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The portrait of a gallant is still more whimsical.

"The gallant is counted a wild creature; no wild colt, wild ostrich, wild cat of the mountain, comparable to him; he is indeed the buffoon and baboon of the times; his mind is wholly set upon cuts and slashes, knots and roses, patchings and pinkings, jaggings, taggings, borderings, brimmings, half-shirts, half-arms, yawning breasts, gaping knees, arithmetical middles, geometrical sides, mathematical waists, musical heels, and logical toes."

What a vocabulary of dandyism is here!

We have before intimated, that if our divine's hand had been under the government of good taste, he would have written almost eloquently. The omission of a few words makes a great difference. The following passage on the efficacy of prayer, the original of which will be found in the note below, is rendered almost beautiful by mere curtailment.

"Oh, how hath prayer calmed the tempest of a troubled mind, yea, stilled the noise of the thunders at God's judgement seat! it is the penitents' balsam, and the best music in God's ears; it doth compromise differences, reconcile adversaries, put songs into mourners' lips, and fill the breasts of disconsolate souls with extasies: so soon as this Ester doth appear, the golden sceptre is stretched out; so soon as this angel doth come down, the waters are stirred, and there is virtue in the pool of Bethesda for all disabled and distressed creatures. O that devotion were but articulate, that repentance could but open her lips, and the penitent draw up all his desires into this short Enthymene: this is the true sweat of our brows, whereby we should earn our bread, the candle which should never go out in the house of the virtuous woman to enrich her family; yea, the key which doth unlock all the chests of God's treasury," &c.*

After extolling the excellence and superiority of cities, our author exhorts the citizens to corresponding superiority.

"Thus much in general; for yourselves in particular, as God hath made you a city, so do ye principle out goodness to the land; for a shame it were for the sourest fruit to grow upon the top-branch, or the

*

“Oh, how hath prayer calmed the tempests of a troubled mind; yea, stilled the noise of the thunders at God's judgement seat! it is the penitent's balsam, and the best music in God's ears; it doth fright devils and exhilarate angels; it doth cancel bonds, cast indictments out of the court, compromise differences, reconcile mortal adversaries, acquit the guilty, justify sinners, cure phrenzies, ease conflicts, put songs into mourners' lips, fill the breasts of disconsolate souls with extasies, dig mines, fish for pearls, fetch pensions out of God's exchequer, nay draw the signet off from God's right hand to seal churchgrants to the faithful; so soon as this wise woman from the wall doth but speak, the city is spared; so soon as this Abigail doth present herself, the whole family is preserved," &c.

worst scholars to be in the upper form. Shall ye be taught duty from abroad, or learn conscience of the country? Shall the man in russet direct thee in thy furs, the leathern girdle instruct the gold chain? Shall there be more noble motions and pious resolutions in the rural swain than the citizen? Shalt thou mind nothing but the vent of thy ware, and the sale of thy merchandise? yes, thou hast another trade to look after; a citizen should shew to his customers the best patterns of holy life, and open the packs of religious precedents; a city should be the burse and magazine of virtuous demeanours, or else it will be said, that the citizen doth study nothing but himself, and that his counting-house is his conscience, and his penny his God. Oh, therefore God hath given you honour; maintain your honour, let the great wheel of virtue stir here, and the morning star of grace shine here. Let not the miry ways be cleaner than your paved streets, and the thatched sheds be neater built than your tiled houses. Let not the countryman, when he cometh amongst you, be loathed with the smell of your intemperance, or recoil at the sight of your fraud, or blush at your neutralizing, or be ready to deride your pride, or to hiss at your malice, or to freeze with your indevotion, or to drop down dead with seeing the blood of oppression sprinkled upon the stones of your streets; but prepare choice sights for the countryman's eye, that he may go home, and say, I have seen the phoenix of religion, the paradise of piety, the temple of the Holy Ghost, the suburbs of heaven; I have learned grace out of every citizen's mouth, and bought bargains of sanctity at every shop, enough to stock myself and supply all my neighbours. Thus shall ye shew yourselves to be a flourishing city, when ye are as full of professors as traders; and of saints as merchants; when ye have trafficked for godliness at every port, and fetched home the true pearl farther than the Indies."

He thus describes the unity of a city.

"Oh, this unity doth carry in it an universality of felicity, it is the basis and battle-axe to a city; it feareth no gusts, when it doth stand upon this sure pinning; nor enemy abroad, when there is no enemy within: Oh it is a rare thing to see a due crasis in the humours of the city, and to hear all the strings of that great instrument in tune, that the spleen doth not swell to put the whole body out of course, or the salamander doth not appear to foretell a storm coming; that the vessel be not cracked that should hold the water of the citypreservation, nor a moat gotten into the eye of it to trouble the sight in the foreseeing of dangers."

Repentance, the match that sets fire to his zeal, which blazes throughout the work with more or less fierceness, is defined in this manner.

"Repentance is the funeral of sin and the birth-day of grace, a man then shifts himself out of the tatters of natural corruptions, and doth array himself in the bright vestment of regeneration, as Jehoshuah

put off his filthy garments, and put on a change of rayment upon his back, and a glorious mitre upon his head."

And the want of any signs of its advent lamented in a series of energetic interrogatories.

"What adulterer hath yet unclasped his hands with his courtesan? What drunkard hath drawn his lips from his intemperate cups? What proud person hath yet shifted himself from his phantastic gawdies? And if these sinners be not yet unfettered, what shall we think of them whom the devil hath in a stronger chain? if these trespassers be inflexible, what shall we conclude of those whose neck is as iron? what is the state of them which stand in their ways, and sweat in their ways, and ride post in their ways, that an angel with a naked sword in his hand can hardly make them give a check with the bridle? Oh, if these noon-day sinners be so unreformed, then if we should search the blind corners, pry what the antients do in the dark, look through the hole of the wall, what strange chambers of imagery, and creeping things, and four-footed beasts, might there be there discerned? How many black night-birds would there be there seen pourtrayed upon the walls? where then are men's feet? do ye see any new ways trodden? will these turn? do any turn? No, the times may turn, and the face of things may turn, there may be several variations and changes in human affairs, but not in human actings; men are resolved upon their paths, settled upon their motions, constant in their extravagancies, they will not turn from their evil way."

In the midst of his lamentations, the worthy divine breaks out in a very lively strain. "Oh, that all the sins of the land, without diminution, retrusion, substraction, could be bewailed in our lips with one national yell, this were to cry mightily."

We have selected the most simple and least offensive, as well as the best written passages we could find in this very singular book, but which nevertheless contain instances of the author's perverted taste and peculiar manner. More lengthy and decided specimens of the latter we could have given, but as they have little but their singularity to recommend them, we content ourselves with the extracts we have already made.

ART. IV.-Œuvres Complètes de M. Bernard. 12mo. Londres, 1777.

Although we have happily shaken off our hereditary ha.tred of France and Frenchmen, the leaven of our old antipathy still clings to us on certain occasions, and imperceptibly taints

our opinions on many points in which the national prejudice remains unnoticed, because we have never suspected that such a feeling could intrude itself into subjects which are not political. Such, however, we are certain is the case. Experience has taught us to acknowledge, that French generals, French ministers, French mathematicians, French chemists, and French surgeons, may contend for the palm of excellence with any we produce in England. The matter of French cookery and metaphysics is involved in greater doubt; but no right-minded Briton, that we know of, has ever consented to admit, or even condescended to examine, the merits of French poetry.

Many circumstances have occurred to create and perpetuate the distaste. Originally produced by the contempt which national animosity gives birth to, and extends indiscriminately to all subjects, it has naturally outlived the imbecile feeling from which it sprang; and is continued, like other habits, from the inconvenience which would attend its change. We are not certain that such a change would repay the trouble of unlearning an habitual taste; because it is very doubtful how far it is worth while to disturb our settled notions on a subject, concerning which all opinions, in fact, are equally indifferent. It is clearly impossible to fix any standard of excellence in matters of taste and sentiment. That poetry, therefore, is the best, which is most generally pleasing; and whether it be French or English, is a matter of chance and not of preference. So far, to the English reader, the question is decided. His taste is already formed; and we have no intention of impugning it in the present article. We merely wish to introduce him to the knowledge of certain poets, who are as much admired in France as they are unknown in England. We do not challenge his applause, but solicit his attention; for even if there be little admirable, poetically speaking, in the verses of these writers, we think there is much that is amusing. Beside which, to every lover of letters every branch of literature has its interest.

Much of the beauty of poetry must be lost in a foreign language. However intimate our acquaintance with a dialect which was not taught us in our infancy, we are unable to acquire in later life that familiar mastery of all its idioms which is necessary to a perfect relish of the pleasures produced by style. We want that rapid perception of the exact import of every phrase, and the precise degree of similarity or difference in terms which are nearly synonimous-none, perhaps, are exactly so of which the nurse is the sole instructress. We are insensible to the exquisite beauty resulting from the happy disposition of harmonious words, and overlook the peculiar turn imparted to whole sentences, by the equivocal use of

common phrases. All this must occur to every one, who is at all familiar with foreign authors; and wherever much pleasure is derived from foreign poetry, it is chiefly owing to associations of a very different nature from those which delight us in that of our native language. This pleasure is usually great in proportion to the difficulty surmounted in acquiring the foreign dialect. Hence the excessive admiration which Lowth entertained for the poetry of the Hebrew scriptures. Hence, also, the exaggerated praise of Hafiz and Ferdusi, and other writers of a barbarous language, who, being accessible to few, are proclaimed by that privileged few as the paragons of poetic genius. A polyglot scholar will decide, first, in favour of Greek-then, of German-of Italian, next--but of French, which is the easiest and most generally understood, last of all. The probability is, that the authors in all these dialects are of equal intrinsic excellence. But as the admirers of Euripides are considerably less numerous than those of Voltaire, the merits of these celebrated poets will be estimated— not in proportion to their respective dramatic excellence-but in an inverse ratio, according to the number of their readers.

This, we have no doubt, is a second cause of the neglect of French poetry in England. It is useless to search for other reasons which have consigned it to indifference. It is, however, certain, that of the many who deliver magisterial opinions on its great inferiority to our own, but few have ever thought it necessary to turn over the leaves even of its most celebrated authors. This is certainly more convenient than just. For our own parts, we believe, that much pleasure has been lost by this summary criticism; and we have therefore undertaken to present a specimen of French poetry, in order to excite inquiry, and to ascertain the real grounds of the common prejudice against it. To obtain a reading is all we dare at present hope for. If we succeed in amusing the reader, our time will not have been mis-spent; but if we make one convert, our utmost expectations will be surpassed.

There are two eras in French poetry, and between them we trace no resemblance. Since Mairet first wrote his Sophonisbe, the drama of his predecessors has fallen into utter oblivion. So is it in the other departments of poetry. The productions of De Baïf and Ronsard are only read in English magazines. The more curious man of letters may occasionally glance at the obsolescent verses of Marot; but the attention of the man of taste is confined to the graceful Chaulieu and his accomplished associates and successors. Among these we shall select our specimens; and as one of the most prominent, "though the most modern, we have commenced with the "gen

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