will not pretend to that, for they can frame no conceptions of it: They are fure there is fuch an union from the operations and effects, but the cause and the manner of it are too fubtle and fecret to be discovered by the eye of reafon; 'tis myftery, 'tis divine magic, 'tis natural miracle." Political Effects of the Junction between the great monied Intereft and the philofophical Cabals of France. From Burke's Reflexions on the Revolution in France. N the mean tire, the pride of ealthy , not noble or eway noble, encreafed with its caufe. They felt with refentment an inferiority, the grounds of which they did not acknowledge. There was no measure to which they were not willing to lend themfelves, in order to revenged of the outrages of this rival difpofed to new enterprizes of any kind. Being of a recent acquifition, it falls in more naturally with any novelties. It is therefore the kind of wealth which will be reforted to by all who wish for change. Along with the monied intereft, a new description of men had grewn up, with whom that intereft foon formed a clofe and marked union; I mean the political men of letters. Men of letters, fond of distinguishing themfelves, are rarely averfe to innovation. Since the decline of the life and greatnefs of Lewis the XIVth, they were not fo much cultivated either by him, or by the regent, or the fucceffors to the crown; nor were they engaged to the court by favours and emoluments fo fyftematically as during the fplendid period of that oftentatious and not impolitic reign. What they loft in the old court protection, they endeavoured to make up by order to pride, and to exalt joining in a fort of incorporation their wealth to what they confidered as its natural rank and estimation. They ftruck at the nobility through the crown and the church. They attacked them particularly on the fide on which they thought them the moft vulnerable, that is, the poffeffions of the church, which, thro' the patronage of the crown, generally devolved upon the nobility. The bishopricks, and the great commendatory abbies, were, with few exceptions, held by that order. In this ftate of real, though not always perceived warfare between the noble antient landed intereft, and the new monied intereft, the greatest because the most applicable ftrength was in the hands of the latter. The monied intereft is in its nature more ready for any adtenture; and its poffeffors more of their own; to which the two academies of France, and afterwards the vast undertaking of the Encyclopædia, carried on by a fociety of thefe gentlemen, did not a little contribute. The literary cabal had fome years ago formed fomething like a regular plan for the destruction of the Chriftian religion. This object they purfued with a degree of zeal which hitherto had been difcovered only in the propagators of fome fyftem of piety. They were poffeffed with a fpirit of profelytism in the most fanatical degree; and from thence, by an eafy progrefs, with the fpirit of perfecution according to their means. What was not to be done towards their great end by any direct or immediate act, might be wrought by a longer process thro the the medium of opinion. To com- neither weakened their ftrength, nor relaxed their efforts. The iffue of the whole was, that what with oppofition, and what with fuccefs, a violent and malignant zeal, of a kind hitherto unknown in the world, had taken an entire poffeffion of their minds, and rendered their whole converfation, which otherwife would have been pleasing and inftructive, perfectly difgufting. A fpirit of cabal, intrigue, and profe lytifm, pervaded all their thoughts, words, and actions. And as controverfial zeal foon turns its thoughts on force, they began to infinuate themselves into a correfpondence with foreign princes; in hopes, through their authority, which at firft they flattered, they might bring about the changes they had in view. To them it was indifferent whether thefe changes were to be accomplished by the thunderbolt of defpotifm, or by the earthquake of popular commotion. The correfpondence between this cabal, and the late king of Pruffia, will throw no fmall light upon the fpirit of all their proceedings. For the fame purpofe for which they intrigued with princes, they cultivated, in a diftinguifhed manner, the monied intereft of France; and partly thro' the means furnished by those whofe peculiar offices gave them the most extenfive and certain means of communication, they carefully occupied all the avenues to opinion. The defultory and faint perfecution carried on against them, more from compliance with form and decency than with serious resentment, Writers, efpecially when they a&t in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind; the alliance therefore of thefe writers with the monied intereft had no fmall effect in removing the *I do not chufe to flock the feeling of the moral reader with any quotation of their vulgar, bafe, and profane language. VOL. XXXII. K popular popular odium and envy which attended that species of wealth, Thefe writers, like the propagators of all novelties, pretended to a great zeal for the poor, and the lower orders, whilft in their fatires they rendered hateful, by every exaggeration, the faults of courts, of nobility, and of priesthood. They became a fort of demagogues. They ferved as a link to unite, in favour of one object, obnoxious wealth to restless and defperate poverty. As thefe two kinds of men appear principal leaders in all the late tranfactions, their junction and politics will ferve to account, not upon any principles of law or of policy, but as a caufe, for the general fury with which all the landed property of ecclefiaftical corpora tions has been attacked; and the great care which, contrary to their pretended principles, has been taken, of a monied intereft originating from the authority of the crown. All the envy against wealth and power, was artificially directed against other defçriptions of riches. On what other principles than that which I have ftated can we account for an appearance fo extraordinary and unnatural as that of the ecclefiaftical poffeffions, which had stood fo many fucceffions of ages and fhocks of civil violences, and were guarded at once by juftice, and by prejudice, being applied to the payment of debts, comparatively re cent, invidious, and contracted by a decried and fubverted govern ment? POETRY POETRY. ODE on NO O D E. By PETER PINDAR, Esq. [See CHRONICLE, p. 193.] WHAT! not a fprig of annual metre, Neither from Thomas nor from Peter St. James's, happy, happy court, No more his tent fhall Thomas pitch in; The run of mighty Cæfar's kitchen? Loud roar of Helicon the floods, To think immortal verfe fhould thus be flighted. I fee, I see the God of Lyric fire Drop fuddenly his jaw, and lyre I hear, I hear the Mufes fcream affrighted! Prepare to speak on this no Ode! Hark to his folemn fpeech: "Alas! alas!" Perchance the royal pair have puk'd with praise, Determin'd now to end the Laureat's days, Who gives Fame's pap, the glutton! with a ladle. Indeed, it is a generous mode of finning, Yet fets, unluckily, the world a grinning! Perchance (his pow'rs for future actions hoarding) K 2 Yet Yet what of that?-Tho' nought hath been effected, ODE for bis MAJESTY'S BIRTH DAY, June 4, 179%. Written by the late Rev. Mr. T. WARTON. I. WITHIN what fountain's craggy cell Where from the rigid roof diftils Her richest stream in fteely rills? What mineral gems entwine her humid locks? His rugged channel rudely chide? Darwent, whofe fhaggy wreath is ftain'd with Danish gore! II. Or does the dress her Naiad-caye With coral-fpoils from Neptune's wave, Of nymphs that tread the neighb'ring main? Temper the balmy beverage pure, That, fraught with "drops of precious cure," And from the Cambrian hills the billowy Severn fweeps, Or broods the nymph with watchful wing And fans th' eternal sparks of hidden fire, Blade |