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and where this power is possessed, there can be no security or happiness.

At the College of Physicians at Lyons, was formerly a Doctor O'Ryan; the Revolution drove him from his station, and he took refuge in his native Ireland; the prevailing party presumed him a Royalist, though he ranged himself on no side, and never declared his opinions; but his rank at the College was a symptom of aristocracy. At the peace he went to Paris, and is in as much practice and eminence as ever. It is a great comfort to the indisposed English to have the aid of a person who speaks their language, and knows their temperament; he deserves his success, for he is as benevoIent a friend, as he is a skilful physician: his family too (for scarcely any family escaped,) suffered from the tumultuous times. Badger had married his wife's sister; he was carried

before the Revolutionary Tribunal; it was a summons to the grave; it was the claim for formal murder; the victims were devoted by anticipation; Badger was mistaken for a brother who was wounded and ill in bed; one word could have undeceived the Judges; but the hero loved his brother, and was determined to save him; the ordinary interrogatories were put, he connived at the

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error, was condemned, and went calmly to the scaffold.

H

LETTER XVI.

Paris, September 16, 1802. LA FAYETTE resides at Paris; he appears a quiet unambitious citizen: whether his conduct is from motives of discretion, or he is sick of the struggle of civil dissention, and its uncertain result, it is not easy to divine; by the apparent seriousness and gravity of his demeanor, it would seem he had forgotten the Quixotic challenge to Lord Carlisle, and the vaultings of his graceful milk-white steed; and that he sought no more the dangerous sport of fomenting civil broil and overturning kingdoms. When he was tampering with the mob, and exciting riot, he

did not imagine he was raising a tempest he could not allay; the vain man fancied that the same power which put the populace in motion, could, when it pleased, restrain and stop it. Unskilled in the nature of public commotion, its peril and consequences, he did not see to what end his trifling and manoeuvering led; he was astonished at last to see the embers he had lighted, spread into such a flame, and was startled at the outrages of which he was the unwary instigator.

La Fayette, whose versatility puzzled politicians, and veered alternately to democracy, to monarchy, and to aristocracy, is now reconciled to the nameless government of the day; it is said, he even seeks occupation under it; but the First Consul pauses; apostacy is no recommendation, where stubborn, stupid attachment is wanted; and the former restlessness of the Marquis is no

earnest of future quietness; but a long imprisonment may have made him indifferent to

the public, as the public has shewn itself indifferent to him; age and observation have extinguished his political ardor.

It is impossible, however, to speak of La Fayette, without recollecting the violence done him on neutral ground, and the faith of nations broken in the persons of Semonville and Maret, in a wood near Coire, by Austrian Hussars; but worse, and more flagrantly of all, in the seizure of Tandy. The French were termed a horde of savages, of frantic republicans, of mad anarchists; but brand them how we may, their wars were heroic and honorable; their conquests brilliant and humané: they penetrated the me"tropolis of their enemy's country, and no artifice or treachery marked their footsteps; they respected the law of nations: no ambassadors' persons were violated; no dis