them with that obstinate and inflexible perseverance which has ever been peculiar to the Austrian blood; and in executing them he could employ the magnanimity and boldness of his Burgundian ancestors. His abilities were equal to his power; and neither of them would have been inferior to his designs, had not Providence, in pity to mankind, and in order to preserve them from the worst of all evils, universal monarchy, raised up Francis I. to defend the liberty of Europe. His dominions were less extensive, but more united, than the emperor's. His subjects were numerous, active, and warlike, lovers of glory, and lovers of their king. To Charles, power was the only object of desire, and he pursued it with an unwearied and joyless industry. Francis could mingle pleasure and elegance with his ambition; and, though he neglected some advantages, which a more phlegmatic or more frugal prince would have improved, an active and intrepid courage supplied all his defects, and checked or defeated many of the emperor's designs.

Francis died at Rambouillet, on the first day of March, in the fifty-third year of his age, and the thirty-third of his reign. During twenty-eight years of that time, an avowed rivalship subsisted between him and the emperor, which involved not only their own dominions, but the greater part of Europe, in wars, which were prosecuted with more violent animosity, and drawn out to a greater length, than had been known in any former period. Many circumstances contributed to this. Their animosity was founded in opposition of interest, heightened by personal emulation, and exasperated

not only by mutual injuries, but by reciprocal insults. At the same time, whatever advantage one seemed to possess towards gaining the ascendant, was wonderfully balanced by some favourable circumstance peculiar to the other. The emperor's dominions were of greater extent, the French king's lay more compact; Francis governed his kingdom with absolute power; that of Charles was limited, but he supplied the want of authority by address: the troops of the former were more impetuous and enterprising; those of the latter better disciplined, and more patient of fatigue. The talents and abilities of the two monarchs were as different as the advantages which they possessed, and contributed no less to prolong the contest between them. Francis took his resolutions suddenly, prosecuted them at first with warmth, and pushed them into execution with a most adventurous courage; but being destitute of the perseverance necessary to surmount difficulties, he often abandoned his designs, or relaxed the vigour of pursuit, from impatience, and sometimes from levity. Charles deliberated long, and determined with coolness; but having once fixed his plan, he adhered to it with inflexible obstinacy, and neither danger nor discouragement could turn him aside from the execution of it. The success of their enterprises was suitable to the diversity of their characters, and was uniformly influenced by it. Francis, by his impetuous activity, often disconcerted the empe ror's best laid schemes; Charles, by a more calm but steady prosecution of his designs, checked the rapidity of his rival's career, and baffled or repulsed his most vigorous efforts. The former, at the opening of a war or of a campaign, broke in upon his enemy with the violence of a torrent, and car

ried all before him; the latter, waiting until he saw the force of his rival begin to abate, recovered in the end not only all that he had lost, but made new acquisitions. Few of the French monarch's attempts towards conquest, whatever promising aspect they might wear at first, were conducted to a happy issue; many of the emperor's enterprises, even after they appeared desperate and impracticable, terminated in the most prosperous manner. Francis was dazzled with the splendour of an undertaking; Charles was allured by the prospect of its turning to his advantage.

The degree, however, of their comparative merit and reputation has not been fixed either by a strict scrutiny into their abilities for government, or by an impartial consideration of the greatness and success of their undertakings; and Francis is one of those monarchs who occupies a higher rank in the temple of fame, than either his talents or performances entitle him to hold. This pre-eminence he owed to many different circumstances. The superiority which Charles acquired by the victory of Pavia, and which from that period he preserved through the remainder of his reign, was so manifest, that Francis's struggle against his exorbitant and growing dominion was viewed by most of the other powers, not only with the par. tiality which naturally arises for those who gal lantly maintain an unequal contest, but with the favour due to one who was resisting a common enemy, and endeavouring to set bounds to a monarch equally formidable to them all. The characters of princes, too, especially among their contemporaries, depend not only upon their talents for government, but upon their qualities as men. Francis, notwithstanding the many errors conspi

cuous in his foreign policy and domestic administration, was nevertheless humane, beneficent, generous. He possessed dignity without pride; affability free from meanness; and courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to him, and no man of merit was ever denied that privilege, respected and loved him. Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects as a monarch, and, admiring him as the most accomplished and amiable gentleman in his dominions, they hardly murmured at acts of mal-administration, which, in a prince of less engaging dispositions, would have been deemed unpardonable. This admiration, however, must have been temporary only, and would have died away with the courtiers who bestowed it; the illusion arising from his private virtues must have ceased, and posterity would have judged of his public conduct with its usual impartiality; but another circumstance prevented this, and his name hath been transmitted to posterity with increasing reputation. Science and the arts had at that time made little progress in France. They were just beginning to advance beyond the limits of Italy, where they had revived, and which had hitherto been their only seat. Francis took them immediately under his protection, and vied with Leo himself in the zeal and munificence with which he encouraged them. He invited learned men to his court, he conversed with them familiarly, he employed them in business, he raised them to offices of dignity, and honoured them with his confidence. That order of men, not more prone to complain when denied the respect to which they conceive themselves entitled, than apt to be pleased when treated with the distinction which they consider as their

due, thought they could not exceed in gratitude to such a benefactor, and strained their invention, and employed all their ingenuity, in panegyric. Succeeding authors, warmed with their descriptions of Francis's bounty, adopted their encomiums, and even added to them. The appellation of Father of Letters bestowed upon Francis hath rendered his memory sacred among historians; and they seem to have regarded it as a sort of impiety to uncover his infirmities, or to point out his defects. Thus Francis, notwithstanding his inferior abilities, and want of success, hath more than equalled the fame of Charles. The good qualities which he possessed as a man have entitled him to greater admiration and praise than have been bestowed upon the extensive genius and fortunate arts of a more capable but less amiable rival.

ROBERTSON.

DEFENCE OF LITERARY STUDIES IN MEN OF

BUSINESS.

AMONG the cautions which prudence and worldly wisdom inculcate on the young, or at least among those sober truths which experience often pretends to have acquired, is that danger which is said to result from the pursuit of letters and of science, in men destined for the labours of business, for the active exertions of professional life. The abstraction of learning, the speculations of science, and the visionary excursions of fancy, are fatal, it is said, to the steady pursuit of common objects, to the habits of plodding industry, which ordinary business demands. The fineness of min