M. de St. Lambert. She died in childbirth; and the following dramatic elegy was circulated all over Paris the week after that catastrophe.

M. de Chatelet.-Ah! ce n'est pas ma faute ! "M. de Voltaire.-Je l'avais predit!

"M. de St. Lambert.-Elle l'a voulu !" Crebillon the younger is naturally brought to our recollection by the mention of wit and indecency. We have an account of his death, and a just and candid estimate of his merits, in one of the volumes before us. However frivolous and fantastic the style of his novels may appear, he had still the merit of inventing that style, and of adorning it with much ingenuity, wit, and character. The taste for his writings, it seems, passed away very rapidly and completely in France; and long before his death, the author of the Sopha, and Les Egaremens du Cœur et de l'Esprit, had the mortification to be utterly forgotten by the public. M. Grimm thinks this reverse of fortune rather unmerited; and observes, that in foreign countries he was still held in estimation, and that few French productions had had such currency in London as the Sopha. The reason perhaps may be, that the manners and characters which the French at once knew to be unnatural, might be mistaken by us for true copies of French originals. It is a little more difficult, however, to account for the fact, that the perusal of his works inspired a young lady of good family in this country with such a passion for the author, that she ran away from her friends, came to Paris, married him, and nursed and attended him with exemplary tenderness and affection to his dying day. But there is nothing but luck, good or bad-as M. Grimm sagely observes in this world. The author of a licentious novel inspires a romantic passion in a lady of rank and fortune, who crosses seas, and abandons her family and her native country for his sake;-while the author of the Nouvelle Heloise, the most delicate and passionate of all lovers that ever existed, is obliged to clap up a match with his singularly stupid chambermaid!

Of all the loves, however, that are recorded in this chronicle, the loves of Madame du Deffant and M. de Ponte-de-Vesle, are the most exemplary; for they lasted upwards of fifty years without quarrel or intermission. The secret of this wonderful constancy is, at all events, worth knowing; and we give it in the words of an authentic dialogue between this venerable Acmé and Septimius.

"Pont-de-Vesle ?-Madame?-Où êtes-vous ?

-Au coin de votre cheminée.-Couché les pieds

sur les chenets, comme on est chez ses amis ?Oui, Madame.-Il faut convenir qu'il est peu de liaisons aussi anciennes que la nôtre.-Cela est vrai. Il y a cinquante ans.-Oui, cinquante ans passés-Et dans ce long intervalle aucun nuage, pas même l'apparence d'une brouillerie.-C'est ce que j'ai toujours admiré.-Mais, Pont-de-Vesle, cela ne viendrait-il point de ce qu'au fond nous avons toujours été fort indifférens l'un à l'autre ?Cela se pourrait bien, Madame."

came rather late to a great supper in the neighbourhood; and as it was known that she made it a point of honour to attend on him, the catastrophe was generally suspected. She mentioned it, however, herself, immediately on coming in;-adding, that it was lucky he had gone off so early in the evening, as she might otherwise have been prevented from appearing. She then sate down to table, and made a very hearty and merry meal of it!

Besides Pont-de-Vesle, however, this celebrated lady had a lover almost as ancient, in the President Henault-whom also she had the misfortune to survive; though he had the complaisance, as well as his predecessor, to live to near ninety years for her sake. The poor president, however, fell into dotage, before his death; and one day, when in that state, Madame du Deffant having happened to ask him, whether he liked her or Madame de Castelmoron the best, he, quite unconscious of the person to whom he was speaking, not only declared his preference of the absent lady, but proceeded to justify it by a most feeling and accurate enumeration of the vices and defects of his hearer, in which he grew so warm and eloquent, that it was quite impossible either to stop him, or to prevent all who were present from profiting by the communication. When Madame de Chatelet died, Madame du Deffant testified her grief for the most intimate of her female acquaintance, by circulating all over Paris, the very next morning, the most libellous and venomous attack on her person, her understanding, and her morals. When she came to die herself, however, she met with just about as much sympathy as she deserved. Three of her dearest friends used to come and play cards every evening by the side of her couch-and as she chose to die in the middle of a very interesting game, they quietly played it out-and settled their accounts before leaving the apartment. We hope these little traits go near to justify what we ventured to say in the outset, of the tendency of large and agreeable society to fortify the heart; at all events, they give us a pretty lively idea of the liaisons that united kindred souls at Paris. We might add to the number several anecdotes of the President Henault-and of the Baron d'Holbach, who told Helvetius, a little time before the death of the latter, that though he had lived all his life with irritable and indigent men of letters, he could not recollect that he had either quarrelled with, or done the smallest service to, any one among them.

There is a great deal of admirable criticism in this work, upon the writings and genius of almost all the author's contemporaries—Dorat, Piron, Millot, Bernard, Mirabeau, Moncrif, Colardeau, and many others, more or less generally known in this country; nor do we know any publication, indeed, so well calcu lated to give a stranger a just and comprehensive view of the recent literature of France. The little we can afford to extract, however, must be hung upon names more notorious.

The publication of a stupid journal of MonThe evening this veteran admirer died, she | taigne's Travels in Italy gives M. Grimm an

of that most agreeable veteran. Nothing can be more just than the greater part of the following observations.

“Quoi-qu'il y ait dans ses Essais une infinite de faits d'anecdotes et de citations, il n'est pas difficile de s'appercevoir que ses études n'étaient ni vastes ni protondes. Il n'avait guère lu que quelques poētes latins, quelques livres de voyage, et son Sènèque et son Plutarque."

opportunity of saying something of the Essays-Hawkesworth's Voyages are also very much commended; and Sir William Jones' letter to Anquetil du Perron, is said to be capable, with a few retrenchments, of being made worthy of the pen of the Patriarch himself.-Mrs. Montagu's Essay on Shakespeare is also applauded to the full extent of its merits; and, indeed, a very laudable degree of candour and moderation is observed as to our national taste fit for us, and Racine for them; and each in the drama.-Shakespeare, he observes, is should be satisfied with his lot, and would do well to keep to his own national manner. When we attempt to be regular and dignified, we are merely cold and stiff; and when they aim at freedom and energy, they become absurd and extravagant. The celebrity of Garrick seems to have been scarcely less at Paris than in London,-their greatest actor being familiarly designated "Le Garrick François. His powers of pantomime, indeed, were universally intelligible, and seem to have made a prodigious impression upon the theatrical critics of France. But his authority is quoted by M. Grimm, for the observation, that there is not the smallest affinity in the tragic declamation of the two countries;-so that an actor who could give the most astonishing effect to a passage of Shakespeare, would not, though perfectly master of French, be able to guess how a single line of Racine should be spoken on the stage.

De tous les auteurs qui nous restent de l'an. tiquité. Plutarque est, sans contredit, celui qui a recueilli le plus de vérités de fait et de spéculation. Ses œuvres sont une mine inépuisable de lumières et de connaissances: c'est vraiment l'Encyclopédie des anciens. Montaigne nous en a donné la fleur, et il y a ajouté les reflexions les plus fines, et sur tout les résultats les plus secrets de sa propre expérience. Il me semble donc que si j'avais à donner une idée de ses Essais, je dirais en deux mots que c'est un commentaire que Montaigne fit sur luimême en méditant les écrits de Plutarque. Je pense encore que je dirais mal: ce serait lui prêter un projet...Montaigne n'en avait aucun. En met. tant la plume à la main, il paraît n'avoir songé qu'au plaisir de causer familièrement avec son lecteur. Il lui rend compte de ses lectures, de ses pensées, de ses reflexions, sans suite, sans dessein: il veut avoir le plaisir de penser tout haut, et il en jouit à son aise. Il cite souvent Plutarque, parce que Plutarque était son livre favori. La seule loi qu'il semble s'être prescrite, c'est de ne jamais parler que de ce qui l'intéressait vivement: de là l'énergie et la vivacité de ses expressions, la grace et l'originalité de son langage. Son esprit a cette assurance et cette franchise aimable que l'on ne trouve que dans ces enfans bien nés, dont la contrainte du monde et de l'éducation ne gêna point encore les mouvemens faciles et naturels."

After a still farther encomium on the sound sense of this favourite writer, M. Grimm concludes

"Personne n'a-t-il done pensé plus que Montaigne? Je l'ignore. Mais ce que je crois bien savoir, c'est que personne n'a dit avec plus de simplicité ce qu'il a senti, ce qu'il a pensé. On ne peut rien ajouter à l'éloge qu'il a fait lui-même de son onvrage; c'est ici un livre de bonne foi. Cela est

divin. et cela est exact."

"Qu'est-ce que toutes les connaissances humaines? le cercle en est si borné!.... Et depuis quatre mille ans, qu'a-t-on fait pour l'étendre? Montesquien a dit quelque part, qu'il travaillait à un livre de douze pages, qui contiendrait tout ce que nous savons sur la Métaphysique, la Politique et la Morale, et tout ce que de grands auteurs ont oublié dans les volumes qu'ils ont donnés sur ces scienceslà..... Je suis très sérieusement persuadé qu'il ne tenait qu'à lui d'accomplir ce grand projet.'

Montesquieu, Buffon, and Raynal are the only authors, we think, of whom M. Grimm speaks with serious respect and admiration. Great praise is lavished upon Robertson's Charles V.-Young's Night Thoughts are said, and with justice, to be rather ingenious than pathetic; and to show more of a gloomy imagination than a feeling heart.-Thomson's Seasons are less happily stigmatized as excessively ornate and artificial, and said to stand in the same relation to the Georgics, that the Lady of Loretto, with all her tawdry finery, bears to the naked graces of the Venus de Medici.-Johnson's Life of Savage is extolled as exceedingly entertaining-though the author is laughed at, in the true Parisian taste, for not having made a jest of his hero.

We cannot leave the subject of the drama, however, without observing, with what an agreeable surprise we discovered in M. Grimm, an auxiliary in that battle which we have for some time waged, though not without trepidation, against the theatrical standards of France, and in defence of our own more free and irreg ular drama. While a considerable part of our own men of letters, carried away by the authority and supposed unanimity of the continental judges, were disposed to desert the cause of Shakespeare and Nature, and to recognize Racine and Voltaire, as the only true models of dramatic excellence, it turns out that the greatest Parisian critic, of that best age of criticism, was of opinion that the very idea of dramatic_excellence had never been developed in France; and that, from the very causes which we have formerly specified, there was neither powerful passion nor real nature on their stage. After giving some account of a play of La Harpe's, he observes, "I am more and more confirmed in the opinion, that true tragedy, such as has never yet existed in France, must, after all, be written in prose; or at least can never accommodate itself to the pompous and rhetorical tone of our stately versification. The ceremonious and affected dignity which belongs to such compositions, is quite inconsistent with the just imitation of nature, and destructive of all true pathos. It may be very fine and very poetical; but it is not dramatic:—and accordingly I have no hesitation in maintaining, that all our celebrated tragedies belong to the epic and not to the dramatic division of poetry. The Greeks and Romans had a dramatic verse, which did not interfere with simplicity

or familiarity of diction; but as we have none, | spirit of absolute monarchy-the same artifiwe must make up our minds to compose our cial stateliness-the same slow moving of few tragedies in prose, if we ever expect to have persons-the same suppression of ordinary any that may deserve the name. What then?" emotions, and ostentatious display of lofty he continues; "must we throw our Racines sentiments, and, finally, the same jealousy of and Voltaires in the fire?-by no means; the interference of lower agents, and the same on the contrary, we must keep them, and horror of vulgarity and tumult. When we study and admire them more than ever;- consider too, that in the countries where this but with right conceptions of their true nature form of the drama has been established, the and merit-as masterpieces of poetry, and Court is the chief patron of the theatre, and reasoning, and description;-as the first works courtiers almost its only supporters, we shall of the first geniuses that ever adorned any probably be inclined to think that this unination under heaven:-But not as tragedies, formity of character is not a mere accidental -not as pieces intended to exhibit natural coincidence, but that the same causes which characters and passions speaking their own have stamped those attributes on the serious language, and to produce that terrible impres- hours of its rulers, have extended them to sion which such pieces alone can produce. those mimic representations which were origConsidered in that light, their coldness and inally devised for their amusement. In Engchildishness will be immediately apparent ;- land, again, our drama has all along partaken and though the talents of the artist will al- of the mixed nature of our government,— ways be conspicuous, their misapplication persons of all degrees take a share in both, and failure will not be less so. With the each in his own peculiar character and fashion: prospect that lies before us, the best thing, and the result has been, in both, a much perhaps, that we can do is to go on, boasting greater activity, variety, and vigour, than was of the unparalleled excellence we have at- ever exhibited under a more exclusive system. tained. But how speedily should our boastings In England, too, the stage has in general been be silenced if the present race of children dependent on the nation at large, and not on should be succeeded by a generation of men! the favour of the Court;-and it is natural to Here is a theory," concludes the worthy Baron, suppose that the character of its exhibitions a little alarmed it would seem at his own te- has been affected by a due consideration of merity, "which it would be easy to confirm that of the miscellaneous patron whose feeland illustrate much more completely-if a ings it was its business to gratify and reflect. man had a desire to be stoned to death before the door of the Theatre François! But, in the mean time, till I am better prepared for the honours of martyrdom, I must entreat you to keep the secret of my infidelity to yourself." Diderot holds very nearly the same language. After a long dissertation upon the difference between real and artificial dignity, he proceeds," What follows, then, from all this-but that tragedy is still to be invented in France; and that the ancients, with all their faults, were probably much nearer inventing it than we have been?-Noble actions and sentiments, with simple and familiar language, are among its first elements;-and I strongly suspect, that for these two hundred years, we have mistaken the stateliness of Madrid for the heroism of Rome. If once a man of genius shall venture to give to his characters and to his diction the simplicity of ancient dignity, plays and players will be very different things from what they are now. But how much of this," he adds also in a fit of sympathetic terror, "could I venture to say to any body but you! I should be pelted in the streets, if I were but suspected of the blasphemies I have just uttered."

With the assistance of two such allies, we shall renew the combat against the Continental dramatists with fresh spirits and confidence; and shall probably find an early opportunity to brave the field, upon that important theme. In the mean time we shall only remark, that we suspect there is something more than an analogy between the government and political constitution of the two countries, and the character of their drama. The tragedy of the Continent is conceived in the very genius and

After having said so much about the stage, we cannot afford room either for the quarrels or witticisms of the actors, which are reported at great length in these volumes-or for the absurdities, however ludicrous, of the "Diou de Danse" as old Vestris ycleped himself-or even the famous "affaire du Menuet" which distracted the whole court of France at the marriage of the late King. We can allow only a sentence indeed to the elaborate dissertation in which Diderot endeavours to prove that an actor is all the worse for having any feeling of the passions he represents, and is never so sure to agitate the souls of his hearers as when his own is perfectly at ease. We are persuaded that this is not correctly true;-though it might take more distinctions than the subject is worth, to fix precisely where the truth lies. It is plain we think, however, that a good actor must have a capacity, at least, of all the passions whose language he mimics,-and we are rather inclined to think, that he must also have a transient feeling of them, whenever his mimicry is very successful. That the emotion should be very short-lived, and should give way to trivial or comic sensations, with very little interval, affords but a slender presumption against its reality, when we consider how rapidly such contradictory feelings succeed each other, in light minds, in the real business of life. That real passion, again, never would be so graceful and dignified as the counterfeited passion of the stage, is either an impeachment of the accuracy of the copy, or a contradiction in terms. The real passion of a noble and dignified character must always be dignified and graceful,-and if Cæsar, when

actually bleeding in the Senate-house, folded | from the arms of her lawful husband, and to his robe around him, that he might fall with compel her to submit again to his embraces,decorum at the feet of his assassins, why and that the court was actually guilty of the should we say that it is out of nature for a incredible atrocity of granting such an order! player, both to sympathise with the passions It was not only granted, M. Grimm assures of his hero, and to think of the figure he us, but executed, and this poor creature was makes in the eyes of the spectators? Strong dragged from the house of her husband, and conception is, perhaps in every case, attended conducted by a file of grenadiers to the quarwith a temporary belief of the reality of its ters of his highness, where she remained till objects; and it is impossible for any one to his death, the unwilling and disgusted victim copy with tolerable success the symptoms of of his sensuality! It is scarcely possible to a powerful emotion, without a very lively ap- regret the subversion of a form of governprehension and recollection of its actual pre- ment, that admitted, if but once in a century, sence. We have no idea, we own, that the of abuses so enormous as this: But the tone copy can ever be given without some partici- in which M. Grimm notices it, as a mere foipation in the emotion itself-or that it is pos- blesse on the part of le Grand Maurice, gives sible to repeat pathetic words, and with the us reason to think that it was by no means true tone and gestures of passion, with the without a parallel in the contemporary history, same indifference with which a schoolboy re- In England, we verily believe, there never peats his task, or a juggler his deceptions. was a time in which it would not have proThe feeling, we believe, is often very mo- duced insurrection or assassination. mentary; and it is this which has misled One of the most remarkable passages in those who have doubted of its existence. this philosophical journal, is that which conBut there are many strong feelings equally tains the author's estimate of the advantages fleeting and undeniable The feelings of the and disadvantages of philosophy. Not being spectators, in the theatre, though frequently much more of an optimist than ourselves, M. more keen than they experience anywhere Grimm thinks that good and evil are pretty else, are in general infinitely less durable than fairly distributed to the different generations those excited by real transactions; and a lu- of men; and that, if an age of philosophy be dicrous incident or blunder in the perform-happier in some respects than one of ignorance, will carry the whole house, in an instant, from sobbing to ungovernable laughter: And even in real life, we have every day occasion to observe, how quickly the busy, the dissipated, the frivolous, and the very youthful, can pass from one powerful and engrossing emotion to another. The daily life of Voltaire, we think, might have furnished Diderot with as many and as striking instances of the actual succession of incongruous emotions, as he has collected from the theatrical life of Sophie Arnoud, to prove that one part of the succession must necessarily have been ficti

tious.

ance and prejudice, there are particulars in which it is not so fortunate. Philosophy, he thinks, is the necessary fruit of a certain experience and a certain maturity; and implies, in nations as well as individuals, the extinction of some of the pleasures as well as the follies of early life. All nations, he observes, have begun with poetry, and ended with philosophy-or, rather, have passed through the region of philosophy in their way to that of stupidity and dotage. They lose the poetical passion, therefore, before they acquire the taste for speculation; and, with it, they lose all faith in those allusions, and all interest in those trifles which make the happiness of the brightest portion of our existence. If, in this advanced stage of society, men are less brutal, they are also less enthusiastic;-if they are more habitually beneficent, they have less warmth of affection. They are delivered indeed from the yoke of many prejudices; but at the same time deprived of many motives of action. They are more prudent, but more anxious-are more affected with the general interests of mankind, but feel less for their neighbours; and, while curiosity takes the place of admiration, are more enlightened, but far less delighted with the universe in which they are placed.

There are various traits of the oppressions and abuses of the government, incidentally noticed in this work, which maintains, on the whole, a very aristocratical tone of politics. One of the most remarkable relates to no less a person than the Maréchal de Saxe. This great warrior, who is known never to have taken the field without a small travelling seraglio in his suite, had engaged a certain Madlie. Chantilly to attend him in one of his campaigns. The lady could not prudently decline the honour of the invitation, because she was very poor; but her heart and soul were devoted to a young pastry cook of the name of Favart, for whose sake she at last broke out of the Marshal's camp, and took The effect of this philosophical spirit on the refuge in the arms of her lover; who reward-arts, is evidently unfavourable on the whole. ed her heroism by immediately making her Their end and object is delight, and that of his wife. The history of the Marshal's la- philosophy is truth; and the talent that seeks mentation on finding himself deserted, is to instruct, will rarely condescend to aim purely ridiculous, and is very well told; but merely at pleasing. Racine and Molière, and our feelings take a very different character, Boileau, were satisfied with furnishing amusewhen, upon reading a little farther, we find ment to such men as Louis XIV., and Colbert, that this illustrious person had the baseness and Turenne; but the geniuses of the presand brutality to apply to his sovereign for a ent day pretend to nothing less than enlightlettre de cachet to force this unfortunate woman ening their rulers; and the same young men

who would formerly have made their debût | After these precious ameliorations were comwith a pastoral or a tragedy, now generally pleted, they threw of the full impression; leave college with a new system of philoso- and, to make all sure and irremediable, conphy and government in their portfolios. The signed both the manuscript and the original very metaphysical, prying, and expounding proofs to the flames! Such, says M. Grimm, turn of mind that is nourished by the spirit is the true explanation of that mass of imof philosophy, unquestionably deadens our pertinences, contradictions, and incoherences, sensibility to those enjoyments which it con- with which all the world has been struck, in verts into subjects of speculation. It busies the last ten volumes of this great compilation. itself in endeavouring to understand those It was not discovered till the very eve of the emotions which a simpler age was contented publication; when Diderot having a desire to with enjoying;-and seeking, like Psyche, to look back to one of his own articles, printed have a distinct view of the sources of our some years before, with difficulty obtained a pleasures, is punished, like her, by their in- copy of the sheets containing it from the stant annihilation. warehouse of M. Breton-and found, to his Religion, too, continues M. Grimm, consid- horror and consternation, that it had been garered as a source of enjoyment or consolation bled and mutilated, in the manner we have in this world, has suffered from the progress just stated. His rage and vexation on the of philosophy, exactly as the fine arts and af-discovery, are well expressed in a long letter fections have done. It has no doubt become to Breton, which M. Grimm has engrossed in infinitely more rational, and less liable to his register. The mischief however was ir atrocious perversions; but then it has also remediable, without an intolerable delay and become much less enchanting and ecstatic-expense; and as it was impossible for the much less prolific of sublime raptures, bea- editor to take any steps to bring Breton to tific visions, and lofty enthusiasm. It has punishment for this "horrible forfait," withsuffered, in short, in the common disenchant-out openly avowing the intended publication ment; and the same cold spirit which has chased so many lovely illusions from the earth, has dispeopled heaven of half its marvels and its splendours.

of a work which the court only tolerated by affecting ignorance of its existence, it was at last resolved, with many tears of rage and vexation, to keep the abomination secret-at We could enlarge with pleasure upon these least till it was proclaimed by the indignant just and interesting speculations; but it is denunciations of the respective authors whose time we should think of drawing this article works had been subjected to such cruel muto a close; and we must take notice of a very tilation. The most surprising part of the extraordinary transaction which M. Grimm story however is, that none of these authors has recorded with regard to the final publica- ever made any complaint about the matter. tion of the celebrated Encyclopedie. The re- Whether the number of years that had elapsdaction of this great work, it is known, was ed since the time when most of them had ultimately confided to Diderot; who thought furnished their papers, had made them init best, after the disturbances that had been sensible of the alterations-whether they beexcited by the separate publication of some lieved the change effected by the base hand of the earlier volumes, to keep up the whole of Breton to have originated with Diderot, of the last ten till the printing was finished; their legal censor-or that, in fact, the alteraand then to put forth the complete work at tions were chiefly in the articles of the said once. A bookseller of the name of Breton, Diderot himself, we cannot pretend to say; who was a joint proprietor of the work, had but M. Grimm assures us, that, to his astonthe charge of the mechanical part of the con-ishment and that of Diderot, the mutilated cern; but, being wholly illiterate, and indeed without pretensions to literature, had of course no concern with the correction, or even the perusal of the text. This person, however, who had heard of the clamours and threatened prosecutions which were excited by the freedom of some articles in the earlier There are many curious and original anecvolumes, took it into his head, that the value dotes of the Empress of Russia in this book; and security of the property might be improv- and as she always appeared to advantage ed, by a prudent castigation of the remaining where munificence and clemency to individuparts; and accordingly, after receiving from als were concerned, they are certainly calcuDiderot the last proofs and revises of the dif- lated to give us a very favourable impression ferent articles, took them home, and, with the of that extraordinary woman. We can only assistance of another tradesman, scored out, afford room now for one, which characterises altered, and suppressed, at their own discre- the nation as well as its sovereign. A popution, all the passages which they in their wis- lar poet, of the name of Sumarokoff, had dom apprehended might give offence to the quarrelled with the leading actress at Moscow, court, or the church, or any other persons in and protested that she should never again authority-giving themselves, for the most have the honour to perform in any of his trapart, no sort of trouble to connect the disjoint-gedies. The Governor of Moscow, however, ed passages that were left after these mutila- not being aware of this theatrical feud, tions and sometimes soldering them together thought fit to order one of Sumarokoff's trage with masses of their own stupid vulgarity. dies for representation, and also to command

publication, when it at last made its appearance, was very quietly received by the injured authors as their authentic production, and apologies humbly made, by some of them, for imperfections that had been created by the beast of a publisher.