362 GRIMM -CATHERINE OF RUSSIA. the time when most of them had furnished their papers, had made them insensible of the alterations whether they believed the change effected by the base hand of Breton to have originated with Diderot, their legal censor —or that, in fact, the alterations were chiefly in the articles of the said Diderot himself, we cannot pretend to say; but M. Grimm assures us, that to his astonishment and that of Diderot, the mutilated publication, when it at last made its appearance, was very quietly received by the injured authors as their authentic production, and apologies humbly made, by some of them, for imperfections that had been created by the beast of a publisher. There are many curious and original anecdotes of the Empress of Russia in this book; and as she always appeared to advantage where munificence and clemency to individuals were concerned, they are certainly calculated to give us a very favourable impression of that extraordinary woman. We can only afford room now for one, which characterises the nation as well as its sovereign. A popular poet, of the name of Sumarokoff, had quarrelled with the leading actress at Moscow, and protested that she should never again have the honour to perform in any of his tragedies. The Governor of Moscow, however, not being aware of this theatrical feud, thought fit to order one of Sumarokoff's tragedies for representation, and also to command the services of the offending actress on the occasion. Sumarokoff did not venture to take any step against his Excellency the Governor; but when the heroine advanced in full Muscovite costume on the stage, the indignant poet rushed forward from behind the scenes, seized her reluctantly by the collar and waist, and tossed her furiously from the boards. He then went home, and indited two querulous and sublime epistles to the Empress. Catherine, in the midst of her gigantic schemes. of conquest and improvement, had the patience to sit down and address the following good-humoured and sensible exhortation to the disordered bard. THE EMPRESS CATHERINE. 363 "Monsieur Sumarokoff, j'ai été fort étonnée de votre lettre du 28 Janvier, et encore plus de celle du premier Février. Toutes deux contiennent, à ce qu'il me semble, des plaintes contre la Belmontia qui pourtant n'a fait que suivre les ordres du comte Soltikoff. Le feldmaréchal a désiré de voir representer votre tragédie; cela vous fait honneur. Il était convenable de vous conformer au désir de la première personne en autorité à Moscou; mais si elle a jugé à propos d'ordonner que cette pièce fût représentée, il fallait exécuter sa volonté sans contestation. Je crois que vous savez mieux que personne combien de respect méritent des hommes qui ont servi avec gloire, et dont la tête est couverte de cheveux blancs; c'est pourquoi je vous conseille d'éviter de pareilles disputes à l'avenir. Par ce moyen vous conserverez la tranquillité d'âme qui est nécessaire pour vos ouvrages, et il me sera toujours plus agréable de voir les passions représentées dans vos drames que de les lire dans vos lettres. "Au surplus, je suis votre affectionnée. Signé CATHERINE." "Je conseille," adds M. Grimm, "à tout ministre chargé du département des lettres de cachet, d'enregistrer ce formulaire à son greffe, et à tout hazard de n'en jamais délivrer d'autres aux poètes et à tout ce qui a droit d'être du genre irritable, c'est-à-dire enfant et fou par état. Après cette lettre qui mérite peut-être autant l'immortalité que les monumens de la sagesse et de la gloire du règne actuel de la Russie, je meurs de peur de m'affermir dans la pensée hérétique que l'esprit ne gâte jamais rien, même sur le trône." But it is at last necessary to close these entertaining volumes, though we have not been able to furnish our readers with anything like a fair specimen of their various and miscellaneous contents. Whoever wishes to see the economist wittily abused to read a full and picturesque account of the tragical rejoicings that filled Paris with mourning at the marriage of the late King— to learn how Paul Jones was a writer of pastorals and love songs or how they made carriages of leather, and evaporated diamonds in 1772-to trace the début of Madame de Staël as an author at the age of twelve, in the year! to understand M. Grimm's notions on suicide and happiness-to know in what the unique charm of Madile. Thevenin consisted-and in what manner the dispute between the patrons of the French and the Italian music was conducted-will do well to peruse the five thick volumes, in which these, and innumerable other matters of equal importance are discussed, with the talent and vivacity with which the reader must have been struck, in the least of the foregoing extracts. 364 GRIMM- LONGEVITY OF FRENCH AUTHORS. We add but one trivial remark, which is forced upon us, indeed, at almost every page of this correspondence. The profession of literature must be much wholesomer in France than in any other country: -for though the volumes before us may be regarded as a great literary obituary, and record the deaths, we suppose, of more than an hundred persons of some note in the world of letters, we scarcely meet with an individual who is less than seventy or eighty years of age--and no very small proportion actually last till near ninety or an hundred although the greater part of them seem neither to have lodged so high, nor lived so low, as their more active and abstemious brethren in other cities. M. Grimm observes that, by a remarkable fatality, Europe was deprived, in the course of little more than six months, of the splendid and commanding talents of Rousseau, Voltaire, Haller, Linnæus, Heidegger, Lord Chatham, and Le Kain-a constellation of genius, he adds, that when it set to us, must have carried a dazzling light into the domains of the King of Terrors, and excited no small alarm in his ministers if they bear any resemblance to the ministers of other sovereigns. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of VICTOR ALFIERI. Written by Himself. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 614. London : 1810. THIS book contains the delineation of an extraordinary and not very engaging character; and an imperfect sketch of the rise and progress of a great poetical genius. It is deserving of notice in both capacities-but chiefly in the first; as there probably never was an instance in which the works of an author were more likely to be influenced by his personal peculiarities. Pride and enthusiasm-irrepressible vehemence and ambition—and an arrogant, fastidious, and somewhat narrow system of taste and opinions, were the great leading features in the mind of Alfieri. Strengthened, and in some degree produced, by a loose and injudicious education, those traits were still further developed by the premature and protracted indulgences of a very dissipated youth; and when, at last, they admitted of an application to study, imparted their own character of impetuosity to those more meritorious exertions;-converted a taste into a passion; and left him, for a great part of his life, under the influence of a true and irresistible inspiration. Every thing in him, indeed, appears to have been passion and ungoverned impulse; and, while he was raised above the common level of his degenerate countrymen by a stern and self-willed haughtiness, that might have become an ancient Roman, he was chiefly distinguished from other erect spirits by the vehemence which formed the basis of his character, and by the uncontrolled dominion which he allowed to his various and successive propensities. So constantly and entirely, indeed, was he under the influence of these domineering attachments, that his whole life and character might be summed up by describing him as the victim, successively, of a passion 366 ALFIERI CHARACTER OF HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY; for horses—a passion for travelling—a passion for literature-and a passion for what he called independence. The memoirs of such a life, and the confessions of such a man, seem to hold out a promise of no common interest and amusement. Yet, though they are here presented to us with considerable fulness and apparent fidelity, we cannot say that we have been much amused or interested by the perusal. There is a proud coldness in the narrative, which neither invites sympathy, nor kindles the imagination. The author seems to disdain giving himself en spectacle to his readers; and chronicles his various acts of extravagance and fits of passion, with a sober and languid gravity, to which we can recollect no parallel. In this review of the events and feelings of a life of adventure and agitation, he is never once betrayed into the genuine language of emotion; but dwells on the scenes of his childhood without tenderness, and on the struggles and tumults of his riper years without any sort of animation. We look in vain through the whole narrative for one gleam of that magical eloquence by which Rousseau transports us into the scenes he describes, and into the heart which responded to those scenes, or even for a trait of that sociable garrulity which has enabled Marmontel and Cumberland to give a grace to obsolete anecdote, and to people the whole space around them with living pictures of the beings among whom they existed. There is not one character attempted, from beginning to end of this biography;— which is neither lively, in short, nor eloquent-neither playful, impassioned, nor sarcastic. Neither is it a mere unassuming outline of the author's history and publications, like the short notices of Hume or Smith. It is, on the contrary, a pretty copious and minute narrative of all his feelings and adventures; and contains, as we should suppose, a tolerably accurate enumeration of his migrations, prejudices, and antipathies. It is not that he does not condescend to talk about trifling things, but that he will not talk about them in a lively or interesting manner; and systematically declines investing any part of his statement with those picturesque details, and |