42 
haps does not entirely enter on this road, 
and difplay fully the poetical tendency of 
this ftyle. As for the fingle parts of re- 
prefentation, Iffand fhews himfelf a true 
artift, both by reprefenting, not common, 
but ideal ennobled, nature, and by a pro- 
found knowledge of man, but although » 


From the Port-folia of a Man of Letters. [Auguft 1, 
the public, not of one place only, but of 
all thofe where he ever performed, agree 
in their opinion on thele points, it is 
difficult, and almoft impoffible, to give a 
clear notion of his art to chofe who never 
faw him acting. 

Extraéis from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters, 
esate 
Extraordinary MISTAKE of LE CLERC. 
OTHING in literary hiftory is more 
extraordinary than the fingular mif- 
takes fometimes made by men of fenfe and 
- knowledge, even with apparent thought 
and reflection, and perhaps in the very 
aét of reprehending the miftakes of others. 
The following is a remarkable inftance of 
this: In Le Clerc’s ** Parrhafiana; or, Va- 
rious Thoughts,”’ there is a claufe on the 
negligencies of hiftorians. Asan example, 
he fays, ‘* Vittorio Siri, in his Memorie 
_ Recondite, thus fpeaks of the night in 
which Lewis XIV. was born, ‘ The king 
fpent four hours in this conference, fo that 
the hour was too late for returning that 
very {nowy night (it was in the month of 
December) to Grobois. Being therefore 
obliged to fleep at Paris, as his bed was 
left at Grobois, the queen gave him a fup- 
per, and part of her bed: a night moft for- 
tunate for France, fince, from a wonderful 
concurrence of circumftances, S/afante il 
Dolfino.’ Thelfe laft words Le Clere un- 
derftands to mean, the Dauphin was born; 
for he obferves, that it is very ftrange 
Siri did not know that Lewis XIV. was 
born in September, and nct in December, 
and at St. German en Laye, and not at 
Paris. But how ftrangely inattentive 
muft he himfelf have been to Siri’s whole 
narrative, not to fee that by Sznfanto it 
Dolfino he meant, the Dauphin was con- 
ceived, not he was boraf—he latter is 
quite nonfenfical. 
MISREPRESENTATION COMMON 72 
ACCOUNTS of SIEGES. 
Le Clerc properly introduces, as an 1i]- 
luftration of the abfurdities and inconfift- 
encies into which a hiltorian is betrayed 
by national partiality, the example given 
by Polybius of a narration in Philinus, 
who, after faying that the Romans were 
defeated with great lofs by the Syracufans 
and the Carthaginians in two fallies from 
Meffina, goes on to relate, that after thefe 
actions, both Hiero, King of Syracufe, 
and the Carthaginians, broke up their 
camps before Meffina, retreated in hatte, 
abandoning feveral forts, and all the open 
country, and never again in that campaign 
dared to face the Romans, who, on their 
parts, laid fiege to Syracuf*—plain proofs 
that all the advantage had really been to 
the Romans! ‘This faé& leads me to ob- 
ferve, that there is no cafe in which oppo- 
fite repre(entations of the fame thing are 
fo eatily made, as in the accounts of fal- 
lies from befieged towns. The purpofe of 
the befieged is ufvally to gain fome particu- 
lar point—to defiroy a battery, beat up 
a pott, facilicate the entrance of a convoy, 
and the Jike. When this is effected, it is 
their bufinefs to retreat, in which they are 
pretty fure to be purfued by the befiegers, 
when recovered from their firft alarm. 
While the befieged, therefore, can boat 
‘of the complete fuccefs of their fally, the 
befiegers can equally boaft that they re- 
pelled and drove them back, probably 
with lofs. And there is never acampaiga 
in which we do not meet with this appa~ 
rent contrariety in .the relations of the 
different parties. 
ETIQUETTE. 
Whence derives the werd etiquette? 
Eft bic queftio has been propofed. 
INSCRIPTION VARIOUSLY INTER- 
PRETED, 
Some Gothic carvings in ftone were re. 
moving from an appurtenance to the ca- 
thedral of Paris. A horned man’s head 
occurs, with the letters C* RN U. Mont- 
faucon examines it, has it engraved, writes 
learned differtations, and proves it to be 
the Druidical god Kernurnus; although 
the Druids had no idols, and worfhipped, 
fays Ceefar, only the fun, moon, and fire. 
Leibnitz undertakes it next: it now be: 
comes the Frankith god, February, or 
Hornung ; and his readers learn, that ke- 
rea in Hebrew, eras in Greek corau in 
Latin, and cera in Breton, all fignify bora. 
At length, fome one obferves that the de- 
ficient letter was an O ; that the word thus 
completed, is very plain French, fignifying 
a cuckold; that the monks frequently 
adorned their cloifters with drolleries, and 
that the clumfy iculptor might well think 
it neceflary to write names under his fi- 
gures. Almoft every one was fatisfied, 
except Leibnitz and Montfaucon. 
EXTRA. 
~ 
