Swift. for it as I confidently believe her to have been! If the way to heaven be through piety, truth, juftice, and charity, she is there. J. S." He always treated his mother, during her life, with the utmost duty and affection; and fhe fometimes came to Ireland to vifit him after his fettlement at Lara cor. The liberality of the dean hath been a topic of juft en comium with all his admirers; nor could his enemies deny him this praife. In his domeftic affairs, he always afted with strict economy. He kept the moft regular accounts; and he feems to have done this chiefly with a view to increase his power of being useful. "His income. which was little more than L. 700 per annum, he endeavoured to divide into three parts, for the following purposes. First, to live upon one-third of it. Secondly, to give another third in pensions and charities, according to the manner in which perfons who received them had lived and the other third he laid by, to build an hofpital for the reception of idiots and lunatics." "What is remarkable in this generous man, is this (fays Mr F.), that when he lent money upon bond or mortgage, he would not take the legal inte. rell, but one per cent. below it." : His charity appears to have been a fettled principle of duty more than an instinctive effort of good nature: but as it was thus founded and fupported, it had extraordinary me. rit, and seldom failed to exert itself in a manner that contributed molt to render it beneficial. He did not lavish his money on the idle and the worthless. He nicely difcriminated characters, and was feldom the dupe of impofition. Hence his generofity always turned to an ufeful account : while it relieved diftrefs, it encouraged induftry, and rewarded virtue. We dwell with great pleasure on this truly excellent and diftinguishing part of the dean's character: and for the fake of his charity we can overlook his oddities, and almost forgive his faults. He was a very peculiar man in every refpect. Some have faid, "What a man he would have been, had he been without thofe whims and infirmities which shaded both his genius and his character!" But perhaps the peculiarities complained of were infeparable from his genius. The vigour and tertility of the root could not fail now and then of throwing out fuperfluous fuckers. What produced thefe, produced alfo the more beautiful branches, and gave the fruit all its richness. It must be acknowledged, that the dean's fancy hurried him into great abfurdities and inconfiftencies, for which no thing but his extraordinary talents and noble virtues, difcovered in other inftances, could have atoned. The rancour he discovered on all occafions towards the diffenters is totally unjustifiable. No fect could have merited it in the degree in which he always fhowed it to them; for, in fome inftances, it bordered on downright perfecution. He doubt. lefs had his reafons for expofing their principles to ridicule, and might perhaps have fufficient grounds for fome of his accufations against their principal leaders in Ireland; but nothing could juftify his virulence against the whole body. In a fhort poem on one class of diffenters he bestowed a Aricture upon Bettefworth, a lawyer eminent for his infolence to the clergy, which, from a very confiderable reputa. tion, brought him into immediate and univerfal contempt. Bettefworth, enraged at his difgrace and lofs, went to the dean, and demanded whether he was the author of that poem?" Mr Bettefworth (anfwered he), I was in my youth acquainted with great lawyers, who, knowing my difpofition to fatire, adviled me, if any fcoundrel or blockhead whom I had lampooned fhould afk, Are you the author of this paper? to tell him that I was not the author; and therefore, 1 tell you, Mr Bettefworth, that I am not the author of thefe lines." Swift has been accused of irreligion and mifanthropy, on account of his Tale of a Tub, and his Yahoos in Gulliver's Travels; but both charges feem to be ill-founded, or at leaft not supported by that evidence. The Tale of a Tub holds up to ridicule fuperftitious and fanatical absurdities; but it never attacks the effentials of religion and in the ftory of the Yahoos, difgufting we confess, there appears to us as little evidence that the author hated his own fpecies, as in the poems of Strephon and Chloe, and the Ladies Dref fing Room, that he approved of groffnefs and filth in the female fex. We do not indeed, with his fondelt admirers, perceive the moral tendency of the Voyage to the Houyhnhnme, or confider it as a fatire admirably calculated to reform mankind; but neither do we think that it can poffibly corrupt them, or lead them to think meanly of their rational na are. According to Sheridan, "the defign of this apologue is to place before the eyes of man a picture of the two different parts of his frame, detached from each other, in order that he may the better estimate the true value of each, and fee the neceffity there is that the one should have an absolute command over the other. In your merely animal capacity, fays he to man, without reafon to guide you, and actuated only by a blind inftinct, I will show you that you would be degraded below the beasts of the field. That very form, that very body, you are now fo proud of, as giving you fuch a fuperiority over all other animals, I will show you, owe all their beauty, and all their greatest powers, to their being actuated by a rational foul. Let that be withdrawn, let the body be inhabited by the mind of a brute, let it be prone as theirs are, and fuffered like theirs to take its natural course, without any affiftance from art, you would in that cafe be the most deformed, as to your external appearance, the most deteftable of all creatures. And with regard to your internal frame, filled with all the evil difpofi tions and malignant paffions of mankind, you would be the moft miferable of beings, living in a continued state of internal vexation, and of hatred and warfare with each other. "On the other hand, I will show another picture of an reprefentations? Is it not evidently a leffon to mankind, Such may have been the author's intention; but it is not With respect to his religion, it is a fact unquestionable, that while the power of fpeech remained, he continued conftant in the performance of his private devotions; and in proportion as his memory failed, they were gradually fhortened, till at last he could only repeat the Lord's prayer, which he continued to do till the power of utterance for ever ceafed. Such a habit as this could not have been formed but by a man deeply impreffed with a conviction of the truth and importance of revelation. The most inexcufable part of Swift's conduct is his treatment of Stella and Vaneffa, for which no proper apology can be made, and which the vain attempts of his friends have only tended to aggravate. One attributes his fin Hh2 gular Swift, Swift, gular conduct to a peculiarity in his conftitution; but if Swimming he knew that he was incapable of fulfilling the duties of the married state, how came he to tie one of the ladies to himfelf by the marriage-ceremony, and in the moft explicit terms. to declare his paffion to the other? And what are we to think of the fenfibility of a man who, ftrongly attached as he feems to have been to both, could, without speaking, fling a paper on the table of the one, which "proved (as our author expreffes it) her death-warrant," and could throw the other, his beloved Stella, in her laft illness, into unspeakable agonies, and " never fee her more, for only adjuring him, by their friendship, to let her have the fatisfaction of dying at leaft, though fhe had not lived, his acknowledged wife?" Another apologis infinuates, upon fomething like evidence, that Stella bore a fon to Swift, and yet labours to excuse him for not declaring her his wife, becaufe the had agreed at the marriage that it fhould remain a fecret from all the world unless the difcovery fhould be called for by urgent neceffity; but what could be meant by the term urgent neceffity, unless it alluded to the birth of children, he confeffes that it would be hard to fay. The truth we believe to be what has been faid by Johnson, that the man whom Stella had the misfortune to love was fond of fingularity, and desirous to make a mode of happiness for himself, different from the general courfe of things and the order of Providence; he wished for all the pleasures of perfect friendship, without the uneafiness of conjugal restraint. But with this ftate poor Stella was not fatisfied; fhe never was treated as a wife, and to the world fhe had the appearance of a miftrefs. She lived fullenly on, hoping that in time he would own and receive her. This, we believe, he offered at last to do, but not till the change of his manners and the depravation of his mind made her tell him, that "it was too late." I to man. The natural acrimony of Swift's temper had been increafed by repeated difappointments. This gave a fplenetic tincture to his writings, and amidst the duties of private and domeftic life it too frequently appeared to fhade the luftre of his more eminent virtues.-The dean hath been accused of avarice, but with the fame truth as he hath been accused of infidelity. In detached views, no man was more liable to be mistaken. Even his genius and good sense might be queftioned, if we were only to read fome paffages of his writings. Fo judge fairly and pronounce juftly of him as a man and as an author, we should examine the uniform tenor of his difpofition and conduct, and the general nature and defign of his productions. In the latter he will appear great, and in the former good; notwithstanding the puns and puerilities of the one, and the abfurdities and inconfiftencies of the other. SWIFT, in ornithology. See HIRUNDO. SWIMMING, the art of fufpending one's felf on water, and at the fame time making a progreffive motion thro' it. Swimming As fwimming is not natural to man, it is evident that at not natural fome period it must have been unknown among the human race. Nevertheless there are no accounts of its origin to be found in the hiftory of any nation; nor are there any nations fo barbarous but that the art of swimming is known among them, and that in greater perfection than among civilized people. It is probable, therefore, that the art, though not abfolutely natural, will always be acquired by people in a favage ftate from imitating the brute animals, moft of whom fwim naturally. Indeed fo much does this appear to be the cafe, that very expert fwimmers have recommended it to thofe who wished to learn the art, to keep fome frogs in a tub of water conftantly befide them, and to imitate the motions by which they move thro' that element. 2 Depends on The theory of fwimming depends upon one very fima fimple ple principle; namely, that if a force is applied to any principle. body, it will always move towards that fide where there is Swimming. the leaft refiftance. Thus, if a perfon ftanding in a boat pushes with a pole against the fide or any other part of the veffel in which he ftands, no motion will enfue; for as much as he preffes in one direction with the pole, just so much does the action of his feet, on which the preffure of the pole muft ultimately reft, push the veffel the other way : but if, instead of the fide of the veffel, he pushes the pole against the fhore, then only one force acts upon it, namely, that of the feet; which being refifted only by the fluid water, the boat begins to move from the fhore. Now the very fame thing takes place in fwimming, whether the ani. mal be man, quadruped, bird, or fifh. If we confider the matter fimply, we may fuppofe an animal in fuch a fituation. that it could not poffibly swim: thus, if we cut off the fins and tail of a fifh, it will indeed float in confequence of being fpecifically lighter than the water, but cannot make any progreffive motion, or at least but very little, in confequence of wriggling its body; but if we allow it to keep any of its fins, by ftriking them against the water in any direction, the body moves the contrary way, just as a boat moves the contrary way to that in which the oars strike the water. It is true, that as the boat is but partly immerged in the water, the resistance is comparatively lefs than when a frog or even any other quadruped fwims; but a boat could certainly bet rowed with oars tho' it was totally immerged in water, only with lefs velocity than when it is not. When a man swims, he in like manner ftrikes the water with his hands, arms, and feet; in confequence of which the body moves in a direction contrary to the ftroke. Upon this principle, and on this only, a man may either afcend, defcend, or move obliquely, in any poffible direction in the water. One would think, indeed, that as the strength of a man's arms and legs is but fmall, he could make but very little way by any ftroke he could give the water, confidering the fluidity of that element. Nevertheless it is incredible what expert swimmers will perform in this way; of which Mr Forster gives a moft remarkable inftance in the inhabitants of Otaheite; whofe agility, he tells us, was fuch, that when a nail was thrown overboard, they would jump after it into the sea, and never fail to catch it before it came to the bottom. As to the practice of fwimming, there are but few direc tions which can be given. The great obstacle The great obstacle is the natu. ral dread which people have of being drowned; and this it is impoffible to overcome by any thing but accuftoming ourselves to go into the water. With regard to the real danger of being drowned, it is but little; and on innumerable occafions arifes entirely from the terror above mentioned, as will appear from the following obfervations by Doctor Franklin.. 3 Dr Frank "Ift, That though the legs, arms, and head, of a human Obfervas body, being folid parts, are fpecifically fomewhat heavier tions by than fresh water, yet the trunk, particularly the upper part, lin. from its hollownefs, is fo much lighter than water, as that the whole of the body, taken together, is too light to fink wholly under water, but fome part will remain above until the lungs become filled with water; which happens from drawing water into them inftead of air, when a perfon in the fright attempts breathing while the mouth and noftrils are under water. "2dly, That the, legs and arms are fpecifically lighter than falt water, and will be fupported by it; fo that a hu man body would not fink in. falt water, though the lungs were filled as above, but from the greater fpecific gravity of the head. 1 "6 4thly, That in fresh water, if a man throws himlelf on his back near the furface, he cannot long continue in that fituation, but by a proper action of his hands on the water. If he uses no fuch action, the legs and lower part of the body will gradually fink till he comes into an upright pofition; in which he will continue fufpended, the hollow of the breaft keeping the head uppermoft. swimming. fo as to keep his mouth and noftrils free for breathing; and and throw an egg into the water, between you and the Swimming, by a small motion of his hands may prevent turning, if he fhore; it will fink to the bottom, and be cafily feen there, fhould perceive any tendency to it. if the water is clear. It must lie in the water fo deep as that you cannot reach it to take it up but by diving for it. To encourage yourself in order to do this, reflect that your progrefs will be from deeper to fhallower water; and that at any time you may, by bringing your legs under you, and ftanding on the bottom, raife your head far above the water: then plunge under it with your eyes open, throwing yourself towards the egg, and endeavouring, by the action of your hands and feet against the water, to get forward till within reach of it. In this attempt you will find that the water buoys you up against your inclination; that it is not fo eafy a thing to fink as you imagined; that you cannot but by active force get down to the egg. Thus you feel the power of the water to fupport you, and learn to confide in that power; while your endeavours to overcome it, and to reach the egg, teach you the manner of acting on the water with your feet and hands; which action is afterwards used in swimming to support your head higher above water, or to go forward through it." 4 His method to (wim, 5thly, But if in this erect pofition the head is kept upright above the shoulders, as when we ftand on the ground, the immersion will, by the weight of that part of the head that is out of the water, reach above the mouth and noftrils, perhaps a little above the eyes; so that a man cannot long remain fufpended in water with his head in that pofition. 6thly, The body continued fufpended as before, and upright, if the head be leaned quite back, fo that the face looks upwards, all the back part of the head being then under water, and its weight confequently in a great measure fupported by it, the face will remain above water quite free for breathing, will rife an inch higher every inspiration, and fink as much every expiration, but never fo low as that the water may come over the mouth. 7thly, If therefore a perfon unacquainted with fwimming, and falling accidentally into the water, could have prefence of mind fufficient to avoid struggling and plunging, and to let the body take this natural pofition, he might continue long fafe from drowning, till perhaps help would come; for as to the clothes, their additional weight while immerfed is very inconfiderable, the water fupporting it; though when he comes out of the water, he would find them very heavy indeed." The method of learning to fwim is as follows: The perof learning fon muft walk into water fo deep that it will reach to the breaft. He is then to lie down gently on the belly, keeping the head and neck perfectly upright, the breast advancing forward, the thorax inflated, and the back bent; then withdrawing the legs from the bottom, and ftretching them out, ftrike the arms forwards in unifon with the legs. Swimming on the back is fomewhat fimilar to that on the belly; but with this difference, that although the legs are employed to move the body forwards, the arms are gene. rally unemployed, and the progreffive motion is derived from the movement of the legs. In diving, a perfon muft clofe his hands together, and, preffing his chin upon his breaft, make an exertion to bend with force forwards. While in that pontion, he muft continue to move with rapidity under the furface; and whenever he chooses to return to his former fituation, he has nothing to do but bend back his head, and he will immediately return to the surface. And of ac- It is very common for novices in the art of fwimming to make ufe of corks or bladders to affitt in keeping the body above water. Some have utterly condemned the ufe of thefe; however, Dr Franklin allows that they may be of fervice for fupporting the body while one is learning what is called the roke, or that manner of drawing in and flxiking out the hands and feet that is neceffary to produce progreffive motion. "But fays he) you will be no fwim mer till you can place confidence in the power of the water to fupport you: I would therefore advise the acquiring that confidence in the first place, especially as I have known feveral who, by a little of the practice neccffary for that purpofe, have infenfibly acquired the itroke, taught as it were by nature. "The practice I mean is this: Choofing a place where quiring con- the water deepens gradually, walk coolly into it till it is up to your breaft: then turn round your face to the fhore, fidence. exercife. As fwimming is a healthy exercife and a pleasant amufe-Swimming left. 7 There are feveral different ways of turning one's felf in How to fwimming. You may do it in this way: Turn the palm of turn to ther the right hand outwards, extend the arm in the fame man-right or ner, and make a contrary movement with the left hand and left arm; then, by a gradual motion, incline your head and whole body to the left fide, and the evolution will be finished. There is another way which is easier ftill: Bend your head and body toward that fide to which you are going to turn. If you wish to turn to the left, incline the thumb and the right hand toward the bottom, bend the fingers of the right hand, ftretch it out, and use it for driving-away the water fidewife, or, which is the fame thing, for pushing yourself the contrary way. At the fame time, with your · left hand, the fingers being close, push the water behind: you, and all at once turn your body and your face to the left, and the manoeuvre will be accomplished. If you wish to turn to the right, you must do with your right hand what you did with your left, and with your left what you did with your right. You must be careful when turning yourself never to stretch out your legs, and be sure that the water be fo deep that you be in no danger of hurting your felf. 8 When you are fwimming on your belly, and wish to turn How to 9 The eyes heaven... In iwimming, the eyes ought to be turned towards hea- Swimming it impoffible to dive while he keeps his head erect and his eyes fixed on the heavens (A). How 10 fwim on the back, JI And advance for wards. 12 How to fwim on one fide. hands. The cafeft pofture in fwimming is lying on the back. When you wish to fwim in this pofture, lay yourfelf foftly on your back, and raife your breaft to the furface of the water, keeping your body extended in the fame line. Put your hands eafily over the upper part of your thighs, and throw out your legs and draw them in alternately, keeping them within two feet of the furface. In this way you may advance in any direction you pleafe. You may perhaps not like having fo much of your head under water; there is, however, no way of fwimming fo eafy, fo fafe, and fo little fatiguing. If you wish to swim with great rapidity, you may use your arms as well as your feet; and you will find this the easiest way of breaking the force of the waves. In fwimming on the back, one may advance forward as well as backward. For this purpose the body must be kept straight and extended; the breaft inflated, fo that the hollow of the back may affume a femicircular form. The hands must recline over the upper parts of the thighs. It is also neceffary to raise the legs one after another, and draw them in ftrongly towards the hams, and then leave them fufpended in the water. This way of fwimming is not only pleasant, but may ferve to reft you when fatigued. When you are tired with fwimming on your back and belly, you may fwim on one fide. When you wish to do this, fink a little your left fide and raise your right; you will immediately find yourself on your left fide. Move then your left hand without either raising or finking it; you have only to stretch it and draw it back, as in a straight line, on the furface of the water. Independent of the plea fure which this kind of motion will give you, you will have the fatisfaction of feeing both fides of the river. 13 How to It is poffible to fwim on the belly without the affiftance fwim on of the hands. For this purpose you must keep your breaft the belly erect, your neck ftraight, and fix your hands behind your without the affift- head, or upon your back, while you move forward by emance of the ploying your feet, This way is not without its advan tages. It is an excellent refource when the arms are feized with a cramp, or with any indifpofition which makes it painful to exert them. This in fome cafes may be preferable to fwimming on the back; for while in that attitude, one cannot see before them without turning every inftant. If one of your legs be feized with a cramp, take hold of it with the hand oppofite to it, and use the other hand and leg to advance or fupport yourself. 14 How to the hands A very ancient and graceful mode of fwimming, is that fwim with of swimming with the hands joined. When you wish to joined. put this in practice, join your hands, keeping the thumbs and fingers towards heaven, fo that they may appear above the water; then draw them back and push them forwards alternately from your breaft. This method of swimming may be useful in feveral circumftances, but above all if you are entangled with grafs or weeds. Your hands will then open a paffage for you. 15 With the As a person may fometimes have occafion to carry fomehands ele- thing in his hand in swimming, which he is anxious to pre vated. ferve from the water, he may fwim enfily with one hand Swimming and hold a parcel in the other, as Cæfar fwam with his Commentaries at Alexandria; or one may fwim with both Swingle, hands elevated. To perform this well, the swimmer muft raile his breaft, and keep it as much inflated as he can, at the fame time that he fupports the arms above the water. It must not be concealed, that this method of fwimming is attended with fome danger to one who is not dexterous at the art; for if one thould imprudently draw in his breaft, when his arms are raised, he would immediately fink to the bottom. 16 Every one knows that when a man plunges into the How to rife water, and when he has reached the bottom, he has nothing to the furto do but to give a small stroke with his foot against the face after diving. ground, in order to rife; but an experienced fwimmer, it he miffes the ground, has recourfe to another expedient, which is very pretty, and which has not been confidered with fufficient attention. We fuppofe him at a confiderable depth, when he perceives that he cannot reach the bottom. In fuch a cafe, he firfts puts his hands before his face, at the height of his forehead, with the palms turned outwardly; then holding the fore part of his arm vertically, he makes them move backwards and forwards from right to left; that is to fay, these two parts of his arms, having the elbow as a kind of pivot, describe very quickly, both the hands being open, and the fingers joined, two fmall portions of a circle before the forehead, as if he would make the water retire, which he in fact does; and from these ftrokes given to the water, there results an oblique force, one part of which carries the fwimmer upwards. There are many artificial methods of fupporting one's felf in water, but we have not room to defcribe them.Those who wish to fee a full account of them may confult the Encyclopédie Methodique. SWIMMING of Fish. A great proportion of the inhabitants of the waters have an air-bladder by which they poite themselves. Their movements chiefly depend upon their tail See COMPARATIVE ANATOMY, no 147, 155; and ICHTHYOLOGY, no 3• SWINDLER, a word which has been lately adopted into the English language, derived from the German word Schwindel," to cheat." Swindling has now become fo common in feveral of the great towns of this country, that it is unfortunately too well known to require any defcription. SWINE, in zoology. See Sus. SWINE-Stone. See Swine-STONE. SWINGING, a kind of exercise ftrongly recommended to perfons in confumption by fome phyficians, and difapproved of by others. See MEDICINE, p. 224. SWING-TREE of a waggon, is the bar faftened across the fore-guide, to which the traces of the horfes are fastened. SWING-Wheel, in a royal pendulum, that wheel which drives the pendulum. In a watch or balance clock it is 'called the crown-wheel. SWINGLE, in the fire-works in England, the wooden spoke which is fixed to the barrel that draws the wire, and which, (A) An interefting queftion occurs here, which deferves to be confidered. Since the body, when spread upon the furface, can be fupported with fo little exertion, and frequently without any at all, as in fwimming on the back, how comes it to pafs that a perfon when drowned finks and frequently rifes again some time afterwards? The reason is this: In the act of drowning, the lungs are filled with water, and confequently the body, being specifically heavier, finks. It is well known that the human body contains a great quantity of air: this air is at first compreffed by the water; and while this is the cafe the body remains at the bottom: but as foon as the air by its elafticity endeavours to difengage itself from the compreffion, the body is fwelled and expanded, becomes fpecifically lighter than the water, and confequently rifes to the top. 1 ! Switz, Switzer land. land. principality of Neuenberg or Neufchatel, Geneva, and the Switzer which, by its being forced back by the cogs of the wheel, is the occafion of the force with which the barrel is pulled. SWITZ, or SCHWEITS, the capital of one of the cantons of Switzerland, to which it gives name, feated on the eaft fide of the lake Lucern, in N. Lat. 46. 55. E. Long. 8. 30. SWITZERLAND, or SwiSSERLAND, is bounded on the north by Swabia; on the caft by Tirol; on the fouth by Savoy and the Milanefe; and on the weft by France, being about 260 miles long and 100 broad. It is divided into 13 cantons, viz. Berne, Zurich, Schaffhaufen, Bafil, Lucerne, Underwalden, Uri, Switz, Friburg, Zug, Soleure, Glaris, and Appenzel. See these articles. The Swiss were anciently called Helvetii; and being fubdued by the Romans, they continued in fubjection to that power till the empire declined, when they became a part of the kingdom of Burgundy. After that they fell under the dominion of the Franks, then of the Germans; but being oppreffed by the latter, they threw off the yoke, and erect ed several states and republics, which, at the treaty of Weftphalia in 1648, were recognized as free and independent. The cantons of Switz, Uri, and Underwalden, having, as early as the year 1308, entered into a confederacy in the canton of Switz, and having alfo obtained their first victory, in 1315, over Leopold archduke of Auftria in the fame canton, its name was given to the whole confederacy, which it ftill retains. The other cantons fucceffively acceded to this affociation, but some of them not until upwards of 100 years after. With refpect With respect to the government and conftitution of these cantons, fome of them are ariftocracies and fome democracies. In the former, both the legislative and executive power is lodged in the burghers or citizens of the capital of each canton; and of these there are even, viz. Zurich, Berne, Bafil, Friburg, Soleure, and Schaffhausen; an account of the most important of which may be feen under their refpective names. In the others, the legiflative power is lodged in the whole body of the people; and every male above 16, whether mafter or fervant, has a vote in making laws and in the choice of magiftrates. For what concerns the whole Helvetic body, there are diets ordinary and extraordinary: the former are held annually, and the others upon particular emergencies; and both are fummoned by the city of Zurich, which appoints the time and place of their meetings. Befides the general diets fince the Reformation, there have been particular diets of the two religions, at which all public affairs of confequence that regard the two parties are treated feparately; for though a fenfe of their common intereft obliges them to tudy to maintain the league and union, yet it is certain, that the mutual confidence between the cantons is in fome meafure loft through the zeal of each party for their particular opimions, especially of the Roman Catholics. The annual general diets are held always at Frauenfeld or Baden, principally to regulate the affairs of the common bailiages. Lucern takes the lead of the Roman Catholic cantons, being the most powerful of that denomination; but Zurich, tho lefs powerful than that of Berne, takes the precedence of all the other cantons, both Proteftant and Popish. These cantons do not make one commonwealth, but are fo many independent states, united together by ftrict alliances for their mutual defence. The extraordinary diets or congreffes are held at Aldorf. Each canton usually deputes two envoys both to the ordinary and extraordinary, to which alfo the abbot and the town of St Gall, and the town of Biel, fend representatives as allies. To the 13 cantons belong in common 21 bailiages, two towns, and two lordfhips. The allies, or incorporated places as they are called, are the abbot and town of St Gall, the three Grifon leagues, the republic of the Valais, the towns of Muhlhaufen and Biel, the As to the air, foil, and produce of Switzerland, that part of the canton of Berne to the east of the lake of Geneva, together with the cantons of Uri, Switz, Underwalden, Glaris, Appenzel, and part of the canton of Lucern, confift of ftupendous mountains, whofe tops are faid to be from 9coo të 12,000 feet above the level of the fea, confifting of craggy inacceffible rocks, of which fome are quite bare, while others are always covered with ice and fnow. Among the mountains are many excellent medicinal and other fprings, cold and warm baths, water-falls, craggy precipices, deep narrow valleys, and caverns. They yield also a great variety of herbs, thickets, and bushes, in the upper parts; and in the lower, rich paftures and woods. The higheft are thofe in the canton of Uri. Many of the valleys are covered with In fome of them lakes, or watered by brooks and rivers. are towns, villages, woods, vineyards, and corn-lands. Both on the mountains and in the valleys the air is extremely cold in winter; but in fummer it is very pleasant, cool, and refreshing on the former, but exceffively hot in the latter. Sometimes it is winter on the north fide of a mountain when it is fummer on the other; nay, flowers may be gathered Profometimes with one hand, and snow with the other. digious maffes of ice and fnow often fall from them in winter, and do a great deal of damage (fee GLACIER); and moft of the ftrcams and rivers take their rife from the thawFrom the ing of the ice and fnow on their fides and tops. rifing or descending of the clouds, with which they are commonly enveloped, the inhabitants can, for the most part, pretty exactly foretel the changes of the weather; so that they serve them inftead of weather-glaffes. The other and lower parts of Switzerland are very pleasant and fertile, being diverfified with vineyards, corn-fields, meadows, and pasture-grounds. The mountains in these are but mole-hills in comparison of the others: there is neither fnow nor ice on them in fummer; and they frequently afford not only good pafturage, but arable ground. Many petrifactions are found both among thefe and the others, with a variety of foffils, The fands of the rivers yield gold-duft, particularly thofe of the Rhine, the Emmet, and the Aar, the Reufs, the Arre, and the Inn. The metals of this country being generally found to be brittle, the only mines that are worked are a few iron ones. In the lower parts of Switzerland they fow rye, oats, barley, fpelt, flax, and hemp. Wines of various forts are alfo produced in fome of them, with a variety of fruits. Of wood for fuel and other ufes there is generally plenty; in fome places, however, they are obliged. to burn fheeps dung, and in others a kind of heath and small fhrubs. In the valleys they cultivate faffron with fuccefs. The Switzers derive their principal fubfiftence from their flocks and herds of cattle, which in fummer graze upon the mountains. Their cheefe is much efteemed, especially that of Berne and Griers in the canton of Friburg. Great numbers of horses are also bred here, and bought up for the French cavalry. Befides the above mentioned rivers, the Rhone and the Tefin have their fources in this country. The lakes are very numerous; but the chief are thofe of Geneva, Neufchatel, Biel, Zurich, Thun, Brien, Conftance, and Lucern. Both rivers and lakes abound with fish, and afford a cheap water carriage. Switzerland is not fo populous as many other countries in Europe; and the Popish cantons lefs fo than the Proteftant. The total number of the inhabitants is computed at two millions. The language generally fpoken here is the German, in which alfo all public affairs are tranfacted; but in those Parts |