Laws, merely to gratify the vanity of substituting .others in their place. From a national education, connected with our future legislation, there will result a Constitution appropriate to our occasions and to those of our posterity. The effect of this will be, that the greatest part of men of superior minds, being no longer repelled from public employments, by their venality, will not henceforward seclude themselves in Academies and Universities, to devote their whole attention to the affairs of Greece and Rome, in which they oblige us to admire their powers of thought, though they are scarcely ever employed in the service of their Country; like those antique vases which give us pleasure from the beauty of their forms, but serve no purpose except to make a shew in our cabinets, because they were not fabricated for use.

Having made provision for the felicity of the French Nation, by all the means capable of perpetuating the duration of it within the Kingdom, it would be worthy of the National Assembly to direct it's attention to those which may secure it externally, by proper arrangements with foreign Nations,onti sz

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THE same policy which, for their common happiness, unites all the families of a Nation among themselves, ought to unite all the nations of the Globe to each other, for they are the families of the human race. All men mutually communicate, even without

without any doubt on the subject, their calamities and their benefits, from one extremity of the Earth to the other. The greatest part of our wars, of our epidemic disorders, of our prejudices, of our errors, have come to us from without. The same thing is true as to our arts, our sciences, and our laws. But without going farther than to the blessings of Nature, let us cast an eye on our plains. We are indebted for almost all the vegetables with which they are enriched, to the Egyptians, to the Greeks, to the Romans, to the Americans, to savage Nations. Our flax comes from the banks of the Nile, the vine from the Archipelago, the corn-plant from Sicily, the walnut-tree from Crete, the pear-tree from Mount Ida, the lucern from Media, the potatoe from America, the cherry-tree from the Kingdom of Pontus, and so of the rest. What a delightful harmony is this day formed of the assemblage of those foreign vegetables all over the mountains and plains of France! It looks as if Nature, like a King, were there assembling her Estates-general. We there distinguish different orders, as among the men of the country. Here are the humble grassy plants, which like the peasantry produce useful harvests: out of their bosom rise the fruit trees, whose productions though less necessary are more agreeable, but which require the operation of grafting, and aculture more assiduous, like our burghers. On the high grounds are the oaks, the firs, and the other powers of the forests, who like the Nobility shelter the low-lands from the winds, or like the Clergy raise themselves to Heaven to catch it's refreshing dews. In the cor

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ner of a valley are nursery grounds like schools in which are reared the youths of the orchards and of the woods. No one of their vegetables injures another; all enjoy the benefits of the soil and of the Sun; all contribute mutual assistance, and lend to each other mutal graces. The weakest serve as ornaments to the most robust, and the more robust as a support to the feeble. The evergreen ivy mantles round the rugged bark of the oak; the gilded mistletoe glitters through the dusky foliage of the alder; the trunk of the maple encircles itself with garlands of honeysuckle, and the pyramidical poplar of Italy raises toward Heaven the empurpled clusters of the vine. Each class of vegetables has it's proper bird for it's orator: the lark warbles as he soars above the swelling har vest; the turtle murmurs and sighs from the summit of an elm; the nightingale utters her plaintive strain from the bosom of a thorny brake. At the different seasons of the year, tribes of swallows, of quails, of plovers, of loriots, of red-breasts, arrive from the North or from the South, build their nests in our plains, and go to rest in the caravanseras which Nature had prepared for them. Each of them addresses his petition to the Sun, as to a King, and implores the diffusion of his blessings over the district which he inhabits. They sojourn in our fields, our fallows and our groves, only because they recognize in them the plants of their own country, and find among us the means of living in abundance. Man alone finds no asylum in the possessions of Man, if he has the misfortune to be a stranger. In vain does the Italian sigh at

sight of the fig-tree which shaded his infancy; in vain does the Englishman admire in our French plains the farming of his own country: both the one and the other may perish with hunger in the midst of our exuberant crops, unless they have money, and perhaps in prison, if they have no passport, or belong to a Nation at war with us.

It was not by this indifference about strangers that the Nations of the East attained the point of grandeur which has rendered them the centre of the Nations. They never visit the countries of Europe, but they attract to themselves the men of all countries by establishments replete with humanity. The most meritorious object of their religion to the Princes, and the opulent Citizens, is to construct, for the accommodation of travellers, bridges over rivers, reservoirs of fresh water in dry places," and carvanseras in the cities and upon the high roads. The tomb of the founder frequently risesclose by the monument of his beneficence, and provisions are there distributed on certain days to passengers of every description. The traveller pronounces blessings on the hand which prepares for him an unexpected supply in the midst of a desert, and preserves to his last breath the recollection of that land of hospitality. The Orientalists permit to all Nations the free exercise of their Religion; and if they receive their Ambassadors, they keep them clear of all expense during their residence. Such are, with respect to strangers, the manners of the Turks of the Persians, of the Indians, of the Chinese; of those Nations which we have the insolence to brand with the name of barbarians.

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The study of Nature alone can diffuse illumina

tion relative to the rights of Mankind, and to our own Intolerant associations have usurped them in Europe, during ages really barbarous. They monopolized, to their private emolument, our homage, our riches, our illumination, and our duties; but in assuming the empire of opinion, they were unable to make themselves masters of that Nature. It was the revival of learning which brought us back to her laws. The study of her harmonies first appeared among nations of delicate sensibility, and that of her elements among nations given to reflection. Italy produced poets and painters; Germany naturalists; and England philosophers. Light quickly extended it's irradiation from the fossil to the vegetable kingdom; Tournefort arose in France, and; Linnæus in Sweden. The study of the vegetable world had made, toward the commencement of the present century, very considerable progress in England. The friends of mankind and of Nature, transplanted into their gardens the wild plants of our plains, and naturalized in our plains the foreign/ plants which they cultivated in their gardens. A man reposed himself near his house, on the herbage of the meadows at the foot of the trees of the forests, and travelled through the champaign of Europe under the shade of the great chesnut of India and the acacia of America. Certain philosophers, among others Buffon, attempted to naturalize at home the animals of foreign countries; but from want of considering that the animal kingdom is necessarily allied to the vegetable, those attempts were attended with scarcely any success. The rein-deer, and the vigon of Peru, refused