"Quid de bonis"! ait: " Servata", refponfum. "Ariciam ergo petamus, pranfuri", addit ingens animi, & ufurâ vitæ perinde, ac ceteri oppetitâ morte, inluftris. Laudata quoque Demetrii libertas, cui cùm Princeps mortem intentaret: "Quam mihi", inquit, "hanc tibi natura minitatur". Audacia, an feminudi philofophi ignobilitas, certè non juftitia, non recti amor ei falutem attulit. Helvidius autem, interdictâ sibi Italiâ, Apolloniam conceffit: foceri poftea ultor & cemulus. Tanta Principis fenatû que dedecora velavit Imperio gravis, fed populo læta Tiridatis fcena. Nondum vifa tanta hofpitum majeftas. Longo enim fuperftitiofoque, fed triumphali pompâ fuperbo, itinere defuncti, aderant Tiridates ejufque uxor, Vologæfique & Pacori ac Monobazi filii. Primo in congreffu Tiridates, conftantiam factis meliùs, quàm verbis probari ratus, Neronem quidem, pofito genu, falutavit, ferrum verò tradere renuit; id fervile, & Arfacidarum faftigio indignum" dictitans. Nihil hactenus indecorum. At ftatim omnia in ludicrum verfa. • Nero barbari libertatem mirari magis, quàm æmulari, gnarus, hofpites Neapoli Puteolos duxerat, gladiatoriifque ludis monftrata Imperii magnificentia. Hos edidit Patrobius, libertus, tantoque fumptu, ut toto die foli Æthiopes, virile ac muliebre fecus, amphitheatrum fint ingreffi. Tiridates, ut ludos honeftaret, fimulque dexteritatem oftentaret, e fede fuâ ejaculatus, duos tauros, ut fertur, uno ictu transverberavit. • Major fuit pompa, at femper theatralis, cùm Romam ventum eft, diefque adfuit, propter nubilum aliquamdiu dilata, quâ Tiridates, Armeniæ regnum petiturus, populo Romano oftenderetur. Pridie Urbs tota, fertis nitida, luminibus collucere: vis ingens hominum viarum ftrata complere: alii plurimi domorum tectà occupare: populus albà veste, & laureatus, medium obtinere forum: cetera tenere milites, comptis fignis armifque præfulgentibus confpicui. Primâ luce Nero, triumphantis habitu, forum iniit, comitantibus fenatoribus & prætorianis cohortibus. Poftquam apud roftra tribunal confcendit, curulique in fellâ inter figna militaria atque vexilla refedit, Tiridates, regumque filii, ac longum famulitium, per militum ordines ad tribunal progreffi, Principem venerati funt. Clamor populi, ob rei novitatem veterifque fortunæ imaginem geftientis, ftatim fequutus, metum Tiridati incuffit. Periculi anceps, obriguit: nec, indicto filentio, rediit prior conftantia. Fortè etiam Tiridates, audulationem, quæ pericula averteret, regnum adfereret, haud veritus, "fe Arfacidarum fanguine ortum" profeffus eft, " Vologæfi & Pacori regum fra trem, fervum Neronis, quem ut deum æquè, ac Mithram, venerabatur: fibi nulla, nifi per eum, regni jura: eum fibi fatum, fibi fortunam effe". Quanto • Quanto demiffiùs hæc fuerant dicta, tantò ferociùs refpondit Nero." Huc quidem meritò venifti, ut præfens præfente me fruerere. Jura, nec a patre relicta, nec a fratribus, licèt: dediffent, fervata, a me accepta habeto. Te regem Armeniæ do. Tu, vofque omnes, me regna dare & adimere intelligite". Mox Tiridaten, per devexum pulpitum fubeuntem, ad genua admifit; allevatumque dextrâ exofculatus eft. Dein regnum precantem, tiarâ deductâ, diademate evinxit: plaudente multitudine, & verba fupplicis, prætorio viro interpretata, ingemi-, nante. • Inde ad Pompeii theatrum difceffum eft. Numquam tantas apparuit auri vilitas. Non modo fcena, fed interior theatri ambitus auro opertus: illud inumbrabant vela purpurea, quorum mediâ in parte Nero, currûs agitator, acu pictus videbatur, aureis ftellis circumdatus. Ante confeffum, rurfus a Tiridate. fupplicatum eft: deinde juxta Principem latere dextro collocatus, fpectavit ludos, in quibus nihil ufurpatum, nifi aura fulgidum. Aurea oculorum delinimenta pretiofius convivium, excepit. Poft rediere ludi, fed dedecore Imperatorio fœdi, Principem enim haud puduit citharâ ludicrum in modum canere, currumque, prafinâ vefte, aurigarumque habitu, agitare. Inter hæc opprobria, indecoro populi plaufu aucta, Tiridates, Corbulonis virtutem reputans, nec indignationis potens, fcenico Principi "Corbulonem bonum mancipium" gratulatus 'eft. Neronis mentem, infanâ lætitiâ vagam, non advertit barbari audacia. Immo publicâ de infamiâ certantibus Principis & populi ftudiis, quafi per hæc deridicula confecto bello Armeniaco, Nero Imperator confalutatur; laureâque in Capitolium lata, Janum clufit: hac victoriæ imagine, quàm ludicro certamine, fœdior.' It remains for us to exprefs a wifh, that our language were enriched with a complete and eloquent verfion of the writings of this illuftrious ancient. That of Gordon exhibits grofs defects and imperfections; and thofe of former tranflators are fill perhaps more unworthy of the great original. ART. IX. Questions fur L'Encyclopédie, &c.-Queftions arifing on the Encyclopædia. Vols. VI. VII. VIII. IX. IN N the Appendixes to our 44th and 46th volumes, we gave an account of the foregoing parts of this publication; and shall now proceed, without preface, or introductory formality, to the contents of the volumes before us. The fixth volume begins with the word FABLE; on which the ftrictures are, for the most part, very juft, but yet generally known. Who does not know that fable is of higher antiquity than the Grecian era? Who does not know that the fable of the Satyr and the Traveller is an abfurd tale? The Traveller, who breathes upon his fingers to warm them, and on his broth to cool it, fhould not, cer. tainly, have been turned out of doors for it. He acted like a man of fenfe, and the Satyr was a fool. It is juftly obferved, under this article, that La Fontaine's fables will be read by people of all characters in all ages; but Boileau's by men of letters only: but the critic does too much honour to Le Pluche, by paffing any cenfure on his fcheme of abolishing the heathen mythology as impious, and of fubftituting St. Pufper and Santueil for Ovid and Horace. Perfectly ridiculous! This article concludes with a pleafant poem, called an Apology for Fable. FANATICISM. An epigram is here quoted from Bertaud, bishop of Sees, alluding to the perverting of religion to fanaticism; Ainfi du plumage qu'il ent Il reçut pour fon, fon falut, Il s'en fervit pour fon dommage. The idea is fine, but the epigram is miferable. It has the fame effect that a good flory ill-told has. Literally, the bishop fays, thus Icarus perverted the ufe of the plumage that he had; he received it for his fafety, and he used it for his destruction.' But the principal idea, and the applying beauty, vanish here, or rather do not appear at all. They ought by all means to be preserved, Thus Icarus, on wings empower'd to rife, Fell by too far prefuming on the fkies. We will truft to the indulgence of our Readers for offering the thought thus modified; it is certain nothing can be more infipid than the French epigram. WOMEN. A paffage in the celebrated Spirit of Laws is very juftly refuted under this article. Montefquieu fays, that, among the Greeks, the women were never confidered as objects worthy of love; and that their love was of a certain fpecies, which deferves not to be named. For this he quotes the authority of Plutarch. But it is a grofs mifreprefentation, pardonable only in a Montefquieu, a writer fo frequently hurried, by the torrent of his ideas, into incoherencies and mistakes. Plutarch, in his Dialogue on Love, has feveral interlocutors. It is in this Dialogue, that the philofopher himself, under the character of Daphneus, fays, that there is fomething of divinity in the love of women. He compares this love to the fun that animates nature. He places the fupreme happiness of human kind in conjugal affection, and concludes with a noble eulogium on the vir tue of Epponina. The memorable adventure, relative to that lady, came under Plutarch's immediate cognizance; for he lived, when it happened, in the houfe of Vefpafian. The heroine being informed that her hufband Sabinus, when beaten by the emperor's troops, had concealed himself in a deep cave between Franché Comté and Champagne, made herself a voluntary prifoner with him, waited upon him, fupported him for many years, and had children by him: At length being apprehended, together with her husband, and brought before Vefpafian, who expreffed his furprise at her courage and fortitude, I have lived, faid fhe, under ground and in darkness, happier than you have on the fummit of power and in the light of the fun.? fun. Thus it appears that Plutarch speaks in a manner perfectly PLURALITY OF WIVES. Ben-Abul-Kiba, in his Mirror of the Faithful, tells us, that one of the vifirs of Solyman the Great had the following converfation with an agent of Charles the Fifth The Vifir. You dog of a Christian, for whom I had once the profoundest regard, what right have you to reproach me with having four wives, confiftent as it is with our holy laws; while you empty a dozen casks a year, and I do not touch a glass of wine? What service do you to fociety by spending more hours at the table than I do in bed? I get four children a year for the fervice of my royal master, you, perhaps, fcarcely one. And what is the child of a fot worth? His head will be clouded with the vapours of that wine which his father was fo fond of. What, moreover, would you have me do, when two of my wives are lying in? Would you not allow me to avail myself of the other two, as our holy laws have directed us? And pray what do you do-how do you avail yourself in the last months of your wife's pregnancy, and during her lying-in, and her indifpofitions-You muft either continue in a fhameful state of inaction, or have recourfe to illicit love. You are confequently in the dilemma of two mortal fins, which must in the end fend you to the devil.' I fuppofe that in our wars with you dogs of Chriftians we loft an Of courfe a hundred thousand girls. hundred thousand foldiers. were to be provided for. Who fhould take them under their protection but men of wealth? He must be a miferable toad of a Muf fulman, indeed, who has not fpirit enough to marry four fine girls, and do 'em juftice according to their merit. • What unchriftian rogues the cocks and bulls of your country must be! Has not each of them his feraglio? It is furely with an ill grace you reproach me for having four wives, when our great Prophet had eighteen, David the Jew as many, and Solomon the Jew feven hundred, exclufive of his three hundred concubines. You fee I am quite moderate. You might as juftly charge the most abftemious philofopher with gluttony, as upbraid me with entertaining four wives. You have your bottle, let me have my girl. You change your wine, let me change my wife. Let every man live agreeably to the cuftom of his country. Your hat is not to give law to my turban; nor your fhort cloak and ruff to direct my dolman. Come, take your coffee, and kifs your German spouse, as have to kifs. The is the only one you The German. You dog of a Muffulman,-for whom I have the profoundest veneration, before I drink my coffee, I will confute your argument. He who has four wives, has four harpies, always ready Your house must be the cave of difcordto beat and abuse him. Impoffible that any of these women should love you! Each of them has but a fourth fhare in your perfon, and can give you at most but a fourth fhare in her heart. Impofiible for any of them to render your life agreeable! They are prifoners who fee nothing, and how then fould they be entertaining? They know no body but you, Nn4 and and of courfe must grow weary of you. You are their abfolute mafler, therefore they will hate you. You are under the neceffity of having them guarded by a eunuch, who gives them a whipping when they make too much noife. You put yourself on the footing with a cock; but does the cock ever cause his hens to be whipped by a capon? But, do you follow the example of animals, and 'imitate them as much as you pleafe-I fhall love like a man. I will give my whole heart to the woman who gives me her's: and as to the bottle, with which you reproach me, though it may be a fault to drink in Arabia, in Germany it is a laudable custom. Adieu! THE PHILOSOPHER. This glorious title has been sometimes held in honour, and fometimes in difrepute, like that of the poet, the mathematician, and almost all others that depend on opinion. Domitian banished the philofophers, and Lucian laughed at them. But what kind of philofophers, what mathematicians were they whom that monfter, Domitian, fent into exile? Mere jugglers, fortunetellers, miferable Jews. that made love-potions and talifmans.-And who were the philofophers that Lucian held up to public ridicule? The dregs of human kind, vagrants, impoftors and conjurors. The unthinking part of mankind often afk of those who are able to think, of what fervice philofophy has been to the world. And thofe who think, furely, may anfwer them, that, in England, it has been a means of deftroying that frantic rage which brought Charles the First to the fcaffold; in Sweden, of difabling an archbishop from spilling the blood of the first nobility, with the pope's bull in his hand; in Germany, of maintaining the peace of religion, by rendering theological difputes ridiculous; and, laftly, in Spain, of demolishing the abominable flaughter-houfes of the inquisition. Priests of Rome, it is philofophy that compells you to fupprefs your bull in cœna Domini; that monument of impudence and folly. Citizens of the world, it is philofophy that humanizes your princes of the people, it is philofophy that inftructs you. FOLLY. This is a fruitful fubject, and from a writer of Mr. Voltaire's teeming genius one would have expected a curious article upon it; but he has confined himself to the confideration of natural folly, the causes of which it never was or will be in the power of wisdom to afcertain. To account for the diverfities of intellect is impoffible, and all that can be faid upon the fubject vain. Had this humorous writer turned his attention on this head to moral folly, to the follies of acquifition, imitation, habit and prejudice, his obfervations must have been both entertaining and inftructive; but, on the melancholy fubject of natural folly, he could have had little more to fay than to expofe the abfurdity of attempting to account for it. Your learned Doctors, fays he, may perhaps tell you, that God has created foolish fouls as well as wife ones. A fool might answer, if I fhould believe what you fay, I fhould be a greater ignoramus than I am. For heaven's fake, you that are fo wife, tell me why I am a fool? If the Doctors had a little more fenfe, they would reply, we know nothing about the matter. It is impoffible they fhould com prehend |