Then judge your felfe, although my tale be briefe, Since the creation of the world begun. Leir. Yet, that his reverend age I once might fee, O, no mens children are unkind but mine. [She kneels. [He kneels, Cor. O, if you wish I should injoy my breath, [He rifeth. [He kneels. But kneele againe, til pardon be refignd. Cor. I pardon you: the word befeemes not me: Leir. I caft thee forth, when as thou waft but young, Cor. God, world, and nature, fay I do you wrong, King. Let me breake off this loving controverfy, Which doth rejoice my very foule to fee. Good father, rife, the is your loving daughter, [He rifeth. Cor. But I will never rife from off my knee, [She kneels [She rifeth Cor. Now is my heart at quiet, and doth leape Leir. O, he hath bin the kindeft friend to me, That ever man had in adverfity. Perillus. My toung doth faile, to fay what heart doth think, I am fo ravifht with exceeding joy. King. All you have spoke: now let me fpeak my mind, And in few words much matter here conclude: If ere my heart do harbour any joy, [He kneels. [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 shall) 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 teemes 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 ART. I. LOGE de Mylord Marechal, &c. par Mr. D***.i. e. The Eulogy of Lord Marshal. By M. D'ALEMBERT. 12mo. Berlin. 1779.-In this piece the nobleman celebrated in it, is represented in the most advantageous colours, -as a man of fuch primitive integrity and ancient purity of manners, as the most illuftrious ages of Roman virtue would have beheld with envy, as a true philofopher, who poffeffed, without oftentation, that wifdom, which fo many affect, and of which they make only an empty fhew-as one, whofe knowledge was accompanied with modefty, whofe uncommon elevation of mind was adorned with the most amiable fimplicity, and whofe feverity toward himself afforded a ftriking contraft to his indulgence of all the rest of mankind.-As to the facts contained -- in this eulogy, M. D'ALEMBERT pretends to have had them from Lord Marfhal himfelf, or from thofe who lived with him. in the clofeft intimacy: and we believe they are lefs embellished than the moral portrait. From thefe facts we learn, that GEORGE KEITH, hereditary Marshal 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 ftreets 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 Marthal'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 reprefented 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 Marthal 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 minifler 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 restore peace to Europe; but he failed in the attempt, and thus took a total disgust at the character of an ambaffador. The King of Pruffia, during his alliance with England in the laft war, obtained from George II. the reftoration of Lord Marshal to those honours and estates which had been forfeited by rebellion. Having thus recovered an eftate 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 pafs the remainder of his days in Scotland. Finding, however, that climate too keen for his health, he returned to his Royal Patron. A house 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 eafieft 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." 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 question: What title had Lord Marshal 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 whatever. 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 Prutia. GEORGE KEITH was indeed, upon the whole, a very good fort of a man, as the Jaying 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 eafily 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 band averfe 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 Marthal, 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 some have entertained, of what may have contributed to the compofition of this eulogy. It is now become a custom among the Encyclopedifts, and their fatellites, to fall foul on the memory of Rouffeau, with a view, perhaps, to prejudice the public against his Memoirs, in which their corrupt cabals, as a literary, political, and irreligious faction, are (as we are well informed) expofed in ftrong and glaring colours. Be the motive of M. DALEMBERT what it will, the facts he relates to the difadvantage of Rauffeau, and which he pretends to have had from authentic papers, which he does not produce, are proved, demonftrably, to be falfe and groundless, (in a pamphlet juft publifhed) by authentic papers, even the letters of Lord Marshal and M. Rouffeau, relative to the object |