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His probity and integrity were pure and incorruptible; and the honeft indignation with which he inveighed against every inftance of perfidy and injustice, was fingularly remarkable. His piety was rational and fincere : his devotion was fervent: he was intimately perfuaded of the truth of Christianity-felt its importance to the dignity and happiness of human nature and looked upon its detrac tors and oppofers as the most pernicious enem.es of m.in. His philanthropy was great, and if ever he felt the emotions of averfion and indignation, it was only when he contemplated the malignant frenzy of the profeffed abettors and apoftles of Atheism. We fhail not contend with fuch as may look upon this as an infirmity; for we never felt any thing in our occafional vifits to Bedlam, but fentiments of pity, and that kind of dejection that arifes from the humiliating view of difordered Nature.

M. EULER had by his first marriage thirteen children, of whom eight died in infancy or early youth. The other five, of which three are fons, highly eminent in their

respective profeffions*, augmented bis fa mily with 38 grand-children, of whom 26 are still living. It was a most pleasing and affecting fpectacle, to fee the venerable old man, fitting (deprived of fight) like a Petriarch in the midst of his numerous family, all zealous in rendering the evening of his life ferene and pleasing, by every tender office and mark of attention, that the warmest filial affection could fuggeft,- We feel a peculiar pleafure in the contemplation of this refpectable domeftic fcene; and when we combine the fublime refearches of this great luminary of fcience with the ferene piety of his fetting rays, and confider the life of the philofopher, in one point of view, with the death of the just, we fee, we feel here an indication of immortality, which confounds the puny fophiftry of the fceptic; and we behold, in EULER, the fun fetting, only to rife again with purer luftre.

-Ille poftquam fe lumine VERO Implevit, ftellafque vagas miratar et ufræ Fixa polis, videt quanta fub noêle jaceret Hæc noftra dies.

For the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE.

To the PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY of LONDON.

GENTLEMEN,

THE following ALLEGORY, intended chiefly to recommend a good TASTE IN THE CHOICE OF BOOKS, is a candidate for admiflion into your inftructive and elegant Magazine. The early infertion of it will give much pleature to

OME time ago I had occafion to vifit a public library, for the purpose of confuiring an author, whofe works were too voluminous to be admitted into a private collection, Ou retiring to bed at night, I could nut help reflecting on the immenfe compilations that had been made of this fort, and the great difficulty of telecting with judgment the beft productions of various writers. I had not long indulged my reflection, before I infenfibly fell into a gentle flumber, during which my imagination pursued the fubject of my waking reverie thro' the following dream.

Methought I was conveyed into the moft compleat library that the induftry of fucceffive generations had been able to furh. At my first entrance I was struck

Your humble Servant,

QUANDOQUE DORMITAT HOMERUS. with the uninterrupted filence and venerable gloom that reigned around me. My attention, however, was quickly engaged in examining fome out of the infinite variety of volumes, that on all fides crouded on my view. Books, both printed and manufcript, in all languages, arts, and fciences, as well thofe that were valuable for the importance of their contents, as fuch as had nothing to recommend them but their unwieldy bulk, contributed to form this grand magazine of learning. After having been fome time left in admiration, I obferved, at fome diftance, a perfonage of a composed and stately deport ment. His face was the image of impenetrable and contented stupidity. His eyes hea vily moved over the objects immediately before him with the phlegmatic dulnefs of a

*The eldest of thefe, every way worthy of the name he bears, and who, as we have feen before, took a part in the last labours of his venerable father, is ftill an ornament to the Univerfity of Petersburgh, and has obtained feveral academical Prizes there, as alfo at Paris, Munich, and Gottingen.-The fecond is Phyfician to the Emprefs of Ruflia, and enjoys great reputation in that line.The third is Lieutenant-Colonel of the Artillery, and is well known in the learned world by his aftronomical obfervations. He was one of the Aftronomers that were named by the Academy of Petersburgh to obferve the Patage

of Venus.

Dutch

Dutch commentator. The most confpicuous part of his drefs was an immenfe full-bot. tomed wig. He wore an academic gown, venerable for its age and the antique duft which befprinkled it, and his chin was ornamented with a band which would not have difgraced the Lord Chancellor himself. His employment confifted in arranging books upon the capacious thelves of the library. Except on thofe occafions when he took up a volume of larger dimenfions than ordinary, he never difcovered the flighteft fymptoms of dislike or fatisfaction, but conftantly preferved the fame rigid inflexibility of features. All the time I furveyed this laborious book-worm, I felt a gr.dual torpor diffafing itself over my whole fyftem. This extraordinary effect of the atmosphere made me fenfible that I was rather immerfed in the fogs of Boeotia, than breathing the pure air of Pindus. 1 know not how far its influence might have extended, had 1 not made a refolute effort and gone forward. I now found myself in an apartment, the light and elegance of which not only dispelled my former Eftlefine's, but invigorated me with fieth fpirits. At first I was fomewhat startled, on obferving my fudden appearance had interrupted a person who feemed to have been reading. His engaging behaviour foon removed my embarraliment. He requeited me in the moft un.ffected and eafy manner to amufe myself with whatever his abode afforded, and immediately refumed his ftudies. This laft incident gave me an opportunity of furveying his figure and dreis. The keenest cifcernment dated from his eyes, and the moft vivid fenfibility was diffufed over his whole countenance. His hair waved around h neck in ringlets, too graceful to be the fpor taneous effect of nature, and too eafy to be the elaborate refult of art. He was dreffed

in a flowing robe of dove-coloured filk. I was much furprized at the different emotions he difcovered, as he was differently affected by the paffages he perufed. Sometimes he frowned with difapprobation, and fometimes grew pale with difguft: afterwards, he was fo fired with rapture, as fcarcely to refrain from extravagant geftures. 1 never once obferved him to be wholly unimpofioned. Upon the whole, he was more frequently pleated than difgufted with what he perufed. Until I faw this perfon, I imagined Tale to be an ideal being; but now I made no doubt of his real exiftence. I was not, however, to captivated by his attractive exterior, nor fo fixed by his extraordinary behaviour, as net to take the advantage of his offer, and survey what was prefented to my view.

The room was ornamented with paintpos, ¡ents, and bufts; but as my mie ran

intirely upon literature, I paid no attention to them. My curiofity enjoyed the highest gratification when I difcerned a neat bookcafe, whofe contents I began immediately to examine. On looking for the innumerable theological treatifes and polemical pamphlets, which formed fo large a part of the collection I had lately left, I found no other volume under the article of Religion than the Bible, accompanied by the paraphrafes of Clarke and Pyle. When I furveyed the compartment where the Ciaflicks were depofited, my fatisfaction was very great, to fee Milton placed betwe.n Homer and Virgil. On opening his works I could not find “Paradife Re gained," and the Georgicks feemed to be the only part of Virgil that had been read more than once. Ariftotle's works preceded the treatifes of Harris, next which stood the works of our English Ariftotle, Bacon. The name of Locke diftinguished a subsequent volume. I faw most of the pincipes editiomes of the Greek writers, without the parade of voluminous notes, or the puerile affittance of Latin tranflations. I thought it remarkable, that Plato fhould be placed immediately under Homer, and that Ælop's Fables should ftand by the fide of Herodotus. The Greek tragedies were accompanied by the translations of Potter and Franklin. Racine, Corneille, Mafon's Elfrida, and Caractacus followed next in order. Horace and Juvenal included the imitations of Pope and Johnson. Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Horace, Terence, Polybius, Livy, Cicero, Cæfar, SalJuft, Tacitus, Suetonius, both the Plinies, Quintilian, and Longinus, were not wanting to compleat the claffical collection. The Fragments of Menander, the Antiquities of Jofephus, and the works of Plutarch had each a confpicuous place. The moral treatifes of the laft-mentioned author feemed to have been frequently perufed. It was curious to obferve, that the neid, Gierufalemme Libe. rata, the Lufiad, and the Henriade contained perpetual references to Homer, with this hint, “Purius ex ipfo fonte bibentur aquɛ." in fearching for our own poets, I obferved that Spenfer and Diyden were two of the fuft. In opening the works of the latter, the Ode for St. Cecilias Day was the firft piece prefented to my view. Shakespeare by Johníon and Steevens, Mallinger, Otway, Rowe, Pope, and Themfon's Seafons, wh Tancred and S gifmunda, were fuperbly decorated, not only for the purpose of paying thofe authors a portionlar diftinction, but to form a judicious contraf with the bindings of the reft of the collection. I was pleased to fee many of our forte minor, Gray, Co hr, Go.danth, Prior, Parmel, Paillips, Beattie, Aki, Die Wartous, hayley, Bordees, and Headity:

Hoadley: but I could not find Glover, Hammond, or Graves. Among the English profe writings was the Spectator, (but curtailed of many papers which fwell the common editions) the Rambler, Idler, Adventurer, and Mirror. Hume's History of England stood next to De Lolme on the Conftitution. Junius and Fitzofborne's Letters were placed under the title of "elegant compofition." Under the article of Romances and Novels, I obferved Don Quixote, Gil Blas, R. Crufoe, Tom Jones, Amelia, Clariffa, Grandifon, Keate's Sketches, the Man of Feeling, Julia de Roubigné, and Cecilia.

A parcel was laid on a table, containing Parr's Difcourfes, wrapped up in a leaf of

SIR,

Mandeville's works, and White's Bampton Lectures were covered with a fheet of Cobb's Sermons.

On glancing my eye over feveral boxes that were fet open, I obferved that they were lined with Priestley's Corruptions of Chriftianity, the works of Lord Monboddo, Heron's Letters, and Bofwell's Remarks on Johnson's Tour.

1 know not to what length I might have extended my obfervations on this curious collection of Literature, had I not been awakened by the fplendor of the fun, which diffipated the phantoms of fleep, and suggested that it was time to commence the business of the day.

To the EDITOR of the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE.

MN COLL. OXON, December 13, 1785.

HAVE been a reader of your entertain- for you have brought ample proofs, that of

I injave been a ve din gazine there feve

ral months; and am now tempted to offer myself as a correfpondent; first, to exprefs the pleasure I received from your ftric tores on those truly original effufions of pedustry and abfurdity, which have lately appeared under the name of Letters of Literater, by Robert Heron, Efq.; and fecondly, to make a few remarks on fome part of that gen. teman's philofophy, in which he appears to mae fully as contemptible as he is in criticism.

b

But pleafed as I am with your ingenious detection of Heron's felf-contradictions, fuch as among many others his faying "he believes "that Virgil's most fanguine admirer will * allow that not one ray of invention appears 'thro' all his works ;" and yet in another page of the very fame Letter, he has the ftupality to teil us that "the epifodes and orna"ments of the Georgics have been hitherto "dlowed the very brightest proofs Virgil has given of genius or invention." And again, he fays, that the ftory of Dido is confi*dered as the only proof that Virgil gives of onganality or genius in the Æneid." Tho' pleated, I fay, to fee this, and the many other detections which fairly ftrip the gown from the afs's ears, I cannot help withing that feme parts of your remarks had been a little mmproved. You have often laid Mr. Heron in his back with his own weapons; witnefs as abufe of Virgil for faying, “the noife Frack the flar:;" and your citing himfelf propting to firike against the theoretic reflections of Dubos, to fee what would fly out. (See Mg for Sept. p. 196.) But I am furprized you thould have omitted, on thefe occafions, to cite Mr. Heron's Letter (xxii,) on that Je of Speech called UTTER ABSURDITY;

- Letter xvi.

that figure Mr. Heron is an unrivalled master: but, as you have omitted that Letter, permit me a few remarks upon it. That figure, he fays, " occurs in writers who have fome juft claim to praife." But after this cold fome claim, who would think Cervantes was to be mentioned? Yet mentioned he is as having "no small skill" in the figure of utter abfurdity. And the proofs are, Sancho's having his provisions after the galley-flaves had taken them; that Sancho loft his afs in one page, and is riding on him the next, &c. &c. Now, what do fuch abfurdities amount to? Nothing more than a mere flip of the author's memory. But Mr. Heron's abfurdities admit of no fuch excafe; his judgement and taste are concerned in them, and they evidence a perverlenefs in thinking, and a pedantry run mad. Poor Cervantes, it is faid, wrote great part of his unequalled work in gaol, (tho' Mr. Heron, among his many utter abfurdities, fays it is all a mistake, to think that men of genius have been poor) and, no doubt, Don Quixote went to prets by piece-meal, as Johnon's Dictionary did, and as works for bre d ufually do. Nor muft Virgil mifs his fling, when Mr. Heron talks of ab:urdity. "Virgil, fays he, makes "Latinus speak thus to Turnus:

recalent noftro Tiberina fluenta Sanguine adbuc campique ingentes offibus albent, "In the name of all the profundity of dul"nefs," fays Mr. H. "how could the ftreams "be yet bot with their blood, and their bones "whiten the ground?"

So our critic fets up for a matter of fact man; a pretty judge of poetry indeed! But Virgil fays nothing but what oratory has

Letter xxiii.

often

often faid. The fea is yet dyed with their blood, faid the late Chatham, in a speech against the peace, when talking of his own victories gained many months before. A critic ought also to know that there is a figure, called hyperbole, highly proper at times of earnest perfuafion, (as was the cafe with Latinus as above) both in poetry and oratory.-And what other is this? "The waves of Tyber are yet hot with our blood, and the wide fields are whitened with our bones." It is indeed from the profundity of dulness that a critic brings his matters of fact to try fuch a figure of speech, fo obvious to the meanest capacity. But why ftop fo fhort with the matter of faci? Why did not Mr. Heron calculate how many millions of throats must be cut to find blood enough to beat, but for a minute, the waves of a great and rapid river? The paffage might as well be condemned on that head, as on the head he has chofen: for his wife calculation is, that if there has been time enough to whiten the bones, the blood muft be cold by that time. Such is exactly his objection: but what would he think, if Virgil thould prove to be right, even by matter of fact, though his expreffion need no fuch defence? Why, Mr. Heron, Latinus tells Turnus, juft in the line before, they had been defeated in two great battles;

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"Twice have we been defeated in great battles."--Now, a right matter of fact man will enquire, first, how long the wolves and vultures of a hot climate will take in ftripping the bones of a flaughtered host, and he will fand a few days will do the bufinefs. Then he will fay, may not the bones Latinus fpeaks of be thofe of the Dain in the first battle? and may not the fecond battle be juft fought, of which he fays the Tiber is yet hot with blood ?—— and thus Virgil's truly poetic byperbole be reconciled to the dulleft matter of fact fellow in all Ecotia. And what will Mr. Heron fay, if an expreflion nearly the fame as Virgil's, fhould be produced from the grave bittorian Tacitus? It is this, talking of the Varian defeat; Medio campi albentia offa, ut fugerant, ut refliterant, disjecta vel aggerata. Annal. Lib. I.

It was a ftrange infatuation, when Mr. Heron, having expreffed the utmost contempt for Virgil's talents, because he was an imitator, took it into his head to exalt Taffo as a mott original poet; Taffo, the moft open and egregious of all imitators! On this head you or your correfpondent might have faid a great deal more, and might have told Mr. Heron that his favourite Tatlo thought very differently of Virgil, as appears by this many obvious fanitations from that poet.

According to Mr. Heron, Taffo has only one or two diftant imitations; and these are, he fays, "fuch as none but original writers can imitate:"-and he would perfuade us, against the plainest facts, that his characters are mostly new. Unblufhing impudence! Dr. Hurd, in his Letters on the genius of Gothic Chivalry, gives a very different but "The reputation of juft character of Taffo. Taifo's poem," he fays, "has been founded chiefly on its resemblance to the Epic poems of antiquity: the fable is conducted in the manner of the Iliad, and with a firict regard to that unity of action which is admired in Homer and Virgil. There is alfo a ftudied and close imitation of these poets in many of the fmaller parts, the descriptions and fimiles." Thus Hurd; and tho' Mr. Heron calls Virgil's episode of Nifus and Euryalus filly, Tailo thought it worth copying, in the night expedition and the death of Clorinda, his very Camilla. Nor are his imitations from the Portuguese poet Camoens either few or trifling.-Befides the gardens of Armida, which you mention as clofely copied from the Island of Venus in the Lufiadas, are many others. The appearance of Ifmeno in a dream to Solyman, in Taffo, is partly tranflated from the appearance of Bacchus, in the form of Mahomet, a Moorish priest, in Camoens. The gates of the palace of Neptune, in the Lufiadas, are sculptured with hiftories of the Gods. The gates of the palace of Armida, in the Gierufalemme, are also sculptured with the like hiftories. And here, Mr. Editor, your correfpondent has done a little injuftice to Camoens: if he had had that author at his hand, as he fays he had not, he would have feen that Camoens does not copy the cave of Cyrene fo fervilely as Taffo has done. Virgil enumerates the great rivers feen in Cyrene's cave, and Tallo fervilely copies him, and enumerates several great rivers; but Camoens gives his cave an air of originality. He defcribes the four elements in it as rifing from chaos, and ftruggling to difengage themfelves from each other. This has great propriety, in defcribing the God of the Ocean's deepest recefs, and affords fome fine poetical colouring, fuperior to both Virgil and Tallo's mention of rivers.

Mr. Heron feems to think Taffo quite original when he thus be-praifes him ; "The paftoral incident in the feventh book is a delicate relief from the fcenes of war and horror which precede it. Nothing can have a more pleafing effect on the imagination than fuch contrafts, when managed with artificial propriety." And he wiftly adds, that "the happy effect of contrast of incident is never perceived, but by a reader of fome tafle,"—And Taffo had the good tafte to

perceive

perceive and feel and imitate a beauty of the fame kind in Camoens. The pastoral scene in Tale is between two duels. The pastoral scene alluded to in the Lufiadas is in the 5th Canto, between the dreadful tempeft which the hero of the poem encountered at the Cape of Good Hope, thus mentioned by Thomson;

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With fuch mad feas the daring Gama fought,
For many a day and many a dreadful night
Inceffant lab'ring round the stormy Cape
(By bold ambition led—)

and a most affecting defcription of a putrid
diforder that attacked the adventurers, and
carried many of them off like a peftilence.
Thefe are scenes of horror indeed. And what
is fomething particularly remarkable, the
late tranflator of the Lufiadas obferves in his
note on this place, that "Variety is no lefs
delightful to the reader than to the tra
"veller, and the imagination of Camoens gave
“an abundant fupply. The infertion of this
pafloral landscape between the terrific scenes
#bich precede and follow has a fine effect."
Here is Mr. Heron's remark, and almoft his
words: and let the reader compare the paf-
toral fcenes in the two poets, and Taffo's imi-
tation will be felf-evident. And here let it
be alfo obferved, that what Mr. Heron fays
of the difference between the truth of nature
in the confiftency of poetic and magical fic-
tion and the truth of fact, is borrowed, and
miferably obfcured, from the above cited
Latters on Chivalry, by Dr. Hurd, where
the reader will find the fame ideas infinitely
better expreffed and enforced..

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What Mr. Heron fays of Warburton's Notes on Shakespeare, that they are "the arrogance of madness, mingled with the igno"rance of folly "-may with great truth and propriety be applied to his own wonderful erfefions.

Nor is Mr. Heron lefs abfurd and ridiculous in philofophy than in poetical tafte and criticifm. Take one inftance for all.-"Luxury," he says, " in its vulgar accepta. “tion, is the parent of great atchievements." He thus continues: "The reafon may haply "be this: contempt of life must produce any “of these actions, in which life is evidently "fet down by its poffeffor as a mere trifle. "Now this contempt is more certainly produced by luxury, than by the ferocious "[pirit of barbariím. How! you will fay; "doth not Luxury enervate a man, and make "him a coward? The very contrary: it makes " him brave."

“To explain this paradox: only confider "what a tædium vitæ, anennui, luxury breeds; " and you will not wonder that no man de.. "fpifes life fo much as the difciple of luxury, EUROF. MAG,

"who hath drunk of life till he is fick. Men "of temperance alone enjoy life, and feel its "delight: men of luxury are the most likely " to be thofe

“Who smile on death, and glory in the

grave."

"Perfonal courage indeed depends totally "upon the animal fpirits. As the fpirits "are in perpetual fluctuation, we need not "wonder at a brave man on one occafion "being a coward on another. Yet luxurious "living, which ferments and exalts the fpi"rits, is certainly more likely to produce "courage than the parfimony of temperance. "Falftaff, you know, tells us, that warm "blood begets warm thoughts."

What man of common fenfe but would weep to fee his fon at fixteen fo miferably fhallow! So courage and cowardice have nothing to do with inherent magnanimity or bafeness of foul! In children equally bred up, the brave and generous, and the bafe and cowardly spirit diftinguish themfelves in the most eminent manner.

That tædium vitæ which luxury breeds may indeed make a man despise life; but fuch contempt of life is of that kind which fends him to the piftol or halter.

It is as diftant from that generous, magnanimous kind, which infpires and prompts its poffeffor cheerfully to encounter all the miferies of long voyages and hard campaigns,

under diftant and inclement skies; as diftant from that noble spirit, as a traitor and base deferter is from the foul of a Ruffel or a Sydney, thofe martyrs to honour and their coun try. Mr. Heron talks as if a wretch tired of life through luxury, had nothing to da but to rife from a feast, and step into battle What abfurdity! and get his brains beat out. Thousands of hardships are to be encountered ere the hour of battle arrives; and the very idea of these hardships is Hell itself to the wretch broken down by luxury into the tedium vitæ, the ennui, the weariness of life

and to cite Falstaff (talking as a jolly toper) as a philofophical authority for the nature and causes of courage in the greatest actions of life! miferable indeed! In a word, had Mr. Heron faid that luxury "in its vulgar acceptation is the parent of self-murder,” he would have been perfectly right: but to afcribe the greatest and most arduous atchievements, which almost always require the firmeft patience to accomplish-to afcribe thefe to the temper of the foul that is weary of life, and funk into total indifference, is an abfurdity referved for Mr. Heron, and a species of madness peculiar to himself.

⚫ Letter xxxi

N

COMMON SENSE

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