expence, as in the event it proved, of his own peace and happiness. The famous treaty of the Pyrenees was negotiated by Cardinal Mazarine and Don Louis de Haro in perfon. Amongst other courtiers and men of diftinction St. Evremond was prefent during the conferences, and when the peace was figned, he wrote his fentiments upon it in a confidential letter to the Marquis de Crequi, in which he points his most acrimonious shafts of ridicule and fatire against the Cardinal. The fact was, that Mazarine, fwayed by interested motives, ardently wifhed to put an end to the war, and that the Spanish Minifter, taking advantage of his impatience, had obtained far better terms than could reasonably be hoped from the debilitated and ruinous condition of the Spanish Monarchy. St. Evremond tells us that as foon as the peace was figned, Don Louis exclaimed, " Allons, Meffieurs, "allons, rendre graces à Dieu; nous etions perdus, L'Espagne eft fauvée." "Que le bon homme Don est "Louis," continues St. Evremond, " n'ait eu pour " but que le service de fon maître, & l'utilité du pub"lic, la maxime de M. le Cardinal eft, que le Mi"niftre doit etre moins à l'etat, que l'etat au Mi 66 niftre; & dans cette pensée pour peu que Dieu "lui donne de jours il fera fon propre bien de celui "de tout le Roiaume." This letter, which for the fecurity and fatisfaction of the writer was returned by the Marquis de Crequi to M. de St. Evremond, remained a profound fecret during the life of the Cardinal. The demife demife of Mazarine, which happened in the year 1660, was immediately followed by the difgrace of M. Fouquet in confequence of which event not only the papers of that Minifter were feized, but the cabinets of his moft confidential friends were examined by an order from the Crown. Unfortunately at this critical time St. Evremond happened to be on a tour to fome diftant province, and in order to "make afsurance double fure, and take a "bond of fate," he had, previous to his departure from Paris, depofited this letter, amongst other papers of value, with a friend, who was, as the demon of ill luck would have it, one of the confidential intimates of M. Fouquet, and thus the fatal difcovery was made. St. Evremond, terrified with the idea of returning to his old apartments in the Baftile, on receiving this unwelcome intelligence, made his efcape into Holland, from whence he foon paffed into England, where he refided, with fhort intervals, the remainder of his life, which, as I have already mentioned, was extended to a very advanced age. He died September 20, 1703, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. He has delineated his own portrait with an agreeable vanity.-The refemblance must be acknowledged ftriking, though I will not pretend to deny that it is a flattering likenefs. He defcribes himfelf as "Un philofophe également éloigné du fuperftitieux & de l'impie. Il fe loüe de la Na"ture; il ne fe plaint point de la fortune. Il hait le crime, il fouffre les fautes, il plaint le mal. "heur. "heur. Il ne s'attache point aux Ecrits les plus "favans pour aquerir la fcience; mais aux plus "fenfés pour fortifier fa raifon. En amitié plus "conftant qu'un philofophe; a l'egard de la Religion, 66 "De Juftice & de Charité, "Beaucoup plus que de Pénitence, "Mettant en Dieu fa confiance, "Efperant tout de fa bonté "Dans le fein de la Providence, "Il trouve fon Repos, & fa Felicité." N ESSAY XVIII. STRICTURES en WALPOLE'S CATALOGUE of ROYAL and NOBLE AUTHORS. T HERE are two extremes equally remote from juftnefs of thinking, the Scylla and Charybdis of literature, which men of fense fhould be equally folicitous to avoid. The first is a tame acquiefcence in vulgar opinion, the fecond a vain affectation of fingularity. Of the firft extreme it must be allowed, that the elegant writer upon whom I fhall now take the liberty to offer a few critical remarks, has fteered perfectly clear; but as to the fecond, I do not think him quite fo fuccefsful. His "Hiftoric Doubts" afford an egregious inftance of falfe refinement and affected fingularity. It is really amufing to fee a writer, in the midst of all his parade of philofophical and hiftorical fcepticifm, become the dupe of an impofture, by which, even that dark and credulous age in which it originated, and which was fo favourable to its fuccefs, could not be long or generally deceived. His ingenuity and acutenefs only serve to fortify him in error. Mr. Walpole Walpole appears to me to have been mifled, by confidering the cafe of Perkin Warbeck as fimilar to that of the late Pretender, the legitimacy of whofe birth was called in quef tion by the prevailing faction at the æra of the Revolution, without reflecting upon the great difparity of evidence attending the two cafes; the legitimacy of the one, and the illegitimacy of the other, refting entirely upon improbable furmife and confident affertion. There are many obfervations in the volume now lying before me, which appear to me to have a confiderable tincture of that fanciful and affected turn of thinking, which fo re markably predominates in the work I have already mentioned. The first article of the Catalogue may be cited as an instance. Mr. Walpole, in contradiction to all the accounts remaining of Richard I. is unwilling to admit that celebrated Monarch to have been either a poet, or a lover of poefy; and because Roger Hoveden, the Monk, impudently and ridicu loufly afferts that Richard, to raise himself a name, bought and begged verfes, and drew over fingers and jefters from France, to chant panegyrics on him about the streets, Mr. Walpole thinks that no dependence is to be placed upon thofe accounts which reprefent him as deeply enamoured of the Mufes, or, to ue Mr. Walpole's own words, "as the foft lute-loving hero of poefy." Certainly, after the great exploits which Z 2 |