ceived at fome distance from the feven mouths of the Nile the poor lo, whom the barbarous Eumenide drew from the waves, where in defpair fhe had precipitated herfelf. Her weak and uniteady fteps, the palenefs of her countenance, and the wildness of her looks, but too ftrongly marked her weakened state. But the better to exprefs her great and unlimited diftrefs, heard her conjure Jupiter in a feeble voice, intermingled with fighs, to grant her death in the following words: "Terminate, O powerful mafter of the world, my torments." Then every paffion which claims the leaft affinity to tendernefs or pity tumultuoufly poffeffed my foul, and had nearly deranged its faculties. So violently was I feized, that I could willingly have ftrangled all the divinities who were perfecutors of innocence and beauty, not excepting even Jupiter himself, against whom I vented many a filent imprecation. Happily I was not in the pit, or I verily believe I could not have refrained from jumping on the ftage, and knocking down the fury, or from fending her back with a few good kicks to her infernal place. How ever, it is true, I had foon reafon to appeafe myself; for the fickle fon of Saturn having promifed his better half to be henceforth infenfible to the charms of the daughter of Inachus, the not only ceafed to perfecute her, but even confented that, under the great name of Ifis, fhe fhould augment the crowd of divinities which were adored by the Egyptians. But as experience had taught her how little the promifes of Jupiter were to be depended upon, fhe very properly exacted, that he fhould render it inviolable by an oath which he dared not infringe, and this he did with much dignity in the following pathetic formula: "Ye ebon waves of Styx! by ye I swear: "The oath I make, tremendous river "hear." What a pity it is they have never yet invented among men an oath fo facred and indiffoluble for kings and lovers, as the fable pretends this one to have been among the gods! I was fo enraptured at the complaifance of Madam Juno, that I wished her all poffible charms to fix her inconftant hufband. With regard to the new goddefs whom I faw borne towards the heavens in company with many other divinities, all feated in the fame cloud, I wished that the pleafure or rather the ennui of immortali ty might indemnify her for all the fufferings which had fo much excited my compaffion, and that the people of Egypt, in rendering her the honours of invocation, might diftinguish their adoration from that which they rendered the alders and onions of their gardens, as also the fishes and crocodiles of their river. With this apotheofis concluded thẹ opera of Ifis. Hitherto I had defpifed thofe courtiers who had affirmed that I fhould one day or other derange by application the organs of reafon. But I fincerely confefs, that on the occafion juft mentioned that I had nearly fulfilled their prediction. The violent commotion and the various movements which fo many dazzling and continued objects (as it were one upon the other) had caused in my brain did not fail to influence all my perfon. Such were their effects, that, during many days, I entirely loft my appetite and reft. Distraction and languor were fo evident in all my actions, that any one would have taken me for a blockhead, or a man plunged in drunkennefs. I always feemed as though in the midst of the opera ; and the apparent progidies which [fo much admired, and of the mechanism of which I was ignorant, continued to excite my applaufes. Similar to the man of Argos, of whom Horace speaks, who, being alone in Fuit haud ignobilis Argus the theatre, and no actor or spectator appearing, imagined he heard the finest tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles. This extreme agitation, joined to fome anti-christian maxims which I had obferved, inclined me to think that it was not at the opera where youth should repair to learn to fubdue his predominant paffions. I remember I was much offended when I learnt that fuch a fpecious spectacle had been introduced into France by an abbé, and that he had drawn it from a country which I confidered as the afylum of the moft pure and auftere morality. But I have fince wished that Italy had beftowed only fuch prefents on other nations: her impofts and her Machiavelism have caufed many other ravages than the enchantments of her mufic and her operas. In order to divert my affecting melancholy I went to Verfailles, where I arrived precifely at the time when they were going to exhibit the waterworks before his Royal Highnefs of Lorrain. On beholding the fountains, the cafcades, and a thousand other hydraulic delufions, I foon fell again into that which I fought to diffipate. In the fyftem of paganism, it would have been difficult to have thought otherwise than that the multitude of wonders which I beheld were rather the effect of Divine Power than of the ingenuity of man; nor did it feem poflible but that Neptune malt have been prefent to have forced fuch a prodigious quantity of water to dart itfelf to fuch an extraordinary height, These gardens filled me with admiration from their diverfity, their vaft extent, and the magnificent regularity of their diftribution. But my furprise foon ceafed when they affured me, that they had often feen Louis XIV, with the vine knife in his hand, like Cyrus the younger, and the most illuftrious dictators of Rome, who practifed the leffons of agriculture which Varro, Virgil, and Quintilian, had rendered worthy of confuls and kings. Hence a moft judicious French author has obferved, that the earth, far from being infenfible to the cares of thefe auguft cultivators, teftified from its manner its pride and gratitude. I readily agreed with those with whom I converfed at Verfailles; but they thought me mad when I told them that, according to my opinion, Louis XIV better merited the furname of Great, from his tafte for agriculture and the fine arts, than by his conquefts and the perpetual alarms into which he had plunged Europe during the longeft reign ever known. It was at Verfailles that I first faw the precious fhrub that bears the coffee, and a number of other rare plants, the fight of which afforded me a fingular pleafure. I imagined to myfelf, that curiofity was not the fole motive which they had for bringing them from their natural climate; but that, by an infinitely more noble principle, they had procured them from fo great a distance, and at fo great an expence, with the defign of trying how far they might be ufeful to mankind in general. For who knows what advantage the difcovery of a plant, either farinaceous, medicinal, or poffeffing other qualities proper to excite agreeable fenfations, might be productive of to fociety, fuppofing that it thrives equally in our countries as in those where it vegetates naturally? Perhaps a fingle one of this kind might be fufficient to form a new branch of commerce capable of enriching many provinces. Of this the tobacco and the orange-tree, which a Portuguese failor brought from Macao, are proofs. Demand of the inhabitants of Southern Africa, of what value to them at prefent is the attempt which the Dutch have made to plant vine-stocks from the Canary ifles op the hills of the Cape of Good Hope! All the victories which the voluptuous Lucullus obtained over the great Mithridates have obtained him much less honour, in my opinion, than the advantage which he procured to Italy by introducing the first cherry-tree which they ever faw there, and which he brought, fays Pliny, from the environs of Cerafus, a maritime city of the kingdom of Pont. As there is unquestionably more true glory in inventing fome new means of maintaining a state than in conquering it, those who prefide over the education of princes would do much better if they were to inculcate this truth, than to refound inceffantly in their ears the pretended great actions of Alexander and of Cæfar. As for me, if I had been fo unfortunate as to live in thofe dark ages of idolatry, as foon as the theologicians of that time (namely the poets) had infinuated to me that Ceres, Triptolemus, and Bacchus, had taught to man the art of culti vating wheat and the vine, I fhould not have hesitated a moment to have preferred adoration to them above all the other deities. Perhaps illufion might have feduced me evento imagine that fuperftition could not be a crime when gratitude was the principle. Next to the fpouting waters and the foreign plants, that which most at tracted my admiration, in traverfing the gardens of Verfailles, was the prodigious number of ftatues with which it was peopled. I there beheld, for the first time, the group of the three goddeffes, who, for an apple, had the imprudence to expofe all their charms to the eyes of a Phrygian fhepherd: I thought mine would never ceafe to contemplate them. I found them fo accomplished, that if, like Pygmalion, I could have animated them, there is all probability that I fhould have returned to Lorrain, if not in good at least in handfome company. I was, alfo, equally furprised to meet in these charming places the reprefentations of all the grotefque figures to which profane antiquity lavifhed its incenfe. In fact, I thought they had * Now Kerefoun. done much better if they had employed fo many precious marbles on the refpectable bufts of thefmall number of kings verfed in the true art of reigning; which confifts fimply in conducting the people to felicity by the road which would be to them the moft lawful and the most easy. I fhould have beheld with pleasure there the bufts of a George D'Amboife, of a Sully, of a Colbert, and of fome other true fathers of their country, as they were its advocates and protectors. Thofe of Alexander and of Cæfar, and many other heroic murderers, had been to me but pagods in comparison with those of literary heroes, who, by the extent and fublimity of their know, ledge, the elevation of their fentiments, and by the purity of their manners, have contributed more to ennoble humanity among their com. patriots, and to free them from the yoke of barbarifm, the spirit of fervitude, and the ruft of prejudice : fuch objects had doubtless affected me much more beneficially than the vain images of a Cephalaus, of an Endymion, of an Adonis, of the obfcure divinity of Lampfaque, and of all the mythological nonsense which poetry and fculpture have invented. I know that Rome and Athens were thus amufed, as in France; but I know alfo, that at the fame time they knew to employ the chifel of the Myronfand of Phidias to perpetuate the public gratitude towards great men, who, by their courage or their talents, had fignalized their zeal for the public good. If the antient enemies of Greece and of liberty, fuch as the Medes and the Perfians, have not tranfmitted to pofterity any monument of this kind, the reafon was, that at Suza, at Ecbatana, and at Perfepolis, there were only flaves and courtiers, and that at all times and in all places where defpotifm has dominated the facred name of country and of citizen, had not, as it were, any fignification. I have often heard them debate in France on the merit of the Dutch, like the Greeks did on me that this monument was much But draw leffons very different from that of the breviary. After having traverfed the parterres and groves of Versailles, I was admitted into the interior of the fuperb palace which embellishes them. It appeared to me truly worthy of the monarch to whom they had attributed fo much wifdom, and the capacity which he poffeffed to govern many worlds, according to the motto which he had himfelf adopted. If ever the fplen * dor of riches had been able to infpire me with refpect, I had been feized with it at the fight of the immenfe quantities which thone from all parts of this temple of Plutus. But I candidly confefs that the misfortunes of my infancy had extremely prejudiced me againft this fumptuoas place. I could not but confider it as the arfenal where had been forged all the thunderbolts which, under the name of pecuniary edicts, had defolated my country, and had reduced me, more than once, to implore death to deliver me from nakedness, from hunger, and from all its confequent miferies. So that I quitted this palace with a pleasure equal to the pain which others feel at departing from it. SIR, IT is at once remarkable and fur prifing, that, in almoft every nation, the first and the most celebrated writers have become illuftrious from excellence in that which is most dif ficult: I mean in poetry. Thus Orpheus, Homer, and Hefiod, among the Greeks, preceded Herodotus, Xenophon, Demofthenes, and the other eminent profe-writers of that rabbins are likewife of opinion, that, celebrated country. The moft learned tiful marble, a Venus emerging from To the Editor of the Univerfal Mag. the waves; the rape of a Sabine; the ravishment of Orithys and of Proferpine; and fome other objects of fimilar importance! I was informed that the holy Bifhop had fuch a particular care for them, that during the winters he had them cloathed, to preferve them from the inclemencies of the air; which would not a little have aftonished me, had they not added, that he did as much to a great number of the poor of his diocefe. I could fimply have wifhed, that, inftead of permiting his gardens to ferve as a walk for the young ecclefiaftics of his epifcopal feminary, he had, on the contrary, interdicted the entrance to them; for I obferved fome figures to be very indifferently clothed, and from the attitude of which they might among * Non pluribus impar. in the literature of our own country, Chaucer, Spencer, Shakspear, Jonfon, Cowley, Milton, Butler, opened the road to the most perfect of our profe writers: as Bolingbroke, Steele, Addifon, Robertson, Sterne, Johnson, and others, who are now regarded as models for the whole nation. It is equally true, that, among the Irish and Scots, thofe celebrated bards who are yet read with pleafure, and many of whofe poems yet awaken the foul of fympathy, long preceded the distinguished writers in profe who have fince ornamented thofe countries. Let us alfo turn our view towards the French. The epiftles and epigrams of Clement Marot, the odes of Malherbe, the pastorals of Racan, the first comedies and tragedies of Corneille, and the primal pieces of Molière, were indubitably prior to the immortal productions of Pascal, Boffuet, Flechier, Fenelon, Maffilon, la Bruyere, &c. In what manner can this be ac counted for? Is it that genius fou rishes beft in rude and uncultivated times, and that refinement and art are inimical to its progrefs? The confideration of this fact may afford matter for fpeculation to fome of your intelligent correfpondents, who would much oblige me, and, I dare fay, others, by their opinion. Perhaps, indeed, I may, at some future period, offer you, myself, a few remarks; but, for the prefent, I conclude by fubfcribing myself Yours, &c. A QUERIST, |