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revocation of the edict of Nantes, which was attended with so many acts of injustice. Let us rather cast our eyes on objects, which do not raise the passions into a ferment. Let us praise the good taste of this able divine. He was for having the first editions of books, though it was very probable they would be reprinted, with additions and corrections. This was to understand things; this we may call love of books, and eagerness after instruction; but they, who can rest satisfied without a book, till it be reprinted, make it appear, that they are satisfied with their ignorance, and that they had rather save a few pistoles, than acquire instruction. I speak of those, (and the number of them is very great) who are persuaded, on the one side, that a new book will afford them much information; and who, though they are able to purchase it, defer the buying of it, because they are told, that there will be published better, or cheaper editions. This delay cannot be sufficiently blamed it is a shameful neglect of learning. Mr Bigot told me, one day, that a man of Rouen, who applied himself to the study of genealogies, would willingly have improved by the works of father Anselm; and yet he did not purchase them; but waited for the second edition, which never came out; thus he died without satisfying his curiosity. Mr Bigot represented to him, several times, that it was better to have two editions of a book, than to deprive ourselves of the advantage, which might accrue by reading the first; and that a man judges wrong of the value of things, who prefers three or four crowns to such a profit. They, who can afford it, ought to provide themselves with the first editions. I confess the foreign editions of books are not so expensive but are they faithful? Is there nothing altered in, or added to them? Did not the Abbot de la Roque publicly complain, that the printers of Holland had corrupted his book? I

have been assured, but a few days ago, that the history of Davila, and that of Strada, printed in the Netherlands, are not exactly the same with the Italian editions; the booksellers of Flanders, having suppressed, or altered, some things, out of complaisance to some illustrious families. I may be told, that the author often corrects his faults in the second edition; I own it but they are not always real faults; they are alterations, which he sacrifices to prudential reasons, to his repose, and to the injustice of his too powerful censurers. The second edition,

which Mezerai published, of his Chronological Abridgment, is the most correct; for he left out some mistakes, but he omitted likewise some truths, which were ungrateful; and, for this reason, the curious endeavour to get the edition in quarto, which is the first; and pay a great price for it. I say nothing of the advantage of comparing editions. It is so great, when an able writer has carefully revised his work, that his first essay deserves to be kept. All this proves, that Mr Ancillon knew very well what belonged to a Library.*

LOUIS XIII.

Art. ANCILLON.

(His unhappiness.)

A MODERN author, designing to show the vanity of human prosperity, makes use of two great examples; he runs over the life of Augustus, and then proceeds in this manner: "Let us come to the second instance, and behold the most glorious potentate of this age, with such a series of the blessings of heaven, as all the

* Bayle argues very ingeniously on this subject, and doubtless in the laborious undertakings of the authors of his own, and the preceding age, a delay of purchase until a second edition, must have been highly injurious. Modern scribes get over these difficulties very easily.-ED.

earth has reason to be astonished at. One may easily judge that I mean Louis XIII, whose prosperities doubtless will be admired by those who come after us, if they judge of them by the lustre of his heroic actions, by the number of his trophies, by the extent of his conquests, and by the greatness of his triumphs. In effect, whether you consider the monsters he has subdued at home, or cast your eyes on the advantages he has every where reaped abroad, you will be forced to confess that France never had a more fortunate king than he. There is not a frontier but he has far advanced into his enemies' country. France has subdued the pride of those who envied her, and confounded their designs. And if you observe what has passed on the ocean, as well as the Mediterranean, you will conclude that all the elements fought for us, under the command of this prince. Now the instances of his good fortune were no less conspicuous in his domestic affairs; and here, doubtless, he had great advantages above Augustus on that account. God gave him for a companion of his bed a princess, whose singular goodness, together with many other extraordinary and truly heroical virtues, might have made her beloved, though she had not been in other respects one of the most perfect and most agreeable persons of her time. He saw himself the father of two sons, most worthy of his affection, as being so beautiful and well formed by nature, that he could not wish them more accomplished; besides the season in which he had them, ought to have rendered them still more dear to him. He was respected by all the world; and on what side soever he turned himself in his Louvre, he saw nothing but testimonies of love and reverence. Could any thing then be wanting to his felicity, to make it more entire, if we judge by appearances? And yet, with all this, what should we say if, by his own confession, he never spent one day without some mortification, nor ever tasted in his life a joy that

was not dashed with the bitterness of discontent? I shall here take care not to commit the fault of him whom the Athenians treated so ill, for having obliged them to deplore a second time the misfortunes of their allies, by representing them on the stage. And indeed, my imprudence would be greater than his, if I should at present enlarge on so ungrateful a subject as would be that of the sorrows, and continual inquietudes of this monarch. But however, since his last words at the point of death, which the Civilians call sacred, and which are reckoned oracles in mouths less sincere than his, have assured us, that his satisfactions were never pure, nor his pleasures exempt from sadness and affliction, may we not well conclude, that all his happiness, as well as that of Augustus, had nothing real in it, and was only of the nature of those things which subsist no where but in opinion?" I make no reflections on this long passage, though it were easy perhaps to find in it some subjects of criticism; I shall content myself with observing, that we here see the most convincing proof imaginable of my text. Louis XIII confesses he was unhappy; nobody could know this so well as himself; and he had no reason to dissemble in the condition he was in.

There was nobody, even to the Dauphin, but vexed him without the least ill meaning or design. Mr Boursault, having said that kings are so nice that any thing wounds them, and that they who are most dear to them are sometimes those who vex them most, gives this instance of it. "One day, as I was with the president Perrault, in his fine gallery, Mr de la Villiere, secretary of state, came to see him, and from him Í have the following story. The king, who was then but Dauphin, was baptised at St Germain, the twentyfirst of April, 1643, being four years of age, seven months, and some days. Louis XIII could not assist at that ceremony; he was sick, and died twenty-three

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days after. The Dauphin, as he came from baptism, was brought to the king, to whom he said that he had been just baptised. 'I am glad of it, my son,' said the king, but what is your name?' My name,' replied the young prince, is Louis the fourteenth,' without thinking on what he said, and perhaps even not knowing the consequence of it. And yet this answer afflicted the king: in the condition that he was, he took it for an ill omen, and turning to the other side, not yet,' said he, 'not yet.' Some flatterer (for princes have the misfortune to have such before they can speak) had already possessed this royal infant with the great name he was soon to bear; which was the cause of this little mortification he innocently gave the king his father."-Art. Louis XIII.

LUCRETIA.

(Her conduct argued.)

THE Heathens who praise Lucretia, ground their panegyrics upon her extreme sense of glory, and the reputation of a chaste wife, and her great delicacy as to this point of honour; which was so very great as not to permit her to survive the affront which had been offered her. What a certain critic borrows from St Augustin, whose meaning he has not rightly taken, is founded on a false supposition, that Lucretia killed herself to punish herself for the commission of a crime. It is an ignorance of the state of the question this lady knew herself innocent, and yet would die, that no lewd woman should have the face to live, under the pretence that Lucretia had the cowardice to survive her rape.

One of the most reasonable objections of St. Augustin is, that self murder is a crime; and he strengthens his argument by the encomiums that are given to Lucretia. He reasons " ad hominem," against the Heathens, and alleges to them" the laws of their

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