stroys many efficacious motives for practising worthy actions, and deserves ill of his fellow-creatures, whom, he paints in dark and disagreeable colours. As the opinions of men usually contract a tincture from the circumstances and conditions of their lives, it is easy to discern the chagrined courtier, in the satire which this polite misanthrope has composed on his own species. According to his gloomy and uncomfortable system, virtue is merely the result of temper and constitution, of chance or of vanity, of fashion or the fear of losing reputation. Thus humanity is brutalized; and every high and generous principle is represented as imaginary, romantic, and chimerical; reason, which by some is too much aggrandized and almost deified, is here degraded into an abject slave of appetite and passion, and deprived even of her just and indisputable authority. As a Christian, and as a man, I despise, I detest such debasing principles.

Rochefoucault, to give a smartness and shortness to his sentences, frequently makes use of the antithesis, a mode of speaking the most tiresome and disgusting of any, by the sameness and similarity of the periods. And sometimes, in order to keep up the point, he neglects the propriety and justness of the sentiment, and grossly contradicts himself. Happiness,' says he, consists in the taste, and not in the things: and it is by enjoying what a man loves, that he becomes happy; not by having what others think desirable.' The obvious doctrine contained in this reflection, is the great power of imagination with regard to felicity: but, adds the reflector in a following maxim, 'We are never so happy or so miserable as we imagine ourselves to be'; which is certainly a plain and palpable contradiction of the foregoing opinion. And of such contradictions many

instances might be alleged in this admired writer, which evidently show that he had not digested his thoughts with philosophical exactness and precision.

But the characters of La Bruyere deserve to be spoken of in far different terms. They are drawn with spirit and propriety, without a total departure from nature and resemblance, as sometimes is the case in pretended pictures of life. In a few instances only he has failed, by overcharging his portraits with many ridiculous features that cannot exist together in one subject: as in the character of Menalcas the absent man, which, though applauded by one of my predecessors, is surely absurd, and false to nature. This author appears to be a warm admirer of virtue, and a steady promoter of her interest: he was neither ashamed of Christianity, nor afraid to defend it: accordingly, few have exposed the folly and absurdity of modish infidels, of infidels made by vanity and not by want of conviction, with so much solidity and pleasantry united: he disdained to sacrifice truth to levity and licentiousness. Many of his characters are personal, and contain allusions which cannot now be understood. It is, indeed, the fate of personal satire to perish with the generation in which it is written: many artful strokes in Theophrastus himself, perhaps, appear coarse or insipid, which the Athenians looked upon with admiration. A different age and different nation render us incapable of relishing several beauties in the Alchymist of Jonson, and in the Don Quixote of Cervantes.

Saint Evremond is a florid and verbose trifler, without novelty or solidity in his reflections. What more can be expected from one who proposed the dissolute and affected Petronius for his model in writing and living?

As the corruption of our taste is not of equal consequence with the depravation of our virtue, I shall not spend so much time on the critics, as I have done on the moralists of France.

How admirably Rapin, the most popular among them, was qualified to sit in judgement upon Homer and Thucydides, Demosthenes and Plato, may be gathered from an anecdote preserved by Menage, who affirms upon his own knowledge, that Le Fevre of Saumer furnished his assuming critic with the Greek passages he had occasion to cite, Rapin himself being totally ignorant of that language. The censures and the commendations this writer bestows, are general and indiscriminate; without specifying the reasons of his approbation or dislike, and without alleging the passages that may support his opinion: whereas just criticism demands, not only that every beauty or blemish be minutely pointed out in its different degree and kind, but also that the reason and foundation of excellences and faults be accurately

ascertained.

Bossu is usually and justly placed at the head of the commentators on Aristotle's Poetics, which certainly he understood and explained in a more masterly manner than either Beni or Castelvetro: but in one or two instances he has indulged a love of subtilty and groundless refinement. That I may not be accused of affecting a kind of hatred against all the French critics, I would observe, that this learned writer merits the attention and diligent perusal of the true scholar. What I principally admire in Bossu, is the regularity of his plan, and the exactness of his method; which add utility as well as beauty to his work.

Brumoy has displayed the excellencies of the Greek Tragedy in a judicious and comprehensive

manner.

His translations are faithful and elegant ; and the analysis of those plays, which, on account of some circumstances in ancient manners, would shock the readers of this age, and would not therefore bear an entire version, is perspicuous and full. Of all the French critics, he and the judicious Fenelon have had the justice to confess, or perhaps the penetration to perceive, in what instances Corneille and Racine have falsified and modernised the characters, and overloaded with unnecessary intrigues the simple plots of the ancients.

Let no one, however, deceive himself in thinking, that he can gain a competent knowledge either of Aristotle or Sophocles, from Bossu or Brumoy, how excellent soever these two commentators may be. To contemplate these exalted geniuses through such mediums, is like beholding the orb of the sun, during an eclipse, in a vessel of water. But let him eagerly press forward to the great originals: juvet integros accedere fontes; his be the joy t' approach th' untasted springs.' Let him remember, that the Grecian writers alone, both critics and poets, are the best masters to teach, in Milton's emphatical style, 'What the laws are of a true epic poem, what of a dramatic, what of a lyric; what decorum is; which is the grand master-piece to observe. This would make them soon perceive, what despicable creatures our common rhymers and play-wrights be; and show them what religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be made of poetry, both in divine and human things.'

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No. 50. SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1753.

Quicunque turpi fraude semel innotuit,
Etiamsi verum dicit, amittit fidem.

The wretch that often has deceived,

Though truth he speaks, is ne'er believed.

PHED.

WHEN Aristotle was once asked, what a man could gain by uttering falsehoods; he replied, credited when he shall tell the truth.'

Not to be

The character of a liar is at once so hateful and contemptible, that even of those who have lost their virtue it might be expected, that from the violation of truth they should be restrained by their pride. Almost every other vice that disgraces human nature, may be kept in countenance by applause and association: the corrupter of virgin innocence sees himself envied by the men, and at least not detested by the women: the drunkard may easily unite with beings, devoted like himself to noisy merriment or silent insensibility, who will celebrate his victories over the novices of intemperance, boast themselves the companions of his prowess, and tell with rapture of the multitudes whom unsuccessful emulation has hurried to the grave: even the robber and the cut-throat have their followers, who admire their address and intrepidity, their stratagems of rapine, and their fidelity to the gang.

The liar, and only the liar, is invariably and universally despised, abandoned, and disowned: he has no domestic consolations which he can oppose to the censure of mankind; he can retire to no fraternity, where his crimes may stand in the place of virtues ;