of Europe, for the abfurd and im pious pract ce of prophane fwearing in converfation. The count of Luxemburg, accompanied by the earls of Warwick and Stafford, vifited the Maid of Orleans in her prifon at Rouen, where he was chained to the floor, and loaded with irons. The count, who had fold her to the English, pretended that he had come to treat with her about her ranfom. Viewing him with juft refentment and difdain, fhe cried, Begone! You have neither the inclination nor the power to ranfom me." Then turning her eyes towards the two earls, the faid, "I know that you English are determined to put me to death; and imagine, that, after I am dead, you will conquer France. But though there were an hundred thousand more God-dam-mees in France than there are, they will never conquer that kingdom." So early had the English got this odious nickname, by their too frequent ufe of that horrid imprecation. A contemporary hiftorian, who had frequently converfed with Henry VI. mentions it as a very remarkable and extraordinary peculiarity in the character of that prince, that he did not fwear in common converfation, but reproved his minifters and officers of ftate when he heard them fwearing. "An exceffive irrational credulity ftill continued to reign in all the nations of Europe, and feems to have prevailed rather more in Britain than in fome other countries. Of this many proofs might be produced. There was not a man then in England who entertained the least doubt of the reality of forcery, necromancy, and other diabolical arts. Let any one perufe the works of Thomas Walfingham, our best hiftorian in this period, and he will meet with many ridiculous miracles, related with the greated gravity, as the moti unquestionable facts. The English were remarkable for one fpecies of credulity peculiar to themfelves, viz. a firm belief in the predictions of certain pretended prophets, particularly of the famous Merlin. Philip de Comines, in his relation of what paffed at the interview between Edward IV. and Lewis XI. on the bridge of Picquiny (at which he was prefent), acquaints us, that after the two kings had falured one another, and converfed a little together, the bishop of Ely, chancellor of Eng. land, began a harangue to the two monarchs, by telling them, that the English had a prophecy, that a great peace would be concluded between France and England at Picquiny; for the English (fays Comines) are great- believers in fuch prophecies, and have one of them ready to produce on every occation. "The English frequently defeated the French in the field in this period, but were generally defeated by them in the cabinet. Philip de Comines, who was an excellent judge of mankind, and feems to have ftudied the national character of the English with great care, acknowledges that they were but blundering negociators, and by no means a match for the French. They were easily impofed upon, he fays, by diffimulation, apt to fall into a paffion, and to become impatient when they were contradicted; and, in a word, that they were not fo fubtile, infinuating, and patient, as their adverfaries, who took advantage of all their foibles. The English certainly committed a moft grievous error, in withdrawing, in a paffion, from the great congre's at Arras, A. D. 1435. No prince was ever more fhamefully deceived by another than Edward confideration, rain was always an evil, and that it would be a happy circumftance were it never to rain. A maxim of this kind from a race of men, in other refpects really endued with fome degree of fenfe, and frequently with no fmall fhare of penetration and cunning, ought, methinks, to be confidered as an indelible religious or fuperftitious notion entertained by them from their infancy, rather than as an idea taken up on due deliberation and confequent conviction. At the fame time, though they did not appear to be of a very chilly nature, they never fhewed the leaft figns of being difpleafed with the hottest days of fummer. "The more fimple of every race of Hottentots, or the common run of them, from which number very few deserve to be excepted, have fo firm a confidence in fuch cheats of either fex, as fet up for magicians and conjurors, that they even fometimes folicit these people to put a ftop to the thunder and rain. "Though the Hottentots are fo fuperftitious, yet they are not, as far as I know, in the least afraid of being in the dark. They feem, however, to have fome idea of fpirits, and a belief in a future ftate, as they accost their friends as foon as they are dead with reproaches for leaving them fo foon; at the fame time, admonishing them henceforth to demean themfelves properly; by which they mean, that their deceased friends fhould not come back again to haunt them, nor allow themselves to be made ufe of by wizards, to bring any mifchief on those that furvive them. "There is a genus of infects (the mantis), called by the colonifts the Hottentot's god; but fo far are they from worfhipping these infects, that they have more than once catched fome of them, and given them me to stick needles through them, by way of preferving them, as I did with other infects. There is, however, a diminutive fpecies of this genus of infects, which fome think it would be a crime, as well as very dangerous, to do any harm to; but this we have no more reafon to look upon as a kind of religious wor fhip, than we have to confider in the fame light, a certain fuperftitious notion prevalent among many of the more fimple people in our own country, who imagine, that three fins will be forgiven them, if they fet a cock-chafer on its feet that has happened to have fallen upon its back. "The moon, according to Kolbe, receives a kind of adoration from the Hottentots. But the fact is, that they merely take the opportunity of her beams, and at the fame time of the coolnefs of the night, to amuse themselves with dancing; and confequently, have no more thoughts of worshipping her than the Chriftian colonists, who are seen at the fame time ftrolling in great numbers about the fireets, and pa rading on the stone steps with which their houfes are ufually encircled." The The MANNER in which the HINDOOS treat their WOMEN, I [From Mr. SULLIVAN's Philofophical Rhapfodies. ] T is not eafily reconcileable to European ideas, that a people boafting of fome refinement, as the Hindoos may juftly do, fhould in the most public manner be guilty of every fpecies of indelicacy to their females. Many nations have the custom of immurring their women; but the Hindoos are fingular, I think, in the groffness of their ordinances relative to them. "A woman," fay they in their code of laws, "is never fatisfied with man -no more than fire is fatisfied with burning fuel, or the main ocean with receiving the rivers, or the empire of death with the dying of men and animals. She has fix qualities:-the first, an inordinate defire of jewels and fine furniture, handfome cloaths, and nice victuals; the fecond, immoderate luft; the third, violent anger; the fourth, deep refentment; the fifth, the good of others appears evil in her eyes; the fixth, the is invariably addicted to bad actions. For thefe reafons, it is evident, the Creator formed her for no other purpose than that children might be born from her.""A wife fhall not," continue they, growing with the fubject," a wife fhall not difcourfe with a stranger; but fhe may converfe with a Sinaffee (a wandering prieft), a hermit, or an old man. She fhall not laugh without drawing the veil before her face. She fhall not eat (unless it be phyfic) until fhe has ferved her husband and her guests with victuals. She fhall not, while her hufband is on a journey, divert herself by play, nor fhall fee any public fhow, nor fhall laugh, nor fhall drefs herfelf in jewels and fine cloaths, nor fhall fee dancing, nor hear mufic, nor fhall fit in the window, nor fhall ride out, nor fhall behold any thing rare; but she shall faften well the door of the house, and remain private; and shall not eat any dainty victuals, and fhall not blacken her eyes with eye powder, and fhall not view her face in a mirror: fhe fhall never exercise herself in any fuch agreeable employment during the abfence of her husband." "After these tender dogmas, with refpect to unhappy woman-who fhould be nourished like unto the ewe lamb-who fhould grow up with her husband and with his children-who fhould eat of his own meat and drink of his own cup, and lay in his bofom, and be unto him as a fecond daughter: after these tender dogmas, the hoary-headed Brahmins, whom the froft of age must have rendered callous to all the finer difpofitions of the foul, in the excess of their wifdom, and parental care, farthermore ordained, "That a man, both night and day, fhould keep his wife in fuch fubjection, that the fhould never be the mistress of her own actions; for fhould he have her will, though fprung from a fuperior caft, fhe yet would go aftray." "When fentiments, fuch as thefe, could prevail, when they could formally be interwoven with the laws of the land, conjecture would naturally lead one to conclude, that the brutal subordination would be carried a step farther; that an abfolute authority with respect to the ACCOUNT of the HOTTENTOTS. [From the First Volume of Dr. SPARRMAN'S Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope.] W WITH regard to their perfons, they are as tall as moft Europeans; and as for their being in general more flender, this proceeds from their being more ftinted and curtailed in their food, and likewife from their not using themselves to hard labour. But that they have small hands and feet compared with the other parts of their bodies, has been remarked by no one before, and may, perhaps, be looked upon as a characteristic mark of this nation. "The root of the nofe is moftly very low, by which means the diftance of the eyes from each other is greater than in Europeans. In like manner, the tip of the nofe is pretty flat. The iris is fcarcely ever of a light colour, but has generally a dark brown caft, fometimes approaching to black. "Their fkin is of a yellowish brown hue, which fomething refembles that of an European who has the jaundice in a high degree: at the fame time, however, this colour is not the leaft obfervable in the whites of the eyes. One does not find fuch thick lips among the Hottentots as among their neighbours the Negroes, the Caffres, and the Mozambiques. In fine, their mouths are of a middling fize, and almost always furnifhed with a fet of the finest teeth that can be feen: and taken together with the reft of their features, as well as their fhape, carriage, and every motion; in fhort, their tout enfemble indicates health and delight, or at least an air of fans fouci. This careless mien, however, discovers marks at the 1785. fame time both of alacrity and refolution; qualities which the Hottentots, in fact, can fhow upon occafion. "The head would appear to be covered with a black, though not very clofe, frizzled kind of wool, if the natural harfhnefs of it did not fhow, that it was hair, if poffible, more woolly than that of the Negroes. If in other refpects there fhould, by great chance, be observed any traces of a beard, or of hair in any other parts of the body, fuch as are feen on the Europeans, they are, however, very trifling, and ge nerally of the fame kind as that on the head. "Notwithstanding the refpect I bear to the more delicate part of my readers, the notoriety of the fact prevents me from paffing over in this place those parts of the body, which our more fcrupulous, but lefs natural manners forbid me to defcribe any other ways than by the means of circumlocution, Latin terms, or other uncouth, and to moft readers, unintelligible denominations and expedients. But thofe who affect this kind of reserve must pardon me, if I cannot wrap up matters with the nicety their modefty requires; as my duty obliges me to fhow how much the world has been mitled, and the Hottentot nation been mifrepresented; inafmuch as the Hottentot women have been defcribed, and believed to be, in refpect to their fexual parts, monsters by nature; and that the men were made fuch by a barbarous cuftom. It has been thought, for example, that these latter were, at The SUPERSTITION of the HINDOOS. AT [From the fame Work.] Tour first fetting out, you will recollect, we determined on adhering to no certain rule in the nature of our enquiries. It would be too precife a progrefs for an unprefuming investigation, which aims at nothing but brevity, and a few fimple obfervations. We will pafs, therefore, from our lat fubject, to a momentary confidera. tion of that extravagant enthuflatim and fuperftition which pervades the minds of the natives of Hindoftan. Prieft-ridden we have already declared them to be: but their infatuated reliance on the wifdom of their Brahmins is fingularly aflonifhing, though it must be confeffed it has in many inftances been of confiderable advantage to them. "We have, in a former fragment, taken notice of the influence of the gourroo in every Hindoo family; we mentioned him as the temporal and the fpiritual father. The gourroo him/elf, however, is under the pofitive guidance, as in all fimilar cafes, of certain established rules, which it is peculiarly incumbent on him, in common with his difciples, undeviatingly to adhere to. To enumerate the vaft variety of religious rites among the Hindoos, would require volumes. We will pafs them over in filence therefore, and confine ourselves to a few of thofe customs which are the most immediately ftriking. "Prone to guilt, and apprehenfive from nature, man has always had that fomething within him, which has urged him to penitence, and has given him to believe, that in baptifm, or ablution, tranfgreffions may be forgiven. Hence we fee the Jews confidered baptism, or wafhing, as an internal as well as an external purification. Chriftians even followed the fame idea, and, in like manner with their progenitors, baptized not only themselves, but even their goods and chattels, But although water, from its cleahfing properties, and fire, from its purifying nature (which hath alfo always been used), have both of them been uniformly fymbols of expiation; yet we are to look for other more probable reafons for that exceffive veneration paid by the followers of Brahma to the Ganges, and to the other facred rivers of Hindoftan. "The Egyptians paid a religious worship to the waters, under the fymbol of their god Canopus. The Indians pay a greater-but their adoration is to the element itself. The fertility which rivers occafion in their annual inundations, and that too in countries where grain may be faid to be the most effential article of life, must have been the original caufe which led to river deification. Man, in an uncultivated state of fociety, evermore acknowledges the Divinity in that which is most beneficial to him. "Filled with the most grateful fenfations for the bleflings which were regularly difpenfed to them in the waters of their rivers-refreshed and cleansed by their invaluable ftreams-the Hindoos were not long in admitting fuperftition to fubftitute itfelf for gratitude. The foundation once laid, their priests found it no mighty difficulty to rear the fuperstructure, Ablutions they foon declared |