Is it not as if this mouth

"Would tear this hand for lifting food to it?"

With respect to the Hollanders, the liberty to fay and do what they like, in defiance of all inhibited things, and, as ufual, with the more eager audacity, becaufe forbidden, is their's; and as to their being taxed, do they confider that they live in a country made by induftry in defpight of nature, who intended it to be only one of her enormous bogs, while the ancestors of this grumbling but hard-working hive, fet "doggedly to it," as Dr. Johnfon fays, to make it into productive land, and a more pro ductive water? a pile of ftupendous art, from one end to the other, and not to be kept in repair without extraordinary taxation? Do they grudge this? Would they let the edifice run to ruins, and be buried amongst them? Would they heap up their money-bags to fink them with themfelves more profoundly in the returning bog? Will the French, or their native patriots, mend either their country or

Not one of the motives that urged the French people, had the Dutch

"to fpur the fides of their intent,

Save vaulting ambition,"

which, in all probability, will, in their cafe, at leaft, be found to have

"O'erleap'd itfelf."

their commerce? Let them try! Ingenious, laborious, abfurd, wife, foolish, prepofterous people!

Here then let us bid a long, and probably a laft, adieu, to the United Provinces, on which we have beftowed more liberal obfervation than they have been wont to receive, but not more than they have deferved, as the most curious and aftonishing efforts of a patient, powerful, and vigilant people: A like farewell to Guelderland, for whofe profperity I fhall have a warm with, were it only for the fake of the opportunity it gives of lofing one's way, and finding the Man of the Foreft. Bleffed be every leaf of every tree which comes under the axe of that man! And bleffed be you, my friend! aye, and ye, my readers!-Weftphalia invites; but I cannot quit one country, and take you into another, without feparating them and their inhabitants by a paufe in our correfpondence.

LETTER

LETTER LIX.

TO THE SAME.

I HAVE in a former letter noted the wonderful progreffive relief from low to high land, and from wet to dry, from flagnant canals to running ftreams, as you proceed in your journey from the United Provinces to the Upper Countries. after a few days or weeks ramble in Guelderland, but could the traveller be fuddenly tranf ported from the Province of what is properly called Holland, to thofe blooming edges of Weftphalia, to which I am now conducting you, he' would imagine, that one was the purgatory of finful, and the other the paradife of happy fouls: The fabled waters of the Styx and of Elyfium, are not more strongly contrafted. The very air, as well as the water, takes a purer breath. Not that in point of vegetable or rural grandeur, Weftphalian Pruflia is to be compared to feveral parts of Dutch Guelderland; but in point of unambitious and ever-finiling fcenery, I have never feen any thing fuperior. The houfes and the land, and, indeed, the inhabitants of Holland, refemble nothing but themfelves.

This is lefs fenfibly felt

felves. The charming Duchy of Cleves, and "all that it inherits," refembles the most beautiful unaffuming parts of England. You have fearce reached the firft Pruffian town, which is midway betwixt Nimeguen and Cleves, the name of which is Cuylenberg, ere your native country preffes on your heart: you feem to be carried, by fome magician, into the midft of its alluring fcenery its whited cottages, comfortable farms, and cultured grounds, are all within your view, You are ftruck at almoft every step with the fimilitude. It is the agreeable and beautiful, but not the fublime of nature. There is no

thing of hill or vale, water or wood, to aftonish the traveller; but there are numbers of objects always fresh and always charming, and a profpect of great abundance. I am fpeaking here of the Duchy of Cleves in a circumference of its beft poffeffions, a coup d'œil of more than fifty miles; for, on a clear day, your eye can travel to this extent, if it takes fight from any of the delightful little eminences near the town of Cleves: particularly from a mount in the wood which gives you the command of half a dozen noble avenues, each a mile in length, at the end of which your view is bounded by the prettieft towns in the Circle of Weftphalia, and Province of Guelderland. The eye refts fatisfied and refreshed;

it

it wifes not to penetrate beyond thefe beautiful limits. The Cleves wood is, in itfelf, full of charms, artificial and natural, but by the former I only mean the flately, and fomewhat formal, rows of trees, which fhade and canopy the almoft numberlefs paths that are cut through it. Yet, admitting this to be an objection to the lover of nature in all her graceful wildness, there are to be found in this wood an infinity of bye-walks, where nature is permitted to enjoy her utmoft romance, and to fport her "virgin fancies," and which, perhaps, derive additional charms from the contrafl with the more difciplined vegetation. This fine wood is fenced round with the old English-looking park-paling, thatched, a it were, with grey inofe, as with us, and, as with us, the chaffinch, greenfinch, goldfinch, and all the other finches of the grove," as the Critic fays, are feen pecking at it on a fine fpring morning to build the outworks of their nefts. I have haunted this wood at all times and feafons, and truff, there→ fore, you will be pleafed with both a fummer and winter account of it. There appears to be fomething, remarkable in the foliage of Weftphalia, to be obferved in the moft dreary months. With us, even in our most extended forefts, the trees and bufhes are almost stripped of their withered foliage. In Great Britain and