enly two kingdoms. Of a thousand nations, only two were subdued. It was anciently so on our side of the globe: before the petty Kings of Etruria and Rome started up, Europe was full of republics. Africa has still its republics; Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, which lie so far north, as, in some measure, to confine on Europe, are commonwealths of robbers. The Hottentots, a people on the south of Africa, still live, as men are said to have lived in the primitive ages of the world, free, all equal, no masters, no subjects, no money, and few or no wants; their sheep supply them both with food and raiment, and their mansions are huts of wood and earth: they are the very filthiest of men, and with a most rank smell; but this they are not sensible of, and they both live and die more quietly than we. Europe has eight republics without monarchs; Venice, Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Geneva, St. Marino, Poland, Sweden, and England, may be looked on as republics under a king, but Poland alone calls itself such. Now, which would you have your country to be? a monarchy or a republic? This is a question which has been bandied to and fro these four thousand years. Ask the rich which is best, and they will unanimously vote for an aristocracy; enquire of the people and they will one and all cry up a democracy: as for royalty, it is only kings who will prefer it. How then comes it to pass that almost the whole earth is governed by monarchs? Ask the rats who proposed to hang a bell about the cat's neck. But the true reason is, that men very rarely deserve to be their own governors. men. It is a sad case, that often there is no being a good patriot without being an enemy to other The elder Cato, that worthy patriot, in giving his vote in the senate, used always to say, Such is my opinion; and down with Carthage. A great part of patriotism is thought to consist in wishing one's native country a flourishing trade and distinguished successes in war. Now it is manifest, that for one country to gain, another must lose, and its successes in war must of course spread calamity in other parts. Such, then, is the state of human affairs, that to wish an increase of grandeur to one's native country is wishing harm to its neighbours. He who is a citizen of the universe would have his country neither greater nor smaller, richer nor poorer. CRITICISM. I Do not here intend to speak of the criticism of scholiasts, who pretend to restore a word of an ancient author, very well understood before: neither shall I meddle with those real critics, who, as far as is possible, have cleared up ancient history and philosophy. The satirical critics are the men I am now to deal with. A man of letters one day reading Tasso with me, fell on this stanza: "Chiama gli habitator dell' ombre eterne E l'aer cieco a quel rumor rimbomba; He He afterwards read, as they fell under his eye, several stanzas of the like force and harmony: how, cried he, is this what your Boileau is pleased to call tinsel! Is it thus he strives to depreciate a great man who lived a hundred years before him, the better to exalt another great man who lived sixteen hundred years before him, and who would not have failed to have done justice to Tasso? Be easy, said I to him, let us look into Quinaut's operas: what we met with at the opening of the book, could not but incense us against the petulancy of criticism; it was the following passage in the admirable opera of Armida. SIDONIE. "La haine est affreuse et barbare, Elle assure un sort plus heureux. Non, non, il ne m'est pas possible De passer de mon trouble en un état paisible; Mon coeur ne se peut plus calmer; Renaud m'offense trop, il n'est que trop aimable, C'est pour moi désormais un choix indispensable De le häir ou de l'aimer." We went through the whole piece, and it must be owned that the beauty of Tasso's genius is enhanced by Quinaut: Well, said I to my friend, after this could you think that Boileau should continually make it his business to expose Quinaut as a wretched poetaster? He even brought Lewis XIV. to believe, that this beau K tiful, tiful, soft, pathetic, elegant writer owed all his merit to Lully's music. That I can very easily account for, answered my friend; it was not the musician Boileau was jealous of, but the poet; however, what signifies the saying of a man who, to tag a rhime to a line ending in AUT, sometimes fell foul of Boursaut, sometimes of Henaut, sometimes of Quinaut, according to the terms on which he stood with those gentlemen? But, that your warmth against injustice may not cool, only go to the window, and view that grand front of the Louvre, by which Perraut has gained immortal reputation: this ingenious artist happened to be brother to a very learned member of the academy, between whom and Boileau there had been some literary wrangling, and for this, truly, Mr. Boileau transmits this man to posterity with the character of a paltry architect. My friend, after a pause, replied with a sigh, this is the temper of man. The Duke de Sully, in his Memoirs, speaks of the Cardinal d'Ossat and Secretary Villeroy as bad ministers. Louvois strove to suppress in himself any esteem for the great Colbert: they, said I, did not print any thing against each other whilst living, that is a folly scarce seen in any but divines, scholars, and lawyers. We had a man of merit, Lamotte, who has written very fine stanzas. "Quelquefois au feu qui la charme, Et contre elle meme elle s'arme, D'une pénible fermeté. Helas cette contrainte extrême Pour Pour fuir la honte qu'elle háit : Et l'honneur de passer pour chaste "A blooming beauty sometimes withstands a pleasing passion, and to prompting nature opposes a painful firmness. This violent con"straint, to avoid dreaded shame, preserves her "from the vice to which her heart is attached; "her purity was pride and show; and the repu"tation of chastity determined her against the "violation of it." "En vain ce sévere stoique Ce n'est point la vertu qu'il aime, Il ne veut que parer l'idole Qu'il offre au culte des mortels." "This austere Stoic, the slave of a multitude "of vices, boasts of heroism, of a soul absolutely "consecrated to virtue. Absurd conceit! Virtue "has none of his love; but his inflated heart "claims altars; and the sole scope of his varnished wisdom is to deck the idol for universal worship." 66 "Les champs de Pharsale & d'Arbelle L'un et l'autre digne modele Que se proposent les grands coeurs. K 2 Mais |