and the great favourites of princes, that are so finely painted in dedications, addresses, epitaphs, funeral sermons, and inscriptions, I answer, there, and no where else."*

But my friend Wentworth has had better luck. He cannot move a step without encountering some paragon of virtue and talents, and he lives on, forming schemes, contracting intimacies, and embarking in projects, undeterred by the disappointments which await every one, both in men and in things, and accounting for them, when they do occur, with great plausibility, and much more to his own satisfaction than to that of any body else.

Adieu.

F. R.

* Fable of the Bees, remark (0).

LETTER XII.

Conduct of Mankind under extraordinary CircumstancesEarthquake at Caraccas-Pestilence at Athens-Impending Danger at Bucharest-Revolution at Paris.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

We human beings are an extraordinary race, and form an exhaustless subject of study. A man may certainly discern many general laws in the passions and propensities and actions of mankind, so as to calculate, with tolerable success, what results will ensue in given circumstances; but on some occasions he is obliged to abandon the attempt, and sink into a simple observer of unaccountable phenomena.

This remark often holds true of the actions of masses of men, while under the influence of extraordinary vicissitudes or excitement. Two or three instances of this kind have lately fallen in my way, which I will here collate and com

pare. I am not sure that I can offer you any remarks upon them worth your attention, but the mere juxta-position of the cases cannot fail to suggest to every one an interesting train of reflections.

In the fourth volume of Humboldt's Travels in the Equinoctial Regions, he gives us the following description of the effects of a tremendous earthquake at Caraccas on the minds of the survivors. In this terrible catastrophe, which happened on the 26th of March, 1812, the town was destroyed, and more than twenty thousand persons perished almost at the same instant.

"Amidst so many public calamities, the people devoted themselves to those religious duties, which they thought were the most fitted to appease the wrath of Heaven. Some, assembling in processions, sung funeral hymns; others, in a state of distraction, confessed themselves aloud in the streets. In this town was now repeated what had been remarked in the province of Quito, after the tremendous earthquake of 1797: a number of marriages were contracted between persons, who had neglected for many years to sanction their union by the

sacerdotal benediction. Children found parents by whom they had never till then been acknowledged; restitutions were promised by persons who had never been accused of fraud; and families who had long been enemies were drawn together by the tie of common calamity. If this feeling seemed to calm the passions of some, and open the heart to pity, it had a contrary effect on others, rendering them more inhuman. In great calamities, vulgar minds preserve still less goodness than strength: misfortune acts in the same manner as the pursuits of literature and the study of nature; their happy influence is felt only by a few, giving more ardour to sentiment, more elevation to the thoughts, and more benevolence to the disposition."

The conduct here described is such, perhaps, as most people would think natural under any heavy calamity. The mind is prostrated by the infliction; the illusions of prosperity are destroyed, and the feeling of personal responsibility is preter-naturally aggravated by terror. How is it, then, to be accounted for, that the tremendous calamity which overwhelmed the Athenians in the second year of the Peloponnes

sian War should produce moral effects of so different a character? In Thucydides' celebrated description of that great pestilence, he tells us that, as the violence of the calamity exceeded all bounds, and men knew not what to have recourse to, they fell into a neglect alike of sacred and social duties. "This pestilence," he continues, "gave rise to that unbridled licentiousness, which then first began to be prevalent in the city; for now every one was readier to venture openly upon those gratifications which he had before dissembled, or indulged in secret, when he saw such sudden changes-the rich hurried away, and those who before were worth nothing coming into immediate possession of their property; insomuch, that men were willing to snatch the enjoyment of such fugitive delights as offered themselves, and to live solely for pleasure, regarding their lives and their possessions as only held by the tenure of a day. As to bestowing labour or pains on any pursuit which seemed honourable or noble, no one cared about the matter, it being uncertain whether or not he might be snatched away previously to the attainment of his object. In short, whatever any person