conftitutional with him to do the direct contrary of what he faid or writ; not from diffimulation, but because he spoke and writ with one kind of enthufiaim, and afterwards acted with another.

He departed on the 15th of December, with the quartan ague, for the conqueft of Silefia, at the head of thirty thoufand combatants, well difciplined, and well accoutred. As he mounted his horfe, he faid to the Marquis de Beauvau, Maria Therefa's Minifter, "I am going to play your game; thould the trumps fall into our hands, we will divide the winnings."

He has fince that written the hiftory of that conqueft, and he thewed me the whole of it. Here follows one of the curious paragraphs, in the introduction to thefe annals, which I, in preference, carefully tranfcribed, as a thing unique in its kind.

"Add to the foregoing confiderations, "I had troops entirely prepared to act; this, the fulness of my treafury, and the vivacity of my character, were the reafons why I made war upon Maria"Therefa, Queen of Bohemia and Hun❝gary."

And a few lines after, he has these very words

"Ambition, intereft, and a defire to "make the world speak of me, vanquish❝ed all, and war was determined on.'

It is much to be regretted that I prevailed on him to omit thefe paffages, when I afterwards corrected his works; a confethon to uncommon, fhould have paffed down to pofterity, and have ferved to thew upon what motives the generality of wars are founded. We authors, poets, hiftotians, and academician declaimers, cele brate these fine exploits; but here is a monarch who performs and condemns them.

His troops had already over-run Silefia, when his minifter at Vienna, the Baron de Gotter, made the very impolite propofal to Maria-Therefa, of ceding, with a good grace, to the Elector and King his matter, three-fourths of that province: for which his Pruffian Majefty would lend her three millions of crowns, and make her hufband Emperor.

Maria-Therefa, who at that time had neither troops, money, nor credit, was notwithstanding inflexible; the rather chofe to rifk the lofs of all, than crouch to a Prince whom the looked upon as the vaffal of her ancestors, and whofe life the Emperor, her father, had faved. Her Generals could fcarcely mufter twenty thoufand men. Marthal Newperg, who

commanded them, forced the King of Pruffia to give battle under the walls of Neifla. The Pruffian cavalry was at first put to the rout by the Auftrian; and the King, who was not accuftomed to stand fire, fed at the firft fhock as far as Opeleim, twelve long leagues from the field of battle.

Maupertuis, who hoped to make his fortune in a hurry, was in the fuit of the Monarch this campaign, imagining that the King would at least find him a horse. But this was not the royal cuftom. Maupertuis bought an afs for two ducats, on the day of battle, and fled with all his might after his Majefty on afs-back. This feed, however, was prefently distanced, and Maupertuis was taken and stripped by the Austrian huffars.

If the Pruffian cavalry was bad, the infantry was the beft in Europe; it had been under the difcipline of the old Prince of Anhalt for thirty years. Marshal Schwerin, who commanded, was a pupil of Charles the Twelfth. He turned the fate of the day as foon as the King was fled. The next day his Majesty came back to his army, and the conquering General was very near being disgraced,

I returned to philofophize in my retreat at Cirey, and paffed the winter at Paris, where I had a multitude of enemies, as I had the audacity to write on philofophic fubjects, I was of neceffity treated as an atheift by all thofe who are called devetees, according to ancient ufage.

I was the firft who had dared develop to my countrymen, in an intelligible style,, the difcoveries of the great Newton. The Cartefian prejudices, which had taken place of the prejudices of the Peripatetics, were at that time fo rooted in the minds of the French, that the Chancellor d'Agueffeau regarded any man whatever who fhould adopt difcoveries made in England, as an enemy to reafon and the state. He never would grant a privilege that I might have my Elements of the Newtonian Philofophy printed.

I was likewife a vast admirer of Locke; I confidered him as the fole reasonable metaphyfician. Above all, I praised that moderation fo new, fo prudent, and at the fame time fo daring, where he says, we have not fufficient knowledge to determine or affirm, by the light of reason, that God could not grant the gifts of thought and fenfation to a being which we call Material.

The obftinate malignity and intrepidity of ignorance, with which they fet upon

me

me on this article, cannot be conceived. The principles of Locke had never occafioned any difputes in France before, becaufe the Doctors read St. Thomas Aquinas, and the rest of the world read romances. As foon as I had praised this author, they began to cry out against both him and me. The poor creatures, who were hotteft in this difpute, certainly knew very little of either matter or fpirit. The fact is, we none of us know what or how we are, except that we are convinced we have motion, life, fenfation, and thought, but without having the leaft conception of how we came by them. The very elements of matter are as much hidden from us as the reft. We are blind creatures, that walk on, groping and reafoning in the dark; and Locke was exceedingly right when he afferted, it was not for us to determine what the Almighty could or could not do.

All this added to the fuccefs of my productions, drew a whole library of pamphlets down upon me.

While the rufufe of literature were thus making war upon me, France was doing the fame upon the Queen of Hungary; and it must be owned this war was equally unjuft; for after having folemnly ftipulated, guaranteed, and fwore to the Pragmatic Sanction of the Emperor Charles VI. and the fucceffion of Maria-Therefa to the inheritance of her father, and after having received Lorraine as the purchase of these promifes, it does not appear very confiftent with the rights of nations to break an engagement fo facred. The Cardinal de Fleury was perfuaded out of his pacific meafures; he could not fay, like the King of Pruffia, it was the vivacity of his temper which occafioned him to take arms. This fortunate prelate reigned when he was

eighty-fix years of age, but held the reins of government with a very feeble hand.

The King of Pruffia, in the mean time, having matured his courage, and gained feveral victories, concluded a peace with the Auftrians. Maria, to her infinite regret, gave him up the county of Glatz with Silefia.

This prince was then at the height of his power, having one hundred and thirty thousand men under his command used to victory, and the cavalry of which he himfelf had formed. He drew twice as much from Silefia as it produced to the house of Auftria, faw himfelt firmly feated in his new conqueft, and was happy, while all the other contending powers were fuffering the miseries of depredation. Princes in thefe times ruin themselves by war-he enriched himself. He now turned his attention to the embellishment of the city of Berlin, where he built one of the fineft opera-houfes in Europe, and whither he invited artists of all denominations. He wished to acquire glory of every kind, and to acquire it in the cheapest manner poffible.

His father had refided at Potzdam in a vile old houfe; he turned it into a palace. Potzdam became a pleasant town; Berlin! grew daily more extenfive; and the Pruffans began to tafte the comforts of life, which the late king had entirely neglected. The fcene changed as it were by magic; Lacedæmon becomes Athens; and deferts were peopled; and one hundred and three villages were formed from marthes cleared and drained. Nor did he neglect to make verfes and write mufic: I therefore was mot fo exceedingly wrong in calling him, the Solomon of the North. I gave him this nick name in my letters, and he continued long to bear it.

For the firft, innumerable have been the fchemes prefented to the public by real and pretended patriots, that is, by those who have more honefty than fenfe, and thofe who have more fenfe than honefty. Some have been for fhortening the duration of Parliaments to three, fome to one year: fome have recommended voting by ballot, as the most effectual method to pot an end to bribery; others have difapproved it, as inconfiftent with that open avowal whch ought to accompany every act of a British

freeman :

freeman: fome have propofed to annihilate all the small and corrupt boroughs, and to add the fame number of reprefentatives which they now fend to the feveral counties: fome to add to the counties, and not to disfranchise the boroughs; others to abolish the boroughs without any addition to the counties: fome to enlarge, and fome to diminish the qualifications of the electors; and others to require no qualifications at all, but to allow every man a vote, who is not difqualified by nature, for want of reafon, or by law, for the commiffion of fome crime: but as very few have agreed in any one of thefe propofitions, and no one has been able to form any fatisfactory plan out of them all, I fhall not here enter into any difcuffion of their merits, or make any comparison between them; but fhall only fay, that of all thefe plans, that of giving a right of voting univerfally, together with annual elections, appears to be the most uniform, confiftent, and effectual: it has indeed one capital defect, which is, that it is abfolutely and utterly impracticable; but I do not mention this as an objection, fo far from it, that I think it is its chief excellence, and is what induces me to prefer it to all the rest.

To be convinced of the impracticability of this fcheme, let us but figure to ourfelves multitudes of all defcriptions and denominations called out to exercife their right of voring, inflamed by conteft and intoxicated by liquor; laborers and manufacturers of every kind, above and under ground; weavers from their looms, and miners from their tinneries and coal-pits; failors from their fhips, and foldiers from their quarters to whom we muft add, thoufands of thieves, fmugglers, rogues, vagabonds, and vagrants: I fay, let us figure to ourselves all these refpectable electors, let loofe in one day throughout every part of the kingdom, and fuch a fcene of confufion, of drunkennefs and riot, of rapine, murder, and conflagration, will prefent itself, as muft fhock us with horror, even in imagination.

Nor would it be possible to carry on, or ever to conclude elections in which the voters are fo innumerable, and confequently fo unknown. They must be polled in one of these two ways; they muft either be admitted only to vote in the parishes to which they belong, or permitted to be polled in whatever place they happened, or chofe to be at the time of the election: should the first of thefe methods be adopt ed, the acceptance or rejection of every vote might be attended with the trial of a

fettlement, and counfel learned in the law be heard on both fides: if the latter, crowds fo numerous, and fo unknown to the candidates, and all whom they could employ to poll them, would prefs into every place, where money and liquor flowed in the greatest abundance, that the chief part of them might vote in ten different places, or ten times in the fame place undifcovered; and if thefe elections were annual, one could not be finished before the other began.

Another reafon, which perfuades me that this fcheme is impracticable, is, that I cannot forcfee any clafs of men whofe intereft or inclination would not induce them to oppofe it: the landed gentlemen would not much approve, that every pauper, gypfy, vagrant, and least of all every poacher, ihould enjoy as great a fhare in the legiflature as himself; the city of London will never confent that every drayman, hackney-coachman, and chimney-fweeper, fhould be vefted with as good a vote as the lord mayor and aldermen, nor the livery be defirous of admitted fo numerous an addition to their refpectable fraternity: the corporations throughout the kingdom, will never submit to have their confequence annihilated by a participation of their privileges with fo innumerable a multitude; nor do I think that very multitude, or the people at large, would be extremely zealous to fupport it: at firft, indeed, when they are told, that they fhail all be legislators, obliged to obey no laws but of their own making, or paying taxes but of their own impofing, and that every one of them fhall have as good a vote for a parliament man as the fquire or the parfon, and recollect that this vote has ever been as good as ready money; they will perhaps be a little elated and delighted with their new acqufition; but when they are better informed, and understand, that the intent of this fcheme is to prevent all bribery and corruption, and will preclude them from receiving one filling or one dram of gin for their votes, they will reject this ufelefs donation with contempt; and there will not be a tinker, who will not choose rather to mend a kettle for fix-pence, than the conftitution for nothing, nor a labourer, who will not make faggots rather than laws, nor a pickpocket, who will not prefer the exercife of his profeffion at an election to giving his vote.

But was this fcheme of univerfal reprefentation, or any other of the propofed plans of reformation practicable, and purfued, certain I am, that they would not in the least contribute to the great end, which is

the

the formation of an independent Parliament, because reafon does not perfuade me, that electors the moft ignorant and profligate, the most neceffitous and venal, would return members more incorrupt than the prefent; nor does experience teach me, that ten or twenty conftituents would chufe reprefentatives lefs able or lefs honeft than ten or twenty thousand. I am firmly convinced, both by reafon and long experience, that no alteration in the mode of election, or in the electors themfelves, would produce a change in the elected; in them lies the fource of the evil, which no external application can approach whether they are chofen by a greater or a less number, by counties or boroughs, by the rich or by the poor, by ballot or by audible voices, the Parliament, when affembled, will be just the fame; different modes of election may make fome difference in the trouble and expence of the candidates, and may differently affect the morals of the people, and the peace of the country, but will make no difference in the reprefentative body when brought toge

:

ther, and it is of little fignification by wh means they come there: the majority ot any legislative affembly, confifting of five hundred and fifty members, in the fame circumftances and fituation, will infallibly act in the fame manner; if their fituations differ, their proceedings will differ with them. In the weakness of infant ftates, and in perilous times, they will be more intent on the fafety of the community, because their own is immediately included in it; but when the danger is removed, they will be more influenced by the views of intereft and ambition, they will split into factions and parties, and lift under contending leaders, and fometimes prefer their intereft or their own to that of their country. Their corruption will always encrease in proportion to their power, because they have more to fell and are more neceffary to be bought. Those who cannot make thift with fuch a Parliament, must have none, because it is impoffible for any mode of election, or fpecies of electors, to chufe a better, unless they could make men, as well as members.`

ftreet is broad and long: the houses are moftly uniform, built of a greyish ftone upon arcades, which are admirably well paved. Through the middle of the street runs a lively ftream of the clearest water, in a channel conftructed for its reception: but befides this ftream, it abounds with fountains not lefs ornamental to the place than beneficial to the inhabitants. The river Aar flows close by the town, and in deed almost furrounds it, winding its ferpentine courfe over a rocky bottom much below the level of the ftreets; and for a confiderable way forming by its banks, which are very steep and craggy, a kind of natural rampart. The cathedral church is a noble piece of Gothic architecture; it ftands upon a platform that has been raifed at a great expence from the bed of the

river.

The country around is richly cultivated, and agreeably diverfified with hills, lawns, wood, and water; the river flows rapidly below, and an abrupt chain of high and rugged Alps appear at fome diftance, the tops whereof are covered with eternal fnow. Such an anemblage of beautiful

objects would in any view prefent a moft

;

greatly heightened when feen from the midst of a large town.

All the public buildings are in a moft noble fimplicity of style, and announce the riches and grandeur of the republic. The arfenal contains arms for fixty thoufand men, befides a confiderable quantity of cannon, which were caft here. The granary is an excellent juftitution, fimilar to that of Zuric; but it differs from that of Geneva, as the expence does not fall chiefly upon the poor; for, the bakers are not compelled by government to purchase their corn from the public magazine. This refervoir always contains a large provifion of that commodity; which is fupplied, in confequence of particular agreements for that purpofe, by France, Sardinia, and Holland; and out of which they partly furnish Geneva, Neuchatel, and Bafil. The hofpitals, which are large, airy, and well built, are excellently regulated, both with respect to the care and attention paid to the fick, and to the cleanliness of the feveral wards. The town is kept neat by a number of felons, who are fentenced to this drudgery during a certain time, ac

cording