treat, I gladly proceeded in quest of the door, and, while busied in removing the cause of affront, very nearly concluded on effecting my escape. But it was written in my horoscope that the day should be foul, and I disconsolately returned to the scene of my sufferings. The season, preceding the arrival of dinner, was principally devoted to peevishness and slander. The attendants either did what they should not, or did not what they should. One thing was badly executed, and another omitted.. This servant was stupid, and that servant perverse. Every incident was productive of errour, and every errour of regret. Characters were pecked to pieces, like the jack-daw in Esop, and reputations dispersed as lightly as feathers. It was hinted, that such a lady was addicted to cordials, and that hoops were in fashion with some folks for more reasons than one; that the complexion of the Miss Maythorns were purchased at the colourman's, and that the teeth of the Ivories never grew in their heads. But her strictures concluded not here. The whole line of my ancestry next passed in review. My great grandsires and grandams found little grace in her sight, and my uncles and aunts were disparaged by pairs. I was cautioned, from the fate of my parents, to learn wisdom in time, and instructed that the downfal of our house had proceeded from inattention and pride. Her method of determining the merits of characters was peremptory and expeditious; for she listened to no counsel for the accused, and her decisions were removed above the reach of amend ment. Dinner, generally conducing to cheerfulness and content, I conceived that her ladyship might presently relapse, and that a little good-humour would yet lighten thé scene. But the sequel of my visit brought nothing but gloom. The repast, instead of operating in the way of an emollient, only aggravated her disorder to a fiercer excess. Every thing again, as before, supplied a cause for complaint, and I found, that it was equally as impracticable to stop her mouth with a feast, as to affect her obstinacy with an argument. Thoroughly exhausted by this time with the entertainment I had witnessed, I anxiously awaited an opportunity to retire, and immedi ately upon the removal of the cloth and the circulation of the glass pretended an appointment and escaped the concern. As the dwelling of my entertainer retreated behind me, the countenances of ob jects regathered their smiles, and, comparing the scene I had left with the evening around me, I fervently reflected, that harmony was the worship of angels and discord the diversion of devils. Such are the tempers that unnaturally contribute to the disaster of society; who tend at the sources of pleasure to make turbid their streams; and, not satisfied with sipping the cup of bitterness alone, infuse the draught of their neigh bours with disappointment and dregs. But far from these and their influence be the fortunes of my friends; may their cups ever flow with the juice of Anacreon, and their brows ever beam with a wreath of his clusters. To the Editors of the Anthology. GENTLEMEN, I present through you to the publick an essay, translated from the Decade Philosophique. The subject is interesting ; the original is elegant in composition, and the version is worthy of the original. These considerations should induce every one to devote an half hour to reading it slowly, and examining seriously the truth of its reflections. But if such reasons will not excite attention, particularly from your fair friends; I may excite their curious diligence by hinting, naive. ment, that their sex is more interested in the pleasure they will receive, than perhaps they might otherwise imagine. As an honourable cavalier, however, secrecy is a knight's duty in matters of trust. Were I even authorized to tell all that I know, I would not, from motives of policy, make use of the extent of my powers ; and should I be continually importuned to make a full declaration, I shall speak darkly, as in a parable of the East, that when the nymphs of Hindostan were requested to adorn with the most beautiful shrubs the publick gardens in Delhi, one of the lovely virgins of the city, having done her part of the duty in the soft, early twilight, charged the birds of the morning not to carol the name of her, who had planted the wild rose from the woods of Arabia in the lower walk of Hafiz, the most beautiful quarter in the metropolis of India. MISFORTUNES OF AN ILL-DIRECTED PASSION FOR LITERATURE. AS Į was strolling last summer now might be neither extraordinain the valley on the north of Mont- ry nor original, than of a man of martre, I saw, under a cluster of sense, which is more rare and more elms, planted on the declivity of useful. It contained wise coun. a hill, at the side of a fountain, a sels, applicable to many young young man, whose melancholy and men, who believe themselves capaserious aspect announced an afflic. ble of every thing, because they ted of jealous lover. He had a have their heads crammed with book, which he opened, shụt, openphrases ; and I believe I shall do ed and shut again, alternately. them a service in publishing this Passing near enough to perceive letter, from which they may derive that he was reading poetry, and, considerable advantage. decyphering at the head of the • I answer, my young misanpage, Narcissus, I doubted not but thrope, to the epistolary declama. this was the poem of the unfortu- tion, which you have addressed to nate Malfilâtre, and imagined, that me against those who have not the reader might well be a poet, done justice to your love and your who took a lesson from the work of talents for the belles lettres. You a man with whom he appeared to call those people barbarians : they sympathise in misery. have said nothing but what is rea. I left him and continued my sonable, I think I see your brow ramble, An hour after, I passed contract at these words ; but calm by the same spot : the young man yourself and listen. was no longer there ; but I per- • If you were guided by the im. ceived a paper in the place where perious genius, which estranged I had met him. Let us see, said Malfilâtre and Gilbert from a useI to myself ; it is perhaps a love- ful and modest profession, and . letter from his mistress, or some caused the first to die of hunger, effusion of his muse. It was nei- and the second in a hospital, I ther, but a letter from a friend. should pity you for having been I read it ; it appeared to me less born under a star so inauspicious, the work of a man of wit, whịch and I should not attempt to oppose a an irresistible inclination, by counsels, of which I should feel the impotence; but I think there is yet time to make you listen to reason. If any one knows you well, it is myself, who have been with you from early life. You have been occupied with useful studies, nature has endowed you with talents, you write poetry agreeably, your prose is easy, you have taste and learning, and your imagination is brilliant; you are, at five and twenty, an interesting young man, and of distinguished merit. But permit me to say, that I see not in you the real essence of genius; it is genius, however, that you flatter yourself you possess, and you mistake for it ebullition and transports of fancy. Bold ideas, which shed a brilliant light on a whole generation; great conceptions, which command the admiration of contemporaries and of posterity; creations, in short, of the beautiful and true, are not within your dominion; you cultivate with success known plants, but you have never discovered new ones. You write, I allow it, an easy letter, a tender and amusing romance, an agreeable comedy, perhaps even some interesting scenes in a tragedy; I grant you also the talent of embellishing an article of politicks or philosophy, and sometimes of interspersing it with strokes of vigorous eloquence; but on nothing do you stamp that charm of novelty, or of profound learning, which gives interest to every writing, and arrests the attention and remembrance of readers. Writings of this kind are works of massy gold, and yours are only glittering tinsel. Your talents are of a nature to procure you the applause of briljiant companies and superficial so cieties; but never will they give you a reputation, which is wafted beyond your country or the age in which you live. It is only for a reputation of this kind that one ought to devote himself exclusively to letters. Glory then takes the place of fortune. But to lose fortune, without acquiring glory, is too complete a deprivation. You run this risk, my dear friend, by your literary infatuation, which makes you regard simple and useful occupations with disdain and aversion. You are enraged against men in office,who have little confidence in the capacity of those who make a trade of authorship. You will not suffer the talents of a man of letters to be regarded as excluding those of a man of business. In your fury against such a heresy, you had nearly gone back to the deluge to seek facts which might refute it. You cite Moses, who made laws and canticles; David, who knew how to reign and compose odes; Solomon, who was the wisest of kings and the most wanton of poets; Xenophon, Demosthenes, Cicero, Seneca, Machiavel, Bocace, Bacon, and in France de Thou, who drew up decrees and composed history; Richlieu, who overthrew tyranny, cannonaded Rochelle, and wrote tragedies in secret; Bemis, who was a minister and a love-sick poet; Turgot, who abandoned the dryness of calculation for pretty verses; Necker, who formed an alliance between eloquence and arithmetick; Calonne, who wrote like a literary man, and governed like a statesman; Mirabeau, who united in the highest degree the magick of oratory to the depth of political investigation. 'Do not these men, you exclaim, after this multitude of quotations, 6 a do not these men directly confute are blossoms, which yield no fruit. those savages, who maintain the It is wheat, that is most necessary incompatibility between the culti- for you. Cultivate it then in your vation of letters and the honourary ground. professions in society? Do you • Employ your talents only for believe, that a man, who can com- solid acquisitions ; a field of corn pose a book, cannot also write an is more valuable than a parterre. official dispatch ? Determine upon a profession ; it Yes, my friend ; Thomas, who is by a profession that one takes was a writer of a certain rank, was his station in society. I would not unable, when he was secretary to wish you to make an absolute diM. de Praslin, to write a tolerable vorce from your Muse, but I adletter of business. There is some vise you to treat her as a friend, difference between an academy and whom one visits when he has a statesman's office. Academick nothing of more importance to do. speakers know not how to reason "A woman, who is amiable and with simplicity ; they make fine artless, affectionate to her husband phrases, as a dancing master dis- and children, is preferable to the plays beautiful stops. Literature nine nymphs of Parnassus. En. with men of business is an excels deavour to merit such a treasure ; lent accessory to the education, but, I repeat it, you will not obtain which is necessary for them; but it her unless you fix upon a profesought not to be the principal part sion. An unsettled man is a suof it. We ought to be able to pernumerary in the world. A man express ourselves with elegance of letters, who, with subordinate and purity ; but we ought not to talents, seeks for glory, is a false apply this talent to things of a friv. Jason, who attempts with a wretcholous or uninteresting nature. If, ed skiff the conquest of the gol. for example, you direct your abil. den fleece. He is a sleep-walker, ities towards objects of positive who wanders in the region of and substantial utility ; if, instead dreams; rouse yourself, my friend, of inventing romantick scenes, and depart from this airy region, and of abandoning yourself to meta- enter into that of realities, where physical delusions, you seize hold the man, who rears and supports a of an abstruse question, and un- family, is considered of impor. folding its difficulties you shew it tance by his fellow creatures.' în a clear point of view, which fa I embrace you, L. F, cilitates the decision of it, you will The lessons contained in this make a profitable use of your letter are not new, but it may not knowledge and your pen. Noisy be amiss to repeat them. If they acclamation will not strike your were observed, there would be few. ear, but you will gain the approba- er follies, and literature would tion and esteem of men of sound number as her sons only those understanding, who are born to honour her. It • These are the men, whose suf. would not be disgraced by those frage and support a young man libellers of party, who, not being ought to seek. I am not surprised able to obtain a reputation by their at your distress, and the despair own merit, endeavour to obtain it which results from it. To what by attacking that of others. These end are your verses, your roman. weak and brittle minds imagine ces, your comedies, or your moral they lessen the admiration of con. and philosophical essays? These temporaries for this enlightened a a Age. Reason will always make sion which places the pen in the their efforts prove abortive. Such hands of so many individuals, who attempts are hoar-frost, yhich are so little qualified to guide it. falls on the roof of the pantheon Hence they learn to be scribblers and is dissipated by a single ray of and fabricators of libels, as people the sun. without a trade and without a home It is only idleness, and the want become owners of false money and of a useful and laborious profes- highway robbers. V.L. FOR THE ANTHOLOGY. SANS SOUCI. ish people away from their instruc AUGUSTUS, who loved Virgil ments ; a musician, aíter a conand Horace, used to place himself cert, should be treated like his in between the two pcets at table. strument, put into a case and carVirgil was asthmatick, and Horace ried home. had weak eyes. The emperour used to say, jestingly, “ Ego sum Pedants. inter suspiria et lacrymas ;" I am “ I hate," says Montaigne, between sighs and tears. 6 those scholars who can do noth ing without their books.” In fact, A blind man's idea of light. those men have no knowledge, but M. Rohault wished to commu- can tell you where some may be nicate the idea of light to a blind found. They serve as indexes to pupil ; after a long and elaborate good authors. They will tell you, discourse, when he hoped he had that in such a chapter of Cicero or in some measure succeeded, he Quintilian there is a good thought. was asked this question by the Science is a sceptre in the hands blind man, “ Is not light made of of some men, and a bauble in those the same materials as sugar ?" of others. Philosophers and poets sport How to be happy. with the follies of mankind, tradesHow much it would conduce to men make an advantage of them, our happiness to be select in our and players both sport with them friends and books; to choose them and profit by them. both for their good sense and knowledge; to be contented with Folly. a small but certain income; to Of all the definitions of folly, have no master and few servants"; that given by M. Bailli has not the to be without ambition, envy, ava- least merit. Folly is the tyranrice, or a law-suit ; to preserve ny that visible objects exercise our health by exercise, instead of upon our imaginations." medicine ; to love and hate only on just grounds ; and to enjoy life Life. without effort. The progress of it may be com pared to a play. Act 1. State of Musicians, innocence. Act 2. The passions, Professed musicians are gener. Act 3. Love of study. Act 4. Amally ignorant, imprudent, and fool- bition. Act 5. Devotion and quiet. |