76 TRAVELS 
fay fomething appropriate to every one prefent. The duke of 
Sudermania too was very attentive to the guefls; but the prefent 
king, though polite and gracious, is more referved in his manners ; 
and on the whole the court has exchanged its gaiety, magni¬ 
ficence, and pleafure, for an air of retirement and infipidity. 
The intercourfe between the court and the inferior affemblies 
and circles, exhibits a fingular mixture of feudal fubmiffion and 
veneration for the civ and military chief, and a refpeCt for theper- 
fonal rights of all claffes and individuals in the nation ; for although 
a confiderable fhare of modern fervility has been introduced, yet 
there flill remains evident traces of that fpirit of freedom and in¬ 
dependence which diftinguifhed the antient inhabitants of the 
North. Thefe venerable relicks are not quite annihilated, by the 
extenfion of Afiatic defpotifm, as in Ruflia and China. A hardy 
boldnefs of chara&er, created by the nature of the country they 
inhabit, gives to every individual a fenfe of his own refpe&ability 
and confequence, which is collectively felt and affumed by whole 
bodies and communities. That great poet, fcholar, and philofb- 
pher, Milton, fomewhere obferves, that the Englifh are free, not 
by virtue of their written laws or conventions, but becaufe they 
are by nature a free people. Laws, when they are not maintained 
and invigorated by the living principle of liberty, and a fenfe of 
juftice, foon degenerate into dead-letter : and, on the other hand, 
where that fpirit is ftrong and aCtive, laws and cuftoms are 
changed, qualified, and meliorated in favour of humanity. The 
mofl brilliant afiembly in Stockholm next to the court in full 
