aversion with which they are regarded: yet I am deeply persuaded
that the far greater part is owing to their own profligacy, to their
treachery and hardheartedness to each other, and the domestic misery or
corrupt principles which so many of them have carried into the families
of their protectors. My heart dilated with honest pride, as I recalled
to mind the stern yet amiable characters of the English patriots, who
sought refuge on the Continent at the Restoration! O let not our civil
war under the first Charles be paralleled with the French Revolution!
In the former, the character overflowed from excess of principle; in the
latter from the fermentation of the dregs! The former, was a civil war
between the virtues and virtuous prejudices of the two parties; the
latter, between the vices. The Venetian glass of the French monarchy
shivered and flew asunder with the working of a double poison.
Sept. 20th. I was introduced to Mr. Klopstock, the brother of the poet,
who again introduced me to Professor Ebeling, an intelligent and lively
man, though deaf: so deaf, indeed, that it was a painful effort to talk
with him, as we were obliged to drop our pearls into a huge ear-trumpet.
From this courteous and kind-hearted man of letters, (I hope, the
German literati in general may resemble this first specimen), I heard a
tolerable Italian pun, and an interesting anecdote. When Buonaparte was
in Italy, having been irritated by some instance of perfidy, he said in
a loud and vehement tone, in a public company--“’tis a true proverb, gli
Italiani tutti ladroni”--(that is, the Italians all plunderers.) A lady
had the courage to reply, “Non tutti; ma BUONA PARTE,” (not all, but a
good part, or Buonaparte.) This, I confess, sounded to my ears, as one
of the many good things that might have been said. The anecdote is more
valuable; for it instances the ways and means of French insinuation.
Hoche had received much information concerning the face of the country
from a map of unusual fulness and accuracy, the maker of which, he
heard, resided at Duesseldorf. At the storming of Duesseldorf by the
French army, Hoche previously ordered, that the house and property of
this man should be preserved, and intrusted the performance of the order
to an officer on whose troop he could rely. Finding afterwards, that the
man had escaped before the storming commenced, Hoche exclaimed, “HE had
no reason to flee! It is for such men, not against them, that the French
nation makes war, and consents to shed the blood of its children.” You
remember Milton’s sonnet--
“The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus when temple and tower
Went to the ground”------
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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