separate objects. In vast and pathless forests, such limits will be easily mistaken, and, in the ardour of pursuit, they will be often transgressed. The nation, whose territories have been violated, esteems itself invaded, and instantly revenges the injury by the death of the spoilers. Reciprocal injuries commonly involve the nations in immediate war. EMULATION. Emulation among them easily degenerating into contention, will often terminate in hostilities. Two companies of hunters, from different tribes, meeting near the extremities of their several forests, feel in a moment their national emulation excited. They derive confidence from numbers. They burn to try each others strength, activity, or skill. They engage in the contest with those ardent passions natural to their rude condition; and the savage tourn ament, under such eager management, easily terminates in affray and bloodshed. ARDOUR OF THE YOUNG WARRIORS. A more frequent cause of hostility is found in the inconsiderate ardour of young warriors, impatient to signalize their prowess. Bred in the habits and ideas of war-taught to consider the character of a warrior as their highest glory-they become impatient of inaction, and ambitious to acquire martial distinction. Not having yet experienced the vicissitudes and hardships of a military life, high and youthful passions render them presumptuous and eager for the combat. The cautious councils of their ancient chiefs they regard as the cold and timid suggestions of age. They pro voke the war, and making some inroad upon their neighbours, with whom they wish to match their prowess in the fight, they think, at once, to make a trial of their own talents, and to engage their countrymen in the common cause of repelling the retaliation which they expect from the revenge of the insulted tribe. COMMON PATHS. They have their accustomed paths, that have been established by long usage and mutual convenience, through which they travel, either in a pacific or a hostile way, to the remotest countries. An implicit law of nations has made these paths inviolable, unless it be within the territories of the people, with whom the travellers are at war. If the liberty of passing through the usual way be refused by any nation, or an injury be offered on that privileged route, it becomes a new occasion of hostility. REVENGE. But the most frequent cause of those eternal discords that divide the nations of America, is the implacable and atrocious spirit of revenge that animates the breast of every savage. Among them almost all affronts are expiated by blood. Innumerable sources of umbrage must, arise among neighbouring tribes, from encroachments on their territories, or from contentions when they meet. This last cause often extends its influence to the most distant of these these wandering nations. If it be a personal dispute, one of the rivals immediately falls. If a territorial injury, some of the offending tribe are killed. Instantly, both nations are embroiled. The one attacks the murderers-the other adopts the cause of its own people. Sometimes, when an injury is flagrant, a natural sense of justice, or some uncommon situation that renders a nation unwilling to enter into war, induces them not to extend their protection to the perpetrators of an injury. No civil law exists among them to punish any crimes, much less the infraction of the law of nations: they abandon the criminals to the vengeance of their enemies, who then have full liberty to pursue and kill them wherever they are found. Thus blood, so often the source of war, becomes now the cement of peace. But more commonly different councils are pursued. The ardour of the young warriors carries the decision in favour of hostilities: and the chiefs never want a sufficient motive to rouse the minds of their people while they can address the spirit of revenge. They recall to their memory their slaughtered countrymen, they point to their bones unburied, and fill their disturbed imaginations with their spirits shrieking through the air, and crying for vengeance. These ideas kindle the souls of savages to madness, and they are ready to pour themselves, like a destructive flame, upon their adversaries. WAR COUNCILS. When war is to be publicly and formally undertaken, the deliberations are slow and solemn. The whole nation is assembled their sachems, and the old experienced warriors speak. With great sagacity, they explain the causes, the advantages, or the hazards of the war. Their priests and divines are consulted; even sometimes their women are called upon to give their advice to their country in this emergency. After long and serious debate, if the reasons for peace preponderate, they appoint an embassy to endeavour to bring their antagonists to a treaty, and they solicit the friendly offices of their allies in the negociation. Gifts and belts of wampum purchase reconciliation-or the authors of the injustice are resigned to the rage of the injured. But if the decision be for war, it is ratified by an universal shout-they run to prepare their weapons-they animate each other to fury-nothing is breathed but slaughter and destruction. EMBASSIES. In the mean time they do not neglect the precautions of prudence. A distinguished chief is dispatched to invite their allies to take up the hatchet, and make with them a common cause. He carries with him a tomahawk painted of a bloody colour, and a belt of wampum, that suggests by arbitrary marks, the purport of his embassy. The sachem, at his request, calls a council of his nation-the ambassador, admitted to their presence, lays the tomahawk on the ground, and holding the wampum in his hands, details from its strings and beads the objects of his commission. When he has finished VOL. 2.-No. 12. 3 E finished his speech, he offers the belt to the council. They deliberate. If they resolve to maintain their ancient amity with the nation, without entering into the alliance of hostilities, the wampum is accepted as the token and the cement of friendship, and their determination for peace is expressed by burying the tomakawk in the ground. If they accede to the proposals of the envoy, the sachem receives the belt of union, and a fierce chief advances and takes up the hatchet, the symbol and the declaration of war. From that moment, they co-operate with their allies in all their measures. But, if neither the symbol of war be lifted from the earth, nor the symbol of peace be received from the orator's hands, he concludes that they are pre-engaged by his enemies, and he hastens to report to his country its new danger. CHIEFTAINS. War being resolved on, one of the first cares is to appoint a chief who is capable of conducting it. The sachem, to whom the nation looks up as its lineal head, the president of its councils, and of its civil and political government, if those terms may be applied to the affairs of savages, is not always a warrior-sometimes his age or other circumstances prevent him from leading the expedition. He marks out a chieftain worthy to supply his place; or some noted warrior, conscious of merit, and of the rank which he holds in the opinion of his country, offers himself, and is received with applause. Every thing in their military operations, as in their whole government, is perfectly voluntary. A common spirit of enterprize, patriotism, or revenge, prompts them to battle; a sense of mutual interest connects them together; a common sentiment of admiration, founded on great and conspicuous achievements, unites their opinions in favour of their leader. Even when they have chosen him, they are not compelled to march under his direction. This engagement like all the rest, depends on the impulse of their own minds. Often it happens, that other chiefs, attaching to their fortunes a few adherents, pursue a different route against the enemy. And often a single warrior, associating himself with no troop, and confiding only in his own dexterity and his own arm, undertakes to make the campaign alone. Nor is he esteemed a contemptible foe, to nations, among whom each warrior is no inconsiderable proportion of the public force. The principal chieftain is indeed attended with the strength of the nation; and though every warrior is at perfect liberty in pledging himself to his general; yet afterwards to violate that engagement, is esteemed in the highest degree disgraceful. GLEANINGS. GLEANINGS. OF TAXES, THE celebrated Montesquieu says, that taxes increase in pro portion to the liberty of the constitution, and consequently, that they are higher in republics than in monarchies and despotic go vernments. The nature of a government, in our opinion, has nothing to do with the rate of taxes, otherwise than by increasing or diminishing national industry and circulation, by which alone the high or low rates of taxes can be measured: it is not the absolute sum which a man pays, but the proportion that sum bears to what he possesses, which makes it heavy or easy; though in republics in general, the subject pays more, absolutely speaking, than in monarchies; yet, compared with the whole of what they possess, it is much less, as we shall shew hereafter. An Englishman pays absolutely more than a Frenchman; but, comparatively to his means, not half so much: taxes therefore are high or low, compared to the quantity of circulation, and by no means, directly at least, depend upon the form government, FOLLY. FOLLY is handsomely derided in an old blunt epigram, where the Fantastic thus speaks to his foot-boy : "Diminutive, and my defective slave, The boy believed all to be Welch which his master spake, 'till he railed in English; "Rogue, go fetch my cloak." ANAGRAMS. THERE was a man who presented to Henry the Great of France, an Anagram upon his name, (Borbonius) which was Bonus Orbi, Orbus Boni; the king asked him what it meant, he told him, that when his majesty was a hugonot, he was Bonus Orbi, but when he turned Catholic, he was Orbus Boni; a very fine Anagram, saith the king; I pray what profession are you of? Please your majesty, I am a maker of Anagrams, but I am a very poor man : Į believe it, said the king, for they that use that trade cannot grow very rich. NECK VERSE. FORMERLY the persons claiming the benefit of the clergy were obliged to read a verse in a Latin manuscript psalter; this saving from the gallows was termed their neck verse: it was the first verse of the fifty-first psalm,-Miserere mei, &c. 3 E 2 A PEG A PEG TOO LOW. FREQUENT and bloody were the quarrels of our Saxon ancestors over their wassail bowls. To soften these, Dunstan advised that none should drink except from cups pegged so regularly within, that from peg to peg should be reckoned a legal bumper. Such pegged vessels are still to be seen in the cabinets of antiquarians. And to this regulation we owe the expression of a man being a peg too low. Priests are directed, by a council held in 1102, not to drink to pegs.-Nec ad pinnas bibant. YEW-TREES. ANTIQUARIES seem much at a loss to determine about what period yew-trees first obtained a place in church-yards. A statue passed in 35 Edw. I. the title of which is "Ne Rector Arbores prosternat in Comiterio." As we seldom see other trees planted in church-yards, this statue must have probably related to yew-trees. ORDEALS. FOUR kinds of ordeals were chiefly used by our German ancestors:-1." The kamp-fight," or combat, during which the spectators were to be silent and quiet, on pain of losing an arm or leg; an executioner attending with a sharp ax. 2. "The fire ordeal," in which the accused might clear his innocence by holding redhot iron in his hands, or by walking blindfold amidst fiery ploughshares. 3. The hot water ordeal," much of the same nature as the last. 4. "The cold water ordeal." This need not be explained since it is looked on as supreme, when a witch is in question. The cross ordeal was reserved for the clergy. These, if ac cused, might prove their innocence by swallowing two conse crated morsels taken from the altar after proper prayers. If these fragments stuck in the priests throats he stood ipso facto condemned. But we have no record of such a condemnation. FALSE LEARNING. SOME people rate the modern improvements in religious knowledge by the volumes of metaphysical subtilties written upon the subject; as the Emperor Heliogabalus formed an estimate of the greatness of Rome, from ten thousand pounds weight of cobwebs which had been found in that city. Two learned physicians and a plain honest countryman happening to meet at an inn, sat down to dinner together. A dispute presently arose between the two doctors on the nature of aliment, which proceeded to such a height, and was carried on with so much acrimony, that it spoiled their meal, and they parted extremely indisposed. The countryman in the mean time, who understood not the cause, though he heard the quarrel, fell heartily to |