NOTES. 293 



a figh, " GoD has puniflied me in the point where I had of- 

 « fended." 



At the fame time, perfons of high refpeflability have cen- 

 fured him for acknowledging fo much evil of himfelf in his Con- 

 feffions. What would they have faid, then, if, like fo many 

 others, he had, in thefe, indirectly pronounced his own eulo- 

 gium ? The more humiliating that the failings are, of which he 

 there accufes himfelf, the more fublime is his candor in expofing 

 them. There are, it muft be admitted, fome paflages, in which 

 he is chargeable with indifcretion in fpeaking out too plainly, 

 where another perfon is concerned j particularly where he dif- 

 clofes the not over-delicate attachments of his inconftant bene- 

 faftrefs, Madame de Warens. But I have reafon to believe, 

 that his pofthu mous Works have been falfified in more than one 

 place. It is pollible that he did not name her in his manu- 

 fcript ; and if he did mention her by name, he thought he might 

 do this without hurting any one, becaufe flie left no pofterity. Be- 

 fides, he fpeaks of her every where with a warmth of intereft. 

 He uniformly fixes the attention of the Reader, in the midfl: of 

 her irregularities, on the qualities of her mind. In a word, he 

 confidered it as his duty to tell the good and the bad of the per- 

 fonages of his Hiftory, after the example of the mofl celebrated 

 Hiflorians of Antiquity. Tacitus fays exprefsly, in the opening 

 of his Hiftory, Book firll, *' I have no reafon either to love or 

 " to hate Otho^ Galba, or Vitellius. \i is true, I owe my fortune 

 " to Vef[)ajian, as I owe the progrefs and prefervation of it to 

 " his children ; but when a man is going to write Hiftory, he 

 ** ought to forget benefits as well as injuries." In truth, Tacitus 

 taxes Kefpajïan^ his benefaftor, with avarice, and other faults. 

 John-James^ who had afTumed for his motto, Vitam impemkre 

 vera, (to devote life to truth) may have valued himfelf as much 

 on his love for truth, in writing his own Hiftory, as Tacitys did 

 in writing that of the Roman Emperors. 



Not that I by any means approve the unreferved franknefs of 

 John-James^ in a ftate of Society like that in which we live, and 



u 3 that 



