course of ordinary life, if a person may become as good a scholar, and as good a mechanick without sight as with, it must yet be confessed, to the disadvantage of the Quinze Vingt, that the loss of the organ itself is a sad defect to the human face. I never, I thought, at the time, had seen so many ugly and ill-looking people brought together before: their manner of carrying their heads is ungraceful, it is merely adapted to the sense of hearing, and there is something extremely awkward in the walk of a person, who goes groping his way, or runs up against every door-post. The conductors of this institution deserve a great deal of credit, nor should the Emperor be without his share of praise; he allows a yearly sum and the use of the buildings, and seems really desirous of promoting the prosperity of the establishment. You must now stretch your thread from the center of the Place Royale to the northern corner of the Place de Greve, and again thence to the northern extremity of the Palace of the Thuilleries. The first course will carry you across the Rue de la Tesseranderie. It was in the second story of a house about midway of this street that Madame de Maintenon lived with her first husband, Scarron, whose gayety and good humour were proof against the most trying calamities. Scarron is an author not sufficiently known perhaps: when he means to be burlesque, he is ridiculous to excess, but his Comical Romance contains some interesting and many laughable scenes, and led the way to that humour, those welldescribed incidents of village manners, those scenes of midnight confusion and of fighting in country taverns for which Fielding and Smollet have been since so conspicuous. From being the wife of Scarron, to whose table the guests brought each a dish when they were invited to supper, from soliciting a pension of 25/ a year, and being glad to get a bed at the house of Ninon de l'Enclos, to residing in the Royal apartments of Versailles as wife of Louis xiv, the change was greater than any thing known of in France before the Revolution. But Madame de Maintenon's letters convince us that this wonderful transition by no means contributed to her happiness; and such also would probably be the result, if we could know the secret history of the Thuilleries, and of St. Cloud. The principal ornament of the Place de Greve, is the Maison de Ville, or Town House; it is a large and heavy building, in a style of ancient architecture, and such in every respect, as would attract but little attention, were it not for the interesting events which the view of it is attended with the recol lection of. It was from the balcony of the Maison de Ville, that the King heard what seemed the joyful and affectionate shouts of the people, for the last time in his life; it was here that Mr. Necker showed himself, after his second return from exile, when he made so humane a use of his influence; and it was in the porch below, that the heroines of the Fronde were placed, dressed out for the occasion to the greatest advantage, with their ladies in attendance, and their knights and gentlemen, amid trumpets, violins, and warlike instruments, and the shouts of the populace, when a convoy of provisions, originally intended for the royal army, but which had been intercepted, passed in a sort of triumph across the Greve. The first executions which gave the mob of Paris a taste for blood, took place at the corner of a neighbouring street, and it was at the Maison de Ville, that the party of Robespierre made their last stand in 1794. He had been rescued by some of his adherents, and carried there as to the strong hold of the Commune, which had for sometime exercised a species of sovereignty in Paris, and consequently, over the whole republic. I have been told by a person who was in the crowd when the committee from the convention passed through, that it was by no means decided what was to be the cry, whether for or against the Convention or the Commune, till one of the gens d'armes, who had followed the committee without any particular orders, levelled a pistol at Robespierre as he entered the hall, and shot the tyrant in the face. It is easier to describe the person of Robespierre from the accounts which have been transmitted of him, than to conceive what his motives could have been for so much cruelty and injustice. He was small, not ill made, pale, with a face expressive of talents, blended with malignity, and was always neatly dressed and powdered: one great source of his popularity originally and the foundation of his power afterwards, was an idea very generally prevalent, that he was of incorruptible integrity in money-matters; it appears however, that without any salary or any known resources, he sometimes gave expensive entertainments, and that he had lodged a sum of money in a foreign country; he must have been ever internally miserable, for hatred and envy were the ruling passions of his soul, he knew himself to be execrated, and sometimes received anonymous letters, which must have struck him with horror. I know nothing so frightfully eloquent as one or two of them which were found among his papers and published after his death. The Greve had served : for centuries, as a place of execution, when the Convention, in order to render the insult over royalty still greater, applied the square between the Champs Elise and the Thuilleries to that purpose; it has since, however, been restored to its former privilege of affording a place for the scaffold of every poor wretch that dies by the sentence of the law: the spot generally chosen for that purpose, from time immemorial, is in the south-eastern corner of the square; a spot fatal to La Bruivilliers, Desraes, and other outcasts of mankind, and to some also who deserved a better fate it was here that Georges was executed, with eight or ten of his friends and associates. The man who ventures secretly within the boundaries of an established government, with a view to blow the flame of civil war, must be content to forfeit his life, if he is detected; but there are circumstances in some instances, which alleviate the odium of such an enterprise; and Georges ought not to be confounded with a lurking assassin, whose only object is murder. You will find in Smollet and in Macpherson's History of England, the account of a similar enterprise in the reign of King William, which was undertaken by a number of ill-advised but gallant gentlemen, in favour of the exiled family; and it is thought that the Duke D'Enghien, whose death has been so universally lamented, even in France, had once ventured into Paris, as the Duke of Berwick, tells us in his memoirs, that he did upon an occasion, into London. Had this unfortunate Prince been discovered at the time, and had there been even the formality of justice, and a public trial, the world might still have pitied him, but they must in great measure have exculpated the government, whose severity would have appeared an act of legal self-defence; but from the manner in which this shocking affair was planned and executed, it deserves to be branded with the censure of all mankind: it was a violent outrage, ending in an act of deliberate murder. Some sense of so foul a deed will adhere, it is to be hoped, to the conscience of him who ordered it, all hardened as he is; fortune may not smile upon him always, and in some moment of uncertainty and anxiety, he may have dreams not unlike those of Richard, on Bosworth field, in his tent, and to the full as horrible as that which Clarence speaks of, when he relates all he had suffered in so dismal a night, and tells, in an agony of distress, of the phantom he had seen, and of the shadow like an Angel, with bright hair, dabbled in blood. BIOGRAPHY. In the year 1805 a quarto poem, a posthumous work of the late Dr. John Blair Linn issued from one of the respectable presses of this city. This poetical volume was entitled VALERIAN, a narrative Poem, intended, in part, to describe the early persecutions of Christians, and rapidly to illustrate the influence of Christianity on the manners of nations. The design of this performance was obviously pious, and the execution, in many instances, perfectly poetical. When it is remembered that it was an unfinished and unrevised work, instead of provoking the severity of Criticism, it ought to experience much of the warmth of Applause. Still it is obviously but an outline which the adventurous artist happily drew, but which the mortal man never filled. What, in our opinion, gives the greatest value to this volume is the Memoir of the author prefixed to his book. This elegant specimen of affectionate Biography is the production of Charles B. Brown, a relative of the deceased, and a man of letters by profession, who is distinguished by many publications both of beauty and utility. On this occasion we think he has acquitted himself with singular dexterity. The subject of his memorial, though unquestionably a man of genius, experienced no extraordinary vicissitudes, achieved no romantic adventures, visited no distant regions, and died at a juvenile age. Still from the scanty incidents afforded by a blameless and sequestered life, our Biographer has contrived to frame a story, which interests both the Imagination and the Passions. As the volume, in which this memoir originally appeared, is now exceedingly scarce, only a few copies being struck off for subscribers, we have thought it honourable to the literature of America, to preserve, in The Port Folio, the Biography of Dr. Linn. This walk of composition has not been very often pursued in this country, and with the exception of the late Dr. Belknap and of Judge Marshall, we do not remember many names, who have distinguished themselves in this delightful department of composition. Mr. B. has very happily succeeded, and in our opinion, he has on more than one occasion, successfully emulated Dr. Johnson when in his best mood. The following article is a fine specimen of a style pure, harmonious, and correct. ED. A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER John Blair Linn was descended from ancestors who originally came from the British islands. They appear to have been emigrants at an early period, and to have given their descendants as just a claim to the title of American, as the nature of things will allow any civilized inhabitant of the United States to acquire. His name bears testimony to the paternal and maternal stock from which he sprung. His great-grandfather, William Linn, was an emigrant from Ireland, who settled land in the wilderness of Pennsylvania, and whose eldest son, William, was the father of a numerous family. The father of John Blair Linn received a careful education, which his family enabled him to complete at the college at Princeton. He was trained to the ministry, in the presbyterian church, and married, at an early age, Rebecca Blair, the third daughter of the Rev. John Blair. Her brother and uncle were likewise clergymen, and the family were eminently distinguished by their knowledge and piety. Their eldest son, John Blair Linn, was born in Shippensburg, in Pennsylvania, March 14, 1777, at no great distance from the, spot at which his father first drew breath, and where his greatgrandfather first established his residence in this new world. The humble dwelling which was first erected in the forest still existed, at a small distance from that town, and continued for a considerable time after this, to be inhabited by his great-grandfather, who lived upwards of a hundred years. It is impossible for his survivors to recount the earliest incidents of his life; to trace the first indications of future character and genius; or enumerate the little adventures and connexions of his childhood. The juvenile stages of our moral and intellectual progress, which are in all cases entertaining and instructive, are so, in a particular manner, when they relate to eminent persons. The authentic memorials of any man's life and character are only to be found in his own narrative compared with the observations of others. In the present case, Mr. Linn's modesty prevented him from being his own historian, and peculiar circumstances occasioned his early life to pass over without much observation from others. We cannot any longer profit by his own recollections: the hand is now cold, and the tongue silent, which were best qualified to gratify the curiosity of love or veneration. We only know that he acquired the rudiments of knowledge at an age somewhat carlier than is customary. He was initiated into the Latin language while yet a child, and evinced very early a strong attachment to books. On his father's removal to New-York, when John was only nine years old, he enjoyed new opportunities of improvement, under several respectable teachers. The happiest period of his life, however, in his own opinion, consisted of |