For fatire to friends and to foes is such food, As, provided 'tis fpiteful, will always be good *. An anecdote is inferted at the end of the eloge on the Abbé Abeille, which ought to have had some effect on fatirical epigrammatifts. This Abbé, who was a kind of amateur among authors, had written feveral plays, which had been received with various fuccefs. Being at Rouen, in the faite of the Marefchal de Luxembourg, Governor of that city, he found there a poet who had written a very abufive epigram on the failure of bis laft play. The Abbé, inftead of fhunning him, or returning the blow, made him a vifit, and prefented him to the Governor, with fuch encomiums as gained him a very flattering and unexpected reception. At length the poet was fo penetrated with the Abbé's zeal to serve him, that he cried out in the violence of remorse," Ah Sir! what an uncommon kind of vengeance you are exercifing on me! and what a leffon you have given me! It will completely cure me of fatire as long as I live." The writer of the epigram, who communicated the anecdote to M. D'ALEMBERT, told him, that though he had often related the ftory to young poets, in hopes of checking their rage for this wretched and mischievous fpecies of writing, yet he believed the adventure had never been of use to any but himself. In his notes on the Eloge de Regnier Defmarais, M. D'ALEMBERT relates a circumftance that will doubtless surprise fome of our readers. The learned Menage, author of the celebrated Etymological Dictionary Dell' Origini della Lingua Italiana (where he undertook to refute fome of the natives themselves in particular refinements of the language), durft not venture to fpeak Italian, though he was much in the practice of writing it. "There is a great difference," fays he, "between knowing Italian, and knowing Italian words;" and he only ranked his knowlege in the latter class. He added, with equal courage and modefty for a man of erudition, that "it was the fame with ancient idioms; that the beft modern fcholars could only fatter themselves with knowing a few Latin and Greek words." Among the notes in Vol. III. on the Eloge of the celebrated Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambray, is inferted an inedited letter addreffed, by that moft worthy prelate, to Lewis XIV. about the year 1694, wherein he predicts all the calamities : * M. D'Alembert fays, I am far from wishing wholly to deprive mediocrity of this refource, or the public of the pleasure which fuch writings may afford them all must live; and the world must be amused.' The late fecretary of the academy was more charitable than Compte D'Argenfon, the fecretary of ftate, who when the Abbé Desfontaines was taken up for writing libels, and faid in excufe I muft live, Sir' I fee no neceffity for it,' replied the Count. which afterward befel that prince in his reverse of fortune. Whether this letter, of which D'ALEMBERT had feen the original, was ever perufed by the monarch, is uncertain; but it is written with the zeal, eloquence, and freedom of an ambaffador from God, pleading before an earthly fovereign the cause of his people. There is an energy and a vigour in this letter, without deviating from the refpect due to royalty or truth, that renders it fit for the perufal of every vain, fplendid, and ambitious monarch in the univerfe. The miferies which Lewis bad brought on his people, by his ambition, luxury, pomp, profufion, perfecution, and even conquefts, are related, and cenfured with fuch freedom and undiffembled indignation, as kings but feldom meet with from fo dutiful, virtuous, and eloquent a fubject. Unluckily, Lewis XIV. did not love Fenelon, and only regarded him as a bel efprit, a name by which he affected to call him. Madame de Maintenon, with more penetration, perfuaded this prince, in fpite of his prejudice, to appoint him preceptor to his grandson, the Duke of Burgundy. In the end, both Madame de Maintenon and the monarch repented of this choice: Madame de Maintenon, becaule when the preceptor was confulted about the King's marriage, he diffuaded him from it; and Lewis, because he foon had the mortification to find, by the principles which Fenelon instilled into the Duke of Burgundy, that his education was an indirect fatire on his own reign. But the fource of this repentance was a strong proof of the worthinefs of their choice. The gentle and benignant author of Telemachus had ideas of government and civil liberty that were not likely to please fo depotic a prince as Lewis: "A wife fovereign (fays he) thould only wish to be the guardian and difpenfer of the laws, under the guidance of a fupreme council to temper his authority." And he quoted, in fupport of his principles, the example of two of the best kings which the hiftory of France can boaft. Lewis XII. abfolutely for bad his parliament to regifter any edicts that appeared to them unjuft; and Henry IV. who in 1596 convened an affembly of notables, opened it with the following memorable fpeech from the throne: "I have affembled you here to receive your advice, and to put myself under your tuition! 'Tis a with, perhaps, which few victorious princes, with grey beards, like myfelf, would form; but the defire of rendering my people happy, makes the measure eafy and ho nourable." We meet with much entertainment in M. D'ALEMBERT'S account of La Motte. This writer, the friend of Fontenelle, and the opponent of Madame Dacier, in the famous difpute concerning the ancients and moderns, which occupied the learned throughout Europe about the beginning of the prefent century, had the courage, during the life of Defpreaux, to communicate to him fome of his objections to Homer. "I remember (lays he) in mentioning to him one day the ludicrous and indecent manner in which the bard had employed his divinities, that he difdained to have recourfe to allegories in defending him; but confided to me a very fingular idea, which feems peculiar to himself, though, however perfuaded he may have been of its truth, he never ventured to publifh it: he supposed that Homer, fearing to tire with an uninterrupted tiffue of tragical events, in the description of battles, and the fatal effects of buman paffions, had enlivened his poem at the expence of the gods themselves, by affigning to them the comic characters in the interludes with which he had furnished his fable for the amufement of his readers between the acts." Though this folution of the difficulty was far from fatisfying La Motte, he did not venture to publish either his own Iliad, or his criticisms on Homer, and the ancients in general, till after the death of Boileau; and he then had the critical Amazon, Madame Dacier, to encounter, who attacked him with fo much acrimony, that the moft zealous admirers of the ancients were afhamed of her violence, and exclaimed, You injure our caufe by fanatic excess ; You'd have serv'd it much more by defending it lefs. Perrault, La Motte, and Fontenelle, the modern chiefs, had more wit than talents for poetry. But talents and taste are different attributes. A man of tafte may difcover defects in a picture or a poem, without being able to ufe a pencil, or produce good verfes. Indeed, after the death of Boileau, the moderns feem to have had all the wit on their fide in France, while the ancients, however good their caufe, were but awkwardly defended. Boileau himself was too much enlightened not to allow that the apologifts for antiquity were not always worthy either of the gods to whom they facrificed, or the chiefs under whofe banners they fought. He laughed at the fanaticifm of Dacier, a mere tranflator and pedant. "By depreciating the ancients (fays he) you debafe the only coin in his coffers." He had not more refpect for another enthufiaft, who, in the heat of the difpute concerning the Iliad, had made a vow to read every day two thoufand verfes of Homer, as a reparation for the injuries which he had received from infidels, and as an amende honorable to appeafe his manes. Dacier, in receiving M. de Boze into the French Academy as fucceffor to Fenelon, attacked thofe who had refufed adoration to the ancients with great heat, in his official difcourfe. › La Motte anfwered him at the fame meeting with his fable of the Crabfif Philofopher, who advifes his companions to try to move forward, like other animals, that their limbs might have the benefit of their eyes. But he was treated with the utmost contempt by the old Crabs for making fo abfurd a propofition: The fage was hiff'd from place to place, By all who gloried in the grace Let's keep her full in view. The fables of La Motte have neither the wit nor the original humour which abound in thofe of La Fontaine ; but they are replete with good fenfe, knowlege of mankind, and philofophical maxims; many of which are become proverbial in France. Such as: It is fafer to pleafe than to ferve mankind.-L'Ennui is the child of uniformity-Hatred is watchful, friendship drowsy. Whoe'er corrects and gives no pain Of head and heart, may well be vain. On Alexander the Great, after his conquefts: As yet you pow'r alone can plead ; At the dress of a fage the Grand Turk made a pother; His fables, however, were feverely criticifed, even on the ftage, by Fufilier, in a comedy called Momus turned Fabulift. This piece ran 30 nights when it first came out, though it was little noticed on its revival in 1745, long after the death of La Motte. But, fays M. D'ALEMBERT, the occafion was forgotten, and public malignity had no living victim to facrifice.' La Motte is faid to have been the beft profe writer of all the French poets, except Voltaire. The politenefs with which he anfwered Mad. Dacier's abufive addrefs, gave occafion to the faying, that he had been treated à la Grecque, and the lady, à la Françoife. His prefaces are regarded as mafter-pieces of elegance; Uu3 and and his Eloge on Lewis XIV. which he pronounced in the French Academy after the death of that Prince, is the only one of all his funeral orations that has not been long forgotten; though all the pulpits in the kingdom refounded with the fame praises of this monarch at his death, with which he had been intoxicated when living. La Motte had the peculiar art of reading his works in so captivating a manner at the French Academy, or rather reciting them (for when between 30 and 40 years old he loft his fight), that those productions which were afterward the moft feverely criticifed, were heard with rapture. His enemies applied to him, on these occafions, an epigram which had been made on St. Amand, who probably read his bad verfes in the fame feducing manner as that with which La Motte had transformed medio crity into excellence. Thy verfes, pronounc'd by thyfelf, are enchanting; Without thee, they're nonfenfe indeed; As thy arts of recital fo often are wanting, Write fomething which others can read. His memory was fo tenacious, that when a young author had read to him a new tragedy for his approbation, he told him that his piece abounded with beauties, but he was forry to say that the fineft fcene in it was stolen. The poet, extremely furprifed and fhocked at this charge, begged him to authenticate his affertion; when La Motte, after a fhort enjoyment of the author's aftonishment, cried out, "Come, come, do not be difcouraged; your fcene was fo beautiful, that I could not help getting it by heart." La Motte was fo patient under abuse, that Gacon, the moft virulent of all his enemies, unable to extort a reply to any one of the many fcurrilous pamphlets which he had written against him, told the poet's friends, that he would get nothing by his forbearance; for, fays he, "I am going to publish a work intitled, An anfwer to the filence of M. de la Motte" Having received a flap on the face for treading on a man's toes in a crowd, he only faid, "Why do you put yourself in a paffion? I am blind."—It was the determination of his friend Fontenelle, never to difpute. "Every body has his way of thinking, and every body is in the right." And as he was averfe to difputation, he was ftill more fo to quarrelling. “Men (fays be) are filly, vain, and fpiteful; but I am obliged to live with them, and I have long known on what conditions." La Motte lived in ftrict friendship with Fontenelle till the time of his death, in 1731, at 59 years of age. We must now quit, with regret, M. D'ALEMBERT's agreeable work, though we have advanced no further than the 4th volume. Indeed the eminence and various talents of the per ions |