il paroit quelque chose de beau qui n'est pas | valle immense entre le ciel et les enfers. En de lui. On lui verra faire un jour quelques vérité, la main me tremble."-III. pp. 148, 149 grands forfaits plutôt que de se laisser ignorer. Madame d'Epinay lived, as we before ob. Tenez, je ne jurerois pas qu'il ne se rangeât served, with many persons of great celebrity. du parti des Jésuites, et qu'il n'enterprit leur | We could not help smiling, among many apologie."-II. pp. 60, 61. The horror which Diderot ultimately conceived for him, is strongly expressed in the following letter to Grimm,-written after an interview which compelled him, with many pangs, to renounce all intercourse with a man who had, for years, been the object of his tenderest and most partial feelings. "Cet homme est un forcené. Je l'ai vu, je lui ai reproché, avec toute la force que donne l'honnêteté et une sorte d'intérêt qui reste au fond du cœur d'un ami qui lui est dévoué depuis long-temps, l'énormité de sa conduite; les pleurs versés aux pieds de Madame d'Epinay, dans le moment même où il la chargeoit près de moi des accusations les plus graves; cette odieuse apologie qu'il vous a envoyee, et où il n'y pas une seule des raisons qu'il avoit à dire; cette lettre projectée pour Saint-Lambert, qui devoit le tranquilliser sur des sentimens qu'il se reprochoit, et où, loin d'avouer une passion née dans son cœur son malgré lui, il s'excuse d'avoir alarmé Madame d'Houdetot sur la sienne. Que sais-je encore? Je ne suis point content de ses résponses; je n'ai pas eu le courage de le lui temoigner j'ai mieux aimé lui laisser la misérable consolation de croire qu'il m'a trompé. Qu'il vive! Il a mis dans sa défense un emportement froid qui m'a affligé. J'ai peur qu'il ne soit endurci. "Adieu, mon ami; soyons et continuons d'être honnêtes gens: l'état de ceux qui ont cessé à l'être me fait peur. Adieu, mon ami; je vous embrasse bien tendrement..... Je ne jette dans vos bras comme un homme effrayé; je tâche en vain de faire de la poésie, mais cet homme me revient tout à travers mon travail; il me trouble, et je suis comme si j'avois à côté de moi un damné; il est damné, cela est sûr. Adieu, mon ami. . . . . Grimm, violà l'effet que je ferois sur vous, si je devenois jamais un méchant: en vérité, j'aimerois mieux être mort. Il n'y a peut-être pas le sens commun dans tout ce que je vous écris, mais je vous avoue que je n'a jamais éprouvé un trouble d'ame si terrible que cela que j'ai. "Oh! mon ami, quel spectacle que celui d'un homme méchant et bourrelé! Brûlez, déchirez ce papier, qu'il ne retombe plus sous vos yeux; que je ne revoie plus cet homme la, il me feroit croire aux diables et à l'enfer. Si je suis jamais forcé de retourner chez lui, je suis sûr que je frémirai tout le long du chemin: j'avois la fiévre en revenant. Je suis fâché de ne lui avoir pas laissé voir l'horreur qu'il m'inspiroit, et je ne me réconcilie avec moi qu'en pensant, que vous, avec toute votre fermeté, vous ne l'auriez pas pu à ma place; je ne sais pas s'il ne m'auroit pas tué. On entendoit ses cris jusqu'au bout du jardin; et je le voyois! Adieu, mon ami, j'irai demain vous voir; j'irai chercher un homme de bien, aupres duquel je m'asséye, qui me rassure, et qui chasse de mon ame je ne sais quoi d'infernal qui la tourmente et qui s'y est attaché. Les poètes ont bien fait de mettre un inter others, at this anecdote of our countryman, David Hume. At the beginning of his splendid career of fame and fashion at Paris, the historian was persuaded to appear in the character of a sultan; and was placed on a sofa between two of the most beautiful women of Paris, who acted for that evening the part of inexorables, whose favour he was supposed to be soliciting. The absurdity of this scene can easily be conceived. "Le célèbre David Hume, grand et gros historiographe d'Angleterre, connu et estimé par ses écrits, n'a pas autant de talens pour ce genre d'amusemens auquel toutes nos jolies femmes l'avoient décidé propre. Il fit son début chez Madame de T***; on lui avoit destiné le rôle d'un sultan assis entre deux esclaves, employant toute son éloquence pour s'en faire aimer; les trouvant inexorables, il devoit chercher le sujet de leurs peines et de leur résistance: on le place sur un sopha entre les deux plus jolies femmes de Paris, il les regarde attentivement, il se frappe le ventre et les genoux à plusieurs reprises, et ne trouve jamais autre chose à leur dire que. Eh bien! mes demoiselles .... Eh bien! vous voilà donc .... Eh bien! vous voilà.... vous voilà ici?.... Cette phrase dura un quart-d'heure, sans qu'il pût en sortir. Une d'elles se leva d'impatience: Ah! dit-elle, je m'en étois bien doutée, cet homme n'est bon qu'à manger du veau! Dupuis ce temps il est relégué au rôle de spectateur, et n'en est pas moins fêté et cajolé. C'est en vérité une chose plaisante que le rôle qu'il joue ici; malheureusement pour lui, ou plutôt pour la dignité philosophique, car, pour lui, il paroit s'accommoder fort de ce train de vie; il n'y avoit aucune manie dominante dans ce pays lorsqu'il y est arrivé; on l'a regardé comme une trouvaille dans cette circonstance, et l'effervescence de nos jeunes têtes s'est tournée de son côté. Toutes les jolies femmes s'en sont emparées; il est de tous les soupers fins, et il n'est point de bonne fête sans lui: en un mot, il est pour nos agréables ce que les Genevois sont pour moi."-III. pp. 284, 285. There is always some man, of whom the human viscera stand in greater dread than of any other person, who is supposed, for the time being, to be the only person who can dart his pill into their inmost recesses; and bind them over, in medical recognisance, to assimilate and digest. In the Trojan war, Podalirius and Machaon were what Dr. Baillie and Sir Henry Halford now are they had the fashionable practice of the Greek camp; and, in all probability, received many a guinea from Ágamemnon dear to Jove, and Nestor the tamer of horses. In the time of Madame d'Epinay, Dr. Tronchin, of Geneva, was in vogue, and no lady of fashion could recover without writing to him, or seeing him in person. To the Esculapius of this very small and irritable republic, Madame d'Epinay repaired; and, after a struggle between life and death, and Dr. Tronchin, recovered her health. During her residence at Geneva, she became acquainted with Voltaire, of whom she has left the following admirable and original account-the truth, talent, and simplicity of which, are not a little enhanced by the tone of adulation or abuse which has been so generally employed in speaking of this celebrated person. "Eh bien! mon ami, je n'aimerois pas à vivre de suite avec lui; il n'a nul principe arrêté, il compte trop sur sa mémoire, et il en abuse souvent; je trouve qu'elle fait tort quelquefois à sa conversation; il redit plus qu'il ne dit, et ne laisse jamais rien à faire aux autres. Il ne sait point causer, et il humilie l'amour-propre; il dit le pour et le contre, tant qu'on veut, toujours avec de nouvelles graces à la vérité, et néanmoins il a toujours l'air de se moquer de tout, jusqu'à lui-même. Il n'a nulle philosophie dans la tête; il est tout hérissé de petits préjugés d'enfans; on les lui passeroit peut-être en faveur de ses graces, du brilliant de son esprit et de son originalité, s'il ne s'affichoit pas pour les secouer tous. Il a des inconséquences plaisantes, et il est au milieu de tout cela très-amusant à voir. Mais je n'aime point les gens qui ne font que m'amuser. Pour madame sa nièce, elle est tout-à-fait comique. paroît pourtant pas. Il est d'une taille médiocre, sa figure a dû être très-agréable: elle se distingue encore par un air de noblesse et d'aisance, qui répand de la grace sur tout sa personne. Sa physionomie a de la finesse. Ses gestes, ses attitudes ne sont jamais recherchés; mais ils sont si bien d'accord avec la tournure de son esprit, qu'ils semblent ajouter à son originalité. Il parle des choses les plus sérieuses et les plus importantes d'un ton si gai, qu'on est souvent tenté de ne rien croire de ce qu'il dit. On n'a presque jamais rien a citer de ce qu'on lui entend dire; mais lorsqu'il parle, on ne veut rien perdre de ce qu'il dit; s'il se tait, on désire qu'il parle encore. Sa prodigieuse vivacité, et une singulière aptitude à toutes sortes de talens et de connoissances, l'ont porté à tout voir et à tout connoître; au moyen de quoi vous comprenez qu'il est fort instruit. Il a bien lu, bien vu, et n'a retenu que ce qui valoit la peine de l'être. Son esprit annonce d'abord plus d'agrément que de solidité, mais je crois que quiconque le jugeroit frivole lui feroit tort. Je le soupçonne de renfermer dans son cabinet les épines des roses qu'il distribue dans la société : assez constamment gai dans le monde, seul je le crois mélancolique. On dit qu'il a l'ame aussi tendre qu'honnête; qu'il sent vivement et qu'il se livre avec impetuosité à ce qui trouve le chemin de son cœur. Tout le monde ne lui plaît pas; il faut pour cela de l'originalité, ou des vertus distinguées, ou de certains vices qu'il appelle passions; néanmoins dans le courant de la vie, il s'accommode de tout. Beaucoup de curiosité et de la facilité dans le caractère (ce qui va jusqu'à la foiblesse) l'entraînent souvent à négliger ses meilleurs amis et à les perdre de vue, pour se livrer à des goûts factices et passagers: il en rit avec eux; mais on voit si clairement qu'il en rougit avec lui-même, qu'on ne peut lui savoir mauvais gré de ses disparates."—III. pp. 324 "Il paroît ici depuis quelques jours un livre qui a vivement échauffe les têtes, et qui cause des discussions fort intéressantes entre différentes personnes de ce pays, parce que l'on prétend que la constitution de leur gouvernement y est intéressée: Voltaire s'y trouve mêlé pour des propos assez vifs qu'il a tenu à ce sujet contre les prêtres. La grosse nièce trouve fort mauvais que tous les magistrats n'ayent pas pris fait et cause pour son oncle. Elle jette tour à tour ses grosses mains et ses petits bras par dessus sa tête, maudissant avec des cris inhumains les lois, les républiques, et surtout ces polissons de républicains qui vont à pied, qui sont obligés de souffrir les criailleries de leurs prêtres, et qui se croient libres.-326. Cela est tout-à-fait bon à entendre et à voir." III. pp. 196, 197. The portrait of Grimm, the French Boswell, vol. iii. p. 97, is equally good, if not superior; Madame D'Epinay was certainly a woman but we have already extracted enough to show of very considerable talent. Rousseau accuses the nature of the work, and the talents of the her of writing bad plays and romances. This author. It is a lively, entertaining book,may be; but her epistolary style is excellent relating in an agreeable manner the opinions -her remarks on passing events lively, acute, and habits of many remarkable men-mingled and solid-and her delineation of character with some very scandalous and improper pasadmirable. As a proof of this, we shall give sages, which degrade the whole work. But if her portrait of the Marquis de Croismare, one all the decencies and delicacies of life were in of the friends of Diderot and the Baron d'Hol- one scale, and five francs in the other, what bach. French bookseller would feel a single moment "Je lui crois bien soixante ans; il ne les of doubt in making his selection? POOR-LAW S.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1820.] Our readers, we fear, will require some apology for being asked to look at anything upon the poor-laws. No subject, we admit, can be more disagreeable, or more trite. But, unfortunately, it is the most important of all the important subjects which the distressed state of the country is now crowding upon our notice. profligate would be the expenditure. It is pro posed also that alehouses should be diminished. and that the children of the poor should be catechized publicly in the church,-both very respectable and proper suggestions but of themselves hardly strong enough for the evil. We have every wish that the poor should accus tom themselves to habits of sobriety; but we cannot help reflecting, sometimes, that an alehouse is the only place where a poor tired creature, haunted with every species of wretch A pamphlet on the poor-laws generally contains some little piece of favourite nonsense, by which we are gravely told this enormous evil may be perfectly cured. The first gentle-edness, can purchase three or four times a man recommends little gardens; the second cows; the third a village shop; the fourth a spade; the fifth Dr. Bell, and so forth. Every man rushes to the press with his small morsel of imbecility; and is not easy till he sees his impertinence stitched in blue covers. In this list of absurdities, we must not forget the project of supporting the poor from national funds, or, in other words, of immediately doubling the expenditure, and introducing every possible abuse into the administration of it. Then there are worthy men, who call upon gentlemen of fortune and education to become overseers-meaning, we suppose, that the present overseers are to perform the higher duties of men of fortune. Then merit is set up as the test of relief; and their worships are to enter into a long examination of the life and character of each applicant, assisted, as they doubtless would be, by candid overseers, and neighbours divested of every feeling of malice and partiality. The children are next to be taken from their parents, and lodged in immense pedagogueries of several acres each, where they are to be carefully secluded from those fathers and mothers they are commanded to obey and honour, and are to be brought up in virtue by the churchwardens. And this is gravely intended as a corrective of the poorlaws; as if (to pass over the many other objections which might be made to it,) it would not set mankind populating faster than carpenters and bricklayers could cover in their children, or separate twigs to be bound into rods for their flagellation. An extension of the poorlaws to personal property is also talked of. We should be very glad to see any species of property exempted from these laws, but have no wish that any which is now exempted should be subjected to their influence. The case would infallibly be like that of the income-tax, -the more easily the tax was raised, the more year three pennyworth of ale-a liquor upon which wine-drinking moralists are always extremely severe. We must not forget, among other nostrums, the eulogy of small farms-in other words, of small capital, and profound ig. norance in the arts of agriculture; and the evil is also thought to be curable by periodical contributions from men who have nothing, and can earn nothing without charity. To one of these plans, and perhaps the most plausible, Mr. Nicol has stated, in the following passage, objections that are applicable to almost all the rest. "The district school would no doubt be well superintended and well regulated; magistrates and country gentlemen would be its visitors. The more excellent the establishment, the greater the mischief; because the greater the expense. We may talk what we will of economy, but where the care of the poor is taken exclusively into the hands of the rich, comparative extravagance is the necessary consequence: to say that the gentleman, or even the overseer, would never permit the poor to live at the district school, as they live at home, is saying far too little. English humanity will never see the poor in any thing like want, when that want is palpably and visibly brought before it: first, it will give necessaries, next comforts; until its fostering care rather pampers, than merely relieves. The humanity itself is highly laudable; but if practised on an extensive scale, its consequences must entail an almost unlimited expenditure. " Mr. Locke computes that the labour of a child from 3 to 14, being set against its nourishment and teaching, the result would be exone ration of the parish from expense. Nothing could prove more decisively the incompetency of the board of trade to advise on this question. Of the productive labour of the workhouse, I shall have to speak hereafter; I will only observe in this place, that after the greatest care and attention bestowed on the subject, after expensive looms purchased, &c., the 50 boys of the blue coat school earned in the year 1816, 591. 10s. 3d.; the 40 girls earned, in the same time, 401. 7s. 9d. The ages of these children are from 8 to 16. They earn about one pound in the year, and cost about twenty. "The greater the call for labour in public | less to strike the eye, it has far more to engage institutions, be they prisons, workhouses, or the heart. A trifle in the way of cleanliness schools, the more difficult to be procured that must suffice; the prayer is not forgot; it is perlabour must be. There will thence be both haps imperfectly repeated, and confusedly unmuch less of it for the comparative numbers, derstood; but it is not muttered as a vain and it will afford a much less price; to get any sound; it is an earthly parent that tells of a labour at all, one school must underbid an- heavenly one; duty, love, obedience, are not other. words without meaning, when repeated by a mother to her child: to God, the great unknown Being that made all things, all thanks, all praise, all adoration is due. The young religionist may be in some measure bewildered by all this; his notions may be obscure, but his feelings will be roused, and the foundation at least of true piety will be laid. "It has just been observed, that the child of a poor cottager, half clothed, half fed, with the enjoyment of home and liberty, is not only happier but better than the little automaton of a parish workhouse:' and this I believe is accurately true. I scarcely know a more cheering sight, though certainly many more elegant ones, than the youthful gambols of a village green. They call to mind the description given by Paley of the shoals of the fry of fish: They are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves; their attitude, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it, all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess.' Though politeness may be banished from the cottage, and though the anxious mother may sometimes chide a little too sharply, yet here both maternal endearments and social affection exist in perhaps their greatest vigour: the attachments of lower life, where independent of attachment there is so little to enjoy, far outstrip the divided if not exhausted sensibility of the rich and great; and in depriving the poor of these attachments, we may be said to rob them of their little all. "But it is not to happiness only I here refer; it is to morals. I listen with great reserve to that system of moral instruction, which has not social affection for its basis, or the feelings of the heart for its ally. It is not to be concealed, that every thing may be taught, yet nothing learned, that systems planned with care, and executed with attention, may evaporate into unmeaning forms, where the imagination is not roused, or the sensibility impressed. "Let us suppose the children of the district school,' nurtured with that superabundant care which such institutions, when supposed to be well conducted, are wont to exhibit; they rise with the dawn; after attending to the calls of cleanliness, prayers follow; then a lesson; then breakfast; then work, till noon liberates them, for perhaps an hour, from the walls of their prison to the walls of their prison court. Dinner follows; and then, in course, work, lessons, supper, prayers; at length, after a day dreary and dull, the counterpart of every day which has preceded, and of all that are to follow, the children are dismissed to bed.-This system may construct a machine, but it will not form a man. Of what does it consist of prayers parroted without one sentiment in accord with the words uttered: of moral lectures which the understanding does not comprehend, or the heart feel; of endless bodily constraint, intolerable to youthful vivacity, and injurious to the perfection of the human frame.-The cottage day may not present so imposing a scene; no decent uniform; no well trimmed locks; no glossy skin; no united response of hundreds of conjoined voices; no lengthened procession, misnamed exercise; but if it has "Of moral instruction, the child may be taught less at home than at school, but he will be taught better; that is, whatever he is taught he will feel: he will not have abstract propositions of duty coldly presented to his mind; but precept and practice will be conjoined; what he is told it is right to do will be instantly done. Sometimes the operative principle on the child's mind will be love, sometimes fear, sometimes habitual sense of obedience; it is always something that will impress, always something that will be remembered." There are two points which we consider as now admitted by all men of sense,-1st, That the poor-laws must be abolished; 2dly, That they must be very gradually abolished. We hardly think it worth while to throw away pen and ink upon any one who is still inclined to dispute either of these propositions. With respect to the gradual abolition, it must be observed, that the present redundant popu lation of the country has been entirely produced by the poor-laws: and nothing could be so grossly unjust as to encourage people to such a vicious multiplication, and then, when you happen to discover your folly, immediately to starve them into annihilation. You have been calling upon your population for two hundred years to beget more children-furnished them with clothes, food, and houses-taught them to lay up nothing for matrimony, nothing for children, nothing for age-but to depend upon justices of the peace for every human want. The folly is now detected; but the people, who are the fruit of it, remain. It was madness to call them in this manner into existence; but it would be the height of cold-blooded cruelty to get rid of them by any other than the most gentle and gradual means; and not only would it be cruel, but extremely dangerous, to make the attempt. Insurrections of the most sanguinary and ferocious nature would be the immediate consequence of any very sudden change in the system of the poor-laws; not partial, like those which proceeded from an impeded or decaying state of manufactures, but as universal as the poor-laws themselves, * I am not quite so wrong in this as I seem to be, nor after all our experience am I satisfied that there has not been a good deal of rashness and precipitation in the conduct of this admirable measure. You have not been able to carry the law into manufacturing countries. Parliament will compel you to soften some of the more severe clauses. It has been the nucleus of general insurrection and chartism. The Duke of Wellington wisely recommended that the experiment should be first tried in a few counties round the metropolis. and as ferocious as insurrections always are which are led on by hunger and despair. chargeable, any man may live where he pleases, until he becomes a beggar, and asks alms of These observations may serve as an answer the place where he resides. To gain a settleto those angry and impatient gentlemen, who ment, then, is nothing more than to gain a right are always crying out, What has the committee of begging: it is not, as it used to be before Mr. of the House of Commons done?-What have East's act, a power of residing where, in the they to show for their labours?-Are the rates judgment of the resident, his industry and exerlessened? Are the evils removed? The com- tion will be best rewarded; but a power of taxmittee of the House of Commons would haveing the industry and exertions of other persons shown themselves to be a set of the most con- in the place where his settlement falls. This temptible charlatans, if they had proceeded privilege produces all the evil complained of in with any such indecent and perilous haste, or the poor-laws; and instead, therefore, of being paid the slightest regard to the ignorant folly conferred with the liberality and profusion which required it at their hands. They have which it is at present, it should be made of very very properly begun, by collecting all possible difficult attainment, and liable to the fewest information upon the subject; by consulting possible changes. The constant policy of our speculative and practical men; by leaving time courts of justice has been, to make settlements for the press to contribute whatever it could of easily obtained. Since the period we have bethought or knowledge to the subject; and by fore alluded to, this has certainly been a very introducing measures, the effects of which will mistaken policy. It would be a far wiser be, and are intended to be, gradual. The lords course to abolish all other means of settlement seemed at first to have been surprised that the than those of birth, parentage, and marriagepoor-laws were not abolished before the end of not for the limited reason stated in the comthe first session of Parliament; and accordingly mittee, that it would diminish the law expenses, set up a little rival committee of their own, (though that, too, is of importance,) but because which did little or nothing, and will not, we it would invest fewer residents with the fatal believe, be renewed. We are so much less privilege of turning beggars, exempt a greater sanguine than those noble legislators, that we number of labourers from the moral corruption shall think the improvement immense, and a of the poor-laws, and stimulate them to exertion subject of very general congratulation, if the and economy, by the fear of removal if they are poor-rates are perceptibly diminished, and if extravagant and idle. Of ten men who leave the system of pauperism is clearly going down the place of their birth, four, probably, get a in twenty or thirty years hence. settlement by yearly hiring, and four others by renting a small tenement; while two or three may return to the place of their nativity, and settle there. Now, under the present system, here are eight men settled where they have a right to beg without being removed. The probability is, that they will all beg; and that their virtue will give way to the incessant temptation of the poor-laws: but if these men had felt from the very beginning, that removal from the place where they wished most to live would be the sure consequence of their idleness and extravagance, the probability is, that they would have escaped the contagion of pauperism, and been much more useful members of society than they now are. The best labourers in a village are commonly those who are living where they are legally settled, and have therefore no right to ask charity-for the plain reason, that they have nothing to depend upon but their own exertions: in short, for them the poor-laws hardly exist; and they are such as the great mass of English peasantry would be, if we had escaped the curse of these laws altogether. We think, upon the whole, that government has been fortunate in the selection of the gentleman who is placed at the head of the com- | mittee for the revision of the poor-laws; or rather, we should say, (for he is a gentleman of very independent fortune), who has consented that he should be placed there. Mr. Sturges Bourne is undoubtedly a man of business, and of very good sense: he has made some mistakes; but, upon the whole, sees the subject as a philosopher and a statesman ought to do. Above all, we are pleased with his good nature and good sense in adhering to his undertaking, after the Parliament has flung out two or three of his favourite bills. Many men would have surrendered so unthankful and laborious an undertaking in disgust; but Mr. Bourne knows better what appertains to his honour and character, and, above all, what he owes to his country. It is a great subject; and such as will secure to him the gratitude and favour of posterity, if he brings it to a successful issue. We have stated our opinion that all remedies, without gradual abolition, are of little importance. With a foundation laid for such gradual abolition, every auxiliary improvement of the poor-laws (while they do remain) is worthy the attention of Parliament: and, in suggesting a few alterations as fit to be immediately adopted, we wish it to be understood, that we have in view the gradual destruction of the system, as well as its amendment while it continues to operate. It seems to us, then, that one of the first and greatest improvements of this unhappy system would be a complete revision of the law of settlement. Since Mr. East's act for preventing the removal of the poor till they are actually It is incorrect to say, that no labourer would settle out of the place of his birth, if the means of acquiring a settlement were so limited. Many men begin the world with strong hope and much confidence in their own fortune, and without any intention of subsisting by charity; but they see others subsisting in greater ease, without their toil-and their spirit gradually sinks to the meanness of mendicity. An affecting picture is sometimes drawn of a man falling into want in the decline of life, and compelled to remove from the place where he has spent the greatest part of his days. These things are certainly painful enough to him who has the misfortune to witness them. But they |