuguese first came among the wretched inhabitants of the coast of Africa, these savage nations readily allowed the strangers more skill in navigation and war; yet still considered them at best but as useful servants, brought to their coast, by their guardian Serpent, to supply them with luxuries they could have lived without. Though they could grant the Portuguese more riches, they could never allow them to have such a king as their Tottimondelem, who wore a bracelet of shells round his neck, and whose legs were covered with ivory.

In this manner examine a savage in the history of his country and predecessors; you ever find his warriors able to conquer armies, and his sages acquainted with more than possible knowledge: human nature is to him an unknown country: he thinks it capable of great things, because he is ignorant of its boundaries; whatever can be conceived to be done he allows to be possible, and whatever is possible he conjectures must have been done. He never measures the actions and powers of others by what himself is able to perform, nor makes a proper estimate of the greatness of his fellows, by bringing it to the standard of his own incapacity. He is satisfied to be one of a country where mighty things have been; and imagines the fancied power of others reflects a lustre on himself. Thus by degrees he loses the idea of his own insignificance in a confused notion of the extraordinary powers of humanity, and is willing to grant extraordinary gifts to every pretender, because unacquainted with their claims.

This is the reason, why demi-gods and heroes have ever been erected in times or countries of ignorance

and

in

and barbarity: they addressed a people, who had high opinions of human nature, because they were ignorant how far it could extend; they addressed a people, who were willing to allow that men should be gods, because they were yet imperfectly acquainted with God and with man. These impostors knew, that all men are naturally fond of seeing something very great made from the little materials of humanity; that ignorant nations are not more proud of building a tower to reach Heaven, or a pyramid to last for ages, than of raising up a demi-god of their own country and creation. The same pride, that erects a colossus or a pyramid, instals a god or an hero: but though the adoring savage can raise his colossus to the clouds, he can exalt the hero not one inch above the standard of humanity; incapable therefore of exalting the idol, he debases himself, and falls prostrate before him.

When man has thus acquired an erroneous idea of the dignity of his species, he and the gods become perfectly intimate; men are but angels, angels are but men, nay but servants that stand in waiting to execute human commands. The Persians for instance, thus address their prophet Haly.* I salute thee, glorious Creator, of whom the sun is but the shadow. Master-piece of the Lord of human creatures, Great Star of Justice and Religion. The sea is not rich and liberal, but by the gifts of thy mu'nificent hands. The angel treasurer of Heaven 'reaps his harvest in the fertile gardens of the purity of thy nature. The primum mobile would never ' dart the ball of the sun through the trunk of Heaven, were it not to serve the morning out of the 'extreme love she has for thee. The angel Gabriel,

Chaudin's Travels, p. 402.

'messenger.

'messenger of truth, every day kisses the groundsel of thy gate. Were there a place more exalted 'than the most high throne of God, I would affirm it to be thy place, O master of the faithful! Ga‹briel with all his art and knowledge, is but a mere 'scholar to thee.' Thus, my friend, men think proper to treat angels: but if indeed there be such an order of beings, with what a degree of satirical contempt must they listen to the songs of little mortals thus flattering each other! thus to see creatures, wiser indeed than the monkey, and more active than the oyster, claiming to themselves a mastery of heaven! minims, the tenants of an atom, thus arrogating a partnership in the creation of universal heaven! surely heaven is kind that launches no thunder at those guilty heads: but it is kind, and regards their follies with pity, nor will destroy creatures, that it loved into being.

But whatever success this practice of making demi-gods might have been attended with in barbarous nations, I do not know that any man became a god in a country where the inhabitants were refined. Such countries generally have too close an inspection into human weakness, to think it invested with celestial power. They sometimes indeed admit the gods of strangers, or of their ancestors, which had their existence in times of obscurity; their weakness being forgotten, while nothing but their power and their miracles were remembered. The Chinese, for instance, never had a god of their own country: the idols, which the vulgar worship at this day, were brought from the barbarous nations around them. The Roman Emperors, who pretended to divinity, were generally taught by a poignard that they were mortal; and Alexander, though he passed among barbarous countries for a real god, could never persuade his polite countrymen into a simili

tude

tude of thinking. The Lacedemonians shrewdly complied with his commands by the following sarcastic edict.

Ε. Αλεξανδρος βέλεται είναι Θεός, Θεος εξω.

LETTER CXV.

Adieu.

TO THE SAME.

THERE is something irresistibly pleasing in the conversation of a fine woman; even though her tongue be silent, the eloquence of her eyes teaches wisdom. The mind sympathises with the regularity of the object in view, and struck with external grace, vibrates into respondent harmony. In this agreeable disposition, I lately found myself in company with my friend and his niece. Our conversation turned upon love, which she seemed equally capable of defending and inspiring. We were each of different opinions upon this subject; the lady insisted that it was a natural and universal passion, and produced the happiness of those who cultivated it with proper precaution. My friend denied it to be the work of Nature, but allowed it to have a real existence, and affirmed that it was of infinite service in refining society; while I, to keep up the dispute, affirmed it to be merely a name, first used by the cunning part of the fair sex, and admitted by the silly part of ours, therefore no way more natural than taking snuff, or chewing opium.

"How is it possible," cried I," that such a pas❝sion can be natural, when our opinions even of

"beauty, which inspires it, are entirely the result "of fashion and caprice? The ancients, who pre"tended to be connoisseurs in the art, have praised "narrow foreheads, red hair, and eye brows that "joined each other above the nose. Šuch were the "charms that once captivated Catullus, Ovid, and "Anacreon. Ladies would at present be out of "humour, if their lovers praised them for such graces; and should an antique beauty now re"vive, her face would certainly be put under the discipline of the tweezer, forehead-cloth, and "lead comb, before it could be seen in public 66 company.

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But the difference between the ancients and "moderns is not so great as between the different "countries of the present world. A lover of Gon"gora, for instance, sighs for thick lips; a Chinese "lover is poetical in praise of thin. In Circassia a "straight nose is thought most consistent with "beauty cross but a mountain which separates it "from the Tartars, and there flat noses, tawny "skins, and eyes three inches asunder, are all the "fashion. In Persia and some other countries, a "man when he marries, chooses to have his bride "a maid; in the Philippine Islands, if a bride"groom happens to perceive on the first night that "he is put off with a virgin, the marriage is de“clared void to all intents and purposes, and the "bride sent back with disgrace. In some parts of "the East, a woman of beauty, properly fed up "for sale, often amounts to one hundred crowns; “in the kingdom of Loango, ladies of the very "best fashion are sold for a pig, queens however "sell better, and sometimes amount to a cow. In “short, turn even to England, do not I there see “the beautiful part of the sex neglected; and none "now marrying or making love but old men and

-old

1