the honesty of his sectaries.  These truths from the Abbe are not the less so for our knowing they would not be avowed if it answered his purpose to conceal them.—­"Helas! un ecrivain justement celebre qui seroit mort de douleur s’il avoit connu ses disciples; un philosophe aussi parfait de sentiment que foible de vues, n’a-t-il pas dans ses pages eloquentes, riches en detail, pauvre au fond, confondu lui-meme les principes de l’art social avec les commencemens de la societe humaine?  Que dire si l’on voyait dans un autre genre de mechaniques, entreprendre le radoub ou la construction d’un vaisseau de ligne avec la seule theorie, avec les seules resources des Sauvages dans la construction de leurs Pirogues!"—­“Alas! has not a justly-celebrated writer, who would have died with grief, could he have known what disciples he was destined to have;—­a philosopher as perfect in sentiment as feeble in his views,—­confounded, in his eloquent pages—­pages which are as rich in matter as poor in substance—­the principles of the social system with the commencement of human society?  What should we say to a mechanic of a different description, who should undertake the repair or construction of a ship of the line, without any practical knowledge of the art, on mere theory, and with no other resources than those which the savage employs in the construction of his canoe?”
                        Notices sur la Vie de Sieyes.

What had France, already possessed of a constitution capable of rendering her prosperous and happy, to do with the adoration of Rousseau’s speculative systems?  Or why are the English encouraged in a traditional respect for the manes of republicans, whom, if living, we might not improbably consider as factious and turbulent fanatics?*

* The prejudices of my countrymen on this subject are respectable, and I know I shall be deemed guilty of a species of political sacrilege.  I attack not the tombs of the dead, but the want of consideration for the living; and let not those who admire republican principles in their closets, think themselves competent to censure the opinions of one who has been watching their effects amidst the disasters of a revolution.

Our slumbers have for some time been patriotically disturbed by the danger of Holland; and the taking of the Maestricht nearly caused me a jaundice:  but the French have taught us philosophy—­and their conquests appear to afford them so little pleasure, that we ourselves hear of them with less pain.  The Convention were indeed, at first, greatly elated by the dispatches from Amsterdam, and imagined they were on the eve of dictating to all Europe:  the churches were ordered to toll their only bell, and the gasconades of the bulletin were uncommonly pompous—­but the novelty of the event has now subsided, and the conquest of Holland excites less interest than the thaw.  Public spirit is absorbed by private necessities or afflictions; people who cannot procure bread or firing, even though they have money to purchase it, are little gratified by reading that a pair of their Deputies lodged in the Stadtholder’s palace; and the triumphs of the republic offer no consolation to the families which it has pillaged or dismembered.