on this fubject a very ftriking thing-one of those speeches which may be the cause of a great man hereafter; "Genius is only a great er aptitude to patience." Obferve, that patience must be applied to every thing patience in finding, out one's line, patience in refifting the motives that divert, and patience in bearing what would difcourage a common man. I will mention fome facts of Buffon. He would fometimes return from the fuppers of Paris at two in the morning, when he was young. A boy was ordered to call him at five, however late he returned; and, in cafe of his lingering in bed, to drag him out on the floor. He used to work till fix at night. I had at that time (faid he) a mistress of whom I was very fond: but I would never allow my felf to go to her till fix, even at the risk of finding her gone out." He thus diftributes his day. At five o'clock he rifes, dreffes, powders, dictates letters, and regulates his household matters. At fix he goes to the forefaid study, which is a furlong diftant from the house, at the extremity of the garden. There are gates to open and terraces to climb. by the way. When not engaged in writing, he paces up and down the furrounding avenues. No one may intrude on his retreat. He often reads over what he has written, and then lays it by for a time. "It is important," faid he to me, "never to be in a hurry: review your compofitions often, and every time with a fresh eye, and you will always find that they can be mended." When he has made many corrections in a manufcript, he employs an amanuenfis to tranfcribe it, and then he cor rects again. He told M. de S that the Epoques de la Nature were written over eighteen times. He is very orderly and exact. "I burn (faid he to me) every thing which I do not intend to ufe: not a paper will be found at my death." I refume the account of his day. At nine, breakfast is brought to him in the ftudy. It confifts of two glaffes of wine and a bit of bread. He writes for about two hours after breakfast and then returns to the house. He does not love to hurry over his dinner; during which he gives vent to all the gaieties and trifles which fuggeft themselves while at table. He loves to talk fimuttily; and the effect of his jokes and laughter are heightened by the natural ferioufnefs of his age and calmnefs of his character! but he is often fo coarse as to compel the ladies to withdraw. He talks of himself with pleasure, and like a critic. He faid to me, "I learn every day to write; in my latter works there is infinitely more perfection than in my former. I often have my works read to me, and this mofily puts me upon fome improvement. There are, however, paffages which I cannot improve." In this opennefs there is a fomething interefting, original, antique, attractive. Speaking of Rouffeau, he faid, "I loved him much until I read his confeffions, and then I ceased to efteen him. I cannot fancy the fpirit of the man; an unusual procefs happened to me with refpe&t to him: after his death I loft my reverence for him." This great man is very much of a goffip, and, for at leaft an hour in the day, will make his hairdreffer and valets tell all the scan Z4 da dal of the village. He knows every minute event that furrounds him. His confidence is almost wholly engroffed by a Mademoiselle Bleffeau: a woman now forty years old, well-made, who has been pretty, and has lived with him about twenty years. She is very attentive to him, manages in the houte, and is hated by the fervants. Madame de Buffon, who has long been dead, could not endure this woman. She adored her husband, and is faid to have been very jealous of him. Mademoiselle de Bleffeau is not the only one who manages Buffon. Father Ignatius Prouzut, a capuchin friar, born at Dijon, divides her empire. He is, it feems, a convenient confeffor. Thirty years ago the author of the Epoques de la Nature fent for him at Eatter, and confeffed to him in the very laboratory in which he had put together his materialifm, in which Rouffeau proftrated himself at the threshold, Ignatius told me that M. de Buffon, when about to fubmit to this ceremony, hefitated awhile the effect of human weakness"-added he-and infifted on his valet de chambre's confeffing himself firft. This will furprize at Paris. Yes: Buffon, when at Montbart, receives the annual communion in his feignoral chapel, goes every Sunday, to high mafs, and diftributes a louis weekly among different defcriptions of pious beggars. M. de Buffon tells me that he makes a point of refpecting religion; that there muft be a religion for the multitude; that in little places every one is obferved; and that we fhould avoid giving offence. "I am perfuaded, (faid he to me,) that in your fpeeches you take care to let nothing escape you that should be remarked, or excite alarm on this head. I have ever had that attention in my writings, and have publithed them separately, that ordinary men may not catch at the connection of ideas. I have always named the Creator; but it is only putting, mentally, in its place, the energy of nature, which refults from the two great laws of attraction and impulse. When the Sorbonne plagued me, I gave all the fatisfactions which they folicited: 'twas a form which I defpised, but men are filly enough to be fo fatisfied. For the fame reafon, when I fall dangerously ill, I fhall not hesitate to fend for the facraments. This is due to the public religion. Those who act otherwife are madmen. The arietation of Voltaire, of Diderot, of Helvetius, often wounded themselves. The latter was my friend; he spent more than four years at Montbart on different occafions. I recommended more referve to him. Had he attended to me, he would have been better off." In fact, this fpirit of accommodation answered to M. de Buffon. His works demonftrate materialism; yet they were printed at the royal prefs. My early volumes appeared, (faid he,) at the fame time with the spirit of laws. We were teazed by the Sorbonne, both Montefquieu and I, and affailed by the critics. The prefident was quite furious; "What shall you an fwer?" faid he to me. "Nothing at all, prefident," replied I. He could not understand fuch coldbloodedness. I was reading to Buffon one even ing fome verfes of Thomas on the immortality of the foul." Pardieu, (faid he,) religion would be a noble prefent, if all that were true." He criticifed these lines feverely he is inexorable as to ftyle, and does not love poetry. "Never write verfes, (faid he,) I could have made them as well as others: but I foon abandoned a courfe in which reafon marches in fetters: fhe has chains enough already, without looking about for new ones." Buffon willingly quits his grounds, and walks about the village with his fon among the peafantry. At thefe times he always appears in a laced coat. He is a ftickler about drefs, and fcolds his fon for wearing a frockcoat. I was aware of this, and had taken care to arrive in an embroidered waistcoat and laced cloaths. My precaution fucceeded wonderfully; he fhewed me repeatedly to his fon."There's a gentleman for you!" He loves to be called monfieur le Comte. After having rifen from dinner, he pays little attention either to his family or his guefts. He fleeps for an hour in his room; then takes a walk alone; after which he will perhaps come in and converfe, or fit at his defk and look over papers that are brought for his opinion. He has lived thus thefe fifty years. To fome one who expreffed aftonishment at his great reputation, he replied, "Have not I paffed fifty years at my defk ?" At nine he goes to bed. He is at present afflicted with the ftone, which fufpends his employments. While I was at his houfe he had acute pains, fhut himfelf up in his chamber, would fcarcely fee his fon, and not his fifter. He admitted me repeatedly. His hair was always dreft; and he retained his fine calm look. He complained mildly of his ill health, and bore his pangs with a fmile. He opened his whole foul to me: made me read to him the treatife on the loadftone, and, as he liftened, would reform the phrafes. Sometimes he would fend for a volume of his works, and request me to read aloud the finer efforts of ftyle; fuch as the foliloquy of the first man, the defcription of an Arabian desert in the article camel, and a ftill finer piece of painting (in his opinion) in the article Kamichi. Sometimes he would explain to me his fyftem of the formation of the universe, the genefis of beings, the internal moulds, &c. Sometimes he would recite whole pages of his compofitions; for he knows them almost all by heart. Ile liftens gladly to objections, difcuffes them, and furrenders to them when his judgment is convinced. Of natural history and of ftyle he loves to talk, especially of the latter. No one better understands the theory of ftyle, unless it be Beccaria, who did not poffefs the practice. The style is the man, (faid he;) our poets have no style; they are coerced by the rules of metre which makes flaves of them" "How do you, like Thomas?" I asked. "Pretty well, (faid he,) but he is ftiff and bloated." And Rouffeau? "His ftyle is better: but he has all the faults of bad education, interjection, exclamation, interrogation for ever." Favour me with your leading ideas on ftyle. "They are recorded in my difcourfe at the academy :however, two things form ftyle, invention and expreffion. Invention depends on patience: contemplate your fubject long it will gradually unrol and unfold-till a fort of electric electric fpark convulfes for a monient the brain, and fpreads down to the very heart a glow of irritation. Then are come the luxuries of genius, the true hours for production and compofition--hours fo delightful, that I have spent twelve and fourteen fucceffively at my writing-defk, and ftill been in a ftate of pleasure. It is for this gratification, yet more than for glory, that I have toiled. Glory comes if it can, and mofily does come. This pleature is greater if you confult no books: I have never confulted authors, till I had nothing left to fay of my own." I asked him what is the beft method of forming one's felf. He anfwered," Read only the capital works, read them repeatedly, and read thofe in every department of tafte and science; for the framers of fuch works are, as Cicero fays, kindred-fouls, and the views of one may always be applied with advantage in fome very different branch by another. Be not afraid of the taik. Capital works are fcarce. I know but five great geniufes-Newton, Bacon, Leibnitz, Montefquieu, and myself. Newton, (continued he,) may have difcovered an important principle, but he spent his life in frivolous calculations, and was no mafter of ftyle." He thought higher of Leibnitz than of Bacon. He spoke of Montefquieu's genius, but thought his ftyle too ftudied, and wanting evolution." This, however, (faid he,) was a natural confequence of his frame of body. I knew him well; he was almost blind, and very impatient. If he had not clipt his ideas into fhort fentences, he would have loft his period before the amanuenfis had taken it down." He spoke to me of the paffion for ftudy, and of the happiness which it beftows. He told me that he had voluntarily fecluded himfelf from fociety; that at one time he courted the company of learned men, expecting to acquire much from their converfation, but he had difcovered that little of value could be fo gleaned, and that, in order to pick up a phrase, an evening was ill fquandered: that labour was become a want to him, and he hoped to confecrate to it much of the three or four years of life which probably remained to him; that he feared not death-that the hope of an immortal renown was the most powerful of death-bed confolations. He thewed me a letter from prince Henry of Pruffia, and another from the emprefs of Ruffia, with his answers. Over this lofty correfpondence between power and genius, where the latter retained its innate afcendancy, I felt my foul fwell. Glory feemed to affume as it were a fubstantial form, and to bend down at its feet what the world has moft exalted. In a few days, I left this good L'amitié d'un grand homme eft un Je fais mon devoir & mon fort dans Account of Apoftolo Zeno, from Burney's Memoirs of Metaftafio. THE learned poet, critic and antiquary, Apoftolo Zeno, was born in 1669, and defcended from an illuttrious Venetian family, which has been long fettled in the island of Candia, he Most of the dramas, facred and fecular, which he wrote for the Imperial Court, were fet by Caldara, a grave compofer and found harmonift, to whofe ftyle Zeno feems never to have been partial. But this excellent antiquary and critic feems never to have been fatisfied with his own poetical abilities. So early as the year 1722, in writing to his brother from Vienna, he fays: "I find more and more every day, that I grow old, not only in body, but in he early applied himself to literature, and the study of Italian hiftory and antiquities. In 1695, he inftituted at Venice the academy Degli Animofi, and was the editor of the Giornale de' Letterati d'Italia, of which he published thirty volumes, between the year 1710 and 1719. His first mufical drama, L'Inganni Felici, was fet by Carlo Fran. Polarolo, and performed at Venice, 1695. And between that time and his quitting Vienna, where he was invited by the emperor Charles VI. in 1718, he produced forty-mind: and that the bufiness of fix operas, and fe enteen oratorios, befides eighteen dramas, which he wrote jointly with Pariati. His dramatic works were collected and published at Venice, in 1744, in ten volumes octavo, by count Gozzi. And in 1752, his letters were printed in three volumes, by Iorcellini, in which much found learning and criticifin are manifeited on various fubjects. But one of the most useful of his critical labours feems to have been, his commentary on the Bibl. dell' Eloquenza Italiana di Fontanini, which was published in 1753; with a preface by his friend Forcellini, chiefly dictated, however, by Zeno himfelf, juft before his death, 175°, in the 82d year of his age. After he was engaged as Imperial laureate, he fet out from Venice for Vienna, in July 1718; but having been overturned in a chaife, the fourth day of his journey, he had the misfortune to break his leg, and was confined at an inn in the little town of Ponti. caba, near Trevifa, till September. He arrived at Vienna, the 14th of that month, falvo, he fays, if not fano e guerito, after twelve days of exceffive fuffering on the road. writing verfes is no longer a fit employment for me." And afterwards, modefily fenible of the fterility of his poffeflions in Parnaffus, which, though they furnished ufeful productions, were not of a foil fufficiently rich to generate fuch gay, delicate, and beautiful flowers, as are requifite to embellifh the lyric fcene, he expreffed a with that he might be allowed a partner in his labours; and was fo juft and liberal as to mention the young Metaftafio, as a poet worthy to be honoured with the notice of his Imperial patron. ccmnt of the Peafantry of Norway, fron Mary Wollstonecraft's letters, during a short refidence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. THOUGH the king of Denmark be an abfolute monarch, yet the Norwegians appear to enjoy all the bleflings of freedom. Norway may be termed a fifter kingdom; but the people have no viceroy to lord it over them, and fatten his dependants with the fruit of their labour. There are only two counts in the whole country, who have cftates, and |