Retrospect of French Interature—Miscellanies. 
carriage, jocosely exclaimed ‘ I tread 
Rosset under my feet; after which I 
drag him through the mud !’ 
M. Goldoni, the author of about forty 
comedies, or Italian dramas, which have 
had but little reputation among foreign- 
ers, and also of an excellent French co- 
medy Le Bourru bienfaisant, is a gay old 
man of eighty, with more good nature 
than wit, and who, notwithstanding his 
advanced age, still thinks he has strength 
sufficient left, to finish a piece entitled 
LD) Avare fastueux. 
Roucher, chanter of the Menths, appears 
to be a poet of an amiable character, at- 
tached to his friends, and replete with 
sensibility. At first rated above his real 
merits, his reputation has since been per- 
mitted to decline below them; the praise 
he once received from the public, makes 
him now protest against its present injus- 
tice. He is busied on an epic poem: 
Gustavus Vasa is his hero ; the subject 
is a good one, for it affords great actions, 
a new scene, and novel manners. 
Roucher lately read to us some admir- 
able verses, written by him on the death 
of the interesting and respectable Du- 
paty, too early snatched away from let- 
ters and humanity. He also told mea 
curious anecdote: The famous work, en- 
titled Systeme de la Nature, attributed 
to so many different persons, is the pro- 
duction of Baron d’Holbach, revised by 
Diderot. Several persons were in the 
secret, and what is equal to an eulogium 
on men of letters, they never allowed the 
least iota to transpire until after the death 
of the baron. D’Alembert considered 
this book as irrefutable ; a circumstance 
less likely to constitute the panegyric of 
the work itself, than a satire on the phi- 
losophy of D’Alembert. It appears to 
me that every man who draws his argu- 
ments from Spinosa, my easily achieve 
any of the other treatises on atheism. 
“< T often see a man of a most amiabie 
character, M. Bernardin de St. Pierre. 
Read his work entitled Etudes de la Na- 
ture, and you will discover many inte- 
reresting passages in it. His physical 
hypotheses border a little on the chime- 
rical. He deems bimself able to refute 
the Newtonian system, and explain the 
phenomenon of the tides by the melting 
of the polar ice. But those parts in 
which he treats of the happiness of man, 
the vices of society, and where he so ad- 
mirably explains thu contrarieties of our 
nature, are replete with novel ideas, 
described in excellent language. The 
mai himself affects one by his sunplicity ; 
657 
he possesses the manner and the simpli- 
city of a child. 
“¢ Tlis misfertunes, and the solitude in 
which he lives, have given a slight co- 
louring of melancholy to his conyerga- 
tion, which is sage and instructive, with- 
out being brilliant or witty. He lives at 
a distance from the noise of Paris, like a 
true philosopher, in a little house which 
appertains to him, and where he passes 
away his time in reading, meditation, 
the cultivation of his garden, and the 
care of his birds and his bees. He was 
intimately acquainted with J. J. Rous- 
seau. We lately spent a most delicious 
day in his company at the Pré St. Ger- 
vuise, a walk a little way out of town, 
which Rousseau had taken a great fancy 
to, and whither he often repaired to en- 
joy his reveries. 
“« M. de St. Pierre was at Berlin after 
the Seven Years’ War, and was on the 
point of entering into our service. Ber- 
lin pleased him exceedingly ; in the third 
volume of his Etudes, he has presented 
the world with a charming eulogium on 
the domestic virtues, and agreeable so- 
ciety Of the inhabitants. 
“You are too friendly to female au- 
thors, to pardon my silence resnecting 
them. I assure you that they are far 
more modest and agreeable than those 
who, without being able to write, pre- 
tend sometimes to know and to decide 
on every thing. Madame le Comtesse 
de B***, who has composed some very 
pretty verses, does not want wit, and 
speaks but little of herself. The first 
day I was introduced to her, she was sit- 
ting on a sufa in her cabinet, and had 
not disdained the cares of her toilette. 
Around her fluttered a swarm of wits, 
learned men, real or pretended philoso- 
phers, ameng others the advocate B****, 
who pretends that all languages are de- 
rived from the Bas-Breton, and who 
boasts of knowing a great number, al- 
though he is unacquaited with Greek. 
“ Shall I speak to you of Mademoi- 
selle de Keralio, who in her History of 
Queen Elizabeth seems to have almost 
abjured her sex in the perpetuity of her 
erudition, whose amiable vivacity is sin- 
gulsrly contrasted with her works? Of 
the Baroness de Vaize, who has trans- 
lated the English Plutarch, and compo- 
sed several original works, which she 
seems to have forgotten? Of Madame 
Monnet, author of several charming Ori- 
ental tales, and whose renown perhaps 
has not reached you ? 
** But I pass lightly over all the stars 
of 
