ation; and that in order to be agreeable, it is necessary to be somewhat frivolous. When I remarked to him how delighted I was that he had this opinion, which agreed so well with my own, he told me that a lady from one of the provinces, who had just arrived at Paris, and wished to see an assembly of wits, came to dine with him, expecting of course to hear something marvellous. She listened for some time with the greatest attention, and being astonished at not being able to collect any thing remarkable, concluded that the company were reserving the good things to enliven the dinner. At last they sat down to table; and her attention now redoubled; but they talked of nothing but good living-they descanted on the merits of Champagne and Burgundy; till the strange lady, losing all patience, leaned over to her neighbour and said, in a low voice, "but when in the world are these gentlemen going to begin."

There are some people who in their first interviews with authors are quite insupportable-people, who do not so much wish to know you, as to let you see at the first moment all that they know, and the full extent of their understanding. I shall never forget my singular interview with the famous Klopstock, author of the Messiah. It was at the beginning of my residence at Hamburg, while I was boarding at the house of the minister Volters, that Klopstock requested to see me. One day, while I was alone with my niece, I saw a very ugly, limping old man come in. I got up and met him and led him to an arm-chair. He sat down without saying a word, crossed his legs with a very reflecting air, and fixed himself in the chair like a man who was going to stay a long time there. Then with a high and squeaking voice, he began with this strange question: "Madam, in your opinion, which is the best prose writer, Voltaire or Buffon." This mode of entering on, not a conversation, but a thesis, petrified me; but Klopstock, who was more anxious to let me know his opinion than to hear mine, did not at all insist upon an answer. "For my part," he went on, "I decide in favour of Voltaire, and for several reasons; first," and he proceeded to give me a dozen reasons, which were spun out into a long discourse. He then spoke of his residence at Dresden and in Denmark; of the homages that had been bestowed on him; and of the trans

lation which an emigrant was then making of the Messiah. During the whole of this conversation, I did not utter six monosyllables. At the end of three hours he retired very much satisfied with my conversation; for in the evening he told one of my friends that he had found me very agreeable. It was certainly being so at very little expense.

My thoughtlessness has often brought me into embarrassments. The following is a droll circumstance. Count Schomberg would insist upon it that I should like D'Alembert, which I had not the least disposition to do, and notwithstanding the care of count Schomberg, my acquaintance with him was always very superficial. D'Alembert was in the habit of sending me his discourses regularly as they were printed. One day he sent me one which had not the author's name to it. It was the eulogium on Mr. de la Coudamine. As I read it hastily it pleased me, and thinking it was of course D'Alembert's, I wrote to ' him that I was delighted with it, and that I liked it infinitely better than all the previous ones. The eulogium was written by Condorcet. Count Schomberg scolded me severely for this mistake, which occasioned a great coolness in my epistolary intercourse with D'Alembert.

The day after my arrival at Zurich, I saw Gessner. He is a good man, who can be admired without embarrassment-with whom one can talk without pretensions, and who cannot be seen or known without being beloved. I took a delightful walk with him on the charming borders of the Sil and the Limmath. It was there he told me he had dreamed all his Idyls. I did not fail to ask him that odious question often put to celebrated authors, though we are never of their opinion, whatever they answer. I asked him which of his works he liked best. He told me that it was The First Navigator, because he composed it for his wife in the beginning of their love. This answer disarmed me, and I too shall prefer the First Navigator to the Death of Abel. Gessner invited me to go and see him at his country seat. I was extremely anxious to know the woman whom he had married for love, and who had made him a poet. I represented her

under the form of a charming shepherdess, and I imagined that the habitation of Gessner must be an elegant cottage, surrounded with bowers and flowers; that they drank nothing but milk, and, to use the German expression, walked on roses. On reaching his house, I crossed a little garden filled with carrots and cabbages, which began to derange a little my ideas of eclogues and idyls; but they were completely put to flight on entering the parlour, by the smoke of tobacco forming a venerable cloud, through which I perceived Gessner smoking his pipe and drinking beer, by the side of a good woman, dressed in a short-gown, with a large bonnet, and knitting. This was madame Gessner. But the good-natured reception which I met with, from both husband and wife, their perfect union, their tenderness towards their children, and their simplicity, recall the manners and the virtues which Gessner has painted-it is still an idyl and the golden age, not in brilliant poetry, but in vulgar and unadorned language. Gessner draws and paints landscapes in water colours in a superior manner, and he has painted all the rural situations which he describes. He gave me one of them, which is delightful.

I saw also at Zurich the celebrated Lavater. I have great belief in physiognomy; but my principles on that subject are very different from those of Lavater. He drew his from forms, and his systems are disproved by an infinite number of countenances; whilst it is impossible to refute mine, which makes me believe it is perfect. I judge by the expression of the smile alone. My science cannot be communicated, nor has it any rules-it is the gift of nature. Besides, I do but revive it, for it was known to the Greeks, who gave it a name signifying divination by the smile. The smiles of politeness and affability are very insignificant; but the true smile-the natural smile, shows the understanding; betrays stupidity and folly, and unveils the inclinations. It is for this reason, no doubt, that all the poets have ascribed to Love a malicious smile. Lavater pretends moreover, that he can tell perfectly the character of a person from his handwriting. If in the time of Louis the fourteenth, authors had written great volumes on such sciences, they would have been prohibited; but in these times the learned have the right of saying all sorts of follies, without losing consideration-they even profit by it.

I did not see Haller at Berne, because he was sick. He is, like Zimmerman, a physician as well as a poet. The talent of verse is frequently joined with the science of medicine in Switzerland, Germany, and England. The god of medicine was, it is true, the son of Apollo; but he did not make poetry. Hippocrates did not cultivate poetry; and I acknowledge, that I had rather that my physician attended to nothing but medicine.

ON THE WORD LOAN. FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

I NOTICED With pleasure in your number for September 1813 an attack made by one of your correspondents on the word ap probate; it is a modern usurper, and I hope will be opposed and dethroned. Johnson, in his preface to his folio dictionary, has treated such innovations upon our language with so much justice, that it would be presumption in me to attempt to say any thing in addition, and I will not attempt it; all that I wish is to assist in the hue and cry against this aggressor, and bring him to condign punishment.

Another intruder has appeared, in my opinion not less obnoxious to the Johnsonian laws. I mean the substantive loan in the form of a verb. I am sorry to see it not only countenanced, but actually in the service of some of the heads of department in Washington. They do not stop here, they have employed its only child loaned in the most important affairs of our nation. This I think unkind when their old acquaintances and tried friends, Lend and Lent are at all times willing, and certainly as well qualified, to serve them. A. B.

October 1, 1813.

OLLA. FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

Sica tantum mirantur.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

A DUE attachment to country is, no doubt, commendable in all men; but when, through mistaken zeal, they affect to despise all

others, they will be despised in their turn. Many instances of this sort might, no doubt, be produced; but as I wish to be short, I shall be content with one.

Not many years ago, a gentleman lately from Scotland, called on Mr. Hat his seat near Wilmington (Delaware) for whom he had some letters. Whilst walking in his garden, abounding in excellent fruit, the latter soon observed that, show him what he would, his guest insisted upon it that he had seen muckle batter in Scoteland. Determined, however, to surprise him, he privately ordered a servant to tie some gourds on a pear-tree, whilst they were at dinner. When the cloth was removed, “now, sir,” said Mr. H. "I think I can show you something you ne'er saw the like of in Scotland," and taking him up to the tree, he asked the astonished Scotchman what he thought of that? "In truth, sar," quoth he, "they are varra fine piers indeed; but I think I have seen full as learge in the duke of Argyle's gardens; though I must e'en confess that they had na' quite sic lang nacks.”

ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

The criminal code of England, like that of Draco of old, is written in letters of blood.

"It is a melancholy truth," says Blackstone, "that among the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit, not less than one hundred and sixty have been declared by act of parliament, to be fellonious without benefit of clergy; or, in other words, to be worthy of instant death." The same writer observes, that were even a committee appointed but once in an hundred years to revise the criminal law, it would not, in the eighteenth century, have been a capital crime to cut down a cherry tree in an orchard, or to be seen for one month, in company with a Gypsy, be she ever so handsome. Yet, notwithstanding this, we find that since his time, such laws have been greatly increased.

The late empress of Russia, "aware," as Mr. Eden tells us, "that immoderate efforts are the symptoms of insufficiency, and have always more fury than force," abolished the penalty of death throughout her extensive dominions, and the legislature of

• Vol. iv. 18. † Priss. of Penal Law 57.