but he ordered at the same time that the loser, whichever he might be, should be immediately suspended to the gallows. The French feudal nobility, from the oldest times of the monarchy, were essentially fond of war through vanity, ignorance of the arts of peace, restlessness, or want of money. This ruling passion caused the crusades, the never-ending Italian expeditions, and the civil and religious wars in France itself. "The French," says Brantôme, and in his time the French meant the French nobility, "have always been ready to come to blows either against foreigners or against each other. For which reason the Burgundians and the Flemings are wont to say that when the French are asleep the Devil is rocking them." Louis XIV. broke the power of his nobility, and made courtiers of them; but at the same time, he imbibed their prejudices and tastes. In his 'Instructions for the use of the Dauphin,' he says, that "the sight of so many gentlemen around him ready to fight in his service, urged him to find employment for their valour." He adopted the principle that "a King of France is essentially military, and that from the moment he sheathes his sword he ceases to reign." In his letter to the Marquis de Villars, dated January 1688, he says, "that the noblest and most agreeable occupation of a sovereign is to aggrandise his territory." Accordingly, he was, during the greater part of his long reign, engaged in destructive war, in which he was generally the aggressor. His father left him an army of fifty thousand men, which he raised to four hundred thousand. He gave the first example, which he compelled other powers to adopt, of those immense standing armies which have cost Europe so dear ever since. He kept likewise foreign legions, in which he enrolled Irish, Germans, Piedmontese, Corsicans, Poles, Hungarians, and even Swedes,-all the malcontents and the runaways of the rest of Europe. While he smothered all liberty in France, he excited revolt in Ireland, in Hungary, in Transylvania, in Sicily, and even in England against his submissive ally, Charles II. "I encouraged," he says, in his instructions to the Dauphin, "the remnant of Cromwell's party, in order to excite through it some fresh disturbances in London." He looked upon the words of treaties as " forms of politeness which ought not to be taken to the letter." Such was the "Great King," and such his policy, which Napoleon adopted a century later, and carried on on a much larger scale. "I am the state," said Louis XIV.: "I am the representative of France," exclaimed Napoleon. The influence of Louis XIV. on the politics of our own days has not been sufficiently noticed. The ruling demagogues of the French Revolution, the men of the Convention and of the Directory, were disciples of that overbearing and unprincipled school founded by Louis XIV.; they followed the same principles of policy, under the name of liberty and republican forms. Their boasted equality was the equality of despotism,-the equality of Turkey. The sensual and the dark rebel in vain, Slaves by their own compulsion. In mad game They burst their manacles, and wear the name Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain. COLERIDGE. LIII. A QUEER TRANSLATION FROM VITRUVIUS. MISTRANSLATIONS from the Greek and Latin would fill a very large chapter; but the following from the Latin, condensed in a very small space, may serve as a speci men. Vitruvius, in the preface to his second book on Architecture, says, that the architect Dinocrates, not being introduced to Alexander the Great so soon as he wished, determined upon attracting the notice of the King by the following scheme: "Fuerat enim amplissima statura, facie grata, forma dignitateque summa. His igitur na In turæ muneribus confisus, vestimenta posuit in hospitio,et oleo corpus perunxit, caputque coronavit populea fronde, lævum humerum pelle leonina texit, dextraque clavam tenens, incessit contra tribunal Regis jus dicentis." the translation of Vitruvius by W. Newton, fol. Lond. 1791, vol. i. p. 21, the passage is thus rendered: "He was very large of stature, had an agreeable countenance, and a dignity in his form and deportment. Trusting to these gifts of nature, he clothed himself in the habit of an host,* anointed his body with oil, crowned his head with boughs of poplar, put a lion's skin over his left shoulder, and, holding one of the claws in his right hand,† approached the tribunal where the King was administering justice." Dinocrates is the architect who proposed to Alexander to cut Mount Athos into the form of a statue, holding a city in one hand and in the other a bason, into which all the waters of the mountain should empty themselves. In his masquerade equipment, with his lion's skin, club, &c. we may suppose he meant to represent Hercules. LIV. THEATRES AT VENICE, IN 1608. "I was at one of their playhouses, where I saw a comedy acted. The house is very beggarly and base, in comparison of our stately playhouses in England: neyther can their actors compare with us for apparell, shewes, and musick. Here I observed certaine thinges that I never saw before; for I saw women acte, a thing that I never saw before, though I have heard that it hath been sometimes used in London; and they performed it with as good a grace, action, gesture, and whatsoever convenient for a player, as ever I saw any masculine actor. Also their noble and famous courtezans came to this comedy, but so disguised that a man cannot know *He deposited his clothes at his inn. them for they wore double maskes upon their faces, to the end they might not be seene; one maske reaching from the toppe of their forehead to their chinne and under their necke; another with twiskes of downy or woolly stuffe covering their noses. And as for their neckes round about, they were so covered and wrapped with cobweb lawn and other things, that no part of their skin could be discerned. Upon their heads they wore little blacke felt caps, very like to those of the Clarissemoes; also each of them wore a black, short taffeta cloake. They were so graced that they sate on high, alone by themselves, in the best roome of all the playhouse. If any man should be so resolute as to unmaske one of them but in merriment onely to see their faces, it is said that, were he never so noble or worthy a personage, he shoulde be cut in pieces before he should come forth of the roome, especially if he were stranger. I saw some men also in the playhouse disguised in the same manner with double vizards; those were said to be the favourites of the same courtezans. They sit not here in galleries, as we doe in London; for there is but one or two little galleries in the house, wherein the courtezans only sit. But all the men doe sit beneath in the yard or court; every man upon his several stoole, for which he payeth a gazet.”*— Coryat's Crudities. LV. THE MODERN CORNARO. EVERY one has heard of Lewis Cornaro. He was a rakish Venetian, who, at the age of forty, finding that *Gazet, or more properly Gazzetta, an old Venetian coin of small value, from which we have derived our word Gazette, a newspaper. Mr. d'Israeli says that the gazetta (gazzetta) was the common price of the newspapers at Venice: but as the Venetian papers were in manuscript (according to Mr. d'Israeli "even to our own days"), and as, on the same authority, the coin was only worth an English farthing, it seems rather more probable that a gazzetta was the price paid for the loan or reading of a newspaper.-See Curiosities of Literature: art." Origin of Newspapers." he had lived too fast, as the phrase is, determined to follow the advice of his physicians and pursue a more temperate course of life. He diminished the quantity of his food until his daily allowance was reduced to half the yolk of an egg, and by his rigid abstinence revived so effectually, that he lived to the age of one hundred. His death took place in 1566. A more recent instance of a similar abstinence is recorded in the Medical Transactions of the College of Physicians. Thomas Wood, a miller of Billericay, in Essex, was in the habit of eating voraciously of fat meat three times a day, and he also swallowed large quantities of butter, cheese, and strong ale. For a long time he suffered no inconvenience from his gluttony, but in his forty-fourth year he began to be disturbed in his sleep, had a constant thirst, great lowness of spirits, and many other bad symptoms. The most formidable one was a sense of suffocation, which often attacked him, especially after meals. He grew worse, until the month of August 1764, when he was in the forty-fifth year of his age. At this time Mr. Powley, a neighbouring clergyman, put the Life of Cornaro into his hands. The miller read it, and was convinced; but, believing that a bit-by-bit reform was the best, he retrenched his diet by degrees. At first he confined himself to a pint of ale a-day, and used aniinal food sparingly. His health immediately improved; so that, after he had pursued this regimen for two months, he diminished his allowance of ale by one half, and was still more sparing of gross animal food. On the 4th of January 1765 he discontinued the use of malt liquor; and between this period and July 31, 1767, he successively gave up meat, butter, cheese, and all drinks whatever, excepting what he took in the form of medicine. After the last-mentioned date, his diet was chiefly confined to pudding made of sea-biscuit. "The poor diet to which he has accustomed himself is now as agreeable to his palate as his former food used to be; and he has the additional satisfaction to find his health established, his spirits lively, his sleep no longer disturbed by frightful dreams, and his strength |