right; for, as they are in continual danger of being displaced, or banished, or affalinated, their family, by this means, may be able to fave their most valuable effects. All the male children of the prince are called Bezades; a title they retain during life; but it gives them no pre. tenfions to the fucceffion. Money alone is the prevailing recommendation with the Sublime Porte. The people of Moldavia and Walachia are in general robust and well made. Their drefs, which is light and wide, conttrains none of their limbs or joints. Exercife on horfeback is the only kind they are fond of, and in good weather, the youth accuftom themselves to throw the girit, a fort of lance, after the manner of the Turks. Except fome attention to the study of the Greek tongue, they receive hardly any education. The young lords who are destined to bufinefs, whether at the court of the Hofpodar, or in the provinces, take fome pains to learn the Turkish, Latin, French, and Italian languages; but very few make any proficiency. The morality of the priests, and the philofophy of Aristotle, are the only fources from whence they draw their flender ideas of vice and virtue; tho', it must be confeffed, that notwithstanding the general ignorance and ftupidity of the two nations, there are fometimes men to be met with, favoured by nature, and formed by foreign education, that would make no contemptible figure among our most celebrated literati. But thefe people have one quality, which a martial nation might turn to great advantage; that is, they are excellent foldiers when well difciplined. The emperor has made the experiment with fuccefs and fatisfaction. He has feveral regiments of Walachians in his army, and thefe perform the military exercife with furprifing agility and addrefs. It is ftrange, that, among all nations, the art of destroying one ano ther, and of murdering their fellow creatures, is the art which of all others is learned with the greatest ease. The Walachians are in general more gay than the Moldavians; they have likewife more fpirit and courage. It may be faid of both nations, that they are neither addicted to robbery nor affaffination; they even perform the duties of hofpitality with a degree of fatisfaction. But their character has in fome degree been perverted from its natural inclination to virtue; and, if the fimplicity of their manners has been corrupted, it is owing to the Greeks alone, who, like harpies, infect and taint whatever they touch, that they alone may feed on it: they come from the extremities of Thrace, and the islands of the Archipelago, to spoil these two provinces, and to leave no thing behind them but traces of their crimes and rapacity. The women of Moldavia and Was lachia are in general handsome; they have a white fkin, but their complexion is for the most part pale. Very few among them are fair, but there are a great many brunettes, who have dark and well-formed eyes. The fair fex in thefe countries are much inclined to love. While the Ruffian troops were quartered among them, every foldier, as well as every officer, had his mifirefs. Young girls, wives, and widows, all deferted their families and friends, to follow thofe conquerors of the Turks. The drefs of the women is a fort of long robe, without fold, which fits clofe to the body and is faftened with clafps at the neck, fo that the fhape of the bofom is diftinctly feen. When they go abroad, they throw over this robe, a fur cloak, even in fummer. The country girls, who cannot purchase robes either of filk or cotton, nor furs, content themselves with a fhirt which has a border on the shoulders, and with an apron of coarse cloth, tied in form of a girdle, which hangs down to the calf of the leg. The married and unmarried women drefs dress their hair differently; fomet mes it is allowed to hang down, at other times it is tucked up under a handkerchief, bound round the head in the form of a helmet; this is sometimes adorned with diamonds or trinkets. The character of the fair fex in thefe two provinces is foftness itself. The Moldavian and Walachian women are the flaves of their parents, of their husbands, and even of their lovers; they acknowledge no other law but the fupreme will of the men: though free, they go abroad but feldom, and never alone; the indolence and profound ignorance in which they are educated, are probably the caufes of their fidelity and fubmiflion. Jeabufy, accordingly, has therefore rarely any occafion of exerting its fury upon them; the hufband commands, and the trembling wife approaches to kifs his hand, and to implore his forgivenefs. " I do not believe that any women, not even the reigning princeffes, at this day, in Moldavia and Walachia, can either write or read. The Greeks pretend that women ought to know nothing, but what their husbands choose to teach them. The young women are concealed from the eyes of men, till the very moment when the ceremony of their marriage is concluded, and they are laid on the nuptial couch. Before that time, they have no other employment, but to figh for the husband that providence hall please to destine them; till then, they enjoy only in imagination the pleafures of love. The civil contract of marriage is made before witneffes; it is figned by the parents or relations of the parties, without any other formality among the nobles, than the fignature of the prince or of the metropolitan. The mar riages of the people are made without contract, and without other ceremony than the benediction of the priest. When the day of the marriage ceremony arrives, the young woman is co vered with a veil of gold or filver tife fue, which defcends on all fides in large folds from the top of the head to the waift. Her head is adorned with a plume of black feathers, and in this drefs fhe is led by four women, with flow steps, to the church, like a crimi. nal to punishment. There the pricft makes her promife love and fidelity to her future fpoufe; he joins their hands, makes them both kifs his, and then a hymn is chanted which lafts two hours; after which, the young pair are con ducted home, with a quicker pace and in a lefs folemn proceffion. The fealt immediately fucceeds, the company get drunk, the dance lafts the whole night, and the bride and bridegroom for the first time fee one another, and are then put to bed. In Moldavia, there is a town called by the inhabitants Czetate Alba, or the White City, formerly Julia Alba, by the Romans. This town is famous for the exile of the poet Ovid, and there is still to be seen a lake called, to this day Lacul Ovidului, or the Lake of Ovid. This charming author, whofe memory will always be dear to lovers and to poets, while banished to the country of the favage Getæ, (Moldavia) lived for fome time at Czetate Alha, but afterwards retired to a vil, lage, at three leagues diftance, the ru ins of which still remain. Near to the cottage which he inhabited is a little fountain, which still bears bis name, as well as the lake above men, tioned, by the brink of which he often went to walk. The inbabitants of Moldavia believe that he compofed fe veral poems in their language, which ftill exift. The memory of this great man has made fuch an impreffion on the people of these countries, that they value themfelves upon it. They fay from tradition, That there came " from the banks of the Tyber an ex "traordinary man, who was gentle as a "child, and benevolentas a father; that "he fighed inceffantly, and was perpe "tually talking to himself; but that "when he addressed himself to any bo"dy, the words flowed from his mouth "like honey." It is furprifing, that fome of those fovereigns of the country, who have enjoyed a liberal education, have not erected a monument to the memory of this charming Poet, who honoured their difmal folitudes with his misfortunes and his fighs. The time will furely come, when fome lover of the arts and of great men, will difcharge this debt. The place where Ovid lived is formed for infpiring the deepest me lancholy; and I could not view the fcene without emotion: I thought I faw his manes, fometimes hovering over the lake, fometimes wandering among the hills and in the neighbouring woods, fometimes fighing under a fycomore befide his favourite fountain, while a crowd of little loves in tears lay reclined in every corner of this en chanting retreat, expecting the return of their divine bard. Let a lover or poet imagine to himself, a plain enamelled with flowers, encompafling a lake, and furrounded by a chain of little hills with unequal fummits, covered with horn beams, with limes, with apple trees, wild almonds, and lofty oaks, mingled together confusedly, as if vying with each other in prefenting their foliage and their fruit to the enchanted eye of the beholder: let him contemplate, at the inftant when Aurora brightens the feene, a valley floping towards the lake, between two little hills, fhaded with vines and fhrubs, and there, near a little foun tain which pours a clear ftream in a winding courfe towards the lake, and encircled with a grove of lime trees, ftood the cottage of the divine poet. There his enchanting lyre uttered thofe founds which love and melan choly infpired; and there, undoubted ly, he forgot, with cold difdain, the de ceitful pleafutes of an ungrateful and corrupted court, where Virgil and Ho, race were only fuffered, becaufe they exalted to the clouds the coloffus of tyranny, and bowed the knee to the tyrant. Account of fome late Foreign Publications. 1. A Difcourfe on the best means of ex fiders as a fentiment common to all citing and cherishing a fpirit of patriotifm in a monarchical government; by M. Mathon de la Cour: to which the prize that had been offered for the beft difcourfe on that fubject, by the academy of Chalons-fur-Marne, was adjudged, on the 25th Auguft 1787, has been lately published at Paris. This fubject required extenfive knowledge, and confiderable genius, to do it juftice: And M. Mathon de la Cour has fhewn himself not unequal to the talk. He begins with enquiring into the nature of the principle of patriotifm, and diftinguishes between patriotifm and that love of our natale folum, our parents and connections, which attaches us to our native country. The latter, he very juftly con the individuals of the human race; te the wild favage no less than to the enlightened fubject of a well-regulated government: to the flaves of defpotifm as well as to the members of a licen tious democracy. But patriotifm, a principle which appears lefs frequently among mankind, is, in his opinion, defire to promote the intereft and hap pinefs of our countrymen, and to fupe port that government and legiflature to whofe protection we are indebted for our fecurity. The one he regards as a natural affection, the other as a virtue. He traces thofe caufes which have rendered patriotifm more com mon among the members of republics than among the fubjects of monarchical governments; and he even prefumes |