22& STUDIES OF NATURE. 



By contrafls fuch as thefe, your felicity will be 

 keightened. 



I know not whether it was for the purpofe of 

 procuring for himfelf a pleafure of this nature, or 

 to give an enlivening fea air to the park of Ver- 

 failles, that Louis XIV. planted a colony of Venetian 

 gondoliers on the great canal which fronts the pa- 

 lace. Theirdefcendantsfubiifttheretothisday. This 

 eflablifliment, under a better direftion, might have 

 furnilhed a very defirable and ufeful retreat to our 

 own feamen. But that great King, frequently mlf- 

 led by evil counfellors, almoft always carried the 

 fentiment of his own glory beyond his own people. 

 What a contrail would thefe hardy fons of the 

 waves, bedaubed with pitch, their wind and wea- 

 ther-beaten faces, refembling fea-calves, arrived 

 fome from Greenland, others from the coaft of 

 Guinea, have prefented, with the marble ftatues, 

 and verdant bowers of the park of Verfailles ! 

 X^on'is XIV. would oftener than once have derived 

 from thofe blunt, honeft fellows, more ufeful in- 

 formation^ and more important truth, than either 

 books, or even his marine officers of the higheft 

 rank, could have given him; and, on the other 

 hand, the novelty of their charaderiftic fingularity, 

 and that of their refk;â:ions on his own greatnefs, 

 would have provided for him fpedacles much more 

 i)ighly amuimg than thofe which the wits* (if his 



Court 



