Reprint Of Scarce, Or Curicus, Books On Freemasonry.

favourable , representation of the frailties or disorders of love . But a yet more important effect of good fiction will be to explode false heroism . That cruel ambition and implacable revenge , celebrated by so many orators and poets under the epithet of valour , will he divested of the lustre they have clothed it with , and we shall soon look upon , whatever has contributed to raise these false virtues to such an eminence , as the deceitful beauties of eloquence or poetry .

This happy effect seems to be already infused in the minds of men . The spoil of nations does now no longer appear an object o £ emulation , at least among civilized people . Panegyrics upon conquests and devastations are no more patterns in the education of princes ; and good poets have done Avith extolling them for making arms alone their pastime . I find no reason to repent of what I formerlsaid speaking of Telemachus—that if

y the happiness of mankind could be said to arise from a poem , it Avould bo from that ; and though princes may not often apply themselves much to reading , yet those who have tho care of their education , knowing as well the origin as progress of learning , do not suffer them to bo ignorant , either in those principles of morality or maxims of lenity , which even their own times may have produced and established . Princes now ascend the

throne endued with a knowledge of true glory , and imbibing the very same sentiments on this head with the public , thcj r concur in supporting it in that tranquillity and happiness which is expected from them . A peace , the long continuance of which has no precedent in our history , is unquestionably owing to the wisdom of a great minister ; and the French nation acknowledges all the obligations due to him for that unwearied administration which is the support of their tranquillity . But the princes

he has to treat with Avould , perhaps , more strenuously oppose his measures if an education , advanced by a work which is of service to all the kings in the universe , had not reconciled them to the same dispositions of mind as the young and august monarch , in whose kingdoms Telemachus took its birth . If we are allowed to assert that the increase of literature has

introduced a politeness and good taste in all the courts and cities of Europe , we may justly attribute , at least in part , that fondness for peace which at this time seems to be the favourite passion of all nations , to those works which contain an excellent moral , set off with all the embellishments that can render it agreeable . AVe may certainly number them among the causes of that just and pacific temper of mind , which every one is seemingly big withand which by degrees extirpates those animosities

, among nations , which the bare remoteness of their former inducements began to render unjust and reproachful ; and in the place of which a mutual value for the virtues , talents , and every commendable quality of their neighbours- is daily substituted . A natural consequence of the success of Telemachus , next to reforming our judgments and softening our mannersought to be laying a foundation

, for a new kind of Avork . Tho first poems of antiquity produced imitations of the same form and denomination , as epopeas , tragedies , idylls , and the like ; but the author of Telemachus has only been imitated in the essential part—that is , by the same intention or zeal to produce the same effects . Thus Telemachus is an epic poem , but the Travels of Cyrus , in conformity to their titlecontain only the hero ' s rambles in search of

instruc-, tions from all the wise men of his times , in order to introduce into his own dominions whatever he found good and profitable in the different customs o £ the most celebrated kingdoms and commonwealths . The work before us is , with regard to the moral design of it , of the same species with both , but more different in the form of it than they are one from the other . They are both properly a system of education ; and