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SOMETIMES the conduct of a man of sense, and of a weak man, will be exactly the same in the same circumstances. But examine into their respective motives, and you will not find a resemblance in them.

row.

We triumph over a bad habit more easily to-day than to-mor

It is no uncommon thing to find some foolish persons who affect to appear worse than they are. Vice has her hypocrites, as well as virtue.

RICHES obey a wise man, and govern a fool.

ENVY is the vermin of glory.

PREPARE for the worst, while you hope for the best.

MEANNESS is a medal whose reverse is insolence.

He who is charitable from ostentation, will never relieve dis tress in secret.

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WHAT will suffice those who can select wisely, and be content? A library, with a few books; a dispensary, with a few medicines; and a society with a few friends.

No persons are more empty, than those who are full-of themselves.

"IN youth," says Lord Orford, "we are attentive to neatness, in order to please. And in old age not to dis-please."

HUDIBRAS beautifully tells us, that a sincere friend is

"True as the dial to the sun,

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AND another observer of life, very philosophically says, false friend is like the shadow on a sun dial, and vanishes at the smallest cloud."

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed! as in filling a vessel, drop by drop, there is a last drop which makes it run over, so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. This delicious drop, the sweetest in the cup of life, happy is he who has experienced! This moment, worth whole years of common life, fortunate is he who has enjoyed!

BAD company will make the good wicked-and the wicked

worse.

Q. Z.

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SKETCH
OF

AN HISTORICAL EULOGIUM

ON

The Marshal Duke of Berwick.

FROM MONTESQUIEU'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS.

IN 1708 Marshal Berwick, at first appointed to command the army in Dauphiny, was sent to command on the Rhine, under the Elector of Bavaria, He put an end to a project of M. de Chamillard, whose chief incapacity consisted in his not being conscious of it. Prince Eugene having gone from Germany to Flanders, Marshal Berwick followed him. After the loss of the battle of Oudenarde, the enemy formed the siege of Lisle, on which occasion Marshal Berwick formed a junction between his army and that of M. de Vendôme. It required miracles without number to make us lose Lisle. Vendôme was irritated against Berwick, who made some objections to serving under him; and from that time no advice given by the former was accepted. The mind of Vendôme, at other times so great, preserved the most lively resentment for that species of affront which he conceived to be offered to him. The King and the Duke of Burgundy, divided between their contradictory propositions, had no other part to take but that of paying deference to the opinion of M. de Vendôme. To effect the loss of that fortress, it was requisite that the king should send to the army, in order to reconcile the generals, a minister who was blind; that the infirmity of human nature, which cannot allow any thing good when done by persons to whom an aversion is conceived, should, through the whole of that campaign, have infested the heart and the mind of M. de Vendôme; that a lieutenant-general should possess sufficient favour at court to occasion two misfortunes to the army, for ever memorable--its defeat and its capitulation; that the siege of Brussels should first have been rejected, and afterwards undertaken; that it should be determined to defend, at the same time, the Scheld and the canal, the effect of which was, that nothing was defended. The charges of these two great men against each other are still extant; the letters written by the King, the Duke of Burgundy, the Duke de Vendôme, the Duke of Berwick, and M. de Chamillard, are extant also. From these it will appear that these adversaries lost their temper, not to say their reason. God forbid that I should call in question the eminent qua

F FVOL. XVI.

lities of the Duke de Vendôme! Could Marshal Berwick revisit this world, he would be sorry for what passed: but on this occasion I shall repeat what Homer said of Glaucus---" Jove deprived Glaucus of his prudence, and he exchanged his golden shield for one of brass." That golden shield M. Vendôme ever preserved until this campaign, and he recovered it soon after.

In 1709 Marshal Berwick was sent to cover the frontiers of Provence and Dauphiny; and though M. de Chamillard, who starved every service, had been displaced, he found himself in want of ammunition and provisions. His genius supplied every thing. I have heard him say, that in his distress he made use of a carriage-load of money going from Lyons to the royal treasury; he observed to M. D'Angervilliers, who had been his intendant at the time, that, according to the rules, they both were liable to be tried for it, but that an army which had a kingdom to preserve should not be left without subsistence.

The Marshal Duke of Berwick devised such a plan of defence, that it was impossible to penetrate into France on any side, because he formed the string, and the Duke of Savoy was obliged to make a bow. I well remember, when I was in Piedmont, hearing officers, who were in service at the time, give that as the reason which always prevented them from penetrating into France. They were making the eulogium of the Duke of Berwick, though, then, I did not know it.

By this plan of defence, the Marshal found that he had no need of a great army, and was able to send twenty battalions to the king, which was a very important present at that time.

It would be very silly in me to pronounce an opinion on his capacity for war, which I do not understand. Nevertheless, if I might be allowed to hazard one, I should say, that as every great man has a peculiar talent in which he excels, and which forms his distinctive merit, the peculiar talent of Marshal Berwick was to wage a defensive war, to retrieve affairs in desperate situations, and to be perfectly well acquainted with the resources which could be resorted to in unfortunate circumstances. So much was he sensible of his forte lying in this, that I have often heard him say the thing he most wished for in his life was to have a good place to de

fend.

Peace was signed at Utrecht in 1713. The King died in 1715, and the Duke of Orleans became regent of the kingdom. The Duke of Berwick was sent to command in Guienne; fortunately indeed for me, for it was there I had the happiness to know him,

The shuffling of Cardinal Alberoni gave birth to that war which Marshal Berwick waged on the Spanish frontiers. The command of Guienne was taken from him by the change of administration, on the death of the Duke of Orleans. He then divided his time between the court, Paris, and his house de Fitzjames. That will afford me an opportunity to speak of him as a private man, and to draw his character as briefly as I can.

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He scarcely obtained any favours in which his wishes were not anticipated. When his interest was in question he required to bẹ solicited. His air, cold, somewhat dry, and occasionally even a little severe, would make him at times appear rather out of his proper place in our nation, if great souls and personal merit had any peculiar country.

He never knew how to say what are called smart things. He was particularly exempt from the innumerable inquietudes to which. those are continually exposed who rate themselves too highly. He almost always took his own counsel: if he had not too good an opinion of himself, neither had he too much distrust: he knew, he judged of himself with the same good sense that he did of all other things.No man ever knew better how to avoid the excess, or, if I may use the word, the snares of virtue: for instance, he liked the clergy--he was well pleased with them in a modest station, but would never allow himself to be governed by them, especially if they exceeded, in the least respect, the line of their own duty: he indeed exacted more of them than they would have required of him. It was impossible to know him, and not be in love with virtue, so much tranquillity and happiness of mind did he exhihit, especially when compared with those passions which agitated others of a like condition. I have seen, remotely, in the works of Plutarch, what great men have been; I have beheld in him, more closely, what they now are. I was only acquainted with his private life: I have not seen the hero, but the man of whom the hero is composed. He loved his friends; his manner was to confer benefits without saying any thing; was an invisible hand by which you found yourself obliged. He possessed a great stock of religion: never did man better follow those laws of the gospel which are most painful to people of the world; never did man better practise religion, and talk so little of it. As he never spoke ill of any one, so neither did he praise any but such as he thought deserved it. He hated those disputes, which, under the pretext of the glory of God, are in reality personal. The misfortunes of the king, his father, taught him that they expose themselves to great errors who shew too much credu

it

lity, even towards persons of the most respectable character.When appointed commandant in Guienne, the reputation of his serious disposition made us apprehensive of him; but scarcely was he arrived before he was beloved by every one, nor was there any place where his great qualities were held in higher admiration.

No one ever afforded a greater example of contempt for money. In all his expences there was that moderation which would have left him much at his ease, because he gave in to no frivolous expendi ture; yet was he always behind-hand; for, notwithstanding this his natural frugality, he spent a great deal. During the commands he held, all the poor English or Irish families that had any connexion with any of his house, were allowed a kind of right to introduce themselves to him, and it is singular that a man who knew how to maintain such great order in his army, and had so much justness in his plans, lost all these qualities whenever his privatë interests were concerned.

He was not of the number of those who try the more to flatter the authors of a disgrace, the more they have to complain of them: he went directly to him against whom he had a subject of complaint, told him the sentiments of his heart, and when that was done, he said no more about it.

I remember the time when the account arrived of the Mar'shal's death: never did any thing more resemble the state in which France was placed at the death of M. de Turenne. Both left great designs unfinished; both an army in danger; both closed their career by a death, the manner of which interests more than those which happen in the usual manner; and both possessed that modest merit which claims our fondest regret, and our tenderest emotions.

He left a tender wife, who passed the remainder of her life in mourning, and children, whose virtues make, better than I can do, the eulogium of their father.

Marshal Berwick wrote his own memoirs, and in this respect I can here repeat what I before said in "The Spirit of Laws," on the relation of Hanno :--" The relation of Hanno is a beautiful scrap of antiquity. The same man who executed has written. He has shewn no ostentation in his recitals. Great captains write their actions with simplicity; because they are more glorious for what they have done, than for that which they have said."

[To be continued.]

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