Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M--y W--y M--e Part 11

_Vienna, Jan_. 2. O. S. 1717.

I AM really almost tired with the life of Vienna. I am not, indeed, an enemy to dissipation and hurry, much less to amus.e.m.e.nt and pleasure; but I cannot endure, long, even pleasure, when it is fettered with formality, and a.s.sumes the air of system. 'Tis true I have had here some very agreeable connections; and what will perhaps surprise you, I have particular pleasure in my Spanish acquaintances, count Oropesa and general Puebla. These two n.o.blemen are much in the good graces of the emperor, and yet they seem to be brewing mischief.

The court of Madrid cannot reflect, without pain, upon the territories that were cut off from the Spanish monarchy by the peace of Utrecht, and it seems to be looking wishfully out, for an opportunity of getting them back again. That is a matter about which I trouble myself very little; let the Court be in the right or in the wrong, I like mightily the two counts its ministers. I dined with them both some days ago at count Wurmbrand's, an aulic counsellor, and a man of letters, who is universally esteemed here. But the first man at this court, in point of knowledge and abilities, is certainly count Schlick, high chancellor of Bohemia, whose immense reading is accompanied with a fine taste and a solid judgment; he is a declared enemy to prince Eugene, and a warm friend to the honest hot-headed marshal Staremberg. One of the most accomplished men I have seen at Vienna, is the young count Terracco, who accompanies the amiable prince of Portugal. I am almost in love with them both, and wonder to see such elegant manners, and such free and generous sentiments in two young men that have hitherto seen nothing but their own country. The count is just such a Roman-catholic as you; he succeeds greatly with the devout beauties here; his first overtures in gallantry are disguised under the luscious strains of spiritual love, that were sung formerly by the sublimely voluptuous Fenelon, and the tender madam Guion, who turned the fire of carnal love to divine objects: thus the count begins with the _spirit_, and ends generally with the _flesh_, when he makes his addresses to holy virgins.

I MADE acquaintance yesterday with the famous poet Rousseau, who lives here under the peculiar protection of prince Eugene, by whose liberality he subsists. He pa.s.ses here for a free-thinker, and, what is still worse in my esteem, for a man whose heart does not feel the encomiums he gives to virtue and honour in his poems. I like his odes mightily; they are much superior to the lyric productions of our English poets, few of whom have made any figure in that kind of poetry. I don't find that learned men abound here; there is, indeed, a prodigious number of alchymists (sic) at Vienna; the _philosopher's stone_ is the great object of zeal and science; and those who have more reading and capacity than the vulgar, have transported their superst.i.tion (shall I call it?) or fanaticism, from religion to chymistry (sic); and they believe in a new kind of transubstantiation, which is designed to make the laity as rich as the other kind has made the priesthood. This pestilential pa.s.sion has already ruined several great houses. There is scarcely a man of opulence or fas.h.i.+on, that has not an alchymist in his service; and even the emperor is supposed to be no enemy to this folly, in secret, though he has pretended to discourage it in public.

PRINCE EUGENE was so polite as to shew me his library yesterday; we found him attended by Rousseau, and his favourite count Bonneval, who is a man of wit, and is here thought to be a very bold and enterprizing (sic), spirit. The library, though not very ample, is well chosen; but as the prince will admit into it no editions but what are beautiful and pleasing to the eye, and there are, nevertheless, numbers of excellent books that are but indifferently printed, this finikin (sic) and foppish taste makes many disagreeable chasms in this collection. The books are pompously bound in Turkey leather; and two of the most famous book-binders of Paris were expressly sent for to do this work. Bonneval pleasantly told me, that there were several quartos, on the art of war, that were bound with the skins of _spahis_ and _janizaries_: and this jest, which was indeed elegant, raised a smile of pleasure on the grave countenance of the famous warrior. The prince, who is a connoisseur in the fine arts, shewed me, with particular pleasure, the famous collection of portraits that formerly belonged to Fouquet, and which he purchased at an excessive price. He has augmented it with a considerable number of new acquisitions; so that he has now in his possession such a collection in that kind, as you will scarcely find in any ten cabinets in Europe. If I told you the number, you will say that I make an indiscreet use of the permission to lie, which is more or less given to travellers, by the indulgence of the candid.

COUNT TARRACCO is just come in.--He is the only person I have accepted, this morning, in my general order to receive no company.--I think I see you smile;--but I am not so far gone as to stand in need of absolution; though as the human heart is deceitful, and the count very agreeable, you may think, that even though I should not want an absolution, I would, nevertheless, be glad to have an indulgence.--No such thing.--However, as I am a heretic, and you no confessor, I shall make no declarations on this head.--The design of the count's visit is a ball;--more pleasure.--I shall be surfeited.

Adieu, &c.

LET. LV.

TO MR P----.

_Sept_. 1. 1717.

WHEN I wrote to you last, Belgrade was in the hands of the Turks; but, at this present moment, it has changed masters, and is in the hands of the Imperialists. A janizary, who, in nine days, and yet without any wings but what a panic terror seems to have furnished, arrived at Constantinople from the army of the Turks before Belgrade, brought Mr W---- the news of a complete victory obtained by the Imperialists, commanded by prince Eugene, over the Ottoman troops.

It is said, the prince has discovered great conduct and valour in this action; and I am particularly glad that the voice of glory and duty has call'd him from the--(Note in the published book: _here several words of the ma.n.u.script are effaced._)--Two day's after the battle, the town surrendered. The consternation, which this defeat has occasioned here, is inexpressible; and the sultan, apprehending a revolution, from the resentment and indignation of the people, fomented by certain leaders, has begun his precautions, after the goodly fas.h.i.+on of this blessed government, by ordering several persons to be strangled, who were the objects of his royal suspicion.

He has also ordered his treasurer to advance some months pay to the janizaries, which seems the less necessary, as their conduct has been bad in this campaign, and their licentious ferocity seems pretty well tamed by the public contempt. Such of them as return in straggling and fugitive parties to the metropolis, have not spirit nor credit enough to defend themselves from the insults of the mob; the very children taunt them, and the populace spit in their faces as they pa.s.s. They refused, during the battle, to lend their a.s.sistance to save the baggage and the military chest, which, however, were defended by the bashaws and their retinue, while the janizaries and spahis were n.o.bly employed in plundering their own camp.

You see here, that I give you a very _handsome_ return for your obliging letter. You entertain me with a most agreeable account of your amiable connexions (sic) with men of letters and taste, and of the delicious moments you pa.s.s in their society under the rural shade; and I exhibit to you, in return, the barbarous spectacle of Turks and Germans cutting one another's throats. But what can you expect from such a country as this, from which the Muses have fled, from which letters seem eternally banished, and in which you see, in private scenes, nothing pursued as happiness, but the refinements of an indolent voluptuousness; and where those who act upon the public theatre live in uncertainty, suspicion, and terror? Here, pleasure, to which I am no enemy, when it is properly seasoned, and of a good composition, is surely of the coying kind. Veins of wit, elegant conversation, easy commerce, are unknown among the Turks; and yet they seem capable of all these, if the vile spirit of their government did not stifle genius, damp curiosity, and suppress an hundred pa.s.sions, that embellish and render life agreeable. The luscious pa.s.sion of the seraglio is the only one almost that is gratified here to the full; but it is blended so with the surly spirit of despotism in one of the parties, and with the dejection and anxiety which this spirit produces in the other, that, to one of my way of thinking, it cannot appear otherwise than as a very mixed kind of enjoyment. The women here are not, indeed, so closely confined as many have related; they enjoy a high degree of liberty, even in the bosom of servitude, and they have methods of evasion and disguise, that are very favourable to gallantry; but, after all, they are still under uneasy apprehensions of being discovered; and a discovery exposes them to the most merciless rage of jealousy, which is here a monster that cannot be satiated but with blood. The magnificence and riches that reign in the apartments of the ladies of fas.h.i.+on here, seem to be one of their chief pleasures, joined with their retinue of female slaves, whose music, dancing, and dress, amuse them highly; but there is such an air of form and stiffness amidst this grandeur, as hinders it from pleasing me at long-run, however, I was dazzled with it at first sight. This stiffness and formality of manners are peculiar to the Turkish ladies; for the Grecian belles are of quite another character and complexion; with them, pleasure appears in more engaging forms; and their persons, manners, conversation and amus.e.m.e.nts, are very far from being dest.i.tute of elegance and ease.

I RECEIVED the news of Mr Addison's being declared secretary of state with the less surprise, in that I know that post was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it; and I really believe that he would have done well to have declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic; and we may see the day, when he will be heartily glad to resign them both. It is well that he laid aside the thoughts of the voluminous dictionary, of which I have heard you or somebody else frequently make mention. But no more on that subject; I would not have said so much, were I not a.s.sured that this letter will come safe and unopened to hand. I long much to tread upon English ground, that I may see you and Mr Congreve, who render that ground _cla.s.sic ground_; nor will you refuse our present secretary a part of that merit, whatever reasons you may have to be dissatisfied with him in other respects. You are the three happiest poets I ever heard of; one a secretary of state, the other enjoying leisure, with dignity, in two lucrative employments; and you, though your religious profession is an obstacle to Court promotion, and disqualifies you from filling civil employments, have found the _philosopher's stone_; since, by making the Iliad pa.s.s through your poetical crucible into an English form, without losing aught of it's original beauty, you have drawn the golden current of Pactolus to Twickenham. I call this finding the philosopher's stone, since you alone found out the secret, and n.o.body else has got into it. A----n and T----l tried it, but their experiments failed; and they lost, if not their money, at least a certain portion of their fame in the trial--while you touched the mantle of the divine bard, and imbibed his spirit. I hope we shall have the Odyssey soon from your happy hand; and I think I shall follow, with singular pleasure, the traveller Ulysses, who was an observer of men and manners, when he travels in your harmonious numbers. I love him much better than the hot-headed son of Peleus, who bullied his general, cried for his mistress, and so on. It is true, the excellence of the Iliad does not depend upon his merit or dignity; but I wish, nevertheless, that Homer had chosen a hero somewhat less pettish and less fantastic: a perfect hero is chimerical and unnatural, and consequently uninstructive; but it is also true, that while the epic hero ought to be drawn with the infirmities that are the lot of humanity, he ought never to be represented as extremely absurd. But it becomes me ill to play the critic; so I take my leave of you for this time, and desire you will believe me, with the highest esteem, Your's, &c.

LET. LVI.

[Footnote: As this letter is the supplement to a preceding one, which is not come to the hands of the editor, it was probably, on that account, sent without a date. It seems evidently to have been written after Lady M. W. M. had fixed her residence in Italy.]

To THE COUNTESS OF ----.

_Sat.u.r.day-Florence_.

I SET out from Bologne (sic) the moment I had finished the letter I wrote you on Monday last, and shall now continue to inform you of the things that have struck me most in this excursion. Sad roads--hilly and rocky--between Bologna and Fierenzuola. Between this latter place and Florence, I went out of my road to visit the monastery of La Trappe, which is of French origin, and one of the most austere and self-denying orders I have met with. In this gloomy retreat, it gave me pain to observe the infatuation of men, who have devoutly reduced themselves to a much worse condition than that of the beasts. Folly, you see, is the lot of humanity, whether it arises in the flowery paths of pleasure, or the th.o.r.n.y ones of an ill-judged devotion. But of the two sorts of fools, I shall always think that the merry one has the most eligible fate; and I cannot well form a notion of that spiritual and ecstatic joy, that is mixed with sighs, groans, hunger and thirst, and the other complicated miseries of monastic discipline. It is a strange way of going to work for happiness, to excite an enmity between soul and body, which nature and providence have designed to live together in an union and friends.h.i.+p, and which we cannot separate like man and wife, when they happen to disagree.

The profound silence that is enjoined upon the monks of La Trappe, is a singular circ.u.mstance of their unsociable and unnatural discipline; and were this injunction never to be dispensed with, it would be needless to visit them in any other character than as a collection of statues; but the superior of the convent suspended, in our favour, that rigorous law, and allowed one of the mutes to converse with me, and answer a few discreet questions. He told me, that the monks of this order in France are still more austere than those of Italy, as they never taste wine, flesh, fish, or eggs; but live entirely upon vegetables. The story that is told of the inst.i.tution of this order is remarkable, and is well attested, if my information be good. Its founder was a French n.o.bleman, whose name was Bouthillier da (sic) Rance, a man of pleasure and gallantry, which were converted into the deepest gloom of devotion, by the following incident. His affairs obliged him to absent himself for some time, from a lady with whom he had lived in the most intimate and tender connections of successful love. At his return to Paris, he proposed to surprise her agreeably; and, at the same time, to satisfy his own impatient desire of seeing her, by going directly, and without ceremony, to her apartment by a back stair, which he was well acquainted with.--But think of the spectacle that presented itself to him at his entrance into the chamber that had so often been the scene of love's highest raptures!

His mistress dead--dead of the small-pox--disfigured beyond expression--a loathsome ma.s.s of putrified (sic) matter--and the surgeon separating the head from the body, because the coffin had been made too short! He stood for a moment motionless in amazement, and filled with horror--and then retired from the world, shut himself up in the convent of La Trappe, where he pa.s.sed the remainder of his days in the most cruel and disconsolate devotion.--Let us quit this sad subject.

I MUST not forget to tell you, that before I came to this monastery, I went to see the burning mountains near Fierenzuola, of which the naturalists speak as a great curiosity. The flame it sends forth is without smoke, and resembles brandy set on fire. The ground about it is well cultivated, and the fire appears only in one spot where there is a cavity, whose circ.u.mference is small, but in it are several crevices whose depths are unknown. It is remarkable, that when a piece of wood is thrown into this cavity, though it cannot pa.s.s through the crevices, yet it is consumed in a moment; and that though the ground about it be perfectly cold, yet if a stick be rubbed with any force against it, it emits a flame, which, however, is neither hot nor durable like that of the volcano. If you desire a more circ.u.mstantial account of this phenomenon, and have made a sufficient progress in Italian, to read father Carazzi's description of it, you need not be at a loss, for I have sent this description to Mr F----, and you have only to ask it of him. After observing the volcano, I Scrambled up all the neighbouring hills, partly on horse-back, partly on foot, but could find no vestige of fire in any of them; though common report would make one believe that they all contain volcanos.

I HOPE you have not taken it in your head to expect from me a description of the famous gallery, here, where I arrived on Thursday at noon; this would be requiring a volume instead of a letter; besides I have as yet seen but a part of this immense treasure, and I propose employing some weeks more to survey the whole. You cannot imagine any situation more agreeable than Florence. It lies in a fertile and smiling valley watered by the Arno, which runs through the city; and nothing can surpa.s.s the beauty and magnificence of its public buildings, particularly the cathedral, whose grandeur filled me with astonishment. The palaces, squares, fountains, statues, bridges, do not only carry an aspect full of elegance and greatness, but discover a taste quite different, in kind, from that which reigns in the public edifices in other countries. The more I see of Italy, the more I am persuaded that the Italians have a style (if I may use that expression) in every thing, which distinguishes them almost essentially from all other Europeans. Where they have got it,--whether from natural genius or ancient imitation and inheritance, I shall not examine; but the fact is certain. I have been but one day in the gallery, that amazing repository of the most precious remains of antiquity, and which alone is sufficient to immortalize the ill.u.s.trious house of Medicis, by whom it was built, and enriched as we now see it. I was so impatient to see the famous Venus of Medicis, that I went hastily through six apartments, in order to get a sight of this divine figure; purposing (sic), when I had satisfied this ardent curiosity, to return and view the rest at my leisure. As I, indeed, pa.s.sed through the great room which contains the ancient statues, I was stopped short at viewing the Antinous, which they have placed near that of Adrian, to revive the remembrance of their preposterous loves; which, I suppose, the Florentines rather look upon as an object of envy, than of horror and disgust. This statue, like that of the Venus de Medicis, spurns description: such figures my eyes never beheld.--I can now understand that Ovid's comparing a fine woman to a statue, which I formerly thought a very disobliging similitude, was the nicest and highest piece of flattery. The Antinous is entirely naked, all its parts are bigger than nature; but the whole, taken together, and the fine att.i.tude of the figure, carry such an expression of ease, elegance and grace, as no words can describe. When I saw the Venus I was rapt in wonder,--and I could not help casting a thought back upon Antinous. They ought to be placed together; they are worthy of each other.--If marble could see and feel, the separation might be prudent,--if it could only _see_, it would certainly lose its coldness, and learn to feel; and, in such a case, the charms of these two figures would produce an effect quite opposite to that of the Gorgon's head, which turned flesh into stone. Did I pretend to describe to you the Venus, it would only set your imagination at work to form ideas of her figure; and your ideas would no more resemble that figure, than the Portuguese face of Miss ----, who has enchanted our knights, resembles the sweet and graceful countenance of lady ----, his former flame. The description of a face or figure, is a needless thing, as it never conveys a true idea; it only gratifies the imagination with a fantastic one, until the real one is seen.

So, my dear, if you have a mind to form a true notion of the divine forms and features of the Venus and Antinous, come to Florence.

I WOULD be glad to oblige you and your friend Vertue, by executing your commission with respect to the sketches of Raphael's cartoons at Hampton-court; but I cannot do it to my satisfaction. I have, indeed, seen, in the grand duke's collection, four pieces, in which that wonderful artist had thrown freely from his pencil the first thoughts and rude lines of some of these compositions; and as the first thoughts of a great genius are precious, these pieces attracted my curiosity in a particular manner; but when I went to examine them closely, I found them so damaged and effaced, that they did not at all answer my expectation. Whether this be owing to negligence or envy, I cannot say; I mention the latter, because it is notorious, that many of the modern painters have discovered ign.o.ble marks of envy at a view of the inimitable productions Of the ancients.

Instead of employing their art to preserve the master-pieces of antiquity, they have endeavoured to destroy and efface many of them.

I have seen with my own eyes an evident proof of this at Bologna, where the greatest part of the paintings in fresco on the walls of the convent of St Michael in Bosco, done by the Carracci, and Guido Rheni, have been ruined by the painters, who, after having copied some of the finest heads, sc.r.a.ped them almost entirely out with nails. Thus, you see, nothing is exempt from human malignity.

THE word malignity, and a pa.s.sage in your letter, call to my mind the wicked wasp of Twickenham; his lies affect me now no more; they will be all as much despised as the story of the seraglio and the handkerchief, of which I am persuaded he was the only inventor. That man has a malignant and ungenerous heart; and he is base enough to a.s.sume the mark of a moralist in order to decry human nature, and to give a decent vent to his hatred to man and woman kind.--But I must quit this contemptible subject, on which a just indignation would render my pen so fertile, that, after having fatigued you with a long letter, I would surfeit you with a supplement twice as long.

Besides, a violent head-ach (sic) advertises me that it is time to lay down my pen and get me to bed. I shall say some things to you in my next, that I would have you to impart to the _strange man_, as from yourself. My mind is at present tolerably quiet; if it were as dead to sin, as it is to certain connections, I should be a great saint. Adieu, my dear madam. Yours very affectionately, &c.

LET. LVII.

TO MR P.

I HAVE been running about Paris at a strange rate with my sister, and strange sights have we seen. They are, at least, strange sights to me; for, after having been accustomed to the gravity of Turks, I can scarce look with an easy and familiar aspect at the levity and agility of the airy phantoms that are dancing about me here; and I often think that I am at a puppet-shew, amidst the representations of real life. I stare prodigiously, but n.o.body remarks it, for every body stares here, staring is a-la-mode--there is a stare of attention and _interet_, a stare of curiosity, a stare of expectation, a stare of surprise; and it will greatly amuse you to see what trifling objects excite all this staring. This staring would have rather a solemn kind of air, were it not alleviated by grinning; for at the end of a stare, there comes always a grin; and very commonly, the entrance of a gentleman or lady into a room is accompanied with a grin, which is designed to express complacence and social pleasure, but really shews nothing more than a certain contortion of muscles, that must make a stranger laugh really, as they laugh artificially. The French grin is equally remote from the cheerful serenity of a smile, and the cordial mirth of an honest English horse-laugh. I shall not perhaps stay here long enough to form a just idea of French manners and characters, though this I believe would require but little study, as there is no great depth in either. It appears, on a superficial view, to be a frivolous, restless, and agreeable people. The abbot is my guide, and I could not easily light upon a better; he tells me, that here the women form the character of the men, and I am convinced in the persuasion of this, by every company into which I enter. There seems here to be no intermediate state between infancy and manhood; for as soon as the boy has quit his leading-strings, he is set agog in the world; the ladies are his tutors, they make the first impressions, which, generally remain, and they render the men ridiculous, by the imitation of their humours and graces; so that dignity in manners, is a rare thing here before the age of sixty. Does not king David say somewhere, that _Man walketh in a vain shew?_ I think he does; and I am sure this is peculiarly true of the Frenchman--but he walks merrily, and seems to enjoy the vision; and may he not therefore be esteemed more happy than many of our solid thinkers, whose brows are furrowed by deep reflection, and whose wisdom is so often clothed with a misty mantle of spleen and vapours?

WHAT delights me most here, is a view of the magnificence, often accompanied with taste, that reigns in the king's palaces and gardens; for tho' I don't admire much the architecture, in which there is great irregularity and want of proportion, yet the statues, paintings, and other decorations, afford me high entertainment. One of the pieces of antiquity that struck me most in the gardens of Versailles, was the famous Colossean statue of Jupiter, the workmans.h.i.+p of Myron, which Mark Anthony carried away from Samos, and Augustus ordered to be placed in the capitol. It is of Parian marble; and though it has suffered in the ruin of time, it still preserves striking lines of majesty. But surely, if marble could feel, the G.o.d would frown with a generous indignation, to see himself transported from the capitol into a French garden; and, after having received the homage of the Roman emperors, who laid their laurels at his feet when they returned from their conquests, to behold now nothing but frizzled beaus pa.s.sing by him with indifference.

I PROPOSE setting out soon from this place, so that you are to expect no more letters from this side of the water; besides, I am hurried to death, and my head swims with that vast variety of objects which I am obliged to view with such rapidity, the shortness of my time not allowing me to examine them at my leisure. There is here an excessive prodigality of ornaments and decorations, that is just the opposite extreme to what appears in our royal gardens; this prodigality is owing to the levity and inconstancy of the French taste, which always pants after something new, and thus heaps ornament upon ornament, without end or measure. It is time, however, that I should put an end to my letter; so I wish you good night, And am, &c.

LET. LVIII.

TO THE COUNT ----.

_Translated from the French._

I AM charmed, Sir, with your obliging letter; and you may perceive, by the largeness of my paper, that I intend to give punctual answers to all your questions, at least if my French will permit me; for, as it is a language I do not understand to perfection, so I much fear, that, for want of expressions, I shall be quickly obliged to finish.

Keep in mind, therefore, that I am writing in a foreign language, and be sure to attribute all the impertinencies and triflings (sic) dropping from my pen, to the want of proper words for declaring my thoughts, but by no means to dulness, or natural levity.

THESE conditions being thus agreed and settled, I begin with telling you, that you have a true notion of the alcoran, concerning which the Greek priests (who are the greatest scoundrels in the universe) have invented, out of their own heads, a thousand ridiculous stories, in order to decry the law of Mahomet; to run it down, I say, without any examination, or so much as letting the people read it; being afraid, that if once they began to sift the defects of the alcoran, they might not stop there, but proceed to make use of their judgment about their own legends and fictions. In effect, there is nothing so like as the fables of the Greeks and of the Mahometans; and the last have mult.i.tudes of saints, at whose tombs miracles are by them said to be daily performed; nor are the accounts of the lives of those blessed musselmans much less stuffed with extravagancies, than the spiritual romances of the Greek papas.

AS to your next inquiry, I a.s.sure you, 'tis certainly false, though commonly believed in our parts of the world, that Mahomet excludes women from any share in a future happy state. He was too much a gentleman, and loved the fair s.e.x too well, to use them so barbarously. On the contrary, he promises a very fine paradise to the Turkish women. He says, indeed, that this paradise will be a separate place from that of their husbands; but I fancy the most part of them won't like it the worse for that; and that the regret of this separation will not render their paradise the less agreeable. It remains to tell you, that the virtues which Mahomet requires of the women, to merit the enjoyment of future happiness, are, not to live in such a manner as to become useless to the world, but to employ themselves, as much as possible, in making little musselmans. The virgins, who die virgins, and the widows who marry not again, dying in mortal sin, are excluded out of paradise: For women, says he, not being capable to manage the affairs of state, nor to support the fatigues of war, G.o.d has not ordered them to govern or reform the world; but he has entrusted them with an office which is not less honourable; even that of multiplying the human race: and such as, out of malice or laziness, do not make it their business to bear or to breed children, fulfil not the duty of their vocation, and rebel against the commands of G.o.d. Here are maxims for you, prodigiously contrary to those of your convents. What will become of your St Catharines, your St Theresas, your St Claras, and the whole bead-roll of your holy virgins and widows; who, if they are to be judged by this system of virtue, will be found to have been infamous creatures, that pa.s.sed their whole lives in most abominable libertinism.

I KNOW not what your thoughts may be, concerning a doctrine so extraordinary with respect to us; but I can truly inform you, Sir, that the Turks are not so ignorant as we fancy them to be in matters of politics, or philosophy, or even of gallantry. 'Tis true, that military discipline, such as now practised in Christendom, does not mightily suit them. A long peace has plunged them into an universal sloth. Content with their condition, and accustomed to boundless luxury, they are become great enemies to all manner of fatigues.

But, to make amends, the sciences flourish among them. The effendis (that is to say, the learned) do very well deserve this name: They have no more faith in the in inspiration of Mahomet, than in the infallibility of the Pope. They make a frank profession of Deism among themselves, or to those they can trust; and never speak of their law but as of a politic inst.i.tution, fit now to be observed by wise men, however at first introduced by politicians and enthusiasts.

IF I remember right, I think I have told you, in some former letter, that, at Belgrade, we lodged with a great and rich effendi, a man of wit and learning, and of a very agreeable humour. We were in his house about a month, and he did constantly eat with us, drinking wine without any scruple. As I rallied him a little on this subject, he answered me, smiling, that all creatures in the world were made for the pleasure of man; and that G.o.d would not have let the vine grow, were it a sin to taste of its juice; but that, nevertheless, the law, which forbids the use of it to the vulgar, was very wise, because such sort of folks have not sense enough to take it with moderation.

This effendi appeared no stranger to the parties that prevail among us: Nay, he seemed to have some knowledge of our religious disputes, and even of our writers; and I was surprised to hear him ask, among other things, how Mr Toland did.

MY paper, large as it is, draws towards an end. That I may not go beyond its limits, I must leap from religions to tulips, concerning which you ask me news. Their mixture produces surprising effects.

But, what is to be observed most surprising, are the experiments of which you speak concerning animals, and which are tried here every day. The suburbs of Pera, Jophana, and Galata, are collections of strangers from all countries of the universe. They have so often intermarried, that this forms several races of people, the oddest imaginable. There is not one single family of natives that can value itself on being unmixed. You frequently see a person, whose father was born a Grecian, the mother an Italian, the grandfather a Frenchman, the grandmother an Armenian, and their ancestors English, Muscovites, Asiatics, &c.

THIS mixture produces creatures more extraordinary than you can imagine; nor could I ever doubt, but there were several different species of men; since the whites, the woolly and the long-haired blacks, the small-eyed Tartars and Chinese, the beardless Brasilians, and (to name no more) the oily-skinned yellow Nova Zemblians, have as specific differences, under the same general kind, as grey-hounds, mastiffs, spaniels, bull-dogs, or the race of my little Diana, if n.o.body is offended at the comparison. Now, as the various intermixing of these latter animals causes mongrels, so mankind have their mongrels too, divided and subdivided into endless sorts. We have daily proofs of it here, as I told you before. In the same animal is not seldom remarked the Greek perfidiousness, the Italian diffidence, the Spanish arrogance, the French loquacity; and, all of a sudden, he is seized with a fit of English thoughtfulness, bordering a little upon dulness, which many of us have inherited from the stupidity of our Saxon progenitors. But the family which charms me most, is that which proceeds from the fantastical conjunction of a Dutch male with a Greek female. As these are natures opposite in extremes, 'tis a pleasure to observe how the differing atoms are perpetually jarring together in the children, even so as to produce effects visible in their external form. They have the large black eyes of the country, with the fat, white, fishy flesh of Holland, and a lively air streaked with dulness. At one and the same time, they shew that love of expensiveness, so universal among the Greeks, and an inclination to the Dutch frugality. To give an example of this; young women ruin themselves, to purchase jewels for adorning their heads, while they have not the heart to buy new shoes, or rather slippers for their feet, which are commonly in a tattered condition; a thing so contrary to the taste of our English women, that it is for shewing how neatly their feet are dressed, and for shewing this only, they are so pa.s.sionately enamoured with their hoop petticoats. I have abundance of other singularities to communicate to you; but I am at the end, both of my French and my paper.

CONCERNING

Monsieur de la ROCHEFOUCAULT'S Maxim--_"That marriage is sometimes "convenient but never delightful."_

IT may be thought a presumptuous attempt in me to controvert a maxim advanced by such a celebrated genius as Monsieur Rochefoucault, and received with such implicit faith by a nation which boasts of superior politeness to the rest of the world, and which, for a long time past, has prescribed the rules of gallantry to all Europe.

NEVERTHELESS, prompted by that ardour which truth inspires, I dare to maintain the contrary, and resolutely insist, that there are some marriages formed by love, which may be delightful, where the affections are sympathetic. Nature has presented us with pleasures suitable to our species, and we need only to follow her impulse, refined by taste, and exalted by a lively and agreeable imagination, in order to attain the most perfect felicity of which human nature is susceptible. Ambition, avarice, vanity, when enjoyed in the most exquisite perfection, can yield but trifling and tasteless pleasures, which will be too inconsiderable to affect a mind of delicate sensibility.

WE may consider the gifts of fortune as so many steps necessary to arrive at felicity, which we can never attain, being obliged to set bounds to our desires, and being only gratified with some of her frivolous favours, which are nothing more than the torments of life, when they are considered as the necessary means to acquire or preserve a more exquisite felicity.

THIS felicity consists alone in friends.h.i.+p, founded on mutual esteem, fixed by grat.i.tude, supported by inclination, and animated by the tender solicitudes of love, whom the ancients have admirably described under the appearance of a beautiful infant: It is pleased with infantine amus.e.m.e.nts; it is delicate and affectionate, incapable of mischief, delighted with trifles; its pleasures are gentle and innocent.

THEY have given a very different representation of another pa.s.sion, too gross to be mentioned, but of which alone men, in general, are susceptible. This they have described under the figure of a satyr, who has more of the brute than of the man in his composition. By this fabulous animal they have expressed a pa.s.sion, which is the real foundation of all the fine exploits of modish gallantry, and which only endeavours to glut its appet.i.te with the possession of the object which is most lovely in its estimation: A pa.s.sion founded in injustice, supported by deceit, and attended by crimes, remorse, jealousy, and contempt. Can such an affection be delightful to a virtuous mind? Nevertheless, such is the delightful attendant on all illicit engagements; gallants are obliged to abandon all those sentiments of honour which are inseparable from a liberal education, and are doomed to live wretchedly in the constant pursuit of what reason condemns, to have all their pleasures embittered by remorse, and to be reduced to the deplorable condition of having renounced virtue, without being able to make vice agreeable.

IT is impossible to taste the delights of love in perfection, but in a well a.s.sorted marriage; nothing betrays such a narrowness of mind as to be governed by words. What though custom, for which good reasons may be a.s.signed, has made the words _husband_ and _wife_ somewhat ridiculous? A husband, in common acceptation, signifies a jealous brute, a surly tyrant; or, at best, a weak fool, who may be made to believe any thing. A wife is a domestic termagant, who is destined to deceive or torment the poor devil of a husband. The conduct of married people, in general, sufficiently justifies these two characters.