than a visit from the Inquisition, who had heard of his officiating before heretics, without licence, the day before. As soon as they were gone, he ventured with much caution to enquire into the cause of this extraordinary appearance, and was happy to be informed that this was the season appointed by the Romish calendar for solemnly blessing the houses of all good catholics from rats and other vermin; a piece of intelligence which changed his terror into mirth."-Life of Bishop Berkeley, by Rev. Dr. Hoek, 1776, Lond. p. 6.

LII. TRAITS OF LOUIS XIV.

LOUIS XIV. issued an edict concerning duels, in 1679; in which it is said that "whereas it has been reported to us, that there are men of ignoble birth, and who have never borne arms, who have, nevertheless, the insolence to call out noblemen, and when these noblemen refuse to give them satisfaction, on account of the inequality of their respective conditions, the said challengers engage other noblemen to fight on their behalf; which fights often terminate in murder, the more detestable that it proceeds from an abject cause: we will and ordain that, in such cases of challenge and duel, especially if followed by serious wounds or death, the said ignoble persons or roturiers, convicted of having excited and provoked similar disorders, shall, without remission, be hung and strangled, and all their property, moveable and immoveable, be confiscated; and with regard to the noblemen who shall thus have taken the part of ignoble and unworthy persons, they shall be also put to death in the like manner." This edict was confirmed under the regency, in February 1723. Five centuries before, in times comparatively barbarous, and when the institutions of the country and the system of society were essentially feudal, Louis IX., on the occasion of an accusation by a vilain against a noble, allowed them to try the truth of the charge by single combat, in which the nobleman should fight on horseback, and the vilain on foot.;

but he ordered at the same time that the loser, whichever he might be, should be immediately suspended to the gallows.

For

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. 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 gainst his submissive ally Charles II. "I encouraged,"

A QUEER TRANSLATION FROM VITRUVIUS.

133

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

turæ muneribus confisus, vestimenta posuit in hospitio,et oleo corpus perunxit, caputque coronavit populea fronde, lævum humerum pelle leonina texit, dextraque clavan tenens, incessit contra tribunal Regis jus dicentis." In 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.

+ Holding a club in his right hand.

:

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 a 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."