A Dialogue in Empyreum, between Louis XVI. and Charles I. 353 Without a party among your fubjects, you had long ceafed to be attended to. L. They feemed to prize my acceptance of the conftitution. C. As if willing to revive an opinion of indefeasible right, when it was likely to operate in their own favour. Was it this which duped you into over-rating your refiduum of power fo far, as to think you could withstand an administration enjoying the confidence of the legiflative affembly? Prince-prince! L. I only wished to fecond the Feuillant party, who were not, like the Jacobins, aiming at my very being. C. Had you taken the molt defperate into pay, thefe Jacobin minifters, like all others, would have endeavonred to ftrengthen an authority which made a part of their own. They would have erected their statue To the reftorer of French liberty, which their antagonists voted you. They would have increased a civil lift, which was to buy them creatures. But your eternal blind preference of whatever men promifed you most appearance of power, naturally led the people to believe, that even a conftitutional king would oppofe them all he could. L. And the accurfed 10th of Auguft! C. The right of nations to decree the forfeiture of a crown, my good people of England acknowledged, you know, in 1688. L. But their motives C. Were chiefly to unfeat an adminiftration. Wildman, Fletcher, and the difinterefted friends of freedom, would have preferred James with a diminished prerogative, to William with an increafed influence. Burthenfome churchmen of the time could not abide a mifcreant king, willing, perhaps, out of bigotry, to tolerate both Catholics and Diffenters. William, indeed, had the like with, but he knew better than to facrifice his crown to his liberality. L. I gave no grounds of alarm or provocation, religious or civil. C. The obitinate detention of a foreign guard, which the conftitution forbad, which the legislative affembly advifed you to difmifs, and which feemed likely to co-operate with the Duke of Brunswick, then rapidly approaching towards Paris; was this no ground of alarm, of provocation? A fovereign fhould never excite jealoufy, if he cannot command acquiefcence. L. They imprifoned me in avowed contempt of my conftitutional inviolability. Atrocious, faithlefs monsters! C. I fhall not defend it. I expected that, at the meeting of the convention, you would have been liberated-informed with as much indifference as had you been a toll-gate-keeper, that your fervices were to be difpenfed with-counselled to pafs your carnivals at Venice and fuffered to retire upon a pension, neglected and content. L. And content? You do not suspect me of fuch vileness. C. If contentment courfe, why not? were the wifeft L. O but I had friends! C. You fuppofe then, that a strong party in the country would at any time have marfhalled around your name, would have affifted you to recover your fallen dignity, and to replace the fcutcheons of your nobility among the civic honours of the country. Elfe L. Surely I do. C. And if the members of the convention were also aware of the existence of this party-if the superstition about kings had given way rather to an opposite enthufiafm, than a national indifference for them-if the existence of a man believed to have innate, indwelling, or divine rights, was really dangerous to that unanimous fubmiffion to the newer powers, which could alone enable them to direct the public force with fufficient energy against the foreign foe L. You are not daring to palliate the laft act of our common ill-ufage. C. I think as ill as ever of fuch as thought by my execution to fecure perfonal impunity, or individual advancement; but I have had fo much converfation with Hampden, Bradshaw, Milton, and the reft of that ftamp, that I begin to enter into the grounds of their party. L. Which were C. That, although no previously exifting law juftified my removal, yet that my acting in concert with perfons hoftile to the progrefs of popular influence upon government, which they call liberty, tended to defer the improvement of the conftitution that opinions of hereditary right cannot, by their very nature, be compounded with, but muft either be allowed to establish their fuperftitions (the monarchy or feigniorage of certain families), which is unjust to the opposite opinions, or must be coerced in the exercise of their claims-that the fectators of nobility, having acquiefced in the fuppreffion of peerage, and thus concentered their wishes upon the retention of kingly power, would have no pretext to revolt against the more general will, if deprived of their only peffible leader-and that the backward minority of iny fon ren Z22 during 354 A Dialogue in Empyreum, between Louis XVI. and Charles I. dering their converfion probable, before the growth of a new chieftain, an inftantaneous general tranquillity, and the ultimate attachment of the nation to an equitable republicanifin was likely to enfue from L. From murder? C. They felt, indeed, that, every illegal precedent facilitating a future breach of law, the oppreffion of a boor is a crime of infinite magnitude; becaufe liable to be repeated upon millions of the human race that the arbitrary ufage of an elevated man is a heavy evil; because it encourages against thousands the like wrong and that the injury, even of a folitary clafs in fociety, befide being ungenerous, is highly dangerous. But they thought, that by encompaffing this crime with formalities, which would for ever neceffitate the concurrence of many men reputable among the people, and refponfible to pofterity, they had deterred its repetition without mighty motives of national expediency. L. Such reafonings would apply in my cafe. C. Would they? L. And therefore must be nugatory and flagitious. C. Certainly my English judges did not forefee that the hereditary fuperftition, which, during my life, was an offspring of the ignorance of my fubjects, was by my death to become the dotage of their paffions, and therefore incurable-that the example was to fake for ever that confidence between fubjects and fovereigns, which difpofes both parties to bring their complaints before the pure tribunal of univerfal reafon, and to arbitrate by a gentler fway than that of force, by the healing voice of deliberate public opinion, their reciprocal public grievances that it was to embolden the French nation firft, and in confequence of their fuccefs- L. O, they cannot fucceed against the deteftation of Europe. C. Not unless that deteftation fhould appeal to force, and choose an umpire whofe decifions are unconnected with right reason. L. Heaven will avenge their breach of every duty. C. By infuring to all their conduct its natural reward. L. Yet injustice, you were infinuating, may be policy. C. The obligation to juftice, in all cafes, undoubtedly depends upon its utility-and France is feverely feeling the horrid havoc of immoral legiflation. That unconfcientious temper, which could pardon to the demolishers of the Baftille the exercife of fummary vengeance, first weakened the perfonal fecurity of all those whofe functions or whofe conduct might become obnoxious to the fpirit of the times. Men content to derive advantage from the decent imprisonment of their king after the 6th of October, have little to charge upon thofe who sent a mob to the Louvre on the 20th June. Proprietors, who could deprive the clergy of France, in their life-time, of an income acquired and enjoyed under ancient ftatutes, ought at least to tolerate the propofal of other agrarian laws. The fuppreffion of feudal rights, without a full indemnity, is no lefs inequitable than the offer of a compofition upon national debts. Yet, where is the French patriot of integrity fo fevere as to have concurred in none of thefe wrongs? L. Did Roland? C. There are too few fuch. Can we treat one man's life with levity, and expect another's to be refpected? View one form of property with an indifference, and look for another to be held facred ? But this rigid juftice once difpensed with, each particular infringement must be eftimated by its own peculiar expediency. L. Judged of then by its fuccefs? C. Not if that fuccefs becomes itself a misfortune to the human race. The fuccefs of Harmodius encouraged Brutus to tyrannicide; but we now condemn them both with Sindercome and Ankarstroem. L. Would you have had Brutus affemble a convention of the Roman fenators, to decree Cæfar's death? C. The tyrant would have been pu nifhed by an ex poft facto law. L. There should too, be fome remedy for ufurpation. C. Surely no grievance of general concern can ever need an individual victim. The obnoxious power of any one man must depend upon a force attached to him by pay, or by opinion. Are his refources perfonal property? it has a right to its natural operation-Public property? it may be withheld. Does he conciliate opinion by perfonal qualities? they have a right to their natural operation-By a prejudice of fanctity or birth? remove the fuperftition, or you effect no cure. In every facrifice of individual property or life, to public pretexts, it has ever been ignorance that cuts the knot, which skill might have untied. L. Impatience rather. numer A Dialogue in Empyreum, between Louis XVI. and Charles I. 355 numerous enough to war fuccefsfully with an abufe, without affiftance; and the unjust have fome immediate end to ferve by its extirpation, which renders the tolerance of delay infupportable. L. Then it will always happen in great events, that C. General caufes every where operate alike. We both fell fhort of money from circumftances unavoidable. We both affembled the deputies of the people to obtain more. We both found them determined to buy privileges for their contributions; and, not relishing the terms, we both tried to break off bargaining, and found them the strongest L. We did not draw back before the antagonist became fo palpably infolentC. Louis, it is the last prejudice we doff in these etherial feats-to be afhamed of pleading guilty to the meaner vices. We were both tainted with infincerity. Our foes never knew wherewith we would be content; and, therefore had, in every You dividing with them my power. L. Leading hither the execrable Pelletier. C. Not fo boisterous, Louis. Though your enemy, he was honeft. You have yet the paffions of earth. In time, you will acquire the equanimity of our fhadowy dwellings. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, fituation, to multiply their precautions MR. GODWIN, in the life of his late against us. L. You were born in an age when the higheft thought much of kings; I, when the lowest thought little of them. By early and moderate conceffions, therefore, you might have retained a more than reafonable fhare of power. C. Brought up as kings, it was natural for us both to over-rate alike that share of power which the general will would have vouchfafed. I fear there is, in this cafe, no other measure of the reasonable. L. My facrifices have been fuch C. As bore to the times the fame proportion with mine. You partook the philofophic temper of your age, I the chivalrous fpirit of mine. You had indolence, and thought a reputation acquirable by commuting your power for a penfion. I had activity, and fancied my honour required that I fhould hand down my patrimony of power undiminished to my fon; but now I perceive, that true honour confifts in the voluntary foregoing of unreasonable privileges. L. That is, according to your own criterion, of thofe one cannot keep. C. Of thofe one cannot keep in conformity with the general will, with the public intereft. Opinions were, perhaps, in your time, fo mature, that true honour required a complete abdication of the crown. Yet, I do not believe the French nation fo far advanced in information. Prudence might have kept us both upon the throne. I fhould have made it the intereft of parliament not to shake the prejudices which gave me importance by wife, Mrs. Mary Wollstoncraft Godwin, fays, "I believe it may be admitted as a maxim, that no person of a well furnished mind, that has fhaken off the implicit fubjection of youth, and is not the zealous partizan of a fect, can bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of fermons and prayers.” I cannot, however, admit, that this obfervation of Mr. GGDWIN's has any just claim to be acknowledged as a maxim. Many of the firft and moft enlightened of the human fpecies have thought it their duty to attend public worship, and have attended it with pleasure. Among the firm believers of the Chriftian religion in our own country, and thofe who attended public worship, may be numbered Boyle, Newton, Locke, and Addison. These men will not eafily be matched by the oppofers of revelation and of public worfhip. It appears to me, that an attendance on public worship, when rationally performed, and divested of fuperftitious ceremonies, has a natural tendency not only to infpire a reverence of the Deity, but alfo to promote a love of virtue, and the practice of benevolence. Its effects are beneficial to the heart, and to the manners. And thofe, who may not ftand in need of religious inftruction themselves, may ftill think themfelves under an obligation to attend, from the reafonablenefs and propriety of public worship, and that their example may induce others to attend, who need moral and religious inftruction for the regula tion of their conduct. H. S. ( 356 ) WALPOLIANA; Or Bons-Mots, Apophthegms, Obfervations on Life and Literature, with Extracts from Original Letters OF THE LATE HORACE WALPOLE, EARL OF ORFORD. NUMBER III. This Article is communicated by a Literary Gentleman, for many years in habits of intimcey with Mr. WALPOLE. It is partly drawn up from a collection of Bons-Mats, &c. in his own hand-writing; partly from Anecdotes written down after long Converfations with him. XXXVII. HOURS OF COMPOSITION. WROTE the "Cafile of Oiranto" in eight days, or rather eight nights; for my general hours of compofition are from ten o'clock at night till two in the morning, when I am fure not to be difturbed by vifitants. While I am writing I take fveral cups of coffee. XXXVIII. HUME AND BURNET. I am no admirer of Hume. In converfation he was very thick; and I do believe hardly understood a fubject till he had written upon it. Burnet I like much. It is obfervable, that none of his facts has been controverted, except his relation of the birth of the Pretender, in which he was certainly miftaken-but his very credulity is a proof of his honefty. Burnet's ftyle and manner are very interefting. It feems as if he had juft come from the king's clofet, or from the apartments of the men whom he defcribes, and was telling his reader, in plain honeft terms, what he had seen and heard. XXXIX. AUTHORS AND ARTISTS. I have always rather tried to escape the acquaintance, and converfation, of authors. An author talking of his own works, or cenfuring thofe of others, is to me a dofe of hypecacuana. I like only a few, who can in company forget their authorship, and remember plain fenfe. The converfation of artifts is ftill worfe. Vanity and envy are the main ingredients. One detefts vanity, becaufe it fhocks one's own vanity. Had I liftened to the cenfures of artists, there is not a good piece in my collection. One blames one part of a picture, another attacks another. Sir Joshua is one of the most candid; yet he blamed the tiff drapery of my Henry VII, in the ftate bed-chamber, as if good drapery could be expected in that age of painting. XL. CAUTION TO YOUNG AUTHORS. Youth is prone to cenfure. A young man of genius expects to make a world for himself; as he gets older, he finds he muft take it as it is. It is imprudent in a young author to make any enemies whatever. He fhould not attack any living perfon. Pope was, perhaps, too refined and jefuitic a profeffor of authorship; and his arts to eftablifh his reputation were infinite, and fometimes perhaps exceeded the bounds of fevere integrity. But in this he is an example of prudence, that he wrote no fatire till his fortune was made. XLI. PUBLIC VIRTUE. world, I was apt londly to blame any When I first thruft my nofe into the defection from what I efteemed public I found the times were more to blame virtue, or patriotifm. As I grew older, than the men. and penfions; while the placemen and We may cenfure places efteem. One man has a numerous family the penfioners are often intitled to our to provide for, another is ruled by a vain tions would have overcome even Brutus. wife, &c. &c. I think fome temptaBut why talk of Brutus, while men not measures are the object? XLII. GEORGE THE FIRST. I do remember fomething of George the Firft. My father took me to St. James's while I was a very little boy; after waiting fome time in an anti-room, a gentleman came in all drefied in brown, ftar. He took me up in his arms, kiffed even his ftockings; and with a ribbon and me, and chatted fome time. XLIII. LIKENESS IN ANTIQUE POR.TRAITS. On looking at the buft of Marcus Antoninus, in the gallery at Strawberry Hill, Mr. Walpole obferved that even the worft artifts among the ancients always hit the character and likeness; which the beft of ours feldom, or never, do. This is a problem worthy of ample difcuffion, in a country fond of portraits. Had the ancients any particular mode, or machine; or was it the pure effect of superior genius? XLIV. POR XLIV. PORTRAITS, Walpoliana, No. III. I prefer portraits, really interefting, not only to landscape-painting, but to hiftory. A landscape is, we will fay, an exquifite diftribution of wood, and water, and buildings. It is excellent-we pafs on, and it leaves not one trace in the memory. In hiftorical painting there may be fublime deception-but it not only always falls fhort of the idea, but is always falfe; that is, has the greateft blemish incidental to history. It is commonly falfe in the coftume; generally in the portraits; always in the grouping and attitudes, which the painter, if not prefent, cannot poffibly delineate as they really were. Call it fabulous-painting, and I have no objection.--But a real portrait we know is truth itself: and it calls up fo many collateral ideas, as to fill an intelligent mind more than any other fpecies. XLV. AUTHORS IN FLOWER-MYSTE RIOUS MOTHER. At Strawberry Hill, 19th Sept. 1784, Mr. Walpole remarked that, at a certain time of their lives, men of genius feemed to be in flower. Gray was in flower three years, when he wrote his odes, &c. This ftarting the idea of the American aloe, fome kinds of which are faid to flower only once in a century, he obferved, laughing, that had Gray lived a hundred years longer, perhaps he would have been in flower again. Sir Charles Hanbury Williams bore only one bloffom; he was in flower only for one ode. Next evening, about eleven o'clock, Mr. Walpole gave me the Mysterious Mother to read, while he went to Mrs. Clive's for an hour or two. The date was remarkable, as the play hinges on an anniversary twentieth of September, -but often as returns and The twentieth of September, &c. This cdd circumftance confpired with the complete folitude of the Gothic apartments, to lend an additional impreffion to the fuperftitious parts of that tragedy. In point of language, and the true expreffion of paffion and feeling, the new and just delineation of monaftic fraud, tyranny, cruelty; it deferves the greateft praife. But it is furprifing that a man of his tafte and judgment fhould have added to the improbability of the tale, inftead of mellowing it with fofter fhades. This might be cured by altering one page of the countefs's confeffion in the laft at. The ftory, as told in Luther's Table Talk, feems more ancient than that in the Tales of the Queen of Navarre. 357 XLVI. GRAY'S POLITICS. I never rightly underfood Mr. Gray's political opinions. Sometimes he feemed to incline to the fide of authority; fometimes to that of the people. This is indeed natural to an ingenuous and candid mind. When a portion of the people fhews grofs vices, or idle fedition, arifing from mere ignorance or prejudice ; one wishes it checked by authority. When the governors purfue wicked plans, or weak meafures, one withes a fpirited oppofition by the people at large. XLVII. DR. ROBERTSON. Dr. Robertfon called on me t'other day. We talked of fome political áffairs; and he concluded his opinion with, "for you muft know, fir, that I look upon myfelf as a moderate whig." My anfwer was, "yes, doctor, I look on you as a very moderate whig." XLVIII. BRITISH EMPIRE. We now talk of the British empire, and of Titus and Trajan, who were abfolute emperors. In my time it was the British monarchy. What is this mighty empire over ten or twelve millions of people, and a few trading colonies? People fhut up in an island have always pride enough-but this is too ridiculous even for flattery to invent, and the abfolute power of a Roman emperor to fwallow, along with an apothcofis. XLIX. DON QUIXOTTE. Don Quixotte is no favourite of mine. When a man is once fo mad, as to miftake a wind-mill for a giant, what more is to be faid, but an infipid repetition of miftakes, or an uncharacteristic deviation from them? It is [This judgment was furely too harsh. the minute defcription of life and character, as they occur in Spain, that interests us in reading Don Quixotte, and make us pardon the extravagance of the chief character, and the infipidity of the paftoral scenes. The epifodes are bad; except the tale of the Spanish captive and his Moorish miftrefs, which is wrought up with great truth and nature.] L. VOL |