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geft, to accelerate his return to Ferney. The archbishop of Paris wrote to the king for that purpofe; but Voltaire had friends at court, who, by artful reprefentations of his age and infirmities, and alfo of his intention to return to his rural retreat, as foon as his ftrength and the feafon would permit him, warded off the blow, and prevented the iffuing of the royal mandate.

Things were in this pofture, when this frail object of philofophical adoration was feized with a fpitting of blood. Tronchin, his phyfician, reprefented to him the danger of his cafe, prescribed a regimen for his body and for his mind; advised him, as a friend, to employ the latter in matters of more confequence than dramatic reprefentations, to mitigate his impetuofity, to calm his paffions, and to pafs the few remaining moments of his life in tranquillity and repofe. The counsel, fays our Author, was wife; the patient was very unwilling to die; and yet the advice of the phyfician and the friend was treated, as ufual, with pleafantry.' The comedians, who were to act Irene, were fent for on Sunday the 22d of December.-Each actor received his part, which they all rehearsed in M. de Voltaire's presence; and, as he was diffatisfied with the performance of almost every perfon, he made them repeat feveral times the fame paffages; he repeated them himself with a violent exertion of lungs, to fet the bunglers right; and being agitated, during the whole fitting, with fucceffive fits of immoderate anger, a hemorrhage enfued; which was published in the Paris Journal, as dangerous, and even mortal. The clergy of the Romish church, who too often seek to make profelytes (as new props to their ecclefiaftico-political fyftem), thought they fhould appear with a triumphant afpect, if they could bring this old chieftain of infidelity, in a penitential posture, within the pale of the church. Accordingly, when they heard he was fo ill, they had feveral meetings at the archbishop's; and there it was refolved, to attempt his converfion, or, at leaft, to endeavour to make him perform fome external act of religion, that might do credit to motherchurch. A certain abbé Gaulthier was employed (fays our Author) to work the miracle of converfion, or to play the trick of obtaining the act above-mentioned; nor did he act his part unfuccefsfully:-he made his way, fomehow or other, to the patient, represented himself to Voltaire as a perfon fent to him from God-and spoke to him with such a tone of confidence and fuperiority, as determined the dying poet to undergo the ceremony of confeffion. He alfo forced from him a confeffion of his faith, figned in due form; in which the apoftle of infidelity declares his refolution to live and die in the Roman-catholic religion; of which he makes a folemn profeffion, and retracts

L14

every

every thing that ftands in oppofition to it, in the writings he had publifhed.'

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This was but a folemn farce, as we learn from our Author; and Voltaire was no fooner recovered from the emotion produced by the threats of the phyfician, and the remonftrances of the pricft, than he laughed at them both. The Encyclopedifts, however, were heinously offended at this folemn act of religion, and reproached him ferioufly with it, as contrary to the effential spirit of their party, which obliges its members to die hard. He, indeed, himself, fays our Author, blushed at his weakness, and alleged for his excufe the pitiful apprehenfion of his body's being deprived of Chriftian burial. For fome days he entertained the defign of returning to Ferney, to hide his fhame, but the fresh incenfe he received from his worshippers, and the congratulations that were presented to him on occafion of his recovery, effaced the remembrance of his infirmity; and the fuccefs of the first representation of his tragedy, reftored him again to high spirits.'

The acting of this piece (Irene) occupied the Public for many days before it was performed: every one was anxious to fecure a place much grave deliberation was employed alfo in chufing a feat for the Author. Some were for placing him in an arm-chair upon the ftage, that the Public might contemplate him at their cafe ;-others were for feating him in the Queen's box, behind her Majefty;-others again thought he would fit with more propriety in the box of the Gentlemen of the Bed-chamber ;-but the opinion of the physicians prevailed; and they abfolutely ordered him to ftay at home. The audience was numerous and brilliant: all the royal family, except the King, were prefent:-the two first acts of the piece were warmly applauded; the three laft froze the veins of box, pit, and gallery, though they contain, here and there, good thoughts, and lively expreffions. Our Author appreciates the merit of Irene, and places it among the indifferent tragedies of Voltaire. Flattery spoke another kind of language: meffengers were dif patched from the theatre, while the piece was acting, to inform the Author of its brilliant fuccefs; and when he heard that the paffages, in which the clergy were ftigmatifed, met with peculiar applaufe, he thought himself indemnified for the mortifications he had received in his penitential conferences with the Abbé Gaulthier. Thirty blue ribbons, and a deputation from the French academy, came to affure him of the intereft they took in the applaufe with which his tragedy had been performed and he was fo enchanted with all these splendid tokens of approbation, which were exaggerated to conceal from him

the

the different impreffions which had been made upon the audience by the last acts of his piece, that he rose up in his bed, and began to prepare a new tragedy (called Agathocles) for the ftage.

All this was no more than a prelude to the most extraordinary theatrical feftival, that perhaps ever was, or will be invented, and which exhibited a moft fingular mixture of the great and the little-the affecting and the ridiculous, the elegant and the difgufting, that can be well conceived.-This feftival was the coronation of the poet; the circumftances of which have been amply enumerated in almoft all the European news-papers, and which drew many tears, and much laughter, from a prodigious multitude of fpectators.-It was, upon the whole, a fplendid mountebank-bufinefs; beneath the dignity of a man of genius, efpecially when we confider it as performed in his prefence. Had it been exhibited after the death of the poet, in honour of his memory, as one of the principal ornaments of the French Parnaffus, this circumftance would have covered it from the reproach of absurdity and bad taste.

Several ridiculous fcenes were mingled with thefe teftimonies of applaufe:-a mountebank fold noftrums to the populace, which he put off in the name of the idol of the day-the Abbe Beauregard preached against him at Versailles, with the fpirit and virulence of an inquifitor:-he was received a member of the fociety of Free-Mafons-vifited the ladies, was prefent at the meetings of the French academy, and undertook a large part (even the whole letter A.) in the revifion of the Dictionary of the French Language, publifhed by that fociety.

All these objects of ftudy, ambition, and pleasure, extinguished the feeble remains of life in this fingular man. He loft his fleep, contracted a strangury, took too large a portion of a foporific dofe, that had been fent him by the Marechal de Richlieu, fell into a fleep, which lafted thirty-fix hours, awaked, called the Marechal, his brother Cain, wrote a few lines to M. de Lally, to teftify his pleasure at the justice done to the memory of his father, and (while he was faying to the Curate of St. Sulpice, who was affailing him with religious questions and remonstrances, Mr. Curate! pray let me die in peace) he expired.The clergy, in a scandalous manner, refuted him burial. By the means, however, of his nephew, the Abbe Mignot, he was interred, by a ftratagem, in the Abbey of Scellieres in Cham

The French academy afked leave to perform a funeral fervice, for the repofe of his foul: but their request was rendered fruitless by the clergy, who thought themselves difpenfed from contributing to the repofe of a man, after his death, who had been always difturbing their tranquillity during his life. How glorious their revenge!

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ART. VIII.

Storia della Letteratura Italiana, &c.—i, e. An History of Italian
Literature. By JEROME TIRA BOSCHI, Librarian to the Duke of
Modena. and Profeffor in the University of that City.
containing the Period that begins with the Year 1500, and ends
Vol. VII.
with 1630. Part I. 4to. Modena. 1777.

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N this first part of the feventh volume, the Author fets out with an interefting account of the ftate of Italy in the fixteenth century. It is very remarkable, that it was amidft the tumults and defolations of war, occafioned by the ambition of thofe monarchs who difputed fome of the richest provinces of Italy, that literature rofe to the higheft pitch of improvement and luftre in that country. This fact is illuftrated in the firft chapter of the first book. In the second, we have an account of the liberality and munificence of the Italian princes, and Roman pontiffs, in the encouragement of letters. Our Author paffes flightly over the pontificate of Julius I. who was only a warrior, but dwells with pleasure on the aufpicious adminiftration of Leo X. the reftorer of letters, the Auguftus of modern Italy, whom a crown would have become better than a mitre, and whofe memory will be dear to the lovers of the arts and sciences, in all ages. The merits of the fucceeding pontiffs are here appreciated with a decent freedom, and with a liberal fpirit. Among the fovereign princes, who are mentioned as the protectors of learning, the houfes of Medicis and Est shine forth with a furpaffing luftre. The Gonzagues, the Dukes of Urbino, and fome of the Dukes of Savoy, make alfo an honourable appearance in this lift.

In the third chapter, the Author treats of the univerfities and public fchools, erected at Bologna, Padua, Pavia, Turin, Rome, Macerata, Fermo, &c. in the fixteenth century, and of the wife regulations made by the council of Trent for the advancement of learning; that, more efpecially, by which the bishops were obliged to found in their diocefes, feminaries for the inftruction of young ecclefiaftics. The three following chapters contain an account of the academies, libraries, and collections of antiquities, which contributed to the improvement of literature and fcience during this period; as alfo, of the travellers, whofe difcoveries have tranfmitted their names with honour to pofterity.

This first part contains alfo two chapters of the fecond book; the first, relative to theology and ecclefiaftical sciences; the fecond, to philofophy and mathematics. In this latter, Mr. Tirabolchi takes notice of the advantages which philofophy derived from the progrefs of literature; and relates feveral particularities of Pomponazzi, the famous Peripatetician of

Mantua,

Mantua, that were unknown to the authors who, before him, gave accounts of the life and writings of that philofopher. The writers alfo in architecture, mufic, morals, and politics, are mentioned in this chapter. A new edition, in octavo, of this inftructive work, is publishing at Florence, of which twelve volumes, which comprehend the first five of the quarto edition, have already appeared.

ART. IX.

Memoires de Litterature tirés des Regiftres de l'Academie Royale des Inferiptions et Belles Lettres, &c.-i. e. Memoirs of Literature, taken from the Regitters of the Royal Academy of Infcriptions and Belles Letters, from 1770 to 1772, inclufive. 4to. Vol. XXXIX. Paris. 1777.

First Memoir concerning the Moral Part of the History of Herodotus. By M. DE ROCHEFORT.

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Second Memoir, Herodotus compared with Homer. By the same. N the first of these memoirs, M. DE ROCHEFORT endeavours to fhew, that Herodotus was led to imitate Homer, not only by his natural tafte, and the peculiar caft of his genius, but alfo by the circumftances of the time in which he wrote, and by the tafte and spirit of the nation to which he belonged. To render this palpable, he makes fome previous reflexions on the nature of historical compofition in the time of Herodotus, -on the great efteem in which the writings of Homer were then held,on the political fituation of Grecce, and the ftate of poetry and philofophy at that period, -as alfo on the purposes to which they were made fubfervient. Poetry, fays our Academician, was, for a long time, the only inftrument employed to keep on record the most interefting events, and maxims, of a religious and political nature. The Greeks had no other hiftorians than the poets; but the poets, perceiving the paffion of this people for the marvellous, availed themfelves of this weakness, and impofed fable and fiction upon their credulity. This abuse, grown exceffive, produced a reformation; but, while they avoided one extreme, they fell into another. Hiftory, deprived of the charms of poetry, became dry and infipid, and was nothing more than a fuccinct chronicle of fuch events as were deemed of the greatest importance. This tranfition, however, from hiftorical poetry to unadorned and compendious narration, was neither fo fudden nor rapid, as to exhibit no intermediate steps and gradations. Cadmus, Pherecydes, and others, retrenched the rithmus in their histories, but ftill animated their narration with poetical expreffion. Herodotus, Ctefias, and Hellanicus, were looked upon as the moft fabulous among the hiftorians; from whence our Author concludes, that history, in their time, was ftill, more or lefs, blended with poetry, and differed confiderably from what

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