alone, and left us his friend, Count Véri, to take his place. Towards the close of his stay, he became so altered in temper and disposition, as to remain constantly in his chamber at the tavern, where my brother and myself went to see him and tried to calm him, but unsuccessfully. He set off with a letter for my brother-in-law at Lyons, who entertained him a few days, and accompanied him part way on his return, convinced that he was growing insane.'

After his return to Milan he did little, and the close of his career was not equal to the beginning; not an unusual phenomenon among the Italian men of letters, whose first essays are very brilliant, but who at twenty-five or thirty become disabused like Solomon, and acknowledge like him the folly of science, without having waited till they had his experience of it.'

All this time Morellet continued his literary labors of various kinds. In answer to a translation of two of Lucian's dialogues which he sent to Hume, the historian wrote him an obliging letter, in which he alludes to a plan that he had conceived himself, and on which Morellet was actually employed, of a commercial dictionary. He had made some interest to be appointed secretary of the bureau de commerce, partly in the expectation of finding in the archives, and the correspondence belonging to it, a large supply of documents for his work. After being promised this nomination, and issuing his prospectus for the dictionary, the situation was not given him. This was a considerable source of inconvenience, and he received no benefit from a large number of circulars requesting information, which he had distributed through Europe, by means of the French consulates and legations, not one of his questions having received any answer. He had, however, an annual pension of 4000 livres from the chest of commerce, and with this supply he procured the assistance of a man of letters,' and one or more secretaries. The dictionary, however, proceeded rather slowly, for the ministers occasionally employed Morellet to reduce memoirs and documents, of which they stood in need, to the delay of the greater work.

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In 1772 Morellet passed over to England at the request of lord Shelburne, and at the expense of the French government, partly with the object of collecting materials for his dictionary. Lord Shelburne, though absent, had left orders for his reception, and the Abbé was accordingly carried out to Wycombe, twenty or thirty miles from London. Of the company there were Col. Barré, Dr Hawkesworth, Garrick, and Franklin.

for his famous thesis, now forgotten, but which occupied all Paris for two months, when the Sorbonne and theology had not fallen into the utter neglect they have since experienced.'

The Abbé de Prades and Diderot were acquainted, and in going to see the heretical Abbé, I found there the philosopher, who was much worse than a heretic. The Abbé had not expected to excite such scandal. The two or three propositions in his thesis, which were the subject of the declamations of the clergy, were in fact, the reply to the objections of infidels against the authenticity of the books of Moses, the scripture chronology, and the authority of the church. At last the Abbé was forced to seek an asylum at the court of the king of Prussia, who received him at the solicitation of d'Alembert. After the departure of de Prades, I continued to go to see Diderot, but in private propter metum Judæorum. I employed for this good work the mornings of Sundays, when my pupil was amusing himself or engaged in the religious exercises of the college. The conversation of Diderot, an extraordinary man, whose talents, as well as whose faults, were undoubted, had great power and interest. His manner of arguing was animated, perfectly sincere, acute without obscurity, brilliant in illustrations, fertile, various, and adapted to excite the talents of others. One could accompany him for hours in succession, with the pleasure of floating down a clear and gentle stream through a fine country. I have enjoyed few intellectual pleasures superior to his conversation,' &c.

About this time D'Alembert and Diderot employed Morellet to labor in the Encyclopedia. He had just written a pamphlet, as he says, in the style of Swift, on the occasion of some severities exercised against the protestants of the south of France. His philosophical friends were delighted at this occurrence, as it was, according to him, their doctrine that toleration could not exist without religious indifference. The Abbé, on the contrary, maintained what he calls the difference between civil and religious toleration. By civil toleration, he understands, as we understand it in our country, the liberty which each religion enjoys, of teaching its doctrines and practising its rites in every point, in which they are not opposed to the public morality and the peace of the community. For this species of toleration Morellet was an advocate, but opposed to what he calls ecclesiastical toleration or religious indifference. By this he appears, when his theory is examined a little carefully, to mean merely the personal belief of the sovereign and the magistrates. It is not easy to see, however, how this affects the question. A sovereign and the other

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magistrates may be perfectly convinced of the truth of the Catholic religion, and yet allow other sects to exercise their rites publicly. This is undoubtedly true, that the rulers for the time being, have the same liberty of conscience with other citizens, but there appears nothing more ecclesiastical in the one than the other, and no propriety in any distinction between them. It is not very fair, however, to be too strict with our author's distinctions, as he declares the object to have been 'to avoid a word which was attempted to be rendered odious.'

Great clamor was, as is well known, excited by the appearance of the volumes of the Encyclopedia, but it is not perhaps as well known that 'the philosophers' were extremely anxious to obtain the interference of government in their favor, and the prosecution of some of their antagonists. D'Alembert, in particular, was loud in his complaints to M. de Malesherbes, and employed our author to present them to the attention of that minister. I often discussed the great question of the liberty of the press, and its limits, with him,' says Morellet, 'but when I attempted to explain to my friend D'Alembert, the principles of M. de Malesherbes, I could not make him understand them, and the philosopher stormed and swore according to his bad habit.' These complaints produced two letters from M. de Malesherbes, to Morellet and D'Alembert, in which the American doctrine of the perfect liberty of the press is stated with great simplicity; and the somewhat petulant complaints of the philosophers' are alluded to with propriety and dignity. The following rather alarming opinion is, however, expressed, of the self love of that miserable profession of society, whose duty it is to cultivate an exquisite sensibility, for the sake of amusing the idle and luxurious with the suffering it produces : 'As to men of letters, experience has convinced me that whoever is engaged with the concerns of their self love, must renounce their friendship, or employ a partiality which would render him unworthy of it.'

Morellet soon after accompanied his pupil to Italy, on the occasion of the opening of a conclave, at the death of Benedict XIV. After the usual accidents on the road, one of which particularly is described very minutely, where their carriage passed over a precipice, but fortunately without the travellers, they arrived at Rome, a little too late for the opening of the conclave. They consoled themselves, however, with the reflection rather more philosophical than the two kinds of toleration,

that there were other things in Rome worth seeing. They went the rounds of the public buildings, pictures, &c. but Morellet declares himself to have received little pleasure from them. I must acknowledge to my shame,' says he, that the impression I received from these masterpieces of art, was weak, in comparison with that which I observed in real amateurs and in artists. In fact, I am near sighted, which is a very great disadvantage, but besides, I am strongly inclined to believe that the habit of thinking profoundly, of occupying internally all the mental faculties, of concentrating one's self, is, to a certain degree, opposed to the sensibility demanded by the arts of imitation.' At Rome, he made an extract from the Directorium Inquisitorum,' of Nicholas Eymeric, grand inquisitor in the fourteenth century. Under the title of 'Manual of Inquisitors,' Morellet collected the most revolting customs and inflictions from the information to the execution of the criminal. This summary of the severities of this barbarous institution, was undoubtedly very striking. The author was, however, surprised, and almost incredulous, when assured by M. de Malesherbes, that the criminal jurisprudence of France contained the very same cruelties with the Italian church. Indeed, at the time when these processes were most customary in the church, the administration of the state was also sullied with the most disgusting and obscene ignorance, and the most ferocious barbarity; and every baronial castle was, in proportion, provided with as ample means of torture and exaction, as the vaults of the Holy Office. The stain on the church, therefore, does not consist so much in its dungeons having been shut in the fourteenth century, as in their not having been opened till the nineteenth. By the late intelligence from Portugal, it appears that the cells built in the form of an inverted cone, where the prisoner could not even stand without pain, and the furnaces in which the victim was bricked up and quick-lime showered on him from above, have continued in use to the present day. With respect to the enormities in question, we find the following_judgment in a letter of Voltaire, on reading the manual. Men do not deserve to live ;' says he, for there is wood and fire, and yet they have not employed them to burn these monsters in their infamous retreats. It seems that the philosopher's justice was of the same complexion as the inquisitors' charity.

Morellet, while on this visit to the south, had the opportunity of hearing the famous improvisatrice Corilla, and gives the following account of her performance :

The Signora used to receive us very pleasantly, and after half an hour's conversation was always ready and disposed to improvisate for us.

A subject was given her. She recollected herself a moment, and then began to utter, coldly enough, some stanzas, in the measure and rhyme of Tasso, and to a very simple air, with which she was accompanied by a person behind her on a harpsichord, or rather a little spinnet. As she advanced in the subject, she became animated, and the accompaniment more rapid. Her eyes grew sparkling, her color rose, and her personal appearance became very brilliant. In continuing for some time, when the subject was extensive enough to give her the opportunity, she composed and uttered the concluding stanzas with extreme rapidity; as fast as one could recite verses he knew perfectly by heart. The fire flashed from her eyes and her movements became impetuous and rapid. She was a true pythoness, and yet her physiognomy was not disfigured or extravagant.

She declaimed a quarter of an hour or more in succession. It is natural to ask if this performance was elegant and correct. At the time of which I speak, though tolerably familiar with Italian, I was not sufficiently so to form an opinion. I can only say, I observed some very agreeable stanzas, some filled with brilliant points, and others grave and sustained, and that on the whole, it was a very agreeable exhibition to the eyes, and entertainment to the taste, to hear her improvisate.'

We have not room for the Abbé's critiques on St. Peter's and other works of art; but the following little anecdote is perhaps worth recording:

Since I am upon the subject of the impression produced by the arts, I will remark the observation I made at Rome and Naples, of the effect of music on Italian ears. An effect which shows the total difference between such a people and ourselves, who pretend to relish music, deprived as we are generally of the peculiar sense to which sounds are addressed, and as Caraccioli, the Neapolitan ambassador says of us, with our ears lined with morocco.

'It was the custom for the ambassador of France, on the fête of St Louis, to give an illumination and concert to the people. The bishop of Laon, our ambassador, had built an orchestra for stringed instruments, in front of the palace of the French embassy, and another for wind instruments opposite; each composed of more than a hundred performers. The street, which is the corso, and the square were filled with people. The two orchestras played alternately or together. In these magnificent tutti the effect was admirable, and the silence of the people was so deep one might have applied to them with justice,

Densum humeris bibit aure vulgus.