horses, over so fragile a substance. But, on returning from a ball or supper, wrapped up in a good pelisse, and in a warm carriage, we forget that we are on the water; particularly, when the ice is covered with snow, and the roads are well beaten. When winter sets in, the bridges of boats are drawn ashore, and there remains no other communication across the river. The circumstance of passing through rows of vessels, which appear to be lying on the ice, is remarkably striking. Those vessels serve, in general, for habitations, and sometimes as a retreat for rogues and thieves. If they attack any wandering passengers, they strip them and throw them into the holes in the ice made for the washerwomen, or the water-carriers. Without entering into any detail respecting the superb palace of ice built on the Neva by the empress Anne, I shall just observe, that an Italian architect, reflecting on the intensity of ice in that country, conceived the idea of employing it as a foundation for buildings. Many observations have proved, that the thaw does not penetrate more than six feet below the surface. Icehouses do not require even that depth in Russia; consequently cubes of ice would form a solid foundation at that depth, which would be of great advantage to Petersburgh, as it is built on a marshy soil and the houses stand on piles. The architect could not inspire the proprietor of a house with sufficient security to resolve on building it on ice; but he consented to make the trial for the portico, and for the wall of the court yard, which is twelve feet in height. They have stood now nearly thirty years, without the least damage. The Neva is generally frozen over at the beginning of November, and remains in that state till about the end of April, when it breaks up very suddenly. In a moment we see boats rowing where traîneaux were before travelling. A gun from the fortress announces the commotion, and the commandant, in a superb barge, carries to the emperour, who, with his courtiers, is waiting in the balcony of the palace, a bottle of water drawn from the middle of the stream, which then appears in all its majesty. The people hasten to the banks, ravished at the sight of that fine river, again rolling its waves. The eye rests with delight on the vast expanse, surrounded with magnificent palaces, on both banks; superb quays faced with granite; and ships and elegant yachts, sailing in all directions. To conclude: it has often struck me, Mr. Editor, that traîneaux, or sledges, might be rendered serviceable in this country. As soon as any quantity of snow has fallen in Germany, or in other parts of the north of Europe, besides the common sledges, gentlemen have their carriages taken off the wheels and put on to a traîneau. This winter,* particularly, when the communication was almost totally interrupted in ma→ ny parts, surely light sledges might have been employed to forward the mails. Were I an innkeeper in any of the northern counties, I should be induced to try the experiment, from a personal knowledge of the advantages attendant on the use of sledges during the winter season on the continent. Yours, &c. VIATOR. Our worthy correspondent, will excuse the addition of a few words to his ingenious communication. We understand, that other circumstances beside those he has mentioned, contribute to abate that gloom which we attribute to a polar winter. After the snows are fallen, the state of the atmosphere is commonly serene; and but little troubled by storms; neither is it liable to such mists and fogs as we are well acquainted with in London. The cold is intense; but the sensations consequent on it are cheerful, invigorating. * 1808-9. and rather allied to hilarity than to suffering, especially after a few days continuance of it have somewhat accustomed a person to it. The exercise that may be taken abroad is more than we generally imagine; and those who can skate derive many advantages from the frozen waters. The natives of Holland, women as well as men, make no difficulty of skating twenty miles to market, and back again. They go to a distant friend's to breakfast, or return in the evening on their skates. But, a remarkable employment of this mode of travelling, is the military expeditions performed on the lakes in Canada. It would be thought in England a rare spectacle to see a regiment of soldiers, skating in military array: yet this has often been done on lake Superiour, at the rate of about sixty miles per day. When the moon shines brightly, this exercise is continued; and the brilliancy of the lunar rays is by far superiour to her general effulgence in our own latitude. She is, indeed, "Regent of night." The stars, too, appear more numerous, as well as brighter, to the naked eye; and the cerulean heavens glow with a more resplendent azure. The light of the aurora borealis is also extremely vivid, and sufficient for the service of travellers. But, to enter fully into the enjoyments of a polar winter, we should pass the time with the Finlander in his cabin, or the Laplander in his hut. Sunk into the ground some feet, by way of protection from the penetrating power of frost; and presenting but a mere conical point to the weight of snow, and the power of wind, the dwelling bids defiance to the rigour of the season: while the family within find themselves assembled, and alive to social enjoyment. This is the season for conversation and intercourse. While all abroad is frozen, the mind may expand. The parents have laid in their stores; they have made provision for the winter's consumption; the young men, under their direc tion, have set their traps, and they tend them, to see, from time to time, what further support they furnish. This is, now, their chief occupation; and the rest of their time they spend in forming those connexions which are hereafter to become their constant enjoyments. Young women are then engaged in kindnesses. The fact is, that these people are removed from those fascinations by which the desire of accumulation impels natives of more temperate climates. They value the productions, the natural productions of their own country: these are their wealth. Artificial riches, the gains arising from calculations, and profits by means of the precious metals, they are not, indeed, strangers to; but are indifferent about. They have, no doubt, among them, different dispositions and characters: the worthy and the unworthy, the generous and the selfish. They have their hard hearts, and their miserly spirits. But these, acting within narrow limits, the infelicities they occasion are narrow also. They show, indeed, that under all climates, and seasons, man is the cause of his own disappointments and vexations. Not the circumstances that surround him, whether he be placed amid the fervent plains of India, the sandy desarts of Arabia, the temperate vales of Europe, or the snow-clad regions of the poles, are to blame. Man is not, therefore, either happy or unhappy, whether he enjoy the perpetual spring of Quito, the verdant summer of Britain, the rich autumn of Italy, or the winter-the long, long winter of Lapland, and the Arctick circle. They are all equally indifferent to his real happiness YORKSHIRE. The following are the Particulars of the Execution of Mary Bateman, and John Brown. MARY BATEMAN, the abandoned creature who was executed, was a follower of the principles of Joanna Southcote-only improving deception into robbery, barbarity, and murder, she affected the visionsthe trances the thumpings-the second sight of that wretched sect: large bodies of whom, from Leeds, attended the execution, on Monday se'nnight; the more simple part of whom imagined that a miracle would be worked in her favour, and that she would be saved by the interposition of Heaven! Notwithstanding all the prayers and exhortations of the clergyman, she obstinately persisted in denying that she had poisoned the woman, for whom she suffered, and died extremely hardened and unrepenting.-Brown, the soldier of the York rangers, and who was one of the worst looking fellows ever seen, expired equally unaffected; denying, to the last, the murder he had before confessed, and which was clearly proved on his trial! At eleven o'clock, these two culprits were brought on the scaffold, and after praying a short time with the ordinary, were conducted to the drop, and were launch ed, by the instantaneous falling of it, into that state where repentance comes too late. It is a curious matter to state, that so ingrained and assimilated to her disposition had become Mary Bateman's taste for plunder and witchcraft, that from the poor woman who had attended on herself and child in the prison, she contrived to steal a guinea, by telling the woman's fortune, and making the stars favourable to her in a sweetheart. She carried on this religious mummery to the last. It is a dreadful thought, that this wretch, by the same means, and by a complete knowledge of poisons, had before destroyed the lives of two innocent women, whom she robbed of every thing they had; and that had Perigo died as well as his wife, this would have been the fourth life a victim to her infernal arts. The child, which had been sucking, for a year past, at her breast, was taken from her some little time before her execution. Strange to tell! she gave it up without a pang-She parted from it without one emotion! Brown was given to be dissected and anatomized at York: and Mary Bateman conveyed in a cart to the infirmary at Leeds. The road from York to Leeds, on Monday, was thronged the whole of the afternoon with foot passengers, horses, and gigs returning from the execution; and notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, eleven in the evening, when the cart, with her body approached the town, it was met by a number of people. On the following day, Tuesday, the body was exhibited in the surgeon's room at the infirmary, at 3d. each person, and an immense number of people were admitted to view her remains; the greater part of whom evinced predominant superstition, by touching part of the body before they left the room, to prevent her terrifick interference with their nocturnal dreams. April, 1809. YOL. II THE LATE GENERAL PAOLI. 46 Questo grand'uomo mandato per Dio a liberare la Patria." SIGNOR PASQUALE PAOLI was born at Rostino, in the island of Corsica (as would appear from a variety of circumstances) in the year 1726. He was the second son of Hiacinte Paoli, who had always been attached to the popular cause; and eonsequently was a sworn enemy to the Genoese; for they had attempted to subjugate his native country, both by fraud and by arms; and, instead of endeavouring to acquire the attachment of the nation, had planted the seeds of an unconquerable hatred, by their rapaciousness, their cruelty, and their injustice. Uniting a narrow, commercial jealousy with a fondness for fiscal tyranny, a capitation, a tithe, and a hearth-tax, three of the most odious imposts that could be devised, were levied with an uncommon degree of strictness, and that too on a nation totally devoid of wealth; while they were, at the same time, destitute of the means of supporting their new burthens, by being deprived of trade and manufactures. But this was not all; for the poor Genoese nobles, who had modestly appended the royal crown of Corsicat to the arms of the republick, were sent over, from time to time, to enrich themselves with the spoils of an impoverished people; and like the Baillis of Switzerland, pay their debts, and redeem their castles, by means of every species of oppression. of colonel in the service of the king of France; but who was publickly poniarded in the midst of his followers, by a Genoese. The assassin having been cut in pieces by the indignant multitude, the senate decreed that the expenses of a funeral ceremony should be defrayed by the publick; and at the same time proposed, that a statue should be erected to his honour in the hall of the ducal palace, by the side of that of Andrew Doria! An avenger was at length found, in the person of Sampiero, a native Corsican, who had obtained the rank In 1725, the Genoese having insisted that, instead of tithes in kind, the full value in money should be paid by the islanders, a new revolt broke out, and the standard of liberty was once more unfurled by those hardy islanders. On this, the pretensions of their oppressors, instead of being diminished, were increased. They insisted that all the commodities of the country should be sold to them alone. They seized on a lake for their own use, called stagno di Diana; the waters of which were converted into salt by the rays of the sun, while the families of the Ciaccaldi and Raffaelli were deprived of their estates, in consequence of the most frivolous pretexts. On this, Pompiliani and Fabio Filinghieri were elected the leaders of the insurgents; and, although the latter was put to death by the poniard, a new war was prevented only by the intervention of the emperour in 1732, who had sent prince Louis of Wirtemberg to Corsica, with a body of 6000 men, to the assistance of the * A Corsican proverb, applied to Paoli republick. by his countrymen. The bank of St. George had a much better claim to the honour of emblazoning a crown on its paper money, as it actually advanced the whole of the treasure for the extinction of certain claims on the part of the kings of Naples and Aragon, and received in return the island of Corstea, by way of mortgage. Notwithstanding the concordat that followed, the Genoese governed with their usual injustice, and the Corsicans obeyed with the same reluctance It may not be unnecessary to observe in this place, that the memory of this great man was never disgraced by giving him an assassin for a colleague. as before. In a short time after, the former having found means to seize on and imprison those whom they termed the ringleaders during the late insurrection, a new war broke forth in consequence of so gross a breach of faith. This event gave birth to the projects of Anthony, baron de Neuhoff, one of the most extraordinary men recorded in history. After having studied politicks under the celebrated Swedish minister, baron Goertz, and served during some time along with that great warriour, Charles XII. he entered into the service of the emperour; resided during a short period at Florence, in the capacity of his imperial majesty's minister; and having received an offer of the crown of Corsica, provided he would place himself at the head of the insurgents, he accordingly repaired to Aleria, on board a vessel mounting 24 guns, and carrying an English flag. Soon after this (in March, 1736) he was conducted to Corte, the capital of this island; and, in a general assembly of the inhabitants, was immediately elected *king of Corsica and Capraja, under the name of Theodore I. But, as the natives have ever been impatient of superiority, they soon became to the full as tired of their new sovereign then, as they were of the English about half a century afterwards; and both were accordingly obliged to abdicate. The retreat of the former, however, must be allow ed to have been more honourable, as his majesty, king Theodore, withdrew for the express purpose of obtaining supplies, after having convoked a consulta, in which he took a solemn and publick leave of the nation. He also established a regency, and, by an edict published at Sartene, conferred the provisional government on twenty Theodore I. coined money, established laws, instituted the Order of Deliverance, and created a number of nobles, among whom was the father of Paoli, who obtained the dignity of a marquis, and the post of grand treasurer. eight nobles, at the head of whom we find the marquis Hiacinte de Paoli, with the rank of marshal general. Soon after this, the king of France ordered a body of men, under general de Maillebois, to land in Corsica, for the express purpose of assisting the Genoese. But as the natives were in no small degree formidable, this commander offered his mediation. It however was refused on the part of the marquis de Paoli, but accepted by his countrymen. On this, he immediately left his native island, in company with his two sons, and repaired to the continent. Having obtained the countenance of one of the neighbouring princes, into whose service (we believe) he entered, Hiacinte settled at Naples. While there, he soon perceived the seeds of extraordinary talents in his second son, Pasquale; and being determined to bestow a good education on him, he placed his favourite child under the Jesuits, then esteemed the best masters in Europe. Thus confided to their tuition, he attained an extraordinary degree of proficiency in the learned languages. Active, sober, never indulging idleness, or abandoning either his mind or body to the grosser pleasures of sensuality, he, at an early period of life, conceived the bold idea of placing himself at the head of his nation, and becoming its deliverer. Meanwhile, he was introduced at court, obtained a commission in the service of Naples, and endeavoured to make himself acquainted with the art of war. At an early period of his life, he displayed a lofty port, and exhibited what he himself was pleased to term "Una superbia indicibile." His mind, at the same time, became deeply imbued with all the ancient precepts relative to liberty; and when spoken to respecting the dangers that must be necessarily encountered in attempting to enfranchise his country, he was accustomed |