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a collection of puerile tales, unworthy the acknowledged gravity of our manners. It would, however, be a pity to burn Ovid, Horace, Hesiod, our fine tapestry pictures, and our opera. If we are spared the familiar stories of Esop, why lay hands on those sublime fables, which have been respécted by mankind, whom they have instructed? They are mingled with many insipidities, no doubt, but what good is without an alloy? All ages will adopt Pandora's box, at the bottom of which was found man's only consolation— hope; Jupiter's two vessels, which unceasingly poured forth good and evil; the cloud embraced by Ixion, which is the emblem and punishment of an ambitious "man; and the death of Narcissus, which is the punishment of self-love. What is more sublime than the image of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, formed in the head of the master of the gods? What is more true and agreeable than the goddess of beauty, always accompanied by the graces. The goddesses of the arts, all daughters of memory-do they not teach us, as well as Locke, that without memory we cannot possess either judgment or wit? The arrows of Love, his fillet, and his childhood; Flora, caressed by Zephyrus, &c. are they not all sensible personifications of pure nature? These fables have survived the religions which consecrated them. The temples of the gods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome, are no more, but Ovid still exists. Objects of credulity may be destroyed, but not those of pleasure; we shall for ever love these true and lively images. Lucretius did not believe in these fabulous gods, but he celebrated nature under the name of Venus.

Alma Venus cœli subter labentia signa

Quæ mare navigerum, quæ terras frugiferentes
Concelebras, per te quoniam genus omne animantum
Concipitur, visitque exortum lumina solis, &c.

Kind Venus, glory of the blest abodes,
Parent of Rome, and joy of men and gods;
Delight of all, comfort of sea and earth,

To whose kind power all creatures owe their birth, &c.

CREECH.

If antiquity, in its obscurity, was led to acknowledge divinity in its images, how is it to be blamed? The productive soul of the world was adored by the sages: it governed the sea under the name of Neptune, the air under the image of Juno, and the country under 1 that of Pan. It was the divinity of armies under the name of Mars: all these attributes were animated personifications. Jupiter was the only god. The golden chain with which he bound the inferior gods and men, was a striking image of the unity of a sovereign being. The people were deceived, but what are the people to us?

It is continually demanded why the Greek and Roman magistrates permitted the divinities whom they adored in their temples to be ridiculed on their stage? This is a false supposition. The gods were not mocked in their theatres, but the follies attributed to these gods by those who had corrupted the ancient mythology. The consuls and prætors found it good to treat the adventure of the two Sosias wittily, but they would not have suffered the worship of Jupiter and Mercury to be attacked before the people. It is thus that a thousand things which appear contradictory are not so in reality. I have seen, in the theatre of a learned and witty nation, pieces taken from the golden Legend: will it, on that account, be said that this nation permits its objects of religion to be insulted? It need not be feared we shall become pagans for having heard "the opera of Proserpine at Paris, or for having seen the nuptials of Psyche, painted by Raphael, in the pope's palace at Rome. Fable forms the taste, but renders no person idolatrous.

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The beautiful fables of antiquity have also this great advantage over history they are lessons of virtue, while almost all history narrates the success of vice. Jupiter, in the fable, descends upon earth to punish Tantalus and Lycaon; but in history, our Tantaluses and Lycaons are the gods of the earth. Baucis and Philemon had their cabin changed into a temple; our Baucises and Philemons are obliged to sell, for the

collector of the taxes, those kettles which, in Ovid, the gods changed into vases of gold.

I know how much history can instruct us, and how necessary it is to know it; but it requires much ingenuity to be able to draw from it any rules for individual conduct. Those who only know politics through books, will be often reminded of those lines of Corneille, which observe, that examples will seldom suffice for our guidance, as it often happens that one person perishes by the very expedient which has proved the salvation of another.

Les exemples recens suffiraient pour m'instruire
Si par l'exemple seul on devait se conduire ;
Mais souvent l'un se perd où l'autre s'est sauvé,
où l'un périt, un autre est conservé.

Et par

Henry VIII. the tyrant of his parliament, his ministers and his wives, of consciences and of purses, lived and died peaceably. Charles I. perished on the scaffold. Margaret of Anjou in vain waged war in person a dozen times with the English, the subjects of her husband, while William III. drove James II. from England without a battle. In our days we have seen the royal family of Persia murdered, and strangers upon the throne. To look at events only, history seems to accuse providence, and fine moral fables justify it. It is clear that both the useful and agreeable may be discovered in them, however exclaimed against by those who are neither the one nor the other. Let them talk on, and let us read Homer and Ovid, as well as Titus Livius and Rapin Thoyras. Taste induces preferences, and fanaticism exclusions. The arts are united, and those who would separate them know nothing about them. History teaches us what we are— fable, what we ought to be.

Tous les arts sont amis, ainsi qu'ils sont divins:
Qui veut les séparer est loin de les connaître.
L'histoire nous apprend ce que sont les humains,
La fable ce qu'ils doivent être.

FACTION.

On the Meaning of the Word.

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The word faction' comes from the Latin facere; it is employed to signify the state of a soldier at his post, on duty (enfaction) squadrons or troops of combatants in the circus; green, blue, red, and white factions.

The acceptation in which the term is generally used is that of a seditious party in the state. The term party in itself implies nothing that is odious, that of faction is always odious.

A great man, and even a man possessing only mediocrity of talent, may easily have a party at court, in the army, in the city, or in literature.

A man may have a party in consequence of his merit, in consequence of the zeal and number of his friends, without being the head of a party.

Marshal Catinat, although little regarded at court, had a large party in the army without making any effort to obtain it.

A head of a party is always a head of a faction; such were cardinal Retz, Henry duke of Guise, and various others.

A seditious party, while it is yet weak, and has no influence in the government, is only a faction.

Cæsar's faction speedily became a dominant party, which swallowed up the republic.

When the emperor Charles VI. disputed the throne of Spain with Philip V. he had a party in that kingdom, and at length he had no more than a faction in it. Yet we may always be allowed to talk of the "party" of Charles VI.

It is different with respect to private persons. Descartes for a long time had a party in France; it would be incorrect to say he had a faction.

Thus we perceive that words in many cases synonymous cease to be so in others.

FACULTY.

ALL the powers of matter and mind are faculties ; and, what is still worse, faculties of which we know nothing, perfectly occult qualities; to begin with motion, of which no one has ever discovered the origin.

When the president of the faculty of medicine, in the "Malade Imaginaire," asks Thomas Diafoirus,"Quare opium facit dormire?" Why does opium cause sleep? Thomas very pertinently replies, "Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva quæ facit sopiere." Because it possesses a dormitive power producing sleep. The greatest philosophers cannot speak more to the purpose.

The honest chevalier Jaucour acknowledges, under the article SLEEP, that it is impossible to go beyond conjecture with respect to the cause of it. Another Thomas, and in much higher reverence than his bachelor namesake in the comedy, has in fact made no other reply to all the questions which are started throughout his immense volumes.

It is said, under the article FACULTY, in the grand Encyclopædia," that the vital faculty once established in the intelligent principle by which we are animated, it may be easily conceived that the faculty, stimulated by the expressions which the vital sensorium transmits to part of the common sensorium, determines the alternate influx of the nervous fluid into the fibres which move the vital organs in order to produce the alternate contraction of those organs."

This amounts precisely to the answer of the young physician Thomas,-" Quia est in eo virtus alterniva quæ facit alternare." And Thomas Diafoirus has at least the merit of being shortest.

The faculty of moving the foot when we wish to do so, of recalling to mind past events, or of exercising our five senses; in short, any and all of our faculties will admit of no further or better explanation than that of Diafoirus.

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