Cor. Now is my heart at quiet, and doth leape Leir. O, he hath bin the kindest friend to me, Perillus. My toung doth faile, to fay what heart doth think, King. All you have spoke: now let me fpeak my mind, And in few words much matter here conclude: [He kneels. Or true content repose within my breft, [Rifes. [Mumford kneels, Mumford. Let me pray too, that never pray'd before; If ere I refalute the British earth, (As (ere't be long) I do prefume I fhall) And do returne from thence without my wench, [Rifes. [Exeunt. King. Come, let's to armes for to redreffe this wrong: Till I am there, me thinks the time feemes long. Such were the fparks, fuch the fuel, that ferved to light up and feed the genius of Shakespeare; and if his originality is questionable on that ground, let every poet content himself with the name of imitator! FOREIGN LITERATURE. ELOGE de Mylord Marechal, &c. par Mr. D***. in this eulogy, M. D'ALEMBERT pretends to have had them from Lord Marshal himself, or from thofe who lived with him in the clofeft intimacy: and we believe they are less embellished than the moral portrait. From thefe facts we learn, that GEORGE KEITH, hereditary Marthal of Scotland, was of noble birth; that he was Captain of the Guards to Queen Anne; that he ferved in the fucceffion war under the Duke of Marlborough; that he remained firm in his attachment to the houfe of Stuart, and offered, after the Queen's death, to proclaim the Pretender, at the head of the Guards, in the streets of London; and that in 1715, he fomented the rebellion in Scotland, -for which he was condemned capitally by the British parliament, and deprived of all his poffeffions, and titles, except that of Marshal of Scotland. After having wandered from place to place in order to revive the dying flame of Jacobitifm; for (fays our Author in the fame. breath) he was (rifum teneatis! don't laugh, gentlemen!) a zealous lover of liberty, he went into the fervice of Spain with the Scotch officers, who had been the companions of his misfortune-a strange retreat for a lover of liberty! He refused the rank of a Lieutenant General, that was offered to him, until his fervices might prove his capacity and merit; and ftruck with aftonishment the ambitious Alberoni, by this inftance of his modefty. The orator regales us with feveral well turned fentences, and digreffive remarks, to make us imagine, that this part of Lord Maribal's life was filled up with fomething;-but all we learn from his recital is, that his hero went to Avignon, which place he liked very well, though he was a proteftant,from thence he travelled to Rome, where he received from the Pretender the order of the Garter, which he could only wear at that mock court,-and that he returned to Spain, where he was fond both of the climate and the people. In 1733, he appeared, but without any diftinction, in the war that broke out between Spain and the Emperor; and in 1745, having defired to follow the Pretender's fon into Scotland, he received information, that his fidelity was represented to that Prince as dubious, upon which he abandoned his defign. About this time, alfo, he left the fervice of Spain, where he had done little, fettled at Venice, where he did ftill lefs, and lived in a ftate of mediocrity and obfcurity, bordering upon indigence. As yet we fee no great exploits: but let us proceed. When his brother, General Keith, who was quite another kind of man, left the Ruffian fervice, and entered into that of the King of Pruffia, he perfuaded Lord Marfhal to fettle at Berlin. Here his fimplicity and probity made a fingular impreffion on the King, who fent him as his Envoy Extraordinary to Paris. He liked Paris better than the part he was to act there, there, alleging, that the functions of a public minifter required a degree of art and political dexterity, which he neither had, nor defired to have. And, indeed, it is amazing, that the Pruffian monarch, who knows men fo well, fhould fend fuch a negociator to Paris at a time, when the court of France was forming, with that of Vienna the alliance, that changed the political fyftem of Germany. In 1750, our hero was fent by the King, his friend and mafter, into Spain, to carry on a negociation which was defigned to reftore peace to Europe; but he failed in the attempt, and thus took a total disgust at the character of an ambassador. The King of Pruffia, during his alliance with England in the last war, obtained from George II. the restoration of Lord Marshal to those honours and eftates which had been forfeited by rebellion. Having thus recovered an estate of 1500 pounds a year, and met with a cordial and friendly reception among his countrymen, he laid down the government of Neufchatel, which the King of Pruffia had given him (and which, fay we, he did not adminifter with dexterity or fuccefs), in order to pass the remainder of his days in Scotland. Finding, however, that climate too keen for his health, he returned to his Royal Patron. A houfe was built for him in the fuburbs of Potsdam, which furnished a convenient paffage into the apartments of the King, with whom he lived on the eafieit and most agreeable footing of intimacy and friendship. M. D'ALEMBERT tells us, that the departure of the Pruffian monarch from Potsdam for Bohemia, when the war occafioned by the fucceffion of Bavaria was breaking out, fhortened the days of the tender-hearted Scottish peer; though we think the age of ninety-three was fufficiently adapted to produce that effect. He died on the 23d of May 1778,-and of his numerous fayings and fentences, quoted in this eulogy (which really have no merit, but as expreffions of trite good fenfe, and humane feelings, and which might have been related as fpecimens of moral character, but ought not to have been printed in Italics, as if they were either witty or fententious), we fhall only mention his converfation with Mr. Elliot, his Britannic Majefty's Envoy at Berlin, two days before his death. 66 "I have fent for you, Sir, faid he, with his ufual gaiety, because I think it pleasant enough, that the minifter of King George should receive the last breath of an old Jacobite. Befides, you may, perhaps, have fome commiffions to give me for Lord Chatham, and as I lay my account for feeing him to-morrow, or the day after, I will carry your dispatches with pleasure." This is fomething like David Hume's dialogue with Charon. It is impoffible to read the piece before us without asking a plain queftion: What title had Lord Marthal to be celebrated by an eulogy-and a eulogy compofed by M. D'ALEMBERT? The The Scottish peer, though he had ferved in fome wars, embaffies, and places of authority, was neither an officer, nor a politician, nor a man of capacity, or genius, in any line what ever. He was obfcure in the field of battle, he blundered in his miffion into France, he was difconcerted in his government of Neufchatel, by the theological duft which was raised there by fome orthodox divines: in fhort, the man had nothing to raife him above the multitude, but his birth, his good nature, his fimplicity of manners, and the friendship of the King of Pruffia. GEORGE KEITH was indeed, upon the whole, a very good fort of a man, as the faying is; but if every good fort of a man is to have an eulogy, the value of this literary honour will fall a hundred per cent. But this is not all:-We are forry to fay it,-but we apprehend, that from M. D'ALEMBERT's account of this honeft nobleman, fome flagrant proofs, if not of his imbecillity, at leaft of his ftrange inconfiftency, may be very easily deduced. The academician tells us, that Lord Marshal wrote on the greatest part of the books which he poffeffed in his youth, thefe patriotic words: Manus hæc inimica tyrannis, i. e. This hand averse to tyrants, &c. and that when any inftance of injuftice or oppreffion was mentioned, his natural clemency and indulgence gave way,-he took fire, and breathed vengeance against the oppreffor.-And yet this patriot relinquished his fortune, his honours, his hopes, and his country, from an ardent attachment to the houfe of Stuart, and more especially to the tyrant James II. whom Mr. D'ALEMBERT, himself, calls a jefuitical and perfecuting prince. -- Some have alleged, that M. D'ALEMBERT compofed the, eulogy of Lord Marshal, in order to have an occafion of throwing dirt upon the afhes of poor J. J. ROUSSEAU, who was intimately connected with the Scottish nobleman, and (as our Author fays) received various marks of his liberality with ingratitude. This feems to favour the opinion which fome have entertained, of what may have contributed to the compofition of this eulogy. It is now become a cuftom among the Ency clopedifts, and their fatellites, to fall foul on the memory of Rouffeau, with a view, perhaps, to prejudice the public againf his Memoirs, in which their corrupt cabals, as a literary, political, and irreligious faction, are (as we are well informed exposed in strong and glaring colours. Be the motive of M. DALEMBERT what it will, the fact he relates to the difadvantage of Rouffeau, and which he prerends to have had from authentic papers, which he does not produce, are proved, demonftrably, to be falfe and groundless, (in a pamphlet juft published) by authentic papers, even the letters of Lord Marfhal and M. Rouffeau, relative to the obje which gave rife to M. D'ALEMBERT's accufation *. The accufation, in fubftance, as it lies in the eulogy before us, is, that Rouffeau, in a low, cunning, and indirect manner, begged from the Scottish peer a penfion for his wife, and afterwards quarrelled with his benefactor; whereas the letters above mentioned (which are ftill in the hands of M. du Peyrou, a worthy and refpectable citizen of Neufchatel) clearly prove, that it was from Lord Marthal that the first propofal of a penfion came, that he offered to the philofopher of Geneva an annuity of fifty pounds, that the latter, after repeated folicitations, made by his noble friend with the warmeft zeal, accepted of thirty, of which twenty was to be transferred to his wife, if he died before her. These letters prove farther, that the friendship which fubfifted between Lord Marshal and M. Rouffeau was never fufpended; and it is impoffible to read them, without entertaining a very unfavourable idea of this part of M. D'ALEMBERT's eulogy. II. M. Denis Auffehers der Garell. Biblioth. &c. i. e. An Introduction to the Knowledge of Books, by M. DENIS, Professor of Belles Lettres, and Keeper of the Imperial Library in the Therefian College at Vienna, &c. Vienna. 4to. 1778.-Though this work appeared, for the first time, two years ago, yet as it is a real treasure of literary history and bibliography, if we may ufe that expreffion, and is but little known out of Germany, a fhort account of it will, no doubt, be acceptable to a confiderable number of our readers. An introduction to the knowledge of the books which have been compofed, and the libraries that have been collected, in the different periods of the world, is an interesting object of curiofity; and M. DENIS, by his fituation, as Profeffor in polite Literature, and Librarian of the Therefian College at Vienna, and by the judicious ufe he has made of the great number of authors who have written concerning detached periods and branches of literature, has been enabled to collect materials for a work more comprehenfive and complete than any thing we have hitherto feen of the kind. This work, which is the fubftance of a courfe of academical lectures, defigned to give his pupils an extenfive knowledge of books, or rather of book-writing, and to affift them in forming libraries, and in reading to advantage, is divided by the Author into two parts. The firft, which is now before us, is called Bibliography; the fecond, is to contain an hiftory of literature. The Bibliographical part is divided into three epochas. In the firft, our Author gives an account of the books relative to the Jews, Orientals, Greeks, and Romans, fo far down as the * This pamphlet is entitled: Jean-Jaques Rouleau Vengé, on Morale Pratico-Philofopbico-Encyclopedique. establishment |