424 
quences refult, is the indulgence granted 
to the prifoners of receiving the vifits of 
their wives and miftreiles twice every 
week. Proper care, however, is taken 
to guard againft the introduction of dif- 
‘eafe; and the ladies, in one fenfe, pur- 
chafe their admiflion, by giving a trifling 
fum of money at the gate, which becomes 
the perquifite of the aged prifoners, 
whofe wants are of a different nature 
from their youthful comrades. Thus the 
pleafures of one clafs contribute to the 
comforts of the other; and the entrance 
money, trifling as it is, keeps away a 
crowd of idle vagabonds, who have no 
acquaintance with the prifoners. The 
ladies, at their vilits, are permitted to 
eat and drink with their lovers, and 
when the converfation becomes too ani- 
mated for a-third perfon to be prefint, 
the reft of the company obligingly take 
the hint, and leave them to enjoy a fete- 
a-tete.—By this prudent regulation, 
many hurtful confequences attendant on 
a total fechufion from female fociety, are 
guarded againtt. 
M. THOUvIN. concludes his account. 
with obferving, that the Ra/phuys at Am- 
fterdam bears a greater refemblance to a 
well ordered manufactory, than to a pri- 
fon. It. were to be wifhed, that all 
fimilar inftitutions were conduéted upon 
a fimilar plan. 
Eee 
To the Editor of the. Monthly Magazine. 
Sue, 6 
HE books of travels, &c. publithed 
by the Rev. Mr. Coxe, ‘contain 
much amufing and ufeful information; 
I was,:therefore, not a little vexed and 
difappointed, the ether day, to find, in 
the fitth volume of his travels, one of the 
mot egregious blunders in hiftorical and 
claflical knowledge, which have ever 
fallen under my notice. Since the blin- 
er is fo remarkable, and the book {fo 
popular, you will, perhaps, deem my 
correéticn not unworthy of a place in your 
excellent Magazine, which has the de- 
ferved good tortune to be; at prefent, in 
the moit eminent degrec, the publica cura 
of ali perfons ef literary or {cientific cu- 
riofty. 
The following infcription is copied by 
Mr. Coxe from a monumental obelifk 
which was. ere&ted in honour of Count 
Bernitorff of Denmark, after his deceafe, 
. by the peafantry upon his eftates: 
<< Piis manious Fob. Hartvici Ernefii, 
arva, difcreta, bereditaria, largiendo, 7 
OPES, OMA, tinperttit. 
gui 
indufirictty 
In exempluim, pofteritati.” 
Miftake of Mr. Coxe corrected. 
This infcription is, by Mr. Coxe, 
thus tranflated : 
‘© To the affectionate memory of John 
Hartvic Erneft, Count of Bernftorff, who, 
in 1767, rendered free his hereditary eftates, 
and thereby impezrted* induftry, wealth, 
every bleffing, as an example to pofterity.” 
From the context, it appears, that Mr. 
Coxe underftands the peafants on the 
Bernitorff eftates to have been, till the 
year 1767, in that abject ftate of feudal 
villainage, in which the peafantry of 
Britain remained from the era of the | 
Norman conqueft, nearly till that of the 
reformation of religion. 
But, the ftate of the peafantry in Den- 
mark never was fuchas Mr. CoXE con- 
ceives it to have been. The peafants of 
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, have 
ever been in a condition refembling rather 
that of the Anglo-Saxon Czorles, than 
that of the villains of France, and of 
Britain, after the Norman conquetft. 
They were, from times the moft remote, 
accounted one of the legiflative eftates of 
the kingdom—pofleffing peculiar pri- 
vileges. Any one who takes the trouble 
of looking into ‘ Molefwworth’s Account 
of Denmark,’ will at once perceive the 
Danifh peafantry to have been, even be- 
fore the great change which was accom- 
plithed in their government about the 
year 1660, in a fituation much more re- 
fpectable than that of mere feudal vil- 
Jainage. From that era they obtamed 
new immunities and new honours, the 
rewards of their fervices to the crown in 
crufhing the ariftocracy. ‘The very tenor 
of Mr. Coxe’s own account fufficiently 
confirms what is here ftated; while it 
contradiéts what he himfelf feems, in 
other inftances, to infinuate; and fhews, 
I fear, that he has not very well wader- 
ftood the compilation which he has raked 
together concerning Denmark and the 
ther northern governments. 
The fenfe of the above inferipticn, 
when ¢ruly interpreted, accords with this 
general ftatement: Arwa difcreta, immu 
ni, berediicria largiendo. What man 
of common underitanding, who pofleffed 
any {mall knowledge of the Latin lan- 
guage, would ever think of tranflating 
thefe words, as Mr. Coxe has done, 
<¢ rendered free his hereditary eftates?” 
In truth, Count BernitorfF only “* abo- 
lifhed, on his eftates, the practice.of ac- 
cepting the perfonal fervices of tae pea- 
fants as a part of the rents for their farms 
—gave perpetual leafes to tenants whe 
had, before, held their poffeffions with- 
out leafe, and had been removeable “- 
the 
