"The exact science, and especially physicks, have annihilated poetry; general ideas have been substituted in the place of the pleasing fictions of antiquity; abstractions instead of images; maxims and sentences instead of a picture of the passions such is the character of the poems which we behold born one day, in order to die the next. All these causes have produced the decadency of literature. Who knows what may be the influence of the approaching evolution on the republick of letters? We have constantly perceived, that the agitation of political convulsions has always been followed by great success in the arts and sciences.

"There are a great number of literary men in this capital, who live, and will perhaps ever remain, unknown, notwithstanding their efforts at celebrity. Many of the poets, who compose verses in despite of Apollo, stand a chance of dying from hunger, while they in their turn make their readers die from mere ennui: this however is a necessary effect, arising from the progress of knowledge, and the success of genius; one good work produces a thousand monsters in imitation of it. Out of ten theatrical pieces brought forward annually at the theatre Francois, there are not two that have any thing like a complete success. The vanity of these men is intolerable! I listened to the tragedy of one, the plot of which was founded on the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and really thought it pass able,until the author hinted to me how superiour it was to that of Berenice.

"I have formed an acquaintance with the Abbe Delille, on whom

I wait at nine o'clock, in the morning, as it is necessary to catch him on his rising from bed; for he has no sooner composed five or six verses, than he jumps into his cab. riolet, and drives about during the whole day. He is a little frisky

man, whose eyes sparkle with wit and fire. He is in a continual agi. tation; lively, roguish, and at home, the best creature in the world. I had already heard him recite some morsels of his poem on the Imagina. tion, at the Academy, and he has since favoured me with a variety of passages. It is wit rather than imagination that has guided his pencil. This new poem contains more beauties than that called Les Jardins,' but they are beauties of the same kind. A soft melancholy is spread over both these compositions, and each of them is strictly consonant with moral propriety. As he does not commit any of his verses to paper, but carries them all in his head, they are thought to be extempora neous; the fire darting from his eye, the expression of his countenance, and his quick and apposite movements, while he recites them, at once announce and produce enthusiasm, so one is tempted to exclaim, Deus ecce, Deus!

"He tells me that he adores the country, and is passionately addicted to solitude; yet he is constantly in the world. A single anecdote will fully depict his malignity. When his Georgicks were published, a sorry writer, called Rosset, happened to compose a poem on agriculture, in which he mentioned Delille with scorn. It was at that time the fashion to make cabriolets out of pasteboard. The Abbe accordingly employed the works of his rival, which were rotting at his bookseller's, and while driving along in his carriage, jocosely exclaimed, I tread Rosset

under my feet; after which I drag him through the mud!'

"M. Goldoni, the authour of about forty comedies, or Italian dramas, which have had but little reputation among foreigners, and also of an excellent French comedy Le Bourrs bienfaisant, is a gay old man of eighty, with more good nature than wit, and who, notwithstanding his advanced age, still thinks he has strength sufficient left, to finish a piece entitled L'Avare fastueux.

"Roucher, chanter of the Months, appears to be a poet of an amiable character, attached to his friends, and replete with sensibility. At first rated above his real merits, his reputation has since been permitted to decline below them; the praise he once received from the publick, makes him now protest against its present injustice. He is busied on an epick poem: Gustavus Vasa is his hero; the subject is a good one, for it affords great actions, a new scene, and novel manners.

"Roucher lately read to us some admirable verses, written by him, on the death of the interesting and respectable Dupaty, too early snatched away from letters and humanity. He also told me a curious anecdote : The famous work, entitled Systeme de la Nature, attributed to so many different persons. is the production of Baron d'Holbach, revised by Diderot. Several persons were in the secret, and what is equal to an eulogium on men of letters, they never allowed the least iota to transpire until after the death of the Baron. D'Alembert considered this book as irrefutable; a circumstance less likely to constitute a panegyrick of the work itself, than a satire on the philosophy of D'Alembert. It appears to me, that every man who draws his arguments from Spi

nosa, may easily achieve any of the

other treatises on atheism.

"I often see a man of a most amiable character, M. Bernardin de St. Pierre. Read his work, entitled Etudes de la Nature, and you will discover many interesting passages in it. His physical hypotheses border a little on the chimerical. He deems himself able to refute the Newtonian system, and explain the phenomenon of the tides, by the melting of the polar ice. But those parts in which he treats of the happiness of man, the vices of society, and where he so admirably explains the contrarieties of our nature, are replete with novel ideas, described in excellent language. The man himself affects one by his simplicity; he possesses the manner and the simplicity of a child.

"His misfortunes, and the solitude in which he lives, have given a slight colouring of melancholy to his conversation, which is sage and instructive, without being brilliant or witty. He lives at a distance from the noise of Paris, like a true philosopher, in a little house, which appertains to him, and where he passes away his time in reading, meditation, the cultivation of his garden, and the care of his birds and his bees. He was intimately acquainted with J. J. Rousseau. We lately spent a most delicious day in his company, at the Pre St. Gervaise, a walk, a little way out of town, which Rousseau had taken a great fancy to, and whither he often repaired to enjoy his reveries.

"M. de St. Pierre was at Berlin after the Seven Years' War, and was on the point of entering into our service. Berlin pleased him exceedingly; in the third volume of his Etudes, he has presented the world with a charming eulogium on

the domestick virtues, and agreeable society of the inhabitants. "You are too friendly to female authors, to pardon my silence respecting them. I assure you, that they are far more modest and agreeable than those, who, without being able to write, pretend sometimes to know and to decide on every thing. Madame le Comtesse de B***, who has composed some very pretty verses, does not want wit, and speaks but little of herself. The first day I was introduced to her, she was sitting on a sofa, in her cabinet, and had not disdained the cares of her toilette. Around her fluttered a swarm of wits, learned men, real or pretended philosophers, among others, the advocate B****, who pretends that all languages are derived from the Bas-Breton, and who boasts of knowing a great number, although he is unacquainted with Greek.

"Shall I speak to you of Mademoiselle de Keralio, who in her history of Queen Elizabeth, seems to have almost abjured her sex in the perpetuity of her erudition, whose amiable vivacity is singularly contrasted with her works? Of the Baroness de Vaize, who has translated the English Plutarch, and composed several original works, which she seems to have forgotten? Of Madame Monnet, author of several charming Oriental tales, and whose renown, perhaps, has not reached you?

"But I pass lightly over all the stars of inferiour magnitude to come to Mademoiselle Clairon,* the dowager of the French theatre, and in whose person I seem to behold all the queens of the French tragedies united. She still preserves in her own house, that grave and majestick

This famous actress is since dead.

tone she formerly exhibited on the theatre; and it is comical enough to hear her command her domesticks, as if she were still a sovereign of Carthage. She speaks admirably, perhaps too well for conversation. Accustomed to reign over the stage, she has been spoiled by the applauses of the publick, and the compliments of her adorers; it is no wonder, therefore, that she does not love contradiction. She read a work to us, composed by herself; the subject is "declamation :" and in it she traces, not only the accomplishments but the studies, which an actress ought to pursue, if ambition, and the desire to excel, be the ruling passion.

"Towards the conclusion she points out, with a masterly hand, the differences between the characters of Monimia, Paulina, and Roxana; there is a passage truly eloquent relative to Electra. She recites with such exquisite truth, that I thought I beheld the princess embracing the urn of Orestes; the tears instantly rushed into my eyes. She says that the actress who performs the part of Phedra ought to assume the air and manner of a sleep-walker; and, in truth, this is the idea excited by the following charming line:

'Ah! que ne suis-je assise a l'ombre des forets!'

"In general, I find this work superiour to that written on the same subject by Engel; there is less depth, indeed, but it is far better fitted for practice.

"I have been thrice present at the sittings of the French Academy. The apartments in the Louvre are small, and the situation is inferiour to that of Berlin. The walls are ornamented with the busts of all the great men, who were formerly mem

bers; and it may be truly said, that the dead are superiour to the living. Several of those who have chairs there at present, are indebted solely to their intrigues. During the lifetime of Voltaire, it was necessary to obtain a brevet of irreligion, prior to that of an academician; and since that period the candidate found it necessary to bow before the literary despotism, which D'Alembert exercised during the latter part of his life.

"The last day I was present M. Nicolai, president of the chamber of Accounts, was admitted. The benches were occupied by two o'clock, and two thirds of the assembly consisted of ladies. At four the academicians entered in a body, with the new member at their head. I saw Le Sedaine, the herald of the comick opera; Gaillard, the historian of Charlemagne, who has neither inherited the pen of Livy nor of Tacitus. He dared publickly to compliment the debaucheries of Richelieu, under the name of chivalrous gallantry. I also saw the fantastical Le Mierre, whose verses resemble the funereal screeches of the bird of night.

"After these appeared the ornaments of the academy, Target and Seguier, two advocates who have consecrated their talents to the defence of justice; Bailly, whose fruitful imagination has created a hyperborean people, and who has decked up an ingenious paradox with the charms of elocution; Boufflers, the favourite of the muses; Saint Lambert, the chanter of the Seasons, and with whom the spring and summer smack a little of the frost of winter; Florian, an agreeable imitator, but not the rival of Gesner.

"M. Nicolai read a discourse, in which he was pleased to term M. de la Harpe, the French Sophocles. Vol. V. No. VI.

2 N

In the customary, but ridiculous eulogium on Louis XIV. and Cardinal Richelieu, he spoke of the latter as a powerful genius, who had subjugated Europe, France, and even his own sovereign.' M. de Rubliers, a man of great knowledge and talents, and who contributed not a little to the new law, in favour of the protestants, by means of his remarks on the revocation of the Edict of Nantz, and his connexion with the Baron de Breteuil, made the reply. He afterwards delivered an eulogy on the Marquis de Chastellux, to whom the new academician succeeded, and he justly praised that humanity, which had dictated his charming work, 'On publick Happiness.' This treatise, in which the author endeavours to establish that literature and the sciences are necessary to the welfare of states, gave rise to the Phocion' of the Abbe Mably, who, following the principles of the ancient legislators, refutes the opinion, and attributes every thing to morals. The Abbe is not eloquent, but energetick; and his two posthumous works,

Les Observations sur l'Histoire de France,' and 'Le Traitè des Droits et des Devoirs du Citoyen,' are his best.

"The academy of sciences is far more celebrated than the French academy, more especially since it has enriched itself at our expense, and possesses M. de la Grange. La Place calculates the motions of the celestial bodies, while Lalande and Messier observe them. Fourcroy, De Machy, and Lavoisier decompose terrestrial bodies, and while D'Aubenton and de la Cepede write natural history, Charles enriches natural philosophy by means of new experiments in the same manner as Teisseir and Le Roi confer benefits on meteorology, through the medium of new observations.

Notwith

"The Academies, however, are no longer what they were formerly, a point of union for the thoughts of great men, and the focus in which were concentrated all the scattered rays of genius, in order to be reflected with greater force. standing this observation, the Academy of sciences is far more useful than its elder sister the French Academy, not only on account of the nature of the questions it proposes, the direction and encouragement it affords to talents, but also by the assistance it presents to agriculture and the arts, in facilitating labours of every kind, and inventing or simplifying machines, in order to economize human labour.

"Condorcet, in his quality of secretary, after having adjudged the prizes and proposed new questions, read the eulogy of M. Turgot, brother to the celebrated minister of the same name. The subject did not afford much scope for talent, and the manner in which it was written was far from being interesting. Condorcet has almost entirely abandoned the exact sciences, in order to devote himself entirely to politicks. He is much occupied about publick affairs, and is not a little chagrined at not being a deputy to the national assembly. His physiognomy is noble, and his eye betokens thought. The walls of this, like those of the French Academy, are decorated with busts. One there beholds those of Cassini, the Marquis de l'Hospital, Fontenelle, Maupertuis, La Condamine, &c. I greatly approve of those monuments erected to great men in the very sanctuary of science; it is natural that they should preside over their labours, and become the tutelary deities of the temple. I wish that the academicians of Berlin were al

so surrounded by Euler, Lambert, Margraff, Sulzer, and that the statue of Leibnitz were placed in the midst of the hall.

"The Louvre is no longer the abode of kings, it is abandoned to the academies, to the men of letters, whom the king permits to lodge there, and to the archives of the crown. This noble edifice communicates with the palace of the Thuilleries by means of an immense gallery. What a pity that the gallery intended to correspond with it has never been constructed, and that, instead of building new castles, they have never finished this superb monument. The celebrated colonnade is superiour to the reputation it enjoys, and never did architecture speak to my imagination with more force. What great and majestick propor tions! What noble simplicity! Every time I behold it I am irritated at Boileau, and indignant at the satire with which he unjustly overwhelms the illustrious Perrault. In truth, if genius consists in tracing a grand outline, and in affecting the sensibility, I hesitate between the merits of the author of the satire and those of the author of the colonnade. The gallery of communication between the Louvre and the Thuilleries ought to be employed as a museum. They are now busied in collecting all the pictures of the great masters, and placing the antiquities, and the statues of all the men of genius who have done honour to France.

"Besides the two I have already mentioned, there are a couple more academies in this capital, that of Inscriptions and that of Painting. The members of the former support, encourage, and facilitate the study of the ancients in France. The Abbe Barthelemy, M. Dussault, and some others of them, knew how