amufe and agitate, from the fame principle that a perfon of condition and education, in France or in England, repairs in an evening to a dramatic reprefentation or musical entertainment, or to eafy and focial meetings, in which are freely and calmly difcuffed domeftic, political, or literary fubjects. Though it was long, and fome ages elapfed, before science and letters had made any progrefs in Rome, yet we do not read that that wife and fevere people ever found it neceffary to fubmit to the pernicious expedients above alluded to, of barbarous or enflaved fociety, in order to divert the languor and liftlessness of life, and fill up the vacancies of ferious occupation and pursuit. They feem to have refted their pleafures and enjoyments, on the proper duties and offices of a man. As was obferved in a preceding effay, during the period of their virtue, agriculture, liberty, conqueft engroffed their whole attention. When those happy times had rolled away, though dominion and luxury poured in all their concomitant and attendant vices, exceffes, and crimes, and though the fpectacles of the Arena, and the Circus, the expreffive pantomime, and the expiring gladiator, were the entertainment and delight of the populace, yet literary fubjects and compofitions were introduced at the tables of the polite and liberal; and we are told by the elegant hiftorian of Atticus, that none were admitted to his fuppers, who could not be entertained with hearing read aloud a poem, a moral treatife, or other compofition; and even fo late as the times of the younger Pliny, he informs us, that during fupper with his wife, and a few friends, their conftant entertainment was fome book, or literary tract. Thefe manners, it is true, were very different from our own, but were they not as eligible? And when all the information and fancy and pleafantry of a felect party are exhausted, is not a drama or hiftorical narrative as good a fubftitute, as the card-table with her filence, emptinefs and dulnefs, to call no worfe names? Indeed, we never ftray fo wide of pleafure, as when we purfue it in enjoyments in which neither the understanding, the imagination, or the heart are concerned. With regard to the art of converfation, it seems to confist in never exhaufting or dwelling too long on any fubject; in fhewing its beft points of view, rather than every thing that can be faid upon it; its most striking features rather than its minute peculiarities. The reft of the company fhould be permitted their fhare of the converfation, and even enticed into it. People of good fenfe and good manners meet together, not big with the filly defire of what is called fhining, and being witty and clever, or of making tirefome or infulting differtations and harangues, but in order to converfe and to talk; of which kind of intercourfe fimplicity, modefty, inquiry, information, concife narrative, pertinent reflection, are the peculiar excellencies. Far be REV. July, 1779. E from from fuch unaffected, engaging meetings, all noify, vociferous mirth and laughter, the empty boaft of unimitated birth and merit, of fortune undignified by expence, the ftale and repeated recital of our proper felves, our refined addrefs, our merited fuccefs, our unmerited difappointment, the ftory of our feelings, difeafes, recoveries. Nothing but the partiality of friendship can excufe fuch idle babble; it is the topic of only ignorant and filly characters. Notwithstanding the opinion of certain fevere and extravagant moralifts, perhaps even ridicule, fatire, and cenfure, may be fometimes permitted. Even the Spartan legiflator approved this fpecies of restraint on unworthy and indecent actions and conduct; for we are told, the great fubject and business of the conversation of his citizens, was to praife fome good and virtuous action that had been performed, or to cenfure fome fault that had been committed; and this was done with wit and good humour, and in fuch a way as to reprove and correct without offending. Such was the delicacy obferved to those present. The abfent worthless were treated with lefs referve. Indeed, the reprehenfion of the impertinent, the vicious, the criminal, is an implied approbation and eulogy of those of an oppofite character and manners, of the modeft, the temperate, the virtuous: befides, it is a great check on any propenfity to vice or unworthy behaviour, to hear fuch as are addicted to them reprefented in. the true and odious colours they fo juftly deferve. Our natural, diflike and horror of them are increafed by fympathy with their cenfurers, and we dread being placed in the fame difadvantageous and mortifying point of view. One of the moft pleafing topics of converfation is anecdotes, or remarkable paffages of the lives and actions of great and illuftrious perfons; of thofe who have ferved their country, and the cause and interefts of human nature, by their private or public virtues, in letters or in arms. As was alluded to above, fuch was the fchool, in which at a frugal meal, and over the moderate use of wine, the citizens of Sparta, both of early and advanced age, learned and confirmed themselves in good manners, morality, and public affection. The fayings, the conduct, the exploits, and achievements of the characters and actors brought into difcourfe, had a more efficacious and exciting effect on the hearers, than unadorned precept, or the dictatorial ftyle of difcipline and inftruction. Our great progrefs and improvements in arts and letters have enlarged the fphere of modern conversation to a boundless extent. We pafs in review not only the virtues and vices of our own times, but of all times, and of all ages, paft and prefent. Befides, the more ferious parts of fcience, the fublime, the pathetic, the comic, the defcriptive of poetry, the expreffion of mufic, the magnificence of architecture, the fcenery of landfcape; in a word, ten thousand interesting or entertaining topics folicit our attention, ferve to enliven exiftence, or to fufpend the influence of the unavoidable troubles and anxieties of human life. When we have fuch rich, fuch inexhauftible fources of difcourse, how can we fo perverfely, fo ungratefully precipitate ourselves on the fhameful and ruinous agonies of play, the impairer of our health and good humour, the canker of our fortunes, the feducer, by our own example, by our own encouragement, of our wives, our fons, and even of our unmarried daughters? Certain it is, that this fcandalous and deftructive paffion has been carried to fuch a degree of excess and exorbitancy, and produced fuch terrible and alarming effects, that unless it receive fome check and opprobrium from parents, or husbands, or the legislature, or may I fay Heaven, our own deftruction, and that of our country, is juftly to be apprehended. Did I fay the legiflature? Alas! there is its throne, there is its feat of triumph and glory, there it fatiates daily on defpair and fuicide. Nothing but fome national calamity, or extraordinary interpofition, can preferve us from perdition, can restore us to the use of rea fon, to a taste and relifh for natural and rational amusements and fatisfactions. Though a teller of ftories be a tirefome and infipid character, yet a ftory related with fpirit or humour, ferves often very agreeably to diverfify and enliven conversation. It fhould not be long, it fhould not be minute, the narrator should haften to the conclufion. Nothing, indeed, fo overwhelming, as a tedious, particular, uninterefting tale. • A person of this turn and talent should also have a very good memory; not fo much left he fall through his tale (though that would be a circumstance ridiculous enough), as left he should not recollect having entertained with it the very fame audience before. It may be doubted whether the novelty and fingularity of the ftory or narrative, or the manner of expreffing and unfolding it, be its chief merit. Even royal majefty itself could not detain an audience (and that of courtiers too, whofe profeffion, they fay, is flattery and want of feeling) to the ftale, and often-repeated relations of our fecond Charles, who yet is acknowledged to have furpaffed all men in this pleafing talent So much more intolerable was the fear of fatiety and languor, than of giving offence, than incurring, perhaps, diflike and difgrace; a word well understood, and as much dreaded in courts.' The fubjects treated of in this work are, Foreign Travel.Refinement and Luxury.-The Manners of a Grecian and English Woman of Fathion compared.-Unreftrained Power, the Corrupter of the beft Natures, the Incentive to the worst Actions.-Happiness and Tranquillity of Mind.-Whether the Multiplicity E 2 Multiplicity of Books and Increafe of Knowledge, be favourable to Piety, and the Love of Public Good.-The Love of Glory and of our Country.-Marriage and Polygamy.-Conversation.Rifing in Life.-Deity.-The Education of a Prince.-The Frugality and Difinterestedness of the Ancients in Office. FOREIGN LITERATUR E. ESSA! fur Hiftoire de la Maifon d'Autriche, &c. i.e. An biftorical Effay concerning the House of Austria. By Count G*** Dedicated to the Queen. Paris. 12mo. Six Volumes, each containing between 5 and 600 Pages. 1778. This work contains a sketch of the principal events that have happened in the Houfe of Auftria, confidered in all its different branches, and more efpecially an account of its contefts and differences with the court of France. The Author begins his narration with the acceffion of Rodolph of Hapsburg to the imperial throne in 1273, and concludes his work with the year 1733; but he proposes to carry it down, if the circumStances of Europe favour his defign, as far as the treaty of alliance concluded between the courts of Verfailles and Vienna in 1756. We know not whether by the words here printed in Italics Count GIRECOURT (for that is our Author's name) means the favourable reception of his work-or-the political relations between the courts of Vienna and Verfailles, which feem at present to bear a precarious afpect. Be that as it may, his work is not, by any means, unworthy of notice. Though it be not formed on fuch an extenfive plan as to relate all the events, or to unfold all the fecret fprings and circumftances that raifed the House of Auftria to its prefent ftate of grandeur and flability, yet it is highly recommendable in feveral refpects. The events are well arranged and well related; the characters are drawn with judgment, impartiality, and candour; the notes are numerous and inftructive, containing feveral important difcuffions, which, had they been placed in the text, would have too much interrupted the thread of the narration. Befide the different authors who had treated the fame subject before him, Count de GIRECOURT has received confiderable information from the pa pers of one of his ancestors (Counsellor of State to Charles III. Duke of Lorrain, and his Minifter at the court of Vienna), which contain a correfpondence carried on in 1577 and the following years. The ftate of the court of Vienna is accurately defcribed in thefe letters from the Envoy to his Sovereign, and have furnished our Author with facts and details, relative to this part of the Auftrian history, not to be found in other hiftorians. 6 hiftorians.-The Reader may judge of the materials contained in this judicious work by the following enumeration : The two first volumes include a period of three centuries and a half, beginning with the year 1273 and ending with 1635. The principal things exhibited here are, the contests between Rodolphus of Hapfburg and Ottoeares King of Bohemia-the interesting portrait and hiftory of Maximilian I. and his war with the Swifs and Lewis XII.-the league of Cambray-the treaty of Maximilian with Henry VIII. King of England, and the great acceffions of luftre and dominion which the House of Auftria received under the reign of that Emperor-the wars between Francis I. and Charles V. and the excellent portrait of the latter-the famous revolution in the Netherlands under the reign of Philip II.-the tragical end of Don Carlos-the rupture between Philip of Spain and Henry IV. of France-the peace of Vervins-the origin of the memorable war of 30 years, and the exploits of Guftavus Adolphus in Germany. The principal matters contained in the four fucceeding volumes are the irruption of the Spaniards into Picardythe character of the Emperor Ferdinand II.-the famous revolution in Portugal-the peace of Weftphalia-the treaty of the Pyrenees-the troubles of Hungary-the portraits of Philip IV. and Charles II. Kings of Spain, of the Queen-mother, Don John of Auftria, and the Queen of France, mother to Lewis XIV. the raifing the fiege of Vienna, when invested by the Turks-the violation of the truce of 20 years between the Empire and France-the treaties of Ryfwick and Carlowitzthe acceffion of the Duke of Anjou to the crown of Spain-the rebellion of Prince Ragotfky against the Emperor Leopold,the portraits of this Emperor and his fucceffor Jofeph I.-the treaty of Utrecht-the projects of Alberoni-the abdication of Philip V. The attentive reader of this hiftory will meet with inftructive leffons from the different deftinies of the elder and younger branches of the House of Auftria: he will fee the former poffeffing Spain, the Indies, the Low-Countries, and a great part of Italy, and yet falling gradually into the moft incredible lethargy, weakness, and contempt, and concluding with the death of that poor infignificant monarch, Charles II. while the latter, established in Germany, rofe, after various changes of fortune, to a high degree of power and fplendour. It is remarkable, that these two branches never united their interefts, but in fuch circumstances as rendered their union and mutual fuccours ufelefs to both. It is alfo remarkable that, notwithstanding the vaft acceffions made to the power and dominion of the House of Auftria, by the acquifition of Bohemia, Auftria, Silefia, Moravia, and other E 3 1 |