This very important and desirable undertaking is the more to be recommended to our author's assiduity, as he enjoys the advantage of a personal and intimate acquaintance with Klopa stock; which enables him to consult the Christian bard on the true sense of his obscure passages, and to profit by his invaluable hints in rightly rendering the more beautiful parts.

In a note, Mr. CROFT slightly discusses the question whether the English language is likely, in the next century, to acquire preponderance over the French. To the reasons offered by us already, (Rev. Vol. XXVI. p. 538) it may be added that the other literary nations have a stronger interest in favouring the currency of the English than of the French language, because they can more safely confide to it the deposit of their own reputation. The good translations of the English are better likenesses of the originals, than the good translations of the French. The Lucian of Belin de la Ballue is indeed a capital performance: but we recollect no other great Greek classic of which the French translation surpasses the English. The Tasse of Fairfax, and the Oberon of Sotheby *, are very superior to the rival versions of our neighbours. The Messiah, like the Bible, will not please in French. Göthe, Schiller, and the whole school of Gothic dramatists, will excite a Sardonic smile at Paris; while they draw tears or convulse with agony in London. The French have a very exclusive taste, and are too ambitious of drilling other countries into it. They want to re-cast in their own moulds every production of foreign art. Compare the Macbeth of Ducis with that of Bürger. This daintiness unfits them for the carrying-trade in literature, for that cabotage

So at the midnight-hour draws nigh to the slumbering city,

Pestilence. Couch'd on his broad-spred wings, lurks under the rampart

Death bale-breathing: as yet unalarm'd are the peaceable dwellers;
Close to his nightly lamp the sage yet watches; and high friends,
Over wine not unhallow'd, in shelter of odorous bowers,
Talk of the soul and of friendship, and weigh their immortal duration.
But, too soon shall frightful death, in a day of affliction,
Pouncing over them spread, in a day of moaning and anguish ;-
When, with wringing of hands, the bride for the bridegroom loud

wails

When, now of all her children bereft, the desperate mother
Furious curses the day on which she bore and was born; -when,
Weary, with hollower eye, amid the carcases wander
Slowly the buriers;-'till the sent death-angel, descending

Thoughtful, on thunder-clouds, beholds all lonesome and silent,
Gazes the wide desolation, and long broods over the graves, fixt.
* See our last Appendix.

teraire, that rapid importation and unadulterated transfer of the productions of different countries, in which the Ger mans so much excel; and which forms the most important business of a common language, and the most essential condition of that literature which aspires to universality.

We cannot refrain from transcribing an elegiac ballad on some act of parliament relating to marriage, which Mr. CROFT possesses, in the hand-writing of Sir William Temple. It is very impressive: love and death always make a good back-ground for one another:

• Wake, all you dead! What, Ho! What, Ho!
How soundly they sleep, whose pillows lie low!
They mind not poor lovers, walking above,
On the decks of the world, in the storms of love.
No whisper, there, no glance can pass,
Through wickets or through panes of glass;
For the windows and doors are shut up and barr'd.
Lie close in the church, and in the church-yard!
In every grave, make room! make room!
The world's at an end! We come! We come !

The state is, now, Love's foe, Love's foe;
Has seiz'd on his arms, his quiver and bow;
Has pinion'd his wings and fetter'd his feet;
Because he made way for lovers to meet.
But, Oh! sad chance! the judge was old.
Hearts cruel grow, when blood grows cold.
No man, being young, Love's process would draw.
Ah! Heavens! that Love should be subject to law!

Lovers, go woo the dead, the dead!
Lie two in a grave! and to bed, to bed!'

Mr. CROFT seems well-disposed to compile a very complete vocabulary * of the English tongue: this ought to be his grand object. The principles on which its redundancies are to be pruned away are an after-consideration. It will deserve his deliberate attention, whether he will recommend a reform in the geographical and proper names which we have borrowed from the French, and which we write without any resemblance to the names in use on the spot. The vulgar denominations of plants and animals ought, no doubt, to find a place: but it is to be hoped that they will be accompanied by the scientific appellations, and that we shall not be puzzled with such definitions as that of Dr. Johnson, that " Dead-nettle is the same with Archangel."

* The novel, intitled Berkeley Hall, contains many American words, which are strangers to our dictionaries: see Rev. vol. xxii. p. 92. N. S.

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APP. REV. VOL. XXVII.

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-We have, on another occasion, (Rev. vol. xxiv. p. 558,) passed in review the principal competitors of Mr. CROFT; we take a patriotic interest in his enterprise, and we expect from its success a wider circulation and an increased longevity to our literature.

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ART. IV. Histoire de la Republique Française, &c. i. e. A History of the French Republic, &c. By ANTHONY FANTIN-DESODOARDS.. 8vo. 2 Vols. pp. 400 in each. Paris. 1798. Imported by De Boffe, London. 128. sewed.

THE history of the French revolution, prior to the establishment of the present constitution of France, has already been treated by this author, and was analyzed at length in our xxiiid volume, p. 557. He now undertakes the history of the Republic; which he begins at the separation of the National Convention, and conducts to the treaty of peace with the Emperor in 1797. The former was a narrative of progressive horror; this is a record of returning order and reviving satisfaction.

We shall notice some of the passages which have caught our attention on perusal.

To the military code established by Saint-Just, in 1793, the author ascribes the revival of discipline, the great energy of the French armies, and the remarkably complete subserviency of the Generals to the legislature.

At p. 3, it is observed that no General ever carried farther than Buonaparte, extreme valor, presence of mind, skill in manœuvre, and the resources of stratagem. The battles of Lodi and Archola were won by the superiority of his talents. The soldier, persuaded of this superiority, boldly met dangers of which he supposed the importance had been justly estimated; and this daring spirit, by adding to the reputation of the General, rendered the army invincible. As skilful as Frederic the Great in scheming the plan of a campaign, Buonaparte knew better than that monarch (says the author) how to lead on men to great achievements, by the influence of sentiment. Like Cæsar, he would march at the head of his army, and share the fatigue and food of the soldier. Each might address him as his comrade; and this affability, which softened the harshness of command, gave him such a moral empire over his troops, that they would have followed him every where without hesitation. Hence the unlimited authority which he enjoyed in Italy, and which no other General has possessed since the Roman Emperors.

P.143. The pretender to the crown of France,' as Louis XVIIIth is styled by the Republican French, before he quitted Verona, (whence the senate of Venice had ordered him to depart,) preserving his dignity in adversity, informed the podesta, who brought him the intimation, that, as a Venetian nobleman, he had an incontestable right to reside at Verona: but that he would leave the town, as soon as the sword should be restored to him which Henry IV. had presented to the republic, and the golden book brought to him that he might erase his name from the list of citizens. The podestá replied that the senate, at his request, would without hesitation erase him from the list: but that, twelve millions being due to the republic from Henry IV., his sword would be kept in pledge until the restitution.

From Verona, Buonaparte thus wrote to the Directory.

" I am just arrived at Verona, but intend to depart to-morrow. It is a large and fine town I leave a garrison in it, to remain master

of the three bridges which it has over the Adige.

" I have not concealed from the inhabitants that, had the king of France not evacuated the town before my passage of the Po, I should have set fire to a city so audacious as to think itself the capital of the French Empire.

" I have just seen the amphitheatre: this remain of the Roman people is worthy of them. I could not but feel humbled at the comparative paltriness of our Champ de Mars. Here, a hundred thousand spectators sat conveniently, and could easily hear an orator addressing them.

"The emigrants are flying from Italy. More than fifteen hundred withdrew five days before our arrival. They are hurrying into Germany with remorse and misery."

P.295. Four distinct parties divide France since the establishment of the present constitution, 1. The republicans attached to the constitution of 1795, or the strictly constitutional party. 2. The republicans attached to the constitution of 1793. Of this latter form of government, it is the distinguishing feature that the laws were merely to be discussed by the representatives of the people; to be submitted for sanction to the primary assemblies; and to obtain an active force only after they had been approved by a majority of the nation in their individual and constituent capacity. It was the constitution of Poland, (in which the deliberations of the Diet were to be approved by the Dietines,) accommodated to a system of universal suffrage; and it was the only French constitution strictly democratic, in which the sovereignty of the people was really made an efficient part of legislature. The others were elective aristocracies. 3. The mixt-monarchy-men, originally attached to

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the constitution of 1791; many of whom were become willing to admit two branches of legislature, as in England and America, and tended chiefly to substitute a monarch for the pentarchs of the present constitution, without much solicitude whether this monarch were of the Bourbon family or not. To these, many of the non-emigrant royalists have acceded, either from conviction, or from the hope of obtaining by their means a restoration of the abolished order of things. 4. The royalists, who aspire to restore, in all its simplicity, the pristine despotism. The constitutional republicans (p. 308) are infinitely the stronger of these divisions; being, as a party of opinion, very powerful; and enjoying the additional support of all those who are attached to the new order of things by their fortunes, their places, their habits, their acquisitions under the new laws, their fears of anarchy, of revolution, of confiscation, and of massacre. Throughout France, the dread of a counter-revoIution, natural to the purchasers of national domains, is participated by all the industrious and all the humane. The power of the Directory is willingly exerted against the third and fourth of these parties, -but, if abandoned by the constituted authorities, would probably be thrown into the scale of the second, which includes the less provident mass of revolutionary agents.

The conspiracy of Babeuf is here better detailed than we have seen it elsewhere: it probably originated with the remnant of Robespierre's adherents: yet its manifestoes read well, and seem to have derived hints from Diderot's Code de la Nature. Considering the talents of Babeuf, it is wonderful that he did not rise into notoriety, until the revolutionary tide began to ebb. He plunged into the water when he had to swim against the stream..

The Second Volume is much occupied with the conquests of Buonaparte in Italy, of which we have spoken already, Rev. vols. xxiii. p. 378. and xxiv. p. 578 They were facilitated by magnificent promises of liberty, which have been very imperfectly kept. The defence of Lille does honor to the courage of the French: but their offensive military operations have mostly been begun unjustly, conducted cruelly, and terminated oppressively.

The author observes that he has seen the rise of Martinism and of Theophilanthropy: that the first of these religions is extinct, and that the second seems likely to decline without making numerous proselytes. He concludes by expressing a wish that Christianity were again encouraged in France. We entirely accede to this opinion, supposing somewhat like our protestant system to be here meant;-and we endeavoured to shew (Rev. vol. xxiv. p.551) that the relipion of the Theophilanthropes was imperfectly adapted for the

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