to the right or left near Mount Caucasus, or his making two or three arches on the inside of a well, or his lying on his right or his left side, could have any considerable influence in the Czarina Elizabeth's resolution of sending an army to the assistance of Mary Theresa, Empress of the Romans. That my dog dreamed or did not dream in its sleep has any relation to the grand Mogul's concerns, is what I cannot see

into.

It must be considered, that all things are not full in nature; and that every motion is not communicated successively, so as to be continued round the world. On throwing into water a body of equal density, you easily conceive that in some short time the motion of such body, and that which it has caused in the water, will cease; motion is lost and recovered: thus the motion which might have been produced by Magog's spitting in a well, can have no affinity with what is now doing in Russia and Prussia; thus the present events are not issued from all the former events; they have their direct lines; but a thousand petty collateral lines do not in the least conduce to them: I say it again, every being has its fathers, but every being has not children. I may possibly enlarge on this head, when I come to speak of DESTINY.

CHAIN OF CREATED BEINGS.

Ат my first reading Plato, I was charmed with his gradation of beings, rising from the slightest atom to the supreme essence. Such a scale struck me with admiration; but, on a closer survey of it, this august phantom disappeared, as

formerly

formerly ghosts used to hie away at the crowing of the cock.

Fancy is, at first, ravished in beholding the imperceptible ascent from senseless matter to organized bodies, from plants to zoophytes, from zoophytes to animals, from these to men, from men to genii, from these æthereal genii to immaterial essence, and lastly numberless dif ferent orders of these essences, ascending through a succession of increasing beauties and perfections, to God himself. The devout are mightily taken with this hierarchy, as representing the pope and his cardinals, followed by the archbishops and bishops, and then by the reverend train of rectors, vicars, unbeneficed priests, deacons, and subdeacons; then come the regulars, and the capuchins bring up the rear.

But from God to his most perfect creatures the distance is something greater than between the pope and the dean of the sacred college; this dean may come to be pope, whereas the most perfect of the genii never can be God. Infinitude lies between God and him.

Neither does this chain, this pretended gradation, exist any longer in vegetables and animals, some species of plants and animals being totally extinguished. The murex is not to be found; it was forbidden to eat the griffin and ixion, which, whatever Bochart may say, have, for ages past, not been in nature; where then is the chain?

If no species have been lost, yet it is manifest they may be destroyed, for lions and rhinoceroses are growing very scarce.

It is far from being improbable that there have been breeds of men now no longer existing ;

but

but I grant that they all have been preserved, as truly as the whites, the blacks, the Caffres, to whom nature has given a membraneous apron hanging from their belly half down their thighs; the Samoiedes, where one of the nipples of the women's breasts is of a fine ebony, &c.

Is there not a manifest chasm between the monkey and man? Is it not easy to conceive a two-legged animal without feathers, endowed with understanding, but without speech or our shape, which we might tame and instruct, so that it should answer to our signs, and serve us to many purposes; and between this new species and that of man, might not others be contrived?

Farther, divine Plato, you quarter in the firmament a series of cœlestial substances. As for us, we believe the existence of some of these substances, being taught so by our faith. But what grounds can you have for such a belief? It is to be supposed that you never conversed with Socrates's genius; and the good man Heres, who kindly rose from the dead, purely to communicate to you the mysteries of the other world, did not say a word to you about such substances.

This supposed chain is not less imperfect in the sensible universe.

What gradation, pray, is there between those planets of yours? The moon is forty times smaller than our globe. In your journey from the moon through the ether you meet with Venus, which is nearly as big as the earth. Whence you come to Mercury turning in an ellipsis, which is very different from Venus' orbits; he is twenty-seven times smaller than our planet, and the sun is a million times larger. Mars is five times smaller; the former performs

his orbit in two years, Jupiter its neighbour in twelve, Saturn takes up thirty, and yet Saturn, the most distant of any, is not so large as Jupiter. Amidft these disproportions what becomes of the gradation ?

And then, how can you think that, in such immense voids, there can be a chain whereby every thing is connected; if such a chain there be, it is certainly that discovered by Newton, and by which all the globes of the planetary world gravitate towards each other, throughout these immense spaces.

Oh! Plato, thou so much admired, your writings swarm with fables and fictions; and the Cassiterides, where, in your time, men went quite naked, has produced a philosopher, who has taught the world truths as great and sublime as your notions were erroneous and puerile.

CHARACTER

COMES from a Greek word, signifying im pression and graving; it is what nature has engraven in us; then can we efface it? This is a weighty question. A mishapen nose, cats eyes, or any deformity in the features, may be hidden with a masque, and can I do more with the character which nature has given me? A man naturally impetuous and passionate comes before Francis I. king of France, to complain of an outrage the prince's aspect, the respectful behaviour of the courtiers, the very place, make a powerful impression on him. With eyes cast down, a soft voice, and every sign of humility, he presents his petition, so that one would think he was naturally as mild and polite, as are (at

least

least at that time) the courtiers, among whom he is even out of countenance; but if Francis I. be a physiognomist, he will easily discover by the sullen fire in his eyes, by the straining of the muscles in his face, and the compression of his lips, that this man is not really so mild as he is obliged to appear. The same man follows him to Pavia, is taken with him, and confined in the same prison at Madrid; here the impression made on him by Francis's aspect and grandeur ceases; he grows familiar with the object of his respect. One day drawing on the king's boots, and doing it wrong, the king, soured by his misfortune, takes pet; on this my gentleman, shaking off all respect to his majesty, throws the boots out of the window.

Sixtus Quintus was naturally petulant, obstinate, haughty, violent, revengeful, and arrogant; this character, however, seems quite mollified amidst the trials of his noviciate. But no sooner has he attained to some consideration in his order, than he flies into a passion against his superior, and severely belabours him with his fists, till he lays him sprawling. On his being made inquisitor at Venice, his insolence became intolerable. On his promotion to the purple, he was immediately seized with the RABBIA PAPALE, which so far got the better of his natural character, that he affected obscurity, mortification, humility, and a very weak state of health. At length he is chosen Pope, and now the spring recovers its whole elasticity, which had been so long under restraint: never was a more haughty and despotic sovereign known.

"Naturam expellas, furca tamen ipsa redibit."