give a solid answer, without changing any thing in his plan, are as follow.

I. To begin with the least important of them, it has been objected, that the author is a plagiary, and that he has in several places transcribed whole pages from the bishop of Meaux's universal history, M. de Tourreil's historical preface, Dr. Cudworth's intellectual system, and the life of Hay-Ebn-Yokdan, translated from the Arabic.

These pretended thefts imposed at first upon those who were not in a condition to consult the originals; but upon a strict examination, the injustice and ignorance of the critics appeared. The third book, which treats of ancient Egypt, contains several remarks, of which there is not the least trace in the bishop of Meaux's universal history. The author has indeed in some places followed the translation made by that prelate of certain passages in Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, and Strabo. But is a man a plagiary, because in his citations from the ancients he chooses rather to follow a good translation than a bad one? So in comparing M. de Tourreil's preface with the fourth and fifth books of his work, the reader will find nothing common to them, except some passages purely historical. The life of Hay-Ebn-Yokdan, translated from the Arabic into Latin by Dr. Pocock, has no resemblance with the author's history of Hermes the second, unless it be the general idea of a savage brought up in a desert; there is not the least likeness either in the matter or in the method of the reasoning. The Arabian philosopher begins with very refined disquisitions in anatomy, passes thence to metaphysical discussions, and concludes with the dreams of Mahometan contem

platives. All the author's reasonings are, on the contrary, so managed, that they do not exceed the capacity of a common good understanding, who has no other instructor than nature. He has endeavored so to introduce his ideas, as not to transgress the bounds of probability, to range each truth in its proper place, to mix speculation with sentiment, and to raise the soul by easy and natural gradations to the knowledge and love of the first Being. Lastly, as to Dr. Cudworth, notwithstanding his mistakes and want of method, he had penetrated farther into the mysteries of antiquity than the most part of critics; nevertheless this learned man says nothing of the three states of the world, which are the foundation of all that Cyrus advances upon religion. Far from being a plagiary, he had not consulted enough the Doctor's excellent remarks concerning the three forms of the Divinity; he has made more use of them in this edition, but has always quoted him or the original.

II. It is thought that the episodes, in which the author speaks of love, ar related with too much rapidity, so that the reader has not time enough to be touched, moved, and transported.

To this it may be answered, that those stories are related by persons who ought not to launch out into love speeches, tender sentiments, and sprightly images. The ancients are very sparing in words when the situation and circumstances speak sufficiently themselves.— When Homer is to paint the charms of Helen, he does it by a single stroke; she goes into the council of the old men, they fix their eyes upon her, are discomposed, and suspend their deliberations. When Virgil makes Dido speak, her words are few but each word is a sen

timent. The tender passions lose their force and their delicacy when they become too eloquent. Besides, all the author's fictions, where love is the object, are in the two first books, and tend to preserve Cyrus from the follies of youth, by shewing him, not so much the sweets of love, as the bitter effects of it. As soon as he attains to a riper age, Cassandana dies, and the hero begins his travels. This history simply relates facts as they happen, without endeavoring after the intrigues, speeches, and surprising adventures of romance.

III. Some object that the Travels of Cyrus are not well imagined, and that any other hero would have suited better with the author's project than the conqueror of Asia.

Conquerors have generally no other view in extending their dominion, than to satisfy their unbounded ambition. Cyrus, on the contrary, made use of his victories to procure the happiness of the conquered nations. The author's intention in making choice of such a prince was to shew, that courage, great exploits, and military talents, may indeed excite our admiration, but do not form the character of a true hero, without the addition of wisdom, virtue, and noble sentiments. In order to form such a hero, it was thought allowable to make him travel; and the silence of Xenophen, who says nothing in his Cyropædia of what happened to Cyrus from his sixteenth to his fortieth year, leaves the author at liberty to imagine this fiction. The relation of the prince's travels furnishes an occasion to describe the religion, manners and politics of the several countries through which he passes. These travels cannot surely appear unnatural; a prudent prince like Cambyses, a father who is supposed to be informed of the oracles

concerning the future greatness of his son, a tributary king, who knows the danger of sending the young prince a second time to the court of Ecbatana, ought to be sensible that Cyrus, at twenty-five years of age, could not better employ his time during the interval of a profound peace, than by travelling into Egypt and Greece. It was necessary to prepare a prince who was to be one day the founder and the lawgiver of a mighty empire, to accomplish his high destiny, by acquiring in each country some knowledge worthy of his great genius. Is there any thing strained in all this? No other hero could answer the author's intention; had he made any other prince travel, he would have lost all advantages he has drawn from the choice of Cyrus, as the deliverer of the people of God, as contemporary with the great men with whom he consults, and as living in an age, the learning, manners and events, of which could alone be suitable to the design of this work.

IV. Those who make no distinction between the plan of Telemachus and that of Cyrus, continually cry out, that there is no unity of action in the latter.

Nothing is more unreasonable than to compare two works of such different natures; instruction is indeed the aim of both, but they are not formed upon the same originals. The author of Telemachus writes a continuation of an epic poem. The author of Cyrus fills up the chasm in a philosophical history; the one has imitated Homer with success, the other has taken Xenophon for his model. M. de Cambray strews every where the richest flowers of poesy; he paints nature in all her variety, and the objects themselves become visible; he describes all the motions of the heart of man, and makes us feel them successively; he renders the

most sublime truths palpable, and never fatigues the mind with abstracted ideas; he passes from beautiful images to noble sentiments, and finds a shorter way to the heart than by reasoning; he walks, he flies, he sighs, he thunders, he mourns, he rejoices, he assumes all forms by turns, and never fails to transform us with him.

The author's utmost ambition was to unfold the principles of his master, without. daring to attempt an imitation of his graces; he chose a subject more proportioned to his capacity, a work in which he was to compare the philosophical ideas of others, rather than exert a poetic invention; he did not pretend to write an epic. poem. In this kind of fiction the hero should never disappear; it is he whom we listen to, it is he only whom we love; the poet grows tiresome when he personates too much the philosopher: he is to instruct only by hints, and not by long and elaborate discussions.The observation of these rules was incompatible with the author's views; his design was to shew the gradual progress of the mind in the search of truth, to compare the religions, governments and laws of different nations, and to form the legislator, rather than the conqueror unity af action is by no means necessary in a work of this nature; it is sufficient if there be unity of design. All the author's episodes tend to instruction, and the instructions are, as he apprehends, proportioned to the age of Cyrus. In his youth he is in danger of being corrupted by vanity, love and irreligion; Mandane, Hystaspes, and Zoroaster preserve him from these snares. The history of Apries lays open to him all the artifices of a perfidious courtier ; that of the kings of Sparta, the dangers of an excessive confidence in favorites, or of an unjust diffidence of