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thus resembling Henry IV. He was neither haughty, vain, nor oftentatious; and fully persuaded that nobody could have a defire to be wanting in respect to him: effectively, he never had reafon to think to the contrary. The princes of the blood only could difpute with him in France the fuperiority of rank, and he never had the least difference about it but with them; and even these were always terminated in the most honourable and becoming manner.

Such was the Duke of Vendome, considered in the most favourable light. Let us at present examine what he was, according to other Memoirs, perhaps as faithful, in a less advantageous point of view. He was of a middling size, and had a vigorous constitution; his figure and air were noble, his look and conversation graceful: he had great natural sense, which was but little cultivated; he was even profoundly ignorant in the art of war, which he had never ftudied or reflected upon; brave even to intrepidity, daring when he could get the better of his indolence; he was generally fuccefsful by what may be called an effect of his happy star; he knew as much of the world and the court as he did of war, and in the same manner, by routine, and without any regular principles; notwithstanding this, he pleased every body, though he was no courtier, except to the King alone, and he made all the rest perceive that he was the son of Henry IV. and that he ought not to cede, except to the legitimate descendants of that monarch. This kind of vanity pleated Lewis XIV. who having, like his grandfather, natural chi.dren, wished to make them equal to the princes of the blood. The Dakr of Vendome was not exceffively polite, and was reserved with those whom he thought capable of opposing him; but he affected to be familiar and popular with the lowest rank of officers, with the foldiers, and those of his servants, whom he believed incapable of abusing his goodness. Obstinate and inaccefsible to the counfels and representations of those who would have been attended to by any other man; he fuffered himself to be governed by such only as were extravagant in their praises of him, and in their admiration and respect for his person and qualities. As soon as it was perceived in the army that this was the means to obtain his confidence, there were found in the most diftinguished military rank, men base enough to flatter his weaknesses, in hopes that he would put them in a situation to make their fortunes. He carried, particularly in the decline of life, libertinifm, slovenliness, and indolence to fo great an exceis, that it is inconceivable these defects were not more prejudicial to him. In the midst of the court of Lewis XIV. fometimes gallant, sometimes a devotee, he made no fecret of his most indecent and culpable pleasures; and Lewis XIV. dared not reproach him upon a kind of debauch, which, during the whole time of his reign, would have ruined any other subject. Every thing, which the courts of Verfailles would have blushed at, was openly braved in the little court of Anet. Those who served under him in his Italian campaign have assured me, that he had by mere indolence missed more than twenty times the finest opportunities of beating the enemy; and that he aad by negligence as frequently exposed his army to be destroyed: bat happily those who commanded the wings and in the rear were more attentive and vigilant.

• Every

Every body has heard talk of the cool of the morning of M. de

Vendome, an expression which is still made use of to describe a march made in the heat of the day: this comes from the custom M. de Vendome had, of announcing in the evening, that he would march very early the next morning; but when the moment indicated for departure arrived, he lay fo long in bed, that it was generally noon before he was in motion; the warmest climates and seasons made no difference in this respect *."

M. de Vendome was fent the next year to fave Spain; and whose prefence alone procured an army, which regained Philip V. his capital, beat the enemy at Villa Viciofa, and gave the young King the most magnificent bed which was ever prepared for a sovereign, being composed of the ensigns of his enemies; but it was only necessary to excite the enthusiasm of the Spaniards, and of the French who were in Spain. The name of Vendome had this effect. His reputation, justly or unjustly merited, frightened Staremberg and Stanhope, and his daring character and determined bravery did the reft. Yet his end, which is so brilliant in history, was melancholy and unhappy. After having passed the year 1711, in triumphing over the enemies of Philip V. he had no sooner received at Madrid all the honours which this King could confer upon his liberator, -the title of Highnefs, the pre-eminence over all the Grandees of Spain, -in short, all the distinctions formerly enjoyed by the famous Don Juan of Austria, than he grew tired of this Spanish greatness; and leaving the court of Madrid, and the conduct of the army to his Lieutenant Generals, he retired to a burgh of Catalonia, called Vinaros; furrounded there by a small circle of flatterers and debauchees, he gave himself up to that kind of voluptuousness which was so agreeable to him. He glutted himself with fish, which he was extravagantly fond of; whether it were good or bad, well or ill dressed, it was the same thing to him; he drank thick bodied and heady wine; and at length brought on a kind of indigeftion, or rather an illness, the consequence of repeated indigestions, which might undoubtedly have been cured by diet and exercise. His disorder was treated in quite a contrary manner; and he had very foon no hopes left of being restored. The most honest of his courtiers then abandoned him; others took his furniture and equipage; and it is afferted, that feeing, a few moments before he expired, some of his under-valets ready to take away and divide his bed-clothes, he asked them as a favour to permit him to draw his last breath in his bed. - He was only fiftyeight years of age when he died. The Princess des Urfins, who had at that time the greatest influence with the King of Spain, got orders for his body to be laid in the Royal Tomb of the Efcurial. The most elegant funeral orations were delivered in honour of him, both in France and Spain. These have served to deceive posterity with respect to his real character; and no historian whom I have heard of, has yet given himself the trouble to undeceive it.'

We are forry, from want of room, to be obliged to omit the author's account of the conduct of M. de Vendome at the battle of Oudenarde.

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We shall now take our leave of this publication; from which, on the whole, we have received much entertainment. With respect to the translation, it is, like the original, unequal. It abounds with Gallicisms, which, in parts, render it almoft unintelligible; while, in general, it poffeffes confiderable ease and fluency.

The printing is very inaccurate.

ART. III. The Ground and Credibility of the Christian Religion: in a Course of Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, at the Lecture founded by the Rev. John Bampton, M. A. late Canon of Salisbury. By the Rev. Richard Shepherd, D. D. F. R.S. Archdeacon of Bedford, and Chaplain to the Bishop of Durham. 8vo. pp. 302. 5s. 6d. Boards. L. Davis. 1788.

N these lectures, Dr. S. takes a much more extenfive field of to give a connected view of the evidences of natural and revealed religion. In his introductory discourse, he undertakes to diftinguish the excellence of Chriftianity from that variable rule of duty in the pretenfions of moral fitness held out by the Deift; and the Chriftianity of the Gospel from that species of it adopted by the Nazarenes and Ebionites, and by Socinus and his followers revived. He then demonstrates the existence of God; vindicates his Omnipotence in the fuperfedure of nature, and afferts his immateriality;-treats of the Divine Superintendance displayed in the natural and moral government of the world, and establishes the doctrine of a particular as well as general Providence;illuftrates the universal obligation of religion, the ground and neceffity of the duty of prayer, and the connection between religion and the focial duties; -examines the competency of the light of nature to afcertain the duties of religion; -proves the poffibility of a revelation, lays down the characteriftic marks neceffary to illustrate it, and examines the pretenfions of the Jewish revelation; inquires into the general expectation of a Meffiah, and whether the prophetic writings of the Jews reprefent him as a temporal prince and conqueror, or something greater; and laftly, he examines the general scope and tenor of the scriptures of the New Testament respecting the nature and character of Chrift.

difquifition than any of his predecessors, and profes

It is obvious, that within the compass of eight discourses, nothing more than a very general view could possibly be taken of the leading arguments on cach of these topics; and that, in the execution of fo extenfive a plan, there was very little room for declamatory excursions, or for rhetorical ornaments. the author only reasoned, his work might perhaps have been lefs popular, but it would have been more valuable. In the following paffage, which is one of the most argumentative in the work,

Hod

the

the reader will perceive an unseasonable mixture of declamation:

• To acknowledge a Deity, and yet tie him down by suppositions, which, if pushed to their utmost length, would leave him with limited powers; is to throw over atheism so thin a veil, as hides nothing of it, but its name. This however is the tendency of an argument against the reality of miracles, which has been maintained with the greatest confidence; and is founded on the impoffibility of them, confiftent with the attributes of the Deity. A miracle being a supersedure or alteration of the established course of nature, it is contended, that if such alteration be for the better, the course of nature was not originally established with infinite wisdom; if for the worse, it is an alteration not confiftent with infinite goodness.

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This argument, for it is a favourite one, hath been offered in another form, and with a happy change of words. God," it is argued cannot supersede the course of things, he has established, without violating the laws of nature." The word, violate, adds no new force to the argument: but it is aptly calculated to fling imputed cenfure on the opposite opinion: as maintaining the reality of those extraordinary operations, at the expence of violating the facred laws of God and nature.

'In form more full, and stronger terms, I offer the argument; in the direct words of a celebrated essay, by zealous partizans ftill dealt out in detail, and held up in triumph. A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience hath established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as intire, as any argument from experience can be poffibly imagined *."

The first part of the proposition, it is plain to observe, is an affertion without proof: unless the subsequent clause be intended to substantiate one, in the assumption, that firm and unalterable experience bath established these laws. But firm and unalterable experience conftitutes fuch proof no longer, than till these laws are superseded; and then firm and unalterable experience proves in particular cafes, and for special purposes, a deviation from those general laws. And fuch deviation is as strongly established by firm and unalterable experience, as the former regularity itself. Nor can it, being God's immediate operation, or at least an act under his permiffion, with more propriety be styled a violation of the laws of nature; than the mountainous waves of the sea, proudly overleaping the bounds which he had set them, deluging whole regions, and ingulphing cities, -or the dark spots, which astronomers obferve increasingly to incruft the bright orb of the fun, in possible diminution both of its heat and light, can be charged on his works, as violations of the general laws, he had affigned to their operation.

He, that had a power to direct nature according to certain general laws, must also have a power to control, and alter her movements. And fuch alteration, or control, is as much the act, either mediately or immediately, of infinite power and wisdom, as the

• See Hume's Essay on Miracles.
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general

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general law itself. It is a part of that general law; which was formed with fuch a specific deviation. Whatever weight therefore may be ascribed to this argument; it in reality possesses none. stands not in our way in proof, that such supersedure of the general laws of nature is impossible; as being incompatible either with infinite wisdom or power. The only question then is, whether human testimony be sufficient to prove it: which will fall under an article of future discussion; being a point of enquiry, with which, in the prefent cafe, we are not concerned. Nothing more is in this state of the subject contended for; than that God can supersede the general laws of nature, without incurring the rash imputation of violating them.

'But the author was led into this argument, by narrow notions of the divine agency: He has adverted to the Deity, as an artift; and to the structure of this world, as a complicated machine, of his framing; confifting of a variety of mechanic powers, which he puts into motion, assigning general movements to every distinct part; turns the piece of finished mechanism out of his hands, and leaves it in its various parts to pursue its destined operations: which it will invariably perform, unless some derangement of the parts impede and interrupt its motions. Now were this representation of the Deity adequate and just; the argument adduced must be admitted of no inconfiderable weight. For as the great machine must have come out of the hands of its Creator perfectly good, and was left without further attention to continue the course, he had prescribed to it; every deviation from the order and course, he had fo prescribed, would be a deterioration of his work.

• But doth such an idea comport with the Creator of heaven and earth? And indeed what human idea will? Certainly however the idea of God, at first creating and giving movements to the world, and then leaving it to pursue those motions no longer under his inspection, without his farther regard, without fupport: -such idea doth furely ill fuit the attributes of omniscience and omni-presente. In his operations he knows neither beginning, middle, nor end. With him no distance diftinguishes time or place: he looks neither backwards nor forwards; the idea of FIRST, or LAST, notes not his actions: who is always, every where; and at one comprehenfive glance views every minute movement of every part of his innumerable works, in every period of their operations.

• When at the first, if, in application to God, we may properly use such a term as FIRST, he made the element of water yield to the impression of the human step; he made it also on a particular occafion to refift it: and the one particular occasional power was as much the given power of God, and as early given, as the other. And this given power to that part of nature, which performs it, is his law. With the fame almighty FIAT, which put the world in motion, he for a moment stopped the movements of some of its parts. At the same moment, he saw them perform their accustomed revolutions, and saw them halt: when, in scripture language, the fun Aood still on Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. At the same instant, and with the same glance, he sees the fun travelling in his strength, and the moon's reflected beams enlivening the gloom

of

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