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XII. Memoirs of the Marchionefs of Pompadour, written by herself. Wherein are difplayed the Motives of the Wars, Treaties of Peace, Embafies, and Negotiations, in the feveral Courts of Europe: the Cabals and Intrigues of Courtiers; the Characters of Generals, and Minifters of State, with the Causes of their Rife and Fall and, in general, the most remarkable Occurrences at the Court of France, during the last twenty Years of the Reign of Lewis XV. Tranflated from the French. II Vols. 12mo. Pr. 6s. Vaillant.

HOUGH there is great reafon to doubt this being the

TH

genuine production of Madame de Pompadour's pen; the many anecdotes relating to the court of Verfailles; the ftriking pictures that are every where drawn of the leading courtiers, statesmen, and warriours of the French nation; in a word, the general acquaintance which this author constantly manifefts with the most elevated perfonages, and remarkable characters of that gay nation, plainly indicates, that be muft at least have been well acquainted with the theatre of action, and the dramatis perfona.

The style of the original, which we have perufed, is correct and elegant; the animadverfions frequently juft, and the deductions often ingenious and conclufive. A ftrong partiality, nevertheless, reigns throughout in favour of the French nation, to the prejudice of the English; though the author is tolerably fevere upon his own countrymen; but this is not the cafe when they are put in competition with any other people. We fhall, for the fatisfaction of the reader, felect a few fhort paffages that will, we imagine, fupport our opinion in both refpecs.

• Robert Walpole, then the ruling minister in Great Britain, was all for peace, as understanding nothing of war. Every minifter in Europe (as a man of great wit, who often came to me at Verfailles, pointed out to me) has his peculiar talents, according to which he gives the bias to public affairs. Walpole's fyftem was, that the power of Great Britain lay in trade, and that fuch a nation is to keep clear of fieges and battles.

The king fhewed me feveral of that minifter's letters to Cardinal Fleury. In one he fays,

"I engage to keep the parliament to a peaceable difpofition, if you will bridle the martial ardour of your people; for a minifter in England cannot do every thing," &c. &c.

• In another,

"I have a deal of difficulty to keep our people from coming to blows; not that they are bent on war, but because I am for preferving peace; for our English politicians must be ever fkirmishing, either in the field or at Westminster."

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"I penfion half the parliament to keep it quiet; but as the king's money is not fufficient, and they to whom I give none, clamour loudly for a war, it would be expedient for your eminence to remit me three millions of French livres, in order to filence these barkers. Gold is a metal which here corrects all qualities in the blood. A penfion of two thousand pounds a year will make the most impetuous warrior in parliament as tame as a lamb. In fhort, fhould England break out, you will, befides the uncertainty of events in war, be under the neceffity of paying larger fubfidies to foreign powers, to be on an equality with us; whereas, by furnishing me with a little. money, you purchase peace at the firft hand, &c. &c."

Sir Robert, with all his faults and with all his fondness for the tranquility of Europe, never affuredly fubmitted to fuch terms as these with a French ministry. We would at least chufe to doubt it, for our own honour, if even the Marchionefs de Pompadour were to rife from the grave, and tell it us with her own lips.

This writer, fpeaking in another place of the general ignorance that prevails in France, and the difficulty of filling the important poits of the state with perfons of fuitable abilities, expreffes himself thus:

I have been likewife accused of introducing into the miniftry perfons of no turn for bufinefs, ignorant, fhallow, and fuperficial fellows: but where fhall I find any other in France? The human mind feems to have been degenerated among us.

The French nobility, though moft concerned in the public administration, give no attention to business; their life is a round of indolence, luxury, and diffipation... They know as little of politics as of finances and economy. A gentleman either spends his life at his feat in rural sports, or comes to Paris to ruin himself with an opera girl. They who have an ambition to figure in the miniftry, have no other merit than intrigue and cabal. If they are traverfed in their views, or af terwards fuperfeded, fuch measure is with them an effect of the prince's prejudice.'

The writer of these memoirs is very diffufive upon the Bull Unigenitus, and the disputes that arofe thereupon between the clergy and parliaments of France; fubjects that are not very entertaining to an English reader, who cannot reasonably be animated with the fame party zeal upon thefe matters as the French and, indeed, we are not a little furprized to find madam Pompadour interest herself fo much in the affair, as we think it greatly out of character..

These

These two volumes bring down this lady's history no lower than the commencement of the late war between England and Spain; fo that we may expect at least another volume by the fame pen to complete it.

With refpect to the merit of the tranflation, though not elegant, yet it is faithful; the ftyle, however, of both volumes, is very unequal.

Dean of From the

XIII. Letters written by the late Jonathan Swift, D. D.
St. Patrick's Dublin, and feveral of his Friends.
Year 1703 to 1704. Published from the Originals; with Notes
explanatory and biftorical, by John Hawkefworth, L. L. D.
In III Vols. 8vo. Pr. 155. Davis.

WE

E hope we may, without incurring the imputation of profaneness, apply to this correfpondence the fentiments of the guests in the fcriptural marriage; for, tho' the laft, it is undoubtedly the best that ever came from the pens of the Dean and his friends. They formed a conftellation of witNil oriturum-ml ortum tale :—equal perhaps to any that antiquity ever produced, fuperior undoubtedly to their contemporaries, and, unless nature mends the prefent breed, will, in all probability, continue unrivalled both by us and our pofterity.

In our review of the fifteenth, fixteenth, and seventeenth volumes of Swift's Works *, we obferved, that that publication evidently fhewed the Dean could think for himself in matters of government, and that he was by no means fervilely attached to modes, perfons, or forms. The work before us fully confirms our opinion; it throws lights upon the perfonal character of the Dean, in which he never appeared before; and difcovers him to be as great in friendship and philanthropy, as he was in wit and humour. The oddities which some pretend to discover in his clerical and perfonal character, arofe from those of others; for it appears by thefe Letters, that no man ever acted with greater confiftency than Swift did, both in principle and conduct. This collection likewise proves how little his noble biographer (lord Orrery) knew of the Dean, when he faid he was employed, but not trufted, by the Tories. Had his lordship perufed thefe Letters, he would have seen that the Tory minifter employed and trusted, but did not reward, him, at least, not in the manner Swift had a right to expect. This

* See vol. xix. P. 344.

was

was owing to the peculiar caft of lord Oxford's temper; and nothing can more fully fhew the delicacy of the Dean in point of friendship, than the tenderness with which he treated the memory, and the patience with which he bore the failings, of that minifter. Failings can we call them ?-Were they not fomething worse ?-Did they not proceed from the fame principle which prevents a fuperior fea or land commander from preferring a non-commiffion officer, because he cannot fill up his place with equal advantage? The truth is, his lordship was mean enough to employ the Dean as the ferjeant and drillmafter of his political corps, whom he brought into excellent order; and he took off two-thirds of the fatigue, which, had it not been for him, the fuperior officers and their general must have undergone. It is no wonder that they were unwilling to lofe the fervices of fo ufeful a fubaltern, by preferring him to an independent ftation, that might raise him above the drudgery of party.Whoever perufes thefe volumes with proper attention, will perceive that Swift's preferment (moderate as it was compared with his fervices) was actually effected by lord Bolingbroke, and the other fecret enemies of lord Oxford, in order to deprive that minister of his useful afsistance.

The reader will here find the character of lord Oxford drawn from the moft ftriking authority, that of the facts which occur. As a private gentleman, generous, affable, free, and even voluptuoufly companionable; an excellent judge of literature, and profufe in its caufe, far beyond what his private circumstances could fupport. As a minifter, his integrity has ever been unimpeached, excepting by thofe whofe obloquy is fame; yet so obfcure, fo dilatory were his measures, that he never was decifive; and had it not been for the vigour of his affociates in government, his favourite peace might not have been concluded to this day.

The Letters we are now reviewing form the best commentary upon fuch a conduct, and the best apology it can admit of. The reader will here fee that the Tories, in fact, never were a united body; that they had no principle in which they concurred but that of oppofing the Whigs; and that matters were in agitation which Oxford no more than fhrewdly fufpected, but to which he never gave his concurrence His fufpicions however juftified his caution, which, with the natural intrepidity all allow him to have poffeffed, undoubtedly faved him in the day of danger.-But the reader will judge for himfelf.

With respect to the merit and authenticity of thefe Letters, we cannot exprefs it better than in the words of the accurate and

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fenfible editor, who informs us, that they were a prefent from the late Dr. Swift to Dr. Lyon, a clergyman of Ireland, for whom he had a great regard; that they were obtained of Dr. Lyon by Mr. Thomas Wilkes of Dublin, and of Mr. Wilkes by the bookfellers for whom they are published: that the late Dr. Birch kindly communicated his informations on many paffages which the editor could not explain; who likewise accounts for the authenticity of fome letters here published, which shall be attended to when we review that part of the work.

• A recommendation (fays the editor, in which we agree with him) of thefe volumes is yet lefs neceffary than an apology; the letters are indifputably genuine; the originals, in the handwriting of the parties, or copies indorfed by the Dean, being depofited in the British Museum ; except of those in the appendix mentioned to have come to the proprietors hands after the reft was printed, the originals of which are in the hands of a gentleman of great eminence in the law in Ireland.

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They are all written by perfons eminent for their abilities, many of whom were alfo eminent for their rank; the greater part are the genuine effufions of the heart, in the full confidence of the moft intimate friendship, without referve, and without difguife. Such in particular are the letters between the Dean and Mrs. Johnfon and Mrs. Dingley, lord Bolingbroke, Dr. Arbuthnott, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Ford, and Mr. Gay.

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They relate many particulars, that would not otherwise have been known, relative to fome of the most interesting events that have happened in this century: they abound alfo with ftrains of humour, turns of wit, and refined fentiment; they are all ftrongly characteristic, and enable the reader" to catch the manners living as they rife Thofe from the Dean to Mrs. Johnfon and Mrs. Dingley are part of the journal mentioned in his life, and from them alone a better notion may be formed of his manner and character than from all that has been written about him.

But this collection muft not be confidered as affording only entertainment to the idle, or fpeculative knowledge to the curious; it most forcibly impreffes a fenfe of the vanity and the brevity of life, which the moralift and the divine have always thought an important purpofe, but which mere declamation can feldom attain.

In a series of familiar letters between the fame friends for thirty years, their whole life as it were paffes in review before us; we live with them, we hear them talk, we mark the vigour of life, the ardour of expectation, the hurry of bufinefs,

the

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