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If you cannot send us all this, you would do better to make peace; for between this and September we must expect to lose booo men, and shall then be reduced to 15,000; and, deducting 2000 in the hospitals, 500 veterans, and 500 artisans, who do not fight, we shall have but 12,000 remaining of all descriptions of combatants, and cannot resist any considerable landing of hostile forces, particularly if combined with an attack from the desert. • Were you to send us 4 or 5000 Neapolitans, they would serve to recruit our troops.

We want 18 or 20 physicians, and 60 or 80 surgeons; many being dead. All the diseases of this country have a character which requires some length of study, and may be considered as unknown, but every year of observation will make them better understood and less dangerous.

• I have received no letters from France since the arrival of Moureau, and am anxiously desirous of some. Our solicitudes are all in France. If the kings attack her, you will find in a strong frontier, in the military spirit of the nation, and in your Generals, the means of humbling their audacity. That will be a glorious day for us when we form the first republic in Germany. 'I shall soon be able to send you the level of the canal of Suez, the map of all Ægypt and its canals, and of Syria.

"We have frequent intercourse with Mecca and Mocha: I have written several times to India and to the Isle of France, and expect answers in a few days: the Sheriff of Mecca manages to convey this correspondence.

Rear Admiral Perrée quitted Alexandria on the 19th of Germinal with three frigates and two brigs, has been cruising off Jaffa, and has taken two vessels of a Turkish convoy, with three hundred men on board: but he has been pursued by an English squadron, and has probably returned to Europe. I had given him instructions about his return; he will inform you how best to correspond with me, whether through the mouth of Ommfarege, or Damietta, or Rosetta, or Alexandria. At present we can choose, as no cruisers block up Alexandria or Damietta, and we have thus been enabled to provision Alexandria.

I am well satisfied with the zeal and skill of Admiral Perrée, during the whole of his cruize, and pray you to tell him so. • Bonaparte. In a letter at p. 370., Bonaparte thus courteously writes concerning Sir Sidney Smith, 26th June, 1799:

Smith is a young madman, who wants to make his fortune, and therefore brings himself continually before the public. The best way to punish him is never to reply to him; and he should be treated as the captain of a fire-ship. He is a man disposed to all sorts of temerity, and not likely to form a profound rational project; for instance, he would be capable of attempting a landing with 800 men. He boasts that he went disguised into Alexandria: I know not whether this be true: but it is very likely that he availed himself of a flag of truce, and visited us in a sailor's jacket.'

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The communication to the Grand Visir, dated Cairo, 18th August, 1799, is a bold throw in diplomacy, but is too extensive for our limits. Another interesting letter is that which, dated 23d August, 1799, announces to Kleber the writer's own determination of returning into Europe. This volume terminates with some notices concerning the campaign of Desaix in Upper Egypt.

In the seventh book is continued the narrative of the Ægyptian campaign: but the interest flags after the resolution of Bonaparte to withdraw. The eighth and ninth books shift the scene to Italy, and contain the correspondence which prepared the treaty of Campo Formio. Carnot and Talleyrand are now frequent interlocutors. These letters are worth the study of all ministers for foreign affairs, as exhibiting a clear and definite purpose, pursued with much ability and intellectual effort. Some repetitions are observable: thus, at p. 227., instructions are given by Talleyrand, on the 19th of August, 1797, which are verbally repeated at p. 257. in a paper dated on the 16th of September following. A character too intricate and comprehensive pervades these negotiations for us conveniently to make extracts from them, but we may copy some episodical matter which is occasionally interspersed. A letter from La Fayette, dated Lagrange, 21st May, 1802, was addressed to Bonaparte, protesting against the institution of a consulship for life, which ran thus:

‹ “General, when a man penetrated with the gratitude which he owes you, and too sensible to glory not to value yours, lays his vote under restrictions, they have the less of a suspicious character because no individual would be delighted more than he would to see you first magistrate for life of a free republic.

"The 18th of Brumaire saved France, and I felt myself animated by the liberal professions to which your honour was attached. We have since seen in the consular power a regenerating dictatorship, which under the auspices of your genius has effected such great things, and yet less great than would be the restoration of liberty.

"It is impossible that you, General, the first in that class of men who, to find their proper station in comparison with others, must embrace a series of ages, can wish that such a revolution as ours, accomplished with so much bloodshed and such astonishing efforts, should have no other effect in the world, or for you, than to found an arbitrary government. The French people have learned too much of their rights to have forgotten them past recovery: but perhaps they are more able to recover them now with good effect than during the period of effervescence; and you, by the strength of your character and of the public confidence, by the superiority of your talents, of your station, and of your fortunes, might especially contribute, by re-establish

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ing liberty, to subdue every public danger and calm every inquietude. I have therefore only patriotic and personal motives in wishing to you, for the completion of your glory, a permanent magistracy: but it belongs to the principles, to the professions, and to the actions of my whole life to see, before I give you my vote, that this magistracy is founded on a basis worthy of the nation and of you.

"I trust that you will perceive, General, as you have done before, that with the maintenance of my political opinions is steadily united the feeling of a sincere well-wisher to your person, and the grateful recollection of my obligations towards you.

"Health and respect.

La Fayette."'

Another amusing episode is to be found among the supplementary papers. In 1800, M. Petiet, ex-minister of war under the Directorial government, was accompanying Bonaparte into Lombardy, to be employed in the administration of the province as soon as the Austrians should be expelled. Being in the neighbourhood of Coppet, M. Petiet chose to make a visit to Mad. de Staël, whom he had formerly known at Paris; and this lady having affected to doubt the rapid success of the French armies, M. Petiet offered a bet that in six weeks he would send from Milan some quires of the newest Italian music. A fortnight after his departure from Coppet, he had the pleasure of transmitting from Milan the promised packet, on which Mad. de Staël wrote him the following letter:

"You wished to prove to me, Sir, that French gallantry had recovered all its charm: but a man like you must always have known how to retain it. The music is very pretty, but it is rendered delightful by the recollection, while I play it, to what an incredible event I owe the possession of it. Here, as in Paris, we are full of enthusiasm at your success: but even the confidence, which every body placed in the talents and fortune of Bonaparte, is unable to check the surprize which is created by every victory. One of his most powerful principles of government is to call around him men distinguished in every department, and you form one of his titles to public esteem.

"My father desires me to thank you again for the visit with which you favoured us. Forget not, Sir, you who forget nothing, that we shall expect to see you on your return.

"Accept my warmest thanks.

N. Staël de H."'

With this letter terminates the concluding book of the collection, as far as it is yet before us: when any additional numbers reach us, we shall gladly announce them, since they will supply the statesman with models and the historian with materials.

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ART. VIII. Vie Privée, &c.; i. e. The Private Life of Voltaire
and Madame du Chatelet, during a Stay of Six Months at
Cirey. By the Author of the "Peruvian Letters." With
Fifty inedited Letters in Verse and Prose by Voltaire. 8vo.
Paris. 1820. Imported by Treuttel and Würtz.
Price tos.

MAD. DE GRAFIGNY, author of the Peruvian Letters, was of noble birth, and was attached as preceptress to Mademoiselle de Guise. She was married, or rather sacrificed, in early life to Francis Huguet de Grafigny, the chamberlain of the Duke de Lorraine; whose natural violence of temper, irritated still farther by jealous suspicions, rendered the marriage insupportable, and it was dissolved by the interference of a court of justice. After this separation, Mad. DE GRAFIGNY went to pass some months at Cirey, the seat of the Marquis du Chatelet, with whose lady she had previously been intimate; and during her stay in the family, which lasted nearly half a year, she wrote these very confidential letters to the Chevalier de Boufflers, who seems to have been a favoured lover. They describe a singular household, consisting of what the Italians call an equilateral triangle, when a lady contrives to have her husband and her cavaliere servente dwell in harmony under the same roof. This male friend of the Marchioness was Voltaire; and the letters before us are chiefly occupied in describing his manners, habits, literary pursuits, and way of living in the family. The Marquis du Chatelet was a gouty, lethargic, good-natured, old man, who ate his pudding, held his tongue, and retired early to bed. His lady was intelligent and accomplished, conversant with the Latin, Italian, and English languages, and, which is still more unusual among women, with geometry: but she was somewhat imperious, governing both her husband and her lover with an arbitrary and often unwelcome sway. She had great pecuniary generosity; and, having no children, she appears to have taken pleasure in transferring to Voltaire those portions of property of which she had a right to dispose: while he managed the law-suits of the family, compromized them at his pleasure, and, without the formality of a testamentary bequest, was eventually made the inheritor of an opulence which he had partaken, protected, and adorned. The Marchioness had been suspected, in early life, of indulging a culpable tenderness for the Duke de Richlieu; to him Voltaire succeeded; and he in his turn had to complain of some mortifying preferences shewn to newer and younger guests of the family. These loves, however, if they provoked explosions of affected jealousy, did not terminate nor materially endanger the sincere friendship between Voltaire and the Mar

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chioness, which was founded on reciprocal intellectual admiration.

Voltaire is to the French people what Shakspeare is to us, the most popular of their national classics. His dramas, if less dear to the critic, are more welcome to the spectator, than those of Racine: his novels have for an entire century been the manual of Europe, and have lost nothing of their original attraction: his biblical comments, though not springing from the appropriate erudition, and though tinctured with too great freedom, scattered much good sense and tolerance in a department of learning where they were before too little known; and his histories, and reflections on history, have been lastingly and eminently conducive to a philanthropic and liberal appreciation of persons, manners, and events. In epic poetry, he was least successful; his tales are only tolerable; while his Henriade is too dull and his Pucelle too stimulating for perusal. Still this great writer, the idol of his age, and one of the enduring master-minds of European human society, must always continue to interest mankind; and the personal qualities and qualifications, which expressed or influenced the bent of his genius, are deservedly considered as worthy of minute study. Mad. DE GRAFIGNY facilitates this contempla. tion in many particulars.

The volume may be divided into three parts. In the first, Mad. DE G. is the faithful relater of all that is said and done, in the castle or petty court of Cirey: describing the sumptuous life of the proprietors, the splendid furniture lavished on the apartments of the Marchioness and of Voltaire, and the orderly habits and amusements of the family. She next pursues the poet into his separate retreat, paints him in his bed-gown and slippers, and still aggrandizes him in the reader's eye by the detail of his quick politeness, his affectionate sensibility, his warm generosity, and his ready and incessant wit. If his brisk irascibility, and his bitterness against Desfontaines, Freron, and other literary antagonists, too often break loose, yet the extreme facility and pleasantry of his access, the indefatigable condescension with which he always lends himself to the sports and pastimes of the family, now exhibiting the puppet-show or the magic lantern, now reading to them the loftiest and now the loosest of his own effusions, the astonishing activity of his genius, always finding time for labour in the midst of incessant avocation, and a sort of comic docility, which, at first resisting with anger, yet unfailingly terminates in a galant obedience to the Marchioness; — all these form agreeable traits of behaviour. His morality was avowedly opposed to that of St. Paul; with him, meretricious

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