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was directed from the pit of the theatre at Lyons, against Collot d'Herbois, a fhort time before the revolution. That infolent buffoon, not being able to bear the juft punishment of his bad acting, turned towards the pit that part of the body, which decency forbids to expofe to any one. This outrage was not overlooked; and he was obliged to make an humble apology; but from that moment he fwore everlafting hatred against the Lyonnefe.

When Lyons, after rebelling againft the Convention, was fubdued, he eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to fatiate his defire of vengeance; and appeared in that unfortunate city, rather in the character of an irritated comedian, than in that of reprefentative of the people. A new Gengis-Khan, he revenged the injuries done to Temugin; but he furpaffed the Tartar in cruelty. His atrocious fentiments are apparent in his letters: they are written in characters of blood: "Republican juftice," faid he, in one addreffed to Duplay, fen. ought to ftrike traitors like Lightning, and to leave nothing but afbes. While deftroying one infamous and rebellious city, we confolidate all the reft. We are demolishing by cannon fhot, and the explofion of gun-powder, as much as poffible. In a paffage of one of his letters to Robespierre, he complains of the tardinefs of the guillotine: "Several times, (fays he), twenty criminals have fuffered the punishment due to their crimes on the fame day; and that is fill too flow for the juftice of a nation, which ought to thunder deftruction upon all its enemies at once. We will employ ourselves in forging the thunderbolts.

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In writing to Couthen, he fays, "Take meafures with Robespierre, for finishing the decree, concerning this Commune, which cannot fubfift without danger. "When once its population is ordered to "be difcharged, it will be easy to make "them disappear, and to fay with truth, "Lyons is no more." The barbarian confeffed in a letter to Robespierre that this difcharge would include a hundred thousand individuals, working at the manufactories, and interefling to humanity, becaufe poor and oppreffed.

Errata in thefe Anecdotes in our laft. Page 467, col. 2, 1. 25, for authority read authenticity. Page 468, col. 2, 1. 21, for Roberfpierre, blind jealoufy read Robespierre's blind jealousy. Page 468, col. 2, 1. 33, for which read while. Page 468, col. 2, 1.55, for this read his.

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MEMOIRS OF FILANGIERI. AETAN FILANGIERI was born

at Naples, in the year 1751. He was a ton of the Prince of Arianiello, defcended of an illuftrious family, coeval with the original eftablishment of the monarchy of the Two Sicilies. It appears that his anceftors paffed over to Italy from France with the Norman conquerors, being in all probability natives of Angers; for the corrupt Latin name of the founder of the family was Angerius, and his children were called, in the feudal registers of the kingdom of Naples, Filii Angerii, from which the Italian name Filangieri was afterwards compounded, This family is not at prefent very opulent, a circumstance, which fuch as are acquainted with the hif tory of Naples can eafily account for; it being well known that about the year 1430, Jane, the fecond queen of Naples, to gratify the ambition of her favourite, Ser Gianni Caraciolo, High Chancellor of the kingdom, procured him a large inheritance, by enacting a law which altered the priftine mode of feudal fucceffion, and confequently deprived of their rights the family of Filangieri, which indifputably was the legal fucceffor.

Young Filangieri foon became fenfible that it was neceffary for him to acquire the ufeful attainments of fome learned profeffions, to fupport the dignity of his birth, and to compenfate for the want of a large patrimony. Accordingly he was bred to the law; the employment of an advocate being in the higheft repute at Naples, and paving the way to fuch confiderable emoluments, that even individuals of the first nobility do not difdain to follow it. He perceived, however, very foon, that the philofophical turn of his mind was not adapted to the bustle of bufinefs, and leaft of all for the chicaneries of the bar; he accordingly turned his mind to fome other means of acquiring property, and also of fatisfying his paffion for literary fame which had now become very predomi

nant.

His prefent Sicilian majefty was, in his youth, greatly delighted with military parade, and from the year 1771 to 1774 he raifed two new regiments, in which only the nobility and gentry were admitted; the rank and commiffion of officer was alfo, by the ftanding etiquette of the regiments, to be granted to no individual who did not belong to the privileged caft of peers. Whatever might have been the merit of these military gentlemen in the dangers and laborious exertions of their profeffion in time of war, they were cer

tainly well calculated to reflect the greatest fplendour on the majefty of a court, in public ceremonies, in time of peace. Two numerous regiments, compofed of young perfons from the age of fixteen to twenty, of a tall ftature, richly and elegantly dreffed, diftinguished by the luftre of their birth, and commanded by officers of the first nobility, difplaying in martial pomp all the magnificence characteristic of the South of Italy, afforded a fuperb view, fuperior, in the judgment of many travellers, to any thing of the kind known in other countries. Filangieri was appointed au officer in one of thefe regiments, which was called of the Liparets; and if he yielded to his comrades in the paraphernalia of drefs, he certainly excelled molt of them in comelinefs and elegance of perfon.

Much about the fame time, in November 1774, he had an opportunity of difplaying his attainments in civil and politi cal jurifprudence. By an edict from the king it was ordered, that, in order to provide fome remedy for the overgrown abufes of the tribunals, and to the intolerable defpotifm of the fupreme courts of justice, every definitive fentence fhould be juftified, by quoting fome text from the Roman, canonical, or common law, on which it was grounded. Filangieri hereupon publifhed a pamphlet entitled-Reflections on the King's Edit, &c.

In the year 1775, his uncle, Seraphim Filangieri, archbishop of Palermo, who had occafionally been alfo viceroy of Si cily, being promoted to the archbishopric of Naples, and to the dignity of prior of the Conftantinian Order, inherent to the archbishopric; young Filangieri obtained, without difficulty, by the favour of his uncle, a rich commandery in that Order, and thus was enabled to devote the whole of his time to literary pursuits.

In 1781, he published the two first volumes of his learned work-The Science of Legislation, &c. It gained him a great reputation in Italy, and his name foon paffed beyond the Alps. The third volume, however, which appeared in 1783, exalted his literary and legal character to the highest pitch. It contained for the most part a review of criminal jurifprudence, with ftrictures on the numberlefs abufes to which perfonal liberty was expofed, by fuch a motley tiffue of incoherent and abfurd proceedings.

Much about the fame time, Filangieri became enamoured of a young lady, of German extraction, maid of honour to her majefty. She was a fenfible and virtuous perfon, and worthy the affections of a man MONTALY MAG, No, XLVII.

of honour. But, unfortunately for her, the had no fortune, and wholly depended upon a penfion from the court. When the match was on the point of being concluded, the queen, who has always been very tenacious of the decorum of noble families, and who was confequently fenfible that a marriage between two perfons in high ftation, without fortune, might be productive of difagreeable or inconvenient refults, interpofed all her influence to fruftrate their union. What do you mean to do with your children? faid the to the lady; Are they alfo to become authors to earn their fubfiftence? Notwithstanding, however, the difapprobation of her majesty, the match was actually concluded.

Truth obliges us to acknowledge, that his prefent Sicilian majefty, though no adept himself, and never initiated in the fciences, has always fhewn himfelf duly confcious of their importance, being the admirer and protector of learned men, and never expreffing difpleafure at the strictures. of a rational philofophy directed against court intrigues or the abufe of defpotic power. In this refpect, he may lay claim to as large a fháre of native good fenie and liberality of thinking, as any contemporary European fovereign. This was actually experienced by Filangieri. In the year 1786, he was appointed counsellor of the finances, an employment only intended as a step to more eminent dignities.

Filangieri did not long enjoy his dignity, and the profpect of farther preferments.. While his official duties required him to beltow the greatest part of his time in ftate affairs and public audiences, he appropriated the remainder to the continuation of his works, and to the sketching out of new literary avocations and purfuits. This confiderably impaired his health. As he kept a country feat in Caftellammare, on the eastern fide of the Crater, in the course of his paffing to and from Naples by water, he caught a violent cold, which being followed by a fever and other maladies, terminated his life in June 1788, in the 37th year of his age.

Filangieri was in perfon very handsome, tall in ftature, with an oblong counte nance. His eyes were uncommonly beautiful, and evinced a fweetnefs which correfponded with the gentleness and candour of his heart. He was an accomplished moral character; religious, hospitable, beneficent, and artlefs, and not seldom expofed to the felfifh defigns of crafty perfons who procured accefs to him.

His literary abilities, deferve a farther notice. He was, without doubt, a learned 4 B and

and well-informed man, and much addicted to ftudy. But his natural genius has probably been over rated. From an accurate analyfis of his works, it may easily be gathered, that his predominant intellectual power was memory; that his powers of imagination were not vigorous; that his want of ftrict method betrays a defect of analytical inveftigation; that he was rather a judicious ftudent and compiler of the obfervations of others, than an original writer; that he made no extenfive refearches beyond the common knowledge of his contemporaries; and that his ftyle is phlegmatical, and the arrangement of his ideas immethodical. The uncommon fuccefs of his works among the bulk of the people in Italy, was perhaps not a little owing to perfonal and local circum-ftances. A young man, fcarcely of the age of thirty, a nobleman, a lord of the court, a religious knight, and yet capable of philofophical inveftigations, was, at that time, deemed a prodigy. And if his writings met with equal approbation in England, France, Germany, and America, it might be partly, attributed to the prevailing difpofition of men's minds, which, previously to the convulfions of the French Revolution, were wholly engroffed with fubjects of political economy; and partly to the interested precautions of bookfellers and librarians, who very frequently, in their line of trade, vamp the merit of foreign publications; or (what is no lefs probable) to the ignorance of the language,

which prevented them from afcertaining faults, the difcovery of which would have lead to a correct judgement of the author's merit. In this laft cafe, it might ferve to prove how far the fcience of words is or is not connected with the feience of ideas. Certain it is, that many Neapolitans differed much from the popular opinion, and thought they could appreciate Filangieri in his just value.

When Dr. Franklin wrote Filangieri a letter of invitation, requesting him to make a voyage to America, and become the digeftor of the civil code of the United States; Father Marone, a Dominican friar, accounted the most learned man in Naples, exclaimed: It would have been better for Dr. Franklin to attend to his electric machines! And the laughing philofopher, D. Francefco d'Aftore (whofe name is mentioned with refpe&t in another part of this Magazine) humorously ob ferved, that, previously to the analysis of Filangieri's works, a preliminary problem required a folution, viz. Whether it was poffible for a nobleman, a lord of the court, an officer in the army, a Conftantinian knight, and a nephew to the archbishop of Naples, to render any effential service to philofophy? This farcaftic fally, however, of Mr. D'Aftore was rather outré, yet very fuitable perhaps to the fate of the bu man mind, ESPECIALLY IN ITALY, fifteen years ago! Omnia fert tempus, animum quoque. F. DAMIANI

London, June 1, 1799.

Extracts from the Port-Folio of a Man of Letters, &c. &c.

UNDERSTANDING AND MEMORY.

Tand

HE understanding may be fo perfe& and mechanical, as to furvive even the lofs of memory itfelf. I fhall give two inftances. De Lagny, the mathematician, for two days had lain in a deep lethargy, and had not known even his own children. Maupertuis abruptly, and with a very loud voice, afked him, what was the fquare of twelve?-144, replied a feeble lingering remain of the expiring intellect. The celebrated phyfician Chirac was much in the fame ftate, and with out any power of recollecting thofe near his death-bed. His right hand mechanivally laid hold of his left, and, feeling his paife, he exclaimed, "They have called me too late. The patient has been bled, and he fhould have been evacuated. He is a dead man!" The prediction and the prognoftic were foon after verified.

NATURAL PAINTINGS.

It is well known that nature, in her playful humour, has sketched many extra. ordinary pictures. We frequently find admirable figures, naturally formed on all forts of marble and other maffes. Pliny notices an agate, where, without the pencil of art, were feen Apollo with his lyre, feated in the midft of the Mufes. At Venice, in the church of St. George, they keep a marble, on which was feen a crucifixion piece, with the nails and all other attributes of the paffion, almoft as finished as that of a kiltul artift. hermit in a defert, feated on the bank of a river, holding a hand-bell, in the manner in which St. Anthony is painted, is preferved at Pifa. It is on a piece of jafper. In the neighbourhood of Florence, are ftones, which, when fawed through the middle, exhibit ruins, landfcapes, trees,

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&c. At Naples, in the church of the Minims, an agate on the altar-piece perfectly fhews a St. Francis, with his beard, his capuchin, &c. with their proper colours; but Mr. De la Lande, fuppofes, as it is so very perfect, that it must have been affifted by art. It is probable too, that many others of thefe lufus naturæ have undergone the fame operation.

If we may rely on one Dinet, he tells us, that he has feen three ftones at Rome, in a collection, in which nature has been her own geographer, and has by these new kind of maps given an idea, in one ftone, of France, its most remarkable rivers, towns, and provinces; in another, of Italy with its mountains, &c.; and in the third, of Spain. It is evident that the imagination muft greatly affift thefe fingular productions.

In fome of thefe a herald has difcovered armorial bearings, coloured and blazoned; and perhaps there is no one, endowed with much fancy, who could not in this manner perceive an analogy to his own favourite object.

There are, however, fome fingularities of this kind which are very pleafing. Some of thofe are, a piece of porphyry in the city of Aleppo, in which appears an ox browzing, and before him, a tree loaded with fruit like fmall quinces. At Snelberg in Germany, in a copper mine was found a piece of this metal, on which was the figure of a man carrying a child, as St. Chriftopher is ufually reprefented. The vet faw in the church at Bethlem feveral columns of a tranfparent jafper, where he perceived the figures of a number of birds, fifhes, fruits, and other objects. But the moft pleafing one I recollect, is that fine and transparent Indian ftone of various colours, which he defcribes; in oppofing it to the light, or rather to the beams of the fun, he obferved clearly a man' mounted en an elephant; the man wore a blue turban, a Morefco drefs, as red as fcarlet. The figures were fo correct, that it might have been mistaken for a picture.

THEOLOGICAL STYLE.

I collect for the reader's amufement fome examples of the theological ftyle, which till very lately difgraced the writings of our divines, and which is not yet banibed from fome of a certain ftamp.Matthew Henry, whofe Commentaries are well known, writes in this manner on Judges ix. We are here told by what acts Abimelech got into the faddle-none would have dreamed of making fuch a fellow as he king. See how he has wheedled them into the choice. He hired into

his fervice the feum and Scoundrels of the country.-Jotham was really a fine gentleman.-The Sechemites that fet Abimelech up, were the firft to kick him off.. The Sechemites faid all the ill they could of him in their table-talk; they drank bealths to his confufion.-Well, Gaal's interest in Shechem is foon at an end.— Exit Gaal."

L. Addifon, the father of the admirable and refined writer, was one of the coarfelt, in point of diction, I have met with, even in his own day. He tells us in his voyage to Barbary, that "a Rabbin once told him, among other heinous fluff, that he did not expect the felicity of the next world où the account of any merits but his own; whoever kept the law would arrive at the blifs by coming upon his own legs."

It must be confeffed, that the Rabbin (confidering he could not confcientioufly have the fame creed as Addifon) did not deliver any very irrational fentiments, in that one of believing that other people's merits have nothing to do with our own; and that we should walk on our own legs.

LARGE HORSES.

Our ftatute-book contains a number of laws for promoting the breed of large horfes. An Act of Henry the Eighth (fince repealed) contains fome very curious regulations on this fubject. Every archbishop and duke is obliged under penalties to have feven trotting stone-horfes for the faddle, each of which, at the age of three years, was to be fourteen hands high. Similar directions follow with re gard to the number of the fame kind of horfes to be kept by perfons of other ranks and degrees; the lowest class mentioned is that of a fpiritual perfon, having benefices to the amount of 100l. per annum, or a layman whole wife fhall wear any French hood, or bonnet of velvet: fuch were obliged to have one trotting ftopehorfe for the faddle. In the reign of queen Elizabeth a bill was brought into the Houfe of Lords, but rejected on the fecond reading, for reftraining the fuperfluous ufe of coaches.

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tion of the devil, and minding the hurt, "undoing and impoverishment of the king's true and faithful fubjects, as enemies to the commonwealth of this realm, and as no true or obedient fubjects unto the king's majefty, of their malicious and wicked minds, have of late invented and practifed a new damnable kind of vice, difpleafure and damnifying of the king's true fubjects and the commonwealth of this realm; as in fecret burning of frames of timber, prepared and made by the owners thereof, ready to be fet up and edified for houfes cutting out of heads of dams of pools, frews and feveral waters-cutting off conduit heads or conduit pipes-burning of wains and carts loaden with coals or other goods-burning of heaps of wood cut, felled, and prepared for making of coals-cutting out of beafts-tonguescutting off the ears of his majesty's fubje&ts-barking of apple-trees, pear-trees and other fruit-trees, and divers other LIKE kinds of miferable offences, to the great difpleasure of Almighty God and of the king's majefly, and to the most evil and pernicious example that hath been feen in this realm."-Therefore it is enacted, that the perfons guilty of any of thefe miferable offences," fhall forfeit treble damages (for the lofs of an ear for example!) to the party aggrieved, and pay a fine of ten pounds to the king.

QUEEN MARY'S SONNET. The following beautiful tranflation of queen Mary's Sonnet on leaving France, is from the pen of the late John Baynes, eiquire.

"Ah! pleafant land of France, farewell;
My country dear,

Where many a year
Of early youth I lov'd to dwell.
Farewell for ever, happy days!
The thip which parts our loves conveys
But half of me:-one half behind

I leave with thee, dear France, to prove
A token of our endless love,

And bring the other to thy mind."

PUBLIC EXECUTIONS IN ENGLAND.

FORTESCUE, in his Treatife on limited Monarchy, gives the following reafon for the number of executions in England, which is rather a fingular one, from the pen of the lord chief justice of England:-"More men are hanged in Englonde in one year, than in Fraunce in feven, because the Englibe have better bartes: the Scotchmenne likewife never dare rob, but only commit larcenies." In an old French treatife by Bouchet, entitled "Les Avantages de la

Lardrerie," we find a whimsical obfervation on the fame fubject:-"oultre ces commoditez, les lardres font plus de plaifir aux femmes que les autres, à raifon de la chaleur eftrange qui les brule par dedans, et auffi que leurs vales fpermatiques font remplis de groffes humeurs, crues, vifqueufes, &c."-"à cette caufe, plufieurs femmes, ayants eu affaire à des lardres, ont fouhaité que leurs maris le fuffent."

PERSONIFICATIONS IN POETRY. (Continued from No. XLV.)

FAME.

known, than that of FAME' in the NEW allegorical figures are, better 4th Eneid; it is not, however, very easy to form a diftinct idea of the poet's conception. The reprefentation is clearly of the emblematical clafs; but there is a mixture of literal and allegorical meaning, which produces fome confufion. She is made, like Homer's Eris, a growing figure, finall at fint, but foon towering to the skies; an idea fuited, indeed, to the real nature of rumour, but fcarcely reconcileable to the notion of a permanent being, the fancied genius or goddess of Fame. Her form is

thus defcribed:

Monftrum horrendum, ingens; cui quot funt Tot vigiles oculi fubter, mirabile dictu! corpore plumæ,

Tot linguæ, totidem ora fonant, tot fubrigit aures. As many plumes as o'er her body spread, Wond'rous to tell! fo many watchful eyes Beneath are couch'd, fo many tongues and mouths Difcordant found, fo many ears are rear'd.

It is difficult to conceive of the existence of fuch a phantom; nor is the imagination aided by any leading features which refer it to a particular clafs of animated forms; fo that we know not whether to fancy it as a human creature or a bird. She posfeffes, indeed, mot of the nature of a fcreech-owl, or, fome other nocturnal bird; flying by night between heaven and earth, and perching by day on the tops of roofs and turrets but how is this confiftent with the prior image of her walking on earth, and hiding her head amid the clouds? On the whole, I cannot think Virgil happy in his management of this fiction, much as it has been admired; and if it was the product of his own invention, it is a proof that the ftrength of his poetical talent did not lie in forming pictures of this kind. The candid Heyne acknowledges that there are apparent inconfiftencies in this piece; for fome of which, however, he makes a general apology, by the remark, that such monftrous figures afford a proof of the

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