2nd. I read the Enquiry, p. 40-95, which comprises the first part. The author's object is to class our various passions and sensations, and to investigate our affections, in order to discover how we are and ought to be affected. All those of the mind he refers to two classes;-self preservation and society. The former renders sensible of pain and terror; the latter, in their various branches, (of sympathy, imitation, and terror,) of pleasure, love, and joy. Their nature is eternally distinct; and they never can run into one another. This naturally leads Mr. Burke to deny that the privation of pleasure ever produces positive pain; and, vice versa, the sensation produced by the absence of pain he calls delight, a solemn, awful feeling, very different from positive pleasure. 4th. I finished the Enquiry, which contains in all 342 pages. The author writes with ingenuity, perspicuity, and candour. His reigning principles are, that pain, when absent, and moderated to terror, is productive of that solemn delight which forms the beauty of the sublime; this idea he pursues through its various shapes of immensity either of time or place, power, darkness, &c. It is surprising how much Longinus and Mr. Burke differ as to their idea of the operations of the sublime in our minds. The one considers it as exalting us with a conscious pride and courage, and the other as astonishing every faculty, and depressing the soul itself with terror and amazement. If it should be found that the sublime produces this double, and seemingly contrary effect, we must look out for some more general principles which may account for it, though we may adopt still many particular materials and observations of both writers in the investigation of it. Such is Mr. Burke's system of the sublime: his notion of the beautiful is, that it is produced by whatever gives us pleasure. Perhaps his idea, confined as it is to the pleasures of sense, (heightened indeed by the imagination,) is yet too general. What connexion can he discover between the pleasures of the taste and the idea of beautiful? However, he thinks, and I believe with reason, that any thing to appear beautiful either to the sight or touch, must convey to the sense an idea of softness and gradual variation, and to the imagination those of gentleness, delicacy, and even fragility. The ideas of beauty being in the least founded on those of order, proportion, or utility, he entirely explodes. I cannot help observing here, that in speaking of anything beautiful, we consider the figure as so essential to it as not to be altered without changing the nature of it; and the colour as an accessory quality which may be varied at pleasure--a proof that sometimes common feelings are conformable to philosophical speculations, where we should the least expect it. Mr. Burke employs his last part in considering words as the signs of ideas. He remarks that they do not commonly, when pronounced, call up in the mind a picture of the idea for which they stand; and that consequently, in poetry or eloquence we are as often affected by the words themselves, as by clear images of what they are designed to represent. I began today Ubbo Emmius' Geographical Description of Greece, (which will be very useful for all my Greek authors, but particularly for the Odyssey,) and read p. 1-18. 5th. I read Emmius, p. 18-40. 6th. I read Emmius, p. 40-45. 7th. I read Emmius, p. 45-54. It is a short, and 8th. I read Emmius, p. 54-194, the end. consequently a dry abridgment; but it is concise, clear, and exact. It contributed a good deal to confirm me in the contemptible idea I always entertained of Cellarius. 1. In comparing this abridgment with the single map of Græcia Propria, I found above 130 places omitted in Cellarius, and among them some of such note as Tirins, Helos, Ithome, Pisa, the province of Acarnania, and the valley of Tempe. What would it have been had I entered into the minute detail of any one region? 17th. I read Les Observations de l'Abbé de Mably sur les Grècs. They are not ill written; but I think a capital fault of them is, attributing more consequences to the particular characters of men, often ill-drawn, than to the general manners, character, and situation of nations. 30th. I began the Odyssey of Homer, and read lib. i. v. 444, the end. December 1st.-I read the Odyssey, lib. ii. v. 1-128. 2nd. I read the Odyssey, lib. ii. v. 128-434, the end. 3rd. I read Potter's Greek Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 120—160, where he treats of the naval affairs of the Greeks, in order to understand the voyages of Telemachus. As, while I was reading, I saw from my window some of the finest ships in the world, I could not very much admire the small barks, with a mast occasionally set up and taken down, which they run ashore every night. 5th. I read the Odyssey, lib. iii. v. 1-497, the end, and finished some new journals, the Bibliothèque des Sciences et Belles Lettres, from April to September, 1762, and the Journal des Savans combiné avec les Mémoires de Trévoux, from June to September. There is a curious dissertation of Mr. Beyer, upon the Atlantic Island of Plato. He pretends it is Judea. Some circumstances and etymologies are as usual favourable to him, others totally opposite. However, calling in allegory and romance to support allegory and romance, he seems to think he has entirely confounded the infidels. The other is the Voyage of M. Anquetil du Perron to the East Indies, with the sole view of studying the language and religion of the ancient Persees. He is just returned to France, with a prodigious number of manuscripts, which may perhaps throw some light upon one of the most obscure but most curious branches of ancient history. 6th. I read Potter's Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 209-237, in relation to the sacrifice offered by Nestor, and so exactly described by Homer. 12th. I had borrowed of M. B. * * * a French moral and political romance of the Abbé Terasson, called Sethos. The beginning is fine, the description of the manners of the court of Memphis is worthy of Tacitus; and the system of the Egyptian initia tion is a very happy thought: but, unluckily, the interest of the piece gradually diminishes in every book, till you arrive at the catastrophe, which is very cold and unnatural. As to the style, it is pure and elegant, scarcely ever elevated, and never animated. The Abbé Terasson had too mathematical a head to excel in the language of description, and too stoic a heart to shine in that of the passions. His feelings, however, are just, though not warm: the whole work breathes a spirit of virtue and humanity, which renders it very amiable. EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL. (Written in French.) February, 1763.-Having left England, it is fit that I should leave off English. Ideas create words; and there would be as much difficulty in expressing continental customs in good English, as there would be in describing in pure French the manners of England, and the minute transactions of our regiment of militia. Instead of being obliged to write an imperfect translation, or a tiresome paraphrase, it is better at once to have recourse to the language of the country. But I must renounce the design of a regular and minute journal, of which I flattered myself with the plan, but which I should find the constraint too great on my natural laziness, to continue the execution. I had interrupted my labours for a few days; this little negligence might be so easily repaired! but these days have imperceptibly become weeks. The more I had to do, I was the more reluctant to begin the work. The time still left to me was spent in useless regret; and now that I ought to write my history for six months, reason tells me that I must no longer think of the undertaking. But the same reason enjoins me not entirely to neglect the most curious occurrences, perhaps, of my whole life. I shall collect, therefore, not in the order of time, but according to the distribution of subjects, the new ideas which I acquired during my residence in Paris. These subjects may be arranged under the following heads: 1. My own personal concerns; expenses, connexions, friends. 2. The state of literature in France, the men of letters, academies. theatres. 3. Detached observations, military, political, and moral. 4. The public buildings and works of art.-I will allow, however, some pages of my journal, which were written at the time, to remain in their original state;-a vain undertaking, forsaken almost as soon as begun. Lausanne, August 17th, 1763.-I wrote a small part of my discourse on the ancient nations of Italy; small indeed for a whole morning spent in the country. But of late I scarcely do any thing. My trifling avocations in town, the continual bustle at Mesery, and the frequent removals from the one to the other, produce greater distractions of thought at Lausanne, than I ever experienced in London or Paris. I must seriously resume my labours. 18th. I read the third Satire of Juvenal, consisting of three hundred and twenty-two verses. How judiciously does it set out! The honest Umbricius stops in the wood of Egeria, a sacred monument of the primitive Romans, but then inhabited by wretched Jews, to complain to Numa of the luxury of foreign manners, which had overflowed a nation whom he had instructed in laws and religion. The awkward meanness of the Romans, opposed to the address and suppleness of the Greeks, who made themselves slaves to become masters, forms a striking contrast. After such a beautiful picture, Juvenal, I think, would have done better not to have dwelt so long on the little inconveniences and disorders common to all great cities, and which are unworthy of exciting the serious indignation which he expresses against them. 20th. I read, for the first time, the fourth,Satire of Juvenal. 24th. I read the fourth Satire of Juvenal, consisting of one hundred and fifty-four verses, for the second time. The council of Domitian is, perhaps, the most striking passage of satire to be met with in any ancient author. This subject perfectly suited our poet's genius; that seriousness of indignation, and that energy of expression of which he is sometimes too lavish, are here in their proper place; and they forcibly impress on the reader's mind that detestation for the tyrant, and contempt for the Romans, which both so richly merited. Unfortunately this piece is left unfinished. After having described the principal counsellors with the pen of Sallust, the very moment they ought to begin their deliberation, the principal personage disappears, the poet's fire extinguishes, and the end of the piece is mangled. I also read twice the fifth satire, consisting of one hundred and seventy-three verses. How gross were the manners of the Romans amidst all their luxury! The most insolent financier would not now venture to make such humiliating distinctions among his guests. At Rome, the elegant Pliny considers his being disgusted with them almost as a merit in himself.* How different were the characters of Horace and Juvenal, although both sons of freedmen! The latter disdained to bend to the pride of the great; and the former, while he cured them of that pride, lived with them not as a parasite, but as a friend. 25th. I read for the first time, the sixth Satire of Juvenal, consisting of six hundred and sixty verses; and finished the thirteenth volume of the Bibliothèque Raisonnée. It contains extracts from many excellent works; such as Cudworth's Intellectual System by Mosheim;† Sale's Alcoran, &c.; Critical Histories of Manicheism, and of the French Monarchy, by Mr. Beausobre and the Abbé Dubos. These extracts are rather superficial; but the History of the Roman Laws, by Heineccius, is highly interesting for those who consider jurisprudence only in its relation to general literature. 26th. I read over again the first hundred and sixty verses of the sixth Satire of Juvenal. After breakfast I went to the * V. Plín. Epist. lib. ii. ep. 6. The translation appears to be superior to the original. library to consult Mr. Bochat's Treatise on the Worship of the Egyptian Divinities at Rome, so often mentioned by Juvenal. It is to be found in the Neufchâtel Mercury for the year 1742. This treatise is merely a hypothesis, and that very chimerical;_namely, that the worship of these divinities was brought from Egypt to Greece, and from Greece to Italy, by colonies established in that country long before the age of Romulus. I consulted the first volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres, p. 140, concerning the signification of the word "attonita" in the fourth Satire of Juvenal, v. 77. Mr. Valois applies it to the astonishment which prevailed in the capital in consequence of the revolt of L. Antonius in Lower Germany. This conjecture is possible, which is all that can be said of it. But I am surprised that he has not drawn from it the only conclusion that could render it interesting. Antonius's revolt happened in the year of Rome 840.* The excessive tyranny of Domitian had then reached its meridian; yet the baseness of the Romans endured this monster still nine years longer. I read the fourteenth volume of the Bibliothèque Raisonnée. It contains Syntagma Dissertationum, &c., Leipsic, 1733; a good collection, by Mosheim; which, however, savours too much of the theologian, and even of the Lutheran: Plinii Epistolæ a Cortio, cum notis variorum; Amstel. 1734; a very good edition: Itineraria Vetera a Wesselingio; Amstel. 1734: a most excellent edition of one of the most useful works we have, on the Geography of the Roman Empire. 27th. I read for the second time, the sixth Satire of Juvenal, -the source of all the invectives that have for sixteen centuries been accumulated against the sex. Nothing can be added to its force, richness, and variety; but some things perhaps might be retrenched from those too faithful descriptions, which, while they condemn vice, are apt to inspire vicious passions. Yet those wretches are they entitled to escape infamy through the excess of their guilt? Ought their profligacy to be concealed from their posterity because they carried it to an immeasurable height? Juvenal has even been reproached with gratifying, in such descriptions, the pruriency of his own fancy. Yet the horror which he uniformly testifies at the disorders which he describes, will always persuade me, that his warmth proceeds, not from the flames of voluptuousness, but from the fire of indignation and genius. Instead of a licentiousness of morals, which inclined him to pardon vice, I would rather reproach him with a malignity of heart, which made him think the corruption general. He perpetually confounds invective with satire. All women are guilty, and guilty of the most enormous crimes. You may find a Clytemnestra in every street.† I know that there never, perhaps, was an age more profligate than that of Juvenal; in which morals were enervated by luxury; the heart hardened by the institutions of domestic slavery and the amphitheatre; sentiments debased by the tyranny of government; and every characteristic * V. M. de Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. ii. p. 39, edit. fol. |