in order to send thee into the world; but know, that the life on which thou art entering is painful, and full of misery; nor wilt thou be able to eat thy bread without labour. May God assist thee in the many adversities which await thee!" The whole ceremony is curious and interesting; for which the inquisitive reader may consult the History of Mexico, written by the Abbé Clavigero.

The Brammans of Hindostan1 baptize their children also. Having washed the child with water, a relation holds the point of a pen to its forehead, and prays the Deity to write good things thereon." He then makes a mark with red ointment, saying, " O Lord, we present this child, born of a holy tribe, to thee and thy service. It is cleansed with water, and anointed with oil."

A custom prevailed in the fourteenth century, among the women residing on the banks of the Rhine, of assembling, on a particular day of the year, to wash their hands and arms in that river; fondly flattering themselves, that such lustrations would preserve them from all dangers and misfortunes during the remainder of the year. This ceremony, witnessed by Petrarch, gave him great satisfaction. "Happy," said he to himself," are these women, since their river runs away with all their miseries. Ah! happy should we be in Italy, if the Tiber and the Mincio possessed the same virtue. These fortunate people waft all their misfortunes, on the bosom of their river, to the English: we would willingly present ours in the same manner to the Moors of Africa, if our rivers would only bear the burthen; but they will not.”

For my own part, I should be wanting in that grati

'Lord's Banian Relig. ch. ix.

tude to the Giver of Happiness, if I did not confess that I have derived as much enjoyment from sitting or wandering on the banks of rivers, and there giving rein to my imagination, as from any other objects in life. How often, when reclining on the margin of the Dee, under the hanging rocks of the Conway, the arched recesses of the Wye, beside the Severn, or on that of the romantic Towy, how often have my eyes pursued the gliding waters, in which the clouds, the trees, the rocks, and the sun, or the moon, were depicted; and, reflecting on the chequered scenes of my life, have permitted my imagination to waft itself to those regions of infinite space, where every care would subside; where the world would appear as a globule; and where every object around me would operate as an evidence of the justice and bene

ficence of the Eternal Power!

X.

It is well known, that the Romans, who claimed the empire of the earth, for many centuries claimed no authority over the sea. The right of fishing, even at the mouth of the Tiber, belonged as freely to the Spaniards or Sicilians as to the Romans themselves. Whoever chose to cast a net there might'. Thus it continued till the reign

1 The Carthaginians and the people of Marseilles had several wars on the subject of the right of fishing*; and when Hanno was in treaty with the Romans, he declared they should not only not sail beyond the "beautiful promontory," but that they should not even wash their hands in the sea of Sicily †.

* Vide a passage in Justin. xliii. c. 5.

+ Frensheimius' Supplement to Livy, 2d dec. lib. vi. Vide Montesquieu's Remarks, b. xxi. ch. 8.

of Justinian, when the right of fishing in particular places was granted to particular persons. Leo, the 52d Emperor of Rome, enacted a law, that every nation might fish in the sea, adjoining its shore; and that every private person might fish in the river, that flowed past his lands. A similar regulation was observed among the Visigoths'. In England, many private persons dispute this right; generally, however, without either justice or authority.

The Dutch, for a long time, came near our ports, and not only fished upon our shores, but actually sold us the fish they had caught; as the lord of a manor frequently purchases game from off his own estate.

Few branches of commerce are more productive than fisheries; and the gold mines of Peru yield less than the collected labour of those, who voyage to the bay of Canada and the coast of Newfoundland for green cod; of those who fish for dry cod along the coast of Placentia, from Cape Rose to the Bay des Experts; for herrings, along the Baltic, German, and Irish coasts; for pilchards, on those of Dalmatia, Bretagne, Devonshire, and Cornwall; for mackerel, near the shores of France and England; for salmon, on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland; for sturgeons, at the mouth of the Wolga; for whales, in Greenland; and for pearls, in Ceylon.

An angler may greatly improve his pleasure, if, to his art, he adds the science of Natural History. With Walton, Buffon, and, above all, Lacepede, for his companions, stretched beneath the shade of an alder, the caprice of the watery inhabitants will give no disgust to

1 Montesq. b. xxi. ch. 14.

his appetite. With those writers, and not unfrequently with Tasso, Spenser, and Sannazario, has Colonna enjoyed the morning and the evening of days, never remembered but with satisfaction! Sometimes on the banks of the Thames, near Twickenham and Richmond; the Ouse, in the county of Norfolk; the Lark, in Suffolk; the Cam, in Cambridgeshire; the Welland, near Northampton; the Avon, near Stratford; the Severn, near Gloucester and Shrewsbury; the Dee, near Corwen and Langollen; the Avon, near Southampton; and on the banks of a river of the same name, between the cities of Bath and Bristol; but, above all, upon the borders of the Towy—where

Few days has he to number in the chronology of enjoyment more peaceful, and therefore more agreeable, than those! Enjoyments, occasionally protracted even till midnight; when he has assisted the fishermen of the Usk to make large fires upon its borders. These fires attracting salmon in considerable quantities, a single fisherman has little difficulty in spearing six or seven in the course of an hour. A similar mode of fishing once prevailed in the isle of Samos, and is still practised in Sweden, Norway, Lapland1, Italy, and Java. There is an animal in South America, called by the Spaniards "the tiger," which also catches fish in the night. It drops its saliva in the water; and the fish springing at

1 Von Buch's Trav. 351.

2 Raffles's Hist. Jav. i. 187. 4to.

VOL. I.

D

it, the tiger takes them in his paw, and throws them ashore. The Icelanders are said, at one time, to have taught bears to jump into the sea, and catch seals. In China, birds are equally well trained; for, at a signal, they dive into the lakes and bring up large fish, grasped in their bills. In Greece1, the fishermen use branches of pine, steeped in pitch, and lighted; the inhabitants of Amorgos used cypress-leaved cedar, which serves, when lighted, as a flambeau; and the Chinese fish in the night with white painted boards, placed in a manner to reflect the rays of the moon upon the water doubly. These attract the fish to the boat; when the men cast a large net, and seldom fail to draw out considerable quantities. Anchovies are frequently fished for in a similar manner.

XI.

Many and delightful are the associations, connected with rivers!With the Nile we associate the rebuke of Apollonius of Tyana to the cruel natives of Egypt. "Reverence the Nile," said he; "but why do I mention the Nile among men, who prefer measuring the rising of blood to the rising of water2?"-Do our minds repose upon the Senegal? So beautiful are its banks3, that the stranger fancies he sees the primitive simplicity of the first parents of mankind; blooming, as it were, in the morning of nature.-The Cydnus? In a barge, whose

1 The ancient Greeks and Syrians long abstained from eating the fish of their coasts; and it is remarkable, that Homer nowhere mentions fish as being served up at his numerous banquets.