Here Everything
Would Inspire The Reflecting Traveller With The Most Philanthropic
Ideas; His Imagination, Instead Of Submitting To The Painful
And
useless retrospect of revolutions, desolations, and plagues, would,
on the contrary, wisely spring forward to the anticipated fields of
Future cultivation and improvement, to the future extent of those
generations which are to replenish and embellish this boundless
continent. There the half-ruined amphitheatres, and the putrid
fevers of the Campania, must fill the mind with the most melancholy
reflections, whilst he is seeking for the origin and the intention
of those structures with which he is surrounded, and for the cause
of so great a decay. Here he might contemplate the very beginnings
and outlines of human society, which can be traced nowhere now but
in this part of the world. The rest of the earth, I am told, is in
some places too full, in others half depopulated. Misguided
religion, tyranny, and absurd laws everywhere depress and afflict
mankind. Here we have in some measure regained the ancient dignity
of our species; our laws are simple and just, we are a race of
cultivators, our cultivation is unrestrained, and therefore
everything is prosperous and flourishing. For my part I had rather
admire the ample barn of one of our opulent farmers, who himself
felled the first tree in his plantation, and was the first founder
of his settlement, than study the dimensions of the temple of Ceres.
I had rather record the progressive steps of this industrious
farmer, throughout all the stages of his labours and other
operations, than examine how modern Italian convents can be
supported without doing anything but singing and praying.
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