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his sermons draws from him the following art Richardson is undoubtedly without an amusing piece of fretfulness.

"Johnston kept them a month on the way Wilson kept them three, and does nothing, only hints a sort of contemptuous censure of them to you, and huffs them out of his hands. The booksellers despise them, and I am forced to print them, when the season for sale is over, or burn them. God's will be done! If I had wrote against my Saviour, or his religion, my work would long ago have been bought, and reprinted, and bought again. Millar would have now been far advanced in his third edition of it! But why do I make these weak complaints? I know my work is calculated to serve the cause of God and truth, and by no means contemptibly executed. I am confident also, I shall, if God spares me life to give it the necessary introduction, sell it to advantage, and receive the thanks of every good man for it. I will therefore be in the hands of God, and not of Mr. Millar, whose indifference to my performances invite me not to any overtures."-Vol. v. p. 234, 235.

Although Richardson is not responsible for more than one fifth part of the dulness exhibited in this collection, still the share of it that may be justly imputed to him is so considerable, and the whole is so closely associated with his name, that it would be a sort of injustice to take our final leave of his works, without casting one glance back to those original and meritorious performances, upon which his reputation is so firmly established. The great excellence of Richardson's novels consists, we think, in the unparalleled minuteness and copiousness of his descriptions, and in the pains he takes to make us thoroughly and intimately acquainted with every particular in the character and situation of the personages with whom we are occupied. It has been the policy of other writers to avoid all details that are not necessary or impressive, to hurry over all the preparatory scenes, and to reserve the whole of the reader's attention for those momentous passages in which some decisive measure is adopted, or some great passion brought into action. The consequence is, that we are only acquainted with their characters in their dress of ceremony, and that, as we never see them except in those critical circumstances, and those moments of strong emotion, which are but of rare occurrence in real life, we are never deceived into any belief of their reality, and contemplate the whole as an exaggerated and dazzling illusion. With such authors we merely make a visit by appointment, and see and hear only what we know has been prepared for our reception. With Richardson, we slip, invisible, into the domestic privacy of his characters, and hear and see every thing that is said and done among them, whether it be interesting or otherwise, and whether it gratify our curiosity or disappoint it. We sympathise with the former, therefore, only as we sympathise with the monarchs and statesmen of history, of whose condition as individuals we have but a very imperfect conception. We feel for the latter, as for our private friends and acquaintance, with whose whole situation we are familiar, and as to whom we can conceive exactly the effects that will be produced by every thing that may befal them. In th's

equal, and, if we except De Foe, without a of literature. We are often fatigued, as we competitor, we believe, in the whole history listen to his prolix descriptions, and the repetitions of those rambling and inconclusive conversations, in which so many pages are consumed, without any apparent progress in the story; but, by means of all this, we get so intimately acquainted with the characters, and so impressed with a persuasion of their reality, that when any thing really disastrous or important occurs to them, we feel as for old friends and companions, and are irresistibly led to as lively a conception of their sensations, as if we had been spectators of a real transaction. This we certainly think the chief merit of Richardson's productions: For, great as his knowledge of the human heart, and his powers of pathetic description, must be admitted to be, we are of opinion that he might have been equalled in those particulars by many, whose productions are infinitely less interesting.

That his pieces were all intended to be strictly moral, is indisputable; but it is not quite so clear, that they will uniformly be found to have this tendency. We have already quoted some observations of Mrs. Barbauld's on this subject, and shall only add, in general, that there is a certain air of irksome regularity, gloominess, and pedantry, attached to most of his virtuous characters, which is apt to encourage more unfortunate associations than the engaging qualities with which he has invested some of his vicious ones. The mansion of the Harlowes, which, before the appearance of Lovelace, is represented as the abode of domestic felicity, is a place in which daylight can scarcely be supposed to shine; and Clarissa, with her formal devotions, her intolerably early rising, her day divided into tasks, and her quantities of needle-work and discretion, has something in her much less winning and attractive than inferior artists have often communicated to an innocent beauty of seventeen. The solemnity and moral discourses of Sir Charles, his bows, minuets, compliments, and immovcable tranquillity, are much more likely to excite the derision than the admiration of a modern reader. Richardson's good people, in short. are too wise and too formal, ever to appear in the light of desirable companions, or to excite in a youthful mind any wish to resemble them. The gaiety of all his characters, too, is extremely girlish and silly, and is much more like the prattle of spoiled children, than the wit and pleasantry of persons acquainted with the world. The diction throughout is heavy, vulgar, and embarrassed; though the interest of the tragical scenes is too powerful to allow us to attend to any inferior consideration. The novels of Richardson, in short, though praised perhaps somewhat beyond their merits, will always be read with admiration; and certainly can never appear to greater advantage than when contrasted with the melancholy farrago which is here entitled his Correspondence.

(July, 1813.)

Correspondance, Littéraire, Philosophique et Critique. Adressée à un Souverain d'Allemagne, depuis jusqu'à 1782. Par le BARON DE GRIMM, et par DIDEROT. 5 tomes, 8vo. pp. 2250.

Paris: 1812.

THIS is certainly a very entertaining book -though a little too bulky-and, the greater part of it, not very important. We are glad to see it, however; not only because we are glad to see any thing entertaining, but also because it makes us acquainted with a person, of whom every one has heard a great deal, and most people hitherto known very little. There is no name which comes oftener across us, in the modern history of French literature, than that of Grimm; and none, perhaps, whose right to so much notoriety seemed to most people to stand upon such scanty titles. Coming from a foreign country, without rank, fortune, or exploits of any kind to recommend him, he contrived, one does not very well see how, to make himself conspicuous for forty years in the best company of Paris; and at the same time to acquire great influence and authority among literary men of all descriptions, without publishing any thing himself, but a few slight observations upon French and Italian music.

The volumes before us help, in part, to explain this enigma; and not only give proof of talents and accomplishments quite sufficient to justify the reputation the author enjoyed among his contemporaries, but also of such a degree of industry and exertion, as entitle him, we think, to a reasonable reversion of fame from posterity. Before laying before our readers any part of this miscellaneous chronicle, we shall endeavour to give them a general idea of its construction-and to tell them all that we have been able to discover about its author.

upon his sitting down one evening in a seat which he had previously fixed upon for himself; but with Voltaire and D'Alembert, and all the rest of that illustrious society, both male and female, he continued always on the most cordial footing; and, while he is reproached with a certain degree of obsequiousness toward the rich and powerful, must be allowed to have used less flattery toward his literary associates than was usual in the intercourse of those jealous and artificial beings.

When the Duke of Saxe-Gotha left Paris, Grimm undertook to send him regularly an account of every thing remarkable that occured in the literary, political, and scandalous chronicle of that great city; and acquitted himself in this delicate office so much to the satisfaction of his noble correspondent, that he nominated him, in 1776, his resident at the court of France, and raised him at the same time to the rank and dignity of a Baron. The volumes before us are a part of the despatches of this literary plenipotentiary; and are certainly the most amusing state papers that have ever fallen under our obversation.

The Baron de Grimm continued to exercise the functions of this philosophical diplomacy, till the gathering storm of the Revolution drove both ministers and philosophers from the territories of the new Republic. He then took refuge of course in the court of his master, where he resided till 1795; when Catharine of Russia, to whose shrine he had formerly made a pilgrimage from Paris, gave him the appointment of her minister at the court of Saxony—which he continued to hold till the end of the reign of the unfortunate Paul, when the partial loss of sight obliged him to withdraw altogether from business, and to return to the court of Saxe-Gotha, where he continued his studies in literature and the arts with unabated ardour, till he sunk at last under a load of years and infirmities in the end of 1807.-He was of an uncomely and grotesque appearance-with huge projecting eyes and discordant features, which he rendered still more hideous, by daubing them profusely with white and with red paint

Melchior Grimm was born at Ratisbon in 1723, of very humble parentage; but, being tolerably well educated, took to literature at a very early period. His first essays were made in his own country-and, as we understand, in his native language-where he composed several tragedies, which were hissed upon the stage, and unmercifully abused in the closet, by Lessing, and the other oracles of Teutonic criticism. He then came to Paris, as a sort of tutor to the children of M. de Schomberg, and was employed in the humble capacity of reader to the Duke of Saxe-Gotha, when he was first brought into notice by Rousseau, who was smitten with his enthusiasm for music, and made him known to The book embraces a period of about twelve Diderot, the Baron d'Holbach, and various years only, from 1770 to 1782, with a gap for other persons of eminence in the literary 1775 and part of 1776. It is said in the titleworld. His vivacity and various accomplish- page to be partly the work of Grimm, and ments soon made him generally acceptable; partly that of Diderot,-but the contributions while his uniform prudence and excellent of the latter are few, and comparatively of good sense prevented him from ever losing any of the friends he had gained. Rousseau, indeed, chose to quarrel with him for life,

according to the most approved costume of petits-maîtres, in the year 1748, when he made his debut at Paris.

little importance. It is written half in the style of a journal intended for the public, and half in that of private and confidential cor

respondence; and, notwithstanding the re- out the shortest and most pleasant way to all

trenchments which the editor boasts of having truths, to which a short and a pleasant way made in the manuscript, contains a vast mis- can readily be discovered; and then lay it cellany of all sorts of intelligence ;-critiques down as a maxim, that no others are worth upon all new publications, new operas, and looking after-and in the same way, they do new performers at the theatres;-accounts such petty kindnesses, and indulge such light of all the meetings and elections at the acade- sympathies, as do not put them to any trouble, mies, and of the deaths and characters of all or encroach at all on their amusements,— the eminent persons who demised in the while they make it a principle to wrap themperiod to which it extends;-copies of the selves up in those amusements from the asepigrams, and editions of the scandalous sto-sault of all more engrossing or importunate ries that occupied the idle population of Paris affections. during the same period-interspersed with various original compositions, and brief and pithy dissertations upon the general subjects that are suggested by such an enumeration. Of these, the accounts of the operas and the actors are (now) the most tedious,-the critical and biographical sketches the most live--and the envied life of those who have ly, and the general observations the most striking and important. The whole, however, is given with great vivacity and talent, and with a degree of freedom which trespasses occasionally upon the borders both of propriety and of good taste.

The turn for derision again arises naturally out of this order of things. When passion and enthusiasm, affection and serious occupation have once been banished by a short-sighted voluptuousness, the sense of ridicule is almost the only lively sensation that remains;

of derision, they fall lightly, and without rankling, on the lesser vanities, which supply in them those master springs of human action and feeling.

The whole style and tone of this publication affords the most striking illustration of these general remarks. From one end of it to the other, it is a display of the most complete heartlessness, and the most uninterrupted levity. It chronicles the deaths of half the author's acquaintance—and makes jests upon them all; and is much more serious in discussing the merits of an opera dancer, than in considering the evidence for the being of a God, or the first foundations of morality. Nothing, indeed, can be more just or conclusive, than the remark that is forced from M. Grimm himself, upon the utter carelessness and instant oblivion, that followed the death of one of the most distinguished, active, and amiable members of his coterie-"tant il est vrai que ce qui nous appellons la Société, est ce qu'il y a de plus leger, de plus ingrat, et de plus frivole au monde !"

nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, would be utterly listless and without interest, if they were not allowed to laugh at each other. Their quickness in perceiving ordinary follies and illusions too, affords great encouragement to this laudable practice;-and as none of There is nothing indeed more exactly paint them have so much passion or enthusiasm ed in these graphical volumes, than the char-left, as to be deeply wounded by the shafts acter of M. Grimm himself;—and the beauty of it is, that as there is nothing either natural or peculiar about it, it may stand for the character of most of the wits and philosophers he frequented. He had more wit, perhaps, and more sound sense and information, than the greater part of the society in which he lived-But the leading traits belong to the whole class, and to all classes indeed, in similar situations, in every part of the world. Whenever there is a very large assemblage of persons who have no other occupation but to amuse themselves, there will infallibly be generated acuteness of intellect, refinement of manners, and good taste in conversation;and, with the same certainty, all profound thought, and all serious affection, will be generally discarded from their society. The multitude of persons and things that force themselves on the attention in such a scene, and the rapidity with which they succeed each other and pass away, prevent any one from making a deep or permanent impression; and the mind, having never been tasked to any course of application, and long habituated Holding this opinion very firmly ourselves, to this lively succession and variety of objects, it will easily be believed that we are very far comes at last to require the excitement of from envying the brilliant persons who comperpetual change, and to find a multiplicity posed, or gave the tone to this exquisite soof friends as indispensable as a multiplicity ciety;-and while we have a due admiration of amusements. Thus the characteristics of for the elegant pleasantry, correct taste, and large and polished society, come almost in-gay acuteness, of which they furnish, perhaps, evitably to be, wit and heartlessness-acuteness and perpetual derision. The same impatience of uniformity, and passion for variety, which gives so much grace to their conversation, by excluding tediousness and pertinacious wrangling, make them incapable of dwelling for many minutes on the feelings and concerns of any one individual; while the constant pursuit of little gratifications, and the weak dread of all uneasy sensations, render them equally averse from serious sympathy and deep thought. They speedily find

the only perfect models, we think it more desirable, on the whole, to be the spectators, than the possessors of those accomplishments; and would no more wish to buy them at the price of our sober thinking, and settled affections, than we would buy the dexterity of a fiddler, or a ropedancer, at the price of our personal respectability. Even in the days of youth and high spirits, there is no solid enjoyment in living altogether with people who care nothing about us; and when we begin to grow old and unamuseable, there can be

nothing so comfortless as to be surrounded with those who think of nothing but amusement. The spectacle, however, is gay and beautiful to those who look upon it with a good-natured sympathy, or indulgence; and naturally suggests reflections that may be interesting to the most serious. A judicious extractor, we have no doubt, might accommodate both classes of readers, from the ample magazine that lies before us.

The most figuring person in the work, and indeed of the age to which it belongs, was beyond all question Voltaire,-of whom, and of whose character, it preser ts us with many very amusing traits. He receives no other name throughout the book, than "The Patriarch" of the Holy Philosophical Church, of which the authors, and the greater part of their friends, profess to be humble votaries and disciples. The infallibility of its chief, however, seems to have formed no part of the creed of this reformed religion; for, with all his admiration for the wit, and playfulness, and talent of the philosophic pontiff, nothing can exceed the freedoms in which M. Grimm indulges, both as to his productions, and his character. All his poetry, he says, after Tancred, is clearly marked with the symptoms of approaching dotage and decay; and his views of many important subjects he treats as altogether erroneous, shallow, and contemptible. He is particularly offended with him for not adopting the decided atheism of the Systeme de la Nature, and for weakly stopping short at a kind of paltry deism. "The Patriarch," says he, "still sticks to his Remunerateur-Vengeur, without whom he fancies the world would go on very ill. He is resolute enough, I confess, for putting down the god of knaves and bigots, but is not for parting with that of the virtuous and rational. He reasons upon all this, too, like a baby-a very smart baby it must be owned-but a baby notwithstanding. He would be a little puzzled, I take it, if he were asked what was the colour of his god of the virtuous and wise, &c. &c. He cannot conceive, he says, how mere motion, undirected by intelligence, should ever have produced such a world as we inhabit-and we verily believe him. Nobody can conceive it--but it is a fact nevertheless; and we see it-which is nearly as good." We give this merely as a specimen of the disciple's irreverence towards his master; for nothing can be more contemptible than the reasoning of M. Grimm in support of his own desolating opinions. He is more near being right, where he makes himself merry with the Patriarch's ignorance of natural philosophy. Every Achilles however, he adds, has a vulnerable heel-and that of the hero of Ferney is his Physics.*

This is only true, however, with regard to natural history and chemistry; för as to the nobler part of physics, which depends on science, his attainments were equal perhaps to those of any of his age and country, with the exception of D'Alembert. Even his astronomy, however, though by no means "mince et raccourtie," had a tendency to confirm him in that paltry Deism, for which he

M. Grimm, however, reveals worse infirmities than this in his great preceptor. There was a young Mademoiselle Raucour, it seems, who, though an actress, enjoyed an unblemished reputation. Voltaire, who had never seen her, chose one morning to write to the Marechal de Richelieu, by whom she was patronized, that she was a notorious prosti tute, and ready to be taken into keeping by any one who would offer for her. This imputation having been thoughtlessly communicated to the damsel herself, produced no little commotion; and upon Voltaire's being remonstrated with, he immediately retracted the whole story, which it seems was a piece of pure invention; and confessed, that the only thing he had to object to Madlle. Raucour was, that he had understood they had put off the representation of a new play of his, in order to gratify the public with her appearance in comedy;-"and this was enough," says M. Grimm, "to irritate a child of seventynine, against another child of seventeen, who came in the way of his gratification!"

A little after, he tells another story which is not only very disreputable to the Patriarch, but affords a striking example of the monstrous evils that arise from religious intolerance, in a country where the whole population is not of the same communion. A Mons. de B. introduced himself into a protestant family at Montauban, and after some time, publicly married the only daughter of the house, in the church of her pastor. He lived several years with her, and had one daughter-dissipated her whole property-and at last deserted her, and married another woman at Paris-upon the pretence that his first union was not binding, the ceremony not having been performed by a Catholic priest. The Parliament ultimately allowed this plea; and farther directed, that the daughter should be taken from its mother, and educated in the true faith in a convent. The transaction excited general indignation; and the legality of the sentence, and especially the last part of it, was very much disputed, both in the profession and out of it;-when Voltaire, to the astonishment of all the world, thought fit to put forth a pamphlet in its defence! M. Grimm treats the whole matter with his usual coldness and pleasantry;—and as a sort of apology for this extraordinary proceeding of his chief, very coolly observes, "The truth is, that for some time past, the Patriarch has been suspected, and indeed convicted, of the most abominable cowardice. He defied the old Parliament in his youth with signal courage and intrepidity; and now he cringes to the new one, and even condescends to be its panegyrist, from an absurd dread of being persecuted by it on the very brink of the tomb. "Ah! Seigneur Pat

is so unmercifully rated by M. Grimm. We do not know many quartains in French poetry more beautiful than the following, which the Patriarch indited impromptu, one fine summer evening

"Tous ces vastes pays d'Azur et de Lumiere,
Tirés du sein du vide, et formés sans matiere,
Arrondis sans compas, et tournans sans pivot,
Ont à peine couté la depense d'un mot!"

riarche!" he concludes, in the true Parisian | He promised every night, indeed, to give him accent, "Horace was much more excusable for a long sitting next day, and always kept his flattering Augustus, who had honoured him, word;-but then, he could no more sit still, though he destroyed the republic, than you than a child of three years old. He dictated are, for justifying, without any intelligible mo- letters all the time to his secretary; and, in tive, a proceeding so utterly detestable, and the mean time, kept blowing peas in the air, upon which, if you had not courage to speak making pirouettes round his chamber, or inas became you, you were not called upon to dulging in other feats of activity, equally fatal say any thing." It must be a comfort to the to the views of the artist. Poor Phidias was reader to learn, that immediately after this sen- about to return to Paris in despair, without tence, a M. Vanrobais, an old and most re- having made the slightest progress in his despectable gentleman, was chivalrous enough, sign; when the conversation happening by at the age of seventy, to marry the deserted good luck to turn upon Aaron's golden calf, widow, and to place her in a situation every and Pigalle having said that he did not think way more respectable than that of which she such a thing could possibly be modelled and had been so basely defrauded. cast in less than six months, the Patriarch was so pleased with him, that he submitted to any thing he thought proper all the rest of the day, and the model was completed that very evening.

enough to come to his castle at Ferney, with
the intention of paying a long visit. The
second morning, however, the Patriarch in-
terrupted him in the middle of a dull account
of his travels, with this perplexing question.
"Do you know, M. L'Abbé, in what you differ
entirely from Don Quixotte?"
The poor
Abbé was unable to divine the precise point
of distinction; and the philosopher was pleas-
ed to add, "Why, you know the Don took all
the inns on his road for castles,-but it ap-
pears to me that you take some castles for
inns." The Abbé decamped without waiting
for a further reckoning He behaved still
worse to a M. de Barthe, whom he invited to
come and read a play to him, and afterwards
drove out of the house, by the yawns and
frightful contortions with which he amused
himself, during the whole of the perform-

There is a great deal, in the first of these volumes, about the statue that was voted to Voltaire by his disciples in 1770.-Pigalle the sculptor was despatched to Ferney to model him, in spite of the opposition he affects to There are a number of other anecdotes, make in a letter to Madame Necker, in which extremely characteristic of the vivacity, imhe very reasonably observes, that in order to patience, and want of restraint which distinbe modelled, a man ought to have a face-guished this extraordinary person. One of but that age and sickness have so reduced the most amusing is that of the congé which him, that it is not easy to point out where- he gave to the Abbé Coyer, who was kind abouts his had been; that his eyes are sunk into pits three inches deep, and the small remnant of his teeth recently deserted; that his skin is like old parchment wrinkled over dry bones, and his legs and arms like dry spindles ;-in short, "qu'on n'a jamais sculpté un pauvre homme dans cet etat." Phidias Pigalle, however, as he calls him, goes upon his errand, notwithstanding all these discouragements; and finds him, according to M. Grimm, in a state of great vivacity. "He skips up stairs," he assures me, "more nimbly than all his subscribers put together, and is as quick as lightning in running to shut doors, and open windows; but, with all this, he is very anxious to pass for a poor man in the last extremities; and would take it much amiss if he thought that any body had discovered the secret of his health and vigour." Some awkward person, indeed, it appears, been complimenting him upon the occasion; One of his happiest repartees is said to have for he writes me as follows:-"My dear been made to an Englishman, who had refriend-though Phidias Pigalle is the most cently been on a visit to the celebrated Halvirtuous of mortals, he calumniates me cruel- ler, in whose praise Voltaire enlarged with ly; I understand he goes about saying that I great warmth, extolling him as a great poet, am quite well, and as sleek as a monk!-a great naturalist, and a man of universal Such is the ungrateful return he makes for the pains I took to force my spirits for his amusement, and to puff up my buccinatory muscles, in order to look well in his eyes!Jean Jacques, to be sure, is far more puffed up than I am; but it is with conceit-from which I am free." In another letter he says, -"When the peasants in my village saw Pigalle laying out some of the instruments of his art, they flocked round us with great glee, and said, Ah! he is going to dissect himhow droll!-so one spectacle you see is just as good for some people as another."

has ance.

attainments. The Englishman answered, that it was very handsome in M. De Voltaire to speak so well of Mr. Haller, inasmuch as he the said Mr. Haller, was by no means so liberal to M. de Voltaire. "Ah!" said the Patriarch, with an air of philosophic indulgence, "I dare say we are both of us very much mistaken."

On another occasion, a certain M. de St. Ange, who valued himself on the graceful turn of his compliments, having come to see him, took his leave with this studied allusion to the diversity of his talents, "My visit toThe account which Pigalle himself gives day has only been to Homer-another mornof his mission, is extremely characteristic. ing I shall pay my respects to Sophocles and For the first eight days, he could make noth- Euripides another to Tacitus-and another ing of his patient, he was so restless and to Lucian." "Ah, Sir!" replied the Patrifull of grimaces, starts, and gesticulations.arch, "I am wretchedly old,—could you not

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