she sowed the seeds of dissension in the Bourbon family. Fatal animosities were soon to take place between her and the children of Lewis XV., his two sisters-in-law, and the grandees who were employed about her person.

The count d'Artois already led so licentious a life as to draw on himself, before his misfortunes, the contempt of every Frenchman who had still any regard for decency and public decorum.

With regard to the administration of affairs, the king had left it in the hands of the most profligate men. The duke of Vrillière was one of its oldest contemptible members. Bertin still remained in power, whose office it had been to superintend the haram, called the parc aux cerfs, and the filthy debaucheries of the king. A national and irrecoverable bankruptcy had rendered the abbé Terray an object of general execration; whilst the arbitrary measures of the duke of Aiguillon and of Maupeou had excited all those against the royal authority who were weary of the absolute and military power of the French kings; and even all the advocates for despotic sway; because the king had exceeded all bounds, by degrading the kingdom in the eyes of his subjects, and still more in those of foreign powers. The nation was unanimous in its wish for a change in administration.

• The taxes were raised to such a pitch, that several of the provinces were unable to pay their assistants. Many peasants of the Limosin, of the Sevennes, the Pyrénées, and of Dauphiny-provinces naturally barren, and presenting many obstacles to cultivation-relinquished the lands of their forefathers, finding their crops inadequate to the amount of ruinous taxation.

With regard to the expenditure, such was the profusion of the court, that, without a radical and extensive reform of this branch of finance-a reform of which the court was incapable—the kingdom was in danger of a general bankruptcy, and of a revolution.

The magistracy, distinguished by the appellation of Maupeou's parliament, had no stability. It was assailed on all sides by the Choiseul faction, ever bold and artful in its modes of attack and defence. The Jansenists lamented their dissolved and exiled parliaments; nor were their tears or their intrigues without effect; whilst the Jesuits and their partisans deplored, in their turn, their last dissolution. In this manner, all was complaint and lamentation in two opposite partics.

The nation had before this been disturbed by two powerful rival factions, which had made war against each other. Now they conjointly made war on the state-a dangerous circumstance, the forerunner of the dissolution of social order, which takes place when governments, in a state of distress, or of blindness, are in want of one of the parties, to take its share of hatred and resistance, of attachment and defence. The unjust and glaring persecution sustained by the magistracy rendered it respectable, and attracted the pity of

many.

6

Every thing bore the appearance of relaxed authority in all the other departments of state. The navy, which had been nearly annihilated in the last war with the English, was not rebuilt. GreatBritain had disgraced France by a treaty worthy of the times of

Charles VI.

The army was no better attended to than the navyt mere courtiers were at the head of it, in whose conduct impartial judges could discover nothing but proofs of general ignorance, of want of skill in military operations, and shameful defeats in the war of seven years. Among five hundred officers of superior rank, all old enough to command, France could not reckon twelve capable of supporting the long-established reputation of our troops, and worthy of being named as military characters.' Vol. i. p. 182.

Such were the unpropitious circumstances under which Lewis XVI. commenced his reign. The government was already in a revolutionary state; and, by an unexampled series of evils, many of which it was not in his power to have prevented, but many of which also owed their entire origin to his own inactivity and want of resolution, the ultimate blow was at length accomplished, and he fell a victim to the severity of his fate. For many years after his marriage with the archduchess Marie Antoinette, and prior to his elevation to the throne, himself however, and his royal consort, were equally and most deservedly the idols of all France. Modest and exemplary amidst the debauchery of the court, they led a life of retirement, visiting the cottages of the poor, and exercising with emulation acts of beneficence and humanity. Even for some time after their accession to the throne they preserved a very large proportion of popular attachment, and exhibited the same amiability of charac ter. The queen, however, upon the death of M. de Maurepas, who had never suffered her to interfere with affairs of state, was determined to become a politician; and this determination pushed her to a greater extent still; when, by the birth of the elder dauphin, she began to feel an additional right of interference, and seemed to be actuated by all the ambition of her ancestor Maria Theresa. She plunged into the muddy gulf; the purity of her mind was contaminated;-like the statesmen around her, she was compelled to dissemble, to cajole, to humiliate herself, in order to increase her own party, which was generally that in opposition to the minister of the king's appointment: she became open to flattery in her own turn; her character declined gradually in the estimation of the multitude who had before been accustomed to caress her; and, in proportion as she grew despised, she endeavoured to support herself by additional haughtiness and contempt for all popular opinion.

M. Soulavie divides the reign of Lewis XVI. into ten epochs. The first embraces the administration of count Maurepas, from his recall upon the death of Lewis XV. The second commences with the re-establishment of the parliaments, by the advice of this favourite--more perhaps with a view of demonstrating his opposition to the system of the late ministers, La Vrillière and Maupeou, than from any real expectation of benefit to be derived from their exertions, although he scarcely perceived, the

assault he was thus giving to the very vitals of the monarchy. The third epoch embraces the administrations of Turgot and Malesherbes, who had imbibed all the wildness of modern philosophy, and acted upon what was absurdly called the system of perfectibility. The financial administration of M. Necker forms the fourth epoch, during which France was distracted with antagonist calculations, and became an actual bankrupt in the midst of the most splendid theories for her freedom from debt. The fifth epoch embraces the events of the American war, which embodied the speculations of the philosophers, and gave them the power and activity of which they could otherwise never have been possessed. The sixth epoch commences with the birth of the first dauphin, and the influence of the queen in affairs of state, upon which we have commented already. The administration of Calonne and the notables comprises the seventh epoch. The second administration of M. Necker forms the eighth, who, by changing at this time the minority into the majority, overthrew the monarchy most effectually. The ninth epoch embraces the constitutional monarchy, as it was called; and the tenth, the creation of the republic and the death of the king.

Such is the outline of the work before us. The materials of the author are ample, and for the most part, we believe, unquestionably authentic. On his talents as an historian we shall offer some additional remarks, in conjunction with some additional extracts from the present Memoirs, in a future number.

ART. II.-The Poetical Works of John Milton. With the prin cipal Notes of various Commentators. To which are added Illustrations, with some Account of the Life of Milton. By the Rev. Henry John Todd, M. A. 6 Vols. 8vo. 21. 14s. Boards. Robinsons. 1801.

AN elaborate edition of Milton has long been among the desiderata of English literature. By the separate publication of Comus, the present editor had proved himself equal to the task, and he was in consequence invited and encouraged' to the undertaking. The volumes contain a copious selection from former commentators.

The chief purpose of the new notes, is, in humble imitation of Mr. Warton, "to explain the allusions of Milton; to illustrate or to vindicate his beauties; to point out his imitations, both of others and of himself; to elucidate his obsolete diction; and, by the adduction and juxta-position of parallels universally gleaned both from his poetry and prose, to ascertain his favourite words, and to show the peculiarities of his phraseology." Mr. Warton justly adds, that, " among the English poets, those readers who trust to preceding

commentators will be led to believe that Milton imitated Spenser and Shakspeare only. But his style, expression, and more extensive combinations of diction, together with many of his thoughts, are also to be traced in other English poets, who were either contemporaries or predecessors, and of whom many are now not commonly known. Nor have his imitations from Spenser and Shakspeare been hitherto sufficiently noted." Of this it has been a part of the present editor's task, as it was of Mr. Warton, to produce proofs. The coincidences of " Fancy's sweetest children," Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton, are accordingly here enlarged. The obligations of our author to Dante, hitherto little noticed, as well as to some other Italian poets, are pointed out. The poet's imitations of himself are also considerably augmented. Nor have the romances and fabulous narratives, on which the poetry of Milton is often founded, been neglected. The editor, while he has not been sparing of classical illustration, has constantly kept in mind the necessity of attention to the literature of Milton's age. Without this attention, as Mr. Warton remarks," the force of many strikingly poetical passages has been weakened or unperceived, because their origin was unknown, unexplored, or misunderstood. Cocval books, which might clear such references, were therefore to be consulted; and a new line of commentary was to be pursued. Comparatively, the classical annotator has here but little to do. Dr. Newton, an excellent scholar, was unacquainted with the treasures of the Gothic library. From his more solid and rational studies, he never deviated into this idle track of reading." But as Milton, at least in his early poems, may be reckoned an old English poet; and as, in his later poetry, allusions to the sources of fiction, with which he had been pleased in his youth, often appear; he generally requires that illustra tion, however trifling it may seem to fastidious readers, without which no English poet can well be illustrated.' Vol. i. Preface.

He has endeavoured to render the text as perspicuous as possible; not only by several illustrations of antiquated words,--which, as Mr. Warton has observed, in a succession of editions had been gradually and silently, yet perhaps not always properly, refined, -- but also by comparing the copies published under the immediate inspec tion of Milton, as well as most subsequent editions; more particularly those of Tickell, Fenton, Bentley, and the later editors; as the notes will show.' Vol. i. Preface.

To the punctuation also, of which Milton has been pronounced by Mr. Warton to have been habitually careless, great attention has been paid. The editor conceived it his duty likewise to examine the manuscript, containing many of Milton's early poems, preserved in the library of Trinity college, Cambridge; and he found, on examination, several particularities which had been omitted by those who had before collated the manuscript, and which were too curious not to be noticed in the present edition. To the end of the several poems, of which there are copies in the manuscript, these various readings are annexed. The reason is assigned.

The editor offers, with the utmost deference, some account of the life of Milton; of which the materials have been drawn from authentic sources. In this biographical attempt, some new anecdotes, relating to the history of Milton's friends, of his works, and of his times, will also be found. These may perhaps plead as an apology for the rashness of the editor, in affecting to sketch the poet whom the masterly hands of a Johnson and an Hayley have depicted-a rashness to which he has been impelled by the persuasion of others, that, to a new edition of his works, it is a custom to prefix the life of the author.

Such are the materials here accumulated, in order to explain the labours of Milton-of Milton, the proud boast of his own country, and the admiration of the world-of Milton, whose imitations of others are so generally adorned with new modes of sentiment or phraseology, that they lose the nature of borrowings, and display the skill and originality of a perfect master; and from whom succeeding poets, at various periods, have "stolen authentic fire."

From the liberal and candid reader the editor hopes to meet with more than pardon-having spared neither pains nor cost in the prosecution of his design, and having strenuously exerted his humble abilities to please and to inform.' Vol. i. Preface.

In writing the life of Milton, Mr. Todd has adopted the only prudent plan that remained for him after Johnson, and Hayley. He has made it a work of research; and in so doing he has brought forward some curious facts that had hitherto escaped notice. It appears that Milton's Tractates of Divorce, though in his own time seldom pored on, gave rise to a small sect who were called Divorcers, and even Miltonists. Some light Mr. Todd has thrown upon the intrigues of the papists in this country during the struggle between the parliament and the king. He also gives us two little poems surmised to be the productions of this unrivaled bard, upon the following grounds.

As Milton is believed to have continued his friendship for Henry Lawes, the musician, throughout the rebellion, I am led to think that he now often experienced a pleasing relaxation from business and study in listening to the "soft pipe and smooth-dittied song" of his early acquaintance. Lawes, who was acquainted with the principal poets of his time, and was honoured with many of their productions for the use of his lyre, had now published two Books of Ayres; in the latter of which, dated 1655, is a ballad, which "the Table, with the names of those who were the authors of the verses," ascribes to "Mr. I. M. p. 37." The ballad consists of the first and last sextains of a little poem which had appeared not long before in an edition of Shakspeare's poems; at the end of which is "an Addition of some excellent Poems, to those precedent of renowned Shakspeare, by other Gentlemen;" but these verses are without any signature, while Milton's epitaph on Shakspeare in the same volume is subscribed I. M. It may not perhaps seem improbable, that Milton might formerly have acknowledged to Lawes this production of his earlier days, which yet he had not thought worthy of ad