of acting in the most justifiable self-defence, against hordes of plunderers and murderers. He adds, that "these people are daily decreasing in number," a truth which every one will believe, when it is remembered that they are still exposed to the mercy of French soldiers. "Mantua, he observes, is much less strong than it is generally believed; every thing there has been exaggerated, except its insalubrity." This is no great compliment to the military talents of Buonaparte, who spent so much time in besieging it. Many similar truths are disguised throughout this volume.

Euvres Choisies et Posthumes de M. de la Harpe, &c.

Select and Posthumous Works of M. de la Harpe, of the French Academy. With a portrait of the Author. 4 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1806.

THESE volumes consist chiefly of the dramatic and other poetical works of M. de la Harpe. The prose comprehends some orations delivered at the academy, a history of the Russian Prince Menzicoff, and fragments of an apology for Religion. Prefixed to the work are memoirs of the author by the editor.

The following fragment printed at the end of the memoirs, and said to have been found among the papers of M. de la Harpe, is so curious that we shall lay it before our readers, notwithstanding a translation of it has already appeared in one of the news-papers..

"It seems to me but yesterday, though it was at the beginning of the year 1788. We were at dinner with one of our brethren of the Academy, a man of high rank and genius. The company was numerous and mixed, Courtiers, Lawyers, men of Learning, Academicians, &c. At the desert, the wines of Malvoisie and Constantia, added to the gayety of polite society, that sort of freedom which does not adhere too strictly to its sules; we were already arrived at that point when it was allowable to say any thing to excite mirth. Chamfort had read to us some of his im. pious and licentious tales, and the ladies of rank had listened to them without having recourse to the fan. Then followed a deluge of loose jests against religion. One cited a passage from the Pucelle, another recollected and applauded these philosophical lines of Diderot. The intestines of

the last priest shall form a rope to strangle the last King," another got up and holding a full glass in his hand, said, yes gentlemen, I am as sure there is no God as I am that Homer was a foil, and in truth he was as sure of one as of the other. The conversation then took a graver turn, and was oc cupied chiefly by the praises of Voltaire, and the revolution he had occasioned in the human mind, and all looked with anxious expectation to the happy era when superstition and fanaticism should yield to philosophy. "One alone of the company had taken no part in all the pleasure of this conversation, and had even occasionally hazarded some sarcasms on our delightful enthusiasm. It was Cazotte, a man of amiable though singular character, but unfortunately fascinated by the reveries of the

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illuminati. He took up the conversation in the most serious manner. Be satisfied gentlemen, (said he) you will all see the great and sublime revo. lution which you desire so much, you know I am something of a prophet and I repeat it again, you will see it.' He was answered by the hackneyed phrase one need not be a great conjurer to foresee that. Well (he continued) but perhaps one must beone a little for what I am going to tell you. Do you know what will happen from this revolution; what will hap; en from it to you, all who are now present, what will be it's immediate consequence ?' Let us hear' (said Condercet, with his usual naive and sarcastic smile) a philosopher is never sorry to meet a prophet.' You M. Condercet will expire on the pavement of a dungeon, you will die of poison which you will swallow to avoid the stroke of the executioner; of poison which that age of felicity will compel you to carry always about with you."

Cazotte then proceeds to point out distinctly the different deaths that wait for Messrs. Vicq. d'Azyr, Bailly, Malesherbes, and Roucher, on which they all exclaimed, "we shall then surely be under the yoke of the Turks and the Tartars." "No (replied Cazotte) you will then be under the sole dominion of philosophy and reason. Those who will treat you in this manner will have every moment the same phrases in their mouths which you have been retailing for an hour, they will repeat all your maxims and will cite like you, the verses of Diderot and la Pucelle." They all whispered to one another you see he is mad, for he speaks all the time with the greatest gravity.

"I (viz. de la Harpe) now took up the conversation myself. Here are abundance of miracles but you take no notice of me.' • You will be the object of a miracle not less extraordinary, you will then be a Christian." This produced loud exclamations. • Oh! (replied Chamfort) I am comforted, if we are not to die till la Harpe is a christian we shall all be immortal."

After procceding to describe the cruelties inflicted by the author of the revolution, on all persons without distinction of rank or sex, the frantic prophet concluded with the fate of the King." On this the master of the house rose abruptly from the table, and all the company with him; he went towards M. Cazotte, and said to him with much emotion in his manner," My dear Cazotte, we have had enough of this mournful pleasantry, you have pushed it too far." Cazotte made no answer and was going to retire, when Madame Grammont, willing to put an end to the gravity of the conversation and give it a gayer turn, going towards him said,

"Mr. Prophet, you have told us all our own good fortunes, but you tell us nothing of your own.' He was silent some time with his eyes fixed on the ground. Madam, have you ever read the Siege of Jerusalem in Josephus? Yes Sir, surely, who has not? but proceed as If I had not.' Well Madam, during the siege, a man went round the ramparts for seven successive days in sight of the besiegers and besieged, crying continually with a loud and mournful voice, we to Jerusalem, and on the seventh day he cried, wce to Jerusalem and to myself, and at the instant he was crushed to pieces by a large stone thrown from the ma

chines

chines of the enemy. After this answer M. Cazotte bowed and went away."

We have no faith in the authenticity of this prediction. That a wise and prudent man might foresee much of the horror that would be the consequence of the French Revolution we can readily believe, and that to use the words of our great poet

"Old experience may attain,

To something like prophetic strain."

But we do not believe in the possibility of such modern prophecies as those of M. Cazotte, recorded by the pen of the editor of the work before us, nor do we believe that any such paper was found among the writings of M. la Harpe after his death. La Harpe appears to have been at the end of his life a sincere and rational christian, and it is impossible in that case he could have left the passage relating to himself as it now stands, without making some remark on it.

His apology for religion contains many just observations, and in that part of it which relates to miracles, he combats the specious objections of sceptics and sciotists with great ability.

One of the favorite objections to the credibility of miracles by the philosophers of the school of Voltare, is this: "We affirm that a miracle is a physical impossibility, for a miracle is a deviation from the laws of nature, and these laws are and must be unalterable to preserve the natural order of things."

To this la Harpe answers, "I allow that a miracle is a deviation from the known laws of nature, and though we are not perfectly acquainted with those laws, we know enough to perceive a constant order and uniform relation of causes and effects, which must in general be always the same to preserve the works of the Creator and manifest the wisdom of his design. But is a deviation from these laws, impossible? To man it undoubtedly is, for it is contrary to reason to suppose, that the creature can change what the Creator has established; but is it so to God himself? certainly not; for it is not contrary to reason, that he who alone preserves the natural order of things by the same power that he created them, should have the power and the means to interfere when he chuses, in what solely depends on himself. What-He who made and who preserves the universe, and who at his will can annihilate it, can he make no change in it? Where exists and to what tends that species of necessity which deprives him of this power? That immutability which insures the preservation of the Universe.' Yes, if any other being could attempt it, or if nothing could be changed for a moment without endangering the whole. But who will thus presume without any reason to set limits to infinite power? Who can hinder the Creator from having the entire disposal of matter that he has created. As for myself, what would overwhelm me with astonishment, what would appear impossible for me to comprehend, would be that God who formed and traced the laws of natnre, should not be able to suspend their course without destroying them, or modify their accidental combination without completely overturning them. This would be to divest him of one of the most frequent and most striking means of mani

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festing his power and his protection, this would be to fetter his provi, dence to that degree, that he would no longer be what he necessarily is, the absolute disposer of life and death. On this supposition his justice and his mercy must lie dormant till the consummation of time. In a word, it would be the world that governed God, not God who governed the world. Is not this blasphemy against the Deity? But fortunately every species of blasphemy confutes itself by its own absurdity."

In the Plays and the Poetry we find little either to blame or commend; they possess that degree of mediocrity which, according to the Roman critic, takes from the author the character of poet, but which is so often found among the writers in verse of M. de la Harpe's country.

Essai sur les Causes de la Superiorité des Grecs, dans les Arts d'Imagination; Question qui a été proposée par l'Academie des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Lyon. Par J. J. Leuliette, Professeur de Belles Lettres, à la ci-devant Ecole Centrale de Seine et Oise. A Paris, Treuttel et Würtz. PP. 125.

Essay on the Causes of the Superiority of the Greeks in the Arts of Imagination.

THIS Professor of the Central School of Seine and Oise, exhibits much more of the rhetorician, than of the investigator of causes. The Essay, which he informs us was read to his pupils, might please them, might perhaps convey some instruction to the audience, but its appearance before the world will not add to the reputation of Professor Leuliette. To the person moderately learned it affords no information, and it will meet with the disapprobation of the man of taste, from its want of arrangement, its verbosity, and an attempt at embellishment totally out of place.

The writer, almost at his outset, has the following paragraph :

If we have so many obligations to Greece, if her history, her productions, her monuments are the study of our youth, the delight of every man of sensibility, and the foundation of endless meditation to the sage; can a more pleasing task exist than the examination of the causes to which she owed her astonishing superiority in the arts of imagination, the sciences, and the liberal arts? Should this research fail in affording satis. factory results, it will, at least, carry us back to a delicious country, which we behold with an interest ever new; if we miss the object of our journey, we shall find on our route new riches, treasures hitherto undiscovered, which will amply reward us for our toil."

This, though smelling of the rhetor, may pass; but with this Mr. L. was not satisfied; he therefore has embellished his thought with a Homeric simile à longue queue.

"Thus,

Thus, the philosophical observer, who quits Europe to examine the causes which produce the annual and mysterious* overflowing of the Nile, usually reaps no other fruit from his excursions than new conjectures added to the old; but he has seen new countries; but ancient ruins, by addressing themselves to his memory, by recalling great events, have awakened his imagination, and enobled his thoughts: but nations hitherto unknown to him have offered to his mind a new fund of meditation. If he has not seen what he wished to see, at least he returns enriched with treasures which reward him for his fatigues, and which often exceed in value what he sought with a blind ardour."

We give this as a specimen of the author's style throughout the work. The thought is always drowned in a flood of words; and ornament too frequently introduced where it was unnecessary and im proper.

The following are the causes to which he attributes the superiority of the Greeks in the arts of imagination. First, the nature of their religion.

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Nothing," "he says, "has so strong an influence over poetry and eloquence, as religious ideas. The religion of the Greeks, the child of their poets, was favourable to all the dreams of the imagination. It was by turns gay and terrible: it accommodated itself equally to the marvellous of the Epopoeia, to the majesty of the buskin, to the touching simplicity of pastoral poetry, to elegiac melancholy, and to the charming delirium of the voluptuous ode."

Another cause of their superiority they owed to their climate.

"Climate, the situation of a country may greatly contribute to the production of imagery, and sublime ideas and we know that most of the ancient poets were born in the pleasing islands of the Grecian Archipelago, which fable has embellished with the most seducing illusions; or in the neighbourhood of Attica."

Their legislation he produces as a third source of their excellence.

"Legislation stamps on a people a new character; it makes of them either dwarfs or giants; prostrates them to a level with the brutes, or places them among the immortals. The legislator is a God, who modifies human nature at his will, who exercises either the most destruc tive or most salutary command. The founders, or regenerating chiefs of the Grecian states, were the most illustrious of human lawgivers."

Liberty comes in for a share among the causes of Greek superiority. But it was different, Mr. L. says, from the liberty of other nations it harmonized better with the finer feelings. This, at least, is what we think he means; but our readers may perhaps be more successful

* The overflowing is not mysterious, but owing to well-known causes. A Professor should have known this,-Rev.

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