bulwark about him against the vices of youth. The fortune which he will inherit from you, as the reward of his good conduct, is more than competent to the elegant comforts of life. Ah! why then endeavour to inspire him with the desire of accumulating so affluent a property? Is there a passion,-nay, is there a vice, which the New Testament declares more fatal to Christian peace, and Christian virtue, than the thirst of riches? Never has experience shewn that happiness was the result of wealth, beyond the pale of affluence. Finely does that master of the human heart, that Shakespeare of prose, Richardson, express himself upon this subject: "You are, all of you, too rich to be happy, child; for must not each of you, by the constitutions of your family, be put upon making yourselves still richer; and so every individual of it, except yourself, will go on accumulating; and, wondering that they have not happiness, since they have riches, continue to heap up, till death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into his garner.

"

It seems strange to me, that any person of an exalted mind, untainted with the vices of profusion, and undazzled by the splendour of ostentation, can wish a beloved child to imbibe the desire of increasing an affluent property;- stranger still, that a pious character should so wish, since the Scriptures declare it easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, thian for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. The expression, rich man, certainly means a miser; and how great a temptation to this exclusive vice, is the habit of living daily in contemplation, and constant attention, to heaps of sordid Mammon !

Forgive my ingenuousness; the sincerity of an almost life-long friendship.'

That Miss S. possessed a feeling heart, and sympathised with her friends in their sorrows, these volumes exhibit abundant testimony; and if it were possible for affliction to receive relief from reflections adapted to the house of mourning, her letters must have been prized by her grief-stricken correspondents as a balm to the heart. She never flatters riches: but, conscious of the superiority of intellectual endowments, she despised that money-vanity which is so very characteristic of this Mammonworshipping age. Our readers shall see how her thoughts flow when she takes a glance at mortality and the world. Writing to Mr. Cotton, she says:

Alas! poor Mrs. Style! I hoped to have felt my heart expand again and again in the warm benevolence which shone out in her countenance, and in her manners. I should yet more regret that you have lost her, had you not told me that clouds of causeless dejection were apt to involve, and, during long intervals, darken its light. The idea of a friend's sufferings, so painful to us while they are endured, becomes lenient and consolatory when it hovers over their sepulchre; yet must you long feel a dreary vacuity in Lady Fane's circle. Local circumstances are great nourishers of regret.

<< When

"When to the old elm's wonted shade return'd,

Then, then I miss'd my vanish'd friend-and mourn'd.”

It is peculiarly proper that I should condole with you on the loss of your friend this day-for it is the 17th of March; the birth-day of my lovely long-deceased sister, who died in her nineteenth year"a fair flower soon cut down on our fields. The spring returned with its showers, but no leaf of her's arose :"-yet does not my heart forget this day, which gave to life an amiable creature, who shed the light of joy over many of my youthful years. Many are fled since she vanished from earth. Time balms sorrow, and there is a joy in grief when the soul is at peace. But I am conscious there are deprivations, the wound of which no time can balm. Then it is that anguish wastes the mournful, and their days are few. Heaven preserve my heart, and the hearts of all I love, from the corrosive impression of such a woe!

Here is nothing to be called news which can interest you. Some of us are grown very fine. The's and 's, whom you remember contentedly moving in general equality with their neighbours, have, amidst their, of late years, improving fortunes, taken great state upon themselves; affect to live in what they call style; to associate chiefly with Lords and Esquires of high degree in the environs. They think, no doubt, that thus externally elevating themselves, they shall excite the envy of their neighbours, that darling triumph of contracted minds. They certainly do excite it amongst the many who would act the same part if they had the same golden means. But there are two classes of people who look down upon such low-souled ambition, and all its silly ostentations; the religious and the literary. Earthly parade can draw no jealous glances from eyes that are often lifted up to Heaven; and the votaries of intellectual and lettered pleasures, look upon their lacquies and lords, their strutting and their style, with as undazzled and untroubled eyes as eagles can be supposed to cast on glow-worms, when they have been recently gazing of the

sun.'

Miss Seward was not rich; having, as she informs us in one of her letters on the death of her father, scarcely 400l. a year: but she appears to have been a good economist, and, with a proper spirit of independence, to have discharged the duties of friendship and hospitality, and to have taken those excursions which were necessary for her health. Her mode of life is displayed in these letters; and therefore, for the period which they include, they may be considered as her memoirs. We purpose, in a subsequent number, to display other features of her mind, and to prepare farther entertainment for our readers.

ART. II. Exposé Statistique, &c. i. e. A Statistical Account of Ton quin, Cochin-China, &c. &c.

[Art. concluded from the last APPENDIX, p. 526.]

IN N resuming our report of this curious and novel production, we now come to the head of Form of Government und State of Society. If, from contemplating the physical character of the country of Tonquin, we turn our eyes to the state of society among its inhabitants, we shall speedily discover the marks of that inferiority to Europe which characterizes the greater part of Asia. Descended from the Chinese, the Tonquinese have blindly retained the government of their ancestors, without discriminating its defects from its merits, and without compre hending the changes which are required by a difference of situation. The principle of the Tonquinese, as of the Chinese government, is to consider the empire as a family of which the sovereign is the father; while every Mandarin and inferior functionary is accounted, in like manner, the father of the quarter committed to his charge. The power of the monarch is absolute, the consent of no class of subjects being requisite to give validity to his edicts: the succession is hereditary in the male line, according to the order of primogeniture, but with power, on the part of the monarch, to alter this destination in favour of any of his legitimate children. The people are forbidden to carry arms: but any individual has a right to present memorials on a subject of public interest. The state allows no hereditary nobility, the only distinction being between the people at large and the servants of the crown; the latter comprehending all ranks, from the highest Mandarin down to the private soldier. Even in the royal family, nobility is hereditary only as far as the nephew of the sovereign. The Mandarins form two classes, the civil and the military; and each class has seven gradations of rank. Though the people have no right to add their sanction to the decree of the sovereign, they pos sess a portion of power in regard to municipal regulations and the local application of their edicts of government. This power is exercised by each commune, or district, which holds meetings, and makes choice of official leaders. The government of Cochin-China is similar to that of Tonquin : but the countries of Laos and Tsiampa are in too barbarous a state to be the objects of any regular exercise of authority, and Lac-tho is generally a prey to intestine commotions. In regard to foreign policy, the principle of the Tonquinese government is in general distrust; and they cannot be exempted from the charge of that infidelity to their promises, which is common among Asiatic courts. They They are aware that the Chinese cling to the expect

ation of one day recovering possession of Tonquin, and are jealous of its recent independence: but this national antipathy, however strong, does not prevent the existence of a free state of commercial intercourse between the two countries.

Following the arrangement observed by the author of this work, we arrive next at the important topic of Matrimony; which, in Tonquin, as among ourselves, is a contract for life, though the knot is not tied by such indissoluble bands. The common mode of demanding a young woman in marriage is that the parents of the suitor should present the parents of the female with victuals, the acceptance of which implies consent: but in some quarters a method is very coolly adopted to ascertain the respective dispositions of the young people before marriage; we mean the custom of the young man going for months and even years to labour with the family of his in tended bride, for which, in the event of the projected treaty being broken off, he receives payment on his departure. The act which legalizes the connection is the payment of the public tax on marriages, the amount of which varies from three to twenty crowns. The union of the young couple is afterward celebrated by a feast given by the parents of the bride, and attended by the relations on both sides, who generally contribute presents to a greater value than the expence of the entertainment. So far all is respectful and courteous towards the lady : but a different opinion must be expressed of her condition when she has fairly entered on the married state, the law directing that she shall then be wholly in her husband's power. He has not only the right of disposing of her property, which seldom goes beyond a little furniture and dress, but he is absolute master of her person, and possesses the ungracious prerogative of inflicting blows and confining her in chains. This right, the certain sign of backward civilization, extends even to the highest classes. With equal injustice towards the weaker sex, the law prescribes the power of divorce to rest exclusively with the husband, and permits him to resort to it on slight grounds. A want of respect on the part of the wife towards him, in the presence of a third person, will be held a sufficient cause; and the mode of separation is equally summary. The husband gives his wife a certificate of abandonment, which is recorded by a public officer; after which the wife resumes possession of her dowry, and is at liberty to contract a second marriage, the children remaining with the father. In a case of polygamy, only one of the number is accounted the legal wife, and is the sole mistress of the house; her aus thority extending over the other female inmates as if they were her servants. The barbarous custom of exposing new-born REV. OCT. 1811.. children,

K

children, so common in China, is unknown in Tonquin ; provisions, as already remarked, being so abundant as to render a numerous family not only honourable but profitable. The father's power over them is unlimited; and he may put them to hire, while under the age of eighteen, sending their mother along with them under the title of guardian :

Nothing can be more simple than the management of a civil process in this country. On a complaint being made before a judge, the person accused is led by the civil officers into court, and confronted with his accuser. No lawyers are employed, and the successful party receives an order for the payment of his costs: but there, as nearer home, he finds himself generally out of pocket by going into court. A delinquent detected in the commission of an act, which does not belong to the class of heinous offences, is seized, bound, and carried to his own house by the civil officers, who regale themselves at his expence, and, without farther process, impose a fine on him. He is at liberty to appeal to the judge, but at the hazard of suffering an aggravation of the sentence. Public prisons are formed in the large towns only; in other quarters, the houses of the Mandarins answer the purpose, and are fitted up with that view. All immorality and infractions of decency are rigorously punished. The mother of an illegitimate child is severely fined, and publicly flogged; and adultery is punished with the death of both parties. Notwithstanding the beneficent intentions of the law, the administration of justice is very indifferent, the magistrates and even the judges being very corrupt, and money procuring impunity for almost any fault. Criminal offences, however, are rare in Tonquin, notwithstanding the disorder which is consequent on the long continuance of civil war; and it is computed that, out of the whole population, not more than twenty or thirty persons fall in the course of a year by the hand of justice.

The pressure of taxation is equally felt here as in Europe, and may be divided into four kinds of impost; capitation-tax, land-tax, labour on public works, and military service. The capitation-tax is nearly a dollar a year, and applies to all males who are not in the service of the crown; among the females it is payable by widows. The tax is imposed by government, without distinction as to differences of individual property: but attention is paid to this in the repartition which is afterward made by the district-officers. The liability to military service lasts from the age of eighteen to that of fifty. On foreign commerce the chief burden is ten per cent. on im portation, exportation being free.

In regard to the mode of warfare, a considerable change has oc curred of late years in consequence of the imitation of European habits. In former times, fire-arms were little known; and the ele phants, being accounted irresistible, generally decided the fortune of the day but the use of cannon has given the power of putting these formidable animals to flight, and of turning them against the ranks of their employers. They are now chiefly used for the conveyance of baggage and warlike stores. The Tonquinese army is composed

:

entirely