We learn from VOPISCUS', that there was in ETRURIA much fertile land uncultivated, which the Emperor AURELIAN intended to convert into vineyards, in order to furnish the ROMAN people with a gratuitous diftribution of wine: A very proper expedient to difpeople still farther that capital, and all the neighboring terri

tories.

ct

Ir may not be amiss to take notice of the account which POLYBIUS' gives of the great herds of fwine to be met with in TUSCANY and LOMBARDY, as well as in GREECE, and of the method of feeding them which was then practifed. "There are great herds of fwine," fays he, thro'out all ITALY, particularly, "in former times, thro' ETRURIA and CISALPINE GAUL. And a herd frequently contains a thousand or more swine. When one of these herds in feed"ing meets with another, they mix together; and the fwine-herds have no other "expedient to separate them than to go to different quarters, where they found “their horn; and these animals, being accustomed to that fignal, run imme"diately each to the horn of his own keeper. Whereas in GREECE, if the herds "of swine happen to mix in the forefts, he who has the greatest flock, takes cunningly the opportunity of driving all away. And thieves are very apt to pur"loin the ftraggling hogs, which have wandered to a great distance from their "keeper, in search of food."

66

MAY we not infer from this account, that the North of ITALY was then much lefs peopled, and worse cultivated, than at prefent? How could these vaft herds be fed in a country fo thick of inclofures, fo improved by agriculture, fo divided by farms, fo planted with vines and corn intermingled together? I must confefs, that POLYBIUS's relation has more the air of that oeconomy which is to be met with in our AMERICAN colonies, than the management of an EUROPEAN country.

WE meet with a reflection in ARISTOTLE's ethics, which feems to me unaccountable on any fuppofition, and by proving too much in favor of our present reasoning, may be thought really to prove nothing. That philofopher, treating of friendship, and obferving, that that relation ought neither to be contracted to a very few, nor extended over a great multitude, illuftrates his opinion by the following argument. "In like manner," fays he," as a city cannot fubfift, if it ei"ther have fo few inhabitants as ten, or fo many as a hundred thousand; fo is "there a mediocrity required in the number of friends; and you deftroy the effence "of friendship by running into either extreme." What! impoffible, that a city can contain a hundred thousand inhabitants! Had ARISTOTLE never seen nor heard of a city which was near fo populous? This, I must own, paffes my comprehenfion.

W

PLINY" tells us, that SELEUCIA, the feat of the GREEK empire in the East, was reported to contain 600,000 people. CARTHAGE is faid by STRABO to have contained 700,000. The inhabitants of PEKIN are not much more numerous. LONDON, PARIS, and CONSTANTINOPLE, may admit of nearly the fame computation; at least, the two latter cities do not exceed it. ROME, ALEXANDRIA, An

TIOCH, we have already spoke of. From the experience of paft and prefent ages, one might conjecture, that there is a kind of impoffibility, that any city could ever rife much beyond this proportion. Whether the grandeur of a city be founded on commerce or on empire, there feem to be invincible obftacles, which prevent its farther progrefs. The feats of vaft monarchies, by introducing extravagant luxury, irregular expence, idleness, dependence, and falfe ideas of rank and fuperiority, are improper for commerce. Extenfive commerce checks itself, by raising the price of all labor and commodities. When a great court engages the attendance of a numerous nobility, poffeffed of overgrown fortunes, the middling gentry remain in their provincial towns, where they can make a figure on a moderate income. And if the dominions of a state arrive at an enormous fize, there neceffarily arife many capitals, in the remoter provinces, whither all the inhabitants, except a few courtiers, repair, for education, fortune, and amusement*. LONDON, by uniting extenfive commerce and middling empire, has, perhaps, arrived at a greatnefs, which no city will ever be able to exceed.

CHUSE DOVER or CALAIS for a center: Draw a circle of two hundred miles. radius You comprehend LONDON, PARIS, the NETHERLANDS, the UNITED PROVINCES, and fome of the best cultivated counties of FRANCE and ENGLAND. It may fafely, I think, be affirmed, that no spot of ground can be found, in antiquity, of equal extent, which contained near fo many great and populous cities, and was fo ftocked with riches and inhabitants. To balance, in both periods, the ftates, which poffeffed most art, knowlege, civility, and the best police, feems the truest method of comparison.

'Tis an observation of L'Abbe DU Bos', that ITALY is warmer at present than it was in antient times. "The annals of ROME tell us," fays he, "that in the year 480. ab U. C. the winter was fo fevere that it deftroyed the trees. The TYBER

"froze in ROME, and the ground was covered with fnow for forty days. When "JUVENAL defcribes a fuperftitious woman, he reprefents her as breaking the "ice of the TYBER, that he might perform her ablutions.”

Hybernum fracta glacie defcendet in amnem, "Ter matutino Tyberi mergetur.

"He fpeaks of that river's freezing as a common event. Many paffages of "HORACE fuppose the streets of ROME full of fnow and ice. We fhould have more certainty with regard to this point, had the antients known the use of "thermometers: But their writers, without intending it, give us information, "fufficient to convince us, that the winters are now much more temperate at "ROME than formerly. At prefent, the TYBER no more freezes at ROME than "the NILE at CAIRO. The ROMANS efteem the winter very rigorous, if the "fnow lies two days, and if one fees for eight and forty hours a few icicles hang "from a fountain that has a north expofition."

THE obfervation of this ingenious critic may be extended to other EUROPEAN climates. Who could difcover the mild climate of FRANCE in DIODORUS SICULUS'S

* Such were ALEXANDRIA, ANTIOCH, CARTHAGE, EPHESUS, LYONS, &c. in the ROMAN empire. Such are even Bou RDEAUX, THOLOUSE, DIJON, RENNES, ROUEN, AIX, &c. in FRANCE;

2

DUBLIN, EDINBURGH, YORK, in the BRITISH
dominions.
§ 16.
z Sat. 6.

x Vol. 2. a Lib. 4.

defcription

66

defcription of that of GAUL?" As it is a northern climate," fays he, "it is infefted "with cold to an extreme degree. In cloudy weather, instead of rain, there fall great "fnows; and in clear weather it there freezes fo exceffive hard, that the rivers acquire bridges of their own fubftance, over which, not only fingle travellers "may pafs, but large armies, accompanied with all their baggage and loaded "waggons. And there being many rivers in GAUL, the RHONE, the RHINE, "&c. almost all of them are froze over; and 'tis ufual, in order to prevent falling, to cover the ice with chaff and straw, at the places where the road "paffes." Colder than a GALLIC Winter, is ufed by PETRONIUS, as a proverbial expreffion.

NORTH of the CEVENNES, fays STRABO, GAUL produces not figs and olives : And the vines, which have been planted, bear not grapes, that will ripen.

OVID pofitively maintains, with all the fericus affirmation of profe, that the EUXINE fea was frozen over every winter in his time; and he appeals to ROMAN governors, whom he names, for the truth of his affertion. This feldom or never happens at prefent in the latitude of TOMI, whither OVID was banifhed. All the complaints of the fame poet feem to mark a rigor of the seasons, which is scarce experienced at prefent in PETERSBURG or STOCKHOLM.

TOURNEFORT, a Provencal, who had travelled into the fame countries, obferves, that there is not a finer climate in the world: And he afferts, that nothing but OVID's melancholy could have given him fuch difmal ideas of it. But the facts mentioned by that poet, are too circumftantial to bear any fuch interpretation.

d

POLYBIUS fays, that the climate in ARCADIA was very cold, and the air moist.

"ITALY," fays VARRO, "is the most temperate climate in EUROPE. The "inland parts" (GAUL, GERMANY, and PANNONIA, no doubt) "have almoft perpetual winter."

THE northern parts of SPAIN, according to STRABO', are but ill inhabited, because of the great cold.

ALLOWING, therefore, this remark to be juft, that EUROPE is become warmer than formerly; how can we account for it? Plainly, by no other method, but by fuppofing, that the land is at prefent much better cultivated, and that the woods are cleared, which formerly threw a fhade upon the earth, and kept the rays of the fun from penetrating to it. Our northern colonies in AMERICA become more temperate, in proportion as the woods are felled; but, in general, every onemay remark, that cold ftill makes itself much more feverely felt, both in North and South AMERICA, than in places under the fame latitude in EUROPE.

SASERNA, quoted by COLUMELLA", affirmed, that the difpofition of the heavens was altered before his time, and that the air had become much milder and warmer; as appears hence, fays he, that many places now abound with vineyards b Lib. 4.

с

NISH hiftories of the firft difcovery and conquest of

Trift. lib. 3. eleg. 9. De Ponto, lib. 4. eleg. thefe countries, they appear to have been very

7.9.10.

Lib. 4. cap. 21. f Lib. 3.

e Lib. 1. cap. 2.

The warm fouthern colonies also become more healthful: And 'tis remarkable, that in the SPA

healthful; being then well peopled and cultivated. No account of the fickness or decay of CORTES'S or PIZZARRO's fmall armies.

b Lib. 1. cap. I..

and

and olive-plantations, which formerly, by reafon of the rigor of the climate, could raife none of these productions. Such a change, if real, will be allowed an evident fign of the better cultivation and peopling of countries before the age of SASERNA; and if it be continued to the prefent times, is a proof, that thefe advantages have been continually increafing thro'out this part of the world.

LET us now caft our eye over all the countries which were the scene of antient and modern history, and compare their past and present situation. We shall not, perhaps, find fuch foundation for the complaint of the present emptiness and defolation of the world. ÆGYPT is reprefented by MAILLET, to whom we owe the best account of it, as extremely populous; tho' he esteems the number of its inhabitants to be diminished. SYRIA, and the Leffer Asia, as well as the coast of BARBARY, I can readily own, to be very defart in comparison of their antient condition. The depopulation of GREECE is alfo very obvious. But whether the country now called TURKY in EUROPE may not, in general, contain as many inhabitants as during the flourishing period of GREECE, may be a little doubtful. The THRACIANS feem then to have lived like the TARTARS at prefent, by pafturage and plunder *: The GETES were still more uncivilized: And the ILLYRIANS were no better". These occupy nine tenths of that country: And tho' the government of the TURKS be not very favorable to industry and propagation; yet it preferves, at least, peace and order among the inhabitants; and is preferable to that barbarous, unfettled condition, in which they antiently lived.

POLAND and Muscovy in EUROPE are not populous; but are certainly much more fo than the antient SARMATIA and SCYTHIA; where no husbandry or agriculture was ever heard of, and pafturage was the fole art by which the people were maintained. The like obfervation may be extended to DENMARK and SWEDEN. No one ought to efteem the immense swarms of people, which formerly came from the North, and over-ran all EUROPE, to be any objection to this opinion. Where a whole nation, or even half it, remove their feat; 'tis eafy to imagine what a prodigious multitude they must form; with what defperate valor they must make their attacks; and how the terror they strike into the invaded nations will make these magnify, in their imagination, both the courage and multitude of the invaders. SCOTLAND is neither extenfive nor populous; but were the half of its inhabitants to feek new feats, they would form a colony as large as the TEUTONS and CIMBRI ; and would shake all EUROPE, fuppofing it in no better condition for defence than formerly.

GERMANY has furely at prefent twenty times more inhabitants than in antient times, when they cultivated no ground, and each tribe valued itself on the extenfive defolation which it spread around; as we learn from CAESAR, and TACITUS, and STRABO. A proof, that the divifion into small republics will not alone render a nation populous, unless attended with the fpirit of peace, order, and industry.

THE barbarous condition of BRITAIN in former times is well known, and the thinness of its inhabitants may easily be conjectured, both from their barbarity,

i He seems to have lived about the time of the

younger AFRICANUS; lib. 1. cap. 1.

* Xenotb. exp. lib. 7. Polyb. lib. 4. cap. 45. Ovid paffim, &c. Strabe; lib. 7.

m Polyb. lib. 2. cap. 12.

De bello Gallico; lib. 6,

• De moribus Germ.

P Lib. 7.

and from a circumftance mentioned by HERODIAN, that all BRITAIN was marfhy, even in SEVERUS's time, after the ROMANS had been fully fettled in it above a whole century.

'Tis not eafily imagined that the GAULS were antiently much more advanced in the arts of life than their northern neighbors; fince they travelled to this island for their education in the myfteries of the religion and philofophy of the DRUIDS'. I cannot, therefore, think, that GAUL was then near fo populous as FRANCE is at present.

u

WERE We to believe, indeed, and join together the teftimony of APPIAN, and that of DIODORUS SICULUS, we must admit an incredible populoufnefs in GAUL. The former hiftorian' fays, that there were 400 nations in that country; the latter' affirms, that the largest of the GALLIC nations confifted of 200,000 men, befides women and children, and the leaft of 50,000. Calculating therefore, at a medium, we must admit of near 200 millions of people, in a country, which we' efteem populous at prefent, tho' fuppofed to contain little more than twenty Such calculations, therefore, by their extravagance lofe all manner of authority. We may obferve, that that equality of property, to which the populoufnefs of antiquity may be afcribed, had no place among the GAULS. Their intestine wars alfo, before CAESAR's time, were almoft perpetual. And STRABO 2 obferves, that tho' all GAUL was cultivated, yet it was not cultivated with any skill or care; the genius of the inhabitants leading them lefs to arts than arms, till their flavery to ROME produced peace among themselves.

a

CAESAR enumerates very particularly the great forces which were levied in BELGIUM, to oppofe his conquefts; and makes them amount to 208,000. These were not the whole people able to bear arms in BELGIUM: For the fame hiftorian tells us, that the BELLOVACI Could have brought a hundred thousand men into the field, tho' they engaged only for fixty. Taking the whole, therefore, in this proportion of ten to fix, the fum of fighting men in all the ftates of BELGIUM, was about 350,000; the whole inhabitants a million and a half. And BELGIUM being about the fourth of GAUL, that country might contain fix millions, which is not the third of its prefent inhabitants ".

THE antient HELVETIA was 250 miles in length, and 180 in breadth, according to CAESAR; yet contained only 360,000 inhabitants. The canton of BERNE alone has, at prefent, as many people.