ly favourable to their interest, that
had they been accepted, would have become inconvenient, if not
inadmissible to America. These proposals were nevertheless rejected by
the British Cabinet: on which the Abbe says,--

"It is in such a circumstance as this, it is in the time when noble
pride elevates the soul superior to all terror; when nothing is seen
more dreadful than the shame of receiving the law, and when there is
no doubt or hesitation which to chuse, between ruin and dishonour; it
is then, that the greatness of a nation is displayed. I acknowledge,
however, that men accustomed to judge of things by the event, call
great and perilous resolutions, heroism or madness, according to the
good or bad success with which they have been attended. If then I
should be asked, what is the name which shall in years to come be
given to the firmness, which was in this moment exhibited by the
English, I shall answer, that I do not know. But that which it
deserves I know. I know that the annals of the world hold out to us
but rarely the august and majestic spectacle of a nation, which chuses
rather to renounce its duration than its glory."

In this paragraph the conception is lofty, and the expression elegant;
but the colouring is too high for the original, and the likeness fails
through an excess of graces. To fit the powers of thinking and the
turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion
that shall hit the point in question, and nothing else, is the true
criterion of writing. But the greater part of the Abbe's writings (if
he will pardon me the remark) appear to me uncentral and burthened
with variety. They represent a beautiful wilderness without paths; in
which the eye is diverted by every thing, without being particularly
directed to any thing: and in which it is agreeable to be lost, and
difficult to find the way out.

Before I offer any other remark oh the spirit and composition of the
above passage, I shall compare it with the circumstance it alludes to.

The circumstance, then, does not deserve the encomium. The rejection
was not prompted by her fortitude but her vanity. She did not view it
as a case of despair or even of extreme danger, and consequently the
determination to renounce her duration rather than her glory, cannot
apply to the condition of her mind. She had then high expectations of
subjugating America, and had no other naval force against her than
France; neither was she certai