There is, SIRE, a facred principle in all republics; that they are inftituted, not for the governing, but for the governed. A view of the diffenfions with which we have been agitated fince the beginning of this century will prove to YOUR MAJESTY, that when this principle is trampled under foot, magiftracy is unreftrained, the fpring of public confidence broken, and the tranquillity of the ftate destroyed.

A perfpective of thefe revolutions, each exhibiting a fcene remarkable for the crimes of ambition, the long forbearance of the people, and the duplicity of their rulers, will enable YOUR MAJESTY to difcover the fource of all our calamities, in the manner wherein the heads of the ftate have affected to fet themfelves above the opinion of the public, and to defpife that general confidence, which is the fundamental principle of our free affociation. How can one man rule twenty millions? faid one of your ableft ministers By public opinion.

And would the magistrates of a small state pretend to ground their power on any other bafis than that of Yours? Shall it be poffible for them to throw off the falutary yoke of this confidence, the most powerful of guarantees, which ought to be ftill more precious to them than even to us, fince it is at once the true fubstitute where the law is imperfect, the strength of the rulers, and their oft pleafing recompenfe..

To deceive themselves in the lofs of this poffeffion our rich men continually repeat that the Genevefe are honeft but mistaken. SIRE, whoever will have influence enough to perfuade You that the voice of the people is directed by error, will have divested you of Your first glory the reward the most worthy of Your exertions.

But YOUR MAJESTY, who well knows how to honour and appreciate the opinion of the public, knows alfo that it cannot be long deceived; and after having announced to the univerfe, that You would reign by confidence alone, You will not affift the aristocratic faction in annihilating the first of our laws, the only one that can compel them to deferve it.

Such is the length to which they have been carried by the prejudices of education, by falfe calculations of their real interefts, and the too natural luft of power. However they imagine themfelves already in the road to triumph: from a flight commotion they have brought us into real danger. Even blood is perhaps going to be fhed! And what blood? Almighty God! the blood of the inno

cent...

The moft alarming preparations furround our frontiers. Our neighbours, inftead of the olive-branch of negotiation, brandifh before our eyes the fword of war. What have we done, what crime of ours can juftify fuch measures? SIRE, we neither fue for pardon nor mercy; it is juftice we implore, We claim the fupport of a confti tution that is our right, that is difpleafing to the rich, and that we only asked to preferve unaltered. But let us once be left to ourselves, let ambition have no foreign affiftance to rely on, and peace will foon be restored by mutual facrifices; never would it have been difturbed, without the hope of that affistance.

6

Such, SIRE is the general voice of the Genevefe; fuch is the opinion of the public acquainted with the caufe of our misfortunes!

As long as we can entertain a hope of making that opinion reach Your throne, we shall claim it as our fhield, and our confidence will be grounded on the virtues of Your minifters. Could we harbour a thought that they would abuse their power to opprefs us, we fhould have nothing left but defpair; but we flatter ourselves that truth will force its way; and happen what will, our refiftance will be the nobleft homage that can ever be paid to their intentions and to thofe of YOUR MAJESTY.

We are told from every quarter that refiftance will terminate in our destruction. Without doubt; we are confcious of our weakness of the fmallness of our number and the impoffibility of fucceeding: but we have before our eyes our rights our oaths, thofe of free nations, and the title of citizens of Geneva, of which we are determined to be worthy to our latest breath. If we must renounce our laws. we hall only have to defert a country we were unable to defend or to pay it our laft duty by falling with it, and honourably lofing an existence which, deftitute of liberty, would be ignominious to us.

There is one truth more I have to lay at the foot of Your MAJESTY's throne, a truth of great importance to the glory of Your reign, and to the tranquillity of our minds-that if we thus fall victims to the intrigues of a few of our men in opulence, if we are crushed under the weight of Your power, pofterity that judges kings, pofterity, whofe approbation You daily endeavour to deferve will fit as arbiter between You and us, compare the good You have done Your fubjects with Your conduct to the Genevefe, and, not knowing that YOUR MAJESTY and Your minifters were bafely deceived, will believe that Geneva was destroyed, because republican virtues must be difpleafing to kings.

But no! YOUR MAJESTY will not drive to despair the inhabitants of a city, diftinguished by its profperity, and honoured by citizens, whofe only ambition was to render it a feminary of enlightened ufeful and virtuous men. SIRE! Deign to caft an eye upon Geneva and behold Yourself what a structure the hands of liberty have erected on this barren fpot. I often contemplate it with transport, and exclaim; no! it is not Lewis the fixteenth that will destroy the work of liberty and the afylum of virtue! ...... My country will flourish and preferve her freedom; or if the ever lofes her liberty, induftry will take its flight along with it: Geneva fhall then be but a dungeon of flavery, and the court of fome opulent and depraved men; no longer will it fix the attention of philofophers; and if it be ftill inhabited, no industry, no citizen, no Genevefe will be found amongst its inhabitants.

Thefe are, SIRE, the great truths, faithfully delineated in the history of our revolutions. This hiftory is founded on authentic facts and I prefume to hope that fome generous mind will make it known to YOUR MAJESTY. The author's name is configned to oblivion; it would add but little weight to this attempt. Born amongst the people, I boast no other title but that of Citizen of Geneva, and the only reward I afpire to, is to fee the triumph of innocence. We fhall not think that triumph dearly bought at any price; we fhall fupport with equal conftancy, calumny and its concomitant, misfortune; convinced that misfortune will cease the moment YOUR MAJESTY

fhall

fhall be informed of it. Alas! If YOUR MAJESTY difclaims affifting virtue in obfcurity and diftrefs, where will it henceforth meet protectors worthy of it?

On the whole of this addrefs, for our limits will permit us to infert but a part of it, we obferve that, however quick the paffion by which it is dictated, however great the vivacity of its tranfitions, and its bold claims to freedom; there is, in reality, a degree of adulation in it, which does not perfectly accord with the erect fpirit of unbroken liberty. A free citizen fupplicating the protection of a neighbouring defpot, and paying him compliments on his regard to the rights of mankind, is rather an object of pity than of refpect and reminds us of the ftates of Greece imploring the protection of the Romans against the Macedonians, and of the Macedonians against the Romans; both, in their turns, the most oppreffive tyrants.

ART. IX. Letters from Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Germany, in the Years 1759, 1760, and 1761. By Chriftopher Hervey, Efq. 8vo. 3 vols. 185. boards. Faulder. 1785.

AFTER the accounts which a variety of travellers have

lately given us of Portugal, Spain, &c. Our author fhould have confidered, before he publifhed three bulky volumes, whether he had any novelty of importance to communicate to his readers. This precaution would have been neceffary, even had Mr. Hervey poffeffed all those talents which are requifite in compofitions of this kind; for, to the judicious reader, no fuperiority of manner will compenfate for his being obliged to follow a guide who informs him of nothing but what he is already well acquainted with. But our author has not even this femblance of an apology. Without difcernment, without tafte, without judgment, he diffigures what he means to defcribe, and infpires us with no thing but a blended fenfation of pity and difguft. We hall fay no more as to the general character of the work, but leave the writer to characterize his own production.

You are to confider this as my first and introductory letter to the ftrict correspondence you have defired. The writing fo much is no trouble, for as I fhall do it without confidering what I write, I do it likewife without difficulty.

You know already that the papers I am to fend you are to be upon any fubject, as it is the liberty you allow me in writing, that makes them no trouble. You are to confider thefe productions as a ftrange mixture of incoherences; among which, however, you may 'chance to find fome little matter that fuits your taffe. All I engage for, is to daub a fheet of paper over with a black fluid called ink; reducing it into certain hieroglyphical characters called letters; which letters fhall be put together into little packets called words; and this

is

is all I promise: referving to myself the full and abfolute power of writing in what language or ftyle I pleafe; intelligible or not; good, bad, or indifferent.'

Mr. H. has fucceeded but too well in producing a strange mixture of incoherence.' It is apparent that, when he was at a lofs for matter, he has transcribed whatever was at hand. Hence the law proceedings at length against the Duke of Aveiro, the Marquis of Tavora and the other confpirators against the late king of Portugal, from p. 49. v. 1. to p. 115. the infertion of lieutenant Sutherland's account of the lofs of the Litchfield on the coaft of Barbary, from p. 169 to 200; the confeffion of John Albani a Roman coachman, who had murdered three old women, 18 pages, his advocate's defence 28 p. the prince of St. Severo's letters on the difcovery of a perpetual fire, 28 p. papers relative to the dif putes between the courts of Rome and Portugal, 42 p. with numerous extracts from Gratian, the clever Feyjoo,' Camoens, &c. &c. fo that we do not think that above a third of the volumes before us is original matter. However we must confefs that what is really his is truly original. A few fhort fpecimens will convince the public of the truth of what we advance. What a clear idea will the reader have of Portici from the following elegant and fatisfactory defcription.

We waited a long time before we could meet with the man who keeps the key of the palace, to fhew it us, There is nothing, however, very particular, though all very fine and pleafing. The staircafe pretty, and the rooms gay. One full of pictures, another full of English furniture, another of china, and fo on. The china cabinet, for fo they call the room, furnished with that manufacture, is a very jemcrack thing indeed. The ornaments were made at a fabric of china which the king of Spain had fet up at Naples, but which he has now removed to Madrid. Though they did not work bad, yet they never equalled Drefden china, or fome other European fabrics."

In his account of the rife of Venice, which is above the level of his ufual diction, it will be perceived how miferably he has mauled poor Prifcian's head.

Venice was first inhabited by little better than fishermen, who fed from the continent during the incurfions of the Huns and Goths, and fought for liberty in a fet of poor little iflands rifing out of the Adriatic gulph. So early amidst rocks and fea-weed arofe this famous republic. It foon got fomething into its prefent form of government, and as their citizens increafed, the iflands were fquared with piles, and freets formed, which to the wondering eye prefent a canal of water. Succefs and opulence rendered the edifices more magnificent, till at length that queen of the Adriatic, towards which my bark is now gently gliding, threw up her proud towers towards heaven, and feemed to exult over the fubjected waves,*

Our author's description of the cathedral of Cordova is of a piece with that of Portici.

'Nothing

'Nothing, however, have I found particular in this place, except the cathedral, which is, indeed, a most remarkable building. It was anciently a Moorish mofque, but from the time of the Africans being driven out of Spain has been converted into a church. It is fupported as they fay by three hundred and fixty-five columns, as many as there are days in the year, and is upon the whole one of the moft curious buildings I ever faw. It is extremely fpacious, but its height is very inconfiderable, though aided at certain spaces by skylights, which, I think, are the only windows.'

How much will the reader profit by this delineation. The cathedral we are informed is "a moft remarkable building, "a most curious building, fupported by 365 columns, as they "fay, extremely fpacious, but the height very inconfider

able, though aided by fky-lights" (how that should add to the height we know not)" which," for aught he knows to the contrary," are the only windows."

Though we fometimes meet with books which contain as little information as the prefent volumes, yet we recollect none in which we have fo often been disgusted by vulgarisms and ungrammatical expreffions. To thefe may be added fome words and phrafes which feem peculiar to the author, and which originate we fufpect in the writer's ignorance of the force and meaning of the terms he employs. A few of each fhall be noticed as they occur. "To inftitute rights in "honour of Neptune."-" The place I was to lay at. "fuppofe he (the comet) must be now visible-Whether it

"I

(the comet) be the fame."-" Our converfation rolled "much about Spain."-" Ready to afcend my chaife”—“ As "foon as my chaife ftopped I difmounted."" From thence "we fcanced away to contracts."-" I accomplished a hearty meal."- We at last arrived to the place where we were to "dine." It is to be obferved that he conftantly arrives to every place through the 3 vols. Their cloaths fet upon "them in a very awkward manner." The verbs fet and fit are misapplied and confounded throughout the work. "Gold "alone can never make a nation plentiful."—" As foon as "each has finished, croffed himself and put on hats, he con"tinues." How many hats does a Spaniard wear at the fame time?" "We were obliged to go over it (the river) in a ferry." This expreffion is to be met with repeatedly. "Paffed through many queer fort of places." "Limbo," he tells us, "is a nafty, dark ugly place, adjoining to hell," and that a poem of Voltaire's "is not ugly." Speaking of the lava of Mount Vefuvius, he informs us "Various houses "too were in its way, which it has occupied, flinging down fome, and furrounding others." This lava is a very bad tenant indeed! But we fhould be glad to know if Mr. H. had pulled down one house, and furrounded another, whether he

could