mind. A perfon may be capable of irrational, unfeeling, incurable bigotry, who would not be guilty of a direct fabrication; and a fanatic, who has taken up the trade of authorship, though not likely to invent proofs deftructive of the favourite creed, might yet find it convenient to gratify the curiofity of the public, referving a happy felf-juftification in the idea of repelling all this evidence, by the force of an eloquent and ingenious commentary. Our application of this prefumption to the prefent inftance may at first be fufpected of harshness: by fome courteous and gentle readers, perhaps, will be deemed ungallant. But, in an offence against generofity, and all humane feelings, we cannot permit that confideration of fex, which aggravates the delinquency, to foften the punishment. Nor will our feverity appear extreme to any, who shall labour, as we have painfully done, through the large portion of these volumes, of which Mifs Williams claims the demerit.

Our readers must be anxious to perufe fome of the letters; and we are no lefs impatient to quit, for such interefting objects, the irksome and humiliating task of expofing impofture, and chaftifing conceited dulnefs. But no part of our duty may be difpenfed with. The three volumes, now in our hands, furnish a most reprehenfible fpecimen of what is called book-making. All the original materials might have been contained in a very small volume; but the article (fo it will be called in Paternofter Row) is made up by a tranflation of all the letters, and by a long commentary on each. The ftyle of the tranflation, and the temper, as well as the materials of the commentary, are defects of a different kind, which we fhall prefently notice. But this method of adulterating their wares, of afforting unmerchantable commodities with thofe of neceffary demand, of making out a large bulk by a mixture of rubbish, is an impofition practifed upon the public by the literary tradefmen, and ought to be repreffed, if pollible, by literary police. The tranflation is fuperfluous to thofe who have accefs to the original; the original is uflefs to thofe who must remain content with a tranflation; and the commentary, we are satisfied, will not be perused by either the one or the other. For the accommodation of the public, we hope fome bookfeller will undertake a correct edition of the originals alone.

We have fubmitted to compare the tranflation of Mifs Williams, with a great many of the original letters; and our opinion is, that it is executed very inadequately, and betrays frequent marks of carelefsnefs. The peculiar merits of the King's style are loft, and the character of his compofition almoft obliterated: in place of a natural expreffion, which varies with the feelings of the writer, and rifes above its ufual plainnefs, with

Q 3

out

out effort, into dignity or tenderness, we get for ever the tawdry bombaft and the chilling affectation of Mifs Helen Maria Williams. In a letter of the 26. Auguft, 1789, Lewis has described with a juft concifenefs of metaphor, the ftate of his public feelings; en ne me livrant point à cet enthousiafme qui s'est emparé de tous les ordres, mais qui ne fait que gliffer fur mon ame: ' inftead of which the English reader is to be fickened with the torrent of enthusiasm which hurries on all the different orders of the ftate, but which only glides lightly over the furface of my foul.' The picturefque word torrent is an efpecial favourite with this compiler of novels, who has prefumed to transcribe the forrows of the laft of the Bourbons: Sans moyens répreffifs,' (he laments, at a more difaftrous period to the old Duc de Polignac), Sans moyens répreffifs, je fais feul tête à l'orage; mais cela peut-il durer long-tems? which is thus debafed, without any means of repression, I ftem alone the formy torrent ; but can I long refift?' Again, la tourmente révolutionnaire a troublé toutes les têtes,' is rendered, the revolutionary torrent has dizzied every brain;' which makes nonsense of a correct image. In the courfe of fome pleafing thoughts relative to the education of the Dauphin, Lewis exclaims, La gloire militaire tourne la tête; eh! quelle gloire, que celle qui regarde des flots de fang humain, et ravage l'univers;' military glory, (we have it again) dizzies the brain; and what fpecies of glory is that which rolls its eye over streams of human blood,' &c. The most eafy paffages are fometimes rendered with fuch flovenly negligence, that the very tone of the English language is loft as much as the elegance of the original. Of this, the following is a fufficient fpecimen: The fentence occurs in a letter to Malesherbes, which we fhall afterwards give at full length.

་

6

• Vous balançâtes long-tems à venir refpirer, à ma cour, un air qui convenait peu à la touchante fimplicité de vos mœurs; mais Turgot yous fit entendre qu'il ne pouvait pas, fans vous, opérer un bien durable : il vous decida; et je l'en eftimai d'avantage.' Vol. I. p. 43.

You long balanced whether you should come and breathe the air of my court, fo ill in fympathy with the interefting fimplicity of your manners. Turgot made you underftand, that, without your aid, he could operate no durable good: he determined you and I esteemed him the more.' Vol. I. p. 49.

The general character indeed of the tranflation is, that it is either affectedly paraphrafed, or meanly literal. L'univerfa lité des Français,' and l'imperturbabilité,' must be bad phrafes in any dialect; they are not very bad in French, because they are not very unufual; but the litera! tranfcription of them into English is inexcufeable. We have fome other inftances ftill worfe; the fpeaks of an epuration of the legislative body,' and

of

and of those princes who have devafted the earth.' So much for her acquaintance with the language of her original country; ftill more proofs might be collected to fhew, that he is not yet naturalized to that of her adopted republic. For intance, de bonne heure,' is tranflated' often;' blanchiffeur,' whitewasher;' • rapprochement,' which is ufed by the King in allufion to a projected coalition or reconciliation of parties, becomes in her verfion approximation.' The King fays to Malefherbes, Vous êtes, fi vous me permettez de le dire, un peu égoifte dans votre vertu;' a delicate and complimentary reproach, by which he urges his requeft that the patriotic minifter would fill remain in his fervice, but which the tranflator, with rare ignorance of language and of fenfe, converts into coarfe and abfurd abufe, you are, permit me to tell you, fomewhat an egotist in your virtue.'

As fhe has contrived, even under the controul of an original text, to patch on fo much unbecoming ornament, we may of courfe expect, in the free range of her own compofition, to fnd her flaunting in all the colours and flowers that the can collect. We have lights beaming from every point of the mental horizon,' and are told of a phalanx difciplined against the eruption of research and philofophy.' Though we are once per mitted to look back through the troublous vifta of the revolu tion, yet we are from time to time reminded of our regenerated days; one is apt indeed occasionally to forget them. In a long and fenfelefs differtation which the introduces, our readers will wonder why or how, on the politics of Virgil and his ivory-gate, we are informed that that poet fometimes threw out his republican foul athwart the cuiraffed breaftplate of the courtier. Befides these pictures, which are evidently all her own, she finishes fometimes the fketches that have been left imperfect by older mafters, Boffuet, for example, and Burke. The Bishop of Meaux had declared, with confiderable truth and much bigotry, that modern infidelity was a deteftable fhoot from the fatal ftock planted in the fixteenth century, by the leaders of the reformation: it will be found,' (fays Mifs Williams), on a clofer examination, to have been rather an offset from the myfterious and monftrous trunk of papal abfurdity.' She is still more happy in another attempt of the fame kind.

It was at this period that the queen, who, like a morning ftar, had just appeared on our horizon," (to borrow the elegant phrafeology of the orator), full of life, and fplendour, and joy, found every beam refraded, when foot into the political mifl.'

Once or twice fhe is fomewhat playful and lightfome in her compofition. The exiled tyrant of Syracufe is familiarly called Denys; and a comparison of fomebody to Cæfar, for the purpofe

0 4

of

of faying there was no refemblance, ends with 'let us beg pardon of the fhade of Cæfar.' The moft ftriking effort of her gaiety is directed against chemistry, in a paffage which equally difplays her fcience and her fine writing. In a billet addreffed to Lavoifier, the King congratulates him on a recent discovery, and requests him to repeat the experiment in his prefence: even this billet is not fuffered to pafs without a commentary, of which the following paffage is only a part:

The experiments, which this celebrated philofopher is here invited to repeat before the King and his family, form the basis of the French system of chemistry. But, although they met with the royal approbation, and fince with the adherence of almoft the whole of the chemical world, this fyftem yet wants the fanction of that illuftrious experimentalist who first laid the foundation on which this aërial superstructure is reared.'

But leaving the fate of thefe gafes to the impartial investigation of the fcientific world, who can help deploring that of M. Lavoifier, and heaving a groan of execration against his hideous murderers!' Vol. I. p. 187.

Throughout all thefe comments, we have the fame contempt of anglicifm as in the tranflation. We have imperturbability again, and demoralifation.' The flight to Varennes is always ftyled the evafion from Paris.' We find that Turgot enacted the fpy of the court of France;' that Maurepas gained the amoitioned afcendancy over the monarch; and that by fome other minifters, the reputation' of fome old taxes was duly rehabilitated.' Then we hear of a mind of no very elevated texture,' and of the flight texture of moral courage.' Lewis is cenfured for having treated geometricians and metaphyficians with mifprifion.' And we are made to pronounce, if we can, a new impulfion of patriotism,' civil difruptions,' lugubrious images of the future, and much irreverential demur refpecting rights and privileges.

Half of the first volume is occupied with letters addreffed by Lewis, in the earlieft years of his reign, to his different minifters; the beft of these are to Malefherbes, on whofe character he feems always to have repofed with unabated confidence and affectionate admiration. This part of the correfpondence throws fome light on the fucceffive changes of adminiftration; in all of which, though the King was fometimes neceffitated to yield, he difplays an excellent judgment of public affairs, and appears to have been actuated by the purest love of his people. Such of thefe letters as were written to Malefherbes, are rendered more highly interefting, by giving us a view of objects placed, as it were, under the firft light and dawn of the Revolution. We are made to feel the gradual brightening of that day, which has fince been overcaft by fo foul a ftorm. Even at that early period,

with a fingularity of fentiments no lefs honourable to his patriotifm than to his fagacity, Lewis feems ready to fhare the hopes and the enthufiafm of enlightened reformers, while he trembles with folicitude for the unknown confequences of precipitate innovation. From the 14th July 1789, and the inglorious emigration of princes and courtiers which immediately followed that memorable æra, we trace all the feelings of the King, as they varied from day to day, and as he has expreffed them, with no common powers of pathos, to his relations who had deferted him, to the revolutionary leaders, and to his friend (he poffeffed but one) the aged and venerable Malefherbes. This journal of his protracted forrows clofes with the letter in which he accepts the heroic offer of that friend to appear with him at the bar of the Convention. The editor has fubjoined a few other letters, not found in the manufcript of the intended French publication, but confided to her (as the fays) by indifputable authority; thefe, if genuine, prove that Breteuil conducted his negociations for foreign aid or mediation, under the fanction of the King. The other papers, added to this collection of letters, areInftructions addreffed by Lewis to the perfon whom he had intrusted with the Dauphin's education; detached maxims on mifcellaneous topics, fome original, fome extracted; and notes, that were found in the handwriting of the King, on the margin of feveral important ftate papers. Thefe laft will be deemed valuable, not only as illuftrative of his perfonal character, but becaufe they are connected with the hiftory of fome great political tranfactions. The ftate papers, to which thefe remarks relate, are-Turgot's fcheme of municipalities, the manifefto of the French court in the American war, and Necker's memoir on provincial administrations.

We shall now gratify our readers with a confiderable number of extracts; beginning with the letters addrefied, in the year 1776, to Malefherbes and Turgot. With refpect to the first of thefe, it is proper to notice that the editor fpeaks of its having been communicated to her by Malesherbes himself.

A M. DE MALESHERBES.

• Versailles, 17. Avril, 1776.

Je n'ai pu vous exprimer affez dans notre dernier entretien, mon cher Malefherbes, tout le déplaifir que me caufait votre réfolution bien prononcée de vous démettre de votre ministère. Maintenant que j'ai réfléchi avec quelque maturité fur cet objet, je vais vous ouvrir mon cœur; et je tranfmets mes idées fur le papier, pour qu'elles ne s'échappent point de ma mémoire.

Entouré comme je le fuis d'hommes qui ont intérêt à égarer mes principes, à empêcher que l'opinion publique ne parvienne jusqu'à moi, il eft de la plus haute importance pour la profpérité de mon regne que

mes