unhappy paffion; nor can they induce us to look on that tragical and infamous fcene, which followed upon it, with lefs abhorrence. Humanity will draw a veil over this part of character, which it cannot approve, and many, perhaps, prompt fome to impute her actions to her fituation, more than to her difpofition; and to lament the unhappiness of the former, rather than to accuse the perverfeness of the latter. Mary's fufferings exceed both in degree and in duration, those tragical diftrelles which fancy has feigned to excite for. row, and commiferation; and while we furvey them we are apt altogether, to forget her frailties, we think of her faults with lefs indignation, and approve of our tears, as if they were fhed for a person who had ate tained much nearer to pure Virtue. With regard to the queen's perfon, a circumftance not to be omitted in writing the hiftory of a female reign, all contemporary authors agree in afcribing to Mary the utmost beauty of countenance and elegance of fhape, of which the human form is capable. Her hair was black, though, according to the fashion of that age, fhe frequently wore borrowed locks, and of different colours, Her eyes were a dark grey, her complexion was exqui fitely fine, and her hands and arms remarkably deli cate, both as to shape and colour. Her Stature was of an height, that rofe to the majeftic. She danced, fhe walked, and rede with equal grace. Her tafte for mufic was juft, and fhe both fong, and played upon the lute with uncommon skill. Towards the end of her life, fhe began to grow fat; and her long confine ment, and the coldness of the houses in which she was imprisoned, brought on a rheumatism which depri ved her of the use of her limbs. No man, fays Bran→ tome, ever beheld her person without admiration and love, or will read her hiftory without forrow!

Gibbon.

Gibbon.

Edward Gibbon, Esq. geb. in der Grafschaft Hampi bire, 1737; geff. 1793. Das mußterhafte und in seiner Art einzige Werk, The Hiftory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Ges schichte der Abnahme und des Falls des römischen Reichs, dem dieser von Muße und dußern Glücksumßänden begünstigte Gelehrte, den größten und beßten Theil seines Lebens widmete, sichert seinem Namen den bleibendgen Nachruhu. Die Wahl seines historischen Stoffs war ungemein glücklich; aber eben die große Fruchtbarkeit deffelben foderte auch einen vielbefassenden, mit ungewöhnlichen Gaben und Kenntnissen ausgerüsteten Geift. Und so, wie der feinige alle Erfodernisse des Geschichtschreibers zur Sammlung, Prüfung und Verbindung der Materialien in sich vereinte, so bes faß er zugleich Geschmack, Gefühl und Reichthum der Sprache in einem vorzüglichen Grade, um seiner Schreibart Würde, Klars beit, Reis und Lebhaftigkeit mitzutheilen, und seine Leser eben so sehr durch den Vortrag, als durch den Inhalt zu gewinnen und zu feffeln. Die Anordnung seines mit großer Sorgfalt und Genauigs teit gewählten Stoffs ist leicht und übersehbar; seine eingewebten Betrachtungen sind ncu, treffend und gründlich; und seine ganze Behandlungsart verrdth einen Mann von edelm, freimüthigem Sinne, gleich entfernt von entscheidender Anmaßlichkeit und von scheuer, engherziger Zurückhaltung. Seine Reußerungen über die Entstehung und erste Verbreitung des Christenthums veranlassten mehrere Gegenschriften von Dr. Watson, Dr. Apthorpe, Dr. Chelsum, Dr. Randolph, Davis, u. a. m. Nur den lestern würdigte er einer Beantwortung. Das hier ausgehobene neunte Kapitel beschreibt den Zustand Deutschlandes in den frühesten Beiten,

The goverment and religion of Perfia have deserved fome notice from their connexion with the decline and fall of the Roman empire. We fhall occafionally mention the Scythian, or Sarmatian tribes, which, with their arms and horfes, their flocks and herds, their wives and families, wandered over the immense plains, which spread themfelves froin the Cafpian Sea to the Viftula, from the confines of Perfia to thofe of Ger

many. But the warlike Germans, who first refifted, then invaded, and at lenght overturned, the western monarchy of Rome, will occupy à much more important place in this history and poffefs a stronger, and if we may use the expression, a more domestic claim to our attention, and regard. The most civilized nation of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany, and in the rude inftitutions of those barbarians we may still diftinguifh the Original principles of our prefent laws and manners. In their primitive state of fimplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the difcerning eye, and delineated by the mafterly pencil of Tacitus, the first of hiftorians, who applied the science of philofophy to the study of facts. 'The expreffive concifeness of his descriptions has deferved to exercise the diligence of inunmerable antiquarians, and to excite the genius and penetration of the philofophic hiftorians of our own times, The fubject, however various and important, has already been fo frequently, fo ably, and fo fuccefsfully difcuffed, that it is now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer. We fhall therefore content ourselves with obferving, and indeed with repeating, fome of the most important circumstances of climate, of manners, and of inftitution, which rendered the wild barbarians of Germany such formidable enemies to the Roman power.

Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the province weftward of the Rhine, which had fubmitted to the Roman yoke, extended itself over a third part of Europe. Almost the whole of modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Livonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by the various tribes of one great nation, whose. complexion, manners, and language denoted a common

origin,

1

4

origin, and preferved a striking resemblance. On the weft, ancient Germany was divided by the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south, by the Danube, from the Illyrian provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills rising from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered Germany on the, fide of Dacia or Hungary.

The eastern frontier was faintly marked by the mutual feats of the Germans and the Sarmatians, and was often confounded by the mixture of warring and confederating tribes of the two nations. In the remote darkness of the north, the ancients imperfectly difcried. a frozen ocean that lay beyond the Baltic sea, and be yond the Peninsula or islands of Scandinavia..

Some ingenious writers have fufpected that Europe was much colder formerly than it is at present; and the most ancient descriptions of the climate of Germany tend exceedingly to confirm their theory.

The general complaints of intense froft, and eter, nal winter, are perhaps little to be regarded, fince we have no method of reducing to the accurate standard of the thermometer the feelings, or expreffions of an orator, born in the happier regions of Greece or Afia, But I fhall select two remarkable circumstances of a lefs equivocal nature. 1) The great rivers which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the Danube, were frequently frozen over, and capable of fupporting the most enormous weights. The barbarians who often chose that fevere feafon for their inroads, trans ported, without apprehenfion or danger, their nume, rous armies, their cavalry and their heavy waggons, over a vast and solid bridge of ice. Modern ages have, not presented an inftance of a like phaenomenon. 2) The rein deer, that useful animal, from whom the favage of the North derives the belt comforts of his

dreary life, is of a constitution that fupports, and even requires, the most intense cold. He is found on the rock of Spitzberg within ten degrees of the Pole; he feems to delight in the fnows of Lapland and Siberia; but at present he can not fubfift, much less multiply, in any country, to the south of the Baltic. In the time of Caefar, the rein deer, as well as the elk, and the wild bull was a native of the Hercynian forest, which then overshadowed a great part of Germany, and Poland, The modern improvements fufficiently explain the causes of the diminution of the cold. Thefe immense woods have been gradually cleared, which intercepted from the earth the rays of the fun. The morasses have been drained, and, in proportion as the foil has been cultivated, the air has become more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an exact picture of ancient Germany. Although fituated in the fame parallel with finelt provinces of France and England, that country experiences the moft rigorous cold. The rein deer are very numerous, the ground is covered with deep and lafting fnow, and the great river of St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season when the waters of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from ice.

It is difficult to ascertain, and easy to exaggerate the influence of the climate of ancient Germany over the minds and bodies of the natives. Many writers have fuppofed, and most have allowed, though, as it fhould feem, without any adequate proof, that the rigorous cold of the North was favourable to a long life, and generative vigour, that the women were more fruitful, and the human fpecies more prolific, than in warmer or more temperate climates. We may affert, with greater confidence, that the keen air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the natives, who where, in general, of fa

more

1