ting will not be thought an exaggeration, when I refer my readers to her accounts of the death of Marshal Turenne: some little fragments of her letters, in the appendix to Ramsay's life of that hero, give a stronger picture of him than the historian was able to do in his voluminous work. If this Fair One's epistles are liable to any censure, it is for a fault in which she is not likely to be often imitated, the excess of tenderness for her daughter.

The Italians are as proud of a person of the same sex Lucretia Gonzago was so celebrated for the eloquence of her letters and the purity of their style, that her very notes to her servants were collected and published. I have never read the collection: and indeed one or two billets that I have met with, have not entirely all the delicacy of Madame de Sevigné. In one to her footman, the Signora Gonzago reprehends him for not readily obeying Dame Lucy, her housekeeper; and in another, addressed to the same Mrs. Lucy, she says, 'If Livia will not be obedient, turn up her coats and whip her till her flesh be black and blue, and the blood run down to her heels.' To be sure this sounds a little oddly to English ears, but may be very elegant, when modulated by the harmony of Italian liquids.

Several worthy persons have laid down rules for the composition of letters; but I fear it is an art which only nature can teach. I remember in one of those books (as it was written by a German) there was a strict injunction not to mention yourself before you had introduced the person of your correspondent: that is, you must not use the monosyllable I before the pronoun You. The Italians have stated expressions, to be used by different ranks of men, and know exactly when to subscribe themselves the devoted, or the most devoted slave of the illustrious or most eminent persons to whom they have the ho

nour to write. It is true, in that country, they have so clogged correspondence with forms and civilities, that they seldom make use of their own language, but generally write to one another in French.

Among many instances of beautiful letters from ladies, and of the contrary from our sex, I shall select two, which are very singular in their kind. The comparison, to be sure, is not entirely fair; but when I mention some particulars of the male author, one might expect a little more elegance, a little better orthography, a little more decorum, and a good deal less absurdity, than seem to have met in one head, which had seen so much of the world, which pretended so much to literature, and which had worn so long one of the first crowns in Europe. This personage was the Emperor Maximilian, grandfather to Charles the Vth. His reign was long, sometimes shining, often unprosperous, very often ignominious. His fickleness, prodigality, and indigence, were notorious. The Italians called him Pochi-danari, or the pennyless; a quality no more habitual to him, than his propensity to repair his shattered fortunes by the most unbecoming means. He served under our Henry the Eighth, as a common soldier at the siege of Terouenne, for a hundred crowns a day: he was bribed to the attempt against Pisa, and bribed to give it over. In short, no potentate ever undertook to engage him in a treaty, without first offering him money. Yet this vagabond monarch, as if the annals of his reign were too glorious to be described by a plebeian pen, or as if they were worthy to be described at all, took the pains to write his own life in Dutch verse. There was another book of his composition in a different way, which does not reflect much more lustre upon his memory than his own Dutch epic; this was what he called his livre rouge, and was a register of seventeen mortifications which

he had received from Louis the Twelfth of France, and which he intended to revenge on the first opportunity. After a variety of shifts, breach of promises, alliances, and treaties, he almost duped his vain contemporary Henry the Eighth, with a proposal of resigning the empire to him, while himself was meditating what he thought an accession of dignity even to the imperial diadem: in short, in the latter part of his life, Maximilian took it into his head to canvass for the Papal Tiara. Several methods were agitated to compass this object of his ambition: one, and not the least ridiculous, was, to pretend that the patriarchal dignity was included in the imperial; and by virtue of that definition he really assumed the title of Pontifex Maximus, copying the Pagan lords of Rome on his way to the sovereignty of the Christian church. Money he knew was the surest method, but the least at his command; it was to procure a supply of that necessary ingredient that he wrote the following letter to his daughter Margaret, Duchess Dowager of Savoy, and governess of the Netherlands.

Tres chiere et tres amée fylle, jè entendu l'avis que vous m'avez donné par Guyllain Pingun notre garderobes, dont avons encore mieux pensé. Et ne trouvons point pour nulle resun bon que nous nous devons franchement marier, maes avons plus avant mys notre deliberation et volonté de jamès plus hanter faem nue. Et envoyons demain Mons. de Gurce Evesque à Rome devers le pape pour trouver fachon que nous puyssuns accorder avec ly de nous prendre pour ung coadjuteur, affin que apres fa mort pouruns estre assuré de avoer le papat, et devenir prester, et apres estre saint, et que yl vous sera de necessité que apres ma mort vous serés contraint de me adorer, dont je me troveré bien glorioes. envoye sur ce ung poste devers le roy d'Arogon our ly prier qu'y nous voulle ayder pour à ce par

Je

venir, dont il est aussy content, moynant que je resigne l'empir à nostre comun fyls Charls, de sela aussy je me suys contente. Je commance aussy practiker les Cardinaulx, dont ii C. ou iii C. mylle ducats me ferunt ung grand service, aveque la partialité qui est deja entre eos. Le roy d'Arogon à mandé a son ambaxadeur que yl veulent favouryser le papat à nous. Je vous prie, tenés cette matere empu secret, ossi bien en brieff jours je creins que yl faut que tout le monde le sache, car bien mal esti possible de pratiker ung tel sy grand matere secretement, pour laquell yl faut avoer de tant de gens et de argent, succurs et pratike, et a Diù, saet de la main de votre bon pere Maximilianus futur pape le xviii jour de setembre. Le papa a encor les vyevers dubls, et ne peult longement fyvre.'

This curious piece, which it is impossible to translate (for what language can give an adequate idea of very bad old German French)? is to be found in the fourth volume of letters of Louis XII., printed at Brussels, by Fr. Foppens in 1712. It will be sufficient to inform such of my readers as do not understand French, that his imperial majesty acquaints his beloved daughter that he designs never to frequent naked women any more, but to use all his endeavours to procure the papacy, and then to turn priest, and at length become a saint, that his dear daughter may be obliged to pray to him, which he shall reckon matter of exceeding glory. He expresses great want of two or three hundred thousand ducats to facilitate the business, which he desires may be kept very secret, though he does not doubt but all the world will know it in two or three days; and concludes with signing himself future Pope.

As a contrast to this scrap of imperial folly, I shall present my readers with the other letter I mentioned. It was written by the Lady Anne, widow of the

Earls of Dorset and Pembroke (the life of the former of whom she wrote), and heiress of the great house of Clifford-Cumberland, from which, among many noble reversions, she enjoyed the borough of Appleby. Sir Joseph Williamson, secretary of state to Charles the Second, wrote to name a candidate to her for that borough: the brave countess, with all the spirit of her ancestors, and with all the eloquence of independent Greece, returned this laconic answer.

'I have been bullied by an usurper, I have been neglected by a court, but I will not be dictated to by a subject; your man shan't stand.

ANNE, DORSET, PEMBROKE, and MONTGOMERY.'

N° 15. THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1753.

IT has been imagined, that if an ancient inhabitant of this island, some old Saxon for example, or even in latter times, a subject of one of our Harrys or our Edwards, could rise from his grave and take a survey of the present generation, he would never suspect us to be the descendants of his contemporaries, but would stare about with surprise, and be apt to fancy himself among a nation of foreigners, if not among a race of animals of a different species. I have sometimes thought that such a person would be no less puzzled to know his country again, than his countrymen; such a change would he find in the natural face of England, as well as in the manners of its inhabitants. The great increase of public and private buildings, the difference of architecture, the frequent navigation of rivers, and above all the in