other supported the gaze of the and the reader will permit me to beholder with an air of ignorance leave him to pay a visit, alone, to that she was the object of con- the East and West Indies, and to templation, and, in order to shew Africa, that he might there disap a delicate hand, knew how to re- prove of whatever was done, blame move a lock of hair which in no all customs, all institutions, find. way incommoded her; in short, ing that the man of nature was too the eyes of this one would have ap- savage, and that civilized people peared entirely lifeless,without the were too far removed from nature. fire of voluptuousness, or the After an absence of ten years, lightning of 'envy ; and the red he returned to Europe ; and arand white had replaced on her rived just at that period, when the complexion the roses and lilies. division of Poland took place, three He did not tell me under what as portions of which had been made pect he beheld the men, or what he without its consent. The estates thought of them ; all that I know of our traveller's mother, situated is, that he soon embarked for in a palatinate of the centre, America. were divided into three lots, and The war had just ceased, and each of them confiscated ; one by the new world offered to the old the empress of Russia, who was a form of government which pos, not enriched by it ; another by the sibly might satisfy S. Della Rocca. king of the Romans, who had no But he carried also into this coun- expectation of advantage from it ; try his melancholy character. and the third by the king of Prus: Life appeared to him only a mo- sia, who rendered justice only to ment, tediously prolonged; the his ancient subjects. Here cerair was always too thick or too tainly was sufficient to offend a far sharp; the foliage had not variety more gentle disposition than that enough of shades; the morning of S. Della Rocca. But, by an inwas scarcely different from the conceivable contradiction, he was evening, and one day constantly only moderately affected by it, resembled another. Besides,they and as he saw nothing more than might have formed much better an abuse of the generality of inlaws at Philadelphia ; the people stítutions, and being most singuhad not sufficiently profited by larly whimsical, he consoled him. their lessons of experience; they self by arguments that would have ought to have better consulted the discouraged any other being but manners and relations of the state. himself. “ Had I to contend with As to the country, it was in vain but one crowned head,” said he to that the striking beauties of an himself, “ I would hazard a few immense view, varied by the luxe remonstrances ; but to complain uriant hand of nature, offered to three different princes, one of themselves to his eye. It was not whom might send me into Sibefor him that bloomed the enamel ria, another imprison me, and of the meadows, that the birds the third make me a proposition warbled their songs of melody, that to enter his army....I find that the flowers exhaled their perfumes, either of these rewards is not or the rivulets meandered through worth the trouble that I should Verdant plains. give myself in obtaining them." I shall not follow our discontent. Therefore he remained quiet. ed friend through all his travels, This diminution of his fortune, seemed to render him more rea that he inhabited, he had remarks sonable. What was the cause of ed that he had in no one of thein his reconciliation with mankind discovered a single being content would have been for others a mo- ed with himself or with those tive for renouncing all connexion around him. At first loud exclawith them. But he learns that mations were uttered ; then,frozen the most powerful nation of the by terror, all where hushed to sia world has suddenly changed its lence, and driven to concealment : government,and is desirous of giv, was there a change, they inveighed ing itself new laws. Here is a against it ; was it followed by fine opportunity for a visionary anotlier, they complained. At reformer of constitutions, in whose length order appeared on firin eyes all are bad or imperfect ! foundations, property was secured S. Della Rocca suffers it not to and respected, the adversary was escape, and behold him anew in deprived of the means of injuring, the capital of this regenerated peor the inclination only remained to ple. He mingles among schem him. The fugitives were recalled, ers, he examines, he approves, he and the honest man retired to comments, he adopts. But the his evening's rest, without being work, in which he has been assist- tormented by the recollection of ing, is soon replaced by some the past, or fear of the future, other. His labour commences Very happily for S. Della Rocca, anew: and this project has the and without doubt for the people fate of the first ; that is to say, it in the bosom of whom he lived, is adopted, overthrown, and re- this new order of things coincided placed. with his ideas. But what was Whilst he mingled in what did his astonishment at the sight of not concern him, those things these men, who had ardently dea which ought to have occupied him sired the reestablishment of order, were disposed of without his and of those, to whom it restored knowledge. To be brief, his large tranquillity ! Some shook their fortune is annihilated. The blow heads, others shrugged their had been felt as far as his native shoulders, a third appeared to supa country, and his estates no longer press something even while he belonged to him in consequence of approved, a fourth spoke mysteria a measure,about which it had been ously, and without explanation. forgotten to ask his advice. Impatient of these ifs and these The result of this event was ands, S. Della Rocca, having very happy,because it obliged him become a man of gallantry since he to call into exercise his resources had inhabited a country famed for and his talents to gain a subsist the reign of the fair sex, cultience. He soon contracted the vated the society of the lar. habit of employment, and this habe dies. It was quite another thing! it dissipated the ennui, which till The old found not the French of then had overwhelmed him. Every the present day sufficiently gallant; inoment being occupied, there re. the young complained of the res mained no time for him to blame, forms that were wished to be ina, or, like too many other idlers, to troduced among some very agreca regulate the state. ble customs, that had come into Having followed all the periods vogue within the last seven or of the revolution of the country eight years. a S. Della Rocca finished by concluding, both from his experience and observations, that man was an animal very difficult to please; who, in the midst of real bless ings, was always occupied about some imaginary good. Giacomo, judging by the spectacle be CHARACTER OF ROUSSEAU. ROUSSEAU has been too often extolled as a philanthropist. Mr. Burke said of him, that he loved his kind and hated his kindred. The exposure of his children, by whatever sophistry it may be excused, is an indelible blot on his humanity; and invalidates all his pretensions to philanthropy. For, can that philanthropy be genuine, which is founded on the extinction of the parental affections; and which, with more than savage brutality, forsakes the poor innocents it brings into the world? Every page of Rousseau glows with the captivations of that sentimental luxury, of which he is so great a master; and which he arrays in all the blandishments of eloquence. Hence the source of that admiration, which his writings have so universally excited. Though his judgment, as a philosopher, was not profound; yet his tase was so exquisite, that he strews flowers in the most rugged way, and interests the passions and the fancy, in the investigation of the most abstract propositions. This is his great excellence. In his new Eloise, the interest consists, not so much in the diversity or the combination of the incidents, as in the beauty of the sentiment, and the magick of the diction. The picture of Julia is highly finished; but it leaves on the mind more impressions of re fore him how ridiculous he must himself have appeared at the time he was so continually censuring every thing around him, corrected himself of his follies; and thus the discontent of others has effectually cured his own. J. D. MUSSET-PATHAY From Fellowes's Chriftian Philofophy. spect than of tenderness, of admiration than of love-At times she appears an heterogeneous mixture of apathy and passion, of prudence and of coquetry. In some situations she wants tenderness, in others firmness; and she is often less governed by the warm impulses of affection, than by the abstractions of philosophy. His Emilius, though marked by the illuminating touches and the original conceptions of genius, yet, considered as a system, is more conspicuous for its singularity than its truth. It pourtrays a system of education, which, if it were universally adopted, would keep the human species in a state of permanency between light and darkness, between savage barbarity and civilized refinement. It would counteract the moral and physical improvement of man, the progress of knowledge, and the productiveness of industry. Though Rousseau had little beneficence, yet his writings, breathing nothing but the reciprocal love and kindness and confidence of the Golden Age, contributed, by their wide diffusion and their enchanting eloquence,to render humanity fash ionable; and they have, at least, this merit,that no man can well rise from reading them, without feeling a higher respect for his species. That extreme and febrile sen sibility, which was the characteristick peculiarity of Rousseau, while it proved the origin of many of his miseries, was, perhaps, a principal source of his greatness. It imparted a singular delicacy, freshness, and animation to every page of his writings. His feelings, in whatever channel they flowed, rushed on with a resistless impetuosity; but, in the end, they made a wreck of his understanding. His judgment was lost in the unremitting turbulence of his sensations; and in some intervals of insanity, he exhibited the melancholy prospect of genius crumbling into ruins. The language of Rousseau was always a faithful mirror of what was passing in the heart; which now thrilled with rapture, and now raged with passion. Of his style, the peculiar characteristick is exuberance of imagery; profusion, without distinction of lustre. It often resembles a landscape, in which there is a great assemblage of beautiful forms, without any intermediate spots of barrenness; but without any objects of a striking and prominent grandeur; and, in the contemplation of which, the eye is, at last, satiated by the uniformity. Yet, highly coloured as is the eloquence of Rousseau,I believe that the generality of readers would peruse his works with less relish, if they were less adorned. And it must be confessed, that the ornaments, with which they are embellished, are not the frippery and patchwork of a paltry artist, but the rich copiousness of am highly saturated imagination; and they often possess a charm, of which even the apathy of the coldest critick can hardly be insensible to the fascination. He who wishes to perfect himself in those delicacies of language or curious felicities of phraseology, which impress a palpable form, a living entity on the fleeting tints and sensations of the heart, should carefully analyse the genius of the style of Rousseau; should search into the causes, from which result the beauty and splendour of his combinations; and endeavour to extract from an attentive perusal of the Eloise and the Emilius, a portion of that taste by which they were inspired. DR. PARR'S CHARACTER OF DR. JORTIN. As to Jortin, whether I look back to his verse,to his prose,to his critical or to his theological works,there are few authors to whom I am so much indebted for rational entertainment or for solid instruction. Learned he was, without pedantry. He was ingenious, without the affectation of singularity. He was a lov er of truth, without hovering over the gloomy abyss of skepticism, and a friend to free-inquiry, with out roving into the dreary and pathless wilds of latitudinarianism. He had a heart which never dis graced the powers of his understanding. With a lively imagination, an elegant taste, and a judgment most masculine and most correct, he united the artless and amiable negligence of a schoolboy. Wit without ill nature, and sense without effort, he could, at will, scatter upon every subject; and in every book, the writer presents us with a near and distinct view of the real man. His style, though inartificial, is sometimes elevated: though fa miliar, it is never mean; and the' employed upon various topicks of theology, ethicks, and criticism, it is not arrayed in any delusive reremblance, either of solemnity, from fanatical cant,...of profound ness, from scholastick jargon,...of precision, from the crabbed for malities of cloudy philologists,...or of refinement, from the technical babble of frivolous connoisseurs. At the shadowy and fleeting reputation,which is sometimes gain ed by the petty frolicks of literary vanity, or the mischievous strug gles of controversial rage, Jortin never grasped. Truth,which some men are ambitious of seizing by surprize in the trackless and dark recess, he was content to overtake in the broad and beaten path: And in the pursuit of it, if he does not excite our astonishment by the rapidity of his strides, he, at least, secures our confidence by the firmness of his step. To the examination of positions advanced by other men, he always brought a mind, which neither prepossession had seduced, nor malevolence polluted. He imposed not his own conjectures as infallible and irresistible truths, nor endeavoured to give an air of importance to trifles, by dogmatical vehemence. He could support his more serious opinions, without the versatility of a sophist, the fierceness of a disputant, or the impertinence of a buffoon.... more than this....he could relin quish or correct them with the calm and steady dignity of a writer,who, while he yielded something to the arguments of his antagonists, was conscious of retaining enough to command their respect. He had too much discernment to confound difference of opinion with malignity or dulness, and too much candour to insult, where he could not persuade. Though his sensibilities were neither coarse nor slug gish, he yet was exempt from those fickle humours, those rankling jealousies, and that restless waywardness, which men of the brightest talents are too prone to indulge. He carried with him, into every station in which he was placed, and every subject which he explored, a solid greatness of soul, which could spare an infe riour, though in the offensive form of an adversary, and endure an equal with, or without, the sacred name of friend. The importance of commendation, as well to him who bestows, as to him who claims it, he estimated not only with justice, but with delicacy, and therefore he neither wantonly lavished it, nor withheld it austerely. But invective he neither provoked nor feared; and, as to the severities of contempt, he reserved them for occasions where alone they could be employed with propriety, and where, by himself, they always were employed with effect....for the chastisement of arrogant dun. ces, of censorious sciolists, of intolerant bigots in every sect, and unprincipled impostors in every profession. Distinguished in various forms of literary composi tion, engaged in various duties of his ecclesiastical profession, and blessed with a long and honourable life, he nobly exemplified that rare and illustrious virtue of charity, which Leland, in his reply to the letter-writer, thus eloquently describes. "CHARITY never misrepresents; never ascribes obnoxious principles or mistaken opinions to an opponent, which he himself disavows; is not so earnest in refuting, as to fancy positions never asserted, and to extend its censure to opinions, which will perhaps be delivered. Charity is utterly averse to sneering, the most despicable species of ridicule, |