is this, that their children will never shine at the bar, in the senate, or the pulpit, unless the whole of their time from youth

to manhood is devoted to erudition.

"It is not easy to conceive a greater or a more fatal mistake; with how much more credit, profit, and happiness, would a large portion of this period be passed under the paternal roof, where without excluding occasional literary employment their minds and habits would be formed to the business of human life, early vicious tendencies restrained, and what is of no small importance, salutary oc

forget that no education will in general elevate a man of common talents above that rank in life in which he has been born.

"A shop-bill, written by David Hume, who is said to have written many behind a counter, will be no better prized than one written by a blockhead, if the latter sells his goods a farthing a pound cheaper.

"On the other hand, genius and superior abilities will distinguish themselves without being kept so long in trammels; they require not such assistance; they smooth all difficulties and surmount every obstacle."

rents.

"Alas, they have other and more important objects of pursuit, dress, whist, the fox chace, public spectacles, &c. &c. &c. ; but when the ruinous youthful career of vicious extravagance hath been run, when that most important of our duties, domestic superintendance, hath been neglected or trusted to unfaithful hands, the astonished father wakes from his vain dream of infatuation and affects to be surprised at a train of vipers, fostered alas too often to sting his bosom in old age.

"Fathers of families in the wildness of a fond imagination

OLINGBROKE, VIS, COUNT, for a short time the prime minister of Queen Anne.

My collection has been coarsely censured by a warm admirer of this noble lord, who is, if I mistake not, descended from the illegitimate offspring of one of his lordship's humble amours; this miscellany has been censured as partially inveterate against the right honourable sceptic.

My opponent, who like his ancestor, thinks freely but not deeply, and whom I once called a connoisseur without taste, and a pedant without learning,-this feeble amateur accuses me of

having

having quoted invective verses against Lord Bolingbroke without producing the panegyric which occasioned them.

As in some cases we may receive useful instruction from an adversary, I present to my readers what must have been a sugared treat to the ex-minister, premising that in consonance with my own feelings and convictions I shall add the answer, some part of which has appeared in a former volume:-'Tis sung, that exil'd by tyrannic Jove, Apollo, from the starry realms above,

To sylvan scenes, to grots and

streams retir'd,

And rural scenes and rural

sports admir'd; Admir'd, but found with pleasure and surprize, Himself the same on earth as in

the skies, The wond'ring swains and nymphs where'er he trod, With transport gaz'd and recogniz'd the God. The tale's now verified, what

here we view

Blank light and shade discriminate the wall:

He lightly thinks of what must all men charm,

A noble palace, simply calls a farm.

No glaring trophies here, no spoils of war

Attract the eye But rustic implements to till the fields,

And the wild flower luxuriant nature yields.

Thus noble St. John in his sweet recess,

By

those made greater who wou'd make him less; Thus free of heart and eloquent of tongue,

With speech harmonious as a heavenly song,

Suspends in rapture each attentive guest,

Ungrateful Britain, what a fault is thine,

This well-school'd statesman's counsels to decline! In scenes retir'd the vet'ran patriot lives,

And for his ruin'd country vainly grieves.

fiction true.

See, emblem of himself, his villa

stand,

Politely finish'd, regularly grand; No gaudy colours stain the wellsiz'd hall,

the following manner :

Base sycophant beneath a poet's fame,

Who daub'st with praise an execrable name.

Scandal

like thy cause,

applause;

Thou hast wrap't St. John in a God's disguise,

fraud, would rise, Heroes in exile and betray'd al

lies.

rant of the skies.

With whom can such abusive

lies prevail?

Or who believes the fabricated

tale?

If George is Jove, then every one

must own

St. John, the traitor, who attack'd his throne:

But baffled in his schemes so wild and vain,

field, &c. &c. &c.

BOUTHILLIER DE

RANCE, a French nobleman and a man of pleasure, who had long been the successful but illicit lover of a lady of fashion and beauty in Paris, her husband being absent on military duty.

From a routine of frivolous

tions, the subject of our present article was suddenly called to a distant province, where he was detained several months without any possibility of carry

Having at length obtained the object of his journey and re

mind,

mankind.

delay, he flew on the wings of

which he did not reach till mid

By means of a passe par tout

describ'd

proscrib'd.

tered the house of his mistress

their mutual aid,

chamber

chamber which had been often the scene of unhallowed bliss ; he draws back the curtain which inclosed all he values on earth, hoping to surprise with a rapturous kiss the sleeping beauty, and to compensate for the pangs of absence by taking still deeper draughts of unmeasured delight.

He starts back with horror and astonishment on discovering the dear object of his fondest wishes extended on the bed lifeless, disfigured, and loathsome. In a word, his mistress during his absence had been seized with a most malignant species of small pox, and had fallen a sacrifice to that pestilential scourge.

Deprived of the treasure of his heart and under circumstances so shocking to an ardent lover, Rancè quits the house with difficulty; despair and disappointment having paralyzed his body and mind, he secludes himself at once from society, devotes his days and nights to sorrow, repentance, and religious contemplation, and finally became the founder of the monastery of La Trappe.

Such is the romantic tale re-, lated with credulous confidence by a modern writer; but the visionary fabrication will not bear the touchstone of critical examination, and vanishes from

the magic talisman of truth and historical fact.

The convent of La Trappe had existed for two centuries before the birth of Bouthillier; he was indeed Abbe and a considerable reformer of that religious institution so remarkable for its fasts, its vigils, and that still more painful vow of eternal silence.

The original founder was Rotrou, Count de Perche, so early as the twelfth century; being overtaken at sea by a furious tempest, the ship he sailed in after being the sport of winds and waves for several days was at length driven on a rock, and the Count after many dangers was the only individual who escaped.

In the moment of peril and distress he called for aid on the Almighty, accompanying his prayer with a vow of building and endowing a convent in case he reached the shore; this promise he religiously performed.

La Trappe, like every human institution, having degenerated from the austerities originally enjoined by its founder, was restored by the zeal of De Rancè, improved and armed with new horrors.

To rise at midnight from the short unrefreshing repose of a bed

of

of board; to pass the tedious hours till day-light approached in repeating Ave Marias, misereres and scourgings; to subsist on food of the most tasteless kind; to devote the day to the most laborious drudgery, and never to speak, was the discipline Jaid down by the founder, rigorously exemplified and enforced by the Abbe De Rancè, and considered by them both as the most likely means of rendering themselves and their disciples acceptable to the kind and omnipotent Creator of the world.

But the credulous writer mentioned at the beginning of this article is incorrect in the statement of other important particulars: Bouthillier was not the promiscuous lover, the invader of nuptial peace, the unprincipled debauchee before described.

He was nephew to Bouthillier De Chavigny, superintendant of the French finances in the reign of Louis the thirteenth; devoted to literature and science, moderate in his pleasures, correct in his manners, and a canon of

the church of Notre Dame.

He was editor of an edition of Anacreon with notes, and the bishopric of Laon being offered to him he declined accepting it, fearing that such an exalted post would interrupt him in the literary life he loved, and

separate him from the connections and habits of his early days.

The easy tenor of a life thus agreeably passed in literary pursuits, friendly intercourse, and professional avocation, was suddenly interrupted by his narrowly escaping a violent 'death from the hand of an assassin raised against another.

This appears to have made an indelible impression on a nervous system remarkably sus ceptible; he never recovered his spirits, and in the opinion of the editor of this collection his intellects were partially deranged.

This supposition I confess depends only on internal evidence, for he instantly quitted a circle of friends in which he was useful, pleasant and beloved, for the impenetrable gloom, the silence, the austerities and irrational self denials of La Trappe, dragging on an existence in my humble opinion displeasing to God, and certainly useless to