quodam tempore jucundior? Quis turpioribus conjunctior? Quis civis meliorum partium aliquando? Quis tetrior hostis huic civitati? Quis in voluptatibus inquinatior? Quis in laboribus patientior? Quis in rapacitate avarior? Quis in largitione effusior ?"*

5. What made, say Montaigne, or more sage Charron.t

One of the reasons that makes Montaigne so agreeable a writer, is, that he gives so strong a picture of the way of life of a country gentleman in the reign of Henry the Third. The descriptions of his castle, of his library, of his travels, of his entertainments, of his diet and dress, are particularly pleasing. Malebranche and Pascal have severely and justly censured his scepticism. Peter Charron contracted a very strict friendship with him, insomuch that Montaigne permitted him, by his will, to bear his arms. In his book of Wisdom, which was published at Bourdeaux in the year one thousand six hundred and one, he has inserted a great number

number of Montaigne's sentiments; this treatise has been loudly blamed for its freedom by many writers of France, and particularly GARASSE the esteemed an or

Jesuit. Our Stanhope, though

thodox divine, translated it.

BAYLE has re

marked, in opposition to these censurers, that of a hundred thousand readers, there are hardly three to be found in any age, who are well qualified to judge of a book, wherein the ideas of an exact and metaphysical reasoning are set in opposition to the most common opinions. POPE has borrowed many remarks from Charron, of which sensible writer Bolingbroke was particularly fond.

6. A godless regent tremble at a star.*

The duke of Orleans, here pointed at, was an infidel and libertine, and at the same time, as well as BOULANVILLIERS and CARDAN, who calculated the nativity of Jesus Christ, was a bigotted believer in judicial astrology: he was said to be the author (which, however, has been doubted) of many of those flimsy songs, nugæ

VOL. II.

K

canoræ,

* Ver. 90.

canora, to which the language and the manners of France seem to be peculiarly adapted. He knew mankind: "Quiconque est sans honneur & sans humeur, (said he frequently,) est un courtisan parfaite." Crebillon, the father, a writer far superior to his son, during this profligate and debauched regent's administration, wrote a set of odes against him, of wonderful energy and keenness, and almost in the spirit of Alceus; if it be not a kind of profanation to speak thus of any production of a poet that writes under a despotic government.

7. Alas! in truth, the man but chang'd his mind;
Perhaps was sick, in love, or had not din'd.*

For the destruction of a kingdom, said a man of wit, nothing more is sometimes requisite than a bad digestion of the prime minister. The Grand Seignior offered to assist Henry IV. against his rebellious subjects, not for any deep political reason, but only because he hated the word League. It is a fault in Davila, as well as Tacitus,

* Ver. 127.

citus, never to ascribe great events to whim, caprice, private passions, and petty causes.

8. Judge we by nature? Habit can efface,
Interest o'ercome, or policy take place :
By actions? those uncertainty divides:
By passions? these dissimulation hides:
Opinions? they still take a wider range:
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change.
Manners with fortunes, humours turn with climes,
Tenets with books, and principles with times.*

We find here, in the compass of eight lines, an anatomy of human nature; more sense and observation cannot well be compressed and concluded in a narrower space. This passage might be drawn out into a voluminous commentary, and be worked up into a system concerning the knowledge of the world. There seems to be an inaccuracy in the use of the last verb; the natural temperament is by no means suddenly changed, or turned with a change of climate, though undoubtedly the humours are originally formed by it influenced by, would be a more proper expression than turn with, if the metre would admit it.

9. His passion still, to covet gen'ral praise;
His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways;
A constant bounty, which no friend has made;
An angel tongue, which no man can persuade;
A fool with more of wit than half mankind;
Too rash for thought, for action too refin'd;
A tyrant to the wife his heart approves;
A rebel to the very king he loves;

He dies an out-cast of each church and state;
And, harder still, flagitious, yet not great.*

This character of the Duke of Wharton is finished with much force and expressiveness;† the contradictions that were in it are strongly contrasted. In an entertaining work lately published, which, it is hoped, will diffuse a relish for biography, we have a remarkable anecdote relating to this nobleman's speech in favour of the Bishop of Rochester. His Grace, then in opposition to the Court, went to Chelsea the day before the last debate on that prelate's affair, where acting contrition, he professed being determined to work out his pardon at Court by speaking

against

* Ver. 195.

+ Compare it with that of Zimri, the Duke of Buckingham, in Absalom and Achitophel; in which Dryden has excelled our author.