P may not be altogether barren! 

1800. | 
are thofe in which the heart is warm, and 
the head cool ;, in which the Reformer not 
only earneftly defires to do good, but 
deeply confiders the beft manner of doing 
it; in which he purfues his generous end 
with ardour, but examines with the ut- 
moft caution and deliberation the moft ¢f- 
feGtual and the fafeft means of attaining 
it 3’ in which he takes a large view of all 
the relations and tendencies of the change 
which he is about to introduce, of all its 
~dire&t and indirect confequences ; and 
‘guards his reform by every fecurity that 
human prudence can devife, again{t any 
-poilibility of injury, either from the ac or 
the example, to the rights or the happinefs 
ef any human being. 
But to return from this digreffion: it is 
fufficient to fay, that thefe difpofitions of 
Wafhington’s will bear the mark of his 
pure, temperate, and fedate character, 
which ‘was not only free from the grofs 
vices of fordid avarice and felfifh ambi- 
tion, but from the more refined and better 
difguifed, though equally pernicious, vices. 
of inordinate zeal even for good, of a vio- 
lent paffion for glory ; in which there was 
nothing diforderly, nothing precipitate, 
nothing exceflive, nothing oftentatious, of 
which ufefulnefs was the object, and good 
fenfe the guide, and of which the grandeur 
arifes only from the magnitude of the be- 
nefits which he conferred on his country. 
His character is furrounded with no glare, 
There is little in it to dazzle. It has 
nothing to gratify thofe, who relifh only 
that irregular and monftrous greatne{s, 
which fafcinates the vulgar of all ranks 
and in alltimes. But thofe whofe moral 
tafte is more pure, will always admire in 
George Wafhington the neareft approach 
to uniform propriety, and perfect blame- 
leffuefs, which has ever been attained by 
man, cr which is perhaps compatible with 
‘the condition of humanity. 
This imperfect fketch is neceffarily de- 
feétive in thofe interefting details of private 
life, which are the mof important, as well 
as the moft delightful part, of biography ; 
with which the countrymen and friends 
of General Wafnington, will, we hope, in 
due time favour the public. ‘The writer 
has endeavoured to exprefs his reverence 
for an almoft fpotlefs character. He is 
| con{cious of his own inability to infufe 
‘his feelings into his language; and he 
‘concludes with an earneft prayer, that, as 
the examples of the heroes of ambition have 
unfortunately found fo rhany imitators, fo 
the example of the HERO OF VIRTUE 
‘ 
Memoirs of Pius the V Lith. 
359 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE of the newly 
elec&ied Port, Pius the VIIth. 
(Communicated by an Italian Gentleman.) 
TUS the VIIth, whofe fecular name 
was Gregory Barnabas Chiaramonre, 
was born in the year 1742, in the fmall 
town of Cefena, in Romagna, already ho- 
noured by the birth of his immediate pre- 
deceflor, the late Pius the VIth. He was 
alfo, like him, defcended from a noble but 
reduced family ; his father had the title of 
Count; and his aiceftors, although fettled 
in Italy, and ranked in the Cefenate nobi-. 
lity for many centuries paft, were ac- 
counted of a French extraction, and fup- 
pofed to have come from the town of Cler- 
mont, in Auvergne, whence the Ftalian 
name Chiaramoute was derived. 
His holinefs evinced, from his earlie& 
years, a fober and a fedate mind, an un- 
common diligence in frudies, and a degree 
of prudence much fuperior to what can ge- 
nerally be expected from a young people of a 
tender ave. His friends, therefore, were not 
long in concluding from fuch difpofitions, 
that a quiet, retired, and contemplative 
life would be fuitable to him; and refolved 
of courfe, that he fhould take the religious 
habit in a monaftic order competent to 
his rank. Accordingly he was, in his 
16th year, received into the Benedictine ; 
an order which, from its very foundation, 
has been, in Italy at leaft, the exclufive 
fanctuary of the higheft nobility; and, 
very often, the afylum of princes and kings 
difappointed in the world. : 
The career of Chiaramonte, in the clan{- 
tral dignities, was neither rapid, nor bril- 
liant 5 but, what is perhaps better, regu- 
Jar, rational, and analogous to his cha- 
racter. No fooner had he become a prieft, 
than he was by his fuperiors {ummoned 
to Rome, for the purpofe of taking his 
refidence in the large convent of St. Paul, 
in that metropolis, accounted the richeft 
Benedictine community in the Papal demi- 
nions; and known, in all Europe, for 
being contiguous and fubfervient to the - 
famous Bafilic of the fame name. There 
he was for feveral years, maefira de n0vizt, 
(inftru&tor of novices) ; next, letter tealoco 
(profeffor of divinity) ; and, when near 40, 
P. Abate (abbot), a confpicuous and in- 
dependent dignity, and the higheft prefer- 
ment ever to be hoped by a Benedictine 5 
as, according to a ftanding and unalter- 
able article of their conftitution, there can-~ 
not exift either a general of the order, or 
any other chief above the abbots. 
His holinefs’s condu&t, whilft abbot of 
* 
bond 
e 
