their external appearance to attract the notice of the traveller, or indulge the eye of the architect: they are almost all of one form-an oblong quadrangle: and as to the infide, I never had an opportunity of feeing one; none but Muffulmen being permitted to enter them, at leaft at Aleppo.

The next buildings of a public kind to the mofques that deferve to be particularly mentioned, are the caravanferas-buildings which, whether we confider the spirit of beneficence and charity that first fuggefted them, their national importance, or their extenfive utility, may rank, though not in fplendour of appearance, at leaft in true value, with any to be found in the world.

Caravanferas were originally intended for, and are now pretty generally applied to, the accommodation of frangers and travellers, though, like every other good inftitution, fometimes perverted to the purposes of private emolument or public job they are built at proper diftances through the roads of the Turkith dominions, and afford the indigent or weary traveller an afylum from the inclemency of the weather; are in general very large, and built of the moft folid and durable materials: have commonly one story above the ground floor, the lower of which is arched, and ferves for warehouses to flow goods, for lodgings, and for ftables, while the upper is ufed merely for lodgings, befides which, they are always accommodated with a fountain, and have cooks fhops and other conveniencies to fupply the wants of the lodgers. In Aleppo the caravanferas are aln.oft exclufively occupied by merchants, to whom they are, like other houses, rented.

The fuburbs of Aleppo, and the furrounding country, are very handfome, pleafant, and, to a perfon coming out of the gloomy city, in fome refpects in terefting. Some toffed about into hill and valley lie under the hands of the husbandman; others are covered with handfome villas; and others again laid out in gardens, whither the people of Aleppo occafionally refort for amufe

and formed of a compofition which refifts the weather effectually. On thofe most of the people fleep in the very hot weather: they are feparated from each other by walls; but the Franks, who live contiguous to one another, and who, from their difagreeable circumftances with regard to the Turks, are under the neceffity of keeping up a friendly and harmonious intercourfe together, have doors of communication, which are attended with thefe fortunate and pleafing advantages, that they can make a large circuit without defcending into the ftreets, and can vifit each other during the plague, without running the risk of catching the infection by going among the natives below.

There is a caftle in the city, which I had nearly forgotten to mention-the natives conceive it to be a place of great ftrength. It could not, however, withftand the fhock of a few pieces of ordnance for a day. It is esteemed a favour to be permitted to fee it; and there is nothing to recompenfe one for the trouble of obtaining permiffion, unlefs it be the profpect of the furrounding country, which from the battlements is extenfive and beautiful.

Near this caftle ftands the Seraglio, a large old building, where the bafhaw of Aleppo refides: the whole of it feemed to me to be kept in very bad repair, confidering the importance of the place. It is furrounded by a strong wall of great height: befides which, its contiguity to the caftle is very convenient; as, in cafe of popular tumults, or inteftine commotions, the bafhaw finds an afylum in the latter, which commands and overawes the city, and is never without a numerous garrifon under the command of an Aga.

Such is the fummary account I have been able to collect of Aleppo, the capital of Syria: which, mean though it is when compared with the capitals of European countries, is certainly the third city for fplendor, magnificence, and importance, in the vaft extent of the Ottoman empire-Conftantinople and Grand Cairo only excelling it in thofe points, and no other bearing any fort of competition with it. Anecdotes

Anecdotes of Mr. Howard, the Philantropift. (From Pratt's Gleanings.)

HOWAR

COWARD had many fingularities, but very few affectations. It was fingular for mere mortal man to go about doing good for the fake of doing it; to devote his fortune and his life to explore the most neglected and the most forlorn of the wretched, and to relieve them according to their feveral neceffities-to begin the work of benevolence, where other people's bounty commonly ends it, in a prifon all this, I fay, was very fingular, but wholly pure of af feetation. Funther, it was fingular, -deferving that word, indeed, inafmuch as in human history it is without a parallel to put himself to the greatest perfonal inconveniences and to encounter the greatest dangers, often of life itfelf, to accomplish the propofed ends of his philanthropy, fince it is notorious that he traverfed the earth, without any confideration of political diftincti ons or the nature of climate, in fearch of his objects, by which perfeverance and intrepidity of refolution, he overcame all'impediments that would have deterred many excellent perfons from attempting the like enterprizes; and made even thofe faint by the way, who, with like good hearts but with lefs firm minds, would have found themfelves unequal to like undertakings: yet in Howard this was altogether unaffected; and before any man fets down any part of it to a love of being particular, or to a love of fame arifing therefrom, let him well and truly examine his own heart, his own difpofition, and fee that he is not hunting about for an excufe to his own want of benevolence, or to his own vanities in being bountiful, by lowering the principle of benevolence in another. Let it not be imputed to John Howard as a difhonour, that he had enemies who, while they could not but applaud the bleffed effects of his virtue, laboured to depreciate the caufe: the Saviour of the whole world, whom perhaps of human creatures he most correctly imitated, had the fame; and to resemble his divine example, even in the wrengs that were heaped on

his facred head, is rather glory than fhame.

:

He was fingular in many of the common habits of life for inftance, he preferred damp fheets, linen, and cloaths, to dry ones; and, both rifing and going to bed, fwathed himself with coarie towels dipped in the coldest water he could get; in that ftate he remained half an hour, and then threw them off, frefhened and invigorated, as he said, beyond measure. He never put on a great eoat in the coldest countries: nor had been a minute under or over the time of an appointment, fo far as it depended on himfelf, for fix and twenty years. He never continued at a place or with a perfon, a fingle day beyond the period prefixed for going, in his whole life; and he had not, the laft fixteen years of his exiftence, ate any fish, flefb, or fowl; nor fat down to his fimple fare of tea, milk, and rusks, all that time. His journeys were continued from prifon to prifon, from one groupe of wretched beings to another, night and day; and where he could not go with a carriage, he would ride, and where that was hazardous, he would walk: fuch a thing as an obstruction was out of the queftion.

There are thofe who, confcious of wanting in themfelves what they envy in others, brand this victorious determination of fuffering no let or hindrance to ftop him from keeping on in the right way, as madness. Ah, my friend! how much better would it be for their neighbours and for fociety, were they half as mad. Diftractions they doubtless have, but it is to be feared, not half fo friendly to the interefts of human kind. But indeed, all enthusiasm of virtue is deemed romantic eccentricity by the cold-hearted,

With refpect to Mr. Howard's perfonal fingularities above defcribed, though they were certainly hazardous experiments in the firft inftance, it was not ufelefs for a man, who had prerefolved to fet his face against wind and weather; and after pafling all forts of unhealthy climes, to defcend into the realms of disease and death, to make them.

Some days after his first return from

an attempt to mitigate the fury of the plague in Conftantinople, he favoured me with a morning vifit in London; the weather was fo very terrible, that I had forgot his inveterate exactness, and had yielded up even the hope, for his own fake, of expecting him. Twelve at noon was the hour, and exactly as the clock in my room ftruck it, he entered; the wet, for it rained torrents, dripping from every part of his drefs, like water from a fheep just landed from its washing. He would not even have attended to his fituation, having fat himself down with the utmoft compofure and begun converfation, had I not made an offer of dry cloaths.

"Yes," faid he, fmiling, "I had Vmy fears, as I knocked at your door, that we should go over the old bufinefs of apprehenfions, about a little rain water, which, though it does not run from off my back as it does from that of a duck, or goose, or any other aquatic bird, does me as little injury; and, after a long draught, is fcarcely lefs refreshing. The coat I have now on, has been as often wetted through as any duck's in the world, and indeed gets no other cleaning. I do affure you, a good foaking fhower is the beft brush for broad cloth in the univerfe. You, like the rest of my friends, throw away your pity upon my fuppofed hardfhips with juft as much reafon as you commiferate the common beggars, who, being familiar with ftorms and hurricanes, neceffity and nakednefs, are a thousand times, fo forcible is habit, lefs to be compaffionated than the fons and daugh. ters of eafe and luxury, who, accustomed to all the enfeebling refinements of feathers by night and fires by day, are taught to feel like the puny creature ftigmatifed by Pope, "who fhivered at a breeze." All this is the work of art, my good friend; nature is more independent of external circumftances. Nature is intrepid, hardy, and adventurous; bat it is a practice to fpoil her with indulgencies from the moment we come into the world; a foft drefs and a foft cradle begin our education in luxuries, and we do not grow more manly the more we are gratified: on the cons

trary, our feet must be wrapt in wool or filk, we muft tread upon carpets breathe as it were in fire, avoid a tempeft which fweetens the air as we would a blast that putrifies it, and guarding every crevice from an unwholefome breeze, when it is the moft elastic and bracing, lie down upon a bed of feathers, that relax the fyftem more than a night's lodging upon flint ftones.

"You fmile," added Mr. Howard, after a pause, "but I am a living inftance of the truths I infift on. A more puny whipfter than myself, in the days of my youth, was never feen: I could not walk out an evening without wrapping up; if I got wet in the feet, a cold fucceeded. I could not put on my fhirt without its being aired. I was politely enfeebled enough to have delicate nerves, and was occafionally trou bled with a very genteel hectic. To be ferious, I am convinced what emafculates the body debilitates the mind, and renders both unfit for thofe exertions, which are of fuch ufe to us as focial beings. I therefore entered upon a reform of my conftitution, and have fucceeded in fuch a degree, that I have neither had a cough, cold, the vapours, nor any more alarming diforder, fince I furmounted the feafoning. Prior to this, I ufed to be a miferable dependent on wind and weather; a little too much of either would poftpone and frequently prevent, not only my amufements, but my duties; and every one knows that a pleasure or a duty deferred is often deftroyed. Procraftination you very juftly called the thief of time. And if preffed by my affections, or by the neceffity of affairs, I did venture forth in defpite of the elements, the confequences were equally abfurd and incommodious, nor feldom afflictive. I muffled up even to my noftrils; a crack in the glafs of my chaise was sufficient to diftrefs me; a fudden flope of the wheels to the right or left, fet me a trembling; a jolt feemed like dislocation; and the fight of a bank or precipice, near which my horfe or carriage was to pafs, would diforder me so much that I would order the driver to stop, that I might get out and walk by the difficult places. Mulled wines, fpi

rituous