1 had then turned their daggers against themselves. To fome German women taken in war, Caracalla having offered the alternative of being fold or put to the fword, they unanimoufly made choice of death. He ordered them, notwithstanding, to be led out to the market. The disgrace was infupportable; and, in this extremity, they knew how to preserve their liberty, and to die. It was amidst this fierceness and independency, that gallantry and the point of honour grew and profpered. It was the reproach of these women, which, on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, filled the coward with the bitterest forrow, and stained him with the most indeliable infamy. It was their praise which communicated to the brave the liveliest joy and the most lasting reputation. These notions did not perish when the Germans had made conquests. The change of air, and of fituation, did not enfeeble this spirit. The women were ftill the judges of perfonal merit; and, to fome diftinguished female, did the valourous Knight afcribe the glory of his atchievements. Her fmile and approbation he confidered as the most precious recompense; and, to obtain them, he plunged into dangers, and covered himself with duft and with blood. Nor were arms and the attachment to women the only features of importance in the character of the German. Religion, which, in every age and in every nation, gives rife to so many customs, mingled itfelf in all his tranfactions. He adored an invisible Being, to whom he ascribed infinite knowledge, justice, and power. To profit by his knowledge, he applied to divination; to draw advantage from his juttice, he made appeals to his judgment; and to acquire, in fome degree, his power, he had recourse to incantation and magic. The elements and the visible parts of Nature he conceived, at the fame time, to be the refidence of fubordinate Divinities, who, though the inftruments only of the agency of the fupreme Intelligence, had a great fuperiority over men, and were entitled to their attention and reverence. Every tree and every fountain had its genius; the air, the woods, the water, had their spirits. When he made a step, or looked around him, he felt an impulfe of awe and of devotion. 's anxiety, his amazement, his curiofity, his hope, and his terror, were every moment excited. The most ample scope was afforded by this theology for the marvellous. Every thing, common as well as fingular, wis imputed to fupernatural agents. Elves, fairies, sprights, magicians, gicians, dwarfs, inchanters, and giants, arofe. But, while the 'effer Divinities of these nations attracted" notice, it was to the fupreme Intelligence that the most sincere and the most flittering worship was directed; and this God, amidft the general cares which employed him, found leifure to attend more particularly to war, and valued his votary in proportion to his courage. Thus religion and love came to inflame, and not to soften the ferocity of the German. His fword gained to him the affection of his mittrefs, and conciliated the favour of his Deity. The last was even fond of obeying the call of the valiant; he appeared to them in battle, and fought by their fide. Devotion, of confequence, was not lefs meritorious than love or than valour. Chriftianity did not abolish this usage. It descended to the middle ages. And to love God and the Ladies was the first leffon of chivalry. But, though arms, gallantry, and devotion, produced the institution of chivalry, and formed its manners, it is not to be fancied, that they operated these effects in a moment; and that, immediately on the fettlements of the barbarians, this fabric was erected. The conquerors of Rome continued to feel and to practife in its provinces the instincts, the passions, and the ufages to which they had been accuftomed in their original feats. They were to be active and strenuous, without perceiving the lengths to which they would be carried. They were to build, without knowing it, a most magnificent Aructure. Out of the impulfe of their paffions, the inftitutions of chivalry were gradually to form themselves. The paffion for arms, the spirit of gallantry, and of devotion, which so many Writers pronounce to be the genuine offspring of these wild affectations, were in fact their fource; and it happened, by a natural confequence, that, for a time, the ceremonies and the usages produced by them, encouraged their importance, and added to their ftrength. The steps which marked their progrefs, ferved to foster their spirit; and to the manners of ages, which we too often despise as rude and ignoble, not to political reflection or legislative wifdom, is that system to be afcribed, which was to act fo long and fo powerfully in fociety, and to produce infinite advantage and infinite calamity. CHA 1 SKETCHES of ROME and its INHABITANTS: Rome, October 1, 1778. MAgnificence, hypocrify, and fadness, number of fine palaces, of beautiful churches, of fuperb fountains, of treafures of art, and venerable remains of antiquity, give an air of grandeur to Rome which is not found in any other country. The want of public entertainments, the little population in proportion to the extent of the city, and its fituation, furrounded by hills which prevent a free circulation of air, added to the oppreffive weight of the Scirocco wind, feem to me the chief causes of its real fadness; but what increases this apparent gloom, is the airs of fanctity which the Romans affect, and the general dress of the country, which is black. The habit of an Abbe is the Court-dress; and as it is also the cheapest, every one wears it. Every Court is the abode of dissimulation; at Rome there are as many Courts as Cardinals; every Cardinal is a kind of Prince, and may become a Sovereign; this reafon alone may convince you that this country must have more men in masks than any other. Of all the Sovereigns whom I have seen, the Pope acts majesty the best, the Cardinals are like Martial's epigrams, there are some good, foine bad, and many indiffeAlmost all of them derive honour from their rank; the Cardinal de Bernis is an exception, he does honour to the purple by his virtues and his talents. rent. The women are reserved in public, and wanton in private; the Prelates effeminate; the Nobility † illiterate; and the people wicked. The studies generally pursued are the laws, antiquities, and divinity, because these are the three principal roads that here lead to fortune. A poet is confidered as dangerous, or at least an ufeless being, and for this reafon a poetical talent is rather opprefled than encouraged. Metastafio could not there fine bread. You would often have occafion to admire the genius of Corneille for the truth with which he has drawn the Roman women. The affurance of their eye, the firmness of their flep, every turn of their form, and every motion of their body, declare the courage of their fouls. They have a very noble look, which is heightened by trailing robes, which they all wear, down to women of the third degree. The nation has fomething like pride, which does not difplease me; it is the haughtiness of a man of an ancient family fallen to decay. But it has a defire of concealing itself, which pleases no one. The first proverb of the country is, He who knows not how to dissemble, knows not how to live; and they all know how to live. They love obscurity in every thing, and though this idea may seem to you trifling, it is not fo: Rome is the worst lighted city in Europe; the servants do not carry flambeaux, and the first Princes of the country, in other refpects extremely luxurious, only carry a finall daık lanthorn behind their coaches. The Roman has naturally a profound genius and a strongly marked character; he is easily moved, and when he is moved, he is violent to an extreme. If the dress of the country were military, as you walk the streets you would think yourself in ancient Rome; the faces that you meet so much resemble the characters that hiftory has tranfmitted to us. This idea has often ftruck me among the men, and it is still more striking in the women. You will often say, There is a woman who might well be the mother of a Gracchus, and there is another who might produce a Sylla! The number of Messalinas is fmall, that of Lucretias less, and of Sempronias you will find some rather at Naples than at Rome. The following is a mark of national diftinction between a Roman and a Neapolitan woman: a woman of Naples is less modeft than one of Rome, and more bathful; Neapolitan women have been often feen to blush, but it is not poffible to put a Roman woman out of countenance. This is a flight sketch of the present state of that Rome, dont le destin dans la paix, duns la guerre, Est d'être en tous les temps maîtresse de la terre: Rome, ever doom'd by fate in peace, in war, To be the mistress of the world. + The Duke of Ceri, the Mar This is the Plumbeus Aufter' of Horace. E And a F But in my sketch I may easily be mistaken; for of all the countries that I have seen this is the most difficult to know. The point of fight at which appears the moft perfect union of the fublime and beautiful in nature, is from the top of Vesuvius. The point of fight at which appears the moft perfect union of the fublime and beautiful in art, is in the Court of the Apollo of Belvedere. From the former one fees the gulph of the volcano, fields defolated by rivers of lava now frozen, a country of vineyards of confiderable extent, diversified by the most beautiful mixture of plains and hills, the city of Naples, the hill of Pofilipo, a number of illands scattered in a vast fea, &c. In the Court one fees the Apollo, the Laocoon, the Antinous, and the celebrated Torfo of Hercules", which is called 'the Torfo of Michael Angelo,' on account of the admiration in which he held that precious fragment. Here we perceive what the Greek nation was. Let me not be told of prejudice for the Ancients; I have none: I only do justice to the merit of things, and it is very indifferent to me where they are found, or who are their authors. To be just, one must sometimes appear extravagant: when an object is tranfcendently heautiful or great, suitable encomiums must be given to it. The pen of man cannot do justice to the poetry of Shakespeare, to the genius of the King of Prussia, or to the works of the Greeks. Many, I know, will condemn me for this last expreffion; I refuse them all as judges; they will condemn me only because they know not my fubjects. In the Belvedere then, I say, one fees the fuperiority of the Greeks to all the nations of the world. The distance that is between the Apollo, the Laocoon, and all the best works of the French and the Italians, is so great, that it is almost ridiculous te name them together. Let the young traveller, when he views the Apollo, recollect that what he sees has been a rude block of marble. The firit step for the artilt was to create the charac ter of that god. Therefore, before the marble was touched, the sculptor had made so great an effort of genius, that all the men who have succeeded him, even to this moment, have never been able to make one like it. This elogium, you say, is too strong; it is not an elogium ; it is a fact that I relate: if the fact be not true, name me a statue equal in invention. Shall it be the + Sufanna of Fiammingo, the Justice of Guilielmo della Porta, the Santa Babiena of Bernini †, or shall it be the Moles § of Michael Angelo? I do not fuppofe that any man of sense ever compares them. The Mofes is not inferior to any Italian or French statue; but if one had not feen the Torfo, from which it is evident that Michael Angelo took the original idea of his ftatue, one would never be aftonished at the invention of that production. The invention of the Apollo astonishes all men,' and that in proportion to the time and attention with which they examine it. The Apollo of Bernini, notwithstanding all its faults, is a fine statue; it appears moderate only because we compare it (often imperceptibly) with the Apollo of Belvedere. The Apollo of Bouchardon alfo is by no means a moderate production; but compare the original French statue with the copy of the Greek ftatue in the gardens of Versailles, the difference is incredible; it is the difference that there is between a man and a god. We cannot tell what a heathen deity was; but we are always fenfible, on viewing this Itatue, that it is the image of fomething more than human. When genius is unaccompanied by taffe, it is often surprised at wanting its effect; the character created, it remained for tate to chuse a moment to display that divinity; that moment must be animated and interesting; it must be indebted to grace, to majetty, and expreffion; and it mult be fo chofen, that the difpofition of the whole, and the diftribution of each part of the itatue, must seem to flow from it with simplicity and ease. The artist therefore has * A mutilated antique flatue, of which there are now left only the body and thighs. † This statue by Du Queinoy, furnamed il Fiammingo, or the Fleming, is in the church of S. Maria di Loretto. ‡ The matter-piece of that sculptor, on the high altar of the church of St. Bibiena at me. § In the monument of Julius II. a statue more than twice as big as the life. chofen chosen the instant in which this god gives the fublimeft proof of his divinity by an action of benevolence, in destroying an enemy of mankind: it is the instant after he has thot his arrow at the ferpent Python; the arrow difcharged, he follows it with his eyes to obferve its effect; the expreffion of each part of the body corresponds to that of the figure and from an idea so simple this Grecian has been able to form a work which has gained the applauses of all men, and has made every artift defpair. When a perfect execution is added to genius and taste, man, I think, cannot go farther. The finish of this Apollo is inconceivable, even to the most minute particulars, but the artist might almost have been excufed the trouble of so perfectly completing his work; his conception is fo fublime, and his diftribution so happy, that they alone would have commanded the admiration of men of all countries; and a proof of this is the homage every-where paid to the casts of this breathing god. The beft method of giving you an idea of the fuperiority of the Greek execution is to relate a fact. The Laocoon was found with only one arm; another like it was defired; several artists attempted it, and all failed; Michael Angelo, the boldest genius that Italy has had, who conceived the idea of placing the Pantheon in the air, and who made the dome of St. Peter's on the fame dimensions*, thought that he could fucceed in it; and after having la boured on it for two years, abashed and 35 defpairing, he dashed his work to pieces. foleum in St. Peter's shews that he was an Guilielmo della Porta, whose superb mauartist of the first rank, faid, that it was impoffible to make it in marble, but that ' he would make it in clay; and accordingly he made the right arm in clay, as it of the unattainable perfection of the Greek appears at present; an incontestable proof execution. I allow it to be a bad proof of our being in the right, that fome celebrated man is of fonable man should well examine before he our opinion; but I think that every readetermines against a judgment so sagacious as that of Pouffin, and a genius so bright inceffantly the beit works ancient and moas that of Montesquieu: the former studied dern, on which this was his decifion: Raphael compared with the Moderns is an Angel, with the Ancients he is an ass." phael, detached, with the Apollo, and his Compare the most beautiful figure of Rafor yourself. fineft group with the Laocoon, and judge honour in foreign countries, or will do her France has no man who does her more is well known that he made fome stay in more with pofterity, than Montesquieu: it Italy, and that he did not view objects like with regard to the Greeks: Taste and the a fuperficial obferver: this was his idea height, that to think to furpass them will arts have been carried by them to fuch a be always not to know thein.' * That celebrated artist, upon hearing fome perfons extol the Rotunda as a work of antiquity never to be paralleled, faid, that he would not only build a dome equally large, but build it in the air; and he made his affertion good. Keyfler. W SENTIMENTS of an AUSTRIAN LADY on Religion. Hether it is owing to the example of the Empress, or to any other cause, there certainly appears a warmer and more general attachment to religion in Vienna, than in any other great town in Germany: there is also a greater appearance of fatisfaction and happiness here than in many other cities, where religious impreffions are more feeble and lefs prevalent: it is not improbable, that the latter may be a confequence of the former Irreligion and scepticism, exclutive of the bad effects they may have on the inorals or future destiny of men, impair even their temporal happiness, by obfcuring those hopes, which, in fome situations, are their only confolation. In whatever superior point of view those men may confider them selves, who deride the opinions which their attempted to raise in their minds; they cannot abide by a doctrine which plucks from the heart a deeply-rooted hope, tears asunder all those ties of humanity, affection, friendship, and love, which it has been the business of their lives to bind, and which they expect will be eternal. Since sensibility renders the heart aveise to scepticism, and inclinable to devotion, we may naturally expect to find women more devout than men; very few of that delicate sex have been able to look with stedfast eyes on a profpect, which terminates in a dismal blank; and those few, who have had that degree of philosophical fortitude, have not been the molt amiable of the fex. None of my female acquaintance at Vienna are in this uncomfortable state of mind, but many of them have embroidered some fanciful piece of fuperftition of their own upon the extensive ground which the Roman Catholic faith affords. In a Lady's house a few days ago I happened to take up a book which lay upon the table, -a Imall picture of the Virgin Mary on velJum fell from between the leaves: under the figure of the Virgin there was an inscription, which literally tranflated is as follows: This is presented by to her dearest friend -, in token of the fincereft regard and affection; begging that as often as the beholds this figure of the blessed Virgin, she may mix a sentiment of affection for her absent friend, with the emotions of gratitude and adoration she feels for the Mother of Jefus.' The Lady informed me, that it was ufual for intimate friends to fend fuch presents to each other when they were about to separate, and when there was a probability of their being long asunder. There feems to be something exceedingly tender and pathetic in blending friendship with religious fentiments, and thus by a kind of confecration endeavouring to preferve the former from the effects of time and abfence-the perufal of this infcription recalled to my memory certain connections I have at home, the impetuofity of which recollection affected me greatly. I remarked in this Lady's house another beautiful picture of the Virgin, ornamented with a rich frame, and a filk curtain to preserve it from duft: I observed that she never looked at it but with an air of veneration and love, nor passed it when uncovered by the curtain without a gentle bending of the knee-She told me, that this picture had been long in the family, and had been always held in the highest efteem, as both the and her mother owed fome of the mott fortunate events of their lives to the protection of the bleffed Virgin, and the seened not intirely free from a perfuafion that the attention of the Virgin was in fome degree retained by the good offices of this identical picture. She declared that the confidence the had in the Virgin's goodness and protection was one of the greatest comforts the had in life that to HER the could, without reftraint, open her heart, and pour out her whole foul under every affliction, and the never failed to find herfef comforted and relieved by fuch effufions. I observed, that devout Protestants found the fame confolation in addressing the Almighty. She faid-She could not comprehend how that could be for that God the Father was fo great and awful that her veneration was mixed with fuch a degree of dread as confounded all her ideas when she attempted to approach him; but the blessed Mary was of so mild, fo condefeending, and compaffionate a character, that she could address her with more confidence. She faid, the knew it was her duty to adore the Creator of the Universe, and she fulfilled it to the best of her power, but the could not diveft herself of a certain degree of reftraint in her devotions to him, or even to her Saviour; but the bleffed Mary being herself a woman, and acquainted with all the weakness and delicacies of the fet, the could to her open her heart with a degree of freedom which it was not poffible for her to ufe to any of the Perfons of the Holy Trinity.-Obferve her countenance, added the pointing to the picture, My God, how mild and gracious! These sentiments, however contrary to the Prot-itant tenets and the maxims of philofophy, are not unnatural to the human heart-Voltaire says, that man has always shewn an inclination to create God after his own image; this Lady formed an idea of the bleffed Virgin from the representation of the painter, as well as from the account given of her in the Evangelifts; and her religion allowing the Mother of Chrift to be an object of worship, the naturally turned the ardour of her devovotion to her whose power she imagined was fufficient to protect her votaries here, and procure 'them 'Paradife hereafter, and whose character the thought in some particulars sympathifed with her own. Some |