war with Tunis is only a pretext for keeping up a confiderable naval ar

mament.

While the commercial ftate of Venice is addreffing itself to arms, the emperor has already experienced that disappointment in his commercial schemes, to which thole are liable who attempt to over-rule or counteract the defigns of nature, in that diftribution which the has thought fit to make of advantage or incommodity to the various fituations of mankind. This difappointment was the more fenfibly felt, as it affected that favourite and captivating part of his projects, which was to render the remote tails or outskirts of his widely extended continental dominions, the fources of a great and productive commerce with the eastern world. The Afiatic company of Oftend and Trieste, which had been fo much the favou rite object of his nurture, care and hope, and which probably afforded a leading motive for his quarrel with Holland, and attempt of opening the Scheldt, became bankrupt for the heavy fum of twenty millions of French livres, early in the fummer of 1785. This heavy blow, which feverely affected the whole rifing commerce of the Auftrian Netherlands, and the monied men in other parts of his dominions, as well as foreigners, was faid to have been accelerated by the fpirit of fome Dutch merchants, whofe indignation being excited at the unjuft claims which they conceived that prince was making upon their country, procured, as a measure of retaliation, bills for a great amount to be drawn upon the Afiatic company from Paris; and thefe being unexpectedly presented, and, in the ufual mercantile manner, protefted

for non-payment, this excited fo great and fudden an alarm among the other creditors, that the Count de Preli, the principal or oftenfible director, was obliged to abfcond, and the whole commercial fabric fell at once to the ground. It was not, however, now neceffary to eftablish the axiom, that commerce, at least in her nonage, must walk flowly and regularly, with peace in' one hand, and with juftice in the other, if the expects to grow or to flourish; and that unbridled power, immenfe ftanding armies, views of conqueft, and rapacious violations of good faith and neighbourhood, are utterly incompatible with her profperity, whofe arts are all of the conciliatory kind.

Nor does it feem that the emperor has been much more fortunate in his other commercial projects than in his East India adventure. Even the new trade of the Danube and Black Sea, from which fuch wonders had been expected, and which had been fo hardly wrefled from the Porte in the hour of diftrefs and danger, is faid to have hitherto afforded little more than difappointment and lofs; nor is the commerce of the Adriatic reprefented as being much more productive. In the mean time, the internal commerce of his dominions, which is naturally very great and productive, and capable of prodigious improvement, is disturbed and overlaid by that infinite feries of edicts and regulations, which frequently militating with each other, as well as with all the principles of trade, are destructive of that quiet, ftability, and power of free agency, which are effential to its exiftence; and which, if they do not prove ruinous to thofe already concerned, will at

leaft

leaft deter others from hazarding their property upon fuch quickfand foundations. Among these are to be reckoned those heavy duties, amounting in effect to prohibitions, which were laid upon various English manufactures, particularly thofe of iron and fteel, which, from their extravagance, and the failure of confidering or understanding their certain or probable confequences, carried their own overthrow along with them, and have accordingly been fince either abolished or modified. This has, however, been confidered rather as a political measure, than a mere act of commercial regulation, and attributed to the refentment excited by the king of Great Britain's acceffion, as elector of Hanover, to the Germanic league, which was an object of fo much jealoufy and vexation to the court of Vienna.

Of the numerous innovations which are faid to have occafioned fo much disgust and diffatisfaction among the Hungarians, few could feem better calculated for that purpose, especially to a proud, fierce and fuperftitious people, violently attached to their old manners and habits, and ftill vain of a liberty and glory which have been long defunct, than the measure adopted by the emperor in the year 1784, of removing their ancient crown and regalia from Prefburgh to Vienna. The crown was fortified with all those fanctions, which in past ages could render it the fuppofed palladium of a country. It had been a prefent fo long ago as the year 1000, from Pope Sylvefter the IId to St. Stephen, then king of Hungary; fo that all the reverence of fanctity was added to that communicated by time. The crown was of pure and folid gold, and, to ftamp the greater value on it, it was

made after the fashion of that worn by the Greek emperors; it was adorned with an emerald of great fize, and feveral hundreds of rubies, fapphires and pearls; befides being ornamented with images of the apoftles and patriarchs in maffy gold. The pope added to the crown a donation of a large filver cross, which was afterwards inferted in the arms of Hungary, and afforded an opportunity to its kings to affume the title of Apoftolic; a title latterly revived and affumed by the late Maria Therefa; who was crowned queen of Hungary with this regalia at Prefburgh, in the days of her greatest tribulation. Thefe, with the fceptre and globe of the kingdom, which boasted, befides their antiquity, being made of pure Arabian gold, a magnificent two-edged fword, and a curious mantle for coronations, richly wrought in gold with figures, images, and infcriptions, by Gifele, the celebrated confort of St. Stephen, were all carried away to Vienna.

It seemed rather a wanton sporting with the feelings of fuch a people, to deprive them of thefe veftiges of loft royalty, and harmless objects of national pride. If it was any relief or gratification to a people, bending under the irkfome weight of a foreign yoke, to fee that their mafters were once in their lives under a neceffity of vifiting them, and of receiving the infignia of royalty and government at their hands, why should they not be indulged in fo innocent a gratification? Nor is the neceffity of fuch obfervances, however trivial they may appear, entirely unimportant to a people,, as they are fymbols of their connection with the governing power, and serve occafionally to remind

it of its duties. Feeble ties indeed! but what ties are ftrong to controul the extravagancies of power? All we can do is to fupply with number the deficiency of ftrength, and to hope that those leffer ones may operate on the imagination, where the greater fanctions fail to lay hold upon the levity, or to fubdue the viciousness of our nature. The fpirits of the Hungarians have been too much broken, and the measures of late years pursued to make them degenerate from their antient character, have been too fuccessful, for this or any other meafure to produce any much greater effect than that of private murmur. Indeed, what fpirits could remain unbroken, under the controul of a ftanding army of 300,000 men ?

The Arch Duke Maximilian's acceffion to the electorate of Cologne, and to its great appendage the fovereign bishopric of Munfter, (which forms fo potent a principality in itself) upon the death of the late elector, in 1784, was no novelty in the affairs of Germany, as being a matter already fettled by his previbus election to the coadjutorfhip; an election which we may remember had been warmly, and with much strength of reasoning and political judgment, oppofed by the king of Pruffia; though the fuperiority of the Auftrian intereft rendered his arguments and interpofition ineffectual. This prince has hitherto taken no apparent part in the general politics of Germany; and by the attention he pays to the government of his electorate, and the good of his fubjects, has already acquired their affection, as well as the efteem of his neighbours, in very confiderable degree; and which a wife and munificent difpofal of his VOL. XXVIII.

a

great and princely revenues (to which his inclination is faid to lead him) will effectually fecure.

The extraordinary change which has taken place in the circumftances of the three ecclefiaftical electorates, within lefs than an age, whether confidered with regard to improvements in civil or ecclefiaftical government, to the wearing-off of prejudices, the extenfion of religious toleration, to the introduction of a judicious fyftem of education, the establishment of public fchools, and the encouragement given to learning, and the cultivation of the arts and fciences among the fuperior claffes of the people, is in every refpect truly furprifing; and will be confidered as the more admirable, under the reflection that thefe great improvements are not the effect of any religious or political revolution, of any change in the order or nature of government, nor of any foreign or domeftic violence upon the dif pofition either of princes or peo. ple.

A paftoral letter, which was iffued in the year 1784, by the clector and archbishop of Triers to his clergy, will ferve confiderably to illuftrate this obfervation, and is the more remarkable, as that prince (who is of the houfe of Saxony) is confidered as being peculiarly attached to the tenets of that church of which he is fo confiderable a member; and that the outward marks of his zeal in that refpect have gone much beyond any that have been difplayed by his brethren of Mentz and Cologne.

This curious paftoral letter will, however, fpeak for him and for it. felf. After ftating to his clergy the objects which they fhould have in view, and the conduct which they [D]

fhould

fhould obferve in the discharge of those facred functions to which they are affigned; he dwells particularly upon the inftructions which they fhould give to the people on religious fubjects; and ftrictly charges the rectors to confine themselves in their fermons to morality, and to the practical duties of a virtuous life, which all may understand and profit by, inftead of entering into abftrufe queftions and theological difquifitions, which, beyond the capacity of most of their auditors, ferve only to excite troublesome or dangerous doubts, and to diffufe an idle fpirit of difputation, which frequently tends to the treating of the moft delicate or facred fubjects with irreverence. He then ftrictly pre-fcribes that all luxury fhould be banished from the churches: obferving (rather in the fentiments of a prefbyter of a reformed church, than the language of a Roman Catholic prince and prelate) "That neatnefs and decency are all that are befitting the Houfe of the Lord:" that, on days of ceremony, worldly magnificence should be avoided, the effect of which was to excite more of curiofity than of devotion; and forbids that the mufic of the theatres fhould ever be brought into the churches. He enjoins the paflors to ufe their utmoft endeavours to undeceive and to wean the people from their prefent abfurd notions and prejudices, concerning wizards, phantoms, fpells, and raifing the devil, all of which are the offspring of the groffeft folly and ignorance; that they fhall discharge to their flocks the respective functions of fathers, judges, and fpiritual phyficians; that they fhould vifit them frequently; and that they fhould never, except in cases of abfolute neceffity, fend

fubftitutes to fupply their own place among the poor, who are thofe that ftand moft in need of confolation and affistance.

It fhould not be forgotten here, that the Elector of Mentz has commenced a reform of the ecclefiaftical orders in his dominion; that he has already obtained the confent of the pope for the fuppreffion of three monafteries, and has applied their revenues to the fupport of the univerfity, and to the use of fome of the new fchools, which, upon the plan of an improved fyftem of education, have been inftituted and moft libe. rally endowed by himself. It may likewife be a matter of fome curiofity to take notice, that the Bible, in the language of the country, is frequently to be met with in the hands of the Roman Catholic inhabitants of that electorate; and that the clergy have for feveral years permitted it to be read, under fome very moderate restrictions with refpect to the age and qualifications of the parties applying.

We now return to affairs merely political. The fudden death of the landgrave of Heffe Caffel, which happened on the laft of October 1785, was not capable of producing any immediate effect on the public flate of Germany; his eldeft fon, William, count of Hanau, who was then turned of forty years of age, fucceeding of courfe in his poffeffi ons. The late landgrave had, during his father's life-time, and fo long ago as the year 1754, departed fo far from the religious principles of his ancestors, as to enter into the Roman Catholic communion; which, however, producing no change in the ftate of the government, nor in the condition or perfuafion of his fubjects, was to be confidered mere

ly

ly as a private tranfaction. It is well known that he had lived for many years upon very ill terms with the princefs Mary, his confort, who was a daughter of England; and he is faid to have been much difpofed to French interefts and politics, although the love of money induced him to hire his troops to England in the American war. The political fentiments of the prefent landgrave are faid to be directly the reverfe of thofe held by his father; and as he is clofely allied in blood, fo he is faid to be no lefs attached by difpofition to the interefts of the reigning family of Great Britain. The vaft fums of money which that country and family have drawn from England through the courfe of the late war, together with the very large pecuniary legacies which have been fince willed to the latter by the princefs Amelia, feem to af ford them the means, along with the military turn of the people, the arbitrary nature of the government, and their large hereditary poffeffions, of becoming very potent in Germany; and it may well be prefumed, will have no small effect in fupporting their claim to the ninth electorate; a bufinefs which lies fo long dormant, through the clafhing of the great political interefts that divide the empire.

The fpringing up of a new prophet in the Upper Afia (an inftance of ambition under a different character) might, at certain periods, have been confidered as the indica tion of fome extraordinary revolution in the Eastern world. But the general difpofition of things in the prefent day is far from being favourable to the growth, in any great degree, of fuch impoftures; and even in thofe regions which feemed

at all times to have been peculiarly adapted by nature or circumftance to the production of fanatical enthufiafm, checks and difficulties now occur, which prevent the former dangerous and wonderful effects from taking place.

The Sheich Manfour pretended that he was pre-doomed by the eternal and immutable decrees of Heaven to fill up the measure of divine revelation to mankind; that as he was the laft prophet that ever was to appear, fo he was to close up and to affix the feal to the ordinances of Providence; that he was not fent to fubvert the inftitutes and doctrine of Mahomet, whofe miffion was equally divine with his own, but to restore them to their original purity, with fuch additions and alterations as the prefent ftate of things rendered neceffary; that the foreknown corruptions of mankind, and of the text and doctrines of Mahomet, had occafioned his being predefined from the beginning to this great and important office. As the reform of mankind was to be now general and complete, and that the obftinacy of many infidels was too incorrigible to be wrought upon by perfuafion, or even by miracle, so, in imitation of his great prototype, he affumed the ufe of the fword, as well as of the fpirit, for the accomplishment of that great work.

It was at first given out that it was his object entirely to overthrow the doctrine of Mahomet, and to erect a new edifice upon its ruins; and that, reprefenting the miffion of that prophet as completed, and his power and authority in the government of this world as expired, he had forbidden the pilgrimages to Mecca, and all acts of devotion to him, as unlawful, But thefe ac