$^^ STUDIES OF NATURE. 



all the afpeds of the Sun. The vine does not 

 grow in form of a bufh, nor of a tree ; but in 

 hedge-rows ; and though it's berries be arranged 

 in form of clufters, their tranfparency renders 

 them throughout penetrable by the rays of the 

 Sun. Nature thus lays men under the neceflity, 

 from the fpontaneous maturity of thefe fruits, 

 deftined to the general fupport of human life, 

 to unite their labours, and mutually to affift each 

 other in the pleafant toils of the harveft and of the 

 vintage. The corn-field and the vineyard may be 

 confidcred as the moft powerful cements of fo- 

 ciety. Bacchus and Ceres, accordingly, were re- 

 garded, in ancient times, as the firft Legiflators 

 of the Human Race. The Poets of antiquity 

 frequently diftinguiHi them by this honourable 

 appellation. An Indian, under his banana and his 

 cocoa tree,candoextremely well without his neigh- 

 bour. It is for this reafon, I believe, rather than 

 from the nature of the climate, which is there very 

 mild, that there are fo few republics in India, and fo 

 many governments founded in force. One man can 

 there make an impreffiou on the field of another, 

 only by the ravages which he commits : but the 

 European, who fees his harvefl:s grow yellow, and 

 his grapes blacken all at once, haftens to fummon 

 to his afiiilance, in reaping his crop, not only his 

 neighbours, but the traveller who happens to be 

 paffing that way. Befides, Nature, while fhe has 



refufed 



