648 
as “ Miem bro de Ja junta de fortifica- 
tiones y de feusa de ambos Indias;” and 
he sull remains in tranquillity in Spain. _ 
One peculiarity respecting this officer, 
who had attained the rank of brigadier 
of the Spanish armies, still remains to be 
noticed. Early m life he was advised by 
a physician of Madrid to abstain from 
bread, which was thought to produce 
indigestion, and consequently disease. 
Both instantly disappeared on altering 
his regimen ; and from that moment other 
aliments seemed to be more agreeable to 
him than before. He ever after lived on 
flesh, fish, and vegetables, and was ac- 
customed to observe, that the Indians, 
who were unacquainted with bread, at- 
tained greater ages than any others. 
Linguet, who wrote a treatise to prove 
that all our disorders, whether physical, 
political, or moral, proceeded from the 
cultivation of corn in Europe, and the 
use of bread as an aliment, would have 
been well pleased to have acquired a 
knowledge of this extraordinary fact! 
“ Memoires de M. Le Baron de Be- 
sental, Lieutenunt General des Armées 
du Roi, &c.”—Memoirs of the Baron 
de Besenval, Lieutenant-General of the 
RoyalArmies under Louis XV. and XVI. 
Grand Cross of the Order of St. Louis, 
Governor of Hagnenau, Commandant 
of the Provinces of the Interior, Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel of the regiment of Swiss 
Guards, &c. 4 vols. 8vo. printed at 
Paris, and imported by Mr. De Boffe, 
Nassau-street, Soho, : 
The three former volumes of this work 
were published many years since, and 
are not in our possession. 
The fourth volume of the Memoirs of. 
the Baron de Besenval contains his own 
works, consisting of literary miscellanies 
and poetry. Inthe course of the cam- 
paign of 1757, several general officers 
formed themselves into a kind of literary 
academy at Drévenich, and we are here 
presented with the contributions of the 
author, 
The first article is entitled the“Spleen,” 
a malady to which the writer, if we may 
credit his letter to the younger Crebillon, 
was a strangerto. ‘* When I composed 
that little work, 1 never meant to treat 
_of my own case,” says-he, “ for, in fact, 
this never was-my case. I was never 
subject to chagrin; a certain gaiety of 
character, some wit, and a body calcula- 
ted for every species of toil, such was 
my condition at twenty years of. age, 
when] was seized with the whim of des 
\ 
. \ 
ridicule, 
Meanwhile his two elder brothers die ~ 
Retrospect of French Lilerature—Brgraphy. 
monstrating that misfortunes are insepa-« 
rable from every possible situation 2” 
The * Spleen,” consists of a dialogue 
between a stranger and the auther, im 
the garden of the Thuilleries. The un- 
known person, who took delight in the 
dark alleys, and was shy of lookmg at or 
conversing with any one, 1s prevailed 
upon to tell his history. He was dese 
tined by his family to be an ecclesiastic ; 
but he soon abandons the house of his 
uncle, a distinguished prelate, with an 
utter disgust to the mitre, and obtains 2 
lieutenancy in the army. He soon dis< 
covers, however, that those who com- 
mand others are themselves little better 
than slaves; “ and disgusted with every 
thing around me,” adds he, “ I began te 
recollect with regret the quiet life I had 
once led. I loved my profession how= 
ever, yet I was subjected to superiors en-' 
tirely destitute of talents, who blamed 
me often for their own faults, and not 
unfrequently obliged me te support their 
ill humour. My brother officers also be- 
came jealous of me on account of my 
thinking ditferenrly from them, and were 
pleased to ridicule my habits of applica- 
tion. \ With one of these I fonght and 
was wounded, but even this was deemed 
by’ me less disastrous than if I had killed 
iny adversary, and been obliged to seek 
an asylum in a foreign land against the 
rigour of the laws.” On his recovery 
our adventurer fell in love, and even 
neglected his duty mm consequence of his 
attachment to a young lady of great viva= 
city, who pretended to entertain a par- 
ticular attachment to him; but he soon 
overheard a conversation in which the 
object of his affections turns. him inta 
and is completely cured! 
of the small-pox, and his father trans. 
mits him an account of this event ina 
letter full of attachment and paternal 
solicitude. On his return home, instead 
of being treated with a. certain degree of 
rigour as heretofore, he is now consi- 
dered as the hope of the family, and 
being an only son, his father insists on 
bis being married. He accordingly be- 
comes the husband of a former General’s” 
dauzhter, whose fortune soon frees the 
family estate from embarrassments, and 
enables him to hve in a certain de- 
gree cf splendour,very pleasing toa young 
man fond of gaiety. 
regiment, and takes leave of his wife, of 
whom he was never very fond, in order 
to repair to head quarters, Qn his ar- 
alee rival 
He now obtains a_ 
’ 
