In Italy All The Objects Of Contemplation, All The Reveries Of The
Traveller, Must Have A Reference To Ancient Generations, And To Very
Distant Periods, Clouded With The Mist Of Ages.
- Here, on the
contrary, everything is modern, peaceful, and benign.
Here we have
had no war to desolate our fields: [Footnote: The troubles that now
convulse the American colonies had not broke out when this and some
of the following letters were written.] our religion does not
oppress the cultivators: we are strangers to those feudal
institutions which have enslaved so many. Here nature opens her
broad lap to receive the perpetual accession of new comers, and to
supply them with food. I am sure I cannot be called a partial
American when I say that the spectacle afforded by these pleasing
scenes must be more entertaining and more philosophical than that
which arises from beholding the musty ruins of Rome. 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.
However confined the field of speculation might be here, the time of
English travellers would not be wholly lost. The new and unexpected
aspect of our extensive settlements; of our fine rivers; that great
field of action everywhere visible; that ease, that peace with which
so many people live together, would greatly interest the observer:
for whatever difficulties there might happen in the object of their
researches, that hospitality which prevails from one end of the
continent to the other would in all parts facilitate their
excursions.
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