Livy, deferve the preference, ought to be read with attention in their proper order, and may be of great fervice towards forming the judgment, but not the ftyle; except a few elegant phrafes, the felecting of which is fo much the more difficult, as it fuppofeth a perfect knowlege of the real purity of the language, which we fhould have learnt of the first mentioned Writers.

But what he observes in general to be moft prejudicial to thofe who are defirous of having a thorough knowlege of the Latin tongue, is their not fufficiently valuing, nor reading Cicero, an Author to whom no other Heathen Writer can be compared, either as to language or fentiment; on which very account Quintillian called him the Roman Plato. For he has written with such dignity and spirit on various fubjects, on ethics and the different fects of Philofophers, on public and private business in a multitude of letters, on eloquence, and the manner of speaking, and on all forts of fubjects, that he alone is equivalent to many Authors, and ought to be the favourite companion of those who intend to devote their days to polite literature. Hence it was juftly obferved by Quintilian, that whoever is fond of Cicero, may be faid already to have made a great progrefs. Ille fe profeciffe fciat, cui Cicero valde placebit.

But this is a digreffion which our Author fays would have carried him too far, had he entered minutely into whatever relates to the proper manner of inftructing youth. He hopes, that what he has only hinted, will have its effect; and there is reason to think it will. We believe, therefore, that a great deal of time might be faved by making use of his Grammar, which is in every respect a mafterly performance: we think likewife, that young beginners are obliged to him for endeavouring to render their ftudies more eafy, and for enabling them to gather flowers on a spot hitherto over-run with thorns.

Nugent

Account of Dean Swift's Hiftory of the last Four Years of the Queen, concluded: See Review for laft Month.

W Parliament, the Bean begins his fecond book, and then

TITH the opening, adjourning and re-adjourning the

proposes to relate the feveral steps by which the intercourfe between the Courts of France and Great Britain (Great Britain and France would have founded more nationally in the mouth of a British fubject) was begun and carried on.

But

But first he, very artfully, feps back to the conferences at Gertruydenburg, in order to fhew how impoffible it was to exact fuch conditions from the court of France as were clamoured for in England; and how difingenuously that negociation had been reprefented here, by thofe who were in nothing fo folicit ous as to break it off.

Unfortunately, however, his very firft ftep cannot be implicitly followed: according to him, the first motion for peace came from France, thro' the Abbé de Gualtier: according to the Memoirs imputed to M. de Torcy, the Abbé received his first commiflion from hence; and valued himself upon it to the French Minifters accordingly.

As the ftory is told both by the one and the other, it appears, that our Ministers were more forward than regular in their advances, and confulted their own private intereft much more than they did the honour of the nation.

This very Abbé was the fon of a Tradefman at St. Germains, and was known to be a French Emiffary, tho' he had been fuffered to remain in England, under the protection of Count Gallas, during the war.

Whether, therefore, he was employed firft by M. de Torcy as the Dean affirms, or by Lord Jerfey, commiffioned by the new Miniftry, as is affirmed in the faid imputed Memoirs,he was not an Agent proper for the bufinefs.

A war of fuch eclat fhould have been terminated by a negotiation of equal dignity: M. de Gaultier was only proper Tool for a Cabal. Our ideas of a Cabal and a Negotiation are very different: and if this was fet on foot cabal-fashion, propriety had nothing to do with it.

According to the Dean, Gualtier received his first inftructions from M. de Torcy, in July 1710, which was almost as foon as the change at Court became apparent: according to the Memoirs, Gualtier did not arrive at Nieuport, in his way to France, till January 15, 1711.

The first specific overture from France, dated April 22, 1711, given by the Dean at length, is to be found in the Appendix to the Report of the Secret Committee, of June 9, 1715 and, as it is acknowleged in the fame Report, was immediately tranfferred to Lord Raby, her Majefty's Minifter at the Hague, to be communicated to the States.

Both the Dean and the Memoir-Writer in the name of de Torcy, agree in this, That the faid States were no fooner apprized of this negociation, than, by the intervention of one Pettecum,

Pettecum, a forward, medling Agent of Holftein, as Swift calls him, who had refided long in Holland, they endeavoured to take it out of the Queen's hands.

Having been permitted to take the lead at Gertruydenburg, for reasons that need not be explained, nothing would fatisfy them, unless they were again paid the fame improper compliment: but having by their imperious deportment there, to the imperious Court of France, excited a fuitable refentment, their advances now were rejected; and England, to whom the glory of the war was fo eminently due, was preferred to the glorious office of re-cftablifhing the peace.

It is not more strange, that Mr. Prior fhould be fent to quicken the proceedings of France, than that the Dean fhould miftake the date of his miffion, which he places in June, 1711; whereas, in the Appendix before cited, he would have found a rough draught of the fame inftructions which he has given us in a way of his own, dated July 1: and by other papers which he could hardly be a ftranger to, he might have recollected, that he fet out from his houfe July 11; that he embarked at Dover on the 13th; that he paffed four days at Boulogne, in conferences with an Agent of the French Court, fent thither to meet him; that it was, upon the refult of thofe conferences he was permitted to proceed on to the faid Court, which was not at firft intended; that on the 24th or 28th, he took his leave: and that he fet fail from Calais, on his return, the 29th.

The Dean, however, affirms he was fix weeks abfent; reckoning, no doubt, from the date of his inftructions; which, as we have feen, was thirteen days before his departure: and, according to the Memoir- Writer, M. Mefnager who accompanied him in his return, arrived in London Auguft the 18th, or 7th O. S.

Barely to mention fuch flight inaccuracies, is enough: and more materially to affift the Reader in his recollections, we fhall, in the next place, infert an extract from Lord Bolingbroke's letter to Sir William Wyndham.

The importance of fucceeding in the work of peace was equally great to Europe, to our Country, to our Party, to our Perfons, to the prefent age, and to future Generations: but I need not take pains to prove what no man will deny. The means employed to bring it about, were in no degree proportionable. A few men, fome of whom had never been concerned in bufinefs of this kind before, and most of whom put their hands for a long time to it faintly and timorously, were the inftruments of it. The Minifter who was at their head,

• fhewed

fhewed himself every day incapable of that attention, that method, that comprehenfion of different matters, which the firft poft of fuch a government as ours requires in quiet times. He was the firft fpring of all our motions, by his credit with the Queen, and his concurrence was neceflary to every thing we did, by his rank in the State; and yet this man seemed to be fometimes at play. He neglected the thread of business, which was carried on, for this reafon, with lefs dispatch, and lefs advantage, in the proper channels: and he kept none in his own hands. He negociated, indeed, by fits and starts, by little tools, and indirect ways; and thus his activity became as hurtful as his indolence.

[It is with all this acrimony, and more as he goes on further, this noble Author affects to speak of the man he had made it his glory to ferve under. But then he has frankness enough to add, -I abhorred Oxford to that degree, that I could not bear to join with him in any case.']

If the means employed to bring the peace about, were feeble, and in one refpect contemptible, thofe employed to break the negociation were ftrong and formidable. As foon as the firft fufpicion of a treaty's being on foot crept abroad into the world, the whole Alliance united with a powerful Party in the nation, to obftru&t it. From that hour to the moment the Congress of Utrecht finished, no one measure poffible to be ⚫ taken was omitted, to traverfe every advance that was made in this work, to intimidate, to allure, to embarrass every perfon concerned in it. This was done without any regard either to decency or good policy: and from thence it foon followed, that paffion and humour mingled themselves on each • fide. A great part of what we did for the peace, and of what others did againft it, can be accounted for on no other principle. The Allies were broke themselves, before they began to treat with the common enemy."

On the other hand, Lord Oxford reprefents, to the Queen herself, That during this whole negociation, the Treasurer was obliged by his own hand, and at his own charge, to correfpond in all the Courts concerned in the negociation; and very often he had the good luck to fet right feveral mistakes, and to obtain fome things very little expected.'

6

Thus we have palliative for palliative, recrimination for re crimination, and, every way, proof upon proof, (taking which fide of the question one will) that both the nation and the Queen were alike ill-treated by the feveral Factions in the fervice, and the feveral Factions out of fervice, and even worfe by the Allies

we

we had been fo long afifting, at fo vaft an expence of treasure and blood, than by the Common Enemy.

As every Chief in this diftracted interval had his Partizans in the Council, in the Parliament, and at the Prefs, every thing that was writ or faid, was party-coloured: hence Burnet is all invective against the Peace and the Peace-makers; and Swift is all apology for them and it.-Hence, alfo, neither of them de-. ferves fo much credit at any time as when they are feverest on their adverfaries: and hence it is the Reader's bufinefs to look out only for fuch new matter of evidence as may best serve to clear up fo intangled a cause.

And, upon this head, the public is not fo much indebted to the Dean, as, from his character and connections, they had a right to expect. The preliminary Treaty, figned by the two Secretaries of State and M. Mefnager, is to be found in the Appendix to the Report of the Secret Committee. The feveral inftructions to Lord Raby Earl of Strafford, cited by him, are alfo there; as are, moreover, a variety of State-papers befides, not noticed by him.

This defect of intelligence is of fo much the greater confequence, as the third paragraph of the faid Report, is conceived in the following terms.

"The Committee was in hopes, in fo voluminous an Inqui66 ry, to have been able to trace out all the fteps, and the whole "progrefs of thefe negociations; but, to their furprize, they "find a want of feveral books, letters, and papers, mentioned "and referred to in thofe that have been delivered to them; and

frequent and long interruptions of fome very material cor"refpondencies that were carried on; but being informed, that "these accounts are all which have any way come to the hands "of those who have the honour to ferve his prefent Majefty, the "Committee proceeded to draw up the following Report, war"ranted and founded upon fuch authorities as the perfons con"cerned vouchfafed not to fupprefs."

It is, however, as remarkable on the other fide, that the Reporters are as fcanty in their communication of the correfpondence between the Queen's Minifters and thofe of the States, as they are profufe on the French fide of the question: the offenfive letter from them to her Majefty, of June 5, 1712, printed and published about the streets of London, before it was prefented, and for that reason highly cenfured by the Houfe of Commons, being the only paper in that walk of the negociation, which they have referved in their Appendix.

REV. April 1758.

Cc

For