ent to virtue.--

* Posts, bearing the inscription "la mort est un sommeil eternel,"
were erected in many public burying-grounds.--No other ceremony is
observed with the dead than enclosing the body in some rough boards,
and sending it off by a couple of porters, (in their usual garb,)
attended by a municipal officer. The latter inscribes on a register
the name of the deceased, who is thrown into a grave generally
prepared for half a score, and the whole business is finished.

The great experiment of governing a civilized people without religion
will now be made; and should the morals, the manners, or happiness of the
French, be improved by it, the sectaries of modern philosophy may
triumph. Should it happen otherwise, the Christian will have an
additional motive for cherishing his faith: but even the afflictions of
humanity will not, I fear, produce either regret or conviction in his
adversary; for the prejudices of philosophers and systemists are
incorrigible.*

* _"Ce ne sont point les philosophes qui connoissent le mieux les
hommes. Ils ne les voient qu'a travers les prejuges, et je ne fache
aucun etat ou l'on en ait tant."_--J. J. Rousseau. ["It is not among
philosophers that we are to look for the most perfect knowledge of
human nature.--They view it only through the prejudices of
philosophy, and I know of no profession where prejudices are more
abundant."]

Providence, Jan. 29.

We are now quite domesticated here, though in a very miserable way,
without fire, and with our mattresses, on the boards; but we nevertheless
adopt the spirit of the country, and a total absence of comfort does not
prevent us from amusing ourselves. My friend knits, and draws landscapes
on the backs of cards; and I have established a correspondence with an
old bookseller, who sends me treatises of chemistry and fortifications,
instead of poetry and memoirs. I endeavoured at first to borrow books of
our companions, but this resource was soon exhausted, and the whole
prison supplied little more than a novel of Florian's, _Le Voyage du jeune
Anarcharsis,_ and some of the philosophical romances of Voltaire.--They
say it ennuyes them to read; and I observe, that those who read at all,
take their books into the garden, and prefer the most crowded walks.
These studious persons, who seem to surpass Crambe himself in the faculty
of abstraction, smile and bow at e