the innocence of our characters, and to justify the injuftice of their own conduct. ·

All these shall be spoke to hereafter. In the mean while, let us confider what evil there is, in change of place, abftractedly and by itself.

To live deprived of one's country is intolerable *. . Is it fo? How comes it then to pass that such numbers of men live out of their countries by choice? Obferve how the streets of London and Paris are crowded. Call over thofe millions by name, and afk them one by one, of what country they are : how many will you find, who, from different parts of the earth, come to inhabit these great cities, which afford the largest opportunities, and the largest encouragement, to virtue and to vice? Some are drawn by ambition, and fome are fent by duty; many refort thither to improve their minds, and many to improve their fortunes; others bring their beauty, and others their eloquence, to market. Remove from hence, and go to the utmoft extremities of the Eaft or the Weft: vifit the barbarous nations of Africa, or the inhofpitable regions of the North: you will find no climate fo bad, no country fo favage, as not to have fome people who come from abroad, and inhabit there by choice.

Among numberlefs extravagancies which have paffed through, the minds of men, we may justly reckon for one that notion of a fecret affection, independent of our reafon, and fuperiour to our reafon, which we are fuppofed to have for our country; as if there were fome phyfical virtue in every spot of.

*SEN, De con ad Hel.

ground,

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ground, which neceffarily produced this effect in every one born upon it.

- Amor patriæ ratione valentior omni *.

As if the heimvei was an univerfal diftemper, infeparable from the conflitution of an human body, and not peculiar to the Swifs, who feem to have been made for their mountains, as their mountains feem to have been made for them. This notion may have contributed to the security and grandeur of ftates. it has therefore been not unartfully cultivated, and the prejudice of education has been with care put on it's fide. Men have come in this cafe, as in many, from believing that it ought to be fo, to perfuade others, and even to believe themfelves that it is fo. Procopius relates that Abgarus came to Rome, and gained the esteem and friendfhip of Auguftus to fuch a degree, that this emperour could not refolve to let him return home: that Abgarus brought feveral beasts, which he had taken, one day in hunting, alive to Auguftus; that the paced in different parts of the Circus fome of the earth which belonged to the places where each of these animals had been caught; that as foon as this was done, and they were turned loofe, every one of them ran to that corner where his earth lay that Auguftus, admiring their fentiment of love for their country which nature has graved in the hearts of beafts, and struck by the evidence of the truth, granted the request which Abgarus im

Ov. De Ponto, El. iv.
Card, Benti. Let.

mediately

mediately preffed upon him, and allowed, though with regret, the tetrarch to return to Edessa.

But

this tale deferves as much credit as that which fol lows in the fame place, of the letter of Abgarus to Jefus Chrift, of our Saviour's anfwer, and of the cure of Abgarus. There is nothing, furely, more groundless than the notion here advanced, nothing more abfurd. We love the country in which we are born, because we receive particular benefits from it, and because we have particular obligations to it: which ties we may have to another country, as well as to that we are born in; to our country by election, at well as to our country by birth. In all other respects, a wife man looks on himself as a citizen of the world: and, when you ask him where his country lies, points, like Anaxagoras, with his finger to the heavens.

There are other perfons, again, who have imagined that as the whole univerfe fuffers a continual rotation, and nature feems to delight in it, or to preferve herself by it, fo there is in the minds of men a natural restlessness, which inclines them to change of place, and to the fhifting their habita. tions *. This opinion has at leaft an appearance of truth, which the other wants; and is countenanced, as the other is contradicted, by experience. But, whatever the reafons be, which must have varied infinitely in an infinite number of cafes, and an immenfe space of time; true it is in fact, that the familics and nations of the world have been in a continual fluctuation, roaming about on the face of

* Sen. De con. ad Hel,

the

the globe, driving and driven out by turns. What a number of colonies has Afia fent into Europe! The Phoeniceans planted the coafts of the Mediterranean fea, and pushed their fettlements even into the ocean. The Etrurians were of Afiatic extrac

tion; and, to mention no more, the Romans, thofe lords of the world, acknowledged a Trojan exile for the founder of their empire. How many migrations have there been, in return to thefe, from Europe into Afia? They would be endless to enumerate; for, befides the Aeolic, the Ionic, and others of almost equal fame, the Greeks, during feveral ages, made continual expeditions, and built cities in feveral parts of Afia.. The Gauls penetrated thither too, and established a kingdom. The European Scythians overran thefe vaft provinces, and carried their arms to the confines of Egypt. Alexander fubdued all from the Hellefpont to India, and built towns, and established colonies, to fecure his conquefts, and to eternize his name. From both thefe parts of the world Africa has received inhabitants and mafters; and what fhe has received fhe has given. The Tyrians built the city, and founded the republic of Carthage; and Greek has been the language of Egypt. In the remoteft antiquity we hear of Belus in Chaldea, and of Sefoftris planting his tawny colonics in Colchos: and Spain has been, in thefe later ages, under the dominion of the Moors. If we turn to Runic hiftory, we find our fathers, the Goths, led by Woden and Thor, their heroes fift and their divinities afterwards, from the Afiatic Tartary into Europe : and who can affure us that this was their fift mi

VOL. I.

D d

gration?

gration? They came into Afia perhaps by the east, from that continent to which their fons have lately failed from Europe by the weft: and thus, in the procefs of three or four thousand years, the fame race of men have pushed their conquefts and their habitations round the globe at least this may be fuppofed, as reasonably as it is supposed, I think, by Grotius, that America was peopled from Scandinavia. The world is a great wilderness, wherein mankind have wandered and jostled one another about from the creation. Some have removed by neceffity, and others by choice. One nation has been fond of feizing what another was tired of poffeffing and it will be difficult to point out the country which is to this day in the hands of its firft inhabitants.

:

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Thus fate has ordained that nothing fhall remain long in the fame ftate: and what are all these transportations of people, but fo many public exiles? Varro, the moft learned of the Romans, thought, fince Nature is the fame wherever we go, that this single circumftance was fufficient to remove all objections to change of place, taken by itself, and ftripped of the other inconveniencies which attend exile. M. Brutus thought it enough that those, who go into banishment, cannot be hindered from carrying their virtue along with them. Now, if any one judge that each of these comforts is in itfelf infufficient, he must however confefs that both of them, joined together, are able to remove the terrours of exile. For what trifles muft all we

*Sen. De con ad Hel.