THE WEEKLY ENTERTAINER. For MONDAY, December 8, 1783. Some Particulars respecting the PALACE of VERSAILLES, with an AFFECTING INCIDENT. SIR, To the PRINTER. Paris, November 7. I not attempt it; but, from a few comparatively trifling circumftances, you will be able to form fome idea of the whole. There is an opera-houfe in the palace, in which pieces are occafionally performed at the expence of the king: the fpectators are admitted gratis; but ftill they muft be provided with tickets, which are not refufed to genteel people. The building is 160 feet high, and the ftage is placed precifely in the middle, fo that it lies 80 feet from the roof, and as many from the ground. The space under the ftage is filled with immenfe pieces of mechanifm, by which all the fcenery on and over the ftage is moved and fhifted; fo that when a perfon looks down through a trapdoor, he is aftonifhed to behold a piece of machinery as compli cated as that of Marly. T would require a genius equal to that of the architect, to Sometimes, instead of operas, concerts are given by his majefty to the court; and then the opera-houfe undergoes fo complete a change, or metamorphofis, that he who a day or two before had been prefent in it, at the reprefentation of an opera, might well imagine that fomething like magic must have proVOL. II. 49. 3 X duced duced the change: the fcenes are all removed; the ftage changes its form, and a beautiful colonade, formed of Corinthian pillars, fluted and gilt, rifes to the view in that place where the scenes formerly ftood: oppofite the vacant fpaces be tween the pillars, are placed magnificent looking-glaffes, fome ten and twelve feet long, each reflecting an infinite number of candles hung in luftres before them; fo that what with gilding, lights, glaffes, and the dazzling of diamonds and beauty, when the houfe is irradiated with the blaze of majesty, and of the court, a perfon might, for a moment, fancy himfelf in paradife. All the interior ftructure of the house can be taken to pieces, when there is occafion to prepare for an opera, and laid up, 'till the king thinks proper to call for them again, for a concert. k is only on very particular occafions that concerts are given here; the grand gallery in the chateau, or palace, is ufually fet apart for them: it was in this gallery that the count and counters de Nord (their imperial highneffes the grand duke and dutchefs of Ruffia) were entertained with a grand concert: it was in this fuperb gallery that the king and queen were one day furprized to fee a long proceffion of perfons, all in deep mourning, enter; but their furprize was encreased, on seeing them all fall at once upon their knees, while the two nearest to their majefties, overwhelmed with grief, and unable, from their fobs and tears, to utter a word, in the moft fupplicating and moving manner held up a paper to the king.. His majefty eyed the fupplicants at tentively for a moment, who, by kneeling two and two at a certain distance from each other, took up near the whole length of the gallery. With affability marked in his countenance, he took the paper, and found it to be a petition for the life of a young man, who had been condemned for forgery: the petition stated the number of perfons belonging to the family who had facrificed their lives in their country's caufe; and the prayer of it was, that, in confideration of their fervices, his majefty would deign, by his gracious clemency, to avert the difgrace that would fall upon a refpectable and loyal family, if his majefty's compaffion did not interpofe, and fave their honour, by refcuing an unfortunate youth from the difgraceful end to which the laws had justly condemned him. The petitioners were upwards of thirty in number, and were the parents, brothers, fifters, uncles, aunts, and coufin-germans, of the young man. The king, with tears in his eyes, told them his heart bled for them; and affured them, that for any other crime he would have pardoned their relation; but forgery was a crime of the most dangerous nature to commerce and fociety; and, therefore, for the fake of example, he mult, however reluctantly, fuffer the law to take its victim. The mother, on hearing this, turned to the queen, and, grafping her knees, cried out, Oh, Madam, you are a mother, pity the feelings of one who bears the fame name!" The queen was touched; for fhe could not refift the pathetic expreffions of this unhappy woman and her family: he, therefore, became at once their advocate, and a petitioner for the boon that they were praying for. The king with stood the entreaties of his confort for a while; but at laft fuffered himself to be moved by her prayers, and the diftrefs of this unfortunate family, whom he foon restored to happiness, by faying to the parents, "Go, good people, your fon lives; let him be grateful to you, who, having once given him life, have been fortunate enough to preferve it to him in a moment when he had no reason to hope for it." Having said this, he walked away abruptly, not to be overwhelmed by the expreffions of gratitude which his clemency could not fail to excite." A TRAVELLER. ON SLAVERY. NUMBER VII. Extract from a Sermon preached before the Society inftituted for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, by the Bishop of Chefter, February 21, 1783. ΤΗ HERE is one clafs of our fellow-creatures which has fuch diftinguifhed pre-eminence in mifery, of almost every kind, and which fo exactly correfponds to all that variety of wretchedness enumerated in the text, that one would almoft be tempted to think our Saviour actually alluded to them, and had their cafe, among the other great events of futurity, in his eye for when he speaks of the " poor, the broken-hearted, the blind, the captive, the bruifed," who can forbear thinking on that unhappy race of beings, the African flaves in our WeftIndia colonies? If there are any human creatures in the world, who concentrate in themfelves every fpecies of evil here enumerated, who are at once poor, and broken-hearted, and blind, and captive, and bruifed, our negro flaves are beyond all comparifon thofe creatures. Even in a literal fenfe this description is in several circumftances a juft picture of their fituation; but, in a figurative and fpiritual meaning, it may, with the strictest truth, be applied to them. They are in general confidered as 3 X 2 *Luke vi. 17, 18, 19, 20. mere mere machines and inftruments to work with, as having neither understandings to be cultivated, nor fouls to be faved. To the greater part, not fo much as the mere ceremony of baptifm is administered, and scarce any enjoy fufficient leifure and affiftance for a proper degree of inftruction in the doctrines and the duties of religion. Sunday is indeed a day which they are generally indulged with for their own ufe; but they fpend it commonly not in attending public worship, or receiving private inftruction, but inventing and trafficking with each other, or in cultivating their own little allotment of land; for which, except in one ifland, that of Jamaica, they have feldom any other time allowed them. Thus it comes to pass, that in the British islands there are upwards of 400,000 human beings, of whom much the greatest part live moft literally without God in the world, without any knowledge of a Creator or a Redeemer, without any one principle of natural or revealed religion, without the idea of one moral duty; except that of performing their daily task, and efcaping the fcourge that conftantly hangs over them. A condition fuch as this, in which fo many thoufands of our unoffending fellow-creatures are involved, cannot but excite the compaffion of every feeling heart; and it must be a matter of no fmall furprize, and the deepest concern, that, excepting a few inftances, which deferve the highest praife, no effectual means have yet been put in practice, either on the part of those individuals who are most nearly interested in the welfare of thefe poor wretches, or of the government under which they live, to refcue them out of this fpiritual captivity, fo much worfe than even that temporal one (heavy as it is) to which they are condemned. Almoft the only confiderable attempts that have been made to deliver them from this deplorable` ftate of ignorance, have been made by this venerable fociety, which has had this object, among others, conftantly in view, and in the profecution of it has not been fparing either in labour or ex pence. But it must be owned, that our endeavours have not hitherto been attended with the defired fuccefs. This, however, has been owing not to what fome are willing to fuppofe, an impoflibility in the nature of the thing itself, nor to any abfolute incapacity in the Africans to receive or retain any religious knowledge, but to accidental, and, I truft, farmountable caufes; to the prejudices formerly entertained by many of the planters, against the inftruction and converfion of their flaves; to the want which, the latter have experienced of fufficient time and opportunity for this purpofe; to the abject, depreffed, degraded, uncivilized, unbefriended ftate, in which the negroes have been fo long fuffered to remain; to very little attention paid to them το on the part of government; to the almost total want of laws to protect and encourage them, and to soften, in some degree, the rigours of their condition. [To be continued occafionally.] LETTER to a YOUNG MAN entering into the World. DEAR SIR, Beg leave, by this letter, to call your attention to the confideration and practice of modelty. I doubt not but you are acquainted with the definition of the term; I therefore mean more to enforce upon you the practice of it, than directly to define it. Modefty is a virtue fo fuitable to human nature, and fo excellent in itself, that whoever is diftinguished by it, in whatever period of life he may be in, we cannot withhold from him our approbation and esteem; and this is peculiarly the cafe, if he is in the early part of his life. Man is a weak and imperfect being. Humanum eft errare. It is unfuitable to the nature of a being, whofe actions are tarnished by imperfection, to have an uniform confidence in his own shallow intellects, to truft entirely his own judgement and opinions, by fhewing a contempt of the advice and help of others. On the contrary, for a being who feels his own weaknefs and imperfection, it is ingenuous, it is noble in him, to be diffident of himself, to folicit the advice of others, and to be open to conviction. This is his true and proper pofture. Modeity gives a fhade to his weaknesses and errors. And if all this be true refpecting man, however much improved, however much experienced, of whatever age or rank in life; how much more muft it be true and applicable to him, when he is unimproved and inexperienced? But the pity is, that ignorance and inexperience are often the causes of obftinacy and confidence. Young and ignorant people are not aware how much there is to learn; and they think they know every thing, when compa ratively they know nothing. On the contrary, it has ever been obferved, that the more wife men have known, they were of all the leaft obftinate and oftentatious, the most cautious and open to conviction, because a world of objects opens to their view, which lie hid from the ignorant. "Were men to live coeval with the fun A young |