Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

As the fand feparated from the gold was thrown up in numberlefs large heaps in every refpect fimilar to thofe railed by ants of a certain kind, the ignorant multitude gradually propagated wonderful accounts, and confounded obfcure traditions with ideas partly true, but always exaggerated. To this must be added, that the proprietors of the gold-works were naturally jealous, and anxious to exclude from their valuable territory the inquifitive intruder as well as banditti; and that, befides, the fevereft prohibitions on pain of death not to enter the precincts of these fources of wealth, the principal avenues were conftantly guarded, and the fentinels ufually kept, for additional fecurity, feveral of the well-known large Indian dogs.

Confidering thefe circumftances, it will not be difficult to conceive, that, in order to give these guards every poffible degree of fecurity, they availed themfelves not only of the obfcure tradition relative to gold-digging and rapacious animals, but embellished the story with the most romantic and dreadful accounts of this auriferous country. The fandhills arifing from the process of purifying the gold they contained, were converted into works fabricated by large and dangerous ants, and the Indian dogs into griffons, which, perhaps, were occafionally dreffed, furnished with artificial wings, and publicly expofed as guards on the most confpicuous heights.

We know, indeed, fimilar legendary tales of the Phoenician and Greek merchants, which, from political motives, were invented and propagated for fimilar purposes, in the then infant state of natural hiftory. The author might, therefore, with great propriety have introduced a variety of claffical paffages tending to corroborate his ingenious hypothefis; fuch as we read in Gefneri Pralect. de Mavigat. Phanic. 6. s. Orpheus. P. 448. Beckmann ad Antigonum Caryft. p. 87.—the fame in his Hiftoria Natural. Veter. p. 144.

That the later and more enlightened Greeks fmiled at fuch marvellous stories as were preferved in voluminous works, for inftance, that of Gellius Ñ. A. ix. 4. is partly evident from Lucian's Authentic Hiftory.

Our author concludes with fome remarks on these wonderful animals, as applicable to the fine arts, while he gives fome learned and ufeful hints for comparing thofe fables with the tradition relative to the famous expedition of the Argonauts, as well as the Mofaic account of the Cherub. "It would not be very difficult," fays he, "to attempt a complete genealogical table of all thefe marvellous creatures, as the Cherub, the Griffons, the Sphinxes, the Baal-ze-Bub, the Hippogriffs, the Chimaras, the Dragons, the Satan, &c. &c. by arranging and claffifying them in the manner of Buffon: thus it could be diplomatically

1

diplomatically and authentically proved, that all thefe monfters, without exception, are the progeny of one common parent, and have made gradual tranfitions into different fpecies and varieties, according to the complexion of the age, the peculiarities of climate, country, &c."

Such a mythological deduction, effected with a fimilar fpirit of inquiry and penetration as we find in the fmall treatife before us, would certainly be highly inftructive, by giving new and interesting views of objects already known to the claffical ftudent.

ART. VI. Der Fürft des Neunzehenten Jahrunderts; Syftem der Staatskunft unferer Zeit. Petersburg, 1798. The Prince of the Nineteenth Century; or, a Syjiem of the Politics of our own Times.

POLITICAL difcuffions on the principles of government, coming from the frozen zone, are, indeed, a phenomenon, and, as fuch, the work here announced has a strong claim to public attention. The author even feems to furpafs a Machiavel and a Mazarine.

The former (he fays) wrote for his own age, on principles congenial to the times; but mankind (then in an infant itate) is now become a vigorous, courageous, and warlike youth, and govern. ments could not, at prefent, profper with thofe principles. Relations (continues he) have changed, and the deportment of governments, like a prudent private individual, who never alienates his conduct from his circumftances, muft change according to the latter." From this principle, the author continues to point out the means for Sovereigns to govern in perfect fecurity:

All open defpotifm is dangerous, and like the child that ftrikes blindly upon a hard table or in the eyes of its hurfe, Men will, and may very easily, be treated as men; then it is that they do not feel the rod of the driver, and will even kifs it. To treat men in fuch a manner is the ftandard of politics; of which, from Nimrod down to the Neros, and from these down to Catharine and the French Directary, all rulers have availed themfelves, but every one in his own

way.

All (continues he) is hypothetical; circumstances, opinion, and wants, determine every thing. Profit by the firft, govern the fecond, and create the third, and you may furrogate the politics of the Neros to thofe of Henry IV."

We cannot defcribe better the fpirit of this work than the author himfelf has done here. Thus he blends, in a masterly

manner,

manner, the trueft, fublimeft, and moft excellent ideas, with the most despicable, malicious, and illufory notions, fo, as to form a tout enfemble which will even baffle the most acute logis cian, and prepoffef's him in favour of his fophifms and paradoxes.

He pourtrays man in fuch odious colours, that the reader, attending to his picture of Princes, will cenfure the latter for not treating mankind in the true Eaftern ftyle. In the first part of his work, he afferts, that the French Revolution has been injurious to the caufe of liberty, because all is to be ex pected from gradual reforms, but nothing from revolutions. In fpeaking of constitutions, the author represents that of Great Britain as the most favourable to defpotifm, and advifes his ideal fovereign' to get parliaments, &c. &c. He com mends alfo duels, as the means of refining manners.

Another volume, which is to treat of education, is promifed by the fame author. Whom we fuppofe to relide much nearer the Rhine or the Elbe, than the Neva.

A

ART. VII. Voyage à la Guiane et à Cayenne, &c. i. e. Voyage to Guiana and Cayenne, performed in 1789, and the following Years. By L. M. B. Captain of a Privateer. 8vo. Pp. 400. Sold by the Editor, at Paris. Imported by De Boffe, Gerard-ftreet. 1798. :

THIS

די

HIS book contains a geographical defeription of Guiana and Cayenne; a hiftory of their difcovery; with an account of the poffeffions and establishments of the French, the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the Portuguefe, in thofe parts. But we have met with nothing new; no information that had not been given before in a more fatisfactory manner, by former writers; no anecdotes that excite intereft; and no reflections that befpeak either depth of knowledge or ftrength of judgement. There are fome few plates, with a tolerable map of the country, and, at the end, a vocabulary of the French and Galibi, or the language of the Galibi Indians, the principal tribe of the natives of Guiana.

ART. VIII. Du Fanatifme dans la Langue Revolutionnaire, &c. i.e On the Fanatifm difplayed in the Revolutionary Language, and the perfecution's excited by the Barbarians of the Eighteenth Century against the Chriftian Religion and its Minifters. Jean-Francois de la Harpe. 8vo. Pp. 168. Bene, Dulau, and Deboffe, London 1797.

By

We

WE this ive

E had miflaid this interefting tract, of which it was our intention to give fome account in our first Appendix. It comes from the pen of an old member of the French Academy, who was formerly well known in the literary world, and intimately connected with the principal philofophifts of the two laft reigns; and who has, during the revolution, been alternately an object of panegyric and profcription, of reward and punishment, to the different rulers of the Republic. He received, if our memory fail us not, the fam of three thousand livres, voted him by the Convention, at the beginning of 1795. He is the author of many poetical and dramatic writings, academical difcourfes, and various other productions, publifhed between the years 1759 and 1785; and, fince the revolution, he has compofed a Hymn to Liberty, in 1792; Virginia, a tragedy, in 1793; The Public Safety, or Truth for the Convention; A Guarantee for all Frenchmen; Yes or No? will the Convention remain or not? and A Dialogue between a Stranger called Common-Senfe and a Man of Candour, in 1795; On the War declared by our laft Tyrants against Reafon, Morality, Literature, and Arts, a difcourfe delivered at the opening of the Republican Lyceum, on the 31st of Dec. 1794, printed in 1796; and fince that he has written many political articles in the French Journals. The effay before us contains a juftification of the French clergy from the afperfions of their enemies; difplays, in a strong point of view, the folly of the revolutionary jargon; the fallacy of the revolutionary principles; the infamy of the revolutionary doctrines; and the profligacy of the revolutionary heroes. At the beginning of his work, the author deems it expedient to explain what kind of philofophy it is, against which he directs his attacks.

"As it is neceffary to anticipate the objections of men who al ways confine their replies to what has never been faid, I am obliged to apprize them that this philofophy, which (thank Heaven!) I treat with all the contempt it deferves, is nothing more than the philofophy of writers who chofe to call themselves philofophers, because they preached up atheifin, irreligion, impiety, hatred of all lawful authority, contempt of all moral truths, and the deftruction of all the bonds of fociety. Thefe men might poffefs fenfe, knowledge, and even talents, on other points, but, affuredly, it would not be difficult to prove, that their whole doctrine, calculated, according to themfelves, to enlighten the people, was the mafter-piece of ignorance and abfurdity; and, in short, that they were the worthy precurfors of the revolutionary heroes, the Chaumelles, the Heberts, and the Marats." (P. 5.)

The author makes fome juft obfervations on the conduct of Mirabeau refpecting the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; and

his remarks on the abfurdity of the new laws, and of the cant terms of the revolution, are peculiarly pointed and strong.

"It is pretended that by the new law against calumny, called Daunou's law, it is allowable to prove that a law is bad, but not to apply to it fevere and difgraceful epithets. Thus, when I fhall have proved that a law is a violation of every natural and political principle, an attack upon the conftitution and upon the fovereign people who gave it their fanction; that that law punishes the innocent and defpoils him of his property; whence it follows that fuch law is, on the part of thofe who proclaim it as legislators and representatives of the people, a crime and an abomination; I fhall not be allowed to call the law infamous, abfurd, abominable! Is it not saying, in other words, 'In the name of liberty, free citizens, we forbid you to call things by their names, whenever those names are offenfive to us.' Nothing is more confiftent, and this new law is truly revolutionary." (P. 17.)

Speaking of the falfe accufations preferred against the loyalifts in La Vendée, and against the clergy who were accufed of exciting the civil war in that country, he notices the hacknied allufions in the Convention and the Councils to those "vaft plots the ramifications of which extend over all France," on which he makes the following remark:

"This phrafe has been repeated a hundred times in the tribune, in the very fame words, and, particularly, in a folemn report in Vendemiaire, in which it promifed immediately to prove the vast plot (I have the report now before me). In fact, the cannon, the grape fhot, and the bayonets proved, as ufual, the vast plot, and fince that time, no other proof has been required. In the fame manner, it was refolved to prove, by fticking up the lifts of the votes of all France, that 252,000 votes conftituted the majority of 950,000. The first lift was ftuck up; the cannon of Vendemiaire rendered it unneceffary to stick up the remainder; and it was proclaimed, in the Convention, that France had accepted the decrees of Fructidor, (for re-electing two thirds of the Convention) and not a foul dared to deny it. If any one had been fo bold, he would certainly have been maffacred on the fpot. This phenomenon will find its place amongst the rest and will crown them all; it is beyond all comparison, the moft extraordinary occurrence that the world ever witnessed, and the circumftances attending it were equally fo."

M. de la Harpe, talking of the Jacobins, maintains, what nobody but the Jacobins themselves will be difpofed to contest with him, that "men who have publicly made falfehood and calumny, a principle, a habit, and a duty, and who have been convicted of falfehood whenever an inveftigation has been allowed, muft certainly be deemed unworthy of being believed on their own unfupported affertions, and thefe were the only proofs

« ForrigeFortsett »