Mais le succes a fait leur gloire; "Pharsalia and Arbella's plains beheld the "triumph of two victors, the model and admi"ration of all martial spirits; but to success 66 they owe their whole glory; for had not vic"tory consecrated these demi-gods, Alexander "would have been accounted a Hotspur, and "Cæsar an incendiary.” This amiable author, says he, more than once arrayed philosophy in the graceful attire of poesy. Had he always written such stanzas, he would have been the chief lyric poet among us; yet whilst such beautiful pieces came from him, a cotemporary of his could call him a Green Goose, and in another place say," the tiresome beauty of his propositions ;" and in another, they have but one fault, they should have been "written in prose; one sees with half an eye they came from Quinaut." 66 66 66 He pursues him every where, every where charges him with dryness and want of harmony. Perhaps you would be glad to see the odes written some years after by this same censor, who tried La Motte in so arbitrary a manner, and decried him with such contempt. Here are some specimens. "Cette influence souveraine N'est pour lui qu'une illustre chaine, Tous Tous les talents qui l'annoblissent, "This sovereign power is but a glittering "chain, binding him to the happiness of others; "all the brilliant qualities which adorn him, all "the talents which enoble him, though in him, "are not his." "Il n'est rien que le temps n'absorbe ne devore, Et les faits qu'on ignore, Sont bien peu differents des faits non avenus." "Nothing escapes the devouring jaws of time; "and what is unknown differs very little from "what never happened." 66 "La bonté qui brille en elle Des vos sublimes clartés." "That goodness which in her displays its most engaging charms, is the image of that which, "admiring, she beholds in you; and by you "alone enriched her politeness, freed from the "least darkening spot, is a light reflected from your resplendency." 46 : "Ils ont vû par ta bonne foi De leurs peuples troublés d'effroi La haine fi fouvent reçue, K 3 66 Through 66 Through thy probity they have seen the "terrors of their appaled people happily mistaken; and hatred, often received in reversion "for peace, for ever extirpated." 66 " Dévoile à ma vüe empressée Symboles de l'abstraction." "Unveil to my eager sight those adopted dei"ties, synonimous with cogitation, emblems of "abstractedness." "Is it not a rare happiness, where, in a "burthen common to two, the least insists on bearing the whole load? Thus the body lays "itself out for the gratifications of the soul." To be sure, said my judicious philologist, this is wretched trash to be published as models, after criticising a writer with so much scurrility. The author had done much better to have left his adversary in the quiet enjoyment of his merit, and have retained his own share of it; but alas! the " genus irritabile vatum," is still as sick as ever with the overflowings of an acrid bile. The public, its views extending no farther than amusement, overlooks these trifles in men of talents. It sees, in an allegory called Pluto, some some judges condemned to be flead, and sitting in hell, on a seat covered with their skins, instead of the lillies ('): the reader never troubles himself whether the judges deserved it or not, or whether the plaintiff who had summoned them before Pluto be in the right or wrong; he reads those verses purely for his pleasure, and if they give him pleasure that is all he desires: if the allegory disgusts him, he shuts the book, and would not stir a foot to have the sentence confirmed or annulled. Racine's inimitable tragedies have been all criticised, and very badly, because the critics were rivals. The competent judges of an art are the artists; true, but when is it the artists are not corrupted? An artist very skilful, and, withal, a man of taste, without either prejudice or envy, would make an excellent critic; but a hard matter it is to find such a man. THAT DELUGE. HAT ever the whole globe was at one time totally overflowed with water, is physically impossible. The sea may have covered all parts successively, one after the other; and this could be only in a gradation so very slow, as to take up a prodigious number of ages. The sea, in the space of five hundred years, has withdrawn from Aiguesmortes, from Frejus, and from Ravenna, once large ports, leaving about two leagues (1) The arms of France embroidered on the covering of the benches in courts of justice. leagues of land quite dry. This progression shews, that, to make the circuit of the globe it would require two millions two hundred and fifty thousand years. A very remarkable circumstance is, that this period comes very near to that which the earth's axis would take up in raising itself again, and coinciding with the equator; a motion so far from improbable, that, for these fifty years past, some apprehension has been entertained of it, but it cannot be accomplished under two millions three hundred thousand years. The strata, or beds of shells, every where found, sixty, eighty, and even a hundred leagues from the sea, prove, beyond all dispute, that it has insensibly deposited those maritime products on grounds which were once its shores: but that the water, at one and the same time, covered the whole earth, is a physical absurdity, which the laws of gravitation, as well as those of fluids, and the deficiency of the quantity of water, demonstrate to be impossible. Not that any thing here is meant in the least to affect the great truth of the universal deluge as related in the Pentateuch; on the contrary, this is a mi racle, and therefore to be believed; it is a miracle, therefore could not be effected by physical causes. The whole history of the deluge is miraculous. It is a miracle that forty days rain should have submerged the four parts of the world; that the waters rose fifteen cubits above all the highest mountains it is a miracle that there should have been cataracts, doors, and apertures in heaven; it is a miracle that all animals should have repaired to the ark, from the several parts of the world; |