fram oppreffion, and to obtain for them the bleffings of a free conftitution of government. Thefe fentiments are never fo highly gratified, as when we fee the virtues of private united with thofe of public life, and the generous efforts of the patriot fantified by his exemplary attention to moral and religious obligation in every part of his conduct;—but, alas! fo inconfiftent are many in their principles and practice, that their private and public characters are not only very different, but even oppofite to each other. Many inftances may be adduced of men, who, though licentious in their private conduct, have difplayed great fortitude and integrity, as well as abilities, in their public and political capacity, who, by performing effential fervices to their country, and vindicating the rights of their fellow-fubjects, have acquired a just title to their gratitude. There are but too many, on the other hand, who, though frict in the performance of private duties, are chargeable with the utmoft venality and fervility in their political character; and who confider the truft repofed in them by the public as of little value, except as it enables them to gratify the mean fuggeftions of vanity, or the fordid views of perfonal and family intereft. This clafs of men is far more numerous than the former; fome of them are not afhamed to avow and vindicate, under the fpecious pretence of prudence, their felfifh, dishonest principles, which feem to become fashionably prevalent, and, if not checked by examples of a contrary conduct, will extinguifh every fpark of public fpirit in the rifing generation. This degeneracy of the age enhances the value of examples of difinterefted patriotifm; and, when a man has deferved well of his fellow-citizens, and of mankind, by his efforts to oppofe tyranny and to establish freedom, we deteft alike that malignant curiofity, which pries into the fecrets of private life, in order to tarnish the luftre of a public character, and that unblushing depravity, which holds forth licentious principles and manners as the objects of applause, because they are fanctioned by the dangerous example of fome whofe abili ties were great, and whofe political conduct commanded the admiration, or entitled them to the grateful affections, of their fellow-fubjects.

Of this depravity of fentiment, fo common among a certain clafs of French writers, M. MANUEL exhibits ftriking characters in the declamatory preface with which thefe letters are introduced this curious performance not only infpires us with a very poor opinion of his moral principles, but convinces us of the fhallowness of his judgment, and of the meanness of his abilities as a writer; it is, in fhort, a compofition of which a fchool-boy ought to be afhamed, and in which an affected

pertnefs

pertnefs and the most puerile conceits are obtruded, as substi tutes for the brilliancy of wit, and the graces of eloquence.

Though the private life of MIRABEAU was not fuch as ought to be oftentatiously exposed to the inspection of mankind, it does not appear to have been marked with fingular turpitude. His principles, however erroneous, were fuch as are but too common in thofe countries in which rational religion is discouraged, and Christianity difgraced by superstition : his chief vice was that licentious gallantry which, in France, had long been countenanced by the example of the court and by the conduct of the nobility; among whom marriage was confidered as the refult of convenience, rather than of affection, and conjugal infidelity in both fexes was fo common and public, that it was scarcely reckoned as a fault. Amid this general depravity of manners, it is by no means furprising that a young man of strong paffions fhould become addicted to thofe vices, which he faw were fanctioned by the practice of all around him, and by the example of his own father:-for notwithftanding the fpecious title of L'Ami des Hommes, which the old Marquis de Mirabeau affumed in his writings, his character is here reprefented as odious and deteftable. He is faid to have fquandered away two millions of livres belonging to his wife and children; to have injured her health repeatedly in confequence of his infamous amours; and, though fhe had brought him an annual income of fifty thoufand livres, and had been the mother of eleven children, he turned her out of his house, and confined her in a convent, because fhe would not facrifice the remainder of her property to his rapacity. He forced his eldest daughter to take the veil, and was a cruel and arbitrary tyrant to the rest of his children, except one daughter, who had gained his favour by her fervility to his miftrefs. Thefe circumstances are folemnly afferted to be facts: but, without infifting farther on them, we muft obferve, that nothing could juftify his exceffive feverity to the writer of thefe letters; who tells us, that his having taken his mother's part, and having written fome memorials for her, which expofed the cruelty of his father's conduct, were the real caufes of that refentment, for which his own youthful irregularities afforded a fpecious pretext.

The Count DE MIRABEAU afferts, that from obedience to paternal authority, rather than from motives of affection, he married a young lady of fortune and family, by whom he had a fon; that after this, he became embarraffed in his circumftances, in confequence of his father's violating his word, and refufing to fulfil the pecuniary engagements to which he had bound himself, This marriage was unhappy; and the Count

charges

2

charges his lady with repeated infidelity to his bed but his refentment of this injury does not seem to be so implacable as we should have fuppofed; and her behaviour to him appears much more unfriendly than his conduct to her. A profecution, in which he was fentenced to pay confiderable damages, for having caned a young nobleman who had infulted his fifter, gave his father an opportunity of obtaining an order for his being confined to a frontier garrifon, and a pretence for foliciting lettres de cachet against him, in order to fcreen him from his creditors and profecutors. While thus a prisoner at large, he became acquainted with Madame De Monnier, who, at the age of twenty, had been forced by her parents to marry a man of feventy, of a moft unamiable character. It is natural to fuppofe that this young lady fhould prefer MIRABEAU to the difgufting object to whofe arms fhe had been condemned; and that compaffion for her unhappy circumftances fhould inspire him with affection for her :-yet he affures his father, that he ftruggled long with this paffion before he yielded to it; that he wrote to his wife, who had alienated herself from him, entreated her to return, and offered to retire with her into Switzerland, there to fupply the fmallness of their income by his labours as an author. This generous offer being rejected with difdain, he no longer refifted his paffion for Sophia; whofe husband then folicited an order from the miniftry for her confinement. She fled to Dijon, where he was joined by her lover, and went with him to Amfterdam. In this city they lived for fome months in great privacy, and fubfifted on what the Count could earn by his pen. Their retreat was, however, discovered by the French miniftry, who fent officers in purfuit of them; and the Dutch government fuffered them to be arrested in Amfterdam, and carried away to France, where he was confined in the prifon of Vincennes, in confequence of a lettre de cachet which his father had folicited, and the lady was fhut up in a penitentiary houfe; whence, after being delivered of a daughter, fhe was fent to the monaftery of St. Clair at Gien *.

*This is not the only inftance in which the Dutch government has delivered up prifoners of ftate on the requifition of the Frenchminiftry. The unfortunate Mafers de la Tude, who had efcaped from the Baftile, in which he was confined thirty-five years, for having, when a youth, offended Madame De Pompadour, fled to Amfterdam, where he was feized and given up to the inftruments of Gallic tyranny. We cannot help lamenting that they who call themselves the governors of a free country, fhould thus betray the wretched victims of oppreffion, when they flee to them for protection:-but the views and actions of politicians are not always confiftent either with juftice or humanity.

In this prifon, the Count DE MIRABEAU languished for nearly four years; during which time his inhuman father fcarcely allowed him the common neceflaries of life, and absolutely refufed him thofe accommodations, with which his il health, occafioned by his confinement, ought to have been indulged. In fhort, it is impoffible to perufe his account of his fituation without feeling the utmoft compaffion for him and deteftation of his father, or without congratulating mankind on the fubverfion of that tyrannical government, which countenanced and committed fuch atrocities. Here he compofed his excellent book Des lettres de cachet, et des prifons d'état, and wrote feveral fmaller works, fome of which do him no great honour. The Lieutenant de police, M. Le Noir, allowed him the use of books, and permitted him to correfpond with Madame De Monnier, and with fome other friends, on condition that all the letters fhould be infpected by one of his officers, and be returned to him after they had been perused by those to whom they were addrefled. After the revolution, they fell into the hands of the editor; though by what means he has not informed us.

We have no doubt of the authenticity of thefe letters; for the ftyle of MIRABEAU is not eafily imitated. Most of them are addrefied to Madame De Monnier; and, however improper we may think his connection with her, we cannot help being pleafed with the manly and tender affection which runs through them; though we wonder at his being fo unreferved in mentioning his former amours to her, and in profeffing his contempt for the fex in general. The letters to M. Le Noir and to his father are well written, and difplay great firmness of mind. In circumstances, which one might think would deprefs the boldeft fpirit, he appears undifmayed, and difdains to make any conceffions unworthy of his character: when the mifery of his fituation, aggravated by nephritic pains, and the fears of approaching blindnefs, forces complaints from him, there is nothing unmanly in his expreffions; and, in most of his epiftles, we are aftonished at his cheerfulness and vivacity. Thofe in particular which he wrote to Sophia, to his father, mother, and brother, with the intent that they should be deli-. vered to them after his death, are fome of the most eloquent and affecting which we have ever seen. In fhort, with all his faults, MIRABEAU appears to have had many good as well as great qualities; and it is certain that his death was one of the deepest misfortunes which at that time could happen to his country. A proper felection made from his papers might have been an entertaining and interefling publication: but, from a want of diverfity in the fubjects, as well as from a number of minute

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détails, of no importance to any except the corresponding parties, it is evident that the perufal of four volumes of private letters, however well written, muft, to many readers, prove a tedious and unpleafing task.

ART. III. Afiatic Refearches. Vol. II.

[Article continued from the Appendix to our laft Vol. p. 559.]

WE

E now proceed to the feventh anniversary difcourfe, delivered 25th Feb. 1790, by the Prefident.

The fubjects of this difcourfe are the Chinefe. Sir William Jones first takes a view of the boundaries of China;

An empire,' he obferves, of which I do not mean to affign the precife limits, but which we may confider, for the purpose of this differtation, as embraced on two fides by Tartary and India, while the ocean feparates its other fides from various Afiatic illes of great importance in the commercial fyftem of Europe: annexed to that immenfe tract of land is the peninfula of Corea, which a vast Oval bafon divides from Nifon or Japan, a celebrated and imperial ifland, bearing in arts and in arms, in advantage of fituation but not in felicity of government, a pre-eminence among eastern kingdoms analogous to that of Britain among the nations of the weit. So many climates are included in fo prodigious an area, that, while the principal emporium of China lies nearly under the tropick, its metropolis enjoys the temperature of Samarkand; fuch too is the diverity of foil in its fifteen provinces, that, while fome of them are exquifitely fertile, richly cultivated, and extremely populous, others are barren and rocky, dry and unfruitful, with plains as wild or mountains as rugged as any in Scythia, and thofe either wholly deferted, or peopled by favage hordes, who, if they be not ftill independent, have been very lately fubdued by the perfidy, rather than the valour, of a monarch, who has perpetuated his own breach of faith in a Chinese poem, of which I have seen a tranfiation.'

Although the term China be well known to this people, it is not the name by which they denominate their country: they call it fometimes Chúm cuë, or the Central Kingdom; and, at other times, they diftinguish it by the words Tien-hia, or What is under Heaven, meaning All that is valuable on Earth:-They defcribe themselves as the people of HUN, or fome other illuftrious family. As it is not the intent of this discourse to inquire into the character of the Chinese, with a view either to deprefs or aggrandize their fame, the Prefident confines himfelf to the difcuffion of a question connected with his former difcourfes: Whence came the fingular people, who long had governed China, before they were conquered by the Tartars ?" On this head, four fuppofitions have been advanced :