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unique one. I believe many, nay perhaps the majority of men, would have acted the same part, in my situation. I believe they too would have suffered their judgment to be swayed by the conduct of others, for man seems disinclined to act in opposition to his company, particularly where his interest is not materially concerned; he fears, in cases like mine, he may be supposed to wish to impress the minds of his company with a high idea of his benevolence, and his modesty shrinks from the apparent_assumption of superior virtue. Yet I ought to have acted independently; I ought I to have obeyed the impulse of charity, listened to the tale of woe, and contributed to its relief. But I acted otherwise; truth obliges me to relate that, which pride and self-love would conceal, and candour requires that, while commenting on the errors of others, I should not conceal my

own.

Alas! poor human nature! how dost thou err, even in spite of conviction! What art thou, O man, that thou pridest thyself on thy superior powers? why dost thou say to thyself, "Behold, I am wise, and gifted with understanding;" when thy judgment can be swayed or overruled by the dread of singularity; and the noblest gift of Heaven wrought upon like yielding wax, liable alike to bear the stamp of folly and the impression of wisdom?

Yet such is man; such he has always been, and such he will probably remain. Example is the sceptre by which he may be swayed; by this he may be led to the commission of deeds, which would otherwise never, perhaps, entered his imagination. This will rouse his slumbering courage, and tempt him to brave the dangers of the battle, the fatigues of a camp, and all the accumulated miseries of war; this will induce him to fly like a coward from the conflict, when the liberty of his country, its laws, and religion, are in danger of being overturned; when his property, his family, his all, depend upon his valour, it will

VOL. III. NO. XVI.

make him leave the foe to trample on those fields, moistened with the blood of his ancestors, and gained by their valour. It will open his purse at the call of humanity, or restrain the noblest movements of a generous mind and a susceptible heart. It will induce him to sacrifice even his interest at its altar, and draw forth that fund, which should cheer him in the day of adversity, to be applied to those purposes which folly and fashion may direct, even in despite of the claims of justice, the dictates of judgment, or the suggestions of prudence.

Can it be supposed that, in a numerous army, there should be none who, in the hour of danger, would rather fly than face the foe? Can they all be actuated by a love of their country, or a sense of the perils which hang impending over it? No: it is example, it is the dread of shame, of disgrace, and infamy, which actuates many; how gladly would they retire, were it not for these powerful motives, and intrust the welfare of their country to fortune, accident, or Providence.

Nor, when an army flies before another of inferior strength, should we brand all its members with the name of cowards; a few defective men may infect numbers with the same timidity by which they are actuated: fear, like courage, is supported and spread by example...... Many are the examples of this kind which history affords, and many have been the expedients which brave and prudent commanders have resorted to, to counteract its destructive effects; they have sent those who pleased back from the field of action to the camp, for those things which they might have forgotten, thereby freeing the army of its most dangerous members. When a whole regiment of militia retreated early in an engagement dur. ing our revolutionary war, general

gave out that they were ordered to retreat, and thereby prevented the remainder of the army from fly. ing before an enemy no stronger than himself. Recollection and

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Several writers have remarked and reproved the practice, but small wits, to whom only such observations are applicable, are still incorrigible. A writer who pours the vein of his satire on them, says they are as proud of exhibiting verses from Horace and Virgil, as a schoolboy after Christmas of repeating Propria quæ maribus.

The only praise to which a good quoter can aspire is that of having a retentive memory; and not even that in a great degree, for books are now, thanks to modern literary pursuits, so well provided with indices and notes, that parallel passages may be found without much difficulty. To show with what ease a letter might be interspersed with quotations, Melmoth wrote to his friend :

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often too true :

Lurida terribiles miscent aconita no

vercæ.

It is strange that those who have children by a first marriage should venture on a second; for marriage is always a lottery: not that

I would blemish all the fair; But yet if some be bad,'tis wisdom to beware,

And better shun the bait, than strug

gle in the snare.

I should be glad if you would tell me what the world is doing, now and then. We hear nothing in this solitary part,

Save when arrives the weekly caravan, With news of human kind.

But the master of the caravan is now dead, and we are very badly off. Poor wight!

-He did most plainly prove,

fligates have got something to value themselves upon, and have been able to keep themselves in countenance, though guilty of the most shameful and most dangerous vices. and never pay a farthing they owe. They are debauchees, spendthrifts, therefore are to be received as genBut they are men of honour; and tlemen in all companies.

THE HENRIADE.

I believe the French have few works which they value so highly as the Henriade. The extravagant praises which have been lavished

He could no longer live, than he could upon it by the king of Prussia, M.

move.

Marmontel, and Cocchi, have induced me to read it. I need scarcely

⚫ fortunate puer! tu nunc eris alter ab add how amply my trouble was

illo.

I am perfectly well at present, not even a head-ache to complain of!

Meus sana in corpore sano.
Adieu, my dear friend,

Vale, memor nostri !

DUELLING.

The point of honour, or duelling, is a modern invention, as well as gallantry; and by some esteemed equally useful in the refinement of manners but how it has contributed to that effect I am at a loss to determine. Conversation, among the greatest rustics, is not commonly infested with such rudeness as can give occasion to duels, even according to the most refined laws of this fantastic honour; and, as to the other small indecencies, which are the most offensive, because the most frequent, they can never be cured by the practice of duelling. But these notions are not only useless, they are also pernicious. By separating the man of honour from the man of virtue, the greatest pro

compensated. What, asks the last of these panegyrists, can be more interesting than to see a rebellion stifled, the legitimate heir of a throne combating in support of his title, obliged even to besiege his rebellious capital, and yet displaying in all his actions the enterprize, the valour, the prudence, and the generosity of a hero. It is true, that in his poem Voltaire has taken some slight liberties with historical facts; but, notwithstanding these events are recent and notorious, 'still the ingenuity of the poet has given them such an appearance of probability, that their deviation from the strict line of truth ought not to be regarded by a reader accustomed to consider a poem only as an imitation of nature, and composed of ingenious fictions.

All the praises which a writer merits for a judicious choice of subject are due to Voltaire. He relates the ever-memorable massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the murder of the third Henry, the dreadful battle of Ivry, and the famine of Paris : events which are no less extraordinary and terrible than they are true; and they are all represented with such admirable skill, that they ex, cite in the spectator the alternate emotions of horror and compassion.

The number of actors in the Henriade is not very great, but they are remarkable in their places, and their manners are painted with a discriminating pencil.

But the hero, Henry IV, is distinguished by the variety of traits which form his character. We behold valour and prudence, humanity and love, continually striving to gain an ascendancy, and yet all uniting to promote his glory.

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His intimate friend, Mornai, is a rare character: he is a learned philosopher, a valiant soldier, a prudent and good man.

The invisible beings, without whose assistance no poet would dare to undertake a poem, are well managed, and not altogether incredible. Such, for instance, are the ghost of St. Louis and some personifications of the human passions; yet the author has invoked their assistance so seldom, and with 30 much judgment, that we always see they are allegories.

In observing how this poem always sustains its dignity, without being crowded with supernatural and omnipotent agents, I have been confirmed in an opinion, which I have frequently maintained, that the places and occupations of these invisible beings might be supplied by real actors, as in tragedy, without any loss to epic poetry. This remark may be justified by the examples of Homer, Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Tasso, and Milton, in whose works we shall find that the most admired parts are not those in which we are addressed by the gods, the devils, the fates, and the ghosts: on the contrary, all this excites our ridicule, without producing in the heart those sympathetic sentiments which we feel at the representation of a noble action, proportionate to the capacity of man, and which is not beyond the regions of probability. It is for this reason that I admire the judgment of the poet, who, in order to confine this fiction within the bounds of truth and the human faculties, has conveyed his hero to

heaven and to hell in a dream, as in a vision all these things may ap pear very natural, and are credible.

Upon the constitution of the universe and the laws of nature, on morals, and on the ideas which we have of virtue and vice, of good and evil, Voltaire has written with so much force and elegance, that we are almost inclined to ascribe to him the knowledge of a superior being, intimately acquainted with all that is rational in the system of modern philosophy. He invokes all science to his aid, in order to inspire a general philanthropy, and a detestation of cruelty and fanaticism, throughout human nature. Equally the enemy of irreligion, he has, in the disputes which depend upon revelation, and which, therefore, cannot be determined by human reason, modestly, and yet decisively, given the preference to the Roman doctrine, many of the obscurities of which his pen has illuminated.

In order to criticise his style, it would be necessary to understand the full force and the nice discriminations of his language: a knowledge which is almost impossible to be attained by a stranger, but without which we cannot fully appreciate the purity of his diction. All that I will say of it is, that his verse appears easy and harmonious to the ear, and that in the poem I have found little puerile, little lame, and but few false sentiments, from which faults the best poets are not exempted. We find them sometimes, but rarely, in Homer and Virgil. I have often thought I discovered strong marks of resemblance with the Iliad, but I have also found an infinite number of beauties which belong only to the Henriade. Such are, for example, the excellent allegory in the fifth canto, where he relates the lamentable death of Henry III, and his noble reflections on his execrable assassin. There is also some novelty in the ingenious contemplations on future punishments. A single line gives us more insight into the character of the

amiable MORNAL, than we could derive from whole pages of ordinary writers:

THE FEMALE SEX.

The benevolent author of the universe, consulting only the happiness

"He fought without wishing to kill of his creatures, has appointed vari

any one."

The death of the gallant young D'Ailly, killed by his own father, who did not know him, is told with such pathos, that I could scarcely refrain from tears when I read it. There is a similar incident in Tasso, but that of Voltaire, being related with greater elegance, appears equally new, and is more sublime.

His verses upon friendship are irresistably beautiful, and he has scarcely equalled them, unless it be in his description of the modest d'Estrées.

In this poem are dispersed a thousand beauties, which evince its author to have been born with an exquisite taste, which he has increased by an indefatigable study of all kinds of science.

The difficulties which he had to surmount are almost innumerable. He had the prejudice of all Europe, and especially of his own countrymen, who believed that an epic poem could not be written in the French tongue; he was intimidated by the sad example of many who had miserably failed in this glorious task; and he had yet to encounter the superstitious veneration of the learned for Homer and Virgil..... With all this he had a constitution so feeble and delicate, that any other, not so desirous of his own reputation, and the honour of his nation, would have been entirely deterred from undertaking any literary labour. But the genius of Voltaire rose superior to all these impediments. He showed to the world that his language would support an an epic; he taught his unsuccessful contemporaries that it was their want of genius which prevented their success; he convinced the admirers of Homer and Virgil that epic poetry was not confined to ancient times,

ous means to promote the sweet union of love. Probably for this reason alone he constituted a difference of sexes. And what has he not done for the female of our own species to make her amiable in our eyes?

All the soft and winning graces, the sweet smiles of winning beauty, the obedient blush of modesty, the charming fears of dependent weakness, and the tender apprehensions of the feeling heart, are for this purpose appropriated to that lovely sex. By what fine proportions, what nicely moulded features, what expressive eyes, what delicate complexions, are many of them distinguished! Many of them, whose beauty is their least praise : for theirs are the finer ornaments of the mind, sense embellished and humanised by a habitual softness of manners, and knowledge collected from the labours of the muses. Theirs is the practice of every moral and social duty. All the virtues that are founded in the sensibility of the heart are eminently theirs. Pity, the attribute of angels, and friendship, the balm of life, delight to dwell in the female breast. What a forlorn, what a savage creature would man be without the meliorating offices of the gentle sex! How much are his mind and manners refined by the delicate passion of love! Is it not for the fair object of his affections that he cultivates all the embellishing and elegant graces? Does he not imitate her polished manners, and acquire, as it were by sympathy, her tender and delicate sentiments? After the endearing union of their loves and interests, when mutual confidence has removed every apprehension, what are the pleasures he may not enjoy? How are his cares softened, his prospects brightened, his delights enhanced by communication! How ungrateful,

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