poisoned by folly or by corruption: but as it relates to the whole in its outset, progress, and event, in its internal tendency, in all its forms, motions, effects, and consequences-that is, in as much as it contributes to the eternal progress towards perfection.

J. This is sound enough.

N. From this point of view, what thinkest thou of the topic which we were discussing at thine arrival-of the great catastrophe which, in these days, has overthrown, without retrospect or exemption, whatever has been for ages most sacred and most respectable to the human race?

6

S. It took place necessarily, for it had long been preparing; and, as thou knowest, a mere puff of wind is at last sufficient to throw down an old ill-joined and decayed building, founded on sand.

N. Yet was it so magnificent an edifice, so venerable for its an. tiquity, so simple in its variety, so beneficial by the shelter which humanity, law, and the security of states, had long found beneath its lofty arches-that it had surely been wiser to improve than to overthrow it. Our philosophers of Alexandria had imagined such fine plans, not only to restore its former authority, but to give it additional lustre, and especially a symmetry, a beauty, and a convenience before unknown. It was a pantheon of such vast extent, and of such dexterous architecture, that all the religions in the world-even this new one, could it but be tolerant,-might have found place within it.

S. It is a pity that, with all these apparent advantages, it was constructed only on a quicksand. As for tolerance, how canst thou fancy that, in a thing of such importance, truth and illusion should be compatible?

N. That may very well be, if men will but bear with one another: men who are never more deceived than when they think themselves exclusively possessed of truth.

S. If to be deceived be not their destination—which thou wilt not maintain-it neither can nor will be their lot for ever to wander in illusion and deception like sheep without a shepherd. Between darkness and light, twilight is no doubt better than gloom, but only as the passage into the pure and perfect day. The dawn is now risen; and wouldst thou grieve that night and twilight are passed away?

J. Thou art fond of allegory, young man, I perceive. For my part, I like to speak out. Probably, thou meanest that mankind will be happier with this new order of things. I wish so too, though appearances of it.

I can discover but faint

S. Undoubtedly, things will go better, infinitely better with unfortunate mortals. Truth will put them in possession of freedom, which is the most indispensable condition of happiness; for truth alone maketh free.

J. I have heard this to satiety, five hundred years ago.-Posi tions of this kind are as incontrovertible and contribute just as much to the salvation of the world, as the great truth that once one is-As soon as thou shalt bring me intelligence that the poor folk below, since a large portion of them have believed differently from their

one.

L14

forefathers,

forefathers, are become better men than their predecessors, then will I acknowlege thee as the messenger of good tidings.

S. The corruption of mankind was too great for the most extraordinary provisions at once to remedy the evil: but most certainly they will be better off, when the truth shall have made them free.

J. I think so too: but in saying all this, little more seems to me to be said, than that, as soon as men shall be good and wise, they will cease to be foolish and corrupt-or that, when the golden age shall arrive, in which every one has his fill, nobody will die of hunger. S. I see the period advancing at which each, who shall not ob stinately shut his heart against truth, will through its means arrive at a perfection, of which your philosophers had no idea.

J. Hast thou been initiated into the mysteries of Eleusis?

S. I know them as well as if I had.

J. Then thou knowest the final object of these mysteries?

S. To live happy, and to die with the hope of a better life.

J. Thou seemest to me a sincere friend of human kind. Knowest thou aught more beneficial to mortals than this?

• S. Yes.

< J. Let us hear.—

S. REALLY to give them what the mystagogues of Eleusis PROMISED.
J. I fear that is more than thou or I can perform.

S. Thou hast not tried, Jupiter.

J. Thou wilt readily presume that I have not arrived at the honours, which have been paid to me for some centuries by so many great and polished nations, without having deserved something at their hands?

'S. That may be. He who will do no more for the good of men, than he can do without foregoing his repose, will exert no very saving powers. I acknowlege that mine has been a more formi

dable toil.

J. Thou pleasest me, young man. At thine age, this amiable

enthusiasm, which sacrifices itself for others, is a real merit. Who could offer himself up for mankind without loving them? Who could love them without thinking better of them than they deserve?

S. I think neither too ill nor too well of them.

Their misery wounds me. I see that it can be helped; and helped it shall be.

J. Thou art full of courage and good-will, but thou art yet young. The folly of terrestrials has not matured thee. At my years, thou wilt sing in another strain.

S. Thou speak'st as I expected from thee.

J. It vexes thee, methinks, to hear me speak so. Thou hast imagined some great plan for the good of the human race; thou burnest with the desire of executing it; in it thou livest and movest, Thy far-seeing glance shews thee all thy advantages. Thy courage swallows all difficulties. Thou hast staked thine existence on ithow shouldst thou not expect to bring it to bear?-but thou hast to do with men. Take it not amiss that I speak to thee as I think; it is the privilege of age and experience. Thou resemblest, methinks, a tragic poet, who attempts to have an excellent piece performed by maimed, dwarfish, and limping actors. Once, again,

friend,

friend, thou art not the first, who has attempted to exercise something great with men: but, I tell thee, so long as they are what they are, nothing comes of such experiments.

S. Therefore we must make new men of them.

J. New men that is easily said-if thou canst do that :-but I think that I understand thee. Thou wouldst form them anew, give them another and a better figure; the model is in being, thou hast only to shape after thyself. Alas! this is not all. The clay for thy new creation nature has given; and that must be taken as it is. Think of me awhile hence. Thou wilt have taken all possible pains with thy potter's work, and when it comes out of the oven, thou wilt behold to thy confusion

S. The clay is of itself not so bad as thou believest; it may be purified and tempered as much as I need, to form out of it new and better men.

J. That will delight me.
S. Undoubtedly.

Hast thou tried the experiment?

J. I mean on the large scale :-for that among a thousand pieces one should succeed proves little.

S. (after some besitation.) If the experiment on a large scale has not yet answered to my full intentions, I know at least why it could not be otherwise. It will in time do better.

J. In time?-From time one always hopes the best.. Without this hope, who would undertake any thing great? We shall see how time will answer thine expectations. For the next thousand years, I would promise thee no great success.

• S. Thou hast, I see, but a narrow measure, old King of Crete. A thousand years are but as one day compared with the period, which the completion of the great work requires, of forming the whole human race into a single family of good and happy beings.

J. Thou art in the right. How many thousands of years the hermetic philosophers toiled after their stone, without bringing it to bear; and what is the work of these sages compared with thine?

S. Thy pleasantry is ill-timed. The work which I have undertaken is fully as possible, as that the seed of a cedar should grow up to a large tree: it is true that the cedar does not attain its perfection so speedily as the poplar.

J. Nor would any one grudge thee time to accomplish thy great work, if that were all :--but the certain and monstrous evils, for centuries together, with which men are to purchase the hope of an uncertain good, give to the enterprize another shape. What are we to think of a plan which should be beneficial to the human race, and in its execution succeeds so ill, that a considerable portion of them, and for a period of which the end is not to be foreseen, have been made unhappier, and, which is more lamentable, still worse in head and in heart than before? I appeal to what is apparent ;—and yet all that we have seen, since the fall of the brave enthusiast Julian, is but a prelude to the immeasurable mischief which the new hierarchy must bring on these poor wights, who are drawn into the unexpected share by every new tune that is whistled to them.

• S. All

S. All these evils of which thou complainest in the name of mankind,-thou on whose heart their sufferings never sat heavy,are neither essential conditions, nor even effects of the great plan of which we are talking. They are the impediments, which withstand it from without, and with which the light will have to struggle but too long till it shall have entirely overcome the darkness. Is the fault in the wine if it be spoiled in mouldy casks? As it is in the nature of things that mankind should, by imperceptible degrees, advance in wisdom and in goodness, as their amelioration is resisted by so many foes both from within and from without, as the difficulties multiply with every victory, and even the most well-directed means, merely because they must pass through human heads and borrow the instrumentality of human hands, again become new impediments, -how can it appear surprizing that I am not able to procure for my brethren the happiness which I intend them at a cheaper rate? How gladly would I have abolished all their misery at once! But even I can do nothing against the eternal laws of necessity: it is enough that the time will at length come.

J. (a little out of humour.) Well, then, let it come; and the poor wretches, for whom thou hast such good intentions, in the mean time must manage for the best. As I said, my foresight does not reach far enough to judge of a plan so comprehensive and so involved. It is fortunate that we are immortal, and may live to see its evolution, however many Platonic years we must wait for it.

S. My plan, vast as it seems, is the simplest in the world. The way, by which I am certain of effecting general felicity, is the same by which I lead each individual to happiness; and a pledge to me of its certainty is that there can be no other. I now end as I began it is impossible not to be deceived, so long as we consider things piecemeal, and as they appear by themselves and insulated. They are nothing in reality but what they are in relation to the whole; and perfection, the center which unites all in one, towards which all tends, and in which all shall finally repose, is the only point of view whence every thing can be seen aright. Herewith, Farewell! (He vanishes.)

N. to J. What sayst thou to this apparition, Jupiter?

J. Ask me fifteen hundred years hence.'

The dialogue between Proserpine, Luna, and Diana, (in which they endeavour to explain the mythological doctrine that describes each of the three as Hecate,) although superlatively ingenious, must in every country, of which the established religion is trinitarian, pass for very profane. The con versations of the deceased in the Elysian fields are, for the most part, of inferior interest.

The xxvith volume contains Alcestes, and Rosamond, two tragic operas; the Choice of Hercules, a lyric drama; the Judgment of Midas, a comic opera; and some dissertations relating to these dramatic poems; which were set to music by Schweitzer, in 1773 and 1774, and exhibited successfully, but which excite in the closet no very powerful emotion. The anecdote

7

anecdote intitled "Richard Lionheart and Blondel" is given with classical propriety; and it is appended to this volume, probably because the author had it once in contemplation to make some such use of it as has been since made by M. de Sedaine.

The xxviith and xxvIIIth volumes contain the secret history of Peregrinus Proteus, of which we noticed a translation in vol. xxii. p. 349, with the promise of entering more at large. into its merits. The basis of the story is to be found in Lucian; who, in narrating the death of this cynic philosopher, puts into the mouth of a spectator a very unfavourable statement of his life and conduct. In this account by Lucian, the penetration of WIELAND discovers ethic inconsistency, incompatible attributes of character, and moral impossibility. He undertakes, therefore, a fresh statement of the incidents, so as to account punctiliously for every report concerning Peregrinus which is preserved by Lucian, yet so as to assign to him a character perfectly consistent and radically amiable, although he is the frequent dupe of enthusiastic hallucinations. The novel is thrown into the form of a dialogue in Elysium between Lucian and Peregrinus: the latter of whom particularizes enough of his early life to shew that, in his education, in his circumstances, and in his propensities, was already sown the seed of an inflammable and ardent imagination. In his immature youth, he had detected within himself a something damonic; and his idea of the supreme good was modified by this persuasion throughout life, and consequently the tenour of his pursuits. A love-adventure with Kallippe obliges him to remove from Parium to Athens; and calumny drives him to Smyrna. The more his peculiar ideas of ultimate felicity (endæmonia) unfold, the stronger becomes his desire of attaining, by the cultivation of the higher sort of magic, a communion with more exalted natures. One Menippus, with whom he converses on these topics, directs him to a daughter of Apollonius of Tyana, resident at Halicarnassus. She intrusts to him manuscripts of her father, and she prescribes to him initiatory rites, for the purpose of conciliating the Venus Urania. He is indulged with a theophany. By degrees, he discovers that he has been the dupe of Mamilia Quintilla, a rich Roman widow, who wished to make him instrumental to her pleasures; and of Dioclea, a pantomime-dancer, who had personated the daughter of Apollonius. The scenery of this third section is so loosely luscious that it thoroughly cloys *; and in effect it

It drew on the author an epigram in the Xenien, which appears to have been felt by the mode in which it was avenged: see the Teutscher Merkur for Jan. and Feb. 1797.