As to the French Academy, what services might it not render to letters, to the language, and the nation, if, instead of printing volumes of compliments every year, it would reprint the best works of the age of Louis XIV., purified from all the faults of language which have crept into them! Corneille and Molière are full of them, and they swarm in La Fontaine. Those which could not be corrected might at least be marked, and Europe at large, which reads these authors, would then learn our language with certainty, and its purity would be forever fixed. Good French books, printed with care at the expense of the king, would be one of the most glorious monuments of the nation. I have heard say, that M. Despréaux once made this proposal, which has since been renewed by a man whose wit, wisdom, and sound criticism are generally acknowledged; but this idea has met with the fate of several other useful projects--that of being approved and neglected. SOCRATES. Is the mould broken of those who loved virtue for itself, of a Confucius, a Pythagoras, a Thales, a Socrates? In their time, there were crowds of devotees to their pagods and divinities; minds struck with fear of Cerberus and of the Furies, who underwent initiations, pilgrimages, and mysteries, who ruined themselves in offerings of black sheep. All times have seen those unfortunates of whom Lucretius speaks: _Qui quocumque tamen miseri venere parentant,_ _Et nigras mactant pecudes, et manibu Divis_ _In ferias mittunt; multoque in rebus acerbis_ _Acrius advertunt animus ad religionem._ --LUCRETIUS, iii, 51-54. Who sacrifice black sheep on every tomb To please the manes; and of all the rout When cares and dangers press, grow most devout. --CREECH. Mortifications were in use; the priests of Cybele castrated themselves to preserve continence. How comes it, that among all the martyrs of superstition, antiquity reckons not a single great man--a sage? It is, that fear could never make virtue, and that great men have been enthusiasts in moral good. Wisdom was their predominant passion; they were sages as Alexander was a warrior, as Homer was a poet, and Apelles a painter--by a superior energy and nature; which is all that is meant by the demon of Socrates.