.

of the drinkers. By degrees, however, my eyes penetrated through the thick vapours, when I difcovered the priest of the place in the middle of fifteen or twenty drunken fellows. His black coat was just as much bedaubed as the frocks of his flock, and like the rest of them, he had cards in his left hand, which he ftruck fo forcibly on the dirty table, that the whole chamber trembled. At first, I was shocked at the violent abuse they gave each other, and thought they were quarrelling; but foon found that all the blackguard appellations which fhocked me, were only modes of friendly falutation among them. Every one of them had now drank his fix or eight pots of beer, and they defired the landlord to give each a dram of brandy, by way, they faid, of locking the ftomach. But now their good humour depart ed, and I prefently faw, in all their looks and geftures, the moft ferious preparation for a fray. This at length broke out. At first the priest took vain pains to fupprefs it. He fwore and roared at laft as much as the reft. Now one feized a pot and threw it at his adverfary's head, another clenched his fift, a third pulled the legs from a stool to knock his enemy on the head. Every thing, in fhort, feemed to fpeak blood and death; when on the ringing of the bell for evening prayer, Ave Maria ye!' cried the priest, and down dropped their arms, they pulled off their bonnets, folded their hands, and repeated their Ave Marias. It put me in mind of the adventure in Don Quixote, where peace is fuddenly reftored in the great fray, on account of the helmet of Mambrino, and the afs's collar, by the recollection of what paffed in the Agramantine camp. As foon, however,

as prayers were over, they were all feized again with their former fury, which was the more violent, from the momentary interruption it bad met with. Pots and glaffes began to fly. I obferved the curate creep under the table for fecurity, and I withdrew into the landlord's bed chamber.

The fame fcenes occur in the inland towns among the citizens, officers, clergymen, and ftudents. They all falute each other with abufive language; all vie in hard drinking; and close to every church, which are fcarce lefs than 28.700, there is regularly a beer-house and a brothel. A ftudent at the uni verfity of Ingolstadt must carry a thick cudgel, and wear a neat cut hat; he must be able to drink from eight to ten quarts of beer at a fitting, and be always ready to fight right or wrong, with the officers of the garrifon that is quartered there. You may fuppofe that this does not tend to raise the reputation of the univerfity, which is, indeed, but thinly vifited, though the profeffors are able men, and do their duty, although a proclamation came out fome years fince, to forbid any Bavarian from studying out of the country.

"No pen can defcribe the ridiculous mixtures of debauchery and devotion which every day happen. The most notorious is that which took place in the church of St. Mary, Oettingen, a few years fince, when a priest actually deflowered a girl whom he had long purfued, and could only make a prize of there before the altar of the Virgin.

"The country people join to their indolence and devotion a certain ferocity of temper, which often gives rife to bloody fcenes. When they mean to praife a church holi

day,

day, or some public festival which has lately been kept, they fay,fuch a one was a charming affair; there were fix or eight people killed or made cripples at it. If nothing of this kind has been done, it is called a mere nothing, a fiddle-faddle bufinefs. In the last century, and the beginning of this, the Bavarian troops maintained the first reputation among the German forces. At the battle of Hockstedt, they kept their ground and imagined themfelves victors, till the elector who led them was informed that the French had given way in the other wing. Under Tilly and Merci they like wife did wonders; but fince the time of thefe generals, military difcipline has fo far relaxed amongit them, that they are no longer foldiers. Indeed no people can fhew more abhorrence to every thing which is called difcipline and order, than the Bavarians do. They might, however, ftill be ufeful as freebooters, whofe robberies and all irregularities are more pardonable than thofe of regular troops. There are bands of robbers about, which are one thousand men ftrong, and would undoubtedly make good ravaging parties in time of war. There have been instances of their fighting against the military, under bold leaders, to the very last man. But the poorest peafant confiders it as a hardship to be drafted into the regular troops of his prince.

"The inhabitants of the capital, on the other hand, are the most weak, timid, and fubfervient people in the world. They have no quickness of parts at all, and you will feek in vain in the town for that liberty, which fometimes indeed degenerates into coarfenefs of manners, but is ftill the moft agreeable trait in the character of

the country people. Under the laft government, while the peopie of Munich were crouching under a defpotic minifter, and only ventured to murmur in fecret, the country people difcovered their difcontent with a freedom which threatened dangerous confequences. At the fame time, an unbounded and inexpreffible love for their prince prevailed on them to pull down the inclofures of their fields at the command of the mafter of the hounds, in order that the game might pafture there. They fpake with raptures of the amiable qualities of their lord; indeed they did not pafs over his faults, but tried to excufe him for them, and loaded his fervants, without reserve, with their heaviest curses, and thus gave every stranger a juft idea of the court, while the inhabitants of the town, in the dedicatory addreffes of books and poems, extol. led the tyrants of the land to hea ven. The country people judge as impartially of the prefent government. I fhould not, however, have obtained any account of the prince or his fervants, if I had not got acquainted with fome fo, reign artifts belonging to the court, who were more interested in the state of them both than the natives, who were infatuated with their beer pots. Every fhoe-black in Paris knows all the great people of the court, pries into their private life as well as their politics, and condemns or approves at difcretion; but here you meet with many court-counfellors and fecre taries, who know nothing of the great people, except their names. To conclude, the unadulterated Bavarian peafant is gruff, fat, dirty, lazy, drunken, and undisciplined; but he is brave, ceconomical, patri

“I

Come now to speak of compolition in Greek, the most material thing in every language, and for the fake of which all the reft of the grammatical art is intended. It is almost neediefs to obferve that by compofition here I mean not that compofition by which fingle words are formed, of which I have already treated, but that compofition by which words are put together in fentences; as to which, I have already obferved, that the chief beauty of it is variety; for, if it were always the fame, though ever fo beautiful, it would foon become difguiting. Now, the Greek language, exprefing all the various connections of words by flexion, particularly by genders, numbers, and cafes, admits of a wonderful variety of arrangement, in fo much, that it is only indeclinable words that require to be connected by juxta-pofition. In this way, not only the ear muft be greatly pleafed, but I think I have fhown, that, by the pofition of emphatical words in certain parts of the fentence, the fenfe is convey ed more forcibly than it could be otherwife; and, as the meaning,

where the compofition is in periods or long fentences, cannot be divided and taken feparately, but must be apprehended altogether or not at all, it is evident that the fenfe in that way comes upon the mind more clofe and embodied, as it were, and confequently more forcibly than when broken down, and frittered into fmall pieces.

This compofition, fo various, and fo different from our uniform compofition, and which, therefore, appears to us unnatural, is no doubt at firft difficult to the young beginner, both in Greek and Latin. But it is furprifing how foon it becomes easy to us, and even familiar; and, at laft we defpife every other kind of compofition; which is the reason why the learned, after the restoration of learning, and for more than one hundred years after that, fcorned to write in their vernacular language, which they confidered to be fit only for fervants or flaves, as the word denotes; but they wrote in Latin (fometimes in Greek), and converfed in Latin with one another. In Germany, they still write in