glafs. Such an affembly cannot eafily become dangerous to liberty. They are the fervants of the people, fent together to do the people's bufinefs, and promote the public welfare; their powers must be sufficient, or their duties cannot be performed. They have no profitable appointments, but a mere payment of daily wages, fuch as are scarcely equivalent to their expences; fo that, having no chance for great places and enormous falaries or penfions, as in fome countries, there is no intriguing or bribing for elections. I with old England were as happy in its government, but I do not fee it. Your people, however, think their conftitution the beft in the world, and affect to defpife ours. It is comfortable to have a good opinion of one's felf, and of every thing that belongs to us; to think one's own religion, king, and wife, the beft of all poffible wives, kings, and religions. I remember three Greenlanders, who had travelled two years in Europe, under the care of fome Moravian miffionaries, and had vifited Germany, Denmark, Holland and England; when I asked them at Philadelphia (when they were in their way home) whether, now they had feen how much more commodioufly the white people lived by the help of the arts, they would not choose to remain among us-their anfwer was, that they were pleafed with having had an opportunity of feeing many fine things, but they chofe to live in their own country: which country, by the way, confifted of rock only; for the Moravians were obliged to carry earth in their fhip from New York, for the purpofe of making there a cabbage garden!' III. 550. 551.

You are now 78, and I am 82. You tread faft upon my heels: but, though you have more ftrength and fpirit, you cannot come up with me till I ftop, which must now be foon; for I am grown fo old as to have buried moft of the friends of my youth; and I now often hear perfons, whom I knew when children, called old Mr fuch a one, to diftinguifh them from their fons, now men grown, and in business; fo that, by living twelve years beyond David's period, I seem to have intruded myself into the company of pofterity, when I ought to have been abed and asleep. Yet had 1 gone at 70, it would have cut off twelve of the most active years of my life, employed, too, in matters of the greatest importance; but whether I have been doing good or mischief, is for time to discover. I only know that I intended well, and I hope all will end well.

Be fo good as to prefent my affectionate refpects to Dr Rowley. I am under great obligations to him, and fhall write to him fhortly. It will be a pleasure to him to hear that my malady does not grow fenfibly worse, and that is a great point; for it has always been fo tolerable, as not to prevent my enjoying the pleafures of fociety, and being cheerful in converfation. I owe this in a great measure to his good counfels. ' III. 555-556.

Your eyes must continue very good, fince you are able to write fo fmall a hand without fpectacles. I cannot diftinguish a letter even of large print, but am happy in the invention of double fpectacles, which,

ferving

ferving for diftant objects as well as near ones, make my eyes as ufeful to me as ever they were. If all the other defects and infirmities of old age could be as easily and cheaply remedied, it would be worth while, my friend, to live a good deal longer. But I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitutions as sleep. We fhall rife refreshed in the morning.-Adieu, and believe me ever, &c. III. 544. 545.

There is fomething extremely amiable in old age, when thus exhibited without queruloufifs, difcontent, or impatience, and free, at the fame time, from any affected or unbecoming levity. We think there must be many more of Dr Franklin's letters in existence, than have yet been given to the public; and from the tone and tenor of those which we have feen, we are fatisfied that they would be read with general avidity and improvement.

His account of his own life, down to the year 1730, has been in the hands of the public fince 1790. It is written with great fimplicity and livelinefs, though it contains too many trifling details and anecdotes of obfcure individuals. It affords a ftriking example of the irrefiftible force with which talents and induftry bear upwards in fociety, as well as an impreffive illuftration of the fubftantial wifdom and good policy of invariable integrity and candour. We fhould think it a very useful reading for all young perfons of unfteady principle, who have their fortunes. to make or to mend in the world.

Upon the whole, we look upon the life and writings of Dr FrankJin as affording a ftriking illuftration of the incalculable value of a found and well directed understanding, and of the comparative uselefsnefs of learning and laborious accomplishments. Without the flightest pretenfions to the character of a scholar or a man of science, he has extended the bounds of human knowledge on a variety of fubjects, which fcholars and men of fcience had previoutly inveftigated without fuccefs; and has only been found deficient in thofe ftudies which the learned have generally turned from in difdain. We would not be understood to fay any thing in difparagement of scholarship and fcience; but the value of thefe intruments is apt to be overrated by their poffeffors; and it is a wholefome mortification, to fhew them that the work may be done without them. We have long known, that their employment does not enfure its fuccefs.

ART.

ART. VIII. Memoires d'un Voyageur qui fe repofe: Contenant des Anecdotes Hiftoriques, Politiques et Literaires, relatives à plufieurs des principaux Perfonages du Siecle. Trois Volumes. 8voPP. 900. Londres. Dulau. 1806.

THE

HE work which this affected title announces, turns out to be a rambling, goffiping life of Mr Dutens, well known as the author of an Itinerary, a book on the ancient anticipations of modern discoveries, and feveral trifles in the antiquarian and literary line. We acknowledge ourselves in a good degree difappointed by the execution of the prefent undertaking. One who enjoyed so many opportunities of cultivating the acquaintance of celebrated characters,-who has lived above half a century in good fociety in various parts of Europe,-who has generally paffed for an agreeable companion, and, as fuch, muft have, in converfation, the art of narration, might have been expected to fill a small number of volumes with many more ftriking paffages and interefting anecdotes than can be difcovered. in the performance now before us. We by no means intend to affert, that it is either dull or ill written; but it contains far less interesting matter than we had a right to expect from the opportunities and talents of the author. We proceed, however, to make our readers acquainted with Mr Dutens, who, of course, forms the chief fubject of the book.

Mr Dutens, or, as he calls himself throughout this work, Duchillon, is a member of a very ancient family in France. He was educated, as ufually happens to those who write their own lives, by the most tender of parents, and passed his early years in reading poems, romances, and books of a fimilar defcription. From thence he rose to a flight acquaintance with writers of hiftory and morals, until, by degrees, he arrived at that age when the heart begins to feel un fentiment inexplicable,-fentiment amer et doux,-fource d'inquietudes et de plaifirs.' In fhort, he fell def perately in love with a fchoolmaster's daughter, who, according to the fafhion of all damfels of this defcription, immediately returned his flame, and infifted on his naming the marriage-day inftantly. He applied to his father for this purpose, and poured out to him his whole heart; but love it should feem wanted its ufual eloquence on that occafion; for the only answer which old Mr Dutens thought proper to give, was a found box on the ear, intimating thereby, with fufficient precifion, that the propofition was not at all to his liking. ' The chagrin which this failure occafioned, made our author fuddenly and fecretly quit his father's houfe, and take the road to Angers, where his evil

genius

genius ftill purfued him, and he again fell in love with his landlord's daughter, who proved as complaifant as his former love had been. But her father took umbrage at his addreffes, and drove him from the premifes, fo that he was obliged to fet out for Nantz. Here the fame planet continued to rule his destiny, and a third unfuccefsful paffion drove him away-to Paris; whither he repaired, with the true taste of a Frenchman in defpair, to fee the fêtes which were then about to be celebrated for the peace. His first occupation, on arriving in the capital, was to write a tragedy, which was of courfe rejected. His next was to refume his old vocation, and fall in love with a lady of all manner of perfections. With her he was on the eve of accomplishing his union, when her enraged parent arrived and hurried her away from his fight, leaving him in the parlour of the boarding fchool overwhelmed with unruly grief, and with difficulty kept by the rest of the miffles from dafhing his head to pieces against the wall.

Our author's family were rigid Proteftants, and expofed to all the intolerable perfecutions which awaited the diffenters from the Catholic church in France, after the revocation of the edict of Nantz. Of these he had a very near view in his own houfe. The archbishop of his diocefe ordered to be carried off by force, from the arms of his parents, a fifter twelve years old, in order to have her shut up in a convent. No intreaties, addressed either to the ministry or the prelate, could obtain the flighteft relaxation of this cruel order; the young woman was detained during four years; at the end of which, the abjured the religion of her father in felf-defence, and took the veil. We must here, for a moment, interrupt our narrative, to contemplate, in paffing, the wretchednefs of a country which groaned under oppreffions like thefe. With all the complicated evils which the revolution has entailed upon France, it is perhaps enough to state, that religious toleration,-the abolition of fuch odious tyranny as appears in the incidental circumstance juft now related, has been fecured by this mighty event, in order to prove that, upon the whole, France has rather gained than fuffered by the change. At any rate, we must admit, that the confideration of those powers, vefted in the church over the diffenters, fully juftified our author in the refolution, which the fate of his fifter induced him to form, of leaving a country fo inhofpitable to the beft and most industrious part of her children. He accordingly once more quitted his father's houfe, and fet out for England, with the intention of making it his adopted home.

In his way to the coaft, he paffed through a town where two English ladies were refiding for the benefit of their health,

Hearing

ring that one of these was Mifs Pitt, fifter of the Minifter, contrived to procure an introduction to them; and with that nt of fubferviency, which never failed him through life, he Je himself, in a fhort time, rather neceffary to their existence, a agreeable to their fociety. Je me conduifis fi bien,' fays he, ans cette maison, que l'on ne pouvoit plus s'y paffer de moi." He > fell desperately in love, for the fifth time, with Mifs Taylor, companion of Mifs Pitt, who returned his paffion with equal lour; whom he foon after met again in England, where they changed mutual vows of eternal fidelity; and whom he inintly gave over all thoughts of; at least we hear no more of er through the whole courfe of the memoirs. From Mifs Pitt e received a letter for her brother, the late Lord Chatham, who first received him kindly, and then fuddenly shut his door gainst him, in confequence of his fifter having had fome words ith one of our author's relatives in France. After a fhort and inprofitable stay in England, he returned to his father's houfe, nd fell fick. During a dangerous illness and tedious recovery, he was nurfed by his fifter, and taught religion; a leffon to which he owes his whole future happinefs; and what he states as much more unmingled and exalted, the undeviating rectitude and unfullied purity of his whole fubfequent life. In truth, we have not happened before to fall in with fo perfect a character as these memoirs prefent to us. Mr Dutens candidly and frequently confeffes, that, unfafhionable as it may appear, his nature is blamelefs; and his conduct, in thought, word, and deed, for a period of fourfcore years, altogether devoid of impropriety. Not that he glories in thefe high gifts. On the contrary, his motto is always Deo laus.' He aferibes every thing to the falutary influence of religion.

Thus fortified and fitted out anew, he returned to London, and was foon after received into the family of a Mr Wyche, as tutor to his fon. He now found, rather inopportunely, that he had grievously neglected his own education, and that he knew none of the things which he had been hired to teach. By inceffant labour, however, he contrived to keep fomewhat ahead of his pupil; and when, at length, Mr Wyche defcried his ignorance of the higher branches of learning, he very amiably took upon himself the inftruction both of his fon and his tutor. In this worthy family, our author feems to have paffed feveral very tranquil, profitable, and happy years. He defcribes his way of life with great feeling, and has excited, in his reader, no fmall intereft in behalf of his amiable friends, when, unfortunately, his pupil dies. This event plunged him into a state of grief, not eafily exceeded by any imagination, and he continued fo abforb