he butchered with his own hand, and others he caused to be barbaroufly murdered, under different pretences. His ambition increased with his age, and he seemed to become more favage from fuccefs. His great view was to render himself abfolute master of all Gaul, and he fcrupled not to facrifice every confideration to this predominant defire. While a Pagan, he had been admired and beloved for the foftnefs of his manners, and the humanity of his difpofition: fince he became a Chriftian, he was dreaded and detefted as a monster of cruelty. He compounded with the pricfts for thefe crimes and barbarities, by building churches and founding monafteries. He affembled a council of his bishops at Orleans, the first held in Gaul under the dominion of the Franks, in order to establish fome points of ecclefiaftical difcipline, and reform the morals of his people. Two and thirty prelates affifted on this occafion, and among thefe feveral perfons who were afterwards fainted. They obtained every thing they desired of Clovis, for the advantage of their feveral churches; and, in return for thefe favours, abfolved him of all the crimes he had committed. This is an eafy way of quieting the confciences of kings, and an encouragement for them to indulge their moft brutal passions. [An. 511. In the year 511, immediately after this council, Clovis died at Paris, about the age of fortyfive, and was buried in the church of St. Peter and St. Paul, now called St. Genevieve, which he himself had built. In this age of barbarism almoft all the princes in Europe were little better than favage beasts of prey, let loose upon mankind. The king was a lawless ruffian, and his subjects were the most abject and miferable flaves. Clovis poffeffed a good natural capacity; was politic, for the times, brave, and enterprifing; and in a more enlightened age, had his talents been cultivated, and his nature humanized, he might have been ranked among the number of illuftrious princes: but his mind being overshadowed by the darkest ignorance, and his faculty of reafon little exercifed, he acquired but few ideas, and pursued an uninformed luft of power and dominion, with all the violence of favage ferocity. [To be continued.] A Confolatory ADDRESS to a Sick Perfon. WOW fad a fpectacle does the condition in which you appear offer to my fight! What emotions do 1 feel! How much do your fufferings affect me! But why this obftinate filence? Wherefore do you carry your conftancy fo far as to endeavour to fupprefs your groans? Full of a vain prepoffeffion, you think that a true philofopher fhould fuffer without murmuring. We fufficiently matter our nature, when we keep our murmuring within bounds. I laugh at the pride of a Stoick, who, though in pain and anguish, ftrives to preferve his ferenity of countenance; and who, amidst all his fighs and groans, has the prefumption to tell us, that pain is not an an evil. I am but too fenfible, that the invifible fprings of the machine, though the foul be of divine origin, unite it to the body. When the foul feels any anxiety or inquietude, the body confumes away, and partakes of its pain: if the body be attacked with diseases, the foul is no longer capable of pleasure; but languishes, and bears its fhare of mifery. Nothing can be more erroneous than the opinion of the vulgar concerning evil. Man fuffers no real evil but bodily pain: exile, obfcure birth, contempt, and oppreffion, are all imaginary evils. All the philofophers of antiquity have, in vain, used their utmost endeavours to explain the nature of death. One has exerted himself to prove, that fouls are for ever paffing from one body to another: a second, in order to fecure men from the dread of divine vengeance, af fures us, that there is no life after this, and that the foul perishes with the body. The greateft of these philofophers maintains, that the form of beings changes alone; and that matter, for ever infinite, active, and compleat, conftantly circulates in the univerfe. Plato, and other antient philofophers, are of opinion, that a juft fentence prepares great enjoyments for us in the Elyfian Fields, or great fufferings in Tartarus. This opinion the antients might embrace through a motive of felf-love, as it freed them from the dread of annihilation; but Chriftians, who have obtained the fulleft affurance of a future ftate, should look forward to it in all their afflictions, as the hopes of a happy immortality are more than fufficient to counterballance all temporary fufferings. The HISTORY of PHILOCLES and PANTHEA. To the Authors of the BRITISH MAGAZINE. GENTLEMEN, T HE celebrated duke de la Rochfoucault has discovered, in his moral Reflections, a profound knowledge of the human heart; but none of his maxims appear to me to be more juft than the following: "Absence may extinguish weak paffions; but it adds new force to the strong; juft as the wind which puts out a little fire, makes a great one burn with double fury." The juftness of this obfervation will appear evidently from the following ftory, the truth of which I can vouch for, and the probability of which nobody will call in queftion. Philocles, a young gentleman of a confiderable fortune, and remarkable for his perfonal beauty, was diftinguished from most of his age and condition by a fingular turn of character. He looked upon love as a paffion fo dangerous, that he formed a refolution to fhun every woman that had infpired him with a growing paffion. It was cuftomary with him to argue in this manner: Pleafure refembles fire; at a certain diftance it warms us; but we cannot make a near approach without being burned. Philocles, having made this determination, behaved in fuch a manner to the ladies, that he foon acquired the reputation of a Daffodil, as he did not appear to give any preference to one above another. However, as his indifference was owing to principle, and not conftitution, it did not long continue. It foon gave way to the prevailing charms of Florinda, and Philocles, unknown to himself, behaved to her often in fuch a particular manner, as drew upon her the envy of most of her female acquaintance, and was to her a matter of the highest triumph. Her joy, however, was foon turned into forrow, when the was informed that Philocles was gone to France, thinking the air of Paris might have efficacy enough to cure him of his love; an opinion in which he was not deceived. Philocles, after a few months refidence in that gay place, which feems to be confecrated to pleasure, and feveral intrigues with ladies of fashion, whose sentiments agreed exactly with his, and who confidered love as a tranfient amufement, which should never be carried to a serious attachment; returned to England, and heard, with the utmost indifference, that Florinda had in his absence been married to a peer. This intelligence did not difplease him, as he was now fecure from her reproaches. Philocles, with a heart intirely difengaged, refumed his former courfe of life, and gave himself up intirely to pleasure and diffipation. But foon a first-rate beauty effected what one of an inferior order could not do. Panthea, the luftre of whofe eyes could be equalled by nothing but the gracefulness and majefty of her perfon, foon excited emotions in the breaft of Philocles, which, though much stronger than those which he had felt before, fo far bore a refemblance to them, that he could easily perceive the traces of his former paffion, and therefore refolved to be upon his' guard. He, however, could not immediately refolve to deprive himfelf of the pleasure of feeing and converfing with Panthea, and every new interview contributed to add new fuel to the flame of love, with which his heart now glowed, which throbbed in all his veins. Each time he faw Panthea appeared to him the firft; and it is highly probable he would have intirely forgot his refolution, had it not been for a weakness which no man is intirely free from. He could not ftand the ridicule of his circle of acquaintance, before whom he had often declared his intentions, and boasted of his refolution to act in confequence. Falfe fhame had as much influence over Philocles as over most men. He immediately refolved to abfent himself, and accordingly went to Venice. But the image of his dear Panthea could not so easily be effaced from his mind. Her ide haunted him both day and night; and this, with the fenfe of his own weakness, in facrificing real happinefs to the opinion of men unworthy of his efteem, had fuch an effect on him, that he was feized with a violent fever. His life was almoft defpaired of; and it is probable he would not have recovered, had not a refolution which he inftantly formed to return to England, and the hope of feeing his beloved Panthea again, contributed more to reftore his health than all the affiftance of his phyficians. Upon his return to England, Panthea, who had taken offence at his inconftancy, for fome time declined feeing him; but being foon after informed that he was fallen cangerously ill, her paffion took the afcendant, and fhe went to fee Em. Philocles was in a fhort time reftored to health, and owed his re covery intirely to Panthea's vifits, Panthea, having thus difcovered Confiderations upon the Deaths of LUCRETIA and VIRGINIA. in the encomiums which have been noble, whofe husband, Pætus, being Virginius, in killing his daughter, A G 1 A Genealogical Account of CAVENDISH, Duke of DEVONSHIRE. tleman-ufher to cardinal Wolfey, whofe life he wrote. After the death of that prelate, he was taken into the fervice of Henry VIII. who appointed him treasurer of the chamher, knighted, and admitted him into his privy-council. In the fucceeding reign of Edward VI. he obtained a grant of divers manors and lands belonging to diffolved priories and abbies in Derbyshire, Nottinghamfhire, Staffordshire, Dorsetshire, Cornwal, Kent, and Effex; and made a vaft acquifition of fortune by marrying Elizabeth, daughter of John Hardwick, of Hardwick in Derbyshire, widow of Robert Barley His Geoffry de Gernon, of Moorehall in the Peak of Derby, was fucceeded by his fon Roger, of Grimfton-hall in Suffolk, who, in the reign of Edward II. married the daughter and heir of John Patton, lord of Cavendish, and his four fons affumed that furname. The eldest of these, John Cavendish, became lord chief justice of the King's Bench in the of Barley, whofe large estate was reign of Edward III. maintained the fame office in that of Richard II. and was murdered by the mob in the market-place of Bury; the infurgents being the more exafperated, againft him, as his fon John Caven-, dith, efquire of the body to king Richard II. was the perfon who difpatched Wat Tyler at Smithfield, after he had been wounded by Wal-, worth, mayor of London §. Of this branch was William Cavendish, gen fettled on her and her heirs. By From Reger, the fecond fon of this Roger, was defcended Thomas Cavendish, the celebrated navigator, whofe mother was Mary, daughter of Thomas lord Wentworth of Nettlefed. This great feaman, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, paffed through the Streights of Magellan into the South Sea, and was the fecond Englifeman that circled the terraqueous globe. + His third jon, Sir Charles, of Webeck-abbey in Nottinghamshire, had a fon who was created duke of Newcastle; but the title expired with this nobleman's only fon Henry duke of Newcastle, who distinguished himself eminently by his liberality, courage, and loyalty to his royal master, king Charles I. and when that prince's affairs were ruined, retired to the continent. He died at Welbeck in the eur 1691, having five daughters, bis coheirs; namely, the lady Elizabeth, matched |