the troops of the republic. He was high in the favour of this General, who raised him to the command of a regiment, which promotion he appears well to have merited. The Prince of Orange, about this time, having been invested with the Stadtholderate, the Count was also honoured with the confidence of his Serene Highness.

When at the close of the war he returned to Sweden, Count H. was married to the mistress of his heart, the beautiful daughter of Admiral Wachmeister; and he settled in the country. I loved,' he tells us, rural life, to which I had been habituated during a part of my early years; and I availed myself of its sweet tranquillity in order to improve my estates. I thus enjoyed seven whole years, free from the tumult of the world and the din of arms, amid which my life till that period had been almost entirely passed.'-His friends, however, remon strated with him on this inactivity; and he says that, in obedience to their repeated representations, and against his own inciaation, he quitted his retirement, and sought professional employment from the king, who placed him in his guards, with the rank of Colonel.

History has recorded the intemperate and indecent proceedings of the Diet of 1756. The unsuccessful attempts of the friends of the monarch to emancipate him, and the tragical consequences which followed, are generally known. The Comte DE HORDT was warmly attached to his sovereign, and espoused his cause against those who sought to annihilate his power and insult his dignity: but he appears to have been adverse to all rash councils, and to have been desirous not to precipitate changes which he saw that time was greatly favouring. Though he seems not to be chargeable with any blameable want of prudence, he was involved in the insurrection, and was obliged to fly for his life from Sweden, where several of his associates lost their heads on the scaffold. So implacable did the Diet become, that the Swedish ministers were instructed to reclaim the fugitives from every court in Europe; and a price being set on the head of the Count, Denmark, Hamburgh, the United Provinces, and the Emperor, refused him an asylum: but in Swisserland he found refuge. I he Grand Duke of Russia, afterward the ill-fated Peter III., at length invited him in the most handsome terms to take up his residence in Holstein, where he was joined by his family.

While the Count was in Holstein, the celebrated confederacy was forming against the great Frederic; and the com. mencement of that unequal struggle took place, which secured such renown to the Prussian monarch, and which let loose in the north of Germany a flood of calamities. It was natural

1

that

that a mind so formed and so endowed as that of M. DE HORDT should cherish partiality for the king of Prussia; and his Majesty having made advances to engage him in his service at the end of the glorious campaign of 1757, they were readily accepted. He had not long moved in this career, however, before an unfortunate incident placed him a prisoner in the hands of the Russians. Differences in regard to the treatment of prisoners having arisen between the two courts, the Count (it may be conjectured) had the misfortune to be selected as the instance in which reprisals were to be made, for what was considered as unwarrantable treatment in the case of a Russian officer in the hands of the king of Prussia; or it may be that the sufferings of the gallant Swede were occasioned by applications from his court, on account of his share in the ineffectual attempt to liberate his sovereign. Whatever was the cause, he was transported to Petersburgh, threatened with imprisonment for life, and actually was confined in a close apartment in the citadel of that city for more than twenty-five months; denied the use of books, pen and ink, and cut off from all commu nication with the rest of the world, his friends being all the time ignorant of his fate. The spirited conduct of his Prussian Majesty, in throwing a Russian General and a Swedish Colonel, who were his prisoners, into close confinement, at length determined the Czarina to liberate her prisoner: but death intervened between her resolve and its execution.

The

accession of the new Emperor, however, soon set him free.We here meet with a very interesting statement of the first : proceedings of that ardent and ill judging Prince; and many proofs are given of his childish and weak admiration of the Prussian hero.

From the author's account of himself while shut up in the Russian fortress, we must infer that he was of an enviable temperament. Secluded from books, (except a few works of devotion which he had retained, and which were not taken. from him,) and unable to furnish himself with a musical instrument, he continued to live, he says, without any kind of amuse ment or recreation :

My life was very dull and monotonous: but I discovered that the effect of habit is great on the human mind. So tedious and weari some did the first three months of my captivity appear to me, that I sincerely vished myself rid of the burthen of life: but the three subsequen found infinitely less painful. I portioned out my day in the follow manner: I rose at seven in the morning; and my breakfast occupie e till eight. I then dressed. I next read for an hour. Having finished my reading, I walked up and down my chamber for two hours, sometimes agitated by gloomy forebodings, at other times buoyed up by fond hopes. At one, a soldier en guaid brought me my

dinner,

dinner, and I staid two hours at table, dividing my dinner with my servants, who sat in a corner of the room, and with whom I conversed in order to kill time. At three I took a cup of coffee. From three to five I walked up and down in my chamber, as well to guard against gloomy thoughts as to preserve my health. At five I began reading which I continued till eight. A light supper terminated the day, and at ten 1 went to bed. Such was the occupation of cach day while my captivity lasted.'

On his return, he was received in the most kind manner by his royal master; and he resumed his military duties during the remainder of the war, in which he acquitted himself with his usual ability. On one occasion, he received a grievous wound in the arm, which had nearly occasioned the total loss of it. At the close of the war, his regiment, being a new one, was disbanded, very much to his mortification; and his zealous interference in behalf of his officers on this occasion is highly creditable to his sense of honor and the feelings of his heart. He was himself raised to the rank of Major-General in the army, with a liberal pension; and he has since been promoted to be a Lieutenant-General. His turn for agricultural employments induced him to purchase an estate at a small distance from Berlin, between which places he now seems most pleasantly to divide his time, enjoying the confidence of his sovereign, and the particular regard and friendship of that great and interesting character Prince Henry.-The farther incidents of his life, to the period at which these memoirs conclude, consist of a journey to Sweden and Russia in attendance on Prince Henry, a second tour to Russia in the same character, a command under Prince Henry in the war of Bavaria, and an excursion to Paris. The narrative of the first tour is alone interesting.

If we could be convinced that many of the relations in these pages were not misplaced, and it could be shewn that they were fairly connected with the Comte DE HORDT, we should be disposed highly to commend the work: but, according to the view which we take of it, we are obliged to confine our praise to parts, and to describe the whole as formed according to no rules with which we are acquainted. It is fair, however, to observe that, while greater liberties are not here taken than are usual with writers of their own memoirs, the volumes yield to few in the same class with regard to instruction and entertainment. The story leaves on the mind an impression favourable to the understanding, the attainments, and the accomplishments, as well as to the dispositions and habitual manners of the object which we contemplate.

An English translation of these memoirs has been advertised

ART.

ART. III. Memoires de Louis XIV. &c.; i. e. Memoirs of - Louis XIV. Written by himself, composed for the Dauphin his Son, and addressed to that Prince; followed by several Fragments of Military Memoirs, Instructions given to Phillip V., Seventeen Letters addressed to that Monarch on the Government of his States, and various other inedited Pieces. published by G. Z. M. DE GAIN-MONTAGNAC. Paris. 1806. Imported by De Boffe, London.

8vo.

Arranged and
Part I.
Price 10s.

THAT English historians and publicists remained for a long time unjust to the memory of Louis XIV. is now generally felt and acknowleged; and a character which has lately risen into notice, which has appalled the civilized world and ravaged a great part of it, has occasioned the grand monarque to be regarded as harmless and amiable, a benignant ruler, a mild master, and a most quiet peaceable neighbour. Various and able as have been the sketches of this high personage, we have seen none which appeared to us to have been drawn exactly to the life. The pencil of Voltaire heightened the advantageous and softened down the harsh features of the portrait. If that celebrated author can be considered as having attempted a likenesss of Louis, it is unquestionably not a fair one, and indeed it is scarcely possible to recognize the original. The nice critic will discover in it perhaps more of art than deception, but it will completely mislead the inexperienced.

On the subject of the papers before us, the question which every reader will ask will be, are they authentic? As an answer, we submit to him the following facts and observations, which are stated in an advertisement prefixed to the present volume:

The collection of the works of Louis XIV, which is to be found in the National Library, consists of three bound volumes in folio, and three large portfolios. The bound volumes include originals with copies taken of them by order of M. de Noailles, who deposited them in the library on the 3d of December 1749; and at the head of the first volume is this certificate: "I the undersigned, Adrian Maurice, Duke of Noailles, Peer and Marshal of France, certify that the late King Louis XIV. in consequence of the confidence with which he honored me, ordered me one night in the year 1714 to search his cabinet, and to bring him some papers which lay in certain drawers. His Majesty, having burnt a part of them, was induced by my urgent solicitations to permit me to preserve the remainder, which principally referred to his military campaigns. These monuments, and copies of them which I have taken in order to facilitate the perusal of them, constitute the three volumes in folio how deposited in the library. Done at Paris the 10th of October 1749.

Signed, the Marshal de Noailles.'

The first two volumes consist only of orders of the day, the state of the troops, lists of officers, &c. The contents of the third are faithfully copied into the present sheets.'

The instructions to the Dauphin are written with the king's own hand. The Editor is of opinion that these underwent correction from Pelisson and Racine as they were composed, and that they were then returned to the august author, who introduced into them considerable changes; an instance of which is here. cited, and which, as it forms a favourable specimen of these royal compositions, we shall transcribe. The passage in the text runs thus ;

"We are not to conclude that, because a sovereign is not restrained in his power, he may allow himself full licence in speech. On the contrary, the greater and the more reverenced he is, the more circumspect he ought to be. Things which would be of no consequence in the mouth of a private individual often become important in that of a Prince."

Louis adds in the margin:

"Kings ought not in this matter so far to flatter themselves as to think that injuries of this kind are forgotten by the sufferers, or that they never hear of them. We have elsewhere said that all that kings do and all that they say are known sooner or later; and it is to be observed that even those who are made the confidents of these railleries are frequently hurt by them, even while they applaud them; because in general the objects of them are persons who like themselves are engaged in the service of the Prince, and because they naturally expect the like treatment in their turn. The least contempt shewn to a private individual inflicts on his mind an incurable wound. The idea which consoles a person under pointed raillery, or contemptuous treatment in general, is either the expectation that he will soon have an opportunity of retaliating, or a persuasion that little impression has been made on those who were witnesses to the injury but he of whom the sovereign has spoken feels the evil the more poignantly, because he can look to neither of these consola tions; for though he can speak evil of the Prince who has ill treated him, it must be in secret, and without its reaching him to whom it points, and which alone could render vengeance grateful; nor can he persuade himself that the remark which has been made will not be heard and regarded, because he well knows what attention is paid to the sentiments of men in power. A Prince cannot utter an indiffer. ent word, which some who hear it do not apply to themselves or to others; and although in truth we are not obliged to have regard to all the impertinent conjectures formed on such occasions, the circumstance ought at least to render us circumspect in our conversation, and not to furnish a foundation for any thoughts in others to our prejudice."

We may infer,' says the editor, from this addition, which is all in the handwriting of the monarch, that the labour of revisal was not very difficult; and every person, who reads these memorials, will

be