cault may write till they are blind, if they please, they can never put mankind, in general, out of conceit with the dignity and excellence of human nature. They wrote from themselves, and from their own situation; the one being a dependent, low-minded, tho' an ingenious brute; the other being a courtier, and a diseur des bons mats. Where do you find all this mifanthropy, all this ingratitude, all this vice, that you attribute to the human race?" faid some blunt Frenchman to a countryman of his, a great maxim-monger, and a great degrader of the human character." In my own heart," said the other. To return, however, to M. de Chamouffet: He was born at Paris in 1717, and destined to fupply his father's place in the Parliament of that city as a Judge, as well as that of his uncle in the fame fituation. He made choice of the one of them that would give him the least trouble, and afford him the most leisure for his benevolent projects. Medicine was his favourite study. This he practifed on the poor only, with such an ardour and activity of mind, that the hours which many perfons give to fleep he bestowed on the assistance of the sick. To make himfelf more useful to them, he had learned to bleed, which operation he performed with all the dexterity of the most experienced Surgeon. His difposition to do goed appeared so early, that, when he was a boy, he used to give to the poor the money which other boys spent, in general, in an idle and unprofitable manner. He was oncevery muchin love with a younglady of great beauty and accomplishments; but imagining that she would not make him a suitable assistant, in his attendance on the poor, he gave over all thoughts of marriage; not very wisely, perhaps, sacrificing to the extreme delicacy of one woman only his attachment to that sex, in whose tenderness of disposition, and in whose instinctive quickness of feeling, he

would have found that reciprocation of benevolence he was anxious to procure. He was so forcibly struck with the wretched situation of the great Hospital of Paris (the Hotel Dieu, as it is called), where the dead, the dying, and the living, are very often crowded together in the fame bed (five persons at a time occasionally occupying the fame bed), that he wrote a plan of reform for that Hofpital, which he shewed in manufcript to the famous John James Rouffeau, requesting him to correct it for him. "What correction," replied Rouffeau, can a work want, that one cannot read without shuddering at the horrid pictures it represents? What is the end of writing, if it be not to touch and interest the paffions?" M. de Chamouffet was occafionally the author of many benevolent and useful schemes; such as the establishment of the Penny Post at Paris; the bringing good water to that city; a plan for a House of Affociation, by which any man, for a small sum of money deposited, may be taken care of when he is fick; and many others; not forgetting one for the abolishment of begging, which is to be found in Les Vues d'un Citoyen." M. de Chamouffet was now so well known as a man of active and useful benevodence, that M. de Choiseul (when he was in the War Department) made him, in 1761, Intendant General of the Military Hospitals of France, the King Louis XV. telling him, "that he had never, since he came to the Throne, made out an appointment fo agreeable to himself;" and added, "I am sure I can never make any one that will be of such service to my troops." The pains he took in this employment were incredible. His attention to his fituation was so great, and conducted with such good sense and understanding, that the Marshal de Soubise, on visiting one of the great Military Hospitals at Duffeldorf, under the care of M. de Chamouffet, faid,

ever over-light and merry; in age they are taftie, very waspish, and alwaies over-miferable. And yet fewe of them come to any great age, by reason of their misordered life when they are yonge; but a great deal fewer of them come to shine any great countenance, or bear any great authority abroade in the world; but either live obfcurely, men wot not how, or dye obfcurely, men mark not when."

One of Lord Shaftesbury's schemes given to his master was, that of shutting up the Treasury, to which he willingly enough afiented. Lord Shaftesbury was one of the ablest speakers of his time; and had often turned the debates in the House of Peers by the dexterity of his management of them, and the acuteness of his reafoning. Mr Locke was wonderfully fruck with his sagacity on every fubject; and though he was a man of mach reading, yet nothing, in Mr Locke's opinion, could be more just than the judgment he paffed upon the books which fell into his hands. He presently faw through the design of a work; and, without much heeding the words (which he ran over with great rapidity), he immediately found whether the author was master of his subject, and whether his reasonings were exact. But, above all, Mr Locke admired in him that penetration, that prefence of mind, which prompted him with the best, expedients in the most defperate cafes; that noble boldness which appeared in all his public discourses, always guided by a folid judgment, which, never allowing him to say any thing that was improper, and regulating his leaft word, left no hold to the vigilance of his enemies. Lord Shaftesbury has been supposed to have assisted Mr Locke very much in his Treatise upon Toleration. L.thop Burnet supposes him addicted to judicial astrology. It has been said, though, that his Lordship affected to believe this folly when in company

with the Bishop, to prevent his en deavours to wind out of him his political intentions. In the complete edition of Mr Locke's Works there are some scanty Memoirs of this extraordinary person's life; which, were it written with proper information, would make a biographical article of much amusement, and of useful inf'truction; the subject of it having been engaged as a principal agent in all the Dædalian political transactions of his time; and being, befides, a man of wit, of knowledge, and of elegance of

manners.

Abbe de Saint Pierre, The jest of every practical and proffigate politician, who calls the benevolent and patriotic sehemes of this honeft and good, as well as enlightened, man, "Reveries." Cardinal Dubois, however, with more honefty than some of his companions in iniquity, calls them the "Reves d'un homme de bien," the " Reveries of an honest and well-intentioned man." He was born in Normandy, in 1658, and was an Ecclefiaftic, being Almoner to the Dutchess of Orleans, and having a commendam Abbey. He was of the French Academy; but having, in one of his works,, fpoken flightingly of Louis XIVth's manof governing, he was excluded, for not having treated the memory of the Founder of the Academy with fufficient respect; and at his death, which happened in 1743, the customary eulogium upon the Academicians was not spoken over his bier. The Regent, who knew him to be a man facrificed to the manes of Louis XIV. would not fuffer his vacant place, amongst the forty, to be filled up in his life-time. The complete collection of his works is in eighteen volumes, in twelves; they confift chiefly of Projects with the Annals of the Reign of Louis XIV. which gave great offence to the idolizers of the memory of that Prince. His style is inelegant and diffufe;

diffuse; but of this himself was fo confcious, that he once defired a lady of great elegance of conversation (who made this objection to his writ. ings) to take up the pen for him; adding, "though one is not obliged to amuse mankind, one is obliged not to deceive them."

Anecdotes of Mr Pope, and fome of his Cotemporaries.

Mr Pope was always complaining to his friends that he was poor. He had an income of near eight hundred pounds a-year, but could never be prevailed upon to keep his ac

counts.

There is a picture of his painting, at Caen Wood, Lord Mansfield's. It is the portrait of Betterton, after Sir Godfrey Kneller. He used to say, had not his eyes been bad, he should have made a tolerable painter.

If the conversation did not take a lively turn, he used to fall afleep in

company.

He had good reason to be pleased with Sir Robert Walpole. He procured from Cardinal Fleuryan Abbey, in France, for his friend Mr Southcote. His fifter used to say, that when he was a child he was exceed ingly handsome. She imagined that excess of study had distorted his body. At ten years of age he wrote a fatire on his Schoolmaster.

Mr Pope was anxious to have his defects of shape concealed in any buft or portrait that was taken of him. His eyes were remarkably vivid and bright; and, as an eminent painter faid of them, had a pellucidity which he had not often seen, and spoke sense distinct and clear." He would occafionally fit with his head upon his hand, and leaning upon a table, for an hour together, without opening his mouth. He was an unpleasant inmate in a house, giving the servants of it a great deal of trouble, but always paying them with great liberality.

VOL. XL. No. 650

Xx

The dislike of Mrs Blount to Mr Allen is supposed to have arifen from Mr Allen's refusing to fend his coach to take her to the Masshouse at Bath, when she was on a visit to Prior Park. Pope was as much afraid of this lady as she said she used to be of Swift, who used to own he felt his own inferiority when he was in company with Lord Bolingbroke.

Of Mr Pope's Man of Ross, Mr Kyrle, there appears to be but little known. At the King's Arms Inn at Reading, there used to hang up a picture of him some years ago. It represented him as a man of a grave and ferious aspect, with a long flowing wig, and a night-gown. There are some collateral relations of his now living at Bristol. The Clerk of Ross, who died fome years ago at a very advanced age, remembered Mr Kyrle verywell. He says, he kept open house. on a market day, and treated his guests (the farmers of the neighbourhoad) with great hospitality, giving them always a buttock of beef, and plenty of ale and cyder. His arms are, I think, on one of the entrances into the area (near the church) where the reservoir for water is. Of late years they have erected a monument to his memory in the church of Ross, with Mr Pope's very beautiful lines(by way of inscription). Much of what has been faid to have been done by Mr Kyrle wasdone by the contributions of others, who very willingly depofited in the hands of a man of known integrity, and active benevolence, what sums they thought fit to bestow upon acts of charity, or works of utility and elegance.

Mr Pope is supposed to have had no particular plan either in his Effay on Criticism, or in his Efay on Man, however his learned commentator may have chosen to have dignified those two productions with a folemn and serious Commentary. He wrote them both as Horace did his Art of Poetry, taking particular thoughts, which he