brewer, it is always with a certain tone of contempt; as if it were in reality a disgrace to make shoes, to build a wall, to cut out a coat, and to fell beer. "He is the fon of no"body," say they : "his father was

f. an attorney," A man of some family comes from a distant province to Paris, in order, by an employment of fome fort, to improve his fortune. "He is a person that pobody fees, "that nobody knows." These fatal ideas have made so ridiculous a progress, that you hear every day the most incredible abfurdities uttered with an air of perfect composure.

Cadmus was always afflicted with the Nobil-manic. He would have protected, but never feryed the people. He is not without talents or right dispositions; but he is totally unskilled to manage men, and rule the multitude.. He is so far active, as to hate to be quiet; but pot so far able, as to be of any service. He has one quality, that entitles him to our applaufe, he is defirous to be advised. In the first affembly of notables Cadmus was guided by a man of genius, who is now no more. This period will be one of the most brilJiant in his story, if the story of Cadmus shall ever engross a few pages in the annals of his country.

The ideas now in vogue are so different from those that reigned forty years ago, that the minds of individuals, that have not kept pace with the progress of the age, can scarcely be expected to comprehend the language that is now spoken in France.

To say that the legislative power ought to refide in the nation; that a king has no right to originate taxes; that rank is a mere accidental dif tinction; that all men have an equal title to liberty; that taxes ought to bear impartially upon all orders in the community; that law and reason make a minister responsible for his measures; that the parliaments are not

Now, a man, a nobleman, a peer of France, educated in the old school, and who has remained stationary from the moment he was introduced into the world, can he think any thing else, but that the whole nation is de Hrious? Such is the situation of Cad. mus.

The code of military discipline was written in blood; but, however terrible it be, it does not go so far as to ordain, that men should kill their fathers, their wives, their children, their brothers, and their sisters. Now, if the troops, that were before quartered at Paris, had fired upon the people, all these parricides muft neceffar rily have followed. I know very well, that there was bad generalship in suffering seven thousand men to winter at Capua; but, this error once committed, was it not neceffary to abide by the consequences, and, a bove all, to know beforehand, that you were hastening those very evils you desired to prevent ?

It is only a small number of rational beings, that are capable of calculating what a body of a million of men are able to effect. Paris, London, and Calcutta, require a different mode of policy from any that is ex: emplified in the annals of history. Military Military men, who pretend, that difcipline alone can compenfate the refources of a multitude, must shut their eyes upon dreadful examples. We will mention only what the Turks did in the campaign of 1788. Two hundred and fifty thousand Imperialifts spent their force in vain, against this mighty mass of men, undifciplined, but courageous, and who felt all the energies of languinary resentment, against enemies whom they regarded as unjust aggreffors.

Cadmus! you must either die untimely the martyr of your good old principles; or die in your bed, a convert to new ones!

LABUIS.

of

(M. M. Bailly, Mayor of Paris, one the Forty Members of the French Academy, and Author of a celebrated Work upon the History of Astronomy.)

ONE of those men of sense, who having always exercised their minds upon scientifical truth, become, as it were, the représentatives and archetypes of reafon, and who in an untried career, enlightened by her rays, advance with fufficient deliberation, not to incur the hazard of miscarriage. Of fuch a fituation we may easily trace the effects.

Hence that moderation, which does not derive from the systematical digestion of a plan, and the certainty of realfing it in the execution; but which flows from that apprehenfiveness of error, natural to hun who undertakes to fpeak in a foreign language.

Hence that timidity, which we may well excuse in a man, who finds him felf situated in the middle place, be, tween the king and the nation, between the fear of difpleating and the defire to be useful, between the love of virtue and inexperience, between

personal integrity and courtly intrigue.

To preside with success in a nation. al assembly, it is requisite, that one should be admitted into the fecret of the national wishes, that one should hold the rudder, and steer the vessel of the state, along the tempestuous fea of contending opinions, and amidit the rocks and quicksands of perfonal interests.

Then it is, that the knowledge of mankind is the most precious of all qualifications. Happy the man, called to this diftinguished situation, who can diftinguish the courtier from the patriot, the man of arrogant pretenfions from the man of ability, the flave of ambition from the lover of mankind.

One may be learned, logical, and shrewd; one may be skilful to parry the arguments and objections of a private circle, nay, poisess a thousand claims to public esteem, and yet want the essential qualities of a president. Such things have been, and such things may occur again.

A cold manner is not expressive of true firmness, any more than bland and gentle qualities are always expressive of irresolution. Too much referve leads to mistrust; too pliable a temper encourages the neglect of difcipline and order. What a strange thing is that, which men have agreed to denominate virtue? It verges with hardly any exception upon a neighbouring vice, and a mathematical line is all that separates them.

Has Labius given occasion to these disquisitions? Yes: not that they are abfolutely applicable to him, but that they infallibly start up in the mind of him that diffects him. They are not therefore altogether impertinent; for, while I am painting these portraits, no idea can enter my mind, that is not fuggested by the countenance I undertake to copy.

While Labuis was nothing, people supposed that he would have been fomething,

f

omething, if he were trusted with an nteresting situation; when he became something, every body faw that Labuis was nothing. Such is the hiftory of many a Frenchman. The faculty of speaking with facility and ease misleads us. May it not be fufpected, that those, who afferted, that the nation was not ripe for affembling the states-general, were not altogether in the 'wrong? Who does not see, that the people, intoxicated with a pretending independence, will indulge in repeated excesses; that the clergy, menaced with a reduction of their credit, will exert a double share of ingenuity to recover their ancient fituation; that the nobility, seeing themselves reduced to their just value, will combat for the chimeras in the contemplation of whichthey fondly indulged; and that, in a mass thus constituted, there will not be found force enough to fix immoveably the foundations of a constitution? It is very possible, that better deputies could not have been elected; but it is by no means clear, that, such as they are, they are sufficient for their undertaking. We have yet to expiate a complete century of wit, gaiety, and politeness. When we shall have renounced our characteristic frivolity, we shall not immediately be fit for the office of governing ourselves. To Louis the Fourteenth and the regent, we were indebted, for the petty ad vantage of being the most polished nation in Europe; to Louis the Sixteenth we shall perhaps be indebted for the dawn of a regeneration, of which our grandchildren will reap the benefits. It is for them that we fow, and it would be folly to expect that we should ourselves enjoy the fruits of our meritorious labours.

demy, author of a Treatise upon Probabilities, a Treatise upon the States General, the Life of M. Turgot, and feveral other performances.)

THE merit of Zohor is of a folid, not of a brilliant description. He paffionately loves the friends of mankind, the friends of liberty, the friends of reason, and the friends of order. Efteemed by the judicious, he is not the subject of vulgar panegyric. He has taken no care to obtain the friendship of those female cabals, whose activity is so incessant to draw the man they favour out of his native obscurity. He has not endeavoured to secure to himself those splendid fuffrages, that impose on the multitude. He is not anxious to be quoted in the noisy circles of agitation and paffion. He has lived for himself and his friends, and he has lived a little for glory.

Zohor, inured to those profound meditations, which by means of arithmetical processes change conjecture into demonftration, is probably unadapted for those turbulent difcuffions, which characterise numerous affemblies, thrown into fermentation by the variety of interests, the collifion of passions and the extraordinary crises that may be expected to result. Unaccustomed to speak in public, he cannot command the resources of a Demofthenes, and is unable to subjugate the mind by the eloquence and energy of his diction.

But he amply compensates for the want of these brilliant qualifications, by a feries of study, that enables him to difcern what it is that will be ufeful to his country, and what are the remedies that her misfortunes de mand.

Zohor is perhaps the last defender of that philofophy, sprung up in England, and received for a moment in France, the primeval cause of the revolution which is now taking place; that philosophy, which would produce the happiness of the world; if, restrained

feen*."

He has invented nothing, and yet is infinitely saperior to ordinary writers. Why? Because he has advanced and improved the art of thinking. If his imagination be parfimonious and scanty, his judgment is luminous and found; and he will prove of more real ule to mankind, than twenty writers, that afpire with justice to the praise of genius.

A woman, who had formerly some reputation, attacked him with virulence, without being able to draw from him a word of reply. This philosophic moderation has been much praifed, but little imitated.

Zohor enjoys a name, that his labours have made illustrious; all Europe does him this justice. Let it be observed, that extensive celebrity is no trifling poffeffion, at a time, when the world appears to have conspired for the destruction of mediocrity,and hasagreed to repulse with contempt the ambitious pretenders, that befiege on all sides the temple of renown.

One merit that belongs to Zohor, " is, to have extended the limits of "Geometry, not only through all the " regions of natural fcience, but al" so into questions of moral confi"deration, which are in their own nature complicated, fortuitous, and "variable. This observation is per"haps matter enough for a long wind"ed panegyric; but we content our " selves with dropping a hint upon

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"the fubjects, without undertaking "a finished delineation."

A man foon becomes dissatisfied with what he already possesses, and the fuffrage, we had almost said of the human species, does not content Zohor. He burns to feek for fame in a new career; already he regrets so many nights paffed in the patience of calculation; he hastens to plunge himself in the ocean of politics, and seeks in the tempest of debate for a new fource of glory.

Zohor is altogether averse to those numerous circles, where the female sex prefides; where they stamp with their anathema those very works, whose merit they are unable to difpute; where they loudly applaud me. diocrity, when united with a rank that may patronife or may perfecute; where their Rupid lovers are encouraged for no other purpose, than to make of them echos, which may spread far and wide the despotic decrees of this abfolute senate.

He is a member of that academy, which Richelieu, who had a spice of the pedant, and not a grain of the philosopher, intended to compofe of grammatical critics. But Zohor knows better than any man living, how puerile it is to be bufied about words, when natural science presents us every year with a new phenomenon; when nature, hunted to the quick, continually fuffers one and another of her fecrets to escape her; and when commerce is at length become an object of ratiocination and soience.

Zohor strictly conforms himself to the advice of his master and friend, the late M. d'Alembert, who used to say, that "the genuine sage was be"neficent and kind towards every " human being, familiar in the fociety of a few, intimate with only

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" one."

Thờ

248

T

HE

family name of Mr Elwes was Meggot: and as his name was John, the conjunction of Jack Meggot, made strangers sometimes imagine that his intimates were addreffing him by an affumed appellation. His father was a brewer of great eminence. His dwelling-house and offices were situated in Southwark; which borough was formerly represented in parliament by his grandfather, Sir George Meggot. The father died while the late Mr Elwes was only four years old; fo, little of the character of Mr Elwes is to be attributed to him: but from the mother it may be traced at once-for though she was left nearly One Hundred Thousand Pounds by her husband -she starved hetself to death!

At an early period of life he was fent to Westmioster school, where he remained for ten or twelve years. During that time he certainly had not misapplied his talents-for he was a good claffical scholar to the lastand it is a circumstance not a little remarkable, though well authenticated, that he never read afterwards. Never was he seen at any period of his future life with a book, nor has he in all his different houses now left behind him, books that would, - were they collected together, fell for two pounds. His knowledge in accounts was still more trifling-and in fome measure may account for the total ignorance he was always in as to his own affairs.

From Westminster school, Mr Elwes removed to Geneva, where he foon entered upon pursuits more agreeable to him than study. The riding-mafter of the academy there, had then to boast, perhaps, three of the best riders in Europe, Mr Worsley, Mr Elwes, and Sir Sydney Meadows. Of the three, Elwes was reck

oned the most desperate; the young horses were always put into his hands, and he was the rough-rider to the other two.

During this period he was introduced to Voltaire, whom he somewhat resembled in point of appearance; but tho' he has mentioned this circumstance, the genius, the fortune, the character of Voltaire, never feemed to strike him-they were out of his contemplation, and his way: the horses in the riding-school he remembered much longer, and their respective qualities made a much deeper impression on him.

On his return to England, after an absence of two or three years, he was to be introduced to his uncle, the late Sir Harvey Elwes, who was then living at Stoke, in Suffolk, perhaps the most perfect picture of human penury that ever existed. The attempts at saving money were, in him, so extraordinary, that Mr Elwes, perhaps, never quite reached them, even at the last period of his life.

Of what temperance can do, Sir Harvey was an instance. At an early period of life he was given over for a consumption, and he lived till betwixt eighty and ninety years of age.

On his death, his fortune, which was at leait 250,0001. fell to his nephew, Mr Meggot, who by will, was ordered to assume the name and arms of Elwes.

To this uncle, and this property, Mr Elwes succeeded, when he had advanced beyond the fortieth year of his age. And for fifteen years previous to this period, it was, that he was known in the more fashionable circles of London. He had always a turn for play, and it was only late in life, and from paying always, and