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fhould be glad to recover my firft effay on the truth of the miracle which ftopped the re-building of the Temple of Jerufalem. 3. In Giannone's Civil Hiftory of Naples, I obferved with a critical eye the progrefs and abufe of facerdotal power, and the revolutions of Italy in the darker ages. This various reading, which I now conducted with difcretion, was digefted, according to the precept and model of Mr. Locke, into a large common-place book; a practice, however, which I do not ftrenuoufly recommend. The action of the pen will doubtlefs imprint an idea on the mind as well as on the paper: but I much queftion whether the benefits of this laborious method are adequate to the wafte of time; and I must agree with Dr. Johnfon, (Idler, No. 74,) that what is twice read, is commonly better remembered, than what is transcribed."

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Account of Solomon Geffner, Author of

the Death of Abel, Sc.

tion for the change of his character.
After a two year's refidence at
Berg, he returned home to his fa-
ther, who was a bookfeller at Zu-
rich, and whofe fhop was reforted
to by fuch men of genius as were
then in that city; here his poetical
talents in fome flight degree dif
played themselves, though not in
fuch a manner as to prevent his
father from fending him to Berlin,
in the year 1749, to qualify him
for his own business. Here he was
employed in the bufinefs of the
fhop; but he foon became diffatis-
fied with his mode of life; he
eloped from his mafter and hired a
chamber for himself. To reduce
him to order, his parents, accord-
ing to the usual mode in such cases,
withheld every fupply of money.
He refolved, however, to be inde-
pendent; fhut himself up in his
chamber; and, after fome weeks,
went to his friend Hempel, a cele-
brated artift, whom he requested
to return with him to his lodgings.
There he fhewed his apartments
covered with fresh landscapes, which
our poet had painted with fweet
oil, and by which he hoped to
make his fortune: The fhrugging
up of the fhoulders of his friend
concluded with an affurance, that
though his works were not likely
to be held in high estimation in
their prefent ftate, fome expecta-
tions might be raised from them,
if he continued the fame applica-
tion for ten years.

THIS very pleafing writer was born at Zurich, on the 1ft of April, 1730. In his youth, little expectations could be formed of him, as he then difplayed none of the talents for which he was afterwards diftinguifhed. His parents faw nothing to afford them much hope, though Simlar, a man of fome learning, affured his father, that the boy had talents which, though now hid, would fooner or later fhew themfelves, and elevate him far above his fchool-fellows. As he had made to little progrefs at Zurich, he was fent to Berg, and put under the care of a clergyman, where retirement and the picturefque fcenery around him laid the founda

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fineness of whose ear and tafte he derived the greatest advantages. With much diffidence he prefented to Ramler fome of his compofitions; but every verse and every word were criticised, and very few could pass through the fiery trial. The Swifs dialect, he found at laft, was the obstacle in his way, and the exertions requifite to fatisfy the delicacy of a German ear would be exceffive. Ramler advised him to clothe his thoughts in harmonious profe; this counfel he followed, and the anecdote may be of use in Britain, where many a would-be poet is probably hammering at a verfe, which, from the circumftances of his birth and education, he can never make agreeable to the ear of taste.

From Berlin, Geffner went to Hamburgh, with letters of recommendation to Hagedorn; but he chofe to make himself acquainted with him at a coffee-houfe before the letters were delivered. A clofe intimacy followed, and he had the advantages of a literary fociety which Hamburgh at that time afforded. Thence he returned home, with his tafte much refined; and, fortunately for him he came back when his countrymen were in fome degree capable of enjoying his future works. Had he produced them twenty years before, his Daphnis would have been hiffed at as immoral; his Abel would have been preached against as propha

nation.

This period may be called the Auguftan age of Germany; Kloptock, Ramler, Kleift, Gleim, Utz, Leffing, Wieland, Rabener, were refcuing their country from the farcafms of the great Frederic. Klopftock, paid about this time a vifit

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to Zurich, and fired every breast with poetical ardour. He had fearce left the place when Wieland came, and by both our poet was well received. After a few anonymous compofitions, he tried his genius on a fubject which was ftarted by the accidental perufal of the tranflations of Longus, and his Daphnis was improved by the remarks of his friend Hirzel, the author of the Ruftic Socrates. Daphnis appeared firft without a name in the year 1754; it was followed in 1756, by Inkle and Yarico; and Gefner's reputation was spread in the fame year, over Germany and Switzerland, by his Pastorals, a translation of which into English, in 1762, was published by Dr. Kenrick. His brother poets acknowledged the merit of thefe light compofitions, as they were pleafed to call them; but conceived their author to be incapable of forming a grander plan, or aiming at the dignity of heroic poetry. To thefe critics he foon after oppofed his death of Abel.

In 1762, he collected his poems in four volumes; in which were fome new pieces that had never before made their appearance in public. In 1772, he produced his fecond volume of paftorals with fome letters on landscape painting. Thefe met with the most favourable reception in France, where they were tranflated and imitated; as they were alfo, though with lefs fuccefs, in Italy and England.

We thall now confider Geffner as an artift: till his thirtieth year, painting was only an accidental amufement; but at that time he became acquainted with Heidegger, a man of tafte, whofe collection of paintings and engrav

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ings

ings was thus thrown open to him. The daughter made an impreffion on him, but the circumftances of the lovers were not favourable to an union, till through the activity and friendship of the burgomafters Heidegger and Hirzel, he was enabled to accomplish his withes. The queftion then became, how the married couple were to live? The pen is but a flender dependence any where, and fill lefs in Switzerland. The poet had too much fpirit to be dependent on others; and he determined to purfue the arts no longer as an amufement, but as a means of procuring a livelihood.

Painting and engraving alternately filled that time which was not occupied with poetry; and in thefe arts, if he did not arrive at the greatest eminence, he was diftinguished by that fimplicity, that elegance, that fingularity, which are the characteristics of his poetry. His wife was not idle; befides the care of his houfe and the education of his children, for which no one was better qualified, the whole burthen of the fhop (for our poet was book feller as well as poet, engraver, and painter) was laid upon her fhoulders.

In his manners, Geffner was chearful, lively, and at times playful; fond of his wife; fond of his children. He had fmall pretentions to learning, yet he could read the latin poets in the original; and of the Greek, he preferred the latin tranflations to the French. In his early years, he led either a folitary life, or confined himself to men of tafte and literature: as he grew older, he accustomed himself to general converfation; and in his later years, his houfe was the

centre point of the men of the first rank for talents or fortune in Zurich. Here they met twice a week, and formed a converfazione of a kind seldom, if ever, to be met with in great cities, and very rarely in any place; the politics of England deftroy fuch meetings in London. Geffner with his friends enjoyed that fimplicity of manners which makes fociety agreeable; and in his rural refidence, in the fummer, a little way out of town, they brought back the memory almost of the Golden Age.

He died of an apoplexy on the 2d of March, 1788; leaving a widow, three children, and a fifter behind. His youngest fon was married to a daughter of his father's friend Wieland. His fellow citizens have erected a statue in memory of him on the banks of the Limmot, where it meets Sibl.

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Some particulars of the Death of Condorcet, from Bottiger on the fate of Letters, &c. in France.

AMONG the Girondifts profcribed by Robespierre on the 31ft of of May, Condorcet was the very firft on the lift, and was obliged to fkulk in the most hidden corners to elude the perfecutions of the furious Jacobins. A lady, to whom he was known only by name, became, at the inftance of a common friend, his generous protectrefs; concealing him in her house at Paris, at the moft imminent hazard, till the latter end of April 1794; when the apprehenfion of general domiciliary vifits fo much increased, and the rifk of expofing both himself and his patronefs became fo preff. ing on the mind of Condorcet, that he refolved to quit Paris.

Without

foregoing all caution, which feemed to have become habitual to him, he entered an inn at Clamars and called for an ommelette. His attire, his dirty cap and long beard, his pale meagre countenance, and the ravenous appetite with which he devoured the victuals, could not fail to excite the curiofity and fufpicion of the company. A member of the revolutionary committee, who happened to be prefent, taking it for granted that his woebegone figure could be no other than fome runaway from the Bicètre, addreffed and questioned him whence he came, whether he could produce a paffport, &c. which inquiries, Condorcet having loft all felf-command, were fo unfatisfactorily anfwered, that he was taken to the house of the committee as a fufpected perfon. Thence, having undergone a fecond interrogatory, during which he acquitted himself equally ill, he was conducted to Bourg-la-Reine; and, as he gave very inconfiftent anfwers to the queftions put to him by the municipality, it was inferred that this unknown perfon must have fome very important reasons for withing to continue undifcovered., Being fent to a temporary confinement till the matter fhould be cleared up, on the next morning he was found fenfelefs on the ground, without any marks of violence on his body; whence it was conjectured that he must have poifoned himself. Indeed, Condorcet had, for fome time past, carried about him the moft deadly poifon; and, not long before his fatal exit, he owned to a friend that he had more than twenty times been tempted to make ufe of it, 'but was checked by motives of af

Without either paffport or civic card, he contrived, under the difguife of a provencal country woman, with a white cap on his head, to steal through the barriers of Paris, and reached the plains of Mont Rouge in the diftrict of Bourg-la-Reine; where he hoped to have found an afylum in the country-boufe of a gentleman with whom he had once been intimate. This friend having, unfortunately, at that very time, gone to Paris, Condorcet was under the dreadful neceflity of wandering about in the fields and woods for three fucceffive days and nights, not venturing to enter any inn, unprovided with a civic card. Exhaufted by hunger, fatigue, and anguish, with a wound in his foot, he was fcarcely able to drag himself into a deserted quarry, where he purposed to await the return of his friend. At length, having advanced towards the road fide, Condorcet faw him approach, was recognized, and received with open arms:-but, as they both feared left Condorcet's frequent inquiries at his friend's houfe fhould have raised fufpicions; and as, at any rate, it was not advisable for them to make their entrance together in the day time, they agreed that Condorcet fhould ftay in the fields till duik, and then be let in by a back door. It was then, however, that imprudence threw him off his guard. The forlorn exile, after having patiently borne hunger and thirst for three days together, without fo much as approaching an inn, now finds himfelf incapable of waiting a few hours longer, at the end of which all his fufferings were to fubfide in the bofom of friendship. Tranfported with this happy profpect, and

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fection

fe&ion for his wife and daughter. It was during his concealment of ten months at Paris that he wrote his excellent hiftory of the progrefs of human understanding. Thus perifhed one of the moft illuftrious of the French literati that the prefent age had produced.

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Biographical Anecdotes of the Count de Buffon, extracted from a ManuScript Journey to Montbart in 1785, by Herault de Sechelles.

I beheld a fine figure, noble and placid. Notwithstanding he is 78 years old, one would not attribute to him above 60 years; and although he had spent fixteen fleepless nights, in confequence of being afflicted with the ftone, he looked as fresh as a child, and as calm as if in health. His buft, by Houdon, appears to me very like; although the effect of the black eyes and brows is loft.

His white hair was accurately dreft this was one of his whims, and he owns it. He has it papered at night, and curled with irons fometimes twice a day, in the morning and before fupper. He had five fmall curls on each fide. His bed-gown was a yellow and white stripe, flowered with blue.

His voice is ftrong for his age, and very pleafant: in general, when he speaks, his looks are fixed on nothing, but roll unguardedly about. His favourite words are and pardieu, which recur perpetually. His vanity is undifguifed and prominent; here are a few inftances.

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I told him I read much in his works. "What are you reading?" faid he. I answered, the Vues für la Nature. "There are paffages of the highest eloquence in them:" replied he inftantly.

His fon has erected a monument to the father in the gardens of Montbart. It is a fimple column near a lofty tower, and it is infcribed

Excelfa turri humilis columna

Parenti fuo filius BUFFON, 1785. The father burst into tears on feeing this monument, and faid to the young man, "Son this will do you honour."

The

The fon fhewed me about the grounds. We came to the closet in which this great man laboured; it is in a pavillion called the tower of Saint Louis, and it is up ftairs. The entrance is by a green folding door. The fimplicity of the laboratory aftonishes. The ceiling is vaulted, the walls are green, the floor is in fquares: it contains an ordinary wooden desk, and an arm chair; but not a book nor a paper. This nakedness has its effect. imagination clothes it with the fplendid pages of Buffon. There is another fanctuary in which he was wont to compofe ;-" The. cradle of natural hiftory," as prince Henry called it, when he went thither. It was there that Rouffeau proftrated himself and kiffed the threshold. I mentioned this circumftance to Buffon. Yes, fa'd he, Rouffeau bowed down to me. This cabinet is wainscoted, furnished with fcreens, a fofa, and with drawings of birds and beafts. The chairs are covered with black leather, and the desk is near the chim-s ney, and of walnut-tree. A treatife on the loadftone, on which he was then employed, lay on it.

His example and his discourse convin ceme that he, who paflionately defires glory, is fure in the end to obtain it. The with muft not be a momentary but an every day emotion. Buffon faid to me

on

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