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sed it? That was the patriarch of Kings. Rather too much good was said of him during his life; but greatly too much ill after his death."" A king of France, Sire, is always the patriarch of men of wit."-" There cannot be a worse lot; they are not worth the d-to govern. I would rather be patriarch of the Greeks, like my sister the Empress of Russia. She gains by it, and will gain more. That is a religion which comprehends so many different nations and countries: As for our poor Lutherans, they are so few, that I would not take the trouble to be their patriarch."

"Louis XIV," said he, "having more judgment than wit, sought rather the one than the other. He wished and found men of genius. You cannot say that Corneille, Bossuet, Racine, and Condé, were men of wit."-"There 'is every thing, Sire, in that country, and it really deserves to be happy. Your majesty, I am told, has said, that if you wished to make a fine dream, you would wish..."—"Yes, it is true, 'to be king of France."" If Francis I. and Henry IV. had come into the world after your majesty, they would have said to be king of Prussia.""Tell me, I pray you, is there nobody now in France that one can quote. I laughed the King asked me why? I told him he made me think of the Russian at Paris' that charming little piece of Voltaire, and we repeated charming things from it, which made us both laugh.

:

**Our conversation began commonly by some vague words upon any subject, but he found means to render it interesting; the common subjects of good and bad weather became at once sublime, and never did you hear from him any thing vulgar, He ennobled every thing; the examples of the Greeks, of the Romans, and of modern generals, soon changed whatever, with another, would have remained trivial, or common. "Did

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you ever see," he would say, 66 a rain like that of yesterday? Good catholics among you will say: This it is to have a man without religion among us; what have we to do with this cursed king, Lutheran at best? For I really believe that I am to blame for it. Your soldiers will say: Peace is made, and yet this devil of a man will still trouble us."-" Certainly, said I, if your majesty is the cause, you are very wicked. That is allowed only to Jupiter, who has always good reasons for every thing, and you would have done like him who, having made some perish by fire, wished to make the rest perish by water; but now at last the fire is at an end, which I never expected to escape."—" I ask your pardon for having tormented you so often; I am sorry for all humanity; but what a fine apprenticeship to war! I have committed faults enough to make all you young people better worth than myself. My God! how I love your grenadiers! how well they have defiled in my presence! If the god Mars wished a guard for his person, I would advise him to take them without hesitation.”

Why cannot I recollect a hundred bright sayings that dropt from the King during this conversation, which lasted till dinner was announced.The King sat down to table, and it was this day, I believe, that some one asked why M. de Laudon was not yet arrived; on which the King said: "That is not usual with him. Formerly he arrived often before me; allow him to have this place by me, for I like better to have him on my side, than opposite."

One day he bid me name to him the officers who were there, and to tell him those that had served under Marshall Traun : for," in short, says he, as I think I have already told you, he is my master; he corrected me at school"."Your Majesty was very ungrateful; you did not pay your les

sons;

"

sons; to make it so, you should at least have let yourself be beat by him, which I do not think ever happened." "I was not beat, because I never fought.""Thus it is," said I," that the greatest generals have often made war; we have only to look at the campaigns of 1674 and 1675, between Montecuculi and Turenne."-"There is no difference between Traun and the former; but how great, my God, between the latter and me." I shewed him the count d'Althan, who had been adjutant-general, and the count de Pel legrini. He asked me twice who and where they were, and said his sight was so short, that I must pardon him."And yet, Sire," said I, "at the war, you had it good, and if I recollect right, very extensive.". "It was not I," replied the King, "it was my glass."— I know not how the conversation changed; but it became so free, that seeing some one arrive to take a share, the King warned him to be on his guard, and that there was a danger in conversing with a man condemned to eternal fire by the Theologians. It appeared to me that he valued himself a little too much on his damnation, and boasted of it too often. Independent of the insincerity of these free-thinking gentlemen, who often fear the devil most heartily, there is bad taste in conversing thus; and it was with people of bad taste whom he kept about him, such as Jordans, d'Argens, Maupertuis, La Beaumelle, La Mettrie, L'Abbe de Prades, and some heavy sceptics of his academy, that he had got the habit of speaking ill of religion, Spinosism, &c.. I made no answer whenever he spoke thus.

The King, from politeness, wore white, that he might not shew us the blue, which we had seen so much in the war; he had the air of being one of our army, and in the train of the Emperor. There was, I believe, in this visit, on both sides, a little per

May 1809.

" I

sonality, some distrust; perhaps an incipient asperity; which happens always, says Philip de Comines, in the interviews of Sovereigns. The King took a great deal of Spanish snuff; and as he was cleaning his dress as well as he could, he said to me : am not neat enough for you, Gentlemen; I am not worthy of carrying your colours." The air with which he said this, made me believe that he would dirty them again with gunpowder, when an opportunity should offer.

The King was sometimes too ceremonious; this tired the Emperor. I know not if it was to shew himself a disciplined Elector; but when the Emperor put his foot in the stirrup, the King took his horse by the bridle; and when the Emperor put his leg over the saddle, the King put his foot into the stirrup, and so in other things. The Emperor had an air of sincerity, in expressing much regard for him, as a young prince for an old king, and a young soldier for the greatest of generals. One confidential day_they talked of policy together. "Every one, said the King, cannot have the same policy; it depends on situation, on circumstance, and on the power of states. What may suit me would not suit your majesty; I have sometimes risked a political lie."" What is that?" said the Emperor, laughing.— "It is," replied the King, also very gaily," to invent a piece of news, which I knew well would be found out to be false at the end of twenty-four hours; but no matter, before any one percejved it, it had produced its effect."

Sometimes there were appearances of cordiality between the two sovereigns. You saw that Frederick II. loved Joseph II., but that the preponderance of the empire, and the vicinity of Silesia to Bohemia, stifled the sentiment of the King for the Emperor.

Account

354

Account of the Constitution of the SWEDISH Diet.

[As this body is about to act a part of some importance on the political theatre, the following account of its constitution, from Catteau's "General View of Sweden, (London 1790,)" may not be uninteresting.]

IT may be here necessary to give an account of the present organisation of the diet. It is composed of the king and the four orders, the nobility, clergy, citizens and peasants. The nobility are divided into three classes, that of counts and barons, that of knights or ancient gentlemen, without titles, and that of esquires, Sven, comprehending all untitled gentlemen who have obtained letters of nobility since the reign of Charles XI. There are reckoned to be in Sweden 1300 noble families, which is a great number in a kingdom containing scarcely three millions of inhabitants. The eldest of each family sits in the diet, under the name of caput familia. The regulations drawn up by Gustavus Adolphus, and known under the title of Regulations for the Hotel of the Nobility, serve as a guide to this order during the sitting of the states. A marshal appointed by the King pre'sides over their deliberations, and in *his absence the oldest count.

The fourteen prelates of the kingdom, that is to say, the archbishop of Upsal and the thirteen bishops, have a right, by their offices, to assist at the diet, and each archdeaconry de putes one or two representatives, elected by a plurality of votes. Every beneficed clergyman whatever has a right of voting at these elections; but those generally chosen are archdeacons or rectors. The expences of these deputies are defrayed by their constituents. The archbishop of Upsal is speaker of the order, and failing him, the bishop of Linkoping.

The citizens are represented by

one.

the deputies of cities, Stockholm has ten; cities of the second class have two or three, and the rest send only small cities are represented by the It sometimes happens, that two same person, for the sake of economy, because the expences of the deputies must be defrayed by their constituents. To be qualified to vote, one must be a citizen, and twenty-four years of age: those who are elected must have also attained to the same age, and have been enrolled citizens three years.

Farmers who cultivate lands belonging to them and their descendants, as long as they fulfil their engagements with the crown, constitute, in the diet, the order of peasants. Sweden is the only country where the representatives of the body of labourers form a separate and distinct class in the national assembly. Many deliberations respecting the public interests may arise, and many objects may occur, which a peasant can neither be acquainted with nor appreciate; but there are many discussed also, which concern him in a peculiar manner, and for the explanation of which, his sentiments may be of the greatest utility. In discussions even which appear to be beyond his knowledge, he may catch some luminous points of view, if the subject be presented to him in a proper light, without any false colouring. Plain good sense and natural logic judge often as soundly, as the mind cultivated by application and study. Each bailliwick appoints a deputy, and defrays his expences. The order of the peasants, and that of the citizens, have a speaker named by the King, who also appoints a secretary to the peasants: his office is a civil employment, and he has always a great deal of influence. The army may be represented in the states when summoned to attend by letters of convocation; the colonels of the different regiments,

and

and a certain number of commisioned officers, are its deputies. There are in Sweden several proprietors of land, mines, and forges, who belong to none of the four orders of the kingdom:

as this class of citizens did not exist when the states were organised, they are not at present represented.

The opening and closing of the diet exhibits a grand and beautiful spectacle. The king, in all the insignia of royal majesty, goes from the castle to the cathedral, followed by the states in procession, and divine service is performed as usual, except that the sermon is always preached by a bishop. From the cathedral his majesty repairs to a hall in the castle, destined for receiving the representatives of the nation; the assembly is then formed, and the monarch, seated on his throne, delivers a discourse, to which the marshal and the speakers return an answer. If there are any petitions to be laid before the states, they are read by the chancellor of the court. Every thing engages the attention of the spectator, in this august scene but nothing strikes him so much as the part acted by the peasants. How delightful to see the labourer, in a simple and rustic dress, take his seat close to other citizens; approach the throne with confidence, and speak to his sovereign without fear, and with out embarrassment!

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When the states are assembled, they establish, by means of electors, chosen by a plurality of voices, different committees, charged with the preliminary discussion of such objects as are to be laid before them. These committees transmit to their constituents the result of their enquiries, which serve as a guide to the four or ders in their decrees.

The nobility sit in their own hotel; the clergy in the vestry of the cathe dral; the citizens in a hall of the town-house; and the peasants in another hall of the same building.

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Memoirs of the Progress of MANU

FACTURES, CHEMISTRY, SCIENCE, and the FINE ARTS.

MR Parkinson has discovered in

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several species of marble, which he treated with muriatic or nitric acid, membraneous substances, which hung from the marble in light, flocculent, elastic membranes. These marbles were of a species formed by tubipores, madrepores, and corallites. In Kilkenny marble, the structure of the madrepores, and other testaceous substances which enter into its composition, is beautifully conspicuous, from the ground of the marble in which they are imbedded being of a deep black. This circumstance, in Mr Parkinson's opinion, proves that two distinct lapidifying processes must have occurred in the formation of this marble; and that its coraline or testaceous part had acquired a strong concretion previous to its being imbedded in the including mass of calcareous matter. A specimen of this marble, which Mr Parkinson examined, in conformity with this opinion, exhibited no membranes when treated with diluted muriatic acid; but a black matter was deposited during the solution of the marble, which being dried and projected on melted nitre, immediately deflagrated; which circumstance shews the curious fact, that charcoal in substance entered into the composition of this marble. Mr Parkinson sup poses, that it must have been animal charcoal, from shells and corallines being visible in the marble; but this does not prove the absence of vegetable coal; nor is it, indeed, easy to determine the nature of the coaly substance, since we know that vegetable coal, lying in contact with animal substances, acquires all the characters of animal coal sufficiently to be mistaken for it. The composition of cal careous cements may derive improve ment from these discoveries of the

real state, in which the component parts of marbles and limestones exist in them.

Dr William Richardson has called the attention of the public to the valuable qualities of the fiorin grass, which have long been known to the common farmers of Ireland, but have hitherto escaped the notice of scientific agriculturists. This grass is indigenous in Ireland, and is found in the greatest abundance, naturally, in the morasses and mountains, because on rich soil, the other grasses contend with it to advantage, but are not hardy enough to endure the wet and cold, in which the fiorin grass thrives. It sends out long white strings, after the manner of the strawberry; these bud at the points, and produce green shoots, which soon form a sod completely impenetrable to weeds and every other species of grass. Some experiments made by Dr Richardson, prove that cold sour bottoms may at a small expence be converted into the most valuable pasture or meadow, by the fiorin grass. On a thin dry soil also, it thrives as well as on a wet one : it grows spontaneously very far up the bleakest and wettest mountains of Ireland, and this is perhaps the most important fact relating to it. This property must certainly render it peculiarly applicable to the improvement of vast tracts of thin, elevated soil, in the west of England, which are at present little more productive than the deserts of Africa. The extensive forest of Dartmoor is mostly of this description, and great part of Exmoor is. nearly in the same state. There are also many other tracts of land in England, where it would be found beneficial; but in Scotland, of which so large a portion consists of land of the above nature, the introduction of the fiorin grass seems to promise more proportional advantages, than in any other division of the United Kingdom. It appears rather extraordinary that the fiorin grass should not be known

in England; at least no mention is made of it by any English agricultaral writer; but Dr Richardson thinks it highly probable, that it is the same grass which has been so much admired in the celebrated Orcheston meadow, near Salisbury, which was first noticed by Ray, who says its shoots were twenty-four feet long, and which so many botanists have visited without making any attempt to cultivate it.

Mr W. Weldon has analized the water of a mineral spring, two miles to the south of Dudley, in Worcestershire, which has been famous from time immemorial, in the surrounding country, for its efficacy in various scrofulous and cutaneous diseases. In scrofula, in particular, it has been considered an almost infallible remedy.The spring flows into a well, about thirty-six feet in depth, and 7 in diameter. The bottom is a ferruginous, argillaceous sandstone, through which is perforated a hole, whence the water issues and rises to about four feet from the surface. The sides of the well near the top, are covered with a yellowish ochrey substance. When the water is fresh taken up, it is perfectly transparent and colourless. It is little refractive of light, nor can it be said to sparkle; but after standing for a short time, numerous small bubbles of air are seen adhering to the bottom and sides of the glass. After a time, it becomes rather turbid, and at length a pale ochreous precipitate falls down, leaving the water transparent. In large quantity, the water smells of sulphuretted hidrogen; but if half a pint, or less, be examined, the odour is scarcely perceptible. The taste very much resembles sea-water. From a wine-gallon, or 231 cubic inches, were obtained : Of muriate of soda

--lime

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--magnesia and alumina

.-iron

483.. 311.

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