'the generous tolerance of the late Emprefs offered them an acceptable refuge. This migration of the ex-jefuits to the Ruffian empire has been accompanied, as in the military order of Malta, with a transfer of their religious allegiance from the head of the Romish to the head of the Greek church; and of their civil allegiance from the Gallic to the Ruffian fovereign, to whose cabinet they now commit the exe cution of that magnificent project of Univerfal Monarchy (or Cæfarchy), on which they fo long rivetted the attention of the cabinet of Louis XIV. and to the furtherance of which their writings and invifible exertions throughout Europe were for a long feries of years perfeveringly directed. Their dexterity has favoured the acquiefcence of the men of Poland in the annexation of that country to the Ruffian empire when the project of occupying Scandinavia was entertained, their influence over a fpreading fect was diftinctly employed in a fimilar manner: the very plan, and all the predifpofitions for overruling Perfia, are afcribed to the modern fucceffor of Krusinski.

:

1

The writings of the moft zealous proteftant theologians abound with charges alfo of a religious confpiracy against the whole body of ex-jefuits; which is reprefented as actuating with its intrigues the lower order of fectaries throughout Europe, by means both of writers, miffionaries, and lay-affociates, in a direction tending to the accomplishment of their imputed grand project of confolidating all Christendom under a new Popery, or Catholic Patriarchate; not exactly Romih indeed, but more defpotic, and more infanely credulous than that which radiated from Rome, and which is now to centralife at Mohilow, or Petersburg. Among the ftranger charges of this clafs, may be diftinguished the precife one of forging

Lettere critiche in schiaramento del vero fiato attuale dei Gefuiti nella Ruffia Bianca, and is written by a member of the order: though a partial, it is an authentic document, and defcribes the Jefuits as forming a ftrong party in the Ruffian church, as poffeffed already of the epifcopal fee of Mohilow, and as courted with rival affiduity by Catherine and Prince Potemkin. The Court of Rome is mentioned with concealed bitterness. The papal letters which placed the Roman Catholics of Ruffia under the fee of Mohilow, exprefsly excepted the Jefuits, as if to recognife their independence of the Western Church. For the general character of their religious fpirit, confult a paper "On the heart of Jefus," in the Varieties of Literature, I. 513.

writings in the name of Swedenborg; many of whofe works are faid to be translated from Latin originals which have not been difcovered, and many of whose Latin works are faid firit to have appeared at Strafburg, by the obstetric care of an abbé Pernetti. The doctrine of an Evil Spirit, borrowed from the Manicheans, and the doctrine of the Death of God, borrowed from the Patripaffians, were by all means to be inculcated, as effential to vital religion. Works of the Alexandrian Platonifts, books of aftrology, of oneirocriticifm, of medical magic, of divination by the expofition of fcripture, of nerterology (geifterlehre, ghost-lore), and of witchcraft, have been reprinted in cheap forms, or gratuitously circulated in every European metropolis. Diftributions have been made among jew-pedlars of engraved and waxen fimulacres of faints, with the view, it is pretended, of introducing among proteftants a piety of parade, a tafte for image-worship, and a love of holy idolatry. Some of these feed-corns of fuperftition, it is expected, must strike root; and the culture of fuch as are best adapted to the peculiar ignorance of each country, is recommended to the industry of itinerant miffionaries. All these and fimilar phænomena, many of which have occurred even in our own country, are afcribed to the fyftematic management of the ex-jefuits, to an all-embracing confederacy; and fuch of the Proteftant * clergy as favour myfticifm and fanaticism, are accufed of being fecretly fworn into this fraternity of darkness, of cryptoprofelytifm, crypto-catholicism, and crypto-jefuitifm; of herefy against reason, and fchifm against truth. This was remark. ably the cafe with the fociety (Gefellschaft von Beförderung reiner Lebre) for promoting Christian doctrine. Such affocia tions are well adapted to hellenize the pro

teftant churches.

established clergy, in order to approximate the government and religion to their own feudal defpotifm and Greek hyperorthodoxy, they have contrived two regular and perpetual alarms or cries of dan ger, the one for the state, and the other for the church, which they renew every where. Before the magiftrate, they impeach jacobinifm; and before the prieft, infidelity. This has been their train of practice for two or three centuries of their existence, the immemorial order of their order.

"There is in China, (fays father Semedo) a horrid fect called Pee-lien-kia, always difpofed to rebellion. This feet confifts of people who enter into a confederacy to overturn the established government; for which purpose, with certain magical rites, they elect an emperor out of their number, diftribute among themfelves the principal employments of the ftate, mark out certain families for destruction, and lie concealed till fome in furrection of the people affords an opportunity of putting theinfelves at their head. China, on account of its vaft extent, prodigious populoufnefs, and frequency of famines, is very liable to feditions, which have often produced entire revolutions in the state. Now as in these revolutions it has frequently happened that fome of the very dregs of the people have been raised to the throne, this encourages the ringleaders to afpire to the empire." Who would not fuppofe there had been a French Revolution in China?

Father Merfenne again, in 1523, attributed 50,000 atheifts to the city of Paris, and printed off a lift in feven pages of their illuminees or leaders; a catalogue fo refpectable, that it was thought dangerous by the magiftrate, and was fuppreffed by authority in all but the earlier copies of the Quæftiones in Genefin. Has opinion then receded in our own times?

As remedies for the political danger, the jefuitical writers have every where indicated the use of spies, of arbitrary inprisonment, of unlimited lonely feclufion, of the torture, of numerous and vague treafon laws, and have thus brought political conttitutions nearer to their idea of a perfect government, or perfect defpofilm. As refources for theological con

*The characteristic feature of the Ruffian conftitution is the fubftitution of military rank, perturbable at the will of the prince, to hereditary or profeffional diftinction. A phyfician or a profeffor must be appointed captain or colonel to have a station in fociety.

verfion, they, or their partifans, have defended or practifed book-cenfure, focial excommunication, inquifitorial perquifition, flanderous denunciation, and house. razing. Nor are there no symptoms of a concert being really maintained throughout Europe by a powerful party, affiliated to diffufe thefe alarms, and to ground on them thefe or analogous oppreffions.

I am, however, far from thinking that the confederacy of anti-jacobins (a party founded in this country, as elfewhere, by a foreign Jefuit) has ever been quite fo formal as the Berlin alarmifts pretend; or will ever, knowingly, be quite fo docile to diftant authority in western, as it may have been in eaftern Europe. Clubs, private clubs of this defcription may exist in moft large towns; they may transmit to a metropolitan centre fecret obfervations on men and manners; they may regard monarchy as the only effential ftem of a wife conftitution; their prefidents, or archimandrites, may be obscurely appointed and invifibly indemnified by the central fynod of emanation; a board of public inftruction may be connected with this latent fynod, iffuing its hue and cry with menftrual, hebdomadal, or ephemeral induftry; it may arrogate a monopoly of the prefs; thefe fophifticated manufactories of public opinion may find interpre ters of different nations a neceffary appendage, and, through them, may tranf mit to and receive from the other European fynods a variety of intelligence, artfully tinctured with the effential oil of Loyolifin-but that these foreign affiftants are, in fact, the cryptarchs of fuch fynods; that these cryptarchs are all Jefuits in avowed or concealed fubferviency to the immortal order; that this order is governed by a defcending oligarchy, the over-ruling* fynod or diet deputing affeffors to the fubordinate fynods or dietines; that these imperious imperialists are fo effectually ferved as to befpeak at the fame time a law against their + antagonists in courts not allied, and to obtain implicit obedience-fuch positions would furely appear to be mere exaggerations of diffembled apprehenfion or vulgar ĉre

dulity, and by no means the inferences of legitimate fufpicion.

The Jefuits certainly have deferved much gratitude for the geographical information which their miflionaries collected, and much admiration for the claffical learning which their erudits difplayed. This reproach, however (obferves Hume, v. 238) they muft, bear from pofterity, that by the very nature of their inftitution they were engaged to pervert learn ing, the only effectual remedy against fu. perftition, into a nourishment of that infirmity. Nor have they merely been the fophifts of error and credulity: wherever patronised by the government, they were alfo fophifts of fervility and defpotifm. Order is no doubt of more value than liberty; but these high doctrines, however tranquillifing in appearance, have never contributed eventually to public quiet; either under queen Mary, under Alva in the Netherlands, under Charles I. or James II. They provoke a vexatious vigilance in the magiftrate, and a jealous diltemper in the people: they fupply a lax cafuiftry to the oppreffor, which is fpeedily learned by the revolter; and thus untwift thofe bands of mutual confidence which alone are really durable. A fyftem of non-alarm, an affected flumber of the magiftrate, has in all times of public ferment most conduced to allay animofity. A new recognition of this school of principles, whether its teachers are to be embodied as doctors of anti-jacobinifm, or as a fociety of faith, ought to be deprecated by every friend to pacific fecurity. The project of Broglio is a ftab at European repose.

Since the hofpitable circulation among the courts of the Continent of this project of restoration, it will not be contended, that the perpetuity of the jefuitical order is lefs real and effential, its concert lefs extenfive and complete, or its influence lefs entire and formidable, than Nicolai, Gedike, and Biefter (affifted perhaps by the private intelligence of a literary mini. fter now deceased) had ventured, in 1785, to affert. If their honeft hoftility to its dangerous character led them to favour a counter-confederacy, alfo exceptionable for oppofite extremes of doctrine, tor fimiJar interior fecrecy, and for its devoted fubferviency to unknown chiefs-let it be

recollected, that the order of Illuminees went to work only with the weapons of oral and written inftruction, difpensed in lodges before judges not inadequate, or difplayed in books and journals in a form ftill more open to criticifin and refutation: and that their obedience was promifed only to chofen fuperiors, concealed rather from the jealoufy of the prince, than from the curiofity of the afpirant. Whereas the Jefuits go to work with the armed force of rulers naturally ambitious to extend their power, and irritated by miftruft; with regulations which infringe all liberty of the prefs, and which abolish all meetings of the people; with an autocratic, not an autonomous, constitution.

Were the idea wholly laid afide as unfupportable, that the Jefuits continue to exift as a formal and confederated order, it would ftill be convenient, for the claffification of various moral, literary, and focial phænomena, to employ fome appellation analogous to that of Jefuits (which itself does not neceffarily imply any thing exceptionable or vituperative), with re fpect to fuch perfons as have inherited the like views and purfuits, as are motived by fimilar confiderations, and employed in imitated purposes. If the jefuitic faction does not exift, the jefuitic school of opinion is no unreal or extinct academy. Their erudition has not ceased to operates their maxims furvive in an imperishable library. Jefuitifm, whether taught by the books of the dead, or the voices of the living, is a fyftem of opinion still honoured by a long proceffion of fectators, and must continue as indeftructible as the love of unrefifted fway in the bofom of priests and kings. Jefuitifm, therefore, must still be endeavouring to urge religion to the neplus-ultra of docile credulity, and government to the ne-plus-ultra of implicit imperioufnefs: it profeffedly tolerates in the ruling clafs, for purposes of influence and afcendency, the laxeft outrages of libertinifin; it impofes on the obeying clafs, for purposes of difpiritude and fubjuga tion, the fevereft privations of afceticism. And jefuitifm thus defined is become the critical danger of Europe. The juftly offenfive phænomena of the Revolution of France have produced in every other country a mighty re-action. From a fear of the doctrines of atheism and infubordination, the people are every where flying to the oppofite extreme ground; and are embracing with eagerness the more mif chievous, becaufe more permanent, principles of gloomy myfticism and paffive obedience. Like the returning ftroke of an

electric

electric fhock, one discharge of the battery of revolution has accumulated another negative coating of fubferviency; it is to the filent diffipation of this latter excefs that the conducting points of literary acutenefs ought now to be applied.

But if this jefuitic order does, as is nearly undeniable, exist in growing force and energy, is more than ever bufy in its enormous purposes of fubjection, has a long catalogue of wrongs to avenge, and vaft and willing provinces to fubdue-if it operates in any fort of merely intentional conjunction with the Ruffian coloffus-it would indeed be an important intereft of this nation to turn afide the planet of its afcendency, and to diforb its approaching culmination. Ruffia, with its Scandinavian arm, could ftrike at the heart of British empire in Europe; and, with its Perfian arm, at the heart of British empire in Hindoftan. A Ruffianifed Scandinavia (by the bravery of Sir Sidney Smith that must never be!) would poffefs an extent of North Sea coaft capable of interfering with our naval fuperiority: and from Scandinavia have poured the only barbarians who ever achieved an un. confented conqueft of the British isles.

NOTICE

For the Monthly Magazine.

AND EXPLICATION OF THE CHINESE GAME OF CHESS.

BY ANDRE EVER ARDVAN BRAAM HOUCKGEEST, late Chief in the Direction of the Dutch East India Company in China, and the Second Perfon in the Embay to the Court of the Emperor of China.

N China the game is called Tche-onin

try more than four hundred years ago, by a Tai-toeq or general of their troops whole name was Long-hin-tche quam-tie-lie.

This game is fo common in China, that it was played by the coulis and the lowest clafs of people before he understood that they were playing at chefs; as they did not make ufe of figures like thofe employed in Europe, but of round pawns like thofe we make ufe of for draughts, and on each of which the name of the piece is engraved.

The board is not of two colours, but confifts of a fimple paper, croffed by stripes, fo that the pieces are placed on the points where the tripes meet. The number of pieces however is the fame as in the European game, viz. fixteen pieces of each colour. There are only five pawns or foldiers, although there are eleven principal pieces.

Thefe laft are: a taytocq or general; two mandarins or counsellors; two ele

1

phants; two horfes; two chariots; and two pieces of artillery.

The nine first of the eleven pieces juft named are placed in the outermost band of the board, one befide the other, the taytocq in the middle, a mandarin on each fide, an elephant after each mandarin, a horse after each elephant, and a chariot at each end; the two pieces of artillery are put on the third row, before the two hories, and the five foldiers on the fourth line, correfponding to the taytocq, to the two elephants, and to the two chariots.

The board or field (camp) is feparated by a river, the paffage of which is oly permitted to the horses, to the chariots, to the cannon and the foldiers; while it is abfolutely interdicted to the five other pieces. When the taytocq is made check, mate, the game is won.

The following is the march or movement of the pieces:

The taytocq or general, who can never make more than one fquare at once of the board, may advance or retire, or go in any direction, provided he never quits the nine compartments next to him, and which, for that reafon, are marked with a different fhade from the reft of the board,

The mandarins or counfellors can only go from one fquare to that which is next, but only diagonally; and, like the general, they cannot go out of the nine compart. ments which ferve him for limits.

The elephants march, diagonally, by leaping over a compartment or square, but they are not to cross the river.

The horses have exactly the fame march as the knights in the European game. But if the adverfary puts one of his pawns by the fide of a horfe, he has, according to the fenfe of the Chinese word, his feet tied. Then he cannot take the piece which made him check, although he may place himfelf any where elfe; he alfo paffes the river.

The chariots have the fame march as the cattles or towers in the European game. They país the river.

The cannon march like the chariots next to them, in front and in rear. They may pafs over any of the compartments, and may go over the river. But one cannon cannot take another piece, unless there be on the fame line with it another piece in front of that which they design it to take. So that the movement of the cannon or piece of artillery is that of a body which is projected like a bomb

fhell.

In the beginning, the foldiers or pawns can only make one fquare forwards, and

can

can only take in this direction, and not obliquely as in the European game. But when they are on the other fide of the river, they may take in front and sideways; yet fo as not to go back; the pawn brought to the laft band of the adverfary, is changed to a piece already taken, at the option of the party who has conducted his pawn fo far.

Such are the rules and the process of this game among the Chinese.

For the Monthly Magazine. The following Letters were addreffed to the Editor of a literary journal in London, with whofe plan it is inconfiftent to infert articles of corre-. fpondence: from bim they were banded to us for publication. Our defire to oblige the foreign author has prompted us to admit them: yet we confider it as a mere queftion of curiofity, whether Bürger's Ballad is in any degree a refaccimento: bis merit is not diminished by the pre-existence of the ftory. In the fecond volume of Poems by Robert Soutkey, p. 145. may be found an extract from Matthew of Westminster, relating a tale alfo occurring in Olaus Magnus and in the Nuremberg Chronicle, the catastrophe of which bears an abvious resemblance to the fury, of Lenore. This incident perhaps has been used by fome Minnefinger, and has contributed its Sparklet to kindle the imagination of Bürger.

DEAR SIR,

Na fhort excurfion to the Lower to flop for dinner at the polt-houfe of Glandorf, a fmall place in the bishoprick of Ofnabruck. Befides my fellow-traveller, a gentleman of Valenciennes, there was no other company but a young chanoineffe of the abbey of Effen, who was going on a visit to her noble parents in the neighbourhood of Onabruck.-Dinner was ferved, and the poftmafter, a Mr. Cordes, joined us, to do the honcurs of the table rather than to partake of the fare. My Frenchman had foon engaged in a converfation with the lady; and, tandis qu'il pouffoit fa fortune, I boarded the poftmafter, in whom I was agreeably furprised to meet with a man of learning, aftonishingly well verfed both in English and German literature. He feemed pleafed to hear that the latter had become more than ever familiar to the English reader. I mentioned fundry good tranflations to him, and when I happened to fpeak of the late elegant edition of Burger's Leonora, he could not refrain from faying, "I with they had honoured the work with a lefs fine edition, and not accufed the author of plagiarifm." Thefe words occafioned a more minute enquiry. He infifted upon the fable being of Saxon ori

gin, and offered to produce an old man, an inhabitant of the place, who would repeat nearly the whole poem in Low Dutch; adding that this man frequently heard it recited in his youth, by people ftill older than himself, from whom he had learned it. My time would not permit me to ftop for the man; but having told Mr Cordes that I meant to come back by the fame road, he had the goodnefs to promise me his opinion in writing concerning the origin of the fable; which, in fact, I found in readinefs when I arrived a fecond time at Glandorf, and herewith I fend you a tranflation of it. You will as a patron of German literature find means of giving it publicity, and thereby remove the error beautiful Ballad have been led concerning into which the admirers of that truly its origin.

Hamburg, April 9, 1799.

Your's, &c.

C. L.

AGREEABLY to your kind request I communicate to you with pleasure, in writing all I know, and what already I have told you by word of mouth, concerning Bürger's Leonora, confidered as a popular tale in Lower Saxony. I do fo with the greateft fatisfaction, as it confirms Bürger's own affertion: than an old LowDutch ballad furnished him with the idea of that piece, which affertion you will fee ftated German Mercury (ater Deutsche Mercur, fect. 2. and in Sect 4. of Mr. Schlegel) in contradiction to fome English antiquarians, who fay, that Bürger took his Leonora from a collection of old Ballads, published in London, in three volumes, in 1723, and in which the matter of that Poem is contained in a story, entitled: The Suffolk Miracle, or a Relation of a young Man, who a Month after his death appeared to his Sweetheart.

I have often heard the tale repeated by fundry perfons of this place; and among others by a man of the age of 75 years. A till greater proof of its being a popular tale of Low Saxon origin, is its being fo univerfally known in thofe parts; and I heard it feveral times recited almoft in the fame manner by my step-mother, who is 71 years old, lives in a place called Rheine, at five German miles' distance from hence, in the bishopric of Munfter, and affured me, that in her youth fhe heard it often related by feveral people. The ftory runs as follows:

The lover enlifts in the army, is killed, appears by night gently rapping at the door of his fweetheart. She asks, Who's there?" Dien leef is dar," is his answer.