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ftanding; and I have lived with my children as with

friends.

It has been a principle of my whole life, never to do, by the agency of others, what I could do for myfelf; and hence I have improved my fortune by means within my own reach-moderation and economy, unmingled with foreign aid, which is always mean or unjuft.

When I have feen a company expect to find me excel in converfation, I have been more than ufually unfuccessful. I would rather be prefent with men of talents to enliven my understanding, than with fools to applaud my fayings.

The perfons I moft defpife are-t -the minor wits, and men of high station without probity.

I never write a pafquinade; I have committed miftakes enough, but never was guilty of ill-will to any

one.

I never was prodigal in my expences, yet I am not avaricious, and I know of no enterprize that I would at any time have undertaken to amass riches.

It has been very prejudicial to my affairs, that I could never forbear to defpife those I could not esteem.

I believe I have not neglected to increase my property. I have greatly improved my eftates; but I have done this rather on account of an idea of my own fkill, which the ameliorations I made excited, than from any defire of becoming more rich.

On my entering into life, I was spoken of as a man of talents, and people of condition gave me favourable reception; but when the fuccefs of my Perfian Letters proved perhaps that I was not unworthy of my reputation, and the public began to esteem me, my reception with the great was difcouraging, and I experienced innumerable mortifications. The great, inwardly wounded with a celebrated name, feek to humble it. In general, he can only patiently endure the fame of others, who deferves fame himself.

I do not think I ever expended four pounds for the

fake

fake of fhew, or made one vifit for the fake of intereft, In what I undertake I employ no trick; and am lefs anxious for the fuccefs of my enterprize, than for the discharge of my duty in it.

Had I been born in England I never could have been fatisfied unless I made a fortune; but I am not forry that I have not made one in France.

I confess that I have too much vanity to wish that my children fhould make a great fortune; it would then be only by an effort of reafon that they could fupport the recollection of me: it would require all their virtue to enable them to acknowledge me: they would regard my tomb as the monument of their fhame. I believe they would not deftroy it with their own hands, but they would not build it up if it were overthrown. I fhould be a ftumbling block to their flattery, which would embarrass them twenty times a day. My memory would be troublefome, and my unfortunate fhade would conftantly torment the living.

Timidity has been the bane of my life; it feems to affect even the organs of my body, and my intellect; to arreft my tongue, caft a cloud over my thoughts, and confound my language. I am lefs fubject to this humiliation before men of fenfe than fools, because I trust to their perceiving the train of my ideas. I have, however, been always lefs fubject to this kind of felf-humiliation, when in the prefence of men of talents, than when in the company of fools. The former I have hoped would understand me, and that gave me confidence on fuch occafions my mind has, as it were, made an effort, and I have acquitted myfelf very well. When I was in the room where the Emperor dined at Luxembourg, Prince Kinski faid to me" You, fir, who came from France must be very much aftonished to fee the Emperor fo badly lodged." I replied"I am not forry, fir, to fee a country where the fubjects are better lodged than their mafter." Being in Piedmont, the King of Sardinia faid to me-" You are

C 3

the

the relation of the Abbé de Montefquieu, whom I have feen here with the Abbé d'Eftrades." "Sire," anfwered I, " your majefty refembles Cæfar, who never forgot a name." Dining one day at the Duke of Richmond's in England, M. de la Boine, who was a fool, though then the envoy from France to Great Britain, maintained that England was not larger than Guienne. I contradicted him. In the evening the Queen faid to me, "I am informed that you defended us again ft M. de la Boine."-My anfwer was-" Madame, I never could imagine that the country which you govern was not a great nation."

I have had the malady of making books, and of being afhamed of them after I made them.

I never was defirous of making my fortune at court; but I have wifhed to make it by increafing the value of my eftates, and thus deriving my profperity immediately from the gods. N-, who had certain ends in view, once hinted to me that I might have a penfion. I informed him that I had not been guilty of any meannefs, and therefore did not require any favours to confole me.

I am a good citizen, but I would have been the fame in whatever country I had been born. I am a good citizen, because I am always content with the fituation in which I am placed-becaufe I am fatisfied with my fortune, and have not blufhed for the manner in which I acquired it, nor envied that of others. I am a good citizen, because I love the government under which I live without fearing it, and becaufe I expect no other favour than that inestimable bleffing which I have in common with all my countrymen. I thank heaven for having placed me in every refpect in a ftate of mediocrity, in confequence of which a fpirit of moderation has been infufed into my foul.

If I may be allowed to predict the fate of my work *,

The Spirit of Laws,

I would

I would fay that it will be more praised than read: a pleasure may refult from reading books of that kind, but they will never be reforted to by thofe who look only for amufement. I had conceived the defign of enlarging and improving fome parts of my Efprit; but I feel that I am now unfit for the task. Reading has weakened my eyes, and it seems that what still remains to me of light as only the Aurora of that day in which thofe eyes fhall for ever be clofed.

If I knew of any enterprize that would do myself a fervice at the expence of my family, I would reject it; if it were one that would advance the fortune of my houfe to the injury of my country, I would endeavour to forget it; if it were fomething that would be useful to my country, but inconfiftent with the interests of Europe or the human race, I should regard the profecution of it as a crime.

My ambition is to be fimple in my manners ; to receive as few favours as poflible and to grant as many as poffible.

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I never loved to enjoy the ridicule of others. 1 have found little to object to in the understanding of men in general. I have almost always loved their heads and hated their hearts.

I would rather fuffer by the fenfibility of my heart, than by the errors of my judgment.

I have done a very foolish thing. I have written my genealogy.

THE

THE

FUTURE HISTORY OF THIS GLOBE.

[From Dr. Thomas Burnet's famous Theory of the Earth*.] By the Author of the Illuftrations of Prophecy.

W

;

HEN the exifting ftate of fociety terminates, and the prophecies relative to the kings of the earth, are about to receive their complete fulfilment when Antichrift receives his final overthrow, and Satan is divefted of the power of executing any farther plans of mifchief-the period for burning of the globe will arrive! The great agents of nature will combine to prepare the way for this great catastrophe. The work of deftruction will not be difficult, nor is the mode by which it will be accomplished altogether inexplicable. The earth is furnished with abundant ftores of nitre and fulphur, and with all the materials of the volcano and the earthquake. The antediluvian earth was regular and clofe in all its parts, without caverns and without mountains. But that which we inherit contains the ruins only of what it once was; and thefe ruins which at the memorable period of the deluge were recovered from the water when the earth's exterior covering fell into the central abyfs, are not only unequal at their furface, but within alfo are hollow, loose, and incompact. Innumerable, therefore, are its outlets; and it is, in most places, capable of ventilation and pervious to fire. Previously alfo to the general conflagration, there will, it may be

*This celebrated work was published laft century, and admired for the extraordinary flights of imagination with which it abounded. With Addifon it was a very favourite work; and it is faid that even Charles the Second read it with attention. It was at the time confidered to be in profe what Milton's Paradife Loit is now in poetry.

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