have been able to discover. If the first discourse was preached as well as printed in 1793, we cannot be surprised that it gave offence; a wife man will regard practice rather than profeffion:

"And fince I am fpeaking upon this fubject I cannot forbear to inftance a modern nation, I mean the French, who by their prefent noble and spirited conduct in defence of the proper rights of human nature, have aftonished the whole world, and held out a ftriking leffon to kings and to rulers to confider themselves placed in their high ftation, not merely for their own benefit and aggrandizement, but for the good of the people. It should make them reflect that the welfare of mankind, fhould be the first thing they should keep in view, and that they fhould hold facred the lives, liberties, and properties (property) of their fellow-creatures.-The French Nation, I fay, has decreed, that virtue and abilities are the only roads to honour and preferments." P. 196.

We are aware that the author has greatly qualified and explained his admiration of the French revolution; neverthelefs his expreffions are frequently rather violent. When fpeaking of Mr. Burke, who is not confidered in his individual capacity, but as ftanding the first of those who have founded the alarm against the inroads of rebellion and confufion, Dr. L. preferves neither temper nor moderation: "Mr. B—, and his

penfioned crew;" p. 292. "Abject court flatterers, the "mean tools and flaves of a state;" p. 199. "Mr. B-, the "defender of arbitrary power and the ufurpation of tyrants;" p. 256. This is not the language of reafon or of justice.

We fhall conclude what we have to fay of Dr. L. by declaring, that the wifh to fee a more advantageous and judicious ufe made of talents and learning, by no means inconfiderable, and not the flightest love of cenfure, has led us thus to offer our strictures on this fingular volume. If the author has reafonable temper, he will probably be grateful to us for it; if not, he will perfift in publishing crudities, not lefs to his own difadvantage, than to the diffatisfaction of reviewers.

We confefs it is not pleasant to receive even friendly cenfure in public, but at the fame time we must declare, that neither is it pleafing to us to pafs any cenfure where we see much reafon to efteem.

ART

ART. VI. A Journal during a Refidence in France, from the Beginning of Auguft to the Middle of December 1792. To which is added, An Account of the most remarkable Events that happened at Paris from that Time to the Death of the late King of France. By John Moore, M. D. 2 vols. (One only yet published.) 6s. Robinfons.

THE character of Dr. Moore, as an author, is known fo univerfally, and his acquaintance with French manners has fo long been intimate, that, among the various publications which have excited the public curiofity, on a fubject not easily to be exhausted, it may naturally be fuppofed, any thing from his pen would be received with uncommon eagerness. There are few of our readers who will not remember, with a mixture of pleasure and regret, the animation with which the author of The Travels in France" has recorded that lively tranfport with which, a few years fince, every Frenchman's heart beat at the name of his fovereign. To read then, how the fame pen would defcribe that fame monarch's diftrefs, degradation, and murder, could not poffibly fail to raise an awful and anxious folicitude in the minds of Englishmen, whose characteristic magnanimity inclines them to perufe the recital of atrocities unparalleled, with a mixture of fcorn, pity, and indignation.

Dr. Moore commences his Journal by informing us, that, from his early years, he had been fo favourably impreffed with the affability, cafe, and gaiety of the French, that he could not but regret the oppreflion of their government, and the inequality of their laws. We will venture to affert, that, with these liberal ideas, there were very few indeed of our countrymen, who did not generously sympathize. But, alas! affability, eafe, and gaiety, however amiable in focial converse, are, at the best, but unfubftantial qualities, and do not conciliate lafting esteem, but as they are connected with higher and more important virtues. Thefe are not the mental diftinctions we fhould require from individuals, who undertake to reform, or yet more to fubvert, a long eftablished government; to thruft afide, with irreverent fcorn, what has had the fanction of ages; to introduce a new philofophy; to fet religion at naught; and erect a golden idol of their own, at which every knee must bow. We should, at leaft, expect fome confiftent energy, fome habitude of reflection, fomething which looked deeper than the furface. But of those who, in rapid fucceffion fince the Revolution of 1789, have climbed to power, and so precipitately fallen, that it may truly be faid of them, tolluntur in altum ut cafu graviore ruant," how very few have been qualified for the stations, they were am

U 3

bitious

bitious to fill. So that the events which have taken place, seem lefs to justify our astonishment, than the madness and infatuated vanity of the individuals who have obtruded themselves as chief actors on fo confpicuous a theatre.

In page the fourth we find our traveller at Abbeville : he remarks there, that the poor were equally cheerful, and better dreffed than he had ever observed them in this part of France before. Our philanthropy would have been the better pleased with this circumftance, but that we received a check in the fubfequent page, where it is intimated, that if they are but well dreffed, nothing can make the French people, of the lower order, wear a forrowful countenance. At a period not very remote, a young man was beheaded at Abbeville for wounding a wooden image of the Virgin with his couteau de chaffe. The fact was commemorated by an infcription, which the present zeal, certainly not here mifplaced, haftily removed.

At p. 9, Dr. Moore tell us, that he met with the first proof of the contempt into which the unhappy Louis had fallen, After what he has written on the enthufiaftic loyalty of the French, it must have impreffed him very forcibly. They "talk," said he, to a genteel man," of dethroning the king. "Tant pis pour lui," said the man, "mais cela ne vous regarde 41 pas. He adds, that there was a time when the most dreadful convulfion of nature would, in France, have occafioned lefs alarm.

A moft emphatic argument against the levelling principle of the French is to be found at p. 10. The doctor observed, at Chantilly, that the afpect of things was fadly changed; and he asked a man in rags, if the people wifhed for the return of the prince." All the poor do," faid the man. The doctor arrived at Paris, Auguft 7, and was immediately a witness of the violence which he had never feen equalled, of the national affembly. The fubject was nothing more important than the coining of bells into money. The indecent rage of the galle ries, which, we will take upon us to predict, will be an everlafting bar to the modellers of a wife and falutary constitution, is reprobated by the author as it deferves. The following fentence, among many others, will ferve to fhow our readers what is the ufual behaviour of these gallery vifitants:

"Indeed I was foon convinced, that the people in the galleries were more likely to thrust out the members, than that the members would expel them. For although fome of the deputies fhook their hands in a threatening manner at the people in the tribunes, thofe threats and geftures only provoked laughter.

"A third letter gave an account" that feveral deputies had been obliged to take refuge in a corps de garde, from the fury of certain perfons who had followed and abused them as they went home

from

from the Affembly; that these perfons were not citizens of Paris, but ftrangers, fœderés, as was fuppofed, hired for the purpose of infulting particular members pointed out to them; that the corps "de garde was on the point of being forced by thefe perfons, when "the members made their escape by a back window."

"Another letter informed the affembly, that a deputy having gone for refuge into a fhop in the Rue St. Honoré, one of the foederés had followed him, and declared, that if he ever faw him "attempt to return to the Affembly, he would ftrike off his head "with a stroke of his fabre, which he drew half out of the scabbard " as he spoke."

"When mention was made in the former letter of the deputy's escaping by the window of the corps de garde, it excited fome mirth in the galleries; but at the idea of one of their heads being cut off, I thought there would have been no end of exultation: there was a loud and univerfal peal of laughter from all the galleries." P. 26.

At p. 35 the author laments, with a prophetic fpirit, the danger of a fudden change from one extreme to another:

"From the violent manner in which the debates are carried on in the National Affembly, and other circumftances I have remarked fince my arrival at Paris, I am strongly inclined to think, that the fudden tranfition which the French have made from a government of powerful and rigid controul, to one so very indulgent and lax as that now established, will have fome bad effects on the minds and conduct of a people of fo much vivacity as the natives of this country. Befides, the French have been thought to have more levity of character than the natives of other countries of Europe. This levity was a fource of confolation to them under an oppreffive government; it prevented the tyranny which was exercifed over them from making the fame impreffion that it would have made on a people of more serious reflection: but the fame levity and vivacity of character which proved a confolation to them in the gloom of defpotim, may prove pernicious in the funfhine of liberty."

The queftion, whether, on the important day of the 10th of Auguft, the Swifs or the French fired first, is decided moft reafonably in favour of the former:

"All agree, that the Swifs began hoftilities by giving the firft fire on the people. It is even afferted, that they pretended to be well difpofed to the caufe of the people, fhook hands with fome of them; and having thus thrown them off their guard, they moft perfidiously fired on them.

"This account, however, I do not credit, because it is contrary to the character of the Swifs, who are an honeft and plain-dealing people; and becaufe, after the King and Royal Family had forfaken the caftle, I can fee no motive which the Swifs could have for firing, but felf-defence. I therefore think it-moft probable, especially con

fidering the vivacity of the one people, and the phlegm of the other, that the French were the aggreffors." P. 48.

The following description also seems to merit the attention of our readers:

"I went this morning to fee the places where the action of yesterday happened. The naked bodies of the Swifs, for they were already ftripped, lay expofed on the ground. I faw a great number on the terrace, immediately before the palace of the Tuileries; fome lying fingle in different parts of the gardens; and fome in heaps, one above another, particularly near the terrace of the Feuillans.

"The garden and adjacent courts were crowded with spectators, among whom there was a confiderable proportion of women, whofe curiofity it was evident was fully equal to their modefty.

"The bodies of the national guards, of the citizens of the fauxbourgs, and of the foederés, have been already removed by their friends; thofe of the Swifs only lie expofed in this fhocking manner. Of about 800 or 1000 of thefe, who were yesterday mustered in the Tuileries, I am told there are not 200 left alive.

Seeing a number of people going up the grand staircase of the palace, to fee the ravage that was made in all the rooms by the action of yesterday, I intermingled with the crowd, and had afcended half way, when I heard the fhrieks of fome one above, and foon after the body of a man was carried down. I was told that he had been detected in the act of ftealing fome of the furniture belonging to the palace, and was inftantly put to death by the people around him.

"This expeditious method of executing juftice removed all inclination of vifiting the royal apartments: I defcended to the terrace, and took another melancholy walk among the bodies of those whom I had feen two days before in all the pride of health and military pomp. In point of fize and looks, I do not fuppofe there is a finer battalion of infantry in Europe than they formed at that time.

"After they gave way, they were flaughtered by those who kept aloof while they refifted. Some were purfued through the ftreets, and dragged from the fhops and houses whither they fled for fhelter. About fifty or fixty who asked for quarter, were faved by the Marfeillois: they were delivered to the national guards, and conducted by them to the Maifon de Ville. While thofe unfortunate men were detained in the fquare, waiting for orders from the municipality into what prison they were to be confined, the multitude, enraged no doubt by the death of their friends and relations, and irritated at the fight of the wounded citizens who were carrying to their houses and to the hofpitals, began to cry for vengeance on the prisoners; and at length, like a parcel of drunken favages, they burst through the ranks of the national guards, and butchered the defencelels Swifs in cold blood. I cannot deem the national guards guiltlefs. I have been told that they could not fave the Swifs without killing the citizens but fuch furies do not deferve the name of citizens, and were infinitely more criminal than the Swiss.

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