few literary characters, tried in the furnace of affliction, to whom you might with perfect security communicate your most secret thoughts. You had nothing to fear from his malignity, if he deemed them to be wrong, nor from his perfidy, if they appeared to him to be right.

One afternoon, then, that we were enjoying our repose in the Bois de Boulogne, I led the conversation to a subject which I have had much at heart ever since I came to the use of reason. We

had just been speaking of Plutarch's lives of eminent men, of Amyot's Translation, a Work which he very highly prized, in which he had been taught to read when a child, and which, if I am not mistaken, has been the germ of his eloquence, and of his antique virtues; so much influence does the first education exercise over the rest of life! I said to him then:

I could have wished very much to see a History of your composing.

J. J."I once felt a powerful propensity to write that of Cosmo de Medicis.*

He was a simple "individual,

Here is the decision pronounced upon him by Philip de Commines, the Plutarch of his age in respect to native simplicity.

"Cosmo de Medicis, who was the chief of that house, and indeed "founded it, a man worthy of being named among the greatest of the "Great, especially when his condition in life is taken into the account, "namely that of a merchant, has conveyed his name to a family the “most illustrious, I think, that ever was in the World. For their very "servants, under the sanction of that name of Medicis, possessed so "much credit, that 1 should hardly be believed, were I to relate the "instances which I have seen of it in France, and in England.....I knew "one of their servants, Gerard Quannese by name, who was almost

"the

"individual, who became the sovereign of his "fellow-citizens by rendering them more happy. "He raised and maintained his superiority merely

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by the benefits which he conferred. I had made

a rough sketch of that subject: but I have relinquished it: I possess not the talents requisite "to the composition of History."

Why have not you yourself, with all your ardent zeal for the happiness of Mankind, made some attempt to form a happy Republic? I know a great many men of all Countries, and of every condition, who would have followed you.

"Oh! I have had too much experience of "Mankind" Then looking at me, after a mo ment's silence, he added, with an air of some displeasure: "I have several times entreated you "never to introduce that subject."

But wherefore might you not have formed, with an assemblage of Europeans destitute of fortune, and of a Country, in some uninhabited island of the South-Sea, an establishment similar to that which William Penn founded in North-America, in the midst of savages?

"What a difference between the age in which "he lived, and ours! In Penn's time, there was

a religious belief; now-a-days men no longer "believe in any thing.". Then, Then, softening his

"the only instrument of supporting King Edward IV, on the throne of "England, during the Civil Wars of that Kingdom." And a little lower: "The authority of his predecessors was injurious to this Peter “de Medicis, in as much as that of Cosmo, who had been the founder "of the Family, was gentle and amiable, and such as was necessary to “a city possessed of liberty." (Book vii.)

tone:

"tone: "I should have liked very well to live in "a society such as I figure it to myself, in the capacity of a private member; but on no con"sideration whatever would I have undertaken any charge; least of all that of ruler in chief. "It is long since I became sensible of my own incapacity: I was unfit for the smallest employ"ment."

You would have found persons in abundance disposed to execute your ideas.

"Oh! I beseech you, let us call another sub"ject."

I have some thoughts of writing the History of the Nations of Arcadia. They are not indolent shepherds like those of the Lignon.

His features softened into a smile. re Talking," says he to me, "of the shepherds of the Lignon, "I once undertook a journey to Forez, for the

express purpose of viewing the country of Cale"don and Astrea, of which Urfeius has presented "us with pictures so enchanting. Instead of amorous shepherds, I saw, along the banks of "the Lignon, nothing but smiths, founders, and " iron-mongers."

How in a country so delightful!

"It is a country merely of forges. It was this journey to Forez which dissolved my illusion. "Till then, never a year passed that I did not "read the Astrea from end to end: I had become

quite familiarized with all the personages of it. "Thus Science robs us of our pleasures."

Oh! my Arcadians have no manner of resemblance

semblance to you blacksmiths, nor to the ideal shepherds of Urfeius, who passed the days and nights in no other occupation but that of making love, exposed internally to all the pernicious consequences of idleness, and from without to the invasions of surrounding Nations. Mine prac→ tise all the arts of rural life. There are among them shepherds, husbandmen, fishermen, vinedressers. They have availed themselves of all the sites of their country, diversified as it is with mountains, plains, lakes and rocks. Their manners are patriarchal, as in the early ages of the world. There are in this Republic, no priests, no soldiers, no slaves; for they are so religious, that every head of a family is the pontiff of it; so warlike, that every individual, inhabitant is at all times prepared to take up arms in defence of his Country, without the inducement of pay; and in such a state of equality, there are not so much as domestic servants among them. The children are there brought up in the habit of serving their parents.

The utmost care is taken to avoid inspiring them, under the name of emulation, with the poison of ambition, and no such lesson is taught as that of surpassing each other; but, on the contrary, they are inured betimes to prevent one another, by good offices of every kind; to obey their parents; to prefer their father, their mother, a friend, a mistress, to themselves; and their Country to every thing. In this state of Society there is no quarrelling among the young people,

unless

unless it be some disputes among lovers, like those of the Devin du Village. But virtue there frequently convokes the citizens to national as semblies, to concert together measures conducive to the general welfare. They elect, by a plurality of voices, their Magistrates, who govern the State as if it were one family, being entrusted at once with the functions of peace, of war, and of religion. From their union such a force results, that they have ever been enabled to repel all the Powers who presumed to encroach on their liberties.

No useless, insolent, disgustful, or terrifying monument, is to be seen in their Country; no colonnades, triumphal arches, hospitals, or prisons; no frightful gibbets on the hills as you enter their towns: but a bridge over a torrent, a well in the midst of an arid plain, a grove of fruittrees on an uncultivated mountain round a small temple, the peristyle of which serves as a place of shelter for travellers, announce, in situations the most deserted, the humanity of the inhabitants. Simple inscriptions on the bark of a beech-tree, or on a rude unpolished rock, perpertuate to posterity the memory of illustrious citizens, and of great actions. In the midst of manners so beneficent, Religion speaks to all hearts, in a language that knows no change. There is not a single mountain, nor a river, but what is consecrated so some God, and is called by his name; not a fountain but what has it's Naïad; not a flower, nor a bird, but what is the

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