transformed into a Temple of Reason, are so many stumblingblocks in the way of Candide's Optimism; and any other man. would have suspected that he was among a number of people just escaped from the mad-houses. Indeed, Molto-Curante, whom he accidentally meets at the Temple of Reason, is of that opinion. From him, Candide learns that, of all the friends which he acquired at Venice, when he went there forty years ago in search of the fair Cunegonde, the Senator Poco-Curante alone survives. He inquires after his library, and is informed of the following particulars respecting it :-The Council of ten, learning that the worthy Senator had among his collection the Squittinio della Liberta Veneta*, confiscated all his books which had any relation to History; and hearing that Montesquieu had made him a present of his Esprit des Lois, they seized all those which treated of Politics :-that the French, when they came to deliver Venice from the tyranny of the House of Austria, conceiving that all the books on the Law of Nations and those on Theology militated against the code of the rights of man, and the religion of the republic, cleared his shelves of them, and replaced them with twelve thousand volumes on the subject of the Revolution:-that Poco-Curante had scarcely arranged this choice collection, when the Hussars of the Emperor served it as the Caliph Omar did the Alexandrian Library and that his assortment of Dramatic Authors, the noble owner thought it prudent to consign to the flames himself, lest he should be suspected of being an enemy to equality, because many of the characters which figured in them were Italian Marquisses and German Barons. Finally, Candide learnt that a few Epic Poems, and a few Romances and Travels, of no estimation, alone remained of his friend's former superb collection.

Molts Curante now makes the following lamentation over the state of the press:

In Monarchies, you can publish nothing which the Censors, or Ukases, or warrants from the Chancery, do not sanction. In Republics, you may print any thing, provided it does not contribute to the public welfare. You may outrage the Almighty, you may brave decency, but beware of touching on the policy of the moment. In the same column of a journal, you will see announced the decrees of the sovereign and the dictionary of atheists. A simple act of the police extinguishes, at their birth, publications such as the Dei Delitti e delle Fene, and the Esprit des Lois.'

Candide attends the Directorial Levee. General Moulins is the Monarch of the hour, and the visitor requests the privilege of publishing the sequel of his adventures. Moulins laughs, and

An historical satire written by a Spanish ambassador.

APP. REV. VOL. XLI.

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assures him that it is allowed in France to publish every thing, if it tends not to a conspiracy against the government; and that Despots only grant privileges. Delighted with this intelligence, Candide hastens with his manuscript to Didot (the famous printer), and desires him to print it with all due diligence: but the typographer, having perused it, politely begs leave to deeline the undertaking, as being too hazardous. It is in vain that Candide reads to him articles from the three constitutions which the French people successively swore to observe, decreeing the liberty of the press. Didot, listering impatiently to these mock enactments, tells Candide that the consequence of publication would be, that both printer and author would either be shut up in the Temple, or made to take a trip to Guiana. Candide will not be dissuaded; while Didot, wearied by his intreaties, consents to allow him his press, provided that three principal members of the government, after having perused the work, will guarantee the printer, and provided that the existing regime lasts till the work is published. The hero accedes to the proposal, and submits his production to a constitutional Bishop, a General, and a Civil Magistrate : the first is offended with the narrative of the adventures of Cunegonde; the General disapproves of it because it compliments the Pope, and acknowleges a God; while the Magistrate refuses to sanction it, because it reprobates the authors of the revolutionary horrors. Candide is now informed of a speedy change in the government, and advised to delay his publication till that event takes place; which counsel he adopts.

The 18 Brumaire happens; and now, thought Candide, the time is arrived in which my wishes will be crowned. He ad dresses a memorial to the modern Timoleon, which begins hu morously enough: it runs thus: "Candide, born in Westphalia, in the chateau of the Baron de Tonderten Tronck, voluntarily sojourning in France,-where, thanks to liberty, there is neither Baron nor chateau,-places under the safeguard of the repairer of all wrongs and the avenger of all injuries, the manuscript of his travels; which all desire to read, but which nobody is willing to print."-The memorial, in which the claim to a free press is preferred, thus concludes; "All you who are condemned by your birth, or who have condemned yourselves by your ambition, to reign over others, recollect that there exists a superior power, (meaning the art of printing,) born three centuries and a half ago, which watches over you if you would render legitimate your usurpations, capitulate with it; if you are pure, unite your two sovereignties together."

The august person, here addressed, has shewn by the complaints which he has made, and by the precautions which he

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has adopted, that he is of the same opinion with Candide; and that he is convinced that a free press is a rival gerous to absolute despotism.

power, danOne week after the modern Timoleon had wrested the reins of government from the hands of the Pentarchs, a book intitled, the Peace of Europe, and its Basis, is announced; the author of which, applying the principles of morals to his subject, investigating the grounds which can alone render the peace permanent, and guided by the precedent to be furnished by the treaty of Westphalia, demonstrates that all must be reduced to the status quo ante bellum; that this is the only stable basis; and that any peace, differently bottomed, will be a mere truce. Just as the work was ready for sale, the officers of the police made their way by force into the bookseller's warehouse, seized the whole edition, and deposited it in the Temple; very humanely permitting the author and printer to remain at large. The surprize and mortification which this event caused in the bosom of Candide are more easily imagined than described; and he regrets more than ever the death of Dr. Pangloss, whose talents alone were capable of reconciling this phænomenon with the tenet of Optimism.

The news of the truce with Austria now reaches Paris; and Candide and the simple Parisians look forwards to the speedy pacification of Europe: but Molto-Curante will not suffer the Optimist to indulge this illusion.

"What," says Candide, " is the ground of your distrust ?”—“We ought," replies his friend, " to have made use of the intervention of England, in order to form a permanent peace with Austria; no general peace deserves that name, in which the parties contracting do not find their several interests consulted. The present is a capitulation on the breach, and it will cease to be observed the moment the siege is raised; there is no peace till all lost possessions are restored to each belligerent; the trophies of victory must be sacrificed; and all recollection of defeat and triumph must be obliterated, before lasting tranquillity can be effected."-" The kind of peace of which you talk (said Candide) would have been exactly to the taste of my preceptor Dr. Pangloss; it bears a singular resemblance to the peace of Westphalia."" You cite (replied Molto-Curante) the most wonderful monument of modern diplomacy. I consider the treaty of Westphalia as the Egyptian pyramid of Hermes, in which are inclosed all the elements of human knowlege, as well as those of human happiness: deceivers croud around it, thrones crumble before it, and notions become obsolete, but, in the midst of the general chaos, principles remain, for they are incorporated with a colossal mass which defies eternity. I repeat that there is no peace except justice be the principle of it; unless the parties have a common interest in it; and unless equal forces, real or apparent, guarantee it. What an odd cast in the great family of human beings do these Parisians form! for

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eight years, they have been told that peace was a crime, and, to avoid its guilt, they have bravely cut throats, and had their own cut in their turn. To day, peace is the first of all blessings: but they must conquer it with the sword, and they cheerfully shed their blood to secure it."

A second friend of Candide observes, among other reflections:

It is possible that this shadow of a continental peace may lead to a maritime truce; and that the fear of a coalition which would shut the ports of Europe against Great Britain, with the apprehension of seeing a new Agathocles descend on its territories, may bend the pride of this second Carthage, and induce her to request from another Rome a peace of circumstances. This, however, is no true peace: to surrender rights is not to stipulate for interests; and the present tranquillity is only the sleep of Eteocles and Polynices on the field of battle, from which they awake to butcher each other. Nations and kings have recollections:-the latter will remember that ten years ago they reigned, and they feel that they are now the crowned slaves of a republic: the people, who have suffered from these political derangements, will recollect that, prior to the French revolution, they paid only half the taxes now levied on them, that they were ten times more free, and that they were strangers to those three dreadful scourges, requisitions, military conscriptions, and leveés en masse. These recollections of departed felicity will madden the imagination; a war of extermination will arise between the partisans of the new order, and those of the one which has been subverted; and a general insurrection will form itself against the system which converts the world into a vast exchequer.'.

The orator then predicts the discomfiture of the subverters of social order, and the restoration of things to their antient state when, he says, governments will identify their interests with the governed, and a golden age of the world will take place.

Another of Candie's acquaintances makes these remarks:

The people have one infallible mode of ascertaining whether they are free, viz. by examining whether politics are kept in leading strings by the government: whether men of letters are allowed, without any risk, to animadvert on the errors and crimes of administration? Where this is permitted, the most absolute monarchy is a republic.--Or do the representatives of the people and the magistrates trace the circle of Popilius around human thoughts? We may then confidently affirm that such a republic is the most absolute of monarchies.-In what consists the mighty offence of decently stating objections to an order of things which public opinion condemns? Do free governments pretend, at the very instant of their birth, to have attained absolute perfection? Is infallibility as well the apanage of republican thrones as it is that of the Tiara? Is there in politics a vicegerent of God, answering to him whom priests have created in religion?'

Candide and several of his friends are next present at Luneville, at the opening of the congress which was designed to effect the

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pacification of Europe. We have here an account of anothercongress formed at the same time in that town, whose meeting and proceedings remained very generally secret, till the appearance of the present volume. It was a congress of the dethroned potentates, which assembled in a house without doors or windows, and held its sittings at night; the Grand Master of the Order of Malta presided in it; the Duke of Modena and the Grand Duke of Tuscany officiated as secretaries; and all the despoiled chiefs, from the illustrious Head of the Bourbons down to a Syndic of Geneva, attended it.-The claims of the dethroned rulers having been settled, it was discussed how they were to be preferred to the powers having possession: the latter, it was concluded, would not even admit the right of the former to assemble and deliberate, much less would they communicate with them. In these circumstances, it was resolved by the potentates who had lost every thing, to communicate with those who were in power by the intervention of public opinion, which was equally the sovereign of the Princes in and of the Princes out of possession. It was then suggested that the resolves of the Assembly of the house having no doors, (like the famous decree of the year II, which required the descendants of the Turennes and Bayards to cut the throat of every Englishman and Hanoverian, in cold blood, on the field of battle,) should be published in all languages. This proposal gives rise to an altercation concerning the liberty of the press, between Cardinal Maury and a Syndic of Geneva. His Magnificence observes that, as a cause, the liberty of the press protects mankind, and that it is only as an effect that it is destructive. "It is evident, (continued he,) that, feeble and disarmed as we are, we cannot contend on equal ground with the enemies who have despoiled us, except by the means of public opinion; this will in the end refute the sophistries of our oppressors, will set the force which attacks on a level with that which defends, and will give a legal existence to our manifestoe."-The President then addressed the Assembly thus:

"I read little, and write less: but I am altogether of the opinion of his Magnificence, in opposition to that of his Eminence: it has not been proved that the liberty of the press is useful to power, but it has been shewn that it is the necessary resource of the weak. Let us, then, commit to the press all that will advance and hasten the triumph of our cause let us rouse Europe, as well by our logic as by our eloquence; and if, at the present moment, we cannot obtain justice against the bayonet, let us hold up in broad day-light the crines of our oppressors, that they may not be eternal."

Candide here observes to Molto-Curante, that the monarchs solicit the liberty of free discussion solely to recover their crowns and their power: but, said he, as soon as they re-enter

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