um. They are wonderful, especially for the drapery, and dispute the palm, in this respect, with the Flora Farnese, and with other Greek works of the first rank. King Augustus was so fortunate as to purchase them for the moderate sum of six thousand Saxon crowns.

The building which is most striking to a stranger, as well for its agreeable situation near the bridge, as from the singularity and elegance of its construction, is the catholic church, unquestionably one of the finest temples of Germany, although the architecture deviates from the rules and the form which serve for models in these times. On entering the church, through the principa: door, we are agreeably surprised with the beautiful ensemble, with the justness, the harmony of proportions of all parts of this grand edifice, with the agreeable light that illuImines it, and with the symmetrical masses simply decorated, where the eye loves to repose; but, on advancing some paces, the surprise increases, and changes to admiration, at the sight of the magnificent painting which adorns the altar-piece....... it represents the ascension. A dozen of personages appear agitated with different emotions; the expression is as natural as the contrasts are happy. Attitudes, draperies, colours, all is beautiful, all is harmonious; every thing flatters the eye, satisfies and rivets the mind. The principal figure, noble, and almost aerial, rises majestically, and without effort, as a being superior to humanity, and, so to speak, homogeneous with the pure ether that environs it. The angels that accompany the Redeemer, in some measure absorbed in the brilliant vapours of his glory, are exquisitely beautiful. This composition places Mengs on a par with the greatest masters: it should be seen more than once to appreciate it duly. In a chapel to the right appears a Calvary, which no sensible being can contemplate without experiencing a lively and profound emotion, whatever may be his creed. But that

which attracts the greatest crowds to this superb temple, is the excellent music in the chapel of the elector; it will suffice to name a Naumann, a Schuster, and a Seidelmann, all three worthy rivals and masters of the chapel, to withhold our astonishment at the concourse of people who attend the sacred offices. According to the Court Calendar for this year, the elector keeps in pay no less than sixty-seven musicians...... With the exception of Rome and of Naples, no capital in Europe possesses a church-music comparable to that of Dresden. The author recollects that, on his return from Italy with M. Schuster, assistant in the church of Dresden, at the execution of a piece composed by that virtuoso, he was perfectly enchanted with the ensemble and the goodness of the orchestra, although he was fully taken up with the impressions that the Italian music had made upon him,

Among the different cabinets of curiosities, we particularly distinguish that which is designated under the name of the Green Chamber; we may consider it as unique in its kind. On entering this enormous magazine of toys, you are dazzled with the magnificence of the different objects. An enfilade of eight chambers, almost all inlaid with marble, presents itself; some partitions are covered with mirrors, which reflect the most striking objects that are not inclosed under lock and key. You also perceive the equestrian statues and the busts of king Augustus, one of the electors, to whom Dresden owes the greatest part of its treasures, and of its different embellishments.

The second chamber contains all sorts of works in ivory, such as a ship of war completely fitted out; the cordage is of gold, the sails (as thin as fine paper) are of ivory, and the guns (about a finger in length) are of brass.

An immense pile of silver furniture, ranged in pyramids against the walls, the pillars, on the tables, and the windows, occupy the third apartment.

The vases of gold, of vermillion, the snuff-boxes, watches, &c. make the ornament of the fourth apartment. The man of taste will dwell with pleasure on a great clock of silver gilt, of an exquisite finish; the cyphers are of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires; it strikes every quarter of an hour; there is a small ball of crystal, which marks the minutes by running round the dial-plate.

The fifth and sixth chambers are enriched with precious stones, porphyry, jasper, agate, calcedony, Onyx, carnelion, amethyst, lapis-lazuii, mother of pearls, &c. Here are likewise specimens of very beautiful marbles produced in Saxony, and which scarcely yield to those of Italy. On the tables and windows shine a quantity of vases, enamelled after the antique, and surpassing gold itself in value, as the art of composing these enamels is lost. One of the most valuable pieces, both for the materials and workmanship, is the great mogul, placed on his throne, encircled with courtiers, who bring him presents, and with soldiers, officers, and ministers; in the court you see the body-guards, the elephants, and all the pomp of attendants of an Asiatic prince; the whole is in gold, silver, or enamel. Another very beautiful production of the art is a pyramid of precious stones, of the height of a cubit and a half, in the midst of which rises the bust of Augustus II. The other faces are adorned with antique busts...... This single piece has been valued at . 100,000 crowns.

The richest of these chambers is the eighth and last......it contains scare ly any thing but jewels.

During the last ten years, a manufactory, or house of industry, has been established at Dresden, where a great number of individuals are kept at work, according to their respective strength and talents: this establishment is on a plan calculated to extirpate mendicity or beggary, and after the models in the cities of Hamburgh, Kiel, &c.

Here are a number of public

schools, where children are instructed gratis, as likewise many other houses of charity. The school founded by the free masons is one of the principal. The military school has been established for one hundred and fifty Saxon young gentlemen, who are educated at the expence of government.

The library is open to the public several days in the week, and individuals may easily obtain permission to carry home books out of the library which they want to use for any length of time.

Among the institutions of eminent utility, we must not omit that of the veterinary school, where, as well as at Vienna, all pupils are obliged to attend a course of lectures.

Dresden has no academy of sciences as at Berlin, and no university as at Vienna; but we must not therefore infer, that the capital of Saxony does not include, among its inhabitants, a number of men of science and letters. We should expect the contrary from a city, which is the centre of the graces, and of Germanic urbanity....it is here that the fine arts are cultivated with the greatest success. The Academy of Painting and Sculpture has a number of directors and professors of high repu tation.

Here are many clubs, but all for the purposes of conviviality, none for politics. There is also a literary museum, where all sorts of journals are taken in, and a number of reading rooms, &c.

Hospitality towards strangers is one of the virtues inherent to every inhabitant of Dresden who lives in easy circumstances. With so many establishments favourable to the instruction of youth, it may be easily conceived that both the men and the women are distinguished by an agreeable cultivated mind; the ladies especially are in possession of a language and a pronunciation, which have inexpressible charms for any one that has lived in the southern parts of Germany; their manners and conversation are replete with the most seductive graces, and, al

though great lovers of pleasure, they cheerfully and successfully apply themselves to all the occupations of their sex. The men are, in general, very well-informed; many speak with facility, and even agreeably, several foreign languages.

We shall conclude with remarking, that, for some years past, an air of discontent, a sort of vague distrust, has displayed itself more or less openly, and has gained ground on all classes of society, and individuals of all ages. The schemes of politics, the divers incidents of the revolution, the scourge of war, and the progress of luxury, combined with the still increasing price of provisions, are the real and unfortunate sources to which this temper of the public mind may be attributed.

EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH ON

THE SLAVE TRADE, SPOKEN

BEFORE THE COUNCIL OF THE

LEEWARD ISLANDS, MARCH, 1798.

COULD I, like other men, have beheld the wretched Africans exposed to sale by hundreds, in our Guinea yards, and satisfied myself with say ing, it is so, and it must be so....could I have reflected on the misery which they suffer, when torn from the country where they were born, and the greater misery of their passage accross the ocean, which separates them from it for ever....could I have witnessed their deaths, which almost glut the grave, after their arrival among us, and the melancholy worse than death which mark their path to it....could I have witnessed the barrenness of our Creole women, whose forms are moulded to fecundity, the loss of our children at the instant of their birth, the mortality among our ablest slaves, their decay and death in the time of manhood....could I have witnessed all this, and have satisfied myself with saying, it is so, and it must be so, I should not on the present day, and in the present meeting, have stood

VOL. II. NO. VIL

up an advocate for abolishing the slave trade. But, blessings on my eccentricity, it would not suffer me to see and to think like other men, nor to speak in union with their contented apathy.

The horrors of a separation from the country in which the Africans are born, this trade certainly is the parent of. But consider, Mr. Speaker, how unmitigated their horrors are, how aggravated beyond the example of every other exile.

The wretched African has no interval allotted, previous to his departure, in which he can make a preparation for his journey, or provide a defence against the evils of the way. No tender adieus, no consolatory leave-takings set him forward on his road, or beguile the tediousness of the passage with recollections that soothe while they pain. Banishment is mercy to his lot. He is not banished; he is literally torn from his country, and from every thing which it contains that is dear to him.

Children at play are caught up by those who steal men. The weary labourer is bound while asleep, and awakes to captivity from competence and freedom. Wives in vain stretch out their arms after their husbands; and the eyes of the husband in vain linger for the grief and form of his wife.

Not that all are free who are brought to the West Indies from Africa. Many are slaves in their own country. But some are not so; and so susceptible is wretched man of misery, that a single free born African may realize in his individual bosom greater woes than all I have described.

I have directed, Mr. Speaker, four Africans, purchases lately made by myself, to be brought here to-day. The first is a huge skeleton, who lives in my kitchen, and wallows in victuals; but neither plenty nor excess can put an ounce of flesh upon his bones. The second has never raised his head, or smiled, since I purchased him. There he is. Melancholy has marked him for her

7

own. The third is a woman....the - sickly victim of obstructions created during her passage, lest the value of her purchase should be diminished. ........These, and an experience which the grave now covers, determine me never again to contribute to this horrid trade. So may the great Father of mankind prosper those who are dearest to me, so may he bless my children, as Í here swear, I will not!

The fourth, Mr. Speaker, is a boy: his father, who and a numerous offspring, had but little clothes to give them, sold him in exchange for a piece of cloth. Youth, thoughtlessness, the frame of an infant Hercules, render him superior to the evils of slavery. If this shocking trade is still persevered in, it should then be confined to children, who are too young, and too inconsiderate, to brood on the reverse which has overtaken them. But no, it must be abolished. Though the father sold him, who knows the pangs the mother felt at their separation. Children leave behind them miseries and regret equal to what the grown exile carries with him, and in his bosom. This trade must, Mr. Speaker, be abolished, unless every tender fibre of the human heart is to be explored, that torture may be lodged in it.

That the consequences of this trade are such as have been describéd we must acknowledge, Mr. Speaker, if we connect effects with causes, and trace the calamities which the West Indian world has endured, and with which we are threatened, to their source.

It was the eager and boundless prosecution of the African trade, which, in St. Domingo, filled with negroes every situation that ought to have been occupied with men complexioned like the planter....that stationed a conspirator wherever an ally ought to have been found :.... that crowded with enemies every avenue through which succour could arrive in time of alarm and danger. It was in St. Domingo, that the standard of revolt was first uplifted; that it waved over the most flourish

ing colony upon earth, and gave the signal to her mass of blacks to fall upon and butcher the whites. Instantly they set at nought her twenty thousand militia, bid defiance to her regular forces, and the shipping in her harbours; ravaged her fields, attacked her towns, and left her inhabitants weltering in their blood.

Such were the dire effects of the African trade on St. Domingo: and in the Leeward Islands, Mr. Speaker, it is the same trade which me naces us with the same horrors. For it is this trade, with its dangerous facility of procuring slaves, and the treacherous submission of their demeanour, that has multiplied the lurking assassins, till they swarm wherever the planter turns his eyes; it is this trade, that has excluded from his employment, and driven from his society, his white brethren; it is this trade, which has cut him off from succour and from hope, when destruction is at hand: when death stares him in the face, and indignities worse than death threaten to precede it.

Hear then, thou thoughtless planter, these indignities which aggravate the pangs of death, and shudder at the horrid trade which engenders them, although thou dost not fear to die. For it is true, that heroism, nay obstinacy, can endure, despise, and provoke all that savages can inflict on ourselves, when they make a sport of pain. But there are other sufferings, there are wounds which can be inflicted through those we love, and have reared, which pierce our noblest principles and most cherished sentiments before they reach ourselves, and such wounds agonize beyond endurance. What hero, nay, what savage, could endure to see the massacre of his children, or the dishonour of his wife, to be taunted with, and called on to wit ness the foulest of stains, and the most afflicting of cruelties, at the instant that he was expiring. But such has been frequently, and recently has been the fate of the West Indian planter in consequence of the African trade, in consequence of his

being encompassed with blacks, whom his African purchases had gathered round him.

Let him then abandon this dangerous and horrid trade, if he wishes not to be crushed by the calamities that hang over him; if he wishes not to sink into the grave childless and dishonoured; if he wishes to die in peace, and in the arms of his family.

soups of the North American savages are nothing else than melted fat, which they swallow so greedily, that at almost all their feasts some of them eat themselves to death. They are not contented with heigh tening the savour of their soup, or sagamite, with bear's grease, but they throw a pound of candles into it, whenever they can get them..... This partiality for fat is as strong in the South American savages, as in the North American. The former not only devour putrid tiger

NATIONS TO GREASY MEATS AND DRINKS.

ON taking a general view of the history of the victuals of all nations, we shall find as great a diversity in the meats and drinks in different countries and parts of the globe, as in the provender that nature has allotted to the most different classes of animals; and from these differences of food, and their preparation, we may form as certain conclusions on the original difference of nations, and the degree of their innate dignity or indignity, as from the differences of clothing, habitations, forms of government, manners, and religions. Nations are so much the more brutal and rude, the more voracious they are, the more disgusting and nauseous things they live upon, the more raw and unprepared meats or carrion they devour, and, lastly, the greater avidity they have for pure fat or animal oils*.

The Americans, of all the races of mankind, are, undoubtedly, the least elevated above the irrational animals, and this near relationship to the brutes, as in all the other provisions they consume, so likewise in the prodigious quantity of fat, and greasy viands they can bear. The

Even among us there are instances of particular persons that have an insa. tiable liking to fat. The Ephemerides Nature Curiosorum adduce the example of an officer, who had a natural aversion to bread, and instead of it always ate bacon fat.

would cause an European stomach to rise by its intolerable stench, but they even drink the melted fat of that animal.

This avidity for fat, and greasy food, did not first spring up in the Americans on their transplantation into their present place of abode, but they inherited it from their progenitors, and brought it with them from the north-eastern parts of Asia. The Tunguses, and other Siberian tribes of Mongolian extraction, eat fat and tallow, without either salt or bread, and even the Calmucs are fonder of animal flesh the fatter it is.

All the nations of southern Asia regard obesity as the height of beauty, and in order to acquire it they drink melted butter, or other oleaginous liquors. This conceit and taste the Hindoos have adopted from the Mongolian nations of southern Asia. They therefore drink melted butter, as in Europe we drink Spanish or other strong wines. The other oriental nations do not indeed drink butter, but melted butter is almost the only sauce they take with their favourite pilau. They first pour off the gravy of the meat, and then pour melted butter upon the dry rice-meal, or make a hole in it, and fill it up with butter. Lobo likewise affirms of the Abyssinians, that all their dishes swim in butter, or overflow with fat.

The inhabitants of New Zealand resemble their ancestors of Asia in regard to their taste for fat, and unctuous liquors. They not only