date periiffe juvat!" or, in plain English, What fignifies learning, when a man is damned!""

In this, as in all the compofitions of Profeffor VAM HEMERT, the Latin is pure and elegant, and the flyle is nervous and eloquent. The following fhort specimen will fully convince the learned reader that the work deferves this praise :

Libertatem, fateor in religionis caufâ. Meerfchius profitebatar, eamque ut aliis concedebat, fic fibi vindicabat, omniumque virium contentione tuebatur. Hec ea eft libertas aurea, quános Remonftrantes jure noftro gloriamur; quæque SOLA characterem exprimit atque naturam familia noftra. Hec ea eft, quâ formularum humanarum patroni gloriari ac fuperbire nequeunt. Hac ea eft, quam nobis ab ipfo Deo, dein ab Jefu Chrifto, quem unum veneramur magiftrum, datam et conceffam, pro virili femper ftrenueque defendemus, quamque eripi nobis, quoad maneat noftra focietas, nullâ ratione patiemur! Hoc enim, ut cum Tullio gloriabundus dicam, liberiores et folutiores fumus, quod integra nobis eft judicandi poteftas, nec ut omnia, quæ præfcripta et quafi imperata fint, defendamus neceffitate ullâ cogamur.'

Sow.

ART. VI. Mémoires du Miniftère du Duc D'Aiguillon, &c. i e. Memoirs of the Administration of the Duke D'Aiguillon, Peer of France, and of his Government of Bretagne. 8vo. pp. 392. Paris, 1792. Imported by De Boffe, London.

THE

HE scenes of vice and corruption, with which the history of the French court is filled, muft be disagreeable and painful to every friend of virtue: but this difguft is increased when thefe fcenes are detailed by people, who dare not give their publications the fanction of their names, and who, for aught that we know, may deferve our indignation by having presented to us a series of vile faltehoods, dictated by a spirit of political refentment, or private revenge. Such were our fentiments on reading the prefent memoirs, which are published by we know not whom; nor do the editors condefcend to inform us who was their author; nor how they fell into their hands; though they affert that fome of the facts related could have bee communicated to the writer by none except the Duke.D'Aiguillon. He appears to be a zealous partizan of this nobleman, who is as uniformly the object of his praife, as every other minifter is of his cenfure. He condemns with great feverity the administrations of Turgot and Necker: but the chief object of his averfion is the Duke De Choifeul, whom he reprefents as a man ready to facrifice every thing to his unbounded luft of power, and whom he accufes of having poifoned Madame De Pompadour, the Dauphin, and the Queen.

We

We cannot help obferving, that the ftyle of this work is not Jefs contemptible than its contents are difgufting: so that it will probably foon fink into that oblivion, to which we moft heartily with it configned.

Sou.

ART. VII. GERH. NICOLAI HEERKENS, de Valitudine Literatorum; i.e. On the Influence of Study on the Health of the Learned, a Poem, in Three Books. By GERH. NIC. HEERKENS. 8vo. pp. 240. Groninguen. 1792.

T° 'o be at once didactic and poetic, requires talents of a peculiar kind, which few, comparatively, poffefs; in this difficult line, M. HEERKENS makes a refpectable figure, and has here given a pleasing and interesting poem on a subject which we had not imagined capable of fo much embellishment. He writes in the elegiac Hexameter and Pentameter verfe, and has illuftrated his text by a great number of notes, which contain curious and entertaining literary anecdotes.

D!

ART. VIII. Lettres fur les Dangers, &c. i.e. Letters on the Danger of altering the primitive Conftitution of an Established Government; written to a Dutch Patriot. 8vo. pp. 400. Londen. [A Pretence.] 1792.

THE

HE lamentable ftate of confufion in which France has for fome time past been involved, together with the wild notions and violent conduct of the Jacobines and their adherents, must be deplored by every moderate and good man, not only on account of the evils of which they are the immediate occafion, but also as they furnish the advocates for arbitrary government with a pretence for vindicating its oppreffion, and for representing liberty as in every cafe incompatible with the peace and order of society.

The defign of these letters is fufficiently evident from their title: the writer appears to be a native of Holland, who, dreading left his countrymen, infected with the madness of pseudopatriotifm, fhould attempt to overturn the political conftitution of their country, in order to attain a government purely democratical, endeavours to convince them that fuch an undertaking must be productive of great and innumerable evils, and is not likely to fecure the liberty which is its object. With this view, he uses the argumentum ad hominem, and fets out with admitting the right of a people, when intolerably oppreffed, to rife against their fovereign and vindicate their freedom; in this cafe, he grants, as true, the maxim of Barbeirac, that the ge

neral

neral infurrection of a nation ought not to be termed a rebellion: but, after having made thefe conceffions, he inquires into the expedience of fuch measures, and endeavours to fhew that the evil produced by refiftance to an oppreffive government, is much greater than can refult from fubmiffion. For this purpofe, he takes an hiftorical view of the ancient republics of Greece, which unfortunately furnish but too many examples of the inftability and mifery of ill-conftituted republics; and which, though not liable to the hereditary defpotifm of a single tyrant, were exposed to the oppreffion and violence of many.

The author's difcuffions of thefe fubjects fhew him to be well acquainted with ancient hiftory: but we think that he would have given greater force to his arguments, if he had been more attentive to arrangement, inftead of writing in a defultory and digreffive manner, without order and perfpicuity of method.

It is, however, no more than justice to acknowlege, that he has amply illuftrated this important thefts, that political revolu tions generally produce great evils; and that the people, even after they have fucceeded in fhaking off the yoke under which they had groaned, are, in many cafes, either from their own levity and inconftancy, or from the treachery and ambition of those in whom they confide, forced to fubmit to a defpotifm worse than that to which they had before been fubject. In this view, the letters before us have their utility, as a seasonable warning to guard mankind against those restlefs fpirits, who miftake licentioufnefs for liberty, and, under pretence of oppofing the exertions of arbitrary power, endeavour to throw off all thofe legal restraints, and that political fubordination, which focial order indifpenfably requires, and without which there can, in fact, be no liberty.

While, however, we beftow due praife on this author's intention, we must observe that, like many writers on this fubject, he weakens his arguments by endeavouring to prove too much, and advances principles to which we cannot affent without renouncing all attachment to thofe on which every free conftitution is founded.

We allow, with the utmost concern, that the term liberty. has too often been misunderstood; that wrong ideas of it have been the cause of much diforder, of many and great evils; and that an attachment to it has frequently been made a pretence for destroying the peace of fociety, and for committing the worft of crimes. We grant that nothing can be more useful, especially in these times, than to rectify mischievous errors of this nature, which tend to the fubverfion of all order :-but if, to do this, we run into the other extreme, and fay, that liberty

is a mere phantom which never did and never can exist, we fhall fruftrate our own endeavours; and our readers, shocked at the falle principles on which we fet out, will be prejudiced against all the arguments that we can offer. We allow, with the author of thefe letters, that, among the ancients, the word liberty was often ufed to exprefs the freedom of the ftate from foreign controul: but we deny that this is the only fenfe in which it was employed, or in which liberty can be faid to exist. If our author be right, and liberty, as applied to the fubjects of a limited political conftitution, be a word without any meaning, it follows that the States of the United Provinces, as well as our own King and Parliament, must have fallen into the groffeft abfurdity, when they have reprefented the liberties of their fubjects, (that is, their freedom from the arbitrary control of their own governors as well as from that of foreign powers,) as fomething real and highly valuable.

Another circumftance, which we muft blame in this letterwriter, is his indifcriminate cenfure of all refiftance to a bad government, and of all revolutions whatever. What degree of oppreffion will vindicate a people in oppofing a bad government, and in attempting to establish a milder conftitution, is difficult to determine; and indeed it is one of those questions which must be left theoretically undecided:-but the affertion, that no fuch cafe can poffibly happen, is peculiarly abfurd either in Dutchmen or Britons, who are greatly indebted to fuch revolutions for whatever is valuable in the political conftitutions under which they feverally live. Our author does indeed promise to enter into a particular view of the revolt of the United Provinces from Spain: but, inftead of doing this, he turns his attention to the late civil diffenfions in the Auftrian Netherlands; in which we readily allow that the word liberty was moft wretchedly abufed, to favour the deteftable projects of ambitious aristocrats, and fuperftitious monks.

It is a pity that the advocates for power, as well as the friends of liberty, have, in their writings, given way to the influence of paffion, and have dealt more in declamation than argument: by attributing to each other views and designs, which probably neither of them at first entertained, they have introduced fufpicions and averfions, which have already had terrible effects, and which may tend to produce the very evils that they profeffed to dread. This is remarkably the cafe with fome of those whom the French revolution called into the field of controversy; and especially with thofe who may be confidered as principals in the quarrel; for fuch it unfortunately became; we mean Mr. Burke and Mr. Paine. Both thefe writers have advanced many important truths and obfervations:

but

but they are both chargeable with many exaggerated and dangerous affertions. If the latter be accufed of endeavouring to render us discontented with our excellent conftitution, and of fomenting a spirit of fedition; the former is not lefs guilty of roufing the paffions of the people in a manner equally unjuftifiable, and not lefs dangerous; for by abfurdly connecting the idea of enmity to our conftitution in church and ftate, with the mere approbation and commemoration of the probable deliverance of the French from their former yoke, he contributed greatly, though no doubt unintentionally, to excite that horrid fpirit which infpired the Birmingham rioters.

There were certainly many, and the writer of this article. acknowleges himself of that number, who, from motives of the pureft benevolence, rejoiced in the French revolution. They fincerely disapproved of every circumftance of cruelty which might attend it, and lamented the unfortunate victims of popular refentment, with as much compaffion as they had before. mourned over the fufferings of the martyrs to regal or minifterial oppreffion :-but, as they were not fo romantic as to expect that fo great and fudden a change could be effected without producing fome diforder, they confoled themselves with the hope, that these would be compensated by greater good, when momentary confusion and anarchy fhould give way to the regular administration of laws founded on juft and equal principles. If they approved of the conftitution afterward eftablished, it was only because it appeared to be in the main, and as far as circumftances would permit, founded on these principles; though they faw its deficiency in fome points of political arrangement, which, they hoped, experience might lead the nation to rectify:-but, alas!

"Quid leges fine moribus

Vane proficiunt ?"

The vices, which were formerly almoft confined within the limits of the court, feem now to have over-run the whole nation. The conftitution, which might have rendered it happy, is overturned; and, inftead of the empire of the laws, we fee only at present the cruel tyranny of a mob. Thefe fcenes are too melancholy for us to dwell on them; and we are forry to obferve the indecent triumph with which they infpire the enemies of freedom :-but to reprefent thefe horrid exceffes as the neceffary confequences of a love of liberty, is as abfurd, as to fay, that oppreffion is the infeparable effect of government, or perfecution that of Chriftianity.

When, after deploring the distracted and calamitous fituation of France, we turn our views to our own country, we feel the warmeft gratitude for the conftitution with which it is APP. REV. VOL, VIII. bleffed,