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. Plin. 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. 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. Juvenal, Satir. vi. v. 655.

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and manly principle subverted, by the mixture and confusion of nations in one great city. Yet, there still remained many vestiges of the ancient virtues; and women, as well as men, worthy of living in a better age. If we consult Pliny's Epistles, a cotemporary monument, we shall find in the circle of that amiable Roman, humanity, morals, the love of talents and of merit. Juvenal never allows himself to bestow the smallest praise on virtuous characters,* even with the view of rendering the vicious more ugly by the contrast. All the other satirists, Horace, Boileau, Pope, have taken care to recommend themselves to their readers as the friends of virtue and of man; and, as such, have perhaps, of all the poets, most gained our love. But Juvenal seems to have a rooted hatred to his species; and, having declared against them open war, is totally regardless of their friendship. This misanthropy, indeed, must render his works peculiarly acceptable to human malignity.

28th. I read twice the seventh Satire of Juvenal; in which the poet describes, with his ordinary spirit, the poverty and contempt attending the men of letters of his times. The subject

is always a disagreeable one; since it is more easy to render a character amiable, which happens to be the object of public hatred, than to render those respectable, who are the objects of general, though just contempt: besides, those continual complaints respecting the bad state of their fortune, come with peculiar disadvantage from men of letters. We acknowledge their murmurs to be just, but they always strike us with an idea of avidity and meanness, extremely inconsistent with the elevation which we expect from their characters. If wit consists in finding between ideas, relations that are natural without being obvious, the contrast of the poet and the lion surely deserves that name; it is one of the wittiest possible. I finished the fifteenth volume of the Bibliothèque Raisonnée. It contains a second extract from Heineccius, explaining the history of the German law; a subject less interesting, indeed, than that of the Roman law, but equally well treated. Réflexions Critiques ; Critical Reflections on Ancient Nations by Mr. Fourmont the elder. Because a man understands the Chinese, is he therefore entitled to tell us absurdities with the authority of an oracle? Saturn the same with Abraham! The great divinity of the pagans the same with a wandering patriarch: and adored after his death almost by the whole world, except his own posterity; and that posterity an object of abhorrence and contempt to all his adorers! The Life of Julian, written by my friend the Abbé de la Blétérie. The journalists are insensible to the merit, both of the hero and the historian; and even indulge themselves in making very unbecoming reflections with respect to both. In general the bitterness of zeal and controversy prevails too much in this Bibliothèque. When a Father Colonia invites the faithful to the jubilee of Lyons, he is best answered with silent contempt; yet ridicule may be used against him without blame. But in giving the analysis of a work of literature or history, to bring forward opinions and reasonings suitable merely to the

I mean those of his own times.

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