Opportunity of fpeaking of him as a private man, and of giving his character, as concifely as poffible. He fcarce obtained any favours which were not offered to him: when his own intereft was concerned, it was always neceffary to push him on. His referved and rather dry look, which was fometimes even inclined to feverity, made him appear at times as if he were not in his proper element in our country, if it were poffible that great fouls and perfonal merit could be confined to any one nation. He knew not how to fay thofe things that are usually called pretty things. He was more efpecially free from thofe numberless errors into which perfons, who are overfond of themselves, are continually falling. He was determined, for the most part, by his own judgment; and if, on the one hand, he had not too high an opinion, on the other, he had no diftruft of himself; he confidered and knew himself with as much penetration, as he viewed all other objects. No man ever knew better how to avoid exceffes, or, if I may venture to use the expreffion, to keep clear of the fnares of virtue for example, he was fond of the clergy; he readily enough accommodated himself to the modelty of their station; but he could not bear to be governed by them; efpecially if they tranfgreffed in the least article the limits of their duty he required more of them than they would have required of him. It was impoflible to behold him, and not be in love with virtue, fo evident was tranquillity and happiness in his foul, particularly when he was compared with others who were agitated by various paffions. In the works of Plutarch, I have feen at a distance what great men were: in him I beheld in a nearer view what they are. I was only acquainted with him ia private life: I never faw the hero, but the man from whom the hero iffued. He loved his friends: it was his cuftom to do fervices, and not to speak of them: thus the benefit was difpenfed by an invifible hand. He had a great fund of religion. No man ever followed more strictly thofe laws of the gospel, which are more troublefome to men of the world: in a word, no man ever practifed religion fo much, and talked of it fo little. He never fpoke ill of any one; and at the fame time never bestowed any praise upon thofe whom he did not think deferving of it.He held in averfion thofe controverfies, which, under pretence of the glory of God, are nothing more than perfonal difputes. - He had learned from the misfortunes of the King his father, that we expofe ourselves to commit great errors, when we have too much faith even in perfons of the most respectable character. When he was appointed Commandant in Guyenne, we were alarmed at the report of his gravity; but foon after his arrival he was beloved by every body, and there is no place where his great qualities have been more admired No man ever gave a brighter example of the contempt we ought to have for money.-There was a fimplicity in all his expences, which ought to have made him very eafy in his circumftances: for he indulged their father's panegyric better than I can. The Marshal of Berwick has written his own Memoirs; and upon this occafion I may repeat what I have before faid in the Spirit of Laws, of the narrative of Hanno. The narrative of Hanno is a beautiful relic of antiquity: the fame man who has executed, has There is no kind of often indulged himself in no frivolous expence; nevertheless he was always in arrears, because, notwithftanding his natural economy, his expences were great. In the governments he was appointed to, every English or Irish family that was poor, and that had any fort of connection with any one of his house, had a kind of right to be introduced to him; and it is re-written. markable, that a man who knew tation in his accounts: great comhow to maintain fo much order manders pen their actions with fimin his army, and fhewed fo much plicity, because they take more pride judgment in all his projects, in what they have done, than in should lofe all thefe advantageous what they have faid. talents, when his own private intereft was concerned. He was not one of thofe perfons, who are fometimes complaining of the authors of any misfortune, and at other times flattering them; when he had a caufe of complaint against any man, he went directly to him, and told him his fentiments freely, after which he faid no more. Never was the ftate in which we know France was in at the death of Marthal Turenne, inore exactly reprefented than at the death of the Duke of Berwick. 1 remember the inftant when the news was brought the confternation was general. They had both of them left defigns interrupted; both of them left an army in danger; both loft their lives in a manner that affects us more than an ordinary death: both of them were poffeffed of that modeft merit, which is fo well calculated to call forth our tendereft affections, and to excite our regret. He left an affectionate wife, who paffed the remainder of her life in forrow for his lofs; and he left children, whofe virtue fpeaks The conduct of great men is more liable to a rigorous examination than that of other perfons: every one takes a delight in arraigning them before his petty tribunal. Did not the Roman foldiers indulge themselves in the most bitter mockeries, while they followed the car of victory? They imagined that they were triumphing over the triumphers themfelves; but it is a matter of great praife for the Marshal of Berwick, that the two objections which have been made to him, have been occafioned only by his attachment to his duty. The objection, of not having been concerned in, the Scotch expedition of 1715, is founded only upon confidering the Marshal as a man who had no country of his own, and upon the difficulty of perfuading ourselves to look upon him as a fubject of France. Having become a Frenchman, with the confent of his first fovereign, he obeyed the orders of Lewis XIV, and afterwards thofe of the Regent of France. It became neceffary for him to filence the dictates of his heart, and to be guid ed ed by enlarged principles: he faw that he was no longer at his own difpofal: that he must no longer regulate his conduct by that rule which was most fuitable to his wishes, but by the one which his fituation required: he was aware that he fhould be cenfured, but he was above every unjuft decifion. He was never determined by popular favour, nor fwayed by the opinions of thofe who think only fuperficially. The ancients, who have treated of our duties, do not place any great difficulty in knowing them, but in chufing between two duties which is preferably to be purfued. He, like fate, followed the fronger duty. These are matters we fhould never treat of, unless we are obliged; because nothing in the world commands our refpe&t fo much as an unfortunate monarch. Let us examine the question; it confifts in determining, whether the Prince, had he even been restored, would have had a right to recall him? The frongeft argument that can be urged on this fide the queftion, is, that our country never abandons us: but even this was not the cafe; for he was profcribed by his country, when he got himfelt naturalized. Grotius, Puffendorf, and all those writers who have inBluenced the opinions of Europe, decided the question, and declared to him that he was a Frenchman, and fubject to the laws of France. The basis of the political fyftem adopted by France, at that time, was peace. How contradictory Would it have been, if a Peer of the realm, a Marshal, a Gover nor of a province, had disobeyed the prohibition to quit the kingdom, that is, had been in actual difobedience, in order to appear to the eyes of the English alone as having not difobeyed! In fact, the Marthal of Berwick was in a very peculiar fituation even from his very dignities; and it was fcarce poffible to difcriminate between his prefence in Scotland, and a declaration of war with England. France did not think it confiftent with her intereft that this war fhould take place, becaufe it would bring on a war which would extend itself throughout Europe. It was not therefore for him, to take upon himfelf the immense weight that such a step would draw upon him. It may indeed be faid, that had be confulted his ambition merely, he could not have a ftronger one, than the restoration of the Stuarts to the English throne. We know how much he loved his children. What a delightful profpe&t for him, could he have forefeen a third establishment in England! Had he been even confulted upon the enterprize, in the circumftances of the times, he would not have advised it: he thought that all those kinds of undertakings were of the fame nature as others, which ought to be regulated by prudence; and that in fuch an inftance as this, the failure of an enterprize is attended with two kinds of ill fuccefs; the prefent misfortune, and a greater difficulty of renewing the undertaking with any profpect of fuccefs in future. Of Of the Metaphyfical Poets. Johnfon's Life of Cowley. C From Those however who deny them. to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden confeffes of himfelf and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne in wit, but maintains that they surpass him in poetry. OWLEY, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural fources in the mind of man, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another. Wit, like other things fubject by their nature to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the feventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphyfical poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, the last of the race, it is not improper to give fome account. The metaphyfical poets were men of learning, and to fhew their learning was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily refolving to fhew it in rhyme, inftead of writing poetry, they only wrote verfes, and very often fuch verfes as flood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was fo imperfect, that they were only found to be verfes by counting the fyllables. If the father of criticism has rightly denominated poetry rix punan, an imitative art, thefe writers will, without great wrong, lofe their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be faid to have imitated any thing; they neither copied nature nor life; neither painted the forms of matter, nor reprefented the operations of intellect. If Wit be well defcribed by Pope, as being "that which has "been often thought, but was never before fo well expreffed," they certainly never attained, nor ever fought it; for they endeavoured to be fingular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous: he depreffes it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from ftrength of thought to happiness of language. If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be confidered as wit, which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be juft; if it be that, which he that never found it, wonders how he miffed; to wit of this kind the metaphyfical poets have feldom rifen. Their thoughts are often new, but feldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he miffed them, wonders more frequently by what perverfeness of induftry they were ever found. But Wit, abftracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philofophically confidered as a kind of concordia difcors; a combination of diffimilar images, or discovery of occult refemblances in things apparently unlike. Of Wit, thus defined, defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ranfacked for illuftrations, comparifons, and allufions; their learning inftructs, and their fubtilty furprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and though he fometimes admires is feldom pleafed. From this account of their compofitions it will be readily inferred, that they were not fuccefsful in reprefenting or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on fomething unexpect ed and furprifing, they had no regard to that uniformity of fentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds: they never enquired what, on any occafion, they should have faid or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as Beings looking upon good and evil, impaffive and at leifure; as Epicurean deities mak ing remarks on the actions of men, and the viciffitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of forrow. Their with was only to fay what they hoped had been never faid before. Nor was the fublime more within their reach than the pathetick; for they never attempted that comprehenfion and expanfe of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is fudden aftonishment, and the fecond rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littlenefs by difperfion. Great thoughts are always general, and confift in pofitions not limited by exceptions, and in defcriptions not defcending to minuteness. It is with great propriety that Subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of diftinction. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty could have little hope of greatness; for great things can, not have efcaped former obfervation. Their attempts were always analytick; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more reprefent, by their flender conceits and laboured particularities, the profpects of nature, or the fcenes of life, than he, who diffects a fun - beam with a prifm, can exhibit the wide effulgence of a fummer noon. What they wanted however of the fublime, they endeavoured to fupply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits; they left not only reafon but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confufed magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined. Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly loft if they frequently threw away their wit upon falfe conceits, they likewife fometimes firuck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan, it was at leaft neceffary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphyfical poet, nor affume |