LETTER XVIII.

LONDON, MARCH 7th.

You ou inquire respecting the climate of England. That climate must be happy which has produced so many great men. Yet I would not seem to attach too much to climate. Those climates most congenial to human temperature do not constantly produce the greatest men. It is reported in history, that the Dutch were once generous and noble, that the Spaniards were once brave, and Livy is either erroneous, or too much given to irony, if Italy did not once produce men.

If the English have a single prejudice, it is certainly not in favour of their climate. Their caricaturists, who for broad humour are unrivalled, hit off John Bull in a cloudy day with great success. The weather here is of such public concern, they sometimes take notice of it in the newspapers. There are perhaps more weathercocks in London, than in all the world beside: though it ought to be considered London is the seat of government.

Among the various modes of insurance, which the wit of man has invented in this city, I am not a

little surprised, no one has ever opened an office for for the insurance of fair weather. All those who are in pursuit of pleasure or business; all those who have delicate constitutions, and are liable to suffer from the wind being a point, or half a point variant from their favourite quarter; all those who were incommoded on journies, might be compensated in money for mental or corporeal inconvenience. This might appear rather ridiculous in prospectus; but it is only an improvement on marine insurance; and is much more rational, than insurance on lives. I have no doubt the lawyers will improve this hint: it would afford rare sport at Westminster and Guildhall. All the dull rogues in town would insure, for the author who wrote on a dull day, would recover special damage, if his book did not sell. All the ladies at the west end of the town would insure, though I know not what damages would be given for a disappointed rout. All those who frequent the places of public amusement, as well as the proprie. tors, would insure, the one for disappointment of pleasure, the other for disappointment of money.

If many of the English have degenerated into a mongrel sort of beings, if the mane of the lion has given place to more ear than formerly, if a thousand nervous affections have rendered them women without the spirit of women, I am not disposed to attrib

ute it to the climate, which is now as good as when Boadicea led the van of her countrymen. Let us, for a moment, consider what effects the climate of England produces, and then we can judge whether or not it be insalubrious. Where neither the excess of pleasure, nor the excess of labour emaciates, the English, both men and women, are exceedingly handsome. Their round ruddy countenances, bespeak a mellow temperature of weather, which neither relaxes nor contracts. Surely, the climate of that country must be good which produces brave brave men and handsome women: and I think those gloomy affections, to which so many of the English are subject, ought not to be imputed to the climate. Man must first be degenerate, before a west wind,* or a cloudy day, can reduce him to despondency.

By chase their long lived fathers gain'd their food,
Toil strung their nerves and purified their blood,
But now, their sons, a puny race of men,
Are dwindled down to threescore years and ten,

DRYDEN,

This is doubtless mere poetry. The English are more laborious now, than if they were hunters; and as for their being dwindled down to seventy years, I think it rather a bull. The English live as long, and bear their age as well, I believe, as any

* In England, it is the west wind which brings hanging weather.

people. My washerwoman tells me she knows more than half a dozen between the ages of sixty seven and seventy five, in her neighbourhood, who gain their livelihood at the washing tub. I do not know that they live longer or retain their faculties to a later period, than they do in New England; but the inroad of years does not make so early nor so deep an impression on their faces. The climate is so temperate, both in summer and winter, that I have not experienced what I consider a warm or cold day. Hence, the pores of the body are not so frequently open in summer, nor so continually contracted in winter. When I say the English bear their age better than our people, I suppose those of both countries to lead similar lives. In New England you rarely see the emaciated, the deformed, the ricketty, or the deficient: in England, you meet with them at every step. I have seen thousands of those miserable creatures, to whom it would have been an act of mercy to have extended a certain wise law of Sparta.

Whether or not the women bear their years better than ours, I am not certain, they are so very loath to tell their ages. But of this I am sure, the dress, carriage and conversation of the English women, are at least ten years in their favour. The contrast is remarkable. A young lady in this country is willing

to be sociable, and seems disposed to render herself pleasing, rather than an object of indifference. Ours, on the contrary, are too ready to imagine they have done wrong, and frequently check themselves, and betray a degree of guilt, when they discover they have unwittingly done themselves justice. manners of the one render them younger in appearance, than they are; the manners of the other anticipate their years.

The

There is one description of Englishmen, on whom the climate must operate very unhappily: I mean the country gentlemen, who, residing most of their time on their estates, and not having a taste either for the elegant or more laborious pursuits of agriculture, or what is still more unhappy, cold to the charms of literature, spend their days, insulated within their own barren selves and instead of giving their days to negotium cum dignitate, sacrifice their lives to a false otium cum dignitate. To such, a gloomy day is the harbinger of their evil genius. The sombre appearance of their aged mansions, and the solemn aspect of the scene around, render their solitude awful, and recal the most heavy recollections. The spectres of their ancestors come in the clouds, and haunt the halls of their former residence : while the sullen stillness of the trees, except at intervals, their slowly nodding tops seem in distant mur