reasonings. All their practical rules of government and civil polity were drawn from the consideration of human beings, as existing in a collective, metaphysical, corporate capacity; and to man, in this sublime and contemplative idea of him, were all laws to be so framed and tempered as, at length, to constitute an indivisible invisible part of his spiritual essence; to rush into a sort of sudden sympathetic union with the qualities of the soul; and thus to anticipate the completion of our nature, and carry us at once into the order of superior intelligences.

I was very much chagrined, feeling as I do for the credit of the fair sex, to see so many female contributors to this learned lumber, the warmth of whose fancies does not always suffer them to engage in these stubborn disquisitions with a sufficient regard to facts and possibilities.

While we were thus considering this class of learned productions, my guide called my attention to a manuscript very superbly bound and lettered, purporting to be the Scheme of a Commonwealth. Before we turned over any of the pages of this valuable book, I was apprised of a feature of this nation's polity, which I believe is peculiar to itself, and may be a fact important to be known to my countrymen and others in these goodly times of political experiment. There was a certain island, situated at the distance of about two thousand miles from the great kingdom of Nothing, and nearly as far separated from every other shore. The property of this island had formerly been vested in the crown of Inania, or the great kingdom of Nothing; and as it was barren of every produce that was marketable in the mother country, being entirely covered with solid timber and substantial fruits, it had long been made the receptacle of obnoxious persons, of which description

a very large supply was annually exported from the shores of Inania. But though the productions of this country were considered as of no value by this whimsical nation, yet a means had been found of turning it to very admirable account. A society of politicians had lately sprung up within the walls of the university, which, as it had innovated upon the long-established modes of treating the great questions of civil polity, having so far inverted the order of inquiry as to postpone hypothesis to experiment, had with great difficulty obtained their charter of incorporation. By making, however, such proposals as his Inane Majesty could not resist; having, as my oracle informed me, paid into the royal treasury a prodigious sum in horse-chesnuts, which was the specie of that country; they were admitted purchasers of this island, which they had destined to the purpose I shall now explain to my readers.

The object of this society carried with it very lofty pretensions, being nothing less than an undertaking to promote and improve political knowledge, by a course of philosophical experiments; and as the compass which experiments of such magnitude demanded must needs be extensive, they had, by the aid of a general subscription, enabled themselves to purchase this remote territory, with a view to try therein each new theory of government, that was thought worthy of experiment by this highly patriotic fraternity. It was the rule of the society to prepare, digest, and render mature for trial, once in every two years, a new scheme of a commonwealth; and at every expiration of that term, to dispatch to the devoted island, with all due observance of ceremony, a draught or instrument, containing the new constitutional system, with the seal of the corporation subjoined, which was immediately to be established by

proclamation, and to displace every vestige of former institutions. The proceedings of this extraordinary body produced two very different effects: to the mother country, it was a source of everlasting expectation, and kept up a very lively suspense in the public mind; to the unhappy theatre of these political dramas, it occasioned a perpetuity of bloodshed and horror, in so much that there was need of very large and frequent draughts of population from the ports of Inania. As the inhabitants of this miserable place were merely considered as the subjects of experiment, and that for an object so vast as the interest of human nature at large, their pains and sufferings weighed nothing in so unequal a scale; and it was thought the mark of a very diminutive mind, to lament the catastrophes consequent upon these trials, or to cherish any moral or humane scruples respecting them. So fast did these plans of government follow each other, and so sudden and radical a change was necessary, at every introduction of a fresh system, to give it immediate effect, that it was impossible for the habits of the people to keep pace with these transitions, or for the best-disposed member of this versatile community to be cognisant of the laws under which he was to live. The first month, therefore, after the new establishments had been imported, or, in other words, the commission of the new constitution had been opened, was sure to bring many hundreds to public execution, who, in the perplexity of jarring codes, mistook the rule of their litical conduct, and were hanged as traitors to-day for the patriotism of yesterday. A leap-year was always particularly sanguinary, as it had never been settled whether the intercalary day belonged to the old or the new establishments, till the commissioners or deputies had time to determine the point, which

po

was generally about a month after that day. And as this resolution of the deputies operated by relation to the time in which it respected, for an anxious period after every leap-year, no one knew whether he was a traitor or not; and every individual in the island was potentially guilty of a capital crime, till the moment in which this fact, as to the day, was decided. As might be supposed, under such circumstances, civil wars and domestic factions were no very uncommon events in this country; and the truth was, that an immense force was necessary to give effect to each fresh constitution that was to be tried upon this devoted community.

The manuscript which my conductor had put into my hands, was a counterpart of another draught which had been lately sent over to this island, and which contained one of these probatory schemes of a commonwealth, that had raised peculiar hopes of success among the people of Inania. It was thought to be so happily conceived as to be hardly of human composition; and having for its end, universal peace, love, and harmony, it was judged worthy of an extraordinary military equipment, to procure its more effectual introduction. It being the invention of a celebrated female personage of the city of Tintinabia, who had, as I was told, distinguished herself by many specimens of genius, according to the taste of that city, I was induced to bestow upon it something more than a cursory attention. The general reasoning on which the positive laws contained in this subtle system of legislation was grounded, was, as far as I can recollect, to this purpose.

"Man is a simple, not a compounded being:-he has no elemental evil or good in his composition; but such as are called his good and evil propensities are indifferent in themselves, and take their colour

and quality from the relation they bear to the things without us. In reality and in truth, we are all righteous in our original natures; and as we are born, so should we continue innocent, were it not that these original qualities of our nature, by coming in contact with contagious and contaminating mischiefs, disseminated through life, and banefully implicated in every system of polity and jurisprudence, contract an adventitious character and tendency that designates them as evil propensities. It is thus that colours, by being blended one with the other, lose their original denomination; but as blue would never of itself become green, without the admixture of yellow, so neither would the original qualities of the mind contract any stain or discoloration, unless driven into union with the impure objects of life, and the hurtful ingredients with which all human institutions have hitherto been dashed. The only method by which this deformation of the human character and disposition can be prevented, is to preserve it from all contagion, and so to dispose all the circumstances of life, by the force of our artificial institutions, as to render them incompatible with vicious habits and pursuits; on the same principle of reasoning that frames are constructed to straighten crooked limbs, and backboards are used where children are inclined to be round-shouldered."

Solon being asked if he had given to the Athenians the best laws, answered, that he had given to them the best they could bear a sentiment very much applauded by Montesquieu; but which did not so strike our fair lawgiver. She was for contriving such legislative arrangements as were to make no allowances for human imperfection; and, despising those loose and uncompacted systems