the orators made the temples resound with celebrating his glory. Well, my friend, the time which has elapsed since the death of Léopold gives us the same privilege that these people enjoyed. We have nothing to apprehend from the resentment of his son, his sceptre is broken, his throne is annihilated. There are here citizens of all ranks and descriptions; some have lived under his laws, others have learnt from their fathers the history of his reign. Let them rise.And thou shade of Léopold, come forth from the tomb, come and receive the tribute of praise or of malediction which is owed to thee by this august assembly. Speak, citizens, speak, this great shade is here present, Have ye any thing wherewith to reproach Leopold?-Not one speak?-Have ye any thing, I ask, wherewith to reproach Leopold?—Wherever I turn my eyes I see countenances cast down, I see vain tears flow. Ungrateful men! dare you wrong your benefactor by this injurious silence? Speak, I say once more, Have ye any thing wherewith to reproach Leopold?-Alas! I understand ye. You have no reproaches to make, unless to heaven, that so soon cut short his days.-Let us then weep."

This is not indeed the eloquence of the Bishop of Meaux, but if this passage had been found in Flechier, it would long ago have been cited with honour and distinction.

In many passages of his works, M. Gilbert complains bitterly of his fate, "What folly," said a woman once, "to open our hearts to the world; it laughs at our weaknesses, it does not believe in our virtues, it does not pity our sorrows." The verses that follow, the effusion of a man under misfortunes, are only remarkable for the accent of truth which they bear. The poet shews himself struggling by turns against the noble thirst of fame, and the chagrins inseparable from the career of letters.

Heaven placed my cradle in the dust of earth,
I blush not at it-master of a throne
My lowest subject had my bosom envied.
Asham'd of owing aught to blood alone
I had wished to be reborn, to raise myself.

This is truly the language of a young man who feels, for the first time, a generous passion for glory. But he is soon reduced to regretting his primitive obscurity; he draws a picture of the happiness of a friend, whom he has quitted in the country: "Justice, peace, every thing smiled around Philemon. Oh how should I delight in that enchanting simplicity while expecting the return of an absent husband, assembles all the fruits of their tender love; while directing the yet feeble steps of the elder, and carrying the youngest in her arms, she hastens with them to the foot of the path by which their father is to descend.” Here the softened feelings of misfortune have mingled themselves with the accents of the poet, we no longer see the satyrist armed with his bloody lines.

We are sorry to find M. Gilbert dwelling so often upon his hunger. Society, who always find indigence troublesome, that they may avoid being solicited to relieve it, say that it is noble to conceal our misery. The man of genius struggling against adversity, is a gladiator who fights for the pleasures of the world, in the arena of life; one wishes to see him die with a good grace. M. Gilbert was not ungrateful, and whoever had the happiness of alleviating his sorrows received a tribute from his muse, how small soever might have been the boon. Homer, who like our young poet, had felt indigence, says, that the smallest gifts do not fail to soothe and rejoice us. In the piece entitled the Complaints of the Unhappy, we find a passage truly pathetic :

Woe, woe, to those alas! who gave me birth!
Blind, barbarous father, mother void of pity,

Poor, must you bring an infant to the light
The heir to nought but your sad indigence?
Ah had ye yet but suffered my young mind
In ignorance to remain, I then had liv'd

In peace, tilling the earth; but you must nurse
Those fires of genius that have since consum'd me.

The last reproach which our unfortunate poet ad

days falls very lamentably It is thus that we all aim

dresses to the authors of his upon the manners of the age. at soaring above the rank to which nature had destined us. Led on by this universal error, the honest mechanic restrains his scanty portion of bread that he may give his children a learned education; an education which too often leads them only to despise their families. Genius is besides very rare. Undoubtedly a man of superior talents is sometimes to be found in the humbler walks of life, but how many estimable artisans taken from their mechanical labours would prove nothing but wretched authors. Society then finds itself overcharged with useless citizens, who, tormented by their own self-love harass both the government and the people at large with their vain systems and idle speculations. Nothing is so dangerous as a man of moderate talents whose only occupation is to make books.

Nay, although a parent should be convinced that his child is born with a decided talent for letters is it certain that he seeks the happiness of that child in opening to him this barren career?-Oh let him recollect these lines of of the poet now in question.

How many a hapless author, wretched doom!
Has want conducted to his unknown tomb.

Let him think of Gilbert himself, extended upon the bed of death, breathing out his last sigh with the following melancholy reflection.

Dd

At life's fair banquet an unhappy guest

One day I sat, now see me on my bier.

While o'er the spot where my sad corse shall rest,
No mourner e'er shall come to drop one tear.

Would not Gilbert, a simple labourer, cherished by his neighbours, beloved by his wife, dying full of years surrounded by his children, under the humble roof of his fathers, have been much more happy than Gilbert hated by men, abandoned by his friends, breathing at the age of thirty, his last sigh on the wretched bed of an hospital, deprived through chagrin of that reason to which alone he looked for any claim to superiority;--of reason, that weak compensation which heaven grants to men of talent, for the sorrows to which they are subjected.

It will doubtless be here objected against what I say, that if Gilbert was unhappy he had no one but himself to reproach for it. True it is indeed that satire is not the path which leads to the acquisition of friends, and conciliates the public esteem and beneficence. But, in our age, this species of poetry has been too much decried. While the reigning faction in literature has been prodigal of the appellations of toad-eaters, sycophants, fools, sneakers, and the like, to all who were not of their own opinions, it has regarded the least attempt at retaliation as a heinous crime; complaining of it to the echoes, wearying the ears of the sovereign with their cries, wanting all who dared attack the apostles of the new doctrine to be prosecuted as libellers: "Ah, my good Alembert," said the King of Prusia, endeavouring to console this great man, "if you were King of England you would experience mortifications of a very different kind which your good subjects would provide to exercise your patience." And in another letter he says: "You charge me with a commission so much the more embarrassing, as I am neither a corrector of the press, nor a censor of the gazettes. As

to the gazetteer of the Lower Rhine, the family of Maulé on must think it right that it should not be molested, since without freedom in writing, men's minds must remain in darkness, and since the Encyclopædists, whose zealous disciple I am, deprecate all censure, and insist that the press ought to be entirely free, that every one should be permitted to write whatever may be dictated by his pecu liar mode of thinking."

One can never enough admire all the wit, the talents, the irony, and the good sense that reign throughout the letters of Frederick. Satire is not in itself a crime, it may be very useful to correct fools and rogues, when it is restrained within due bounds: Ride si sapis. But it must be acknowledged that poets sometimes go too far, and, instead of ridicule, run into calumny. Satire should be the lists in which each champion, as in the pastimes of chivalry, should aim determined strokes at his advesary, but avoiding to strike either at the head or the heart.

If ever the subject could justify the satire, this undoubtedly, was the case in that chosen by M. Gilbert. The misfortunes which have been brought upon us by the vices and the opinions with which the poet reproaches the eighteenth century, shew how much he was in the fight to sound the cry of alarm. He predicted the disasters we have experienced, and verses where formerly we found exaggeration we are now obliged to confess contain nothing but simple truths. "A monster rises up, and strengthens himself in Paris; who, clothed in the mantle of philosophy or rather falsely clothed under that assumed garb, stifles talent and destroys virtue. A dan gerous innovator, he seeks by his cruel system to chase the Supreme Being from heaven, and dooming the soul to the same fate as the expiring body, would annihilate man by a double death. Yet this monster carries not with