pofe an old coxcomb, enamoured of himself, and vain of difplaying his flender stock of fcience, fifty years in acquiring, who might fee me for ten years together without difcovering that I could do more than caft up a bill, or cut out a fhirt. Camille Defmoulins was right when he expreffed his amazement, that "at my age, and with fo little beauty," I had ftill what he calls adorers. I have never spoken to him, but it is probable that with a perfonage of his ftamp I should be cold and filent, if I were not abfolutely repulfive. But he stumbled not upon the truth in fuppofing me to hold a court. I hate gallants as much as I defpife flaves, and I know perfectly how to baffle your complimenters. I have need, above all things, of esteem and benevolence; admire me afterwards if you will, but I cannot live without being refpected and cherished: this feldom fails from those who see me often, and who poffefs, at the fame time, a found understanding and a heart.'

It fhould be remarked that the French measure of a foot is confiderably longer than ours; so that Madame ROLAND was much taller than an English reader would think her, on finding that her ftature did not exceed five feet. At the period of her life with which the third part of her Appeal closes, the had not feen M. ROLAND, who afterward became her husband.

The tranflator has executed his tafk very decently: but he has admitted a number of expreffions not to be borne in our language. Citizennefs is a word that cannot be called an acquifition to the British vocabulary, any more than the phrase arreflation.

ART. IV. Memoire fur les Finances: A Memoir on the Finances. By A. P. MONTESQUIOU. 8vo. pp. 6c. Du Pont. Paris. 1795. THE HE author of this tract is the celebrated General MONTESQUIOU; who, though he had made a conqueft of Savoy, and rendered the French republic the most effential fervices, was ompelled to Ay from his country, as the only means of faving his life. The caufe of his flight was as honourable to him as it was difgraceful to his enemies. His crime was that he had not laid fiege to and carried the city of Geneva, which had given no other caufe of offence to the Convention, than that it had taken measures for its own fecurity; measures not peculiar to the then fituation of affairs, but fuch as the Genevans had been in the practice of taking as often as Sardinia and France were at war. General M.'s prudence and moderation, at this time, were of the utmost service to the French republic; for, had he attempted to make himself master of Geneva, he would most infallibly have had to maintain a war againft the Swifs Cantons; who would not have fuffered a city that has always been confidered as the key of Switzerland, to fall into the hands of

A Fourth Part is advertized, but we have not seen it.

France.

France. The Swifs on the first notice of danger flew to the affiftance of their allies the Genevans, and fent a body of troops into their city for its defence. This gave umbrage to the Jacobins, who would have driven them out by force of arms, and at the expence of a war with the only nation contiguous to the French territory, that had till then obferved a fyftem of neutrality. General M. procured the removal of the Swifs garrifon at Geneva by the amicable means of a treaty: this treaty, highly honourable to all parties, was by the Jacobins imputed to him as a crime; and, as to be accufed, convilled, and executed, were then fynonymous terms, he thought it best to escape from the hands of his enemies. As his perfon was no longer in their power, they could attack only his property; his name was accordingly placed in the lift of emigrants, and his eftate was confifcated. Since the change of system in Paris, which took place after the complete difcomfiture of the Jacobins, the Convention decreed that his name fhould be obliterated from the emigrant lift, that his estate should be restored to him, and that he himself should be at liberty to return to his country. By a ftrange and unaccountable inconfiftency, Soulavie, the French agent or minifter, who had been the cause of all the horrors afterward committed at Geneva, and who had fince been imprisoned at Paris to take his trial for the fame, has been discharged from confinement, and fuffered to go unprofecuted for crimes, for which his life would have been but a poor expiation. If MONTESQUIOU were innocent, Soulavie was a great criminal, and vice verfa. To treat both as innocent was the moft grofs perverfion of juftice. However, fuch things are.

In the memoir before us, General M. defends the wisdom and propriety of the measure originally adopted by the conftituent aflembly, of iffuing the paper money known by the name of affignats. It is very natural that he fhould here declare himself the advocate of that system, as (we believe) he himself was the author of it: but, in his zeal for the reputation of this favourite child of his brain, he appears to us to overstep the bounds of prudence; for he attacks, indirectly indeed, the measures fince pursued by the legislative aflembly and the Convention, which have fo greatly difcredited the affignats, and rendered them of very little value. The emiffion originally intended by the conftituent affembly was not to exceed 1200 millions of livres: but fome uncontroulable circumstances forced that body to fend into circulation affignats to the amount of 100 millions more than that fum; yet, fays he, notwithftanding this, the enemies of this paper money were not able to fink it more than 10 per cent. below par in exchange for money, as long as the measures adopted by the conftituent aflembly

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were refpected. He tells us that the legislative affembly departed but little from the rules laid down by its predeceffors, fa long as it was untainted with the diforganizing fyftem: but, when emigrations began to multiply; when individuals, wifhing to put their fortunes in a place of fafety, crouded to procure bills of exchange on foreign countries, for affignats; then the depreciation went on rapidly. A wife government,' he adds, an affembly firmly ftedfaft to found principles, by removing the causes of terror, would have put an end to the effects of it.' It is evident that the emigrations, to which he alludes, were not merely thofe that were occafioned by a wifh in the emigrants to reftore to the crown the unlimited power that had been wrested from it, but fuch as were produceu by a general apprehenfion that things were running on to a ftate, in which there would be little or no fecurity for property. Does not all this, then, tend to infinuate, at leaft, that the people had destroyed the country and ruined its refources by pulling down the work of the conftituent affembly, and demolishing the throne which it had erected on the bafis of a free conftitution? Is not this at Jeaft an indirect cenfure on those who abolished the limited monarchy, and endeavoured to raise on its ruins a democratic republic?

We confefs that, furveying the political life of our author from the meeting of the conftituent affembly, and reviewing the work before us, as well as the fpeeches which he delivered in that affembly, we are reduced to the neceflity of forming an opinion at once favourable to his abilities, and difreputable to his principles, with the fingle exception of those which he displayed in his conduct towards Geneva. How a man, who had laboured so hard to establish a limited monarchy, as the foundation of true happiness to his country, could almost in an inflant work fo fudden a change in himfelt, as to be able to confent to fight the battles of a republic built on the ruins of that monarchy, is what we are not able to comprehend. Paul, in his way to Damafcus, fuddenly became a profelyte to the religion which he was then perfecuting; the change, however, was miraculous. We do not know that it was by miracle that our author, from being a steady adherent to a conftitutional monarchy on principle, was converted in an inftant into the fupporter of a republic which had just triumphed over that monarchy. He had fworn to maintain a conftitution, one article of which fecured inviolability to the perfon of the king; and yet he could eafily bring himfelt to ferve under the orders of those who had dethroned and imprifoned that very king. He inveighs most bitterly against the Jacobins; and yet by the Jacobins the king was pulled down; by them the conftitutional fabric was demo9 lished;

lifhed; by them the monarchy was turned into a republic; in a word, from a miniftry of their creation he received his orders; and under the government of the Jacobins he confented to retain the command of an army, which, as well as himself, had fworn to maintain the inviolability of the hereditary reprefentative of the nation. Thus he contributed, as far as in him lay, to strengthen the hands of those who had overturned all his own labours in the conftituent affembly, and to enable them ftill more and more to scout the very idea of the king's inviolability, by calling for his trial and death. In his defence against the charges brought against him by his enemies, our author labours only to prove that he was faithful to his fecond employers, the founders of the republic; and we believe he was fo truly fo, that theirs were the laft hands in the world by which he ought to fall, for he served them and their caufe with a fidelity which was equalled only by the importance of his fervices: but we have feen no work in which he replies to the charge brought against him by another party, who will not allow themfelves to be fecond to any body of men whatever in love of liberty and zeal for the happiness of mankind; we mean the partizans of the conftitution of 1791. They call him an apoftate, false to his principles, to that conftitution which he had a hand in framing, to the chief magiftrate who had been placed at the head of it, and to the oaths by which he had bound himself to maintain and fupport him there. We do not say that he may not be able to defend himself on these heads, but we think it a much more difficult task than he found in the conqueft of Savoy.

In the publication before us, he fhews what fhould have been done to prevent the depreciation of affignats, and what ought now to be done to reftore them to the true level of their value. He fays that they represent a real and fubftantial property; and as they fall, the value of the thing reprefented ought to rife in the fame proportion: but he forgets that the value not merely of paper, but of lands, will fall when, in the opinion of the public, the poffeffion of them becomes precarious. A fixed government, poffeffing the confidence of the people, would do more than all the minifters of finance in the world, towards raifing the value of lands; the idea of fecurity of property being generally extended and entertained, the cftates which form the fund for the redemption of affignats would rapidly rife in value; and fo would of course the paper which is the fign or reprefentative of thofe eftates, and we should then hear little more of its depreciation. As long, however, as even the thing represented shall be deemed a bad security, or no fecurity at all, can there be cause for furprife that the thing which reprefents it should not stand high in public eftimation?

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The fubject of the work which we now difmifs is in its nature dull and dry, though of the greatest importance; we therefore fhall not make any extracts from the pamphlet, only adding that it is diftinguished both by elegance and ability.

We have been favoured with the perufal of, we believe, the only copy of this work that has found its way into England.

ART. V. Paraboles de l'Evangile mifes en Vers François; i. e. Golpel Parables in French Verfe. 4to. pp. 120. Hamburgh. 1795. De Boffe, London. Price 45.

MERE chance gave birth to this work. While the author was a miserable exile in Brabant, a good curate advised him to read the Babioles Litteraires*. He was attracted by an article on parables + in this mifcellany, and induced to try his talent in that fort of compofition. He fhewed a fpecimen to the good curate, who was enchanted with it, and conjured him to proceed. He did proceed flowly and occafionally, and produced

Literary Trifles, a mifcellany in profe and verfe, published at Hamburgh in 1761, and faid to be the production of Baron de Bähr. + This article contains fo much good sense and just criticism, that we cannot help giving an abstract of it. might not the gospel parables be made the fubject of poetry? A pa"Why, (fays the author,) rable, being a fort of history contrived to mask a moral truth, may be faid to have two parts, a body and a foul. The former is the narrative imagined, the latter the moral meaning, hidden under that narrative. Parables, then,-even thofe of the gospel,-are within the province of poefy, and require only to be treated by a mafter's hand, with respect and decorum. When the Jefuit Du Cerceau compofed his comedy of the Prodigal Son, he was guilty of folly, becaufe Du Cerceau was not a poet, and because he mistook his fubject: but, fhould a Voltaire give us, not a comedy, but a living picture of the parable of the good Samaritan, e. g. what a choice morfel of fatiric morality would it not become under his pathetic pen ?-The apologue or fable has been juftly admired for conveying moral instruction: but the parable is undoubtedly a more effectual vehicle. In fables, the fiction pleases only from a fort of tacit convention: in parables, by an air of truth or verifimilitude, that never fails to touch. No time can realize one of Efop's fables; but the parables of the gospel are realized in every age. Prodigal fons! pitilefs priefts! unjust flewards! iniquitous judges! have ye any doubt of it -When the prophet Nathan came to reproach David for the complicated crime of adultery and murder, he devised a parable fo like the truth, that the king was furprised into indignation at the horrid deed. What fable, equally weil invented, would have produced the fame effect? Were I a per fon of any weight in the republic of letters, I would addrefs myself to all the academies of Europe, and conjure them to promife their layrels, and their medals, to those who should beft fucceed in the compofition of parables in verse.”

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