666, 
however, accepted the office of friend to 
the Duke de Choiseul, who, on account 
of the inconstancy of his taste, and the 
lightness of his manners, often became 
very dull ; but he had accepted this, part- 
ly on account of his hearty attachment 
for Madame de Choiseul, and partly to 
induce her husband, to lay out that 
money in medals which he would have 
preferred to throw out of the window! 
He accordingly succeeded in encreasing 
the royal collection, to 40,000. 
The memoirs written for the Academy 
of Inscriptions, had conferred a high re- 
putation on him, among the learned, be- 
fore he became known to the public. 
The Abbé regretted greatly, that men 
of the world were not enabled to cull the 
flowers of literature and _ philosophy, 
without turning over the enormous com- 
pilations of Grevius, and Gronovius, &c. 
and he earnestly wished to remove this 
common pretext for ignorance. 
Tt was accordingly from that very lauda- 
ble motive, that he undertook a course of 
Grecian literature ; and, in order to remove 
every thing that savoured of pedantry ; 
he made Anacharsis undertake a journey 
thither, at the most brilliant epoch of 
that classical country. The idea was a 
good one: Xenophon had already made 
Cyrus. travel, and Voltaire was obliged 
also to send Candide on a mission; but 
Anacharsis was not so rapid in his pro- 
ceedings, nor did he go in search of Made- 
moiselle Cunégonde. Anacharsis, how- 
ever, converses with Aspasia and with 
the philosophers, he visits every thing 
memorable, he beholds every thing worthy 
of being seen; in short, it is a most ex- 
cellent work, and one of which, without 
a single equal, there have been many 
vile imitations. 
Mirabeau: a fragment.—Gabriel Ho- 
noré Riquetti de Mirabeau, was the eldest 
son of Victor Riquetti, marquis of Mira- 
beau, by Marie Genevieve de Valsan, 
widow of the Marquis de Sauvebceuf. 
He was one of the ablest, most witty, 
most eloquent, and most dishonest men 
of his age. 
While in Prussia, by corrupting the 
clerks and other subalterns in office, he 
obtained intelligence which the French 
ministry did not make proper use of. Ie 
at the same time intrigued to prevent 
the invasion of Holland by the Prussian 
troops, who protected the Stadtholderian 
government with their bayonets, when it 
was shaken by an internal commotion, 
which was put an end to, by a species of 
military comedy. 
Retrospect of French Literature—INiscellanies. 
Among other papers, he had procured 
a statistical account of Germany, in the 
vernacular language of that country ; 
the only difficulty was how to translate 
it, but it was his favourite maxim, * qu’on 
faisoit ce qu’on vouloit,” that a man 
might do whatever he pleased. On this 
occasion, he gavea proof of the excel- 
lence of his own rule, and by means of a 
Fréich secretary who was unacquainted 
with German, and a German valet de 
chambre who did not understand French, 
added to the assistance derived from his 
dictionary, he found means to obtain the 
particulars of this state paper, a copy of 
which he sent to Louis XVI. ‘This pre- 
cious manuscript is said to be at this 
moment in the possession of his friend 
Talleyrand Perigord, formerly bishop of 
Autun, and at present minister of foreign 
relations, and a prince of the empire. 
Mirabeau presented William, on his 
elevation to the throne, with a letter 
containing lessons of the most sublime 
politics and sound morality. But having 
become the focus of intrigues, he received 
an order to depart in the course of twen- 
ty-fowr hours. 
Mirabeau, on his return from Prussia, 
attacked the reputation of Necker, who 
had established a high character by means 
of an eulogy on Colbert, since said to 
have been composed by Thomas. He 
opposed figures to declamation, and exhi- 
bited the ignorance not only in politics 
but in arithmetic of this man, who mis- 
took character for talent, whom the finan- 
ciers have called a wit, and the wits a 
financier. Mirabeau’s Refutation, may 
be seen in his Letters to Lecretelle and 
Cerutti. 
In the dedication of kis work De la 
Monarchie  Prussienne,” published in 
1788, and inscribed to his father, he thus 
speaks of it, and of himself: “I have 
endeavoured to treat on those subjects 
only on which it is necessary that the 
public opinion should be fixed. In their 
discussion, 1 have neither exhibited weak- 
ness nor prejudice. I have forgotten 
that accident made me noble, that cir- 
cumstances have made me poor, that a 
long series of misfortunes seems to have 
made me dependaut. I have shaken off 
these chains. I have imposed the Jaw on 
myself to depend solely on reason and on 
justice, and I have had the good fortune 
to experience that this disposition alone 
suffices to give some consequence and 
some glory.” 
DL’ Histoire secrette de la Cour de Ber= 
lin, by detecting the intrigues and cor- 
ruptions 
