cell. I am confeffor to the duchefs of Popoli. The whole world knows who I am. MARCUS AURELIUS. Friar Fulgentius at the capitol! Things appear indeed to have undergone fome change. Pray be kind enough to inform me where is the palace of the emperor, my fucceffor. Is it ftill on mount Palatine? For to fay the truth, I no longer know my own country. FRIAR. Phaw! Good man, you talk extravagantly. However if you pleafe I will fhew you mount Cavallo, you fhall kifs the feet of the holy father, and I will procure you fome indulgences, of which, if I am not mistaken, you have great need. MARCUS AURELIUS. First grant me your own indulgence, and frankly tell me-Is there, at prefent, neither emperor nor Roman empire? FRIAR. Oh yes, yes, there is an emperor, and an empire too; but they are both at the distance of four hundred leagues, at a fmall city called Vienna, on the Danube. I would advise you to go there in fearch of your fucceffors, for here you are in danger of being fent to vifit the inquifition. I give you notice that the reverend Dominican friars do not understand raillery, and they would treat your Marcus Aureliufes, your Titufes, your Antonines, and your Trajans very ill; pagans as they were, who never could fay their catechifm. nican MARCUS AURELIUS. Catechifm !-Inquifition!-Domifriars!-Recollets!-Cardinals!-Popes!-The Roman empire in a small city on the Danube! This was more than I expected. But I can eafily conceive that the things of this earth must have changed their appearance in the fpace of fixteen hundred years. To contemplate one of the Marcomanni, Quadi, Cimbri, or Teutoni, a Roman emperor, highly excites my cu riofity.' The fourth is not in the Berlin copy, nor in the translation : it might as well have been entirely omitted and forgotten. Louis in the Elyfian Fields,' the tranflator tells us, is called a drama in the Berlin edition; but it does not occur in our copy: we fufpect that Mr. Holcroft meant the Bafil edition. In the original, it is in verfe; but, as the English think it unnatural to make characters converfe in rhyme, it is tranflated into profe.' Louis XV. trembles at the appearance of Charon, and afks if there are no lettres de cachet in these regions: at last he is fuffered to depart to the Elyfian Fields, as a good, but weak man, who did no harm voluntarily. Here he meets Richlieu, who, ftill eager in contriving fchemes, ftudies to emancipate Jove from the power of defliny. He meets too Saint Louis, and Samuel Bernard; and fome characteristic converfation follows; but the conclufion is a little too ludicrous. The Reflections on the Character of Charles XII. are excellent: ocular witneffes and authentic memoirs' have been the king's guides. It must be admitted that his education was not calculated to make him an accomplished general; and while Frederick allows him the credit of promptnefs, decifion, fearlefs courage approaching to rafhnefs, and indefatigable aftivity, he finds him inconfiderate, imprudent, violent, and capricious. He gave the most frequent inftances of judgment in his firit campaigns, when, perhaps, he trufted more to his advifers than in the others. His attack on Ruffia, by way of Smolensko and the Ukrain, was one of the moft inconfiderate steps, in our author's opinion, that could have been taken; and his conduct, previous to his defeat at Pultwa, a series of indigested plans and ill concerted attempts. The general characters of different heroes are dictated by the profoundest views, and the moft accurate examination: it is the work of an artist in his own department. A Critical Examination of the Work, entitled Syfteme de la Nature,' next occurs. This work, defigned to strike not lefs at religion than a due fubordination in a political view, is faid to have been written by M. Mirabaud, a name, like William Hammon in more recent times, probably fictitious. Frederick did not pay a great refpect to revcaled religion; but we have no reason to fuppofe that he difbelieved the existence of a God, or doubted of a providence or a future flate, whatever may have been hazarded in a moment of rafh, indecent, pleafantry. The attack on kings, however, feems to have been the principal caufe of his taking the field as the antagonist of M. Mirabaud. In this critical examination he does not appear to great advantage as a metaphyfician; but he argues, on the ufual grounds, clofely and decifively; with fome arguments, a little too trite, in oppofition to the doctrine of neceffity. Mirabaud, as we have faid, is not very friendly to the kingly power; and this part of the Syftem' Frederick oppofes with great force, and with good fuccefs, if we admit that, in his effay on the forms of government, he has drawn things as they are, rather than as ideal pictures of what they fhould be. In the greater part, however, of this defence, he has taken a proper view of the vices and follies of fovereigns. In the French edition, published in London, the Penfées fur la Religion' follow; which are properly fuppreffed by the editors of Berlin and by the tranflator: indeed this tract has been faid not to have been written by Frederick. It is a series of weak, ill-founded farcafims on revelation, the crambe recocta of the crude infipidities of Voltaire and other deifts. It was the king's weak fide. Religion will not, we think, fuffer if we are allowed to tranfcribe a fpecimen: we shall select one of the leaft offenfive. Tabitha, an holy woman, who rade "cloaths and garments" for the Chriflians died. Immediately the difciple wrote to St. Peter, who was at Joppa, "come quickly"-Delay not in the leaf to come to us. He came, and they fewed him the dead body and the cloaths. St. Peter, after making the attendants retire, raifed her from the dead. 1. St. Peter failed in point of charity by raifing her, face he expofed her to damnation. As he died a faint, he fhould have left her in that ftate. 2. The miracle ought to have been public. Why should he remove the attendants? Was he afraid that they would difturb his mysterious proceedings? He had better given the church a more dextrous feemftrefs; he who can raife the dead can, a fortiori, produce good workwomen.' - Can religion be ever affected by fuch fimzy fncers ? The Commentary on Elvebeard is well adapted to the tabernacle: it is preferved in each copy; but the fncers against the Scriptures, and particularly the prophets, are fo open and ludicrous, that we could have wifhed it to have been fuppressed. The treatife, on the Errors of the Understanding,' is a fceptical dialogue, in the pure claffical taste. The friends, between whom this converfation is fuppofed to pafs, begin with the fyftem of Copernicus, from an accidental hint, which gives occafion to Frederick to exprefs his doubts of this fyftem, of the evidence of our fenfes, and of philofophical truths in general. We contemplate, he thinks, truth at a diflanc', through fallacious media; our minds are incapable of extenfive knowledge, and we are misled by the prejudices of education. The whole of this reasoning muft, however, be received with limitation. The king, with unbounded curiofity, acute difcrimination, and extenfive application, had, in confequence of various more interesting objects, made but a small progress in scientific acquifitions. Yet his acutenefs fhowed him errors, which his knowledge of the fubject would not permit him to explain or properly to appreciate. What, therefore, he could not account for he confidered as unaccountable, and where he faw words in the place of fcience, he did not diftinguish that the words were little elfe than the figns of algebra, the reprefentatives and the guides to things. If, for inftance, he alludes, when he speaks of a new discovery' as only a new compofed term,' to gravity, we may allow that it is a new word only, and as fuch of no more importance than vortices. But if we reflect that, from the power of gravity on earth, and its effects on bodies unfupported expofed to its influence, we can calculate whether a given body which we obferve, moving in the heavens, is guided or propelled by a fimilar power, it becomes more than a word: it is a clue which leads to the most intricate and interesting difcuffions. B 3 cuffions. With this guard, we fhall venture to produce the parfage alluded to: Speaking in a philofophic fenfe, we are abfolutely acquaint ed with no one thing. We fufpect there are certain truths of which we form a vague idea, and to thefe we attribute, by the organs of fpeech, certain founds which we call fcientific terms. With thefe founds we fatisfy our ears. Our mind imagines it understands them, yet, being well examined, they prefent nothing but confufed ideas to the imagination; fo that our philofophy is reduced to the habit, in which we have indulged ourfelves, of employing obfcure expreffions, and terms the meaning of which we but little comprehend, and to profound meditation on effects the caufes of which remain perfectly unknown and concealed. A wretched fucceffion of thefe dreams is dignified with the fine title of fupereminent philofophy, which the author announces with all the arrogance of a quack, as a difcovery the most rare, and the moft ufeful to the human race. Does your curiofity induce you to inquire concerning this discovery? You there expect to find realities; but how unjust were your expectation! No, this error, this precious difcovery is nothing more than fome newly compofed term, or word, more barbarous than any by which it was preceded. This new term, according to our quack, miraculously explains a certain unknown truth, and difplays it more bright than day itself. But, fcrutinize, ftrip the idea of its cloathing, the term by which it is covered, and nothing will remain; nothing but ob. fcurity or pofitive darkness. It is fcenery that shifts and difap. pears, and with it the illufion vanishes.' But, when we have rescued philofophy from this attack, and there are some other inftances in which the defence will apply, we must allow that, on a nearer approach, we are inveloped with doubt and difficulty. Every thing is furrounded by spheres which repel us; and we have only the fatisfaction to reflect, that no useful truth is probably concealed from us. The properties of bodies, which are fubfervient to our utility and pleafure, are obvious, or eafily developed: it is only over thofe fpeculative enquiries, which lead us from the confideration of what is ufeful, that Providence feems to have thrown a veil, faying, thou fhalt go no farther; here fhall thy ambition be checked.' The moral is a good one; there are many innocent errors; and the wanderings of the best informed minds, in the fearch of truth, fhould teach candour, charity, and toleration, to the errors of others. The School of the World' is a play of three acts, not found in the Berlin edition: it is a performance which does not entitle the king to a high rank among dramatic authors. Yet young Bardus, the fuppofed pedant, but really the abandoned liber tine, who is equally incapable of philofophifing with his father, or addreffing, with delicacy and good breeding, the lady defigned for his wife, is almoft a novelty on the ftage. We fee the character, in its different parts, in the English dramas, but the circumstances are not equally complicated. We do not, however, perceive that he is fufficiently brought forward, or that he adds greatly to the comic force of the play. Hoc do leo tibi deeffe Terenti.' The Elegy of the City of Berlin is a compliment addressed to baron Von Pollnitz, on his leaving the capital of Pruffia to go to Bareuth; but a compliment, from a flight farcastic remark or two, which feems to be ironical. The preface to the Henriade is fufficiently known: it is in the exaggerated style of partial praife, when the friendship was unbroken, and while the real character of Voltaire continued unknown. In a fubfequent period, Frederick wrote Tantalus at Law, a comedy, and the Portrait of Voltaire. The comedy alludes to the dealings of Voltaire with the Jews, refpecting the filver or government bills; a transaction not very honourable, which was faid to be still more fullied by fome other frauds. The Epitaph of Voltaire, and the Poet's Farewell to the King, with his Anfwer, we shall felect, as a favourable fpecimen of the tranflator's power in preferving the fpirit of the original. EPITAPH ON VOLTAIRE. VOLTAIRE's FAREWELL TO THE KING, 'NOT all your virtues, worth and wiles, But have, alas! no heart to give. THE KING'S REPLY, |