Whoever takes a long journey, however he may at his first commencement
be tempted to accumulate schemes of convenience and combinations of
travelling niceties, will cast them off in the course of his travels as
incumbrances; and whoever sets out in life, I believe, with a crowd of
relations round him, will, on the same principle, feel disposed to drop
one or two of them at every turn, as they hang about and impede his
progress, and make his own game single-handed. I speak of _Englishmen_,
whose religion and government inspire rather a spirit of public
benevolence, than contract the social affections to a point; and
co-operate, besides, to prompt that genius for adventure, and taste of
general knowledge, which has small chance to spring up in the
inhabitants of a feudal state; where each considers his family as
himself, and having derived all the comfort he has ever enjoyed from his
relations, resolves to return their favours at the end of a life, which
they make happy, in proportion as it _is_ so: and this accounts for the
equality required in continental marriages, which are avowedly made here
without regard to inclination, as the keeping up a family, not the
choice of a companion, is considered as important; while the lady bred
up in the same notions, complies with her _first_ duties, and considers
the _second_ as infinitely more dispensable.



GENOA.


Nov. 1, 1784.

It was on the twenty-first of last month that we passed from Turin to
Monte Casale; and I wondered, as I do still, to see the face of Nature