immediately retreat. Open not your hearts to every profeffion of friendship. They, whofe friendship is worth accepting, are, as you ought to be, referved in offering it. Chufe your companions, not merely for the fake of a few outward accomplishments-for the idle pleasure of spending an agreeable hour; but mark their difpofition to virtue or vice; and, as much as poffible, chufe those for your companions, whom you fee others refpect: always remembering, that upon the choice of your company depends, in a great measure, the fuccefs of all you have learned; the hopes of your friends; your future characters in life; and, what you ought above all other things to value, the purity of your hearts.' This fpecimen may be fufficient to fhew what advantage youth, in general, may derive from an attentive perufal of this work; and furely to thofe who had the good fortune of being educated by Mr. Gilpin, his Lectures must be peculiarly useful, and can fcarce fail of making a due impreffion upon their minds, as the laft words of a fincere and juftly esteemed friend. X. FOREIGN LITERATURE. * PRINCIPES de Morale, de Politique et de Droit Public, puifés, &c. ou Difcours fur l'Hiftoire de France, &c. i. e. Moral Political Difcourfes on the Hiftory of France. By M. MOREAU, Hiftoriographer of France, Vols. V. VI. and VII. 8vo. Paris. 1778. Price 3 Livres 12 Sols each Volume. This excellent work (which deferves that title, notwithstanding its defects, and which is the production of perhaps the best writer, at this day, in the French nation) does not decrease in merit as it grows in fize. The volumes, before us, carry equal marks of that learning, tafte, genius, and virtue which we formerly applauded in those that preceded them; yet we are still obliged to lament the attachment of fuch a writer, and such a man, to the odious fyftem of abfolute monarchy,—a fyftem at all times pregnant with evils and oppreffion, and which, in its execution, fo often feparates entirely the intereft and glory of the monarch from the intereft and well-being of his fubjects. In the fifth volume we have a very interefting account (rendered fuch by our Author's excellent plan) of the ftrange revolution which deprived Childeric of the crown, and placed Pepin on the throne of Clovis. We muft fuppofe that M. MOREAU poffeffes a very high degree of virtuous and publicfpirited intrepidity, when he ventures to teach, as conclufions The literal tranflation of this title would run thus: Principles of Morality, Politics and public Law, derived from the Hiftory of our Monarchy-or Difcourfes on the Hiftory of France. from ་ from the revolution now mentioned, fuch political doctrines as thefe, that the most fatal of all maxims for fovereigns is that which engages them to accommodate the rules and principles of their government to the circumstances that occur, and that their ftrength, dignity, and confiftence, as well as the true happiness of their fubjects, depend on three qualities, the real fupports of the throne, beneficence, conftancy, and juftice. The remainder of this volume contains a great variety of obfervations relative to the public tribunals,magiftrates and magiftracy,the administration of juftice under the feudal jurifdictions,nobility, and other fubjects of that kind. The fixth volume opens a more fplendid and pompous scene: it exhibits the furprising feats, it difclofes all the wonders, of the reign of Charlemagne, and amidft the contradictory accounts which different hiftorians have given of that great prince, represents him as a wife fovereign, a warrior, a conqueror and a legiflator, the greatest man of his age, and the laft hero of his race. Few have reprefented the character of Charlemagne in its true point of view; and, indeed, there have been, notwithstanding the contradictions that reign in the prefent aspect of human nature, few characters' that exhibit fuch contrafts of fhining qualities with odious defects. Voltaire has exaggerated the latter with a more than equitable degree of afperity, and without a proper indulgence for the fpirit of intemperate zeal, which fo generally disfigured the Chriftian religion in that period of fuperftition and barbarifm, which is not entirely extinguished in even our age of improved knowledge, and which never will be totally fuppreffed, while the paffions, pride, and ill-humour of men mingle themfelves with the caufe of truth. M. MOREAU expofes, with good humour, and good fense, the falsehood of Voltaire's reprefentation of the matter under confideration.-The lenity with which that writer judged of the conduct of the Roman general who invaded Britain and committed the Druids to the flames, and the feverity with which he condemns the conduct of Charlemagne towards the Saxons, do not escape him. The difcourfe that follows the reign of this great prince contains a multitude of excellent reflexions and inftructive difcuffions, concerning the rights acquired by conqueft in general, and thofe of Charlemagne in particular, concerning the influence of religion in foftening the ferocity and improving the manners of men, by the admirable lessons it gives of humanity and juftice, as alfo concerning the military art, and the state and manner of compofing the French armies in the eighth and ninth centuries. The feventh volume, though not inferior to the preceding, fo far as the difplay of capacity and talent goes, pleafes us much lefs, P 4 lefs, on account of the dry and uninteresting difcuffions into which the spirit of controverfy and the defire of demonftrating that the French have always been flaves, have carried our Author. Some modern writers of the first rank have maintained, that, in the earlier periods of the French monarchy, the most abfolute of its princes were no more than the first citizens or members of the republic, and that the present government in Great Britain is the image of the government of Charlemagne. This hypothefis, if it be an error, our Author is juftified in combating, from the regard he is obliged to pay to hiftorical truth; but we are forry to fee him oppofing it, as an error fatal to the glory and profperity of the French government, as if it could ever tend to the true glory and prosperity of any nation to be fubjected to the abfolute power of an individual, and as if it were not palpable that, in fuch governments, the intereft of the monarch (i. e. his pleafures, his avarice, or his tinfel-glory) is promoted by the mifery and oppreffion of his fubjects. It is pleasant, indeed, enough to maintain that the well-being of twenty millions of fouls ought to be totally intrufted to the direction of an individual, in confequence of his being born of a certain man and woman.-The truth is, that M. MOREAU has here laid down his dignity as a virtuous and patriotic citizen, and put on a mask to appear at Court. Be that as it may-he has, as it appears to us, clearly proved the fact. He had proved in the preceding difcourfes the monarchical power of the French kings, and he proves, in this, by new authorities, that fuch a power had always been poffeffed by Charlemagne; that the legislative power was vefted in, and exercised by him alone; that this power was never lodged in the pleas or in the affemblies, which were firft held in the month of March and afterwards in May; that the people had no reprefentatives in that affembly, and therefore that Charlemagne was not the first member of the republic, but the monarch of France, in the fullest extent of that term. Indeed abfolute power in excellent hands may render a people happy; but fuch hands are fo rare, and there is fo little probability of feeing a series of such hands at the head of any nation, that the people are authorised to fecure their liberties and property by the bulwark of a wife and a free conftitution; and it is in this, that the glory and prosperity of a nation properly consist. It would appear by our Author's account of things, that Charlemagne did not proftitute his power to the purposes of tyranny and injuftice, but employed it in eftablishing order and union among all the departments and members of the ftate.The tranfactions of the council of Francfort may be alleged as an objection to this favourable account of the reign of Charlemagne; but our Author calls what happened at that council council a dark moment, a tranfitory error, occafioned by the ignorance of the times, or rather by the feduction of fome falfe politicians. This prince (fays M. MOREAU) was the friend and protector of learning, and learned men: letters were cultivated in his dominions; morals were refpected, and his fubjects were happy. Not lefs admirable in the minute details of his domeftic ceconomy, than in the general administration of his vaft empire, he turned an attentive eye to all thofe objects that could be employed as inftruments or means of promoting the public good. He appeared as great when he ordered his ftewards to fell the eggs of his hen-roofts, or the fuperfluous produce of his garden, as when he diftributed among his fubjects the riches of the Lombards, and the immenfe treasures of the Huns, who had plundered the universe. In the fecond part of this volume, which is difengaged from the dry polemical difcuffions that rendered the first fomewhat lefs interefting than the preceding difcourfes, our Author unfolds the principles that animated and directed the government of Charlemagne, and fhews the bafis on which he founded his plans of reformation. His plan is expreffed in three words, which convey a pretty clear idea of it,-union in all the parts of the ftate-liberty in them all-and authority over them all. This was the great defign which Charlemagne formed, and carried into execution. He reftored peace and union between the clergy and the nobility, and conferred upon the French a degree and kind of liberty (according to our Author) which they had never enjoyed or known, either in the marshes of Germany, or under that tyrannical administration, by which the kings of the firft race provoked the feditious licentioufnefs of the grandees, and trampled on the rights of the people. The kind of liberty, meant by our Author, confifted in this, that the courts of juftice were multiplied, that nothing was tranfacted in the councils of the prince, in the courts of the higher magiftrates, nor in thofe of the cities, without the moft mature deliberation; and that a new order of infpectors called miffi, or envoys, were appointed to fet limits to the arbitrary power which the magiftrates had ufurped. But this kind of liberty, was, indeed, no more than a wife and beneficent application of abfolute power, and M. MOREAU deftroys the precifion of language and confounds the nature of things, when, in confequence of all these regulations, he fays, that Charlemagne rendered the French free, in the only fenfe that man ought to be fo. No nation is free, that has not, in the privileges of the people, the means of providing for and fecuring the continuance of their well-being, and the permanent enjoyment of the effential rights of human nature.-Thefe may be maintained by the abfolute power of a good prince, and may be deftroyed by the the abfolute power of his fucceffor, fo that abfolute power is, properly speaking, incompatible with true liberty.-Nothing, indeed, can be more eloquent, more beautifully faid, more pathetically expreffed, than our Author's defcription of the liberty which a wife government procures to a nation; and if all monarchs were models of wifdom, we might fubmit to his fervile fyftem, and fay-come-we will accept of happiness and well-being, from whatever hands it may proceed.—But as men --and more especially as monarchs are fo palpably far from being what they ought to be, all the eloquence of M. MOREAU on this fubject is nothing more than the impertinent froth of a fervile courtier, who is blowing gorgeous bubbles to dazzle the multitude, and that, with objects before his eyes, which shew the odious fallacy of his doctrine in the ftrongeft light. M. MOREAU knows very well, and he has the candour, at leaft, to own it, that, by all the regulations above mentioned as fo friendly to French liberty, Charlemagne augmented inftead of diminishing his perfonal power and authority; for he was the main-fpring which directed thofe establishments that were formed for the good of his fubjects. It is also true, that the well-being of those subjects attaching them by bonds of gratitude to their prince, who made them feel the comfortable effects of (what we may call) a temporary liberty, must naturally have given a high degree of well-acquired confiftence and folidity to his government and authority. All this gives our Author an opportunity of fhewing in a very beautiful and affecting manner, that a fovereign cannot difpenfe with the attachment and co-operation of his people, whose liberty (truth will out even in contradictions) is neceffary to the purposes of the most abfolute monarch, if he means to reign with dignity and true glory.Good M. MOREAU-Naturam expellas furca licet ufque recurret. In treating of the legislation of Charlemagne in its connexion with all the departments of the ftate, and all the fprings of the political machine, which he had under his direction, our Author fhews what this prince effectuated with refpect to religion, its doctrines, worship, difcipline and minifters, and alfo with respect to the inftruction and morals of the nation; the part of this ninth difcourfe, that relates to the laws of Pepin and Charlemagne, is referved for a fubfequent volume,-with other interefting materials. II. Recherches Hiftoriques et Critiques fur l'Adminiftration publique et privée des Terres chez les Romains, &c. i. e. An Historical and Critical Inquiry into the public and private Administration of Lands * We are at fome lofs for an English term, equal to the comprehenfive fenfe of the word Administration in the original; which feems to include |