Such is the character which' M. Necker has given of his wife; and it cannot but prepoffefs us in favour of these volumes. As a compation to this picture, we will exhibit, in part, the portrait of M. Necker, drawn by her hand, in 1787.

O thou who haft at all times been the object of all my affections! thou who cant not reproach me with having given to vain pleasures the days which duty and tenderness required to be confecrated to thee, fuffer me, before time or disease fhall fnatch me from thy bofom, to become the faithful interpreter of thy renown! I would fhow thee to thy own eyes fuch as it will one day make thee appear! I would fhow thee to thyfelf as thou art! Come and contemplate thy image in a heart which was never filled by any other read there the permanent tablet of thy rare virtues, and fecure thyfelf from thy own diftruft; let that heart which has never deceived thee, teach thee to render juftice to thyself, and permit not calumny to trouble the destiny which thy eminent virtues have rendered so fair,'

M. Necker loves glory; he is not without felf-love, if that appellation may be given to the reasonable consciousnefs of our faculties; and yet he is of all men the leaft felfish. Beyond the reign of opinion, he accounts himfelf as nothing, and even that opinion he only esteems before he has obtained it. He purfues glory and praise as hunters purfue a prey, which they neglect and defpife as foon as it has fallen at their feet.'

I have never known any one more virtuous as a public man, or more virtuous as a private man; and yet never two characters had fewer refemblances. The public man is exempt from all defect; the private man is virtuous even in his defects. The one is firm, and the other is weak; the one is œconomical, the other is liberal; the one is fevere, the other indulgent. The one reafons, the other feels; the one yields only to motives of juftice, while the other yields to all the feelings of humanity; the one furrounds himself with ice, that he may drive back all the force of life to the heart; the other obeys the firft impreffion; and we dif cover, in all parts of his exiftence, that warmth of fenfibility which the public man referves for the nation. As a public man, we have feen M. Necker avaricious of his time, reckoning the minutes, retrenching the things that most interested him; as a private man, we fee him amufing himfelf with mere trifles, playing like a child, and uniting all his life with thofe who love him. In the former capacity, we have seen him requiring affiduous labour, and irritated at the

flightest negligence: in the latter, he fcarcely dares demand from those who furround him the most common attentions: it is necessary to fly to meet his wifhes; an air a little less open repels him; he would have nothing but from feeling, and thinks nothing due to him from any other fource.

There never was a more original mind: he always' digs in his own foil; he there finds inexhauftible riches, like those mines which we discover in the bowels of the earth, without knowing how they were formed there, although they may fuffice for our wants and those of pofterity. He has fucceffively brought forward in his reflections all poffible ideas, without knowing the opinion of others, and even without feeking it. He finds refources in the most difficult circumstances; he removes the obstacles to thought as he does the obftacles to bufinefs, and finds out the centre in the midft of darkness, as another would do in full day; it appears, indeed, as if he had many fenses that are unknown to us. In his youth he reflected always, and read nothing; fo that his mind has fomething of the antique; one might say that it had exifted before the others. Democritus believed it to be his duty to deprive himself of fight, that he might not be disturbed in his ftudies by external objects: the man of genius, who would not be led away from his own thoughts by thofe of another, follows a fimilar fyftem; he rejects all light from without, as he would receive it only from his own understanding. The majority of thofe perfons who do not renew their thoughts by reading, have fomething too fubtle; in drawing from one bundle all that must furround their spindle, they are obliged to draw the thread extremely fine to make it laft. But M. Necker is very different: whatever comes from him takes a remarkable confiftence; the moft trivial things aggrandise themselves in the profundity of his thoughts; he refembles those wonderful animals who change the water which nourishes them into branches of coral. He is cer tainly a man of genius; but he has no right to be proud, for he has done nothing by himfelf; nature completed him as he is, and he owes even the ufe of his faculties to circumftances and to folicitations. His reflection is involuntary; he reflects when he ought to act; he employs himfelf in details as in general ideas; he is governed by the movements of his genius, as others are by the impulfe of their paffions. He has ideas of his own upon all fubjects, and yet he cannot withdraw himfelf from the dominion which the fuggeftions of others have over him: foreign ideas are to him fo many fhackles which clog and delay him if you wish him to proceed, he must difembarras himself. In fine, his genius is all or nothing; he muft

enter into a fubject, he muft penetrate it, he muft follow it through all its ramifications, and muft command it; other wife he will not intereft himfelf in it.'.

Awork like this, confifting of detached thoughts and anecdotes, with a few letters and fragments of letters, is fcarcely a proper fubject of criticism. M. Necker, attempted to methodife and arrange his wife's papers; but he foon found it an impracticable and ufelefs talk. The book is therefore a mifcellany of every thing. Some of the witticifms contained in it may be traced to our countryman Miller, of facetious memory; but perhaps they may be new in Switzerland; as, on the other hand, what may be antiquated jokes in that country, will amufe us in this by their novelty. Our extracts will prove that the reader may find in these volumes much amusement and fome inftruction.

I know fome metaphyficians (fays Madame Necker) to whom I will never again speak of the beauties of nature ; they have long neglected the intermediate ideas which link fenfations with thoughts; and their minds are fo much occupied with abftractions, that one cannot make them partake of enjoyments which always fuppofe the relations of the foul with real and external objects.'

A man of genius is the greatest miracle of nature; and M. de Buffon never fpoke to me of the wonders of the world without making me think that he was one himself."

A German leaped out of a window :·-- "What are you doing," faid a perfon to him." I am endeavouring to be lively," was the answer.'

A woman's pleading! I defired this man to make me fome handfome figures-like my lord the judge. He has made me ugly ones, like himfelf. Ought I to pay for his tapestry? She gained her caufe.'

We might define all crimes, the facrifices of the future to the prefent; and all virtues, the facrifices of the present to the future.'

Mr. Gibbon's work is the faithful copy of the fine genius which conceived it; a genius which always found in its brilliant imagination the means of painting truth, and in its erudition a fruitful fource of wit and feeling. If this hiftory of many centuries had not been difhonoured by the ignoble and fterile opinions of the philofophers of our age,

5

we might have placed it in the fame rank with Salluft and with Livy: but men of great talents have, almost all, the heel of Achilles; and the weaknefs of their judgment, which fhows itself in fome effential part of their writings, may thus deprive them of immortality.'

Simplicity (faid M. Necker) is like a straight line in geometry-the shortest line between two points.

'When we lose our way, it is better to be upon a bad horse than a good one; for he will not carry us fo far: a faithful image of a man of genius or a fool in an error !'

Queen Chriftina, in abdicating her throne to give herself up entirely to the literary world, refembles that woman who fuffered two fine teeth to be drawn to please her lover, because he was always faying that he was enamoured only of her mind, and that he regarded not her external charms. His miftrefs being lefs beautiful, he loved her no longer.'

3 'An ill-natured wit said of some person, "He is fo little and so thin, that, in cafe of neceffity, he might serve as a foul for fome body." I fometimes hear arguments fo dull, and reflections so trite, that I am tempted to think the fouls of those who make them might, in cafe of neceffity, ferve as bodies for men of talents.'

Boiffi reproached the poet Roi for wearing a dirty fhirt. He replied, "Every one has not been fo fortunate as to marry his wafherwoman." Boiffi had married his.'

The blockhead discovers a man of genius by an instinct of antipathy, much sooner than the man of genius discovers a blockhead."

A skilful agricultor, not being able at firft to perfuade the people to plant potatoes, left a whole field of them unguarded, in the hope of being robbed : fortunately he was fo, and the people accustomed themselves to that food. Every man of genius, who prefers truth and the public good to his own vanity, will be of a fimilar opinion, and be pleased at being furrounded by plagiaries.'

To defcribe nature well, it is neceffary to have seen it. To attempt painting a tempeft without having traverfed the feas and undergone the dangers of a fhipwreck, is like wifhing to draw the portrait of a woman from the defcrip

tion of her features: the phyfiognomy must always be

deficient."

Nothing is fo ridiculous in ftyle as the imitation of fervour. All the new writers of novels wish to tread in the fteps of Rouffeau. The heroine of one of these ephemeral productions has a lover in prison, about to mount the fcaffold fhe writes to her friend, "It is midnight, and I have not yet closed my eyes."

The filence of night adds to the foft feelings, to the happiness of loving, by fixing all our thoughts upon the object which occupies us; night alfo increafes forrow, for it feems to leave us alone with our own hearts, by feparating us from all nature.'

The first wife of the prefent [late] king of Pruffia had fent for fome ftuffs from France, and would not pay the officer who demanded the duty. She was angry, and gave him a box on the ear. He complained to Frederic, who replied, The ftuffs are for the princefs, the duty is for me, and the box on the ear for you."

"It is mentioned in a fong, that a certain king, who was very fond of dancing, ufed to put nut-fhells in his shoes, to mingle pain with pleasure. The apologue is ingenious: vice and the faults of character always produce the effect of the nut-fhells."

In the correfpondence we find little of the ease of epiftolary unreferve. We extract a part of a letter to M. de Sauffure.

No, Sir, it is not the carcafe of the universe, as you have with fo much energy expreffed it, that you have feen extended under your feet; it is, on the contrary, the noble and coloffal figure of a tremendous and fublime nature. We have followed you tremblingly amidst precipices and dangers; you have made us experience all the feelings of hope and fear which render the life of the chamois-hunter fo delightful and fo terrible; we have fancied ourfelves enjoying with you that magnificent fight which ftruck you, when, like a new Enceladus, you had fcaled Mont-Blanc. Certainly the chaos of Milton, the hell of Virgil, and the palace of the Gnomes in the Thousand and One Nights, are only childish inventions, compared with the wonders which you have unfolded to us; for nature and reality have a character which imagination cannot attain. There is, fays M. de Buffon, a kind of courage of mind in being able