at a due distance. Vanity is too apt to prevail in all of us, and in all countries. To the improvement of Frenchmen it seems not abfolutely neceffary that it fhould be taught upon fyftem. But it is plain that the prefent rebellion was its legitimate offspring, and it is piously fed by that rebellion, with a daily dole.

If the fyftem of inftitution, recommended by the affembly, is falfe and theatric, it is becaufe their fyftem of government is of the fame character. To that, and to that alone, it is ftrictly conformable. To understand either, we muft connect the morals with the politics of the legiflators. Your practical philofophers, fyftematic in every thing, have wifely began at the fource. As the relation between parents and children is the first among the elements of vulgar, natural morality, they ere& ftatues to a wild, ferocious, low-minded, hard-hearted father, of fine general feelings; a lover of his kind, but a hater of his kindred. Your mafters reject the duties of this vulgar relation, as contrary to liberty; as not founded in the focial compact; and not binding according to the rights of men; because the relation is not, of courfe, the refult of free election; never fo on the fide of the children, not always on the part of the parents.

The next relation which they regenerate by their ftatues to Rouffeau, is that which is next in fanctity to that of a father. They differ from thofe oldfashioned thinkers, who confidered pedagogues as fober and venerable characters, and allied to the parental. The moralifts of the dark times, preceptorem fancti voluere parentis effe loco. In this age of light, they teach the people, that preceptors ought to be in the place of gallants. They fyftematically corrupt a very corruptible race, (for fome time a growing nuifance amongst you) a fet of pert, petulant, literators, to whom, instead of their proper, but fevere, unoftentatious duties, they affign the brilliant part of men of wit and pleasure, of gay, young, military

fparks, and danglers at toilets. They call on the rifing generation in France, to take a fympathy in the adventures and fortunes, and they endeavour to engage their fenfibility on the fide of pedagogues, who betray the most awful family trufts, and vitiate their female pupils. They teach the people, that the debauchers of virgins, almoft in the arms of their parents, may be fafe inmates in their houfe, and even fit guardians of the honour of thofe hufbands who fucceed legally to the office which the young literators had pre-occupied, without afking leave of law or conscience.

Thus they difpofe of all the family relations of parents and children, hufbands and wives. Through this fame instructor, by whom they corrupt the morals, they corrupt the tafte. Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and fecondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulation of life. A moral tafte is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with fomething like the blandifhments of pleafure; and it infinitely abates the evils of vice. Rouffeau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally deftitute of tafte in any fenfe of the word. Your mafters, who are his fcholars, conceive that all refinement has an ariftocratic character. The last age had exhaufted all its powers in giving a grace and noblenefs to our natural appetites, and in raifing them into higher class and order than seemed juftly to belong to them. Through Rouffeau, your mafters are refolved to deftroy thefe aristocratic prejudices. The paffion called love, has fo general and powerful an influence; it makes fo much of the entertainment, and indeed fo much the occupation of that part of life which decides the character for ever, that the mode and the principles on which it engages the fympathy, and ftrikes the imagination, become of the utmost importance to the morals and manners of every fociety. Your rulers were well aware of this;

and in their fyftem of changing your manners to accommodate them to their politics, they found nothing fo convenient as Rouffeau. Through him they teach men to love after the fafhion of philofophers; that is, they teach to men, to Frenchmen, a love without gallantry; a love without any thing of that fine flower of youthfulness and gentility, which places it, if not among the virtues, among the ornaments of life. Inftead of this paffion, naturally allied to grace and manners, they infufe into their youth an unfafhioned, indelicate, four, gloomy, ferocious medley of pedantry and lewdnefs; of metaphyfical fpeculations, blended with the coarfeft fenfuality. Such is the general morality of the paffions to be found in their famous philofopher, in his famous work of philofophic gallantry, the Nouvelle Eloife.

When the fence from the gallantry of preceptors is broken down, and your families are no longer protected by decent pride, and falutary domeftic prejudice, there is but one ftep to a frightful corruption. The rulers in the national affembly are in good hopes that the females of the firft families in France may become an eafy prey to dancing mafters, fidlers, pattern-drawers, frifeurs, and valets de chambre, and other active citizens of that defcription, who having the entry into your houfes, and being half domefticated by their fituation, may be blended with you by regular and irregular relations. By a law, they have made thefe people your equals. By adopting the fentiments of Rouffeau, they have made them your rivals. In this manner, these great legiflators complete their plan of levelling, and eftablish their rights of men on a fure foundation.

I am certain that the writings of Rouffeau lead directly to this kind of fhameful evil. I have often wondered how he comes to be fo much more admired and followed on the continent than he is here. Perhaps a fecret charm in the language may have its fhare in this extraordinary difference. Letter to Member of the National Affembly.

ROUSSEAU.

MR. HUME told me, that he had from Rouffeau himself the fecret of his principles of compofition. That acute, though eccentric, obferver had perceived, that to frike and intereft the public, the marvellous muft be produced; that the marvellous of the heathen mythology had Tong lince foit its effect; that giants, magicians, fairies, and heroes of romance which fucceeded, had exhaufted the portion of credulity which belonged to their age; that now nothing was left to a writer but that fpecies of the marvellous, which might ftill be produced, and with as great an effect as ever, though in another way; that is, the marvellous in life, in manners, in characters, and in extraordinary fituations, giving rise to new and unlooked-for ftrokes in politics and morals. I believe, that were Rouffeau alive, and in one of his lucid intervals, he would be fhocked at the practical phrenzy of his fcholars, who in their paradoxes are fervile imitators; and even in their incredulity difcover an implicit faith.Reflections

on the Revolution in France.

SAVILLE, (SIR GEORGE.)

WHEN an act of great and fignal humanity was to be done, and done with all the weight and authority that belonged to it, the world could caft its eyes upon none but him (Sir George.) I hope that few things, which have a tendency to bless or to adorn life, have wholly escaped my obfervation in my paffage through it. I have fought the acquaintance of that gentleman, and have feen him in all fituations. He is a true genius; with an understanding vigorous, and. acute, and refined, and diftinguifhing even to excefs; and illuminated with a moft undounbed, peculiar, and original caft of imagination. With thefe he poffeffes many external and inftrumental advantages; and he

makes use of them all. His fortune is among the largeft; a fortune which, wholly unincumbered, as it is, with one fingle charge from luxury, vanity, or excefs, finks under the benevolence of its difpenfer. This private benevolence, expanding itself into patriotifm, renders his whole being the eftate of the public, in which he has not referved a peculium for himfelf of profit, diverfion, or relaxation. During the feffion, the first in, and the laft out of the house of commons; he paffes from the fenate to the camp; and, feldom feeing the feat of his ancestors, he is always in parliament to ferve his country, or in the field to defend it. But in all well-wrought compofitions, fome particulars ftand out more eminently than the reft; and the things which will carry his name to pofterity, are his two bills; I mean that for a limitation of the claims of the crown upon landed eftates; and this for the relief of the Roman Catholics. By the former, he has emancipated property; by the latter, he has quieted confcience; and by both, he has taught that grand leffon to government and fubject,---no longer to regard each other as adverse parties.Speech at Bristol previous to the Election.

SAXONY (ELECTOR OF.)

THE present Elector is a Prince of a safe and quiet temper, of great prudence and goodness. He knows that in the actual ftate of things, not the power and refpect belonging to Sovereigns, but their very exiftence depends on a reasonable frugality. It is very certain that not one Sovereign in Europe can either promife for the continuance of his authority in a state of indigence and infolvency, or dares to venture on a new impofition to relieve himfelf. Without abandoning wholly the ancient magnificence of his Court, the Elector has conducted his affairs with infinitely more œconomy than any of his predeceffors, fo as to restore his finances beyond what was thought pof