{ 2% 
turing, as in England, or principally manufacturing, 
as in Prussia ; where public opinion has degraded: ma- 
nual Jabor, as in Spain, Portugal, and the Papal ter- 
ritory ; or where laws villainize jit, as in Russia, 
Prussia, Poland, Hungary, &c. &c. it is in vain to ex- 
pect pre-eminent agriculture. ‘These principles will 
receive illustration as we go along. | 
I. In the Campania of Rome, where in the time of 
Pliny were counted twenty-three cities, the traveller 
is now astonished and depressed at the silence and 
desolation that surround him. Even from Rome to 
Trescati, {four leagues of road the most frequented } 
we find only an arid plain, without trees, without 
meadows, natural or artificial, and without villages, 
or other habitation of man! Yet is this wretched- 
ness not the fault of soil or climate, which (with lit- 
tle alteration) (1) continue to be what they were 
in the days of Augustus. “ Man is the only growth 
that dwindles here,” and to his deficient or ill direct- 
ed industry, are owing all the calamities of the scene. 
(2) Instead of the hardy and masculine labors of 
the field, the successors of. Cato and of Pliny em- 
ploy themselves in fabricating sacred vases, hair 
ponder and pomatums, artificial pearls, fiddle strings, 
embroidered gloves and religious relics! They are 
also great collectors of pictures, statues and medals 
—dirty gods and coins,” and find an ample re- 
ward in the ignorance and credulity of those who 
buy them. 
_ (1) The climate of Italy is now warmer than it was in the Augustan age, which 
Buffon ascribes to the draining of great tracts of swampy land in Germany. 
(2) “ Un Romain meme le plus indigent rougiroit de cultiver la terre.” Bose. 
