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fortunes gave birth to that affecting tale. Most willingly 
indeed would they deny the existence of the author himself, 
if we may judge from the eagerness with which they retail 
the grossest calumnies against his moral character. A man 
labours under peculiar disadvantages, who, like St. Pierre, 
publishes an account of a confined spot, such as the Isle of 
France. If he ventures to give the slightest sketch of 
manners, or deviates into anecdote, he is sure to offend. 
Where all the members of a community are mutually known, 
every awkward fact made public has instantly its application. 
Eulogy itself, when dispensed under such circumstances, 
changes its character and becomes satire. Praise bestowed 
on a near neighbour seems as if it was within a short space 
of falling to our own share, and our mortification at missing 
it is proportionally severe, We feel somewhat like the man 
in the lottery, who has drawn the next number to the capital 
prize. 
* The description of a country usually receives its colouring 
from the natural disposition or actual state of mind of the 
describer, As all objects appear * yellow to the jaundiced eye,’ 
so every thing with him is tinged by the prejudice through 
which he views it. Hence it is that sentimental travellers 
are not to be literally understood when they deal out censure 
any more than when they bestow praise. St. Pierre ex- 
Perienced some vexations during his residence in Mauritius, 
Which disgusted him with the country as well as with the in- 
habitants. The men, accordingly, are all rogues, the women 
jades, and the island a loathsome receptacle for slaves and 
felons. On his way home, he received some civilities at the 
Cape of Good Hope, and in the barren sands of Africa he 
sees nothing but verdant meadows; in the half-savage boors, 
Worthy representatives of the Arcadians of the Golden Age. 
He asserts, as matter of reproach, that the trees 1n Mauritius 
are covered with a grey pellicle instead of bark. Had he 
travelled as a tanner, such a circumstance would havens 
