them clearness of apprehenfion, becaufe they have no materials for thought; the other fupplies them not with fluency of expreffion, because they have nothing to communicate. It humbles and gives one pain, to fee human reafon fo greatly degraded, and funk to a level with animal nature. The famous traveller Della Valle (whom a noble curiofity and love of knowledge conducted through Turkey, Perfia, and a great part of India) gives a very natural defcription of such a sort of affembly or entertainment. It is during his ftay at Hamadun in Perfia. As it is long, I refer the reader to it. Let it fuffice to obferve, there was plenty of every thing, the provifions and cookery of the country, wine, coffee, &c. but hardly a word paffed, all was dulnefs and filence. "Non fi diceva mai una parola, e ftavano tutti in filentio." In reading those two beautiful pictures of Grecian manners, the banquets of Plato and Xenophon, I have often wondered that fo polite and learned a nation as Greece, nay, that a company of philofophers, fhould be obliged to have recourfe for entertainment to the petulance and extravagance of buffoons, the unnatural poftures and attitudes of finging boys and dancing girls. Yet we find this to have been a frequent practice even at Athens. It is alluded to in Plato's banquet, and Xenophon's; three of the principal characters are Philip, a fort of buffoon or merry Andrew, a finging and dancing or posture-girl, and a boy that plays on the fute. If fuch helps to entertainment and cheerfulness were thought neceffary in fo polished a nation as Greece, and even admitted to the tables of philofophers, it is the lefs furprifing they fhould be so much in request where fcience and letters have made but little progrefs. Every body knows how neceffary a character what they called a fool or dwarf, was during feveral ages at all the great tables of modern Europe; and even fo lately as the times of our first Charles, all perfons of fenfe, moderation, and good nature, highly cenfured the morofe and unbecoming feverity of Bishop Laud to the fatirical Archy. in countries where the topics of converfation are ftill more confined, the company is either abfolutely filent (as we saw just now in Perfia), or have recourse to a variety of games, of chance, or of fkill, in order to banish languor, and keep attention awake. La Loubere tells us, that the Šiamefe (a civilized people carry to fuch excefs their paffion for play, that they commit to the hazard of the die, not only their whole property, but their perfonal liberty, and even in fpite of natural affection, that of their wives and children. The fame has been faid of the ancient Germans, and of feveral favage and barbarous nations, made known to us by the difcovery of America. The inhabitants of thefe lefs equal governments and of fociety, are driven to these fatal expedients in order to amufe 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 mufical 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 purfuit. They feem to have refted their pleasures 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 constant 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 worse 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 feems to confit 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 rest 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 nar rative, 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 reftraint on unworthy and indecent actions and conduct; for we are told, the great fubject and bufinefs of the converfation of his citizens, was to praise 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 thofe 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 deserve. Our natural diflike and horror of them are increased by sympathy 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 caufe and interefts of human nature, by their private or public virtues, in letters or in arms. As was alluded to above, fuch was the school, in which at a frugal meal, and over the moderate ufe of wine, the citizens of Sparta, both of early and advanced age, learned and confirmed themfelves 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 style of difcipline and inftruction. Our great progrefs and improvements in arts and letters have enlarged the fphere of modern converfation to a boundless extent. We pass 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 scenery of landscape; in a word, ten thousand interefting 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 ourfelves on the shameful 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 excefs 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 say 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 reafon, to a taste and relifh for natural and rational amufements and fatisfactions. Though a teller of ftories be a tiresome and infipid character, yet a story related with spirit or humour, ferves often very agreeably to diverfify and enliven converfation. It should not be long, it should not be minute, the narrator fhould haften to the conclufion. Nothing, indeed, fo overwhelming, as a tedious, particular, uninterefting tale. A perfon 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 circumftance 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 story 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 talents So much more intolerable was the fear of fatiety and languor, than of giving offence, than incurring, perhaps, diflike and dif grace; a word well underftood, 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 Fashion compared.-Unreftrained Power, the Corrupter of the beft Natures, the Incentive to the worst Actions. Happinefs and Tranquillity of Mind.-Whether the Multiplicity E 2 Multiplicity of Books and Increase of Knowledge, be favourable to Piety, and the Love of Public Good.-The Love of Glory and of our Country.-Marriage and Polygamy.-Converfation.Rifing in Life.-Deity.-The Education of a Prince.-The Frugality and Difinterested nefs of the Ancients in Office. ES FOREIGN LITERATURE. SSAI fur l'Hiftoire de la Maison d'Autriche, &c. i. e. An hiftorical Effay concerning the House of Auftria. By Count G*** Dedicated to the Queen. París. 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 especially an account of its contefts and differences with the court of France. The Author begins his narration with the acceffion of Rodolph of Hapfburg to the imperial throne in 1273, and concludes his work with the year 1733; but he propofes to carry it down, if the circumftances 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 aspect. 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 circumstances that raised the House of Auftria to its prefent ftate of grandeur and ftability, 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 fubject before him, Count de GIRECOURT has received confiderable information from the papers of one of his ancestors (Counsellor of State to Charles III. Duke of Lorrain, and his Minister at the court of Vienna), which contain a correspondence 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 hiftory, not to be found in other hiftorians, 6 |