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in his Recherches fur les Grecs, takes occafion to ad- 

 vance, when fpeaking of the cynic philofophers, fuits 

 perfectly well with the fubjecl: we are upon. We do 

 not form juft ideas, he thinks, of the wretched condi- 

 tion of fuch men ; their maxim of difpenling with all 

 things was favoured by a climate that fupplied them 

 with all things. A man, in our opinion, poor and 

 wretched, could in thofe countries, not only fatisfy 

 the neceffary and firfh wants of life, but might enjoy 

 the world to the beft advantage ; and fo may a pretended 

 neapolitan beggar look down with contempt on a vice- 

 roy of Norway, and reject with difdain the govern- 

 ment of Siberia, if the emprefs of Ruffia were difpofed 

 to make him the offer of it. 



Certainly a cynic philofopher would fare but badly 

 in our northern countries ; while, in the fouthern 

 climes, he is invited, as it were, by nature to embrace 

 that fyftem. The man in tatters is yet not naked there ; 

 he who has neither a houfe of his own, nor money to 

 hire one, yet in fummer paries the night under fplen- 

 did roofs, in the porches of palaces and churches, and 

 in bad weather can find a fhelter for his head by means 

 of a very trifle of money, is therefore not yet a forlorn 

 and outcaft being ; a man is not yet poor becaufe he 

 has not provided for another day. If we do but confi- 

 der what a quantity of nourilhment is afforded by a fea 

 that abounds in fifh, and on the produce whereof every 

 man is obliged by law to live for fome days in the 

 week ; how all kinds of fruits and garden-fluff is to be 

 had at every feafon of the year in abundance ; how the 

 country where Naples Hands has merited the name of 

 Terra di Lavoro (not the land of labour, but the land 



of 



