No other poet in, or out of, Italy, is comparable to him in this particular. Racine only, is, perhaps, able to difpute the prize with him; and fome will allow the French writer higher finishing in his fcenes, greater truth of expreffion, characters ftronger marked, more theatrical, plans better arranged, fcenes more connected, and paffions better traced and fupported. But without denying thefe excellencies to Racine, confidering the different species of writing, it does not feem eafy to determine the question between them. Tragedy is defigned to operate on reason and the heart. Hence the texture of fcenes, variety of action and pomp of dialogue, require particular elaboration; and in all thefe Racine is admirable. The opera, infeparable from mufic, fong, dance, and magnificent decora tion, has for its object not only to fatisfy reafon, but to delight the ear and please the imagination. Hence, to render the ftyle more lyrical, there should be greater theatrical illufion, lefs complication in the plot, more contraction of circumftances, and greater rapidity of change from one fituation to another, in order to render the action more interefting and brilliant: all which the imperial laureate has fo happily accomplished, as to enable Italy to oppofe its Metaftafio to any poet which France can put in parallel against him.' Signor ARTEAGA next confiders Metaftafio's manner of treating the paffion of Love. Before his time, the romantic ideas of chivalry, which exalted every female into, a divinity, and the ideal paffion of Plato, fupplied books and poets with unnatural, impracticable, and abftrufe notions of love, till Arifto, Aretino, and others, erected the ftandard of fenQuality and voluptuoufnefs. This prevailed for fome time, till oppofed by Bembo, Speroni, Caftiglione, &c. who tried to bring mankind back to Platonifm, and to make the celestial virgin, Chaftity, who had ferved Petrarca for a model, defcend once more on the earth. But this spirit penetrated no further than fongs and dialogues. The age, wholly devoted to licence and voluptuoufnefs, was abandoned to the government of poetical fables, and the romantic paffion of knights-errant; and the vifionary reasoning of thefe idle writers was fent to the regions of the moon, where the fenfes of Orlando, the fervices of dependants on the great, the Speeches of politicians, with female tears, and the hopes of courtiers, have fo long been preferved. Metaftafio has happily fteered between the extremes of fpirituality and fenfual imagery, by purifying paffion and combining reafon with fenfibility, and the attractions of virtue with thofe of beauty. The extreme delicacy and purity of his fentiments on all subjects are fuch as encourage the most chafte, spotlefs, venerable, and digni fied perfonages openly and avowedly to read his works; in which, without the leaft offence to modefty, or infult to dignity of character, all may fee their own fituation artfully delineated. In perufing Metaftafie, men find a faithful copy of that original which is in their own breaft; and women, the furprifing power of that beauty which governs mankind. No writer has poffeffed fo large a portion of the eloquence of the heart as Metaftafio. His ftrokes of paffion are always thofe of a great mafter: at once clear and profound, tender and fublime. Sportive as Anacreon, delicate as Tibullus, infinuating APP. REV. Vol. LXXIX. Xx as Racine, and great and laconic as Alceus; uniting with the melody of the Greek lyre, the force of the Romans, the urbanity of the French, and the fenfibility of the Italians-Metaftaf will be always the great luminary of his nation, and the firft lyric dramatist in the univerfe. Greece would have deified him, as it did Linus and Orpheus." AR T. XVIII. LOUIS ERNESTE, Duc de Brunfwic et Lunebourg, &c. Rapport authentique de la Conduite qu'on a tenue à l'egard de ce Seigneur, &c. i. e. An authentic Account of the Proceedings relative to the Duke of Brunfwic, during the whole of his Administration of the important Offices of Field Marshal, Tutor to, and Representative of, William V. Prince of Orange and Naffau, &c. By AUGUSTUS LOUIS SCHLÖZER, LL.D. Tranflated from the German, by C. JEROME. 8vo. 2 Vols. Gotha. 1788. PA ARTY fpirit, or faction, may not unaptly be termed the opprobrium of government; fince the beft-regulated states have been at all times obnoxious to it. In different conftitutions, indeed, the disease appears with a different degree of malignity. In one it may be deemed a fimple affection, while in another it is the fever of the mad. The oppofition in the Dutch republic, for inftance, is founded on very contrary motives from thofe which actuate the protefting members of the British parliament with these it is a matter of principle, with those it is a palpable crime. For it is an undoubted fact, that in EngJand, nothing is at any time endeavoured to be wrefted from the Prince his privileges are facred and inviolate, while in Holland, the very men who are appointed to a fhare in the executive government, have generally been the firft to aim at the annihilation of the higher power-in other words, to compass the deftruction of that chief magiftrate, whom it is their incumbent duty, both morally and politically fpeaking, to affift, defend, and protect. Many of the political feuds which have fo long diftracted the republic of Holland, are reported, by the mal-content party, to have been in a great measure occafioned by the perverfenefs and obftinacy of the Duke of Brunfwic, who (fay they), after an unfatisfactory adminiftration of many years, and when called on by the people to refign his employments, in confequence of the odium he had generally incurred, refufed to comply; appealing to the Prince of Orange, whofe minifter or counsellor he had long been, for a vindication of the whole of his proceedings. To let the entire matter in a proper light, and thence to prove, or to endeavour to prove, the innocence of the Duke of * Imported by Mr. Dilly in London, price 10s. 6d. Brunfwic, Brunfwic, as to the accufations brought againft him, is the profeffed object of the work before us. ་ It contains,' fays the Editor, an authentic and chronological relation of the conduct of Lewis Duke of Brunfwic, from, the year 1750, the time of his first arrival in Holland, until 1784, the period of his final departure from it: together with a large collection of papers illuftrative and explanatory of the whole.' This publication opens with fome letters, written anno 1748-9, by the Stadtholder William IV. to the Duke of Brunfwic, at that time in the fervice of the Imperial court, inviting him to affume the charge of the army of the States; to which propofition, after many folicitations, he acceded. Thefe are followed by a fhort account of the glorious administration' of the Duke; that is to fay, from the death of William IV. at whose defire he undertook the management of affairs, until the acceffion of the Prince his pupil. We must here take occafion to obferve, that immediately on this event (the majority of William V.), the Duke of Brunfwic manifefted a craft and fubtlety in his proceedings, highly derogatory from his honour. His power, as Regent, had entirely ceafed; he therefore caufed an inftrument to be prepared, in which, by a formal convention, the Stadtholder agrees to receive and entertain the Duke as minifter and counsellor in all affairs of ftate, declaring him amenable to no perfon or body of men whatever, during the Stadtholder's life; and granting him, at the fame time, a general indemnification for the whole of his conduct in cafe of his (the Prince's) demife. This famous compact of the Duke's, and which indeed is nothing lefs than fharing in authority with the Prince of Orange (a privilege which the Stadtholder, conftitutionally fpeaking, could not grant, and which the minifter could not receive), gave particular umbrage to the Hollanders, and has been the foundation of a criminal charge against the high contracting parties. Why, fay the people, was not the Duke of Brunfwic appointed Privy Counsellor to the Stadtholder, and in the usual forms? To this his Highness makes anfwer-Il ne convient pas qu'un Duc de Brunfwic porte le nom de confeiller privé d'un Stadtholder de Hollande. The haughtiness of this reply, together with the contempt fo openly manifefted in it for the Stadtholder, fhews at once the temper and difpofition of the man. But this affumption of the princely power (for it is ridiculous to think of explaining it away), if not altogether criminal, as the high republican party have styled it, is certainly cenfurable in no small degree. He must have known that the measure was unconftitutional, and, with a very little forefight, have concluded that it would ultimately involve both the Prince and himself in difgrace. But the Duke was blinded. by ambition, "vaulting X x 2 ambition ambition which o'erleaps itfelf,"-for, whatever his Highness may have thought of the matter, he would have acquired much more reputation in the poft of Privy Counsellor to the Prince of Orange, than he could poffibly be entitled to as Co-Stadtholder, the ftation which he, very impoliticly, fo long enjoyed. Thus much may fuffice with refpect to this very unpopular act. We are next to confider the fituation in which the Duke unfortunately ftood toward the close of the year 1780, when the States of Amfterdam prefented a memorial to the Prince of Orange, in which the minifter was reprefented as the primary caufe of all the troubles fo long fubfifting in the republic, by reafon of his pernicious counfels; and in which they formally demanded his difmiffion. With this demand the Prince refufed, in pofitive terms, to comply. And here we cannot but remark, that the Duke of Brunfwic, finding the voice of the people against him, fhould, however upright his intentions, and however greatly he might have the welfare of the nation at heart, have thrown up his employments without delay. To this he would perhaps have anfwered, that fuch a proceeding muft be confidered as a tacit acknowlegement of guilt; or that it were cowardly to abandon his poft, when acting honeftly and for the public good.-The latter confideration, however, will only hold with respect to the firft magiftrate. It was not an ordinary faction which had attacked him; the magiftrates of the principal cities had voted for his profcription. We contend not for the juftice or reasonableness of their requifition on the score of criminality. They certainly exhibited malicious charges against him, particularly that of an attachment to England and its interefts, without any confideration for, or attention to, the welfare of the Dutch. This charge, we obferve, was wholly unfounded. But *The Duke of Brunfwic is faid to have retarded the preparations for war at the time of the rupture with our court in 1781. But however this may be, it is notorious that, whenever opportunity served, he made a partial advancement of his countrymen (the Germans) to places of honour and profit, to the almost total exclufion of the natives, particularly in the army department. The hatred which he thereby incurrred, will be feen by the following extract from the work of a very ingenious and well-informed writer: "The fpirit of difcontent at length rofe fo high, that once at a review of the regiment of guards, which the Duke himself commanded, no less than feventeen balls were fired at him by fome of the privates, who, incenfed at the injuftice with which they conceived that they and their fellow-foldiers and their fellow-citizens were treated by him, loaded their pieces with ball in order to deftroy him; by which, though he escaped unhurt, fome officers were killed, many were wounded, and among the reft the Baron Pic Van Zelen, a Colonel in the army, a nobleman of Guelderland, and Cham berlain But when he answers, that he would not abandon the Stadtholder to the fury of the ftorm with which he was threatened, his anfwer is no way fatisfactory. It feems to imply an extravagant idea; an idea, that no man could be found of equal abilities with himself to become the counsellor of William the Fifth. We must here be allowed to repeat, that in every point of view he appears to have been wholly wrong.-A contrary Conduct might have conciliated the affections of the people to their Prince; we fpeak not of the aristocratical, but of the democratical party, by far the most reasonable one. Such a conduct, we fay, muft have done him honour, because it would have fhewn an inclination to eftablifh the public peace, independently of any perfonal confideration or advantage whatever. Nay, confidering the matter in the very light in which the Duke himfelf has placed it, that is, acknowleging that the magiftrates who oppofed him were likewife traitors to their country, he should till have retired from his poft, on the well-known principle of the poet +; for, we muft again obferve, it is not with the Minifter as with the Prince. It is the duty of the former to yield to the remonftrances of the people (for it may be remarked, that the people, collectively taken, are feldom totally wrong); and of the latter, to remain unmoved by popular fury. It is his to brave, to withstand its utmost rage. It is his, in fine, to "ride in the whirlwind and direct the ftorm." That is, fo to direct it, as that it shall be as little injurious as poffible to the ftate. The minister of whom we speak was not, indeed, to be ranked among the novi of the land; neither had he been advanced to his office fuddenly, and per faltum, as a celebrated ftatefman of the eventeenth century expreffes it ;-he had been entrusted with bufinefs by the Prince's father; and hence, we prefume, he conceived the injury done to him was the greater. But we must remember, that the longer his adminiftration continued, the better were the people enabled to judge of it, and, confequently, of the propriety and even neceffity of his removal . berlain to the Prince of Orange." Introd. to the Hift. of the Dutch Rep.*. Much of the clamour raised against this nobleman was on account of his being a foreigner. It was infifted on almoft all hands, that he never had, and never could have, the real interefts of the country in view. * See Review for November 1788. + "When vice prevails, and impious men bear fway, ADDISON. This long-folicited removal at length took place. The Duke left the Hague in 1782, at the preffing inftances of the Stadtholder; and in 1784 he voluntarily refigned his employments, after having refided in Holland thirty-three years and ten months. He died in 1788. Xx 3 M. SCHLÖ |