ons, and yet
neither his manners nor his personal character were stained by the
offending freedom of his inventions. SMOLLETT'S character is immaculate;
yet he has described two scenes which offend even in the license of
imagination. COWLEY, who boasts with such gaiety of the versatility of his
passion among so many mistresses, wanted even the confidence to address
one. Thus, licentious writers may be very chaste persons. The imagination
may be a volcano while the heart is an Alp of ice.

Turn to the moralist--there we find Seneca, a usurer of seven millions,
writing on moderate desires on a table of gold. SALLUST, who so eloquently
declaims against the licentiousness of the age, was repeatedly accused in
the senate of public and habitual debaucheries; and when this inveigher
against the spoilers of provinces attained to a remote government, he
pillaged like Verres. That "DEMOSTHENES was more capable of recommending
than of imitating the virtues of our ancestors," is the observation of
Plutarch. LUCIAN, when young, declaimed against the friendship of the
great, as another name for servitude; but when his talents procured him a
situation under the emperor, he facetiously compared himself to those
quacks who, themselves plagued by a perpetual cough, offer to sell an
infallible remedy for one. Sir THOMAS MORE, in his "Utopia," declares that
no man ought to be punished for his religion; yet he became a fierce
persecutor, flogging and racking men for his own "true faith." At the
moment the poet ROUSSEAU was giving versions of the Psalms, full of
unction, as our Catholic neighbours express it, he was profaning the same
pen with infamous epigrams; and an erotic poet of our times has composed
night-hymns in churchyards with the same ardour with which he poured forth
Anacreontics. Napoleon said of Bernardin St. Pierre, whose writings
breathe the warm principles of humanity and social happiness in every
page, that he was one of the worst private characters in France. I have
heard this from other quarters; it startles one! The pathetic genius of
STERNE played about his head, but never reached his heart[A]. Cardinal
RICHELIEU wrote "The Perfection of a Christian, or the Life of a
Christian;" yet was he an utter stranger to Gospel maxims; and FREDERICK
THE GREAT, when young, published his "Anti-Machiavel," and deceived the
world by the promise of a pacific reign. This military genius protested
against those political arts which, he a