from control; and as I approached, as I gradually paffed my thirtieth year, I began to feel the defire of being master in my own house. The most gentle authority will fometimes frown without reason, the moft cheerful fubmiffion will fometimes murmur without caufe; and fuch is the law of our imperfect nature, that we must either command or obey; that our perfonal liberty is fupported by the obfequioufnefs of our own dependants. While fo many of my acquaintance were married or in parliament, or advancing with a rapid ftep in the various roads of honor and fortune, Iftood alone, immoveable and infignificant; for after the monthly meeting of 1770, 1 had even withdrawn myself from the militia, by the refignation of an empty and barren commiffion. My temper is not fufceptible of envy, and the view of fuccefsful merit has always excited my warmeft applaufe. The miseries of a vacant life were never known to a man whofe hours were infufficient for the inexhaustible pleasures of ftudy. But I lamented that at the proper age I had not embraced the lucrative pursuits of the law or of trade, the chances of civil office or India adventure, or even the fat flumbers of the church; and my repentance became more lively as the loss of time was more irretrievable. Experience showed me the use of grafting my private confequence on the importance of a great profeffional body; the benefits of those firm connexions which are cemented by hope and intereft, by gratitude and emulation, by the mutual exchange of fervices and favors. From the emoluments of a profeffion I might have derived an ample fortune, or a competent

income, instead of being ftinted to the fame narrow allowance, to be increased only by an event which I fincerely deprecated. The progrefs and the knowledge of our domestic disorders aggravated my anxiety, and I began to apprehend that I might be left in my old age without the fruits either of industry or inheritance.

In the first summer after my return, whilft I enjoyed at Beriton the fociety of my friend Deyverdun, our daily conversations expatiated over the field of an. cient and modern literature; and we freely difcuffed my ftudies, my first Effay, and my future projects. The Decline and Fall of Rome I ftill contemplated at an awful distance: but the two hiftorical defigns which had balanced my choice were fubmitted to his taste; and in the parallel between the Revolutions of Florence and Switzerland, our common partiality for a country which was his by birth, and mine by adoption, inclined the fcale in favor of the latter. According to the plan, which was foon conceived and digefted, I embraced a period of two hundred years, from the affociation of the three peasants of the Alps to the plenitude and profperity of the Helvetic body in the fixteenth century. I fhould have described the deliverance and victory of the Swifs, who have never fhed the blood of their tyrants but in a field of battle; the laws and manners of the confederate ftates; the fplendid trophies of the Auftrian, Burgundian, and Italian wars; and the wisdom of a nation, who, after fome fallies of martial adventure, has been content to guard the blessings of peace with the fword of freedom.

-Manus hæc inimica tyrannis

Enfe petit placidam fub libertate quietem.

My judgment, as well as my enthusiasm, was fatiffied with the glorious theme; and the affiftance of Deyverdun feemed to remove an infuperable obftacle. The French or Latin memorials, of which I was not ignorant, are inconfiderable in number and weight; but in the perfect acquaintance of my friend with the German language, I found the key of a more valuable collection. The most neceffary books were procured; he tranflated, for my ufe, the folio volume of Schilling, a copious and contemporary relation of the war of Burgundy; we read and marked the most interesting parts of the great chronicle of Tfchudi; and by his labor, or that of an inferior affiftant, large extracts were made from the History of Lauffer and the Dictionary of Lew: yet fuch was the distance and delay, that two years elapfed in these preparatory fteps; and it was late in the third fummer (1767) before I entered, with thefe flender materials, on the more agreeable talk of compofition. A fpecimen of my Hiftory, the first book, was read the following winter in a literary fociety of foreigners in London; and as the author was unknown, I liftened, without obfervation, to the free ftrictures, and unfavorable fentence, of my judges' The momentary sensation was painful; but their condemnation was ratified by my cooler thoughts. I delivered my imperfect sheets to the flames ", and forever renounced a design in which fome expense much labor, and more time, had been fo vainly

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confumed. I cannot regret the loss of a flight and fuperficial effay; for fuch the work must have been in the hands of a ftranger, uninformed by the scholars and statesmen, and remote from the libraries and archives of the Swifs republics. My ancient habits, and the prefence of Deyverdun, encouraged me to write in French for the continent of Europe; but I was confcious myself that my style, above profe and below poetry, degenerated into a verbose and turgid declamation. Perhaps I may impute the failure to the injudicious choice of a foreign language. Perhaps I may suspect that the language itself is ill adapted to fuftain the vigor and dignity of an important narrative. But if France, fo rich in literary merit, had produced a great original hiftorian, his genius would have formed and fixed the idiom to the proper tone, the peculiar mode of historical eloquence.

It was in fearch of fome liberal and lucrative employment that my friend Deyverdun had vifited England. His remittances from home were fcanty and precarious. My purfe was always open, but it was often empty; and I bitterly felt the want of riches and power, which might have enabled me to correct the errors of his fortune. His wishes and qualifications folicited the ftation of the travelling go. vernor of fome wealthy pupil; but every vacancy provoked fo many eager candidates, that for a long time I ftruggled without fuccefs; nor was it till after much application that I could even place him as a clerk in the office of the fecretary offtate. In a refidence of feveral years he never acquired the juft pronunciation and familiar ufe of the English tongue,

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but he read our most difficult outhors with eafe and tafte: his critical knowledge of our language and poetry was fuch as few foreigners have poffeffed; and few of our countrymen could enjoy the theatre of Shakespeare and Garrick with more exquifite feeling and difcernment. The confciousness of his own ftrength, and the affurance of my aid, emboldened him to imitate the example of Dr. Maty, whofe Journal Britannique was efteemed and regretted; and to improve his model, by uniting with the tranfactions of literature a philofophic view of the arts and manners of the British nation. Our Journal for the year 1767, under the title of Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne, was foon finished and fent to the prefs. For the first article, Lord Lyttelton's Hiftory of Henry II. I must own myself refponfible; but the public has ratified my judgment of that voluminous work, in which sense and learning are not illuminated by a ray of genius. The next fpecimen was the choice of my friend, the Bath Guide, a light and whimsical performance, of local, and even verbal, pleasantry. I started at the attempt: he smiled at my fears his courage was justified by fuccefs; and a master of both languages will applaud the curious felicity with which he has transfufed into French profe the spirit, and even the humor, of the English verse. It is not my wish to deny how deeply I was interested in thefe Memoirs, of which I need not furely be ashamed; but at the distance of more than twenty years, it would be impoffible for me to af certain the respective shares of the two affociates. A long and intimate communication of ideas had caft

our