ceding authors, but seems disposed to run into paradoxes rather than to forego originality in his remarks. If he be not a sure guide, he is calculated to rouse reflection, and to call forth a spirit of inquiry;—if his readers will be cautious of reposing confidence in him, they will listen to him with attention, and will be pleased with his remarks:-if his composition be not strictly and elaborately correct, it affords a very lively picture of French history, in which the leading traits are true, and the general likeness is preserved.

Let the following sketch suffice to give an idea of the sort of pencil which this artist uses:

The war of the Fronde is scarcely known but under a ridiculous aspect; and the grand Condé, though he was one of the principal actors in it, said that it ought only to be sung in burlesque verses. The Fronde, a bloody parody on the League, exposes to view two truths; a degeneracy in public men, and the extinction of the power of the second order. The Guises knew how to cover their ambitious designs with a mantle of grandeur: and their views aimed at nothing short of the throne. Magnificent Princes, noble even when practising popular arts, Generals of the first rank, and profound statesmen, they impressed with respect the people whom they duped by their artifices; they were held in consideration by their enemies, and received as allies by foreign sovereigns; and they had talents and address sufficient to cause the League to be admitted as one among the powers of Europe.

The chiefs of the agitators who disturbed the minority of Louis XIV. were factious subalterns, whose turbulence was soon treated with general contempt. The Coadjutor, in adopting the measures and views that are preserved in his memoirs, which contain some sublime passages, possessed beyond all doubt superior talents: but, turbulent, unequal, impetuous, profligate, and passionately vain-glori ous, he expected to rise to the rank of a great man by framing petty intrigues Endowed with too little reflection to combine a vast plan, he committed himself so much to chance, that in more than one case he was unable to state what was the object to which his proceedings tended. He had the sagacity, however, to discover that the noblesse, if left to themselves, were incapable of achieving any enterprize. He procured the assistance of the parliament; which corps, hurt by the coldness of the Regent, and flattered so much by the disaffected, hoisted the standard of revolt. The energy of the venerable Molé was unable to resist the redoubled impulses of the clamorous courts; and •he soul of all the deliberations was the counsellor Quatre Sous, a man of great resources, and of suflicient daring to insist on the Prince of Condé making an apology, for a too familiar gesture used by him in the presence of the assembled legislature. Decrees, multiplied beyond all bounds, grew to be so absurd, as to deprive them in a great degree of effect. This faction, tinding itselt too weak, though it consisted of courtiers and members of the parliament, sought to increase its strength by making a common cause with the populace; and the Duke of Beaufort and the President Broussel were appointed to engage this

power

powerful support. The Duke affected familiarity with the lowest classes, courted the poissardes, and was denominated king of the markets while Broussel owed his influence over the populace to his grey hairs.

As soon as Mazerin displayed a firmness of conduct, the factious were dispersed. The Coadjutor expiated his errors, by an imprisonment of a few months in the castle of Vincennes; and, afterward, concealed under the Roman purple, and under the title of Cardinal de Retz, he led an obscure life, which was very contrary to his incli nation and taste. An exile of a short duration removed the most violent partisans of the Fronde. The parliament was confined within narrow limits, which it only once (in 1655) in the reign of Louis XIV. attempted to break: this Prince, as yet young, went in boots with his whip in his hand, into the midst of the assembled courts, and pronounced his will in a tone which displayed the hauteur of his character, and against which no person dared to murmur.'

Let us again witness the exercise of the author's powers on a nice and difficult subject.

Louis XIV. presents himself to the imagination solely as surrounded by a groupe of great men, in all classes and professions, who, in their brilliant successes, seemed only emulous to invest their protector with immortal glory. He advanced as far as the hyperborean regions, in order to insure titles to public gratitude; he knew how to praise with delicacy; and he possessed in the highest degree the talent of wearing his crown with dignity. But the weight of his grandeur levelled all conditions; and the shades which marked the different classes of society vanished in his presence like chimeras. Favour alone effected every thing under him, but contrived to sell part of these advantages to wealth; at this epoch, the French Monarch raised a subject to the summit of grandeur, or plunged him into the abyss of obscurity, by a single word, or even by a look.

He did not think that it became his dignity to sport with the dangers of war; and he supplied, in fact, the enthusiasm which his valour would have created by flattering discourses. The troops never heard him repeat the saying, which he often uttered with that imposing and noble grace which characterized his speeches, without lively emotions: "I honour myself that I am the oldest soldier in my army."

When he saw the monarchy threatened with imminent danger, he did not limit himself within vain words, but established his claim to the sirname of Grand, by displaying, at the age of seventy-four, the spirit of a hero in the flower of his days. He said to Villars, who was setting out to take the command of an army harassed by long fatigue, and discouraged by numerous reverses, yet, at the same time, the sole support of the state: " If you are beaten, write to me instantly: and immediately I will mount my horse, and, with your letter in my hand, beat up the streets of Paris: I know the French :---more than a hundred thousand combatants will follow my steps. If misfortune still pursues us, I will assemble my nobility, and at its head I will either seize upon victory, or bury myself under the ruins of my kingdom"

M m 4

The

The tory administration of Queen Anne rescued him from this hard fate.'

Some of the observations made by M. DAMPMARTIN, on the rise and fall of Dynasties, are not unworthy of notice. He is speaking of states:

• Remedies calculated for the wants of the moment produce, for a time, salutary effects, and seem to promise eternal duration to the body politic: but the evils being only qualified, and not removed, their destructive operation continues silently advancing. Behold an antient and majestic edifice, which the storms of successive ages, which original defects and the repeated neglects of its owners, threaten with approaching ruin; if the character called to repair it does not apply his labours to its foundations, but simply confines himself to decorate its exterior, the vulgar may be struck with admiration, but the enlightened man is not carried away by the false glare; his eye penetrates beneath the outside facing, and discerns the hollow rents which foretell the speedy downfal of the building.

• The founder of a new race raises himself by his courage, his prudence, and his policy. The lot of unfortunate princes whom the sword cuts down, or who languish under the deprivation of their honors, points out to him the line which he ought to pursue; and an opposite course leads him to different results. Under his reign, agriculture is cherished, commerce revives, the army displays a valour which discipline increases,justice presides in the tribunals; in one word, the whole state recovers a new vigour, order reigns in its interior, and strangers pay to it the respect which it had forfeited. For some ge. nerations, his successors are the inheritors as well of his talents as of his virtues; for the impulse, given by a superior genius, diminishes only by degrees. But the courtiers, whom the storm had dispersed, recover from their terror; they recur to their pernicious practices; they enter on the scene with an appearance of reserve and moderation, which imperfectly conceals their ambitious designs; and becoming in time the real masters they transform the sovereign into an idol, whom they intoxicate with incense while his hands are tied up by flattery and intrigue In infancy, designing preceptors too often artest the good propensities of the royal pupils, feed their failings, and extinguish all the germs of energy In youth, their passions are excited and satisfied; and their physical and moral faculties are exhausted, before time has fully developed them. In riper years, plunged in luxury, separated from truth as by an iron wall, without any knowlege of men and things, they prolong an apathy which often presses as heavily on them, as it proves pernicious to their subjects. In old age, they become the sport of those who approach them, and terminate in bitterness and conten pt their too long career.'

M. DAMPMARTIN goes through all the stages of declension, but our limits will not permit us to accompany him.

The authors promise, in their annals, to follow the purest models, to cultivate strict impartiality, and to respect truth alone but the idolatry with which they regard the present

chief of the state, and the sentiments which they profess towards this country, do not argue well for the faithful observance of their plausible assurances. At all events, however, if the work be conducted with the ability of which it now affords a sample, even though it should not be free from many alloys, it will be acceptable on various accounts.

ART. XVII. Mélanges de Littérature, &c. Literary Miscellanies. By M. SUARD. Vol. V.

TH

[See Appendix to Vol. XLVII, p. 520.]

HE concluding volume of this agreeable and instructing publication commences with strictures on the life and character of Tasso. M. SUARD observes that men of letters, being no longer employed in public affairs, and avoiding by choice the intrigues of the world, now usually devote themselves to sedentary occupations; which, while they employ the mind, secure them from the dangers of ambition and the vicissitudes of fortune. Their life therefore is in general tranquil and uniform; agitated at times by those minor passions which may interrupt happiness, but rarely disturbed by those interests which distract society. The author proceeds:

When times were very different, if a man appeared who had received from nature that ardent imagination which constitutes the poet, and that extreme sensibility which renders the temper irritable; if, besides, he united to these qualities of mind those singularities which often accompany talents; if this person was also exposed to the intrigues of courts, and the storms of revolutions, it frequently happened that the triumph of the poet was arrested by the reverses of the courtier. Imagine his superior talents to have created him as many enemies as admirers: suppose him impelled by the desire of glory, impatient to enjoy it, and thrown off his guard by the obstacles which obstruct his career; we may conceive that such a man, in the course of a short life, may have experienced all the alternatives of glory and abasement, of joy and sorrow, of prosperity and misfortune, in a degree that imparts an interest to his history which does not belong to that of men in general. A nature such as we have described, and circumstances such as we have supposed, distinguished the celebrated person whose sketch is here drawn.

After these general remarks, the author presents us with the particulars of the life of this celebrated writer: but we pass over these as common in all books of biography, and shall confine ourselves to M. SUARD's own observations and criticisms. He justly states that what particularly distinguishes the man of genius is that secret impulse, which draws him, as it were in spite of himself, towards those pursuits which are

the

the most proper to exercise the activity of his mind, and the energies of his intellectual faculties. It is a species of instinct which no force can overcome, and which elevates itself the more in proportion to the resistance with which it meets. It is not a little curious that two other great poets of Italy were, like Tasso, educated for the law, and like him refused to be diverted from their favourite pursuit.

The understanding of Tasso may be regarded as having been not less solid than his imagination was ardent; nor was his taste for philosophy inferior to his fondnes for poetry. It was this union of wisdom and poetic fervour which gave to his writings a character that eminently distinguishes him from the best poets of his country and his age.'

Italian poetry was at this date in its infancy. The Italia Liberata of Trissin had for some time made its appearance: but it had no merit except that of being well conceived; it was prosaic and inharmonious.

The Orlando Furioso was also before the public. Its author had not attempted to send forth a regular performance; he had chosen for the subject of his poem, not an historical event which confines the genius, but the adventures of chivalry; popular topics, conformable to the taste of the times, and favourable to all the displays of a lively and brilliant imagination; which, admitting of a mixture of the heroic and the playful, allowed the poet to use every species of tone, and every sort of colouring that belongs to poetry.

The imagination of Tasso, less original, and less fertile, perhaps, than that of Ariosto, was regulated by a more pure taste, and by sounder principles; by a deeper study of the resources of the art, and by a more correct feeling of the just and the beautiful. He had followed the precept of Horace; it was in the school of the philozophers that he perfected the talent which he had received from nature; and, passionately devoted to Homer, he learned to imitate him by studying Plato.

Scarcely was any object the theme of attention at this time except the Orlando Furioso. The verses of Ariosto were every where committed to memory, repeated and sung in the country as well as in cities, by the shepherd in the midst of his flock and by the waterman who rowed his gondola; in the literary acadamies not less than in fashionable parties. Yet this prodigious success did not prevent men of taste from being shocked by the incongruities of this strange mixture of incidents without connection, of adventures destitute of probability and often even of decency.

Tasso rose superior to the bad taste of the age; he did not suf fer himself to be carried away by the success of the brilliant follies of the Orlando Furioso, nor to be discouraged by the disgust which the insipid regularity of the Italia Liberata had excited. he superiority of his genius, and the maturity of his judgment, appear from this; that the praises which his Rinaldo had every where experienced did not

render