narrative. But if France, so rich
in literary merit, had produced a great original historian, his genius
would have formed and fixed the idiom to the proper tone, the peculiar
model of historical eloquence.

It was in search of some liberal and lucrative employment that my friend
Deyverdun had visited England. His remittances from home were scanty
and precarious. My purse was always open, but it was often empty; and I
bitterly felt the want of riches and power, which might have enabled
me to correct the errors of his fortune. His wishes and qualifications
solicited the station of the travelling governor of some wealthy pupil;
but every vacancy provoked so many eager candidates, that for a long
time I struggled without success; nor was it till after much application
that I could even place him as a clerk in the office of the secretary
of state. In a residence of several years he never acquired the just
pronunciation and familiar use of the English tongue, but he read our
most difficult authors with ease and taste: his critical knowledge of
our language and poetry was such as few foreigners have possessed; and
few of our countrymen could enjoy the theatre of Shakspeare and Garrick
with more exquisite feeling and discernment. The consciousness of his
own strength, and the assurance of my aid, emboldened him to imitate
the example of Dr. Maty, whose Journal Britannique was esteemed and
regretted; and to improve his model, by uniting with the transactions
of literature a philosophic view of the arts and manners of the British
nation. Our journal for the year 1767, under the title of Memoires
Literaires de la Grand Bretagne, was soon finished, and sent to the
press. For the first article, Lord Lyttelton's History of Henry II., I
must own myself responsible; but the public has ratified my judgment of
that voluminous work, in which sense and learning are not illuminated by
a ray of genius. The next specimen was the choice of my friend, the Bath
Guide, a light and whimsical performance, of local, and even verbal,
pleasantry. I started at the attempt: he smiled at my fears: his courage
was justified by success; and a master of both languages will applaud
the curious felicity with which he has transfused into French prose the
spirit, and even the humour, of the English verse. It is not my wish to
deny how deeply I was interested in these Memoirs, of which I need not
surely be ashamed; but at the distance of more than twenty years,