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dame Roland, and his admiration of her conduct, and pity for her misfortunes as a woinan, have made him blind to her faults as a writer. The work before us is compofed of philofophical and literary effays, and her travels; if so, they may be called to London and Switzerland. Mr. C. tells us, that the former were written at the early age of eighteen, and not meant for publication. Why then did he publish them? He certainly would have fhown more refpect to the memory and reputation of their author, in fuppreffing fuch girlish effufions, than in fending them to be laughed at in the world. The more we examine them, the more are we convinced, that when perfons of lively talents, without much learning, enter upon metaphyfical difcuffions, they are apt, like Madame Roland, to lofe the clue which should guide them, and plunge themselves into contradictions, incoherence of ideas, and falfe applications.

In the first page of this work, Madame Roland, after fome reflections on the paffion of melancholy, and obferving that few perfons are really acquainted with it, expreffes herfelf thus:

"The fweet melancholy that I defend is never fad; it is only a modification of pleafure, from which it borrows all its charms. Like thofe gilded clouds embellished by a fetting fun, the light vapours of melancholy intercept the rays of pleasure, and prefent it under a new and agreeable afpect. It is a delicious balm for the wounds of the heart; it is a falutary allay to the vivacity of joy; attempered by it, that paffion is rendered more impreffive and more lafting.'

That there is a certain kind of pleafing penfiveness, that modities our pleafure, and foftens the vivacity of joy, every perfon knows, becaufe every perfon has felt it. But we are at a lofs to difcover what Madame R. means by her observation, that melancholy is never fad, or that its vapours intercept the rays of pleasure, and then prefent it under a new and agreeable afpect. Is there not, in the above paffage, a contradiction of terms? Or does the mean to fay, that it is impoffible to be long happy without being melancholy, or joyful without being fad? A few pages onwards, however, we find that Madame R. defcribes the effect of this paffion in a very different manger.

"I fat down on the thick grafs; the perfume of the flowers imparted to my fenfes a fweet ebriety, and opened my foul to voluptu oufnefs; my imagination, tenderly moved, wandered agrecably over the delicate beauties, which thefe charming productions of fpring offered to my view. Led by degrees from thefe fenfations, with which I had employed myfelf in the inorning, I repaffed them in my mind ; a touch of melancholy gave them a new tint, and I perceived that I was on the point of becoming a misanthrope,"

How

How are we to reconcile thefe contradictions? In the firft inftance the affures us, that melancholy renders the heart more feelingly open, and gives a more temperate caft to our fenfations. Here, however, in the midft of agreeable and voluptuous impreffions, it fuddenly becomes difcontented, morofe, and milanthropic. We may here then coincide with Madame R.'s obfervations, that few perfons are acquainted with this fpecies of melancholy.

In a fubfequent chapter, composed of fome rambling reflections on the gloomy appearance of winter, we find the follow. ing remarkable paffage :

"To these sweet and profound reflections am I led by a rigorous feafon, the impreffions of which, favourable to the ferioufnefs of reafon, remain void with refpect to the imagination. Time, whofe heavy pace feems to quicken at prefent only to introduce fhadows, in regard to me, glides away without care; I place myself on his wings, to pas the melancholy moments; and, in a fortunate route, I do no more than follow his steps."

Either we do not understand this paffage, or we may gather from it, that with Madame R. melancholy hours paffed more rapidly, than those which were happy or fortunate. We are forry that the does not live to receive our congratulations upon an advantage, which, we believe, was never granted to any other human being. But to proceed.

"Now his icy fceptre holds under his laws the enchained rivulets; the hoary frofts, treasured on his knit brows, put to flight the nymphs of the groves;" (Quere, who are the nymphs of the groves ?)" and pleafuies, terrified, run to their friends to implore an afylum. Some,” (fome what? pleafures? be it fo) having hopes in Philofophy, have chofen her for a refuge, and even for a miftrefs; then taking her mantle, they came to my houfe to join in ftudy, litten to reaton, and play with her; but when Nature, more beautiful and more adorned in her flowery plains shall recal their troop, it will be Reafon that will go to feek them."

Is this poetry or profe run mad? Thefe pleasures, frightene away by the coldnefs of the weather, take Philofophy for thei miltrefs, and, after borrowing her clothes, come to Madame Roland's ftudy to plav with Reafon; but as foon as the feafon becomes warmer, they return again to the fields, and Reafon in her turn comes to play with them. Do you really think, Mr. Champagneux, that Tacitus would have written fo, or that a woman, writing like Madame R. ought to afpire to the honour of imitating him?

As we advance in the perufal of this curious publication, we find increafing inconfiftence and abfurdity. Nor is this to be wondered at, after what Madame Roland herself fays at the commencement of other melancholy reflections.

"I take

"I take up my pen without knowing why; I have no projects, no ideas, except a few trifling gleams, which affect me not fufficiently for me to multer courage to commit them to paper; but I am tired of fitting methodically to my needle; I cannot walk, neither can I fing; neceflity, with her iron chain, confines me to my cage; the feeling of conftraint, which she makes me experience, repels at this moment the fondness that naturally inclines me to mufic; and then to fing when alone, and without any object in view, what a foolish thing!""

Very foolish indeed! almoft as much fo as to fit down to write without any object in view. Madame R. tells truth at least.

As profound reflections cannot well be made amidst the noife and tumult of fociety, we are not surprised at finding Madame Roland in a wood, and again giving way to melancholy fenfations. No place could be fitter for this than the wood of Vincennes. Here then we difcover her, at the early age of twenty-three, inveighing against the ingratitude of mankind, and the miferies attached to life. She already begins to be weary of exiftence, and affirms, that he would give it up not only with indifference, but without pain. One would imagine that here was forrow enough for any reasonable being. Alas! no; Madame R. was unconscionable in her demands, as the following invocation will testify.

"Thou, whom all animated beings avoid and abhor, O Grief! I invoke thee with loud cries; return to ftimulate my powers, and exalt my courage; I prefer thy torments to the death of apathy; I feel thy penetrating poifon kindle in my bofom and ferment in my veins; it overflows, furrounds, and preffes my heart. Inquietude and gloomy care, error and injustice, have anew prepared the shaft with which thou pierceft me!"

The confufion of ideas in the above paffage is fomewhat re markable. In the first place, Grief is to be a ftimulus; in the next line it is converted into a poison, and foon after into a number of fhafts, pointed by injuftice, inquietude, &c.

The above extracts will probably be fufficient to give the reader fome idea of the work in question. It would be almost an endless talk to cite the abfurdities we have met with. The specimens we have given are, we truft, no bad sample. The best chapter is certainly that which treats of the opinions and behaviour of Socrates; and for this we have to thank Plato and Xenophon, and not Madame Roland. She does not fuffer her own reflections to interfere with them, and there she does right. So much for Madame R.'s philofophical effays. We shall now proceed to take a curfory view of her travels. They begin with an excurfion from a village in France, called Soucis,

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BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XVIII, OCT. 1801.

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Soucis, to the town of Eftampes. Her account of this journey is ufhered in by fix pages of reflections; and for what, good reader? Merely to inform us, that in company with her coufin, Madame Trude, the difguifed herself as a country girl, in order that she might be able to run about the town by herfelf, inflead of being moped up for three hours with perfons that she had never before feen; and thus the commences her hiftory of the journey.

"The still and ferene fky as yet fhewed, towards the east, only an orange colour fhade; the wakeful lark foared ftraining her tuneful throat; the humid plants exhaled an enchanting perfume; presently the horizon feemed to be in flames; the fhining luminary buift forth like a blazing fire, his brilliant face rofe, and his growing rays coloured the pearly drops of dew, fpread on the opening calyx of the flowers,"

The above filted defcription, one would conclude could only ferve to precede the appearance of fome triumphant hero, or palfried princefs, instead of Madame Roland, mounted on an afs, and dreft like a peafant. Rifum teneatis, amici! The refult of this doughty expedition is equally interefting. Madame R. walked about the streets of Eftampes, with one arm a-kimbo, and the other fwinging by her fide, till the worked herself into a violent perfpiration. She was then admitted into the kitchen, and had the honour of dining with Dame Julie, who, in the courfe of five minutes, by dint of goffiping, laid her alleep.

M. de Champagneux, in his note on this production, fpeaks of the graceful details that it contains! We cannot do otherwife than applaud him for his penetration. Madame R. concludes her account with the fenfations that the experienced on her return to Paris.

The air of Paris fuffocates me; yefterday I experienced the uneafy fenfations that I had left behind me on fetting off; friendship reflores me to the full enjoyment of health; friendship is my faviour, my fupport; my delight, my joy, my all, fince it is one, with virtue itself!" Qul

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Friendship has certainly been all thefe to many; but we never before knew that friend hip had the property of puritying the atmosphere. If Madame R.'s words do not fignify this the ought to have written more diftinctly.

200Her excursion to England, and tour through Switzerland, form the most unexceptionable part of this volume. If there is not much to praife, there is at the fame time not much to blame. Nothing feems to have been aimed at, but a mere journal-like fatement of what she faw or remarked; consequently it is but fuperficial. Her obfervations on the country

and

and people of England and Switzerland are by no means; newj though fometimes juft and well-founded, and generally favourable. We fhall therefore wave any remarks on this score, for where there is no pretenfion, it would be in fome degree unfair to criticize. The anecdotes, however, which the gives of Lavater, do not feem altogether original; at least one of them is certainly not totally confined to him. The Abbé de Lille, in his notes to L'homme des Champs, tells a fimilar one of Juffieu, the celebrated naturalift, who, when fome of his fcholars intended to deceive him with the fragments of many heterogeneous plants, which they had joined together in a very fpecious manner, at the first glance detected the impofition, and pointed out the particular parts, of which the whole had been compofed.

We have now to notice the ftyle of the tranflation; where the original was bad, what could be expected from the tranflated copy? There are, however, here and there fome Gallicilms, which might have been avoided. But in our admiration of the tranflator's patience and pity for the talk which he impofed upon himfelf, we fhail drop the fubject. Had his faults been more numerous, he would fill have been excufable.

ART. IV. A Treatife of the relative Rights and Duties of Belligerent and Neutral Powers in Maritime Affairs: in which the Principles of armed Neutralities, and the Opinions of Hubner and Schlegel, are fully difcuffed. By Robert Ward, Efq. Barrister at Law, Author of the Inquiry into the Hiftory and Foundation of the Law of Nations in Europe to the Age of Grotius. 8vo. 8vo. 172 pp. 5s. Butterworth., 1801.

HAVING fo recently and fo fully ftated the arguments of

Profeffor Schlegel on this fubject, with the able anfwers of Dr. Croke, and the difpute between the principal powers concerned having fince been brought to a conclufion, a particular examination of the Treatife before us is rendered the lefs neceffary; fince the writer unavoidably enforces nearly the fame reafonings, and expofes the fame mifreprefentations which have already been difcuiled.

In a perfpicuous and fenfible Introduction, Mr. W. fets forth the claims of the northern powers, as brought forward

+ See Brit, Crit. for July, 1801, pp. 67 and 71,

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