sight, that, disregarding all ceremony, she ran up to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her. Omai, though he was pleased with every thing he saw in this country, and had every temptation to stay in it, was charmed even to rapture, when he entered the ship, that was to convey him to his own country. And De Lille, in his poem Les Jardins, beautifully apostrophises Potivera, a native of Otaheite, brought to France by Bougainville, who, seeing a tree resembling those, that grew in his own island, in the Jardin des Plantes, embraced it, bathed it with his tears, and called it "Otaheite." And when our young friend, Claude, the son of Helvidius, was admiring the beauties of that blooming island, he felt his heart sink within him, when he reverted to the tranquil smiles of his father's house, and contrasted them with the cheerless countenances of inhabitants, among whom there was not one to bless him! The African, torn from his country, and from all the endearments of social life, in a clime far over the western ocean, never ceases to sigh for the shore, he has been compelled to quit: and his affection induces him to believe, that, after death, he will return to his native scenes, the delights of his family, and the theatre of his former occupations. His hopes and his wishes are frequent causes for suicide! Actuated by the same belief, a Greenland boy on board an English ship, after proceeding some way on his voyage, was seized with such a violent desire to return to his native snows, that he leaped into the sea, and was drowned; fully persuaded, that he should, after death, be conveyed to the haunts of his infancy, and the arms of his parents. The wandering Koreki imagine themselves to be happier, than those of any other country under heaven: proud and arrogantly vain, they esteem the accounts, which travellers give them of other countries, entirely fabulous. The Kamschatdales believe themselves to be the happiest people on earth and their country superior to every other; and for : the Russians entertain the most extravagant contempt. The Samoides, who live in caves, are so attached to their deep recesses, that their deputies told the Czar of Russia, that if he did but know the comfort of their climate and country, he would quit his palace and his court, and go and reside with them. They were astonished that he should prefer St. Petersburgh and Moscow ! The negroes of Goree, black as ebony, fancy themselves the finest among men; and their country the most beautiful under heaven. When they observe benevolence in a christian, they enquire why a black soul has been implanted in a white body. Indeed a love of country produces in all instances national pride. The Mohawks believe themselves superior to the whole human race: and the natives of the Canary Islands entertain a similar belief. The mountains, near Shiraz, in Persia, are desolate and dreary; yet so attached are the Persian shepherds to them, that when the British secretary of embassy was observing their height and sterility, one of them enquired, with an air of exultation, whether his country could boast of any thing like them! And when Mirza Abul Hassan, the Persian ambassador, was in England, he replied to an argument, relative to the comparative beauty of England and Persia, It is true, we have not such fine houses, adorned with lookingglasses, as you have; no carriages; nor are we so rich: but we have better fruit, and we see the sun almost every day." 66 As Colonna was one day walking on the ramparts at Portsmouth, he met a Savoyard, who earned a scanty subsistence by exhibiting a male and female marmot. These Colonna offered to purchase; but the Savoyard refused to sell them on three accounts: first, because they enabled him to live;secondly, because he brought them from his own country;and thirdly, because, as he was neither married, nor had father, mother, sister or other relation, he could not resolve to part with the only friends, he had in the world. Like the rest of his countrymen, he had left Savoy for the purpose, not so much of seeing the world, as of improving his condition; but finding himself disappointed in that expectation, he had resolved to return to the village, in which he was born and if his marmots died before himself, he declared it to be his intention to bury them by the sides of his father and mother; leaving the middle place as a grave for himself. : The Greenlander says, "I am a Greenlander;" with as proud a satisfaction as a Roman was accustomed to say, “I am a Roman citizen a" In the historical introduction to a volume of Hans Egede is related an account of several Greenlanders, who were imported into Denmark. The king desired, that particular attention might be paid to them. Milk, cheese, butter, raw flesh, and raw fish, were served up to them in abundance; and every thing was done, that was esteemed likely to captivate them. But nothing was able to divert their melancholy. Their country was ever uppermost in their minds; and they were observed continually to turn a wistful and desponding look towards the north. Three of them fell sick, and died; two pined away with regret; and one of them was observed frequently to shed tears, whenever he saw a child at the breast of its mother. They made several attempts to escape; but without success. At length one of them succeeded; and it is supposed was overwhelmed by the sea in his little boat, as he was never heard of afterwards. It is a remark of the celebrated Burke ", that to make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely. To confirm this we may refer to Boccalini. That celebrated writer fables, that all the princes of the world elected an ambassador; whom they deputed to the court of Apollo to com A Egede, p. 41. b Reflections. p. 116. plain, that their people committed every kind of extravagance and excess; all which they attributed to the circumstance, that men loved their country much less than in former times; praying him, at the same time, to induce men to resume that natural affection, which all honest men ought to entertain. Apollo replied, that he was not so able to effect this, as the princes themselves. For if they would observe good government; cause justice to be equally distributed; be liberal, and shed abundance; the object, they sought, would be effectually accomplished. Men," said he, "by a natural instinct, love that country, in which they are born; and nothing can eradicate that feeling so completely, as to render it odious to them, by making the living in it dangerous, incommodious, or difficult." 66 66 An Italian poet has signalized his love of Rome :-" Eternal Gods! may that day be the last, on which I forget the happiness of Rome"!"-Pinelli of Naples, the celebrated collector of fragments and MSS., was so partial to Padua, that he never went out of it but twice during forty years. Sannazarius, whose eclogues have been so universally admired for their elegance of expression and beauty of sentiment, was so strongly attached to his villa at Mergillina, that when during the subsequent wars in Italy it was demolished by the imperial troops, commanded by Aurentio, the event is said to have hastened his end. And Dante, though he was proscribed Florence, for so many years, and wasted his manhood in exile from an ungrateful country, still desired to have his bones rest in that country, which had cherished him up to manhood. With this impression we read, with double sympathy, that passage in his Inferno, where he alludes to the superior comforts of those times, when peace prevailed in the city; when no mother mourned a husband or a son; and when a Adv. Parnass. xc. viii. b La Clemenza di Tito, act ii. sc. 13. none were reduced to exclaim, while wandering on a foreign shore ; O fortunate, O cias-cuna era certa A wish to be buried in the country of our nativity seems to be implanted in the people of all climates. It prevailed in the age of Homer, as it had previously done in that of the patriarchs. The Jews still retain the passion: and to meet the probability of its accomplishment, they believe, that at the coming of their Messiah, every Jew shall rise in Palestine.-Those, who die in foreign countries, will pass through the bowels of the earth, from the tombs, in which they are first deposited, to Jerusalem c. This they call Gilgul Hammethin, the passing of the dead. Their love for their city, and particularly their temple, was extremely remarkable. Pompey having injured the latter, the Jews in Rome became so zealously attached to Cæsar, that, for some time after his death, they were accustomed to assemble every night at his tomb, to signalize their veneration for his memory. e The Turks of Constantinople regard Asia as their patriarchal country. Most of them, therefore, in a respectable sphere of life, are carried, when dead, to Scutari; and they are even said to derive consolation, in their last moments, from the privilege of being buried on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. The ancient Nasamones testified their love of their ancestors by touching their tombs, whenever they made an oath. The Tartars of the south have an equal affection "And it shall come to pass, that after I have plucked them out of their land, I will return, and have compassion on them: and will bring them every man to his own heritage, and every man to his land.”—Jeremiah, xii. 15. |