eye, Till scrambling o'er the green, 'Twas now the mother, from her toil, She saw him on the cliff's rude brink- Sunk was her voice-'twas vain to fly To prompt the means to save. She tore her 'kerchief from her breast, THE MOLEHILL. Tell me, thou dust beneath my feet, The mole, who digs with curious toil Her subterraneous bed, Thinks not she ploughs a human soil, And delves among the dead. Far in the regions of the morn, The rising sun surveys Palmyra's palaces forlorn, Unveiling in his rays. There oft the pilgrim, as he stands, are the objects of their liberality. This nation wants nothing to make it truly happy, but to know how to enjoy its blessings. Of all the countries in the world, England is the most likely to charm a young man, But towers and tempests, mock'd by time, provided he understands the language, and Stupendous rocks! appear To me less mournfully sublime, Than this poor molehill here. Methinks the dust yet heaves with breath, I feel the pulses beat; Yonder a shadow flits away: Thou shalt not thus depart : Stay! thou transcendent spirit, stay! And tell me who thou art. 'Tis ALFRED-in the rolls of fame, And on the midnight page, Blazes his broad refulgent name, The watch-light of the age. And still that voice o'er land and sea He was he is not-all is past; Behold on Death's be wild'ring wave CHARACTER OF THE ENGLISH NATION. Oxenstiern, a Swedish writer, calls England the Kingdom of Bacchus, the School of Epicurus, the Academy of Venus, the Country of Mars, the Residence of Minerva, the Paradise of the Lovers of Liberty, &c. The females, he says, are beautiful; but their beauty is accompanied by a je ne scai quoi de fade. The bravery of the men approaches to ferocity. Their talents for wit are great, but they border on presumption. Here fortune distributes her favours with a liberal hand; but these islanders are ignorant of using them. Courtezans, and the gratification of the palate, can bear the expense. In short, if the high road to H-1 is sown with pleasure, it is absolutely necessary to pass through England. From the writers of Greece and Rome, we may learn the purest of uninspired morality, delivered in the most enchanting language, illustrated by the happiest allusions, and enforced by the most pertinent examples and most emphatical reasoning. Whatever is amusing or instructive in fable, whatever in description is beautiful, or in composition harmonious, whatever can sooth or awaken the human passions, the Greek and Roman authours have carried to perfection. EVERY MAN A THIEF BY NATURE. TO A LADY. Listen to me, my dearest creature, None are thieves but men of parts. The price of The Port Folio is Six Dollars per annum, to be paid in advance. Printed and Published, for the Editor, by SMITH & MAXWELL, NO. 28, NORTH SECOND-STREET. Various, that the mind of desultory man, studious of change and pleased with novelty, may be indulged-Cowp THE Directory had now leisure to turn their attention to the smaller Cantons, not that they expected to find any money in either of them, but a Constitution, as they affected to call it, had been composed in Paris, and it was their fancy that all Switzerland should adopt it. These small states, in some measure deserved their fate, by the degree of insensibility with which they beheld the distress of their neighbours, whose aristocracy and insolence of wealth they were not sorry to see humbled; they were soon made to understand, how ever, and in no very soothing terms, that they also were to revo lutionize themselves, to foregn their distinct governments states, and to be assimilated to the rest of Switzerland, under one gr neral form, in which, the divisi, of power and the distinctions! the magistracy, were closely c pied from that emblem of all p fection, the Directorial gover ment. The first measures of the Can tons, who were now the object of attack, were such as deserved sty cess, and such as deprived the rectory of every shadow of pretext for invading them; they liberated the inhabitants of the subject cour tries from their allegiance, and informed the French general of their having done so, but nothing short of the new constitution would avail, Had the Cantons not attacked, in vested any one individual of suit. cient talents and experience with full powers to direct the gentl 386 defence as he might see best, so as 1 Two of the smaller members of the Helvetick Confederation have experienced a still harder fate; Bienne, a little republick at the extremity of the lake, to which Rousseau has drawn such general attenton, had for ages acknowledged the very limited prerogative of the ed themselves. In the Moniteured to their independence as states. of the day, Mulhausen is repre- Berne, indeed, is shorne of its sented as having solicited to be beams, and sees two sister states united to France. arise where it once counted a race of happy subjects; but the ancient and more respectable families have come forward again, and the peasants are convinced that they were deceived, and not betrayed, and that their gallant general deserved a better fate. Zurich has been able with the assistance of its allies to repress an insurrection of discontented people. The Pays de Vaud has the delight of seeing itself treated as a Canton, and is as much embarrassed with its independence as your county of Albemarle would be, and the little Cantons are restored to that ancient form of internal government, which they were so much attached to; they no longer indeed possess as sovereigns, the subject districts which they once held, but at that, they ought in the true spirit of liberty, rather rejoice than not. The weak and ill-composed government which was next in operation all over Switzerland, was such as would have left the country forever at the mercy of its powerful neighbours, still more than it is now by the act of mediation, and you may conceive how little the constitution was built upon the affections of the people, by the facility with which it yielded to the first efforts which were made against it in the year eighteen hundred and two, when some of the best and most influential charac ters were desirous of availing themselves of that article in the treaty of Luneville, which guaranties to the Swiss the privilege of regulating their government as they should think proper. The interference of the First Consul upon this occasion, was in violation of the most sacred engagement, but though humiliating in the greatest degree to the pride of all Switzerland, and to the feelings of its inhabitants as an independent people; it does not appear to have been attended with such injurious and degrading consequences, as might have been expected; his attachment to a form of government similar to the one which he had so lately himself overturned France, could not be very great, and to give him his due, in that spirit of charity which our old proverb expresses, he did not seem bent upon destroying all remains of national honour among the Swiss; a new constitution was organised under the shadow of his power, and with somewhat more of a general government, than before the revolution, continually in operation, the Cantons are restor The last of October, found us fixed at Geneva, on the first floor of a house in the grande Rue, where we had a dining parlour and a kitchen, and a sufficiency of bedchambers for ourselves and servants, with house linen, and some plate, for thirteen louis a month. was soon afterward, fixed at school : too! lessons regularly of masters who in attended her. We had every reason to be satisfied with what we had done for and we be gan to mix a little in the world. LETTER XXIV. It would be useless to describe the situation of Geneva, which you ought to know from Moore and Coxe, as well almost as if you ha been there; there are indeed b few cities in Europe, which hav |