friends of the church to diminish (by abolishing the | enjoyed' internal peace and entire freedom from all test laws), so very fertile a source of hatred to the state. In the 15th page of his lordship's charge, there is an argument of a very curious nature. Let us suppose,' (says the Bishop of Lincoln), that there had been no test laws, no disabling statutes, in the year 1745, when an attempt was made to overthrow the Protestant government, and to place a popish sovereign upon the throne of these kingdoms; and let us suppose, that the leading men in the houses of Parliament, that the ministers of state, and the commanders of our armies, had then been Papists. Will any one contend, that that formidable rebellion, supported as it was by a foreign enemy, would have been resisted with the same zeal, and suppressed with the same facility, as when all the measures were planned and executed by sincere Protestants !'-(p. 15.) religious animosities and feuds, since the Revolution.' The fact, however, is not more certain than conclusive against his view of the question. For, since that period, the worship of the Church of England has been abolished in Scotland-the corporation and test acts repealed in Ireland-and the whole of this king's reign has been one series of concessions to the Catholics. Relaxation, then, (and we wish this had been remembered at the charge) of penal laws, on subjects of religious opinion, is perfectly compatible with internal peace, and exemption from religious animosity.But the bishop is always fond of lurking in generals, and cautiously avoids coming to any specific instance of the dangers which he fears. 'It is declared in one of the 39 Articles, that the king is And so his lordship means to infer, that it would be head of our church, without being subject to any foreign foolish to abolish the laws against the Catholics now, power; and it is expressly said, that the Bishop of Rome because it would have been foolish to have abolished Papists assert, that the Pope is supreme head of the whole has no jurisdiction within these realms. On the contrary, them at some other period;-that a measure must be Christian church, and that allegiance is due to him from bad, because there was formerly a combination of cir- every individual member, in all spiritual matters. This dicumstances, when it would have been bad. His lord-rect opposition to one of the fundamental principles of the ship might, with almost equal propriety, debate what ecclesiastical part of our constitution, is alone sufficient to ought to be done if Julius Cæsar were about to make justify the exclusion of Papists from all situations of aua descent upon our coasts; or lament the impropriety vil matters is due to the king. But cases must arise, in thority. They acknowledge, indeed, that obedience in ciof emancipating the Catholics, because the Spanish which civil and religious duties will clash; and he knows Armada was putting to sea. The fact is, that Julius but little of the influence of the Popish religion over the Cæsar is dead-the Spanish Armada was defeated in mind of its votaries, who doubts which of these duties the reign of Queen Elizabeth-for half a century would be sacrificed to the other. Moreover, the most subtle there has been no disputed succession-the situation casuistry cannot always discriminate between temporal and of the world is changed-and, because it is changed, spiritual things; and in truth, the concerns of this life not we can do now what we could not do then. And no unfrequently partake of both characters.'-(pp. 21, 22.) thing can be more lamentable than to see this respectable prelate wasting his resources in putting imaginary and inapplicable cases, and reasoning upon their solution, as if they had anything to do with present affairs. These remarks entirely put an end to the common mode of arguing à Gulielmo. What did King William do?-what would King William say? &c. King William was in a very different situation from that in which we are placed. The whole world was in a very different situation. The great and glorious authors of the Revolution (as they are commonly denominated) acquired their greatness and glory, not by a superstitious reverence for inapplicable precedents, but by taking hold of present circumstances to lay a deep foundation for liberty; and then using old names for new things, they left the Bishop of Lincoln, and other men, to suppose that they had been thinking all the time about ancestors. Another species of false reasoning, which pervades the Bishop of Lincoln's charge is this: He states what the interests of men are, and then takes it for granted that they will eagerly and actively pursue them; laying totally out of the question the probability or improbability of their effecting their object, and the influence which this balance of chances must produce upon their actions. For instance, it is the interest of the Catholics that our church should be subservient to theirs. Therefore, says his lordship, the Catholics will enter into a conspiracy against the English church. But, is it not also the decided interest of his lordship's butler that he should be bishop, and the bishop his butler? That the crozier and the corkscrew should change hands, and the washer of the bottles which they had emptied become the diocesan of learned divines? What has prevented this change, so beneficial to the upper domestic, but the extreme improbability of success, if the attempt were made; an improbability so great, that we will venture to say, the very notion of it has scarcely once entered into the understanding of the good man. Why, then, is the reverend prelate, who lives on so safely and contentedly with John, so dreadfully alarmed at the Catholics? And why does he so completely forget, in their instance alone, that men do not merely strive to obtain a thing because it is good, but always mingle with the excellence of the object a consideration of the chance of gaining it. The Bishop of Lincoln (p. 19,) states it as an argument against concession to the Catholics, that we have We deny entirely that any case can occur, where the exposition of a doctrine purely speculative, or the arrangement of a mere point of church discipline, can interfere with civil duties. The Roman Catholics are Irish and English citizens at this moment; but no such case has occurred. There is no instance in which obedience to the civil magistrate has been prevented, by an acknowledgment of the spiritual supremacy of the pope. The Catholics have given (in an oath which we suspect the bishop never to have read) the most solemn pledge, that their submission to their spiritual ruler should never interfere with their civil obedience. The hypothesis of the Bishop of Lincoln is, that it must very often do so. The fact is that it has never done so. His lordship is extremely angry with the Catholics for refusing to the crown a veto upon the appointment of their bishops. He forgets, that in those countries of Europe where the crown interferes with the appointment of bishops, the reigning monarch is a Catholic,-which makes all the difference. We sincerely wish that the Catholics would concede this point; but we cannot be astonished at their reluctance to admit the interfe rence of a Protestant prince with their bishops. What would his lordship say to the interference of any Catholic power with the appointment of the English sees? Next comes the stale and thousand times refuted charge against the Catholics, that they think the pope has the power of dethroning heretical kings; and that it is the duty of every Catholic to use every possible means to root out and destroy heretics, &c. To all of which may be returned this one conclusive answer, that the Catholics are ready to deny these doctrines upon oath. Aud as the whole controversy is, whether the Catholics shall, by means of oaths, be excluded from certain offices in the state;-those who contend that the continuance of these excluding oaths is essential to the public safety, must admit, that oaths are binding upon Catholics, and a security to the state that what they swear to is true. It is right to keep these things in view-and to omit no opportunity of exposing and counteracting that spirit of intolerant zeal or intolerable time-serving, which has so long disgraced and endangered this country. But the truth is, that we look upon this cause as already gained;-and while we warmly congratulate the nation on the mighty step it has recently made towards increased power and entire security, it is impossible to avoid saying a word upon the humili. 'Oh! let me taste thee unexcis'd by kings.' The following strikes us as a very lively picture of the ruin and extravagance of a fashionable house in a great metropolis. ating and disgusting, but at the same time most edify. | the most household and parturient woman in England ing spectacle, which has lately been exhibited by the could not exceed ;-but the thing wanted was the anti-Catholic addressers. That so great a number of wrong man, the gentleman without the ring-the mas persons should have been found with such a proclivity ter unsworn to at the altar-the person unconsecrated to servitude (for honest bigotry had but little to do by priestswith the matter), as to rush forward with clamours in favour of intolerance, upon a mere surmise that this would be accounted as acceptable service by the present possessors of patronage and power, affords a more humiliating and discouraging picture of the present spirit of the country, than any thing else that has occurred in our remembrance. The edifying part of the spectacle is the contempt with which their officious devotions have been received by those whose favour they were intended to purchase, and the universal scorn and derision with which they were regarded by independent men of all parties and persuasions. The catastrophe, we think, teaches two lessons ;-one to the time-servers themselves, not to obtrude their servility on the government, till they have reasonable ground to think it is wanted;-and the other to the nation at large, not to imagine that a base and interested clamour in favour of what is supposed to be agreeable to government, however loudly and extensively sounded, affords any indication at all, either of the general sense of the country, or even of what is actually contemplated by those in the administration of its affairs. The real sense of the country has been proved, on this occasion, to be directly against those who presumptuously held themselves out as its organs; and even the ministers have made a respectaable figure, compared with those who assumed the character of their champions. MADAME D'EPINAY. (EDInburgh Review, 1818.) Mémoires et Correspondence de Madame D'Epinay. 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1818. laquais, et moi deux; je n'en ai pas voulu davantage. Il a M. d'Epinay a complété son domestique. Il a trois un valet de chambre; et il vouloit aussi que je prisse une seconde femme, mais comme je n'en ai que faire, j'ai tenu bon. Enfin les officiers, les femmes, les valets se montent au nombre de seize. Quoique la vie que je mène soit assez uniforme, j'espère n'être pas obligée d'en changer. Celle de M. d'Epinay est différente. Lorsqu'il est levé, son valet de chambre se met en devoir de l'accommoder. Deux lavient avec l'intention de lui rendre compte des lettres qu'il quais sont debout à attendre ordres. Le premier secrétaire a recues de son départment, et qu'il est charge d'ouvrir; il doit lire les réponses et les faire signer; mais il est interrompu deux cents fois dans cette occupation par toutes sortes d'espèces imaginables. C'est un maquignon qui a des chevaux uniques à vendre, mais qui sont retenus par un seigneur: ainsi il est venu pour ne pas manquer à sa parole; car on lui en donneroit le double, qu'on ne pourroit faire. Il en fait une description séduisante, on demande le prix. Le seigneur un tel en offre soixante louis.-Je vous en donne cent.-Cela est inutile, à moins qu'il ne se dédise. Cependant l'on conclut à cent louis sans les avoir vus, car le lendemain le seigneur ne manque pas de se dédire: voilà ce que j'ai vu et entendu la semaine dernière. de dépense, de donner des délégations pour tel ou tel objet. La seule réponse est: Nous verrons cela. Ensuite il court le monde et les spectacles; et il soupe en ville quand il n'a personne à souper chez lui. Je vois que mon temps de repos est fini.'-I. pp. 308-310. Ensuite c'est un polisson qui vient brailler un air, et à qui on accorde sa protection pour le faire entrer à l'Opéra, après lui avoir donné quelques leçons de bon goût, et lui avoir appris ce que c'est que la propreté du chant françois; c'est une demoiselle qu'on fait attendre pour savoir si je suis encore là. Je me lève et je m'en vais; les deux laquais ouvrent les deux battans pour me laisser sortir, moi qui passerois alors par le trou d'une aiguille; et les deux estafiers crient dans l'anti-chambre: Madame, messieurs, voilà THERE used to be in Paris, under the ancient regime, sont des marchands d'étoffes, des marchands d'instrumens, madame. Tout le monde se range en haie, et ces messieurs a few women of brilliant talents, who violated all the des bijoutiers, des colporteurs, des laquais, des décroteurs, common duties of life, and gave very pleasant little des créanciers; enfin tout ce que vous pouvez imaginer de suppers. Among these supped and sinned Madame plus ridicule et de plus affligeant. Midi ou une heure sonne d'Epinay-the friend and companion of Rousseau, Di- avant que cette toilette soit achevée, et le secrétaire, qui, derot, Grimm, Holbach, and many other literary per- sans doute, sait par expérience l'impossibilité de rendre un sons of distinction of that period. Her principal lover compte détaillé des affaires, a un petit bordereau qu'il remet was Grimm; with whom was deposited, written in doit dire à l'assemblée. Une autre fois il sort à pied ou en entre les mains de son maître pour l'instruire de ce qu'il feigned names, the history of her life. Grimm died-fiacre, rentre à deux heures, fait comme un brûleur de maihis secretary sold the history-the feigned names son, dine tête à tête avec moi, ou admet en tiers son premier have been exchanged for the real ones-and her works secrétaire qui lui parle de la nécessité de fixer chaque article now appear abridged in three volumes octavo. Madame d'Epinay, though far from an immaculate character, has something to say in palliation of her ir. regularities. Her husband behaved abominably; and alienated, by a series of the most brutal injuries, an attachmeht which seems to have been very ardent and sincere, and which, with better treatment would probably have been lasting. For, in all her aberrations, Mad. d'Epinay seems to have had a tendency to be constant. Though extremely young when separarated from her husband, she indulged herself with but two lovers for the rest of her life;-to the first of whom she seems to have been perfectly faithful, till he left her at the end of ten or twelve years;-and to Grimm, by whom he was succeeded, she seems to have given no rival till the day of her death. The account of the life she led, both with her husband and her lovers, brings upon the scene a great variety of French characters, and lays open very completely the interior of French life and manners. But there are some letters and passages which cught not to have been published; which a sense of common decency and morality ought to have suppressed; and which, we feel assured, would never have seen the light in this country. A French woman seems almost always to have wanted the flavour of prohibition as a necessary condiment to human life. The provided husband was rejected, and the forbidden husband introduced in ambiguous light, through posterns and secret partitions. It was not the union to one man that was objected tofor they dedicated themselves with a constancy which A very prominent person among the early friends of Madame d'Epinay, is Mademoiselle d'Ette, a woman of great French respectability, and circulating in the best society; and, as we are painting French manners, we shall make no apology to the serious part of our English readers, for inserting this sketch of her history and character by her own hand. discrétion: dites-moi naturellement quelle opinion on a de contentons réciproquement d'apprendre de nos nouvelles, à moies que le hasard ne nous fasse rencontrer. Nous vivons heureux, contens; peut-être ne le serions nous pas tant si nous étions mariés.'-I. pp. 111, 112. This seems a very spirited, unincumbered way of passing through life; and it is some comfort, therefore, to a matrimonial English reader, to find Mademoiselle d'Ette kicking the chevalier out of doors towards the end of the second volume. As it is a scene very edifying to rakes, and those who decry the happiness of the married state, we shall give it in the words of Madame d'Epinay. or a grave, is much the same thing-In London, as in law, de non apparentibus, et non existentibus eadem est ratio. This is the account Madame d'Epinay gives of Rousseau soon after he had retired into the hermitage. 'J'ai été il y a deux jours à la Chevrette, pour terminer quelques affaires avant de m'y établir avec mes enfans. J'avois fait prévenir Rousseau de mon voyage: il est venu me voir. Je crois qu'il a besoin de ma presence, et que la solitude a déjà agite sa bile. Il se plaint de tout le monde. Diderot doit toujours aller, et ne va jamais le voir; M. Grimm le néglige; le Baron d'Holbach l'ouble; Gauffecourt et moi seulement avons encore des égards pour lui, dit-il; j'ai voulu les justifier; cela n'a pas réussi. J'espère qu'il sera beaucoup plus a la Chevrette qu'à l'Hermitage. Je suis persuadée qu'il n'y a que façon de prendre cet homme pour le rendre heureux; c'est de feindre de ne pas prendre garde à lui, et s'en occuper sans cesse; c'est pour cela que je n'insistai point pour le retenir, lorsqu'il m'eut dit qu'il vouloit s'en retourner à l'Hermitage, quoiqu'il fût tard et malgré le mauvais temps.'-II. pp. 253, 254. Une nuit, dont elle avoit passé las plus grande partie dans l'inquiétude, elle entre chez le chevalier: il dormoit; elle le réveille, s'assied sur son lit, et entame une explication avec toute la violence et la fureur qui l'animoient. Le chevalier, après avoir employé vainement, pour le calmer, tous les moyens que sa bonté naturelle lui suggéra, lui signifia enfin très-précisément qu'il alloit se séparer d'elle pour toujours, et fuir un enter auquel il ne pouvoit plus tenir. Cette confidence, qui n'étoit pas faite pour l'appaiser, redoubla sa rage. Puisqu'il est ainsi, dit-elle, sortez tout à Jean Jacques Rousseau seems, as the reward of l'heure de chez moi; vous deviez partir dans quatre jours, genius and fine writing, to have claimed an exemption c'est vous rendre service de vous faire partir dans l'instant. from all moral duties. He borrowed and begged, and Tout ce qui est ici m'appartient; le bail est en mon nom: never paid-put his children in a poor house-betray. il ne me convient plus de vous souffrir chez moi: levez-ed his friends-insulted his benefactors-and was guilvous, monsieur, et songez à ne rien emporter sans ma per-ty of every species of meanness and mischief. His mission.'-II. pp. 193, 194. Our English method of asking leave to separate from Sir William Scott and Sir John Nicol is surely better than this. Any one who provides good dinners for clever people, and remembers what they say, cannot fail to write entertaining Memoires. Among the early friends of Madame d'Epinay was Jean Jacques Rousseau-she lived with him in considerable intimacy; and no small part of her book is taken up with accounts of his eccentricity, insanity, and vice. Nous avons debuteé par l'Engagement téméraire, comédie nouvelle, de M. Rousseau, ami de Francueil qui nous l'a présenté. L'auteur a joué un rôle dans sa pièce. Quoique ce ne soit qu'une comédie de société, elle a eu un grand succès. Je doute cependant qu'elle pût réussir au théâtre; mais c'est l'ouvrage d'un homme de beaucoup d'esprit, et peut-être d'un homme singulier. Je ne sais pas trop cependant si c'est ce que j'ai vu de l'auteur ou de la pièce qui me fait juger ainsi. Il est complimenteur sans être poli, ou au moins sans en avoir l'air. Il paroit ignorer les usages du monde; mais il est aisé de voir qu'il a infiniment d'esprit. Il a le teint brun: et des yeux pleins de feu animent sa physionomie. Lorsqu'il a parlé et qu'on le regarde, il paroit joli; mais lorsqu'on se le rappelle, c'est toujours en laid. On dit qu'il est d'une mauvaise santé, et qu'il a des souffrances qu'il cache avec soin, par je ne sais quel principe de vanité; c'est apparemment ce qui lui donne, de temps en temps, l'air farouche. M.de Bellegarde, avec qui il a causé long-temps, ce matin, en est enchanté, et là engagé à nous venir voir souvent. J'en suis bien aise; je me promets de profiter beaucoup de sa conversation.'-I. pp. 175, 176. Their friendship so formed, proceeded to a great degree of intimacy. Madame d'Epinay admired his genius, and provided him with hats and coats; and, at last, was so far deluded by his declamations about the country, as to fit him up a little hermit cottage, where there were a great many birds, and a great many plants and flowers-and where Rousseau was, as might have been expected, supremely miserable. His friends vanity was so great, that it was almost impossible to keep pace with it by any activity of attention; and his suspicion of all mankind amounted nearly, if not altogether, to insanity. The following anecdote, how. ever, is totally clear of any symptom of derangement, and carries only the most rooted and disgusting selfishness. Rousseau vous a donc dit qu'il' n'avoit pas porté son ouvrage à Paris? Il en a menti, car il n'a fait son voyage que pour cela. J'ai reçu hier une lettre de Diderot, qui peint votre hermite comme si je le voyois. Il a fait ces deux lieues à pied, est venu s'établir chez Diderot sans l'avoir prévenu, le tout pour faire avec lui la revision de son ouvrage. Au point où ils en étoient ensemble, vous conviendrez que cela est assez étrange. Je vois, par certains mots échappés à mon ami dans sa lettre, qu'il a quelque sujet de discussion entre eux; mais comme il ne s'explique point, je n'y comprends rien. Rousseau l'a tenu impitoyablement à l'ouvrage depuis le Samedi dix heures du matin jusqu'au Lundi onze heures du soir, sans lui donner à piene le temps de boire ni manger. La revision finie, Diderot cause avec lui d'un plan qu'il a dans la tête, prie Rousseau de l'aider à arranger un incident qui n'est pas encour trouvé à sa fantaisie. Cela est trop difficile, répond froidement l'hermite, il est tard, je ne suis point accoutumé à veiller. Bon soir, je pars demain à six heures du matin, il est temps de dormir. Il se lève, va se coucher, et laisse Diderot pétrifié de son procédé. Voilà cet homme que vous croyez si pénétré de vos leçons. Adjoutez à cette reflexion un propos singulier de la femme de Diderot, dont je vous prie de faire votre profit. Cette femme n'est qu'une bonne femme, mais elle a la tact juste. Voyant son mari désolé le jour du départ de Rousseau, elle lui en demande la raison; il la lui dit : C'est le manque de délicatesse de cet un manoeuvre, je ne m'en serois, je crois pas aperçu, se il homme, ajoute-t-il, qui m'afflige; il me fait travailler comme ne m'avoit refusé aussi sèchement de s'occuper pourmoi un quart-d'heure... Vous êtes étonné de cela, lui répond sa femme, vous ne le connoissez donc pas? Il est dévors d'envie; il enrage quand il paroit quelque chose de beau qui n'est pas de lui. On lui verra faire un jour quelques grands forfaits plutôt que de se laisser ignorer. Tenez, je ne jurerois pas qu'il ne se rangeât du parti des Jésuites, et qu'il n'enterprit leur apologie.-III. pp. 60, 61. from Paris did not come to see him. The postman, the butcher, and the baker, hate romantic sceneryduchesses and marchionesses were no longer found to scramble for him. Among the real inhabitants of the country, the reputation of reading and thinking is fatal to character; and Jean Jacques cursed his own successful eloquence which had sent him from the suppers and flattery of Paris to smell to daffodils, watch sparrows, or project idle saliva into the passing stream. Cet homme est un forcené. Je l'ai vu, je lui ai reVery few men who have gratified, and are gratifying proché avec toute la force que donne l'honnêteté et une their vanity in a great metropolis, are qualified to quit sorte d'intérêt qui reste au fond du cœur d'un ami qui lui it. Few have the plain sense to perceive, that they est dévoué depuis long-temps, l'énormité de sa conduite; must soon inevitably be forgotten, or the fortitude les pleurs versés aux pieds de madame d'Epinay, dans le to bear it when they are. They represent to them- moment même où il la chargeoit prés de moi des accusations selves imaginary scenes of deploring friends and dis- les plus graves; cette odieuse apologie qu'il vous a enpirited companions-but the ocean might as well re-voyée, et où il n'y pas une seule, des raisons qu'il avoit à dire; cette lettre projectée pour Saint-Lambert, qui devoit gret the drops exhaled by the sun-beams. Life goes on; and whether the absent have retired into a cottage The horror which Diderot ultimately conceived for him, is strongly expressed in the following letter to Grimm-written after an interview which compelled him, with many pangs, to renounce all intercourse with a man who had, for years, been the object of his tenderest and most partial feelings. le tranquilliser sur des sentimens qu'il se reprochoit, et on loin d'avouer une passion née dans son cœur malgré lui, il: s'excuse d'avoir, alarmé Madame d'Houdetot sur la sienne. | d'Epinay, Dr. Tronchin, of Geneva, was in vogue, and Que sais-je encore? Je ne suis point content de ses rés- no lady of fashion could recover without writing to ponses; je n'ai pas eu le courage de le lui témigner j'ai him, or seeing him in person. To the Esculapius of mieux aimé lui laisser la misérable consolation de croire this very small and irritable republic, Madame d'Epiqu'il m'a trompé. Qu'il vive! Il a mis dans sa défense un importement, froid qui m'a affligé. J'ai peur qu'il ne soit nay repaired; and, after a struggle between life and death, and Dr. Tronchin, recovered her health. Durendurci. ing her residence at Geneva, she became acquainted with Voltaire, of whom she has left the following admirable and original account-the truth, talent, and simplicity of which, are not a little enhanced by the tone of adulation or abuse which has been so generally employed in speaking of this celebrated person. Adieu, mon ami; soyons et continuons d'être honnêtes gens: l'état de ceux qui ont cessé de l'être me fait peur. Adieu, mon ami; je vous embrasse bien tendrement. Je ne jette dans vos bras comme un homme effrayé ; je tâche en vain de faire de la poésie, mais cet homme me revient tout à travers mon travail; il me trouble, et je suis comme si j'avois à côte de moi un damné ; il est damné, cela est sûr. Adieu mon ami. Grimm, voilà l'effet que je ferois sur vous, si je devenois jamais un méchant : en vérité, j'aimerois mieux être mort. Il n'y a peut-être pas le sens commun dans tout ce que je vous écris, mais je Vous avoue que je n'ai jamois éprouvé un trouble d'ame si terrible que celu que j'ai. h! mon ami, quel spectacle que celui d'un homme méchant et bourrelé! Brûlez, déchirez ce papier, qu'il ne retombe plus sous vos yeux ; que je ne revoie plus cet homme là, il me feroit croire aux diables et à l'enfer. Si je suis jamais forcé de retourner chez lui, je suis sûr que je frémirai tout le long du chemin : j'avois la fiévre en revenant. Je suis fâche de ne lui avoir pas laissé voir l'horreur qu'il m'inspiroit, et je ne me réconcilie avec moi qu'en pensant, que vous, avec toute votre fermeté, vous ne l'auriez pas pu à ma place ; je ne sais pas pas s'il ne m'auroit pas mé. On entendoit ses cris jusqu'au bout du jardin ; et je le voyois! Adieu, mon ami, j'irai demain vous voir; j'irai chercher un homme de bien, auprès duquel je m'asséye, qui me rassure, et qui chasse de mon ame je ne sais quoi d'infernal qui la tourmente et qui s'y est attaché. Les poetes on bien fait de mettre un intervalle immense entre le ciel et les enfer. En vérité, la main me tremble.'-III. pp. 148, 149. Madame d'Epinay lived, as we before observed, with many persons of great celebrity. We could not help smiling, among many others, at this anecdote of our countryman, David Hume. At the beginning of his splendid career of fame and fashion at Paris, the historian was persuaded to appear in the character of a sultan; and was placed on a sofa between two of the most beautiful women of Paris, who acted for that evening the part of inexorables, whose favour he was supposed to be soliciting. The absurdity of this scene can easily be conceived. 'Eh bien! mon ami, je n'aimerois pas à vivre de suite avec lui; il n'a nul principe arrêté, il compte trop sur sa mémoire, et il en abuse souvent; je trouve qu'elle fait trot quelquefois à sa conversation; il redit plus qu'il ne dit, et ne laisse jamais rien à faire aux autres. Il ne sait point causer, et il humilie l'amour-propre; il dit le pour et le contre, tant qu'on veut, toujours avec de nouvelles graces à la vérité, et néanmoins il a toujours l'air de se moquer de tout, jusqu'à lui-même. Il n'a nulle philosophie dans la tête; il est tout hérissé de petits préjués d'enfans; on les lui passeroit peut-être en faveur de ses graces, du brillant de son esprit et de son originalité, s'il ne s'affichoit pas pour les secouer tous. Il a des inconséquences plaisantes, et il est au milieu de tout cela très-amusant à voir. Mais je n'aime point les gens qui ne font que m'amuser. Pour madame sa nièce, elle est tout-à-fait comique. Il paroît ici depuis quelques jours un livre qui à vivement échauffe les têtes, et qui cause des discussions fort intéressantes entre différentes personnes de ce pays, parce que l'on prétend que la constitution de leur gouvernment y est intéressée : Voltaire s'y trouve mélé pour des propos assez vifs qu'il a tenu à ce sujet contre les prêtres. La grosse nièce trouve fort mauvais que tous les magistrats n'ayent pas pris fait et cause pour son oncle. Elle jette tour à tour ses grosses mains et ses petits bras par dessus sa tête, maudissant avec des cris inhu mains les lois, les républiques, et surtout ces polissons de ré publicans qui vont à pied, qui sont obligés de souffrir les criailleries de leurs prêtres, et qui se croient libres. Cela est toutà-fait bon à entendre et à voir.'-III. pp. 196, 197. Madame d'Epinay was certainly a woman of very considerable talent. Rousseau accuses her of writing bad plays and romances. This may be; but her epis tolary style is excellent-her remarks on passing events lively, acute, and solid-and her delineation of char acter admirable. As a proof this, we shall give her portrait of the Marquis de Croismare, one of the friends of Diderot and the Baron d'Holbach. Le célèbre David Hume, grand et gros historiographe d'Angleterre, connu et estimé par ses écrits, n'a pas autant 'Je lui crois soixante ans; il ne les paroît pourtant pas. Il de talens pour ce genre d'amusemens auquel toures nos jolies femmes l'avoient décidé propre. Il fit son debut, est d'une taille mediocre, sa figure a dû être très-agréable : chez Madame de T* * *; on lui avoit destiné le rôle d'un elle se distingué encore par un air de noblesse et d'aisance, qui sultan assis entre deux esclaves, employant toute son élo- répand de la grace sur tout sa personne. Sa physionomie a quence pour s'en faire aimer; les trouvant inexorables, il de la finesse. Ses gestes, ses attitudes ne sont jamais recherdevoit chercher le sujet de leurs peines et de leur réssist-chés; mais ils sont si bien d'accord avec la tournue de son (s ance: on le place sur un sopha entre les deux plus jolies prit, qu'ils semblent ajouter à son originalité. Il parle des femmes de Paris, il les regarde attentivement, il se frappe choses les plus sérieuses et les plus importantes d'un ton si gai, le ventre et les genoux à plusieurs reprises, et ne trouve qu'on est souvent tenté de ne rien croire de ce qu'il dit. On jamais autre chose à leur dire que: Eh bien! mes demoi- n'a presque jamais rien a citer de ce qu'on lui entend dire Eh bien! vous voilà donc. Eh bien! mais lorsqu'il parle, on ne veut rien perdre de ce qu'il dit; s'il selles. Sa prodigieuse vivacité, vous voilà. vous voilà ici ? Cette phrase se tait, on désire qu'l parle encore. dura un quart d'heure, sans qu'il pût en sortir. Une d'elles et une singulière aptitude à toutes sortes de talens et de conse leva d'impatience: Ah! dit-elle, je m'en étois bien dou-noissances, l'ont porté à tout voir et à tout connoitre; au motée, cet homme n'est bon qu'à manger du veau! Depuis ce yen de quoi vous comprenez qu'il est fort instruit. Il a bien temps il est relégué au rôle de spectateur, et n'en est pas lu, bien vu, et n'a retenu que ce qui valoit la peine de l'être. moins fêté et cajolé. C'est en vérité une chose plaisante Son esprit annonce d'abord plus d'agrément que de solidité, que le rôle qu'il joue ici; malheureusement pour lui, ou mais je crois que quiconque le jugeroit frivole lui feroit trot. plutôt pour la dignité philosophique, car, pour lui, il paroit Je le soupçonne de renfermer dans son cabinet les épines des 'accommoder fort de ce train de vie ; il n'y avoit aucune roses qu'il distribue dans la société assez constamment gai manie dominante dans ce pays lorsqu'il y est arrivé; on l'a dans le monde, seul je le crois mélancolique. On dit qu'il a regardé comme une trouvaille dans cette circonstance, et l'ame aussi tendre qu'honnête; qu'il sent vivement et qu'il se l'effervesence de nos jeunes têtes s'est tournée de son côte. livre avec impetuosité à ce qui trouvre le chemin de son ca ur. Toutes les jolies femmes s'en sont emparées ; il est de tous Tout le monde ne lui plaît pas; il faut pour cela de l'originalles soupers fins, et il n'est point de bonne fête sans lui: en ité, ou des vertus distinguées, ou de certains vices qu'il appelle un mot, il est pour nos agréables ce que les Genevois sont passions; néanmoins dans le courant de la vie, il s'accommode de tout. Beaucoup de curiosité et de la facilité dans le caracpour moi.'-III. pp. 284, 285. tère (ce qui va jusqu'à la foiblesse) l'entrainent souvent à négliger ses meilleurs amis et à less perdre de vue, pour se livrer à des goûts factices et passagers: il en rit avec eux; mais on voit si clairement qu'il en rougit avec lui-même, qu'on ne peut lui savoir mauvais gré de ses disparates.'-III. pp. 324 There is always some man, of whom the human viscera stand in greater dread than of any other person, who is supposed, for the time being, to be the only person who can dart his pill into their inmost re-326. cesses, and bind them over, in medical recognizance, to assimilate and digest. In the Trojan war, Podali- The portrait of Grimm, the French Boswell, vol. iii. rius and Machaon were what Dr. Baillie and Sir Henry p. 97, is equally good, if not superior; but we have alHalford now are they had the fashionable practice of the Greek camp; and, in all probability, received many a guinea from Agamemnon dear to Jove, and Nestor the tamer of horses. In the time of Madame ready extracted enough to show the nature of the work, and the talents of the author. It is a lively, entertaining book,--relating in an agreeable manner the opinions and habits of many remarkable men mingled with some very scandalous and improper pas-, the following passage, objections that are applicable sages, which degrade the whole work. But if all the to almost all the rest. decencies and delicacies of life were in one scale, and five francs in the other, what French bookseller would feel a single moment of doubt in making his selection? OUR readers, we fear, will' require some apology for being asked to look at anything upon the poor-laws. No subject, we admit, can be more disagreeable, or more trite. But, unfortunately, it is the most important subject which the distressed state of the country is now crowding upon our notice. A pamphlet on the poor-laws generally contains some little piece of favourite nonsense, by which we are gravely told this enormous evil may be perfectly cured. The first gentleman recommends little gardens; the second cows; the third a village shop; the fourth a spade; the fifth Dr. Bell, and so forth. Every man rushes to the press with his small morsel of imbecility; and is not easy till he sees his impertinence stitched in blue covers. In this list of absurdities, we must not forget the project of supporting the poor from national funds, or, in other words, of immediately doubling the expenditure, and introducing every possible abuse into the administration of it. "The district school would no doubt be well superintended and well regulated, magistrates and country gentlemen would be its visitors. The more excellent the establishment, the greater the mischief; because the greater the expense. We may talk what we will of economy, but where the care of the poor is taken exclusively into the hands of the rich, comparative extravagance is the necessary consequence: to say that the gentleman, or even the overseer, would never permit the Poor to live at the district school, as they live at home, is saying far too little. English humanity will never see the poor in brought before it: first, it will give necessaries, next comforts; any thing like want, when that want is palpably and visibly The humanity itself is highly laudable; but if practised on an until its fostering care rather pampers, than merely relieves. extensive scale, its consequences must entail an almost unlimited expenditure. 'Mr. Locke computes that the labour of a child from 3 to 14, being set against its nourishment and teaching, the result would be exoneration of the parish from expense. Nothing could prove more decisively the incompetency of the board of trade to advise on this question. Of the productive labour of serve in this place, that after the greatest care and attention the workhouse, I shall have to speak hereafter; I will only obbestowed on the subject, after expensive looms purchased, &c., the 50 boys of the blue coat school earned in the year 1816, 591. 10s. 3d.; the 40 girls earned, in the same time, 401. 7s. 9d. The ages of these children are from 8 to 16. They earn about one pound in the year, and cost about twenty. "The greater the call for labour in public institutions, be they prisons, workhouses, or schools, the more difficult to be less of it for the comparative numbers, and it will afford a procured that labour must be. There will thence be both much much less price; to get any labour at all, one school must underbid another. 'It has just been observed, that "the child of a poor cottager, half clothed, half fed, with the enjoyment of home and liberty, is not only happier but better than the little automaton of a parish workhouse :" and this I believe is accurately truc. I scarcely know a more cheering sight, though certainly many more elegant ones, than the youthful gambols of a village green. They call to mind the description given by Paley of the shoals of the fry of fish: "They are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves; their attitude, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it, all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess.". though the anxious mother may sometimes chide a little too "Though politeness may be banished from the cottage, and sharply, yet here both maternal endearments and social affection exist in perhaps their greatest vigour: the attachments of lower life, where independent of attachment there is so little to enjoy, far outstrip the divided if not exhausted sensibility of the rich and great; and in depriving the poor of these at tachments, we may be said to rob them of their little all. I listen with great reserve to that system of moral instruction, 'But it is not to happiness only I here refer it is to morals which has not social affection for its basis, or the feelings of the heart for its ally. It is not to be concealed, that every thing may be taught, yet nothing learned, that systems planned with care, and executed with attention, may evaporate into unmeaning forms, where the imagination is not roused, or the sensibility impressed. Then there are worthy men, who call upon gentlemen of fortune and education to become overseersmeaning, we suppose, that the present overseers are to perform the higher duties of men of fortune. Then merit is up as the test of relief; and their worships are to enter into a long examination of the life and character of each applicant, assisted, as they doubtless would be, by candid overseers, and neighbours divested of every feeling of malice and partiality. The children are next to be taken from their parents, and lodged in immense pedagogueries of several acres each, where they are to be carefully secluded from those fathers and mothers they are commanded to obey and honour, and are to be brought up in virtue by the church wardens. And this is gravely intended as a corrective of the poor-laws; as if (to pass over the many other objections which might be made to it,) it would not set mankind populating faster than carpenters and bricklayers could cover in their children, or separate twigs to be bound into rods for their flagellation. An extension of the poor-laws to personal property is also talked of. We shall be very glad to 'Let us suppose the children of the "district school," nursee any species of property exempted from these laws, when supposed to be well conducted, are wont to exhibit; tured with that superabundant care which such institutions, but have no wish that any which is now exempted they rise with the dawn; after attending to the calls of cleanshould be subjected to their influence. The case liness, prayers follow; then a lesson; then breakfast; then would infallibly be like that of the income tax-the work, till noon liberates them, for perhaps an hour, from the more easily the tax was raised the more profligate walls of their prison to the walls of their prison court. Dinwould be the expenditure. It is proposed also that ner follows; and then, in course, work, lessons, supper, alehouses should be diminished, and that the children prayers; at length, after a day dreary and dull, the counterof the poor should be catechized publicly in the church, Part of every day which has preceded, and of all that are to follow, the children are dismissed to bed.-This system may both very respectable and proper suggestions, but of construct a machine, but it will not form a man. Of what does themselves hardly strong enough for the evil. We it consist? of prayers parroted without one sentiment in achave every wish that the poor should accustom them- cord with the words uttered: of moral lectures which the unselves to habits of sobriety; but we cannot help rederstanding does not comprehend, or the heart feel; of endflecting, sometimes, that an alehouse is the only place less bodily constraint, intolerable to youthful vivacity, and inwhere a poor tired creature, haunted with every spe- day may not present so imposing a scene; no decent uniform; jurious to the perfection of the human frame.-The cottage cies of wretchedness, can purchase three or four times no well trimmed locks; no glossy skin; no united response of a year three pennyworth of ale-a liquor upon which hundreds of conjoined voices; no lengthened procession, miswine-drinking moralists are always extremely severe. named exercise; but if it has less to strike the eye, it has far We must not forget, among other nostrums, the eulogy more to engage the heart. A trifle in the way of cleanliness of small farms-in other words, of small capital, and must suffice; the prayer is not forgot; it is perhaps imperprofound ignorance in the arts of agriculture; and the fectly repeated, and confusedly understood; but it is not mutevil is also thought to be curable by periodical con-heavenly one; duty, love, obedience, are not words without tered as a vain sound; it is an earthly parent that tells of a tributions from men who have nothing, and can earn meaning, when repeated by a mother to a child: to God, the nothing without charity. To one of these plans, and great unknown Being that made all things, all thanks, all perhaps the most plausible, Mr. Nicol has stated in praise, áll adoration is due. The young religionist may be is |