The inhabitants of Basil seem to be of a reserved and saturnine disposition; whether it is natural or affected I cannot tell, but the few I conversed with, had something uncommonly serious and formal in their manner. How an unremitting gravity and solemnity of manner in the common affairs of life, comes to be considered as an indication of wisdom, or of extraordinary parts, is what I never could understand.—So many ridiculous things occur every day in this world, that men who are endowed with that degree of sensibility which usually accompanies genius, find it very difficult to maintain a continued gravity. This difficulty is abundantly felt even in the grave and learned professions of law, physic, and divinity; and the individuals who have been most successful in surmounting it, and who never deviate from the solemnity of established forms, have not always been the most distinguished for real knowledge or genius; though they generally are most admired by the multitude, who are very apt to mistake that gravity for wisdom, which proceeds from a literal weight of brain, and muddiness of understanding. Mistakes of the same kind are frequently made in forming a judgment of books, as well as men. Those which profess a formal design to instruct and reform, and carry on the work methodically till the reader is lulled into repose, have passed for deep and useful performances; while others, replete with original observation and real instruction, have been treated as frivolous, because they are written in a familiar style, and the precepts conveyed in a sprightly and indirect manner. Works which are composed with the laborious desire of being thought profound, have so very often the misfortune to be dull, that some people have considered the two terms as synonymous; and the men who receive it as a rule, that one set of books are profound because they are dull, may naturally conclude that others are superficial because they are entertaining. With respect to books, however, matters are soon set to rights; those of puffed and false pretensions die neglected, while those of real merit live and flourish. But with regard to the men, the catastrophe is often different; we daily see formal assuming blockheads flourish and enjoy the fruits of their pompous impositions, while many men of talents who disdain such arts, live in obscurity, and die neglected.—I ask you pardon, I have just recollected that I was giving you some account of Basil. The library here is much esteemed.—It is reckoned particularly rich in manuscripts. They showed us one of a Greek New Testament, with which you may believe H——y and I were greatly edified. We are told it is above a thousand years old. At the arsenal is shown, the armour in which Charles Duke of Burgundy was killed. That unfortunate prince has ornamented all the arsenals in Switzerland with trophies.