lies among the old schoolmen. Their public disputes run upor the controversies between the Thomists and Scotists, which they manage with abundance of heat and false Latin.

When I was at Paris I visited the Père Malbranche, who has a particular esteem for the English nation, where I believe he has more admirers than in his own. The French don't care for following him through his deep researches, and generally look upon all the new philosophy as visionary or irreligious. Malbranche himself told me that he was five and twenty years old before he had so much as heard of the name of Des Cartes. His book is now reprinted with many additions, among which he showed me a very pretty hypothesis of colors which is different from that of Cartesius or Mr. Newton, though they may all three be true. He very much praised Mr. Newton's Mathematics, shook his head at the name of Hobbes, and told me he thought him a pauvre esprit. He was very solicitous about the English translation of his work, and was afraid it had been taken from an ill edition of it. Among other learned men I had the honor to be introduced to Mr. Boileau, who is now retouching his works and putting them out in a new impression. He is old and a little deaf, but talks incomparably well in his own calling. He heartily hates an ill poet, and throws himself into a passion when he talks of any one that has not a high respect for Homer and Virgil. I don't know whether there is more of old age or truth in his censures on the French writers, but he wonderfully decries the present, and extols very much his former cotemporaries, especially his two intimate friends Arnaud and Racine. I asked him whether he thought Télémaque was not a good modern piece: he spoke of it with a great deal of esteem, and said that it gave us a better notion of Homer's way of writing than any translation of his works could do, but that it falls however infinitely short of the

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Odyssey, for Mentor, says he, is eternally preaching, but Ulysses shows us every thing in his character and behavior that the other is still pressing on us by his precepts and instructions. He said the punishment of bad kings was very well invented, and might compare with any thing of that nature in the 6th Æneid, and that the deceit put on Télémaque's pilot to make him misguide his master is more artful and poetical than the death of Palinurus. I mention his discourse on this author because it is at present the book that is every where talked of, and has a great many partisans for and against it in this country. I found him as warm in crying up this man and the good poets in general, as he has been in censuring the bad ones of his time, as we commonly observe the man that makes the best friend is the worst enemy. He talked very much of Corneille, allowing him to be an excellent poet, but at the same time none of the best tragic writers, for that he declaimed too frequently, and made very fine descriptions often when there was no occasion for them. Aristotle, says he, proposes two passions that are proper to be raised y tragedy, terror and pity, but Corneille endeavors at a new one, which is admiration. He instanced in his Pompey (which he told us the late Duke of Condé thought the best tragedy that was ever written), where in the first scene the king of Egypt runs into a very pompous and long description of the battle of Pharsalia, though he was then in a great hurry of affairs and had not himself been present at it. I hope your Lordship will excuse me for this kind of intelligence, for in so beaten a road as that of France it is impossible to talk of any thing new unless we may be allowed to speak of particular persons, that are always changing, and may therefore furnish different matter for as many travellers as pass through the country.

I am, my Lord, your Lordship's, &c.

To the Bishop of Litel: field and Coventry.

XXI. TO THE EARL OF MANCHESTER.

[English ambassador during Addison's visit to Paris, and husband to the lady con plimented in the verses, vol. i., p. 214. There is no date to this letter, but from that of the Earl's appointment, it would seem to have been written from Italy in 1702.-G.]

MY LORD-I was extremely glad to hear your Lordship had entered on a post that would give you an occasion of advancing so much the interest and reputation of your country; but I now find that I have more particular reasons to rejoice at your promotion, since I hear you have lately done me the honor to mention me kindly to my Lord Halifax. As this is not the first favor you have been pleased to show me, I must confess I should be very ambitious of an opportunity to let you know how just a sense I have of the gratitude and duty that I owe to your Lordship. And if you think me fit to receive any of your commands abroad, it shall not be for want of diligence or zeal for your Lordship's service if they are not executed to your satisfaction. I could not dispense with myself from returning my most humble thanks for the notice you have been pleased to take of me, as I dare not presume any longer to encroach upon your time that is filled up with affairs of so much greater consequence.

I am, my Lord, &c.

To my Lord Manchester, Principal Secretary of State.

MY LORD-I have for a long time denied myself the honor of writing to your Lordship, as knowing you have been so taken up with matters of greater importance that any information I could give you of foreign curiosities would have seemed impertinent: but having lately heard that I am still kindly remembered by

your Lordship, I could not forbear troubling you with a letter, lest what I design for respect should look too much like ingratitude. As I first of all undertook my travels by your Lordship's encouragement, I have endeavored to pursue them in such a manner as might make me best answer your expectations; and, though I dare not boast of any great improvements that I have made in them, I am sure there is nothing that I more desire than an opportunity of showing my utmost abilities in your Lordship's service. I could almost wish that it was less for my advantage than it is to be entirely devoted to your Lordship, that I might not seem to speak so much out of interest as inclination : for I must confess, the more I see of mankind, the more I learn to value an extraordinary character, which makes me more am bitious than ever of showing myself, my Lord, your Lordship's, &c To my Lord Halifax, March, 1701–2.

XXIII.

[The original of this letter, according to the Addisoniana, in which it was first published, is in the Bodleian library. It is written evidently from Rome, though without date of place, or year, and, as it now stands without address; though the contents show that this unknown correspondent was some fellow-traveller of congenial tastes-why not Mr. W. Montagu? It is interesting, also, as showing how he collected the materials for his Dialogues on Medals.-G.]

DEAR SIR-I hope this will find you safe at Geneva; and that the adventure of the rivulet, which you have so well celebrated in your last, has been the worst that you have met with in your journey thither. I cannot but envy your being among the Alps, where you may see frost and snow in the dog-days: we are here quite burnt up, and are at least ten degrees nearer the sun than when you left us. I am very well satisfied that it was in August that Virgil wrote his " O, qui me gelidis sub montibus

Hæmi!" &c. Our days at present, like those in the first chapter of Genesis, consist only of the evening and the morning; for the Roman noons are as silent as the midnights in other countries. But among all these inconveniences, the greatest I suffer is from your departure, which is more afflicting to me than the canicule. I am forced, for want of better company, to converse with pic tures, statues, and medals; for you must know, I deal very much in ancient coin, and can count out a sum in sesterces with as much ease as in pounds sterling. I am a great critic in rust, and can tell you the age of it at first sight; I am only in some danger of losing my acquaintance with our English money, for at present I am much more used to the Roman. If you glean up any of our country news, be so kind as to forward it this way Pray give [ ] Mr. Dashwood, and my very humble service to Sir Thomas, and accept of the same yourself, from,

Dear sir, your most affectionate humble servant,

Aug. 7.

My Lord Bernard, &c., give their service.

J. ADDISON

XXIV. TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGUE.

DEAR SIR-I am just arrived at Geneva by a very trouble some journey over the Alps, where I have been for some days together shivering among the eternal snows. My head is still giddy with mountains and precipices, and you cannot imagine how much I am pleased with the sight of a plain, that is as agreeable to me at present, as a shore was about a year ago, after our tempest at Genoa. During my passage over the mountains, I made a rhyming epistle to my Lord Halifax, which perhaps I will trouble you with the sight of, if I don't find it to be nonsense upon a review. You will think it, I dare say, as extraordi