because fince the regency of Anne of Auftria, they have been the most fociable and polished people of the earth: and this politeness is not a meer arbitrary cuftom, like what we call civility; it is a law of nature that they happily have cultivated more than the reft of mankind. tranflator of Zara has generally respected these theatrical decencies, which ought to be as common to you as to us; but in fome inftances he has yet followed antient prejudice.

The

For example, in the English translation when Ofman declares to Zara, that his love for her is gone, fhe answers by throwing herself on the ground. The fultan is not affected at seeing her in this pofture of ridicule and of defpair, yet the next moment he is struck at seeing her Shed tears, and fays:

Zara! you weep!

He should have rather faid before,

Zara! you throw yourself upon the ground!

And indeed these words, Zara! you weep! which had a very great effect on our theatre, were productive of none on yours, because they were there misplaced. These familiar, fimple expreffions, derive their whole force from the manner in which they are introduced. "You change colour, my lord," is very little when confidered by itself, and yet, the moment these fimple words are pronounced in Racine's Mithridates, every fpectator is ftruck with terror.

To fay nothing but what is proper to be faid, and that too in the proper manner, is a merit, to which the French, myself excepted, feem to have nearer attained, than the writers of other countries. It is relative to this art, that our nation, I think, deferves to be believed. You teach us things of greater use and importance. It would be shameful in us not to allow it. The French, who have wrote against Sir Ifaac Newton's difcoveries in optics, now are forry for it.

And

those who are still enemies to his fystem of attraction, must soon also acknowlege their error.

You ought to agree to the rules of our theatre, as we ought to embrace your philosophy. We have made as good experiments on the human heart, as you have made in natural philosophy. The art to please feems appropriated to the French, as the art of thinking belongs to the English. Happy the man, who like you, Sir, unites both, etc.

OF THE

ADVANTAGE of LITERATURE to LADIES of QUALITY.

In a letter to the Marchionefs du CHASTELET, on fending her the Tragedy of ALZIRA.

I

MADAM,

T is paying you but a poor tribute, to lay at your feet a poetic performance, which flourishes but a moment, whose merit confifts in the tranfitory indulgence of the public, and the illufion of the theatre; afterwards doomed to mix in the croud, and be forgot.

What is, in fact, a novel put into action and verfe, in the eyes of a perfon who reads the works of geometricians with the fame ease that others read romances? what is it to her, who has found in Locke, the fage preceptor of man kind, her own fentiments, and the hiftory of her own thoughts; and who, born to partake of the delights of the world, yet prefers truth to every thing? But, madam, the greatest genius, and certainly the most defirable, is that,

which excludes none of the fine arts. They all are the nourishment and the pleasure of the mind: is there therefore any which we should not cultivate and approve? Happy the mind that is not parched up with the ftudy of philofophy, nor enervated by the charms of the Belles-Lettres; which can be strengthened by Locke, inftructed by Clarke and Newton, elevated by the reading of Cicero and of Bossuet *, and adorned by the beauties of Virgil and of Tafso.

Such, madam, is your genius; I must not fear to say it, though you dread to hear it. Your example muft encourage perfons of your fex and rank to think, that they may be ftill more ennobled by improving their reason, and that wit is an ornament to them. There was a time in France, and even all over Europe, when gentlemen thought it beneath their dignity, and women thought it beyond their sphere, to feek for knowlege. The first looking on themfelves as born for war or for idleness, and the latter for drefs and coquetry. The ridicule which even Moliere and Boileau threw on learned women, seemed, in a polished age, to justify the prejudices of barbarism.

But Moliere, that legislator in the morals and decencies of the world, certainly did not pretend, when he exposed female pedantry, to laugh at wit or learning. He only attacks the

* A French bifhop, famous for his great eloquence, genius, and learning, as well as for his controverfy with the Proteftants of France, and his difputes with his brother bishop Fenelon, author of Telemachus.

In

abufe and affectation of them; as in his Tartuffe, he attacks hypocrify but not virtue. Instead of writing a fatire against women, if the exact, the folid, the laborious, the elegant Boileau, had confulted fome of the most ingenious ladies at court, he would have added to the art and me. rit of his works, fome flowers and graces, which would have given them still greater charms. vain has he ftrove, in his fatire against women, to ridicule a lady of rank who had learned aftronomy. He would have done better to have learned it himself. Philofophic genius has made fo great a progress in France these forty years past, that, if Boileau were ftill alive, he, who took upon him to ridicule a woman of fashion, becaufe fe converfed privately with Roberval and Sauveur *, would be obliged to refpect and imitate those, who profit publicly of the knowlege of the Maupertuis, the Reaumurst, the Mairans §,

Two excellent mathematicians in the time of Lewis the XIVth.

+ Well known for his great knowlege in the mathematics, as well as of the belles-lettres; for his journey to Lapland, to measure a meridian of the earth; and for having been a great favourite of the prefent king of Pruffia, as well as prefident of his academy at Berlin. He died in the year 1758.

One of the most diligent and accurate obfervers of nature in its minutest operations. His hiftory of infects is a complete work. He improved and perfected the Egyptian method of hatching of eggs, by the means of artificial heat, or fire. He died in the year 1756.

§ A very, ingenious philofopher and polite writer. He has been fecretary to the academy of fciences of Paris.