vidious appellation of beasts, will find this contemptuous criticism on Swift's Gulliver's Travels in the very extreme of errour, injustice, and futility. I shall, in vindication of truth and of a great genius, examine and refute this passage of Mr. Harris; not with the little rhetorical art and involution of ideas, of which my author in this instance condescends to be so studious, but plainly and perfpicuously, and correfpondently with the order in which his fophiftry proceeds. I flatter myself I have demonstrated that the rational and just Misanthropy, the Misanthropy qualified and governed by the principles and habits, the character and effects of which I have been endeavouring to defcribe, is so far from fapping the very foundations of morality and religion, that it vigorously and diffufively promotes true morality and true religion. A right view and a right apprehenfion of important objects can never be prejudicial to the cause of genuine virtue and piety; they may, indeed, be hoftile and destructive to the servile gloom of fuperftition, and to the wild and dangerous chimeras of enthusiafm. Our Saviour was a model of practical morality and religion, which I am sure the excellent Mr. Harris revered; and yet, though his conduct to finners was fraught with the most compaffionate humanity, with the largest philanthropy, he often displays to us his intimate and unequivocal knowledge of the human heart, and of the prevailing human character. He stigmatizes the avarice, the hypocrify, the malice, and the sensuality of his countrymen and of mankind, in terms as general and poignant as the feverest cenfure of a Rochefoucault or a Swift. How Swift's account of thehuynhnms and yahoos should be more dangerous to morals than the most flagitious and obscene productions; how the great and almost unparalleled efforts of a virtuous and fevere author, to fubdue the violence of the fenfual paffions, by painting their gross concomitants and effects, in all their disgusting deformity (perhaps a more powerful and efficacious moral catholicon than the more pleasing and elegant prescriptions and lenitives of Addison)-how works, in which fancy is most laudably employed to gain these beneficial and falutary ends, by these direct and cogent means, should have a stronger tendency to corrupt the heart and manners, than those baneful compositions which are elaborately and artfully calculated to stimulate the senses, to spread vice and profligacy through a nation, to make virtue contemptible and ridiculous, and criminal pleasure the chief, the most attractive, and alluring good; how these jarring and contradictory ideas can be reconciled, is a problem which I leave as totally unintelligible, as abhorrent from all investigation and folution. He is so just to the merit of Swift, as to allow him to have been a great wit; but he is so boldly and furprizingly unjust to the established and facred fame of this illustrious man, as to pronounce him a wretched philosopher. His writings show that he was a confummate master of human nature. No moral author ever contributed more to deter us from the practice of vice, by painting it in all its dreadful deformity. His political knowledge was as liberal and profound as his ethical system. That the effects of that knowledge were of as much service to mankind, as the plans and the conduct of many celebrated ftatef men and legiflators, Ireland and the world can witness. Therefore, to pronounce of Swift, that he was a wretched philosopher, is too presumptuous and absurd an assertion to demand a particular confutation. Whether Dr. Swift or Mr. Harris iş the more wretched philofopher, let facts, let experience determine. Mr. Harris says, that nothing so fatally contributes to fap the foundations of morality and religion as Misanthropy. This proposition is by no means proved by the lives and characters of the most famous Misanthropes. Diogenes himself, with all the austerity and severity of his cynicism, had many private and public virtues; and he maintained through life an independent and noble mind. The indignation of Timon of Athens Athens was excited against vice, because be rigidly practised virtue. Fontenelle, Rochefoucault, La Bruyere, and Helvetius, merited and enjoyed the esteem and the love of their country, and of mankind. He says that Swift meant to render the nature of man odious. The writer who exercised his great abilities to display virtue in all its beauty, and to make vice as hideous as possible, certainly wished to render the nature of man respectable and amiable. To hold forth to us whatever is extremely bad and atrocious in the human character was the office of a good man and a good citizen. He made that perfect virtue, which we ought strenuously to imitate, reside in the generous horses; and he gave our abandoned and shocking properties a humiliating manfion in in t the odious Yahoo, with an application of the most just and wholefome fatire: because the most profigate of the human species are so stubid and infolent, as to think that the mere human form gives them an effential and decided fuperiority over the inferiour beings; that it entitles them to be their felfish and unmerciful tyrants. Of feveral species of the animal creation we may pronounce that they are altogether amiable; an encomium which I fear can with justice be bestowed but on a very few men. No beaft is half so detestable as a licentious, unfeeling, and inhuman villain. I will not admit that Swift gives human characters to his beafts, and beastly characters to his men. The predominant and prevailing qualities and habits of men are, I apprehend, the characteristicks of the human species; and whether those qualities and habits are more accurately exemplified in the Huynhnms or in the Yahoos, I shall leave common fenfe and common observation to determine. If, indeed, the majority of men; if the half, if a third part of the human fpecies are really amiable, Swift hath been guilty of the most flagrant and provoking injuftice to mankind. I hope it is now evident that these quibbling periods about men and beasts, and beasts and men, amount to nothing. 1 Some of the just and indignant satire of Gulliver's Travels, Mr. Harris inequitably and squeamishly calls unnatural filth. I must own, I think the pictures to which he alludes are extremely natural, and have a great moral use. I am myself warmly attached to delicate imagination and taste; but if homely and coarse representations tend to moderate our inordinate selflove; to humble that monstrous and ridiculous arrogance which was not made for man; I shall always be ready not only to bear but to applaud them. Truth and virtue are of infinitely more consequence than false politeness and refinement. Our Creator hath wifely contrafted our fublime capacities and endowments with very oppofite, with mean and miferable qualities and appendages. Man is, in his animal nature, one of the filthiest of beings. And while he is far more odious by his pride and infolence, it is the duty of a great moral writer to exert all the force of genius to make him in his own eyes a mortifying spectacle. Mr. Harris says, that Addison is superiour to Swift in diction and in wit. Here is another glaring injuftice to the memory of Swift: Addison's style is more metaphorical, and in that respect more elegant and splendid than the style of Swift. But more perspicuous and pure language than that of Swift, perhaps, has not yet been written by an English author. If I have a competent and distinct idea of wit, Addison was in that talent very far inferior to Swift. Addison, indeed, had not his superior in delicate and picturesque humour. By humour, I mean that easy and facetious spirit which seises and paints in lively colours the peculiar and entertaining incidents of a common but ludicrous transaction; or which accurately difcriminates, forcibly and elegantly describes, and adorns with some embellishments of fancy, fingular and interefting characters. But the wit pofsesses talents of still more acuteness and strength. His genius acts with more rapidity and energy. His province is the exertion and display of the more powerful and inventive imagination. gination. To ridicule folly, or to Rigmatize vice, he introduces characters and machinery of his own creation; characters, however, that are eafily applied to those which they are intended to expose; and machinery which plays with a quick and decisive effect on the human mind. And often, to our most agreeable furprize and lively pleasure, he unexpectedly and fuddenly gives a laconic but high encomium; or he darts a concise and poignant fatire by a new use and affociation of figns and things; by raifing or sinking a word from its established rank, and confequently by giving it a new import; and by approximating and uniting ideas which before had always been kept remote from each other. If this distinction betwixt humour and wit is juft, it will appear that Addifon, in originality and force of genius, was inferior to Swift. FOR THE LONDON MAGAZINE. AN ACCOUNT OF MADEMOISELLE THERESA PARADIS, OF VIENNA, THE CELEBRATED BLIND PERFORMER ON THE PIANO FORTE. T *HIS young person, equally distinguished by her talents and misfortunes, is the daughter of M. Paradis, confeiller aulique in the Imperial service. At the age of two years and eight months she was suddenly blinded during the night, as it should feem, by excessive fear: for there being a dreadful outcry in her father's house of Fire! Thieves! and Murder! he quitted the child and her mother with whom he was in bed, in the utmost trepidation, calling out for his sword and fire-arms, which so terrified the infant, as instantly and totally to deprive her of fight. At seven years old she began to listen with great attention to the music which she heard in the church, which fuggefted to her parents to have her taught to play on the piano-forte, and foon after to fing. In three or four years time she was able to accompany herself on the organ in the Stabat mater of Pergolefi, of which she sung a part at St. Augustin's church, in the prefence of the late Empress Queen, who was fo touched with her performance and misfortune, that she settled a pention on her for life. After learning music of several mafters at Vienna, she was placed under the care of Kozeluch, an eminent mufcian, who has compofed many admirable lessons and concertos on purpose for her ufe, which she plays with the utmost neatness and expreffion. At the age of eighteen she was placed 4 under the care of the celebrated empyric, Dr. Mesmer, who undertook to cure every species of disease by animal magnetism. He called her diforder a perfect gutta serena, and pretended, after she had been placed in his house as a boarder for feveral months, that she was perfectly cured; yet refusing to let her parents take her away or visit her, till, by the advice of Dr. Ingenhouze, the Barons Stoërck and Wenzel, and Profeffor Barth, the celebrated anatomist, and the afsistance of the magistrates, she was withdrawn from his hands by force; when it was found that the could fee no more than when she was first admitted as Mefmer's patient. However, he had the diabolical malignity to affert that she could fee very well, and only pretended blindness, to preferve the pension granted to her by the Empress Queen, in consequence of her loss of fight; and fince the death of her Imperial patroness, this cruel affertion has been made an excuse for withdrawing the penfion. 1 Last year Mad. Paradis quitted Vienna, in order to travel, accompanied by her mother, who treats her with extreme tenderness, and is a very amiable and interesting character. After visiting the principal courts and cities of Germany, where her talents and misfortunes procured her great attention and patronage, she arrived at Paris early last summer, and remained there five or fix months, and likewife received received every possible mark of approbation and regard in that capital, both for her musical abilities and innocent and amiable difpofition. When she arrived in England, about a month or fix weeks ago, the brought letters from persons of the first rank to her Majefty, the Imperial minister, and other powerful patrons, as well as to the principal musical profeffors in London. Meffrs. Cramer, Abel, Salomon, and other eminent German musicians, have interested themselves very much in her welfare; not only as their countrywoman bereaved of fight, but as an admirable performer. She has been at Windfor, to present her letters to the Queen, and has had the honour of playing there to their Majesties, who were extremely fatisfied with her performance, and treated her with that condefcenfion and kindness which all who are so happy as to be admitted to the prefence of our gracious fovereigns, in moments of domestic privacy, experience, even when less entitled to it by merit and misfore tunes than Mad. Paradis. She has fince performed to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, at a grand concert at Carlton-house, to the entire fatisfaction and wonder of all who heard her. Since her arrival in England she has received a cantata, written for her in the German language, by the celebrated profeffor of mathematics, M. Pfeffel, of Colmar, who is himself blind. This cantata has been admi | rably fet to music for her own voice and accompanyment on the piano forte, and the executes it in a truely pathetic and able manner. Her voice is not fo powerful as her hand; but it is touching in itself, and her knowledge of mufic and circumstances render it doubly interesting. Madame Paradis having entreated Dr. Burney, who has had letters from Germany in behalf of her ingenious daughter, and is very zealous in her service, to tranflate this cantata; we have procured the following copy of his version: CANTATA Written in German for Mademoiselle Paradis, by ber blind friend M. Pfeffel, of Colmar, and Jet to music by ber music-master, M. Leopold Kozeluch, of Vienna, 11th November, 1784. Imitated by Dr. BURNEY. THE new born infect sporting in the fun, Was hidden from me by malignant fate. Vain are affliction's fobs, or piercing cries, Nor balm extract from briny tears and grief! Upon a festival designed When Haydn's fire and fancy glow. " I am the genius of that gentle art And to my faithful votaries impart "On earth, each bard fublime my power displays; Divine Cecilia was my own; In heav'n each faint and feraph breathes my lays And cheer thy endless night." shalt fire, "And Rapture teach on every heart to seize." Elastic force my nerves new brac'd, And from my voice new accents flow; My foul new pleasures learn'd to tafte, And found's sweet power alleviates woe. Theresa! great in goodness as in power, Whose fav'rite use of boundless sway, Was benefits on all to shower, And wipe the tear of wretchedness away. When firit my hand and voice essay'd, Sweet Pergolefi's pious strains, Her pitying goodness she displayed, To cherish and reward my pains. But now, alas! this friend to woe, This benefactress is no more! Ani 4 WITH PROPOSALS FOR PRINTING A PUFFING VOCABULARY, WITH A COMPLETE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ALL THE TECHNICAL TERMS BELONG ING TO THE ART. MR. EDITOR, so univerfal a Arine for the stateme finger, charity fermon preacher, actor, painter, dancer, poet, and musician, not forgetting the managers of all our public entertainments, who, it must be confefsed, are tolerable adepts in it, I am humbly of opinion that a code of puffs, or a vade mecum for felf adulators, would be of national utility! The whole arcana might be alphabetically arranged, and adapted to the meanest capacities (exempli gratia). Suppose a new play was ushered forth to the world as last night, the sub-manager, or play-house paragraphist, might turn to the letter P, and find the following rhetorical flourish (viz.) "The new comedy (called) The Lady in the Lobster, was yesterday performed, for the first time, to a most brilliant, crowded, squeezed, and overflowing audience: it was received with shouts of applause, and reiterated burfts of pleasure ecchoed from every part of the houfe: the fits and roars of laughter were incessant, loud, and tumultuous! Several ladies of the first rank were obliged to leave the house, and three persons absolutely died with laughter! Ladies and gentlemen are respectfully acquainted that as the demand for boxes is fo urgent, that the comedy will be repeated every night for three months, till further notice!" If the piece should die away in three or four nights, as is often the cafe, how easy is it to make the following apology:-" On account of the fudden indifpofition of Miss Younge, or Miss any-body else, the comedy of the Lady new tragedy called or 6 The Hounslow Newgate Cut-throat, Heath, was received with fuch unprecedented applause, such rivers of tears, such groans, sighs, fits, faintings, finkings, rifings, and fallings, that the audience feemed dumb with grief, till the thunders of applaufe waked them from their stupor. On account of the enormous demand for places, the public are respectfully acquainted that it will be done every night, till Mrs. Siddons is unable to play any longer!-And by reason of the vaft crowds that will nightly flock to this tragedy, the managers have engaged a number of furgeons to be in readiness, to give the earliest affistance to those unhappy persons, whose legs and arms must necessarily be broken in crowding into the house." Befides the above paragraph from authority, several little skirmishing puffs may be interspersed in various parts of the newspapers, for instance" The new tragedy rather rises than falls in the public eftimation, and from motives of humanity, we would advise the fair fex to stay away from its fascinating and pervading powers; as feveral officers of the guards, and ladies of distinction, fell into hysterics, long before The Siddons's dying speech! Then, the effect on the audience was truely aweful; |