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TRAVELS 
variety of matter prefented to our obfervation, we naturally attach 
ourfelves to what is congenial with our own habits of thinking, 
and our own purfuits and ftudies. It ought not to be the defign 
or attempt in any new pilgrimage of this kind, to fuperfede and 
render ufelefs all that has preceded it. The regions of Scandina¬ 
via certainly open a wide field for various fpeculations and difco- 
veries. The mines of Sweden have given birth to many literary 
compolitions, and will yet indubitably produce many more. Its 
navigation, commerce, revenue, population, government, police, 
and internal regulations for the good order and convenience of 
fociety ; the public works, edifices, and charities ; the Rate of 
agriculture, the army, the navy, and the various other objeds that 
conftitute the proper fubjeds of hiftorical works and ftatiftical 
enquiries—all thefe particulars have been detailed with tolerable 
accuracy by many travellers before me. It would not be confident 
with my plan to give a ftatiflical account of Sweden, even could 
I prefume or fuppofe that my reader would thank me for being 
more minute in my information than Mr. Coxe has been; or be 
pleafed, were I to fwell my pages with more copious extrads from 
the Swedifli hiftory than this traveller has furnifhed. It is ajuft 
tribute to Mr. Coxe, and which I readily acknowledge, that he at 
this day pofteffes in Sweden the reputation of an indefatigable 
enquirer and colledor of every poflible information on a variety 
of fubjeds. Whatever he could learn from any one he noted 
down in his journal, under fome head or other. If among the 
mafs of materials which he thus gathered, there were fome that 
had 
