people virtuous, is by the good example, and the impression made on the mind by the manner and practice of the citizens; for the principles, thus implanted by education, remain firm and durable, as they are rooted in the will, which is always a stronger and more durable tie than the yoke of necessity; and the youth, that have been thus nurtured and educated, become laws and legislators to themselves. He looked upon the education of youth as the greatest and most important object of a legislator's care. His grand principle was, that children belonged more to the state than to their parents; and, therefore, he would not have them brought up according to their humour and fancies, but would have the state intrusted with the general care of their education, in order to have them formed upon constant and uniform principles, which might inspire them betimes with the love of their country and of virtue. As soon as a boy was born, the elders of each tribe visited him; and, if they found him well-made, strong, and vigorous, they ordered him to be brought up, and assigned him a portion of land for his inheritance; if, on the contrary, they found him to be deformed, tender, and weakly, so that they could not expect that he would ever have a strong and healthful constitution, they condemned him to perish, and caused the infant to be exposed. Children were accustomed betimes not to be nice or difficult in their eating; not to be afraid in the dark, or when they were left alone; not to give themselves up to peevishness and ill humour, to crying and bawling; to walk barefoot, that they might be inured to fatigue; to lie hard at night; to wear the same clothes summer and winter, in order to harden them against cold and heat. At the age of seven years they were put into the classes, where they were brought up altogether under the same discipline. Their education, properly speaking, was only an apprenticeship of obedience: the legislator having rightly considered, that the surest way to have citizens submissive to the laws and to the magistrates, was to teach children early, and accustom them, from their tender years, to be perfectly obedient to their masters and superiors. Both old and young ate at public tables,

"

where it was usual for the masters to instruct the boys, by proposing them questions. They would ask them, for example, "Who is the honestest man in the town?"—"What do you think of such or such an action?" The boys were obliged to give a quick and ready answer, which was also to be accompanied with a reason and a proof, both couched in few words: for they were accustomed betimes to the Laconic style, that is, to a close and concise way of speaking and writing. The children were likewise trained up and accustomed to great secrecy as soon as a young man came into the dining-room, the oldest person of the company used to say to him, pointing to the door, "Nothing spoken here must ever go out there.' The most delicate fare, in which the Lacedemonians indulged, was a kind of black broth. Dionysius the tyrant, who happened to be at one of their meals, expressed his surprise, that he should find so insipid what they so highly relished. "I don't wonder at it," said the cook, "for, the seasoning is wanting."-" What seasoning?" replied the tyrant. "Running, sweating, fatigue, hunger, and thirst; these are the ingredients," says the cook, "with which we season all our food."-As for literature, they only learned as much as was necessary. All the sciences were banished out of their country: their study only tended to know how to obey, to bear hardship and fatigue, and to conquer in battle. The superintendent of their education was one of the most honourable men of the city, and of the first rank and condition, who appointed, over every class of boys, masters of the most approved wisdom and probity. The patience and constancy of the Spartan youth most conspicuously appeared in a certain festival, celebrated in honour of Diana surnamed Orthia, where the children, before the eyes of their parents, and in presence of the whole city, suffered themselves to be whipt, till the blood ran down upon the altar of the cruel goddess, where sometimes they expired under the strokes, and all this without uttering the least cry, or so much as a groan or a sigh: and even their own fathers, when they saw them covered with blood and wounds, and ready to expire, exhorted them to persevere to the end with constancy and

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resolution. Plutarch assures us, that he had seen with his own eyes a great many children lose their lives on these cruel occasions. The most usual occupations of the Lacedemonians were hunting, and other bodily exercises. They were forbidden to exercise any mechanical art. Their slaves tilled the land for them, for which they paid a certain revenue. The love of their country, and of the public good, was the rpredominant passion; they did not imagine they belonged to themselves, but to their country. One of the lessons, oftenest and most strongly inculcated upon the Lacedemonian youth, was to bear a great reverence and respect to old men, and to give them proofs of it on all occasions, by saluting them, by making way for them, and giving them place in the streets; by rising to show them honour in all companies and public assemblies; but, above all, by receiving their advice, and even their reproofs, with docility and submission: by these characteristics a Lacedemonian was known wherever he came. At Sparta every thing tended to inspire the love of virtue and the hatred of vice: the actions of the citizens, their conversations, public monuments and inscriptions. It was to preserve these happy dispositions, that Lycurgus did not allow all sorts of persons to travel, lest they should bring home foreign manners, and return infected with the licentious customs of other countries; which would necessarily create, in a little time, an aversion for the life and maxims of Lacedemon. On the other hand, he would suffer no stranger to remain in the city, who did not come thither for some useful and profitable end, but out of mere curiosity; being afraid, that they should bring along with them the defects and vices of their own countries; and being persuaded, at the same time, that it was more important and necessary to shut the gates of the town against depraved and corrupt manners, than against infectious distempers. Rollin.

MANNERS OF THE PASTORAL TRIBES OF TARTARY.

THE different characters, that mark the civilized nations of the globe, may be ascribed to the use, and

the abuse of reason; which so variously shapes, and so artificially composes, the manners and opinions of a European or a Chinese. But the operation of instinct is more sure and simple than that of reason. It is much easier to ascertain the appetites of a quadruped, than the speculations of a philosopher; and the savage tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of animals, preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to each other. The uniform stability of their manners is the natural consequence of the imperfection of their faculties. Reduced to a similar situation, their wants, their desires, their enjoyments, still continue the same: and the influence of food or climate, which, in a more improved state of society, is suspended, or subdued, by so many moral causes, most powerfully contributes to form, and to maintain the national character of barbarians. In every age, the immense plains of Scythia or Tartary have been inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and whose restless spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary life. In every age, the Scythians and Tartars have been renowned for their invincible courage and rapid conquests. The thrones of Asia have been repeatedly overturned by the shepherds of the north; and their arms have spread terror and devastation over the most fertile and warlike countries of Europe. On this occasion, as well as on many others, the sober historian is forcibly awakened from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance, to confess, that the pastoral manners, which have been adorned with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence, are much better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a military life. To illustrate this observation, I shall now proceed to consider a nation of shepherds and of warriors, in the three important articles of their diet, their habitations, and their exercises.-I. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the ordinary and wholesome food of a civilized people, can be obtained only by the patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the savages, who dwell between the tropics, are plentifully nourished by the liberality of nature: but, in the climates of the

north, a nation of shepherds is reduced to their flocks and herds. The skilful practitioners of the medical art will determine (if they are able to determine) how far the temper of the human mind may be affected by the use of animal or of vegetable food: and whether the common association of carnivorous and cruel deserves to be considered in any other light, than that of an innocent, perhaps a salutary, prejudice of humanity. Yet, if it be true, that the sentiment of compassion is imperceptibly weakened by the sight and practice of domestic cruelty, we may observe that the horrid objects, which are disguised by the arts of European refinement, are exhibited in their naked and most disgusting simplicity in the tent of a Tartarian shepherd. The ox, or the sheep, are slaughtered by the same hand, from which they were accustomed to receive their daily food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with very little preparation, on the table of their unfeeling murderer. The Tartars indifferently feed on the flesh of those animals, that have been killed for the table, or have died of disease. Horse-flesh, which, in every age and country, has been proscribed, by the civilized nations of Europe and Asia, they devour with peculiar greediness; and this singular taste facilitates the success of their military operations. The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of spare horses, which may be occasionally used, either to redouble their speed, or to satisfy the hunger of the barbarians. Many are the resources of courage and poverty. When the forage round a camp of Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest part of their cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked or dried in the sun. On the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they provide themselves with a sufficient quantity of little balls of cheese, or rather of hard curd, which they occasionally dissolve in water; and this unsubstantial diet will support, for many days, the life, and even the spirits, of the patient warrior. this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would approve, and the hermit might envy, is commonly

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