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76 TRAVELS
fay fomething appropriate to every one prefent. The duke of .
Sudermania too was very attentive to the guefts; but the prefent
king, though polite and gracious, is more referved in. his manners ;
and on the whole the court has exchanged its gaiety, magni-
ficence, and pleafure, for an air of retirement and infipidity.
The intercourfe between the court and the inferior aflemblies
and circles, exhibits a fingular mixture of feudal fubmiffion and
veneration for the civ and military chief, and a refpect for the per-
fonal rights of all claffes and individuals in the nation; for although
a confiderable fhare of modern fervility has been introduced, yet
there ftill remains evident traces of that {pirit of freedom and in-
dependence which diftinguifhed the antient inhabitants of the
North. Thefe venerable relicks are not quite annihilated, by the
extenfion of Afiatic defpotifm, as in Ruffia and China. A hardy
boldnefs of character, created by the nature of the country they
inhabit, gives to every individual a fenfe of his own refpectability
and confequence, which is collectively felt and affumed by whole ~
bodies and communities. That great poet, fcholar, and philofo- °
pher, Milton, fomewhere obferves, that the Englifh are free, not
by virtue of their written laws or Conventions: but becaufe they
are by nature a free people. Laws, when they are not maintained
and invigorated by the living principle of liberty, and a fenfe of :
juftice, foon degenerate into dead-letter: and, on the other hand, |
where that fpirit is {trong and active, laws and cuftoms are
changed, qualified, and meliorated in favour of humanity. The :
moft brilliant aflembly in Stockholm next to the court in full
gala,
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