Page images
PDF
EPUB

visiting the continent on a larger and more liberal plan. According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman: my father had consented to my wish, but I was detained above four years by my rash engagement in the militia. I eagerly grasped the first moments of freedom: three or four weeks in Hampshire and London were employed in the preparations of my journey, and the farewell visits of

moirs and abstracts from the Academy of Belles Lettres : among these I shall only mention here two long and curious suites of dissertations-the one upon the Temple of Delphi, the Amphictyonic Council, and the Holy Wars, by MM. Hardion and de Valois; the other upon the Games of the Grecians, by MM. Burette, Gedoyne, and de la Barre. 3. Books of amusement and instruction, perused at my leisure hours, without any reference to a regular plan of study. Of these, perhaps, I read too many, since I went through the Life of Erasmus by Le Clerc and Burigny, many extracts from Le Clerc's Bibliothèques, the Ciceronianus and Colloquies of Erasmus, Barclay's Argenis, Terasson's Sethos, Voltaire's Siècle de Louis XIV, Madame de Motteville's Memoirs, and Fontenelle's Works. 4. Compositions of my own. I find hardly any, except this Journal, and the Extract of Hurd's Horace, which (like a chapter of Montaigne) contains many things very different from its title. To these four heads I must this year add a fifth. 5. Those treatises of English history which I read in January, with a view to my now abortive scheme of the life of sir Walter Raleigh. I ought indeed to have known my own mind better before I undertook them. Upon the whole, after making proper allowances, I am not dissatistied with the year.

The three weeks which I passed at Beriton, at the end of this and the beginning of the ensuing year, are almost a blank. I seldom went out; and as the scheme of my travelling was at last entirely settled, the hurry of impatience, the cares of preparations, and the tenderness of friends I was going to quit, allowed me hardly any moments of study.

friendship and civility: my last act in town was to applaud Mallet's new tragedy of Elvira ;* a post-chaise

* JOURNAL, January 11, 1763.]-I called upon Dr Maty in the morning. He told me that the duke de Nivernois desired to be acquainted with me. It was indeed with that view that I had written to Maty from Beriton to present, in my name, a copy of my book to him. Thence I went to Becket, paid him his bill, (fifty-four-pounds,) and gave him back his translation. It must be printed, though very indifferent. My comfort is, that my misfortune is not an uncommon one. We dined and supped at the Mallets.

12th.]-I went with Maty to visit the duke in Albemarle street. He is a little emaciated figure, but appears to possess a good understanding, taste, and knowledge. He offered me very politely letters for Paris. We dined at our lodgings. I went to Covent Garden to see Woodward in Bobadil, and supped with the Mallets at George Scott's.

JOURNAL, Jan. 19th, 1763.]—I waited upon lady Hervey and the duke de Nivernois, and received my credentials. Lady Hervey's are for M. le comte de Caylus, and madame Geoffrin. The duke received me civilly, but (perhaps through Maty's fault) treated me more as a man of letters than as a man of fashion. His letters are entirely in that style; for the count de Caylus and MM. de la Bleterie, de Ste Palaye, Caperonier, du Clos, de Foncemagne, and d'Alembert. I then undressed for the play. My father and I went to the Rose, in the passage of the play-house, where we found Mallet with about thirty friends. We dined together, and went thence into the pit, where we took our places in a body, ready to silence all opposition. However, we had no occasion to exert ourselves. Notwithstanding the malice of party, Mallet's nation, connexions, and indeed imprudence, we heard nothing but applause. I think it was deserved. The plan wss borrowed from M. de la Motte, but the details and language have great merit. A fine vein of dramatic poetry runs through the piece. The scenes between the father and the son awaken almost every sensation of the human breast; and the council would have equally moved, but for the inconvenience unavoidable upon all theatres, that of entrusting fine speeches to indifferent actors. The perplexity of the catastrophe is much, and I believe justly, criticised.

M

conveyed me to Dover, the packet to Boulogne; and such was my diligence, that I reached Paris on the 28th of January 1763, only thirty-six days after the disbanding of the militia. Two or three years were loosely defined for the term of my absence; and I was left at liberty to spend that time in such places and in such a manner as was most agreeable to my taste and judgment.

In this first visit I passed three months and a half, (January 28-May 9,) and a much longer space might have been agreeably filled without any intercourse with the natives. At home we are content to move in the daily round of pleasure and business; and a scene which is always present is supposed to be within our knowledge, or at least within our power. But in a foreign country, curiosity is our business and our pleasure; and the traveller, conscious of his ignorance, and covetous of his time, is diligent in the search and the view of every object that can deserve his attention. I devoted many hours of the morning to the circuit of Paris and the neighbourhood, to the

But another defect made a stronger impression upon me. When a poet ventures upon the dreadful situation of a father who condemns his son to death, there is no mediumthe father must either be a monster or a hero. His obligations of justice, of the public good, must be as binding, as apparent, as perhaps those of the first Brutus. The cruel necessity consecrates his actions, and leaves no room for repentance. The thought is shocking, if not carried into action. In the execution of Brutus's sons I am sensible of that fatal necessity. Without such an example, the unsettled liberty of Rome would have perished the instant after its birth. But Alonzo might have pardoned his son for a rash attempt, the cause of which was a private injury, and whose consequences could never have disturbed an established government. He might have pardoned such a crime in any other subject; and as the laws could exact only an equal rigour for a son, a vain appetite for glory, and a mad affectation of heroism, could alone have influenced him to exert an unequa! and superior_severity.

visit of churches and palaces conspicuous by their architecture, to the royal manufactures, collections of books and pictures, and all the various treasures of art, of learning, and of luxury. An Englishman may hear without reluctance, that in these curious and costly articles Paris is superior to London; since the opulence of the French capital arises from the defects of its government and religion. In the absence of Louis XIV and his successors, the Louvre has been left unfinished: but the millions which have been lavished on the sands of Versailles, and the morass of Marli, could not be supplied by the legal allowance of a British king. The splendour of the French nobles is confined to their town residences; that of the English is more usefully distributed in their country seats; and we should be astonished at our own riches, if the labours of architecture, the spoils of Italy and Greece, which are now scattered from Inverary to Wilton, were accumulated in a few streets between Marybone and Westminster. All superfluous ornament is rejected by the cold frugality of the Protestants; but the Catholic superstition, which is always the enemy of reason, is often the parent of the arts. The wealthy communities of priests and monks expend their revenues in stately edifices; and the parish church of St Sulpice, one of the noblest structures in Paris, was built and adorned by the private industry of a late curé. In this outset, and still more in the sequel of my tour, my eye was amused; but the pleasing vision cannot be fixed by the pen; the particular images are darkly seen through the medium of five and twenty years, and the narrative of my life must not degenerate into a book of travels.*

[ocr errors]

JOURNAL, 21 Février 1763.]—Aujourdhui j'ai commencé ma tournée, pour voir les endroits dignes d'atten. tion dans la ville. D'Augny m'a accompagné. Nous sommes allés d'abord à la bibliothèque de l'Abbaye de St Germain des Prez, où tout le monde étoit occupé à l'arrangement d'un cabinet de curiosités, et à l'Hôpital des

But the principal end of my journey was to enjoy the society of a polished and amiable people, in whose Invalides, où le dôme étoit fermé à cause des réparations qu'on y faisoit. Il faut donc différer la visite et la description de ces deux endroits. De là nous sommes allés voir l'Ecole Militaire. Comme ce bâtiment s'élève à côté des Invalides, bien des gens y verroient un moyen assez facile d'apprécier les ames différentes de leurs fondateurs. Dans l'un tout est grand et fastueux, dans l'autre tout est petit et mesquin. De petits cours de logis blancs et assez propres, qui, au lieu de 500 gentilshommes, dont on a parlé, en contiennent 258, composent tout l'établissement; car le manège et les écuries ne sont rien. Il est vrai qu'on dit que ces bâtimens ne sont qu'un échafaudage, qu'on doit Öter, pour élever le véritable ouvrage sur les débris. Il faut bien en effet qu'on n'ait pas bâti pour l'éternité, puisque dans vingt ans la plûpart des poutres se sont pourries. Nous jettâmes ensuite un coup-d'œil sur l'église de St Sulpice, dont la façade (le pretexte et le fruit de tant de lotteries) n'est point encore achevée.

[TRANSLATION.]

JOURNAL, 21st February 1763.]-To-day I commenced my tour to see the places worthy of attention in the town, accompanied by d'Augny. We went first to the library of the abbey of St Germain des Prez, where every one was occupied in the arrangement of the curiosities; and to the hospital of the Invalids, where the dome was shut up on account of the repairs carrying on there: I must therefore defer my visit and description of these two places. Thence we proceeded to the Ecole Militaire; and as this building is erected by the side of the Invalids, it affords an easy means of appreciating the different souls of their founders. In the one all is great and imposing; in the other all is petty and mean. Some small suites of clean and sufficiently commodious apartments, which, in place of 500 gentlemen, the number spoken of, contain but 258, compose the whole of the establishment; for the riding-house and stables are nothing. It is pretended, to be sure, that these buildings form but a scaffolding, which will be removed in order to erect the real edifice in their place.

« PreviousContinue »