I will now enquire, in the fecond place, of the means by which this treasure was gotten, and of whom it was acquired. The Christian world had long groaned under the ufurpation and oppreflion of their fpiritual paftors and tutors. They had long been cheated and defrauded by the fale of bulls and indulgences. The children of refpectable and reputable parents had been reduced to indigent circumstances, to beggary and to want, and heirs impoverished and difinherited. Thefe fpiritual guides had laid traps and fnares for the confciences of their flock: they created new fins, and they granted licences and indulgences to commit them. Never had greater or more refined fcenes of enormity been committed than thofe which were perpetrated under the cloak of a mild and an holy religion. This property was extorted from the people by numberless different frauds, and under numberlefs different pretences, to enumerate which in detail, would be to enumerate every poffible peculation, every scene of injuftice, and every fyftem of corruption. It confifted moftly of gifts or donations from the people, extorted in extremes, and for fuperftitious, or, as they were denominated, pious ufes of monies given for the abfolution and the forgiveness of fin; for the relief of fouls from the pains of a ftate of purgatory-of benefactions and charitable gifts to monafteries, heriots, &c. &c. The doctrine of purgatory was another prolific fource, an almoft inexhauftible mine of wealth to the Romifh clergy. The relations of almost every perfon that died in this populous and extenfive empire, gave large fums of money and other goods to the priests and monks, in order that they might pray for the foul of the deceased, and for its relief from purgatory. Whether these pious and thele holy fathers performed the fervice for which they received a ftipend or not, I am at a lofs to determine. Whenever a person was dangeroufly ill, thefe ecclefiaftics were his daily and his conftant vifitors. He was perpetually teazed into a compliance with their measures. Had he been guilty of any irregularities, a donatio caufa mortis, or a gift in pios ufus was the peace offering that would infure him forgiveness. Had he committed a crime however atrocious, the building of an abbey was a fufficient atonement. [To be continued.] SATIRE of M. VOLTAIRE, against M. ROUSSEAU'S ELOISA. A Prophecy given 1761. N thofe days there will appear in France a very extraordinary perfon, come from the banks of a lake. He will fay unto the people, "I am poffeffed by the dæmon of enthufiafm-I have received from heaven the gift of inconfiftency;" and the multitude fhall run after him, and many fhall believe in him; and he fhall fay unto them, "Ye are all villains and rafcals; your women are all profitutes; and I am come to live amongst you;" and he will take advantage of the natural lenity of your country to abufe the people: and he will add, "All the men are virtuous in the country where I was born, and I will not ftay in the country where I was born" and he will maintain that the fciences and the arts must neceffarily corrupt our morals; and he will treat of all forts of arts and sciences; and he will maintain that the theatre is a fource of profti prostitution and corruption; and he will compofe operas and plays He will publish that there is no virtue but among the favages, though he never was among them. He will advife mankind to go naked, and he will wear laced clothes when given him-He will employ his time in copying French mufic, and he will tell you there is no French mufic. He will tell you that it is impoffible to preferve your morals if you read romances and he will compofe a romance, and in this romance fhall be feen vice in deeds, and virtue in words; and the actors in it fhall be mad with love, and with philofophy: and in this romance we fhall learn how to feduce a young girl philofophically. And the difciple fhall lofe all fhame and all modefty, and the fhall practife folly, and raise maxims with her mafter, and fhall be the firft to give him a kifs on the lips; and the fhall invite him to lie with her, and he fhall actually lie with her, and the fhall become pregnant with metaphyficks; and his love-letters fhall be philofophical homilies: and he fhall get drunk with an English nobleman, who fhall infult him, and he fhall challenge him to fight, and his mistress, who hath left the honour of her own fex, fhall decide with regard to that of men, and she shall teach her mafter, who taught her every thing, that he ought not to fight. And he fhall go to Paris, where he shall be introduced to fome ladies of pleasure, and he fhall get drunk like a fool, and fhall lie with thofe women of the town; and he fhall write an account of these adventures to his mistress, and the fhall thank him for it. The man who fhall marry his mistress fhall know that she is loved to distraction by another, and this good man, notwithstanding, fhall be an atheist, and immediately after the marriage his wife fhall be happy, and fhe fhall write to her lover, that if he were again at liberty, fhe would wed her husband rather than him. And the philofopher fhall have a mind to kill himself, and fhall compose a long differtation to prove that a lover ought always to kill himself when he has loft his miftrefs; and her husband fhall prove to him that it is not worth his while, and he fhall not kill himself. Then he fhall fet out to make the tour of the world, in order to allow time for the children of his mistress to grow up, and that he may get to Switzerland time enough to be their preceptor, and to teach them virtue as he had done their mother; and he fhall fee nothing in the tour of the world, and he fhall return to Europe, and when he fhall have arrived there they fhall ftill love one another with transport, and they shall fqueeze each others hands, and weep. And this fine lover being in a boat along with his miftrefs, fhall have a mind to throw her in the water, and himfelf along with her. All this they fhall call philofophy and virtue, and they fhall talk fo much of philofophy and virtue, that no body fhall know what philofophy and virtue is, and the miftrefs of the philofopher fhall have a few trees and a rivulet in her garden, and she shall call that her elyfium. And every day fhe fhall feed fparrows in her garden, and fhe fhall watch her domeftics, both males and females, to prevent their playing the fame foolish pranks that the herfelf had played, and fhe fhall fup in the midst of her harvest people, and fhe fhall cut hemp with them, haying her lover at her fide; and the philofopher fhall be defirous of cutting hemp the day after that, and all the days of his life, and the fhall be a pedant in every word fhe fays, and all the reft of her fex fhall be contemptible in her eyes; and fhe fhall die, and before he dies she shall preach preach according to cuftom; and fhe fhall talk inceffantly, till her ftrength fhall fail her; and the fhall drefs herfelf out like a coquette, and die like a faint. The author of this book, like thofe empiricks who make wounds on purpofe to fhew the virtue of their balfams, poifon our fouls for the fake of curing them; and this poifon will act violently on the understanding and on the heart, and the antidote will operate only on the underflanding, and the poifon will triumph, and he will boaft of having opened a gulf, and he will think he faves himself from all blame by crying, H The LAST ASSAN BEN-AIOUB, a rich citizen of Bafiora, a widower, and without children, felt himfelf attacked with an incurable difcafe, and threatened with a ípeedy death. One day, when fome of his friends had come to fee him, he acknowledged to them, that he intended to go to the Cadi and intreat him to come and receive his laft will immediately. Agib, one of these friends, tenderly reproached him for that cruel acknowledgment, that refolution fo ftrange, and, according to him, fo premature. But after all, added he, I fee, my dear Haffan, the respectable motive which induces you: You believe that you cannot too foon confider what will become of thofe confiderable effects which heaven has beftowed on you after you are gone. You fear they may fall into unworthy hands, and that the criminal ufe which may be made of them will be imputed to you. Sage Haffan, I have nothing more to fay. I go myfelf to feck the public officer you afk after, and I will bring him to you immediately. Agib went out wiping his eyes, which dropt no tears; and in lefs than half an hour he returned with the Cadi. The fick perfon then Woe be to the young girls that fhall fall into it! I have warned them againft it in my preface, and young girls never read a preface! And he will fay by way of excufe for his having written a book which infpires vice, that he lives in an age wherein it is impoffible to be good; and to justify himself he will flander the whole world, and threaten with his contempt all thofe who fhall diflike his book, and every body fhall wonder how, with a foul fo pure and virtuous, he could compofe a book which is fo much the reverfe; and many that believed in him fhall believe in him no more. WILL. drawing out from beneath his pillow a fealed packet, faid to the magiftrate, Light of the law, behold the laft requests of a dying man: I depofite them in your hands, which the gold of corruption dare not venture to ftain. When the angel of death fhall have difengaged my foul from its prifon, deign to open this laft will in prefence of my relations and my friends; but above all, in prefence of my good friend Agib. Haffan died fome days afterwards; and scarcely had they clofed his eyes, when Agib in hafte conducted before the Cadi all those whom the deceafed had defired to be prefent. The muffulman judge, after fhowing them the feal fafe and entire, broke it open himself, and gave the will open to his fecretary; who read with a loud voice what follows: In the name of the just and merciful God. Before quitting the caravanfera of this world, where I have paffed a fhort and wretched night, I Haffan, the fon of Aïoub, the fun of Abdalla, leave this writing, by which I difpofe of all the goods to which I have right that I do not carry along with me. I have they will employ in forming their little establishments. I bequeath to the Emir Manfour my Arabian horse, with his authen I bequeath to Molla Saleb my golden ink-ftandish; and to his brother the Iman an ancient alcoran, written on blue vellum in letters of gold; the fame, it is faid, on which the Calif Omar read on Fridays to the faithful affembly in the great mofque. I have threatened my nephews David and Achmet, to make them repent their conduct which has frequently difpleafed me; and I am now to keep my word with them-tic genealogy, and his trappings aquite otherwife than they imagine. dorned with the pearls of Bahrem. They are young and a little foolish ; but will they continue to be fo? they are the fons of my brother who loved me, and the grandfons of my father. I leave them then the fortune which that good father left me, and all that my cares, my ceconomy, and the bleffing of heaven have added to it. If they abufe my gift, the fin be on their own head. I leave them, I fay, all I poffefs; but under this condition nevertheless, that they fhall difcharge the legacies after-mentioned. I fhall leave none to the poor dervifes, and even none in favour of hofpitals. Thanks to heaven, my hands opened of themfelves to pay to indigence the tribute that is its due but in dying I keep them fhut; it is the bufinefs of my heirs to open theirs. What merit have I in giving to God that which he is about to take from me? and how will he regard these pofthumous charities which flatter the pride of the teftator, and coft his avarice nothing? I will, that from the time of my death, all my flaves without exception fhall be abfolutely and for ever free. They merit this the more that they seem to me never to have desired it, till they dreaded the lofing me. I bequeath to fuch among them as age or infirmities have rendered unable to work, an alimentary penfion proportioned to their wants, and which fhall not be less than 50 pieces of gold. As to the others, I love them too well to expose their virtues to the dangers of idleness. They will live like decent citizens by the trades which I have made them be taught; and I content myself with bequeathing to each 150 pieces of gold, which New-York Mag. Vol. II. No. 8. That book excepted, I bequeath to the philofopher Amrou all the library which he has taken fo much pains to form. I know that he loves books, and that it would be more easy for him to make good ones than to buy them. I therefore leave him mine; but on this express condition, that he first of all accept the purfe of 1000 pieces of gold, which for more than 20 years I have preffed him in vain to accept. If he ftill refuses this laft mark of my friendship, I renounce his from that moment; and I pray our common friends to avenge my infulted memory, by giving up all connection with this unreasonable philofopher. I believe I fhall have lefs difficulty to prevail on my good friend Agib to accept of a legacy. What do I not owe to this dear Agib? He has attached himself to me almoft in fpite of myself from the time he faw me old and infirm; and he did not even quit me when he faw me dying.It is he who made me perceive a thousand perfeétions I poffeffed, of which neither myself nor any perfon could form a doubt. It is he who has obferved with an eye of severity all the follies of my nephews, who has kept an exact register of them, and given me a more than faithful account of them. But what fhall I bequeath to that friend, fo officious and fo zealous? A good advice of Nnn which which I expect he will profit:Choose better your dupes, my dear Agib, and never attempt to impofe on a friend, unless he is rich, weak, and vain. You will find enough of this defcription! Done at Baffora the 322d year of the Hejira, the fixth day of the moon of Regeb. HASSAN BEN-AIOUB, The fervant of God. To the EDITORS of the NEW-YORK MAGAZINE, N perufing the American Geography published by the Rev. Mr. Morfe, I find in his sketch of the life of General Montgomery, the following defcription of the monument railed at St. Paul's Church to the memory of that illuftrious hero.After mentioning the refolve of Congrefs for erecting a monument, &c. he goes on-" This refolve was car"ried into execution at Paris, by that ingenious artift Mr.Caffiers, fculp"tor to the King of France, under "the direction of Dr. Franklin."The monument is of white marble, "of the most beautiful fimplicity and "inexpreffible elegance, with em"blematical devices, and the follow"ing truly claffical infcription, worthy of the modeft, but great mind "of a Franklin. "To the glory of RICHARD MONTGOMERY, Major-General of the armies of the United States of America : Slain at the fiege of Quebec, the 31st December, 1775, aged 38 years." Whoever reads this defcription. will, I think, naturally conclude that the above infcription is really on the monument; but whoever goes to view it, will find the following:"This monument is erected by order of Congrefs, 25th January, 1776, to tranfmit to pofterity a grateful remembrance of the patriotifm, conduct, enterprize and perfeverance of Major-General RICHARD MONTGOMERY, who, after a series of fucceffes, amidst the most discouraging difficulties, fell in the attack on Quebec, 31st December, 1775, aged 37 years." I do not fend you this for infertion in your valuable Repository, with an intent to injure the credit of Mr. Morfe's useful publication, but merely to rectify an error that has been copied in other works.* Wishing to fee the New-York Magazine flourish, I remain, &c. OBSERVER. Brooklyne, Aug. 9, 1791. Chriftian's, Scholar's and Farmer's Magazine. APHORIS M. ONVERSATION with men of a polite genius is the beft method for improving our natural tafte. It is impoffible for a man of the greateft parts to confider any thing in its whole extent, and in all its variety of lights. Every man, befides thofe general obfervations |