hands of his paternal uncle, who, with his five fons, lived at Lauffenburg, on the Rhine. The property Rudolph inherited was moderate: his lands were all in fight of the great hall in his caftle. Some advocacies extended his influence to inore diftant parts; but the power annexed to the title of landgrave of Alface, to which he fucceeded, was, by the refractory fpirit of the times, rendered almoft nugatory. In the eager purfuit of his ambitious views, he difpifed the tardy means of prudence, and fuffered the vehemence of his temper to betray him into indifcretions, which, in men lefs audacious, would have led to ruin. Before the age of forty he had already incurred the odium of his whole family, been difinherited by his maternal uncle, the count of Kyburg, and twice excommunicated by the church. His firft conteft was with his uncle of Lauffenburg, whom he taxed with having made an unfair partition of the family eftates: but the helplefs debility of the old count was fo effectually protected by his fon Godfried, that Rudolph foon beheld from his caftle, the flames which confumed his principal town of Bruck; and was compelled to acquiefce in the grant the old count made of the caftle of new Hapfburgh on the lake of Lucern, to the nunnery at Zuric. He next gave offence to his uncle Hartman, who had no iffue; and extorted from him a large fum, as a compenfation for his claim upon the estates of

Kyburg: Hartman complied, that he might transfer the bulk of his property to the fee of Strafburg; and in order to preclude all farther importunities from this intrufive nephew, he made his grant irrevo cable. In a contest with the bishop of Bafle, Rudolph approached with his forces, and burnt the convent of the penitent fifters in one of the fuburbs of that city; for which facrilegious deed he, and all his adherents, were put under a fevere interdict. He then (perhaps as an atonement to the church) engaged with Ottocarus king of Bohemia, in the crufade against the infidels of Pruffia, who were contending with the Teutonic knights for the gods, and the freedom of their ancestors. His fortunes, which his rafhnets more frequently obftructed than promoted, took a more favourable turn, as foon as adverfity had tempered the impetuofity of his unruly paffions.

His mother Hedwig lived to fee him reconciled to her family, and to witness an alliance contracted between Hapfburg and Kyburg. Godfried of Lauffenburg † alfo became his friend. The days of the old count of Kyburg drawing near to a conclufion, Rudolph fought, both by perfuafion and kind offices, to induce the bishop of Strafburg to relinquifh the hafty grant of Hartman. In this however he failed; and thenceforth he efpoused the caufe of the citizens of Strafburg against their bishop, and feized on the towns of Colmar and Mulhau

fen.

fen. He allowed no repofe to this right reverend prelate during his life; and, after his death, intimidated his fucceffor Henry to fuch a degree, that he gladly confented to furrender the grant.

*

Hartman the elder, of Kyburg, foon after this, fent a preffing me Fage to Rudolph, to folicit his aid against the burghers of Winterthur, who, in a fidden infurrection, had attacked and nearly demolished his tower near their walls. Rudolph was haftening to his affiftance, when news were brought him that Hartman, the laft count of Kyburg and landgrave of Thurgau, had clofed his illuftrious line. All the nobles of the county of Kyburg, and from Baden, Thurgau, and the Gafter, who owed allegiance to this houfe; the magiftrates of the feveral towns and cities, and the heads of the many convents that had been founded or patronized either by his ancestors or by himlelf, met hereupon at a general af fembly; and count Hartman was entombed with his fhield and helmet. Rudolph received the homage of the affembly, and pardoned the infult offered by the burghers of Winterthur. The houfe of Hapfburg had on no former occafion received fo great an acceffion of power and dominions; but Rudolph, while he was liftening to the congratulations of his friends and fubjects, was little aware what far greater honours were yet referved for him by his aufpicious deftiny.

Rudolph was high in ftature, and of a graceful figure and deportment: he was bald, his complec

tion pale, his nofe aquiline; his mien was grave, but fo engaging as to command the confidence of all thofe who approached him. Both at the time when, with fcanty means, he performed eminent achievements, and when, in his exalted station, a multitude of public concerns claimed inceffant attention, he preferved a gay and tranquil mind, and a difpofition to facetious mirth. His manners were fimple and unaffuming: his diet was plain; and he was ftill more temperate in the ufe of fpirituous liquors. He once in the field appealed his hunger with raw turnips: he ufaally wore a plain blue coat; and his foldiers had often feen him darn his doublet with the fame hand that grafped his conquering fword in fourteen battles. It is recorded, that he ever preferved his conjugal fidelity to his confort Gertrude, who bore him ten children. He enjoyed pleafures without being fubfervient to them; and hence did he never want either time for labour or relaxation, or in old age, health and vigour for powerful exertions.

Rudolph, in all his wars, treated the prelates, who were lefs tenacious of their fpiritual dignity than of their temporal concerns, not as preachers of the gofpel of peace, but in a manner conformable to the law of arms: on the other hand, he is reported to have fhewn great deference to the clergy, and a zealous devotion to the facred rites. One day while hunting, he met, near an overflowing brook, a parish priest, who was bearing the hoft to a dying patient: he compelled him mount his horfe; and expreffed

to

with fervour his lowly veneration for the fupreme Being, to whom he owed all his many bleffings, and the great profperity he enjoyed. His piety was highly extolled at Zuric when, at a folemn feftival, he exhibited to the affembled multitude many relics of the crucifixion. The new Auguftin hermits whom he established in this city, and many other religious orders on whom he conferred ample donatives, fpread the fame of his godlinels throughout the land.

Account of the Emperor Rudolph's Death. From the fame.

IN

N the eighteenth year after the grace of God,' as he defcribed his exaltation, had raifed him from the huts of his ancestors to an imperial throne.' in the feventyfourth year of his age, was Rudolph first attacked with fymptoms of a dangerous malady. He was haftening to Spire to repofe, as he intimated, amidst the tombs of many preceding kings and emperors, when his fate met him at Gemertheim on the Rhine, a town of his own foundation. His hereditary dominions had been enlarged by the acquifition of Kyburg, Lentburg, Baden, Zoffingen, and feveral advocacies: but his greatest acceffions he owed to his victofies over Ottocarus king of Bohemia, margrave of Moravia, and duke of Auftria, Stiria, Carinthia, and Carniolia, who had oppofed his election to the empire. Five years after he had reduced that power, the king, adorned with all the pomp of royalty, and furrounded by all the princes, whofe

concurrence was indifpenfable in all new regulations in the empire, feated hitelf on his throne in the palace at Augfburg, and declared, ' that in order to enable his fons, Albert and Rudolph, to difplay the full extent of their inviolable foyalty and zeal for the glory of the empire, he had refolved to raise them to an eminent rank in the college of princes.' Hereupon, in the plenitude of his power, and with the confent of the electors, he invefted them, by the delivery of banners, with the dukedoms of Auftria, Stiria, the Windifmark, and Carniolia: he foon after granted them allo the margraviate of Burgau. To fuck eminence rofe a fingle count, of a race whole very name had fcarce reached the contiguous countries. By the enlargement of his bounds to the farthermoft confines of Alface and Auftria, he in a manner hemmed in all Upper Germany, and kept in awe the French king, and many of the Skvian princes. His houfe, by his addrefs and wifdom, rofe to a power which gradually fubdued nations and countries, the very exiftence of which was then unknown. No race has fo often endangered the freedom of Europe: and its fplendid career has never met with any check, but what it derived from its own neglect of that moderation, which had ever been the great art of Rudolph.

Parallel between the Literary Charatters of Fontenelle and La Motts; from Dr. Aikin's Tranflation f D'Alembert's Eulogies.

AGREEMENT

caft of genius, and in principles, had formed that folid union between our two academicians which does fo much honour to their memory. Perhaps it may be interefting to examine in what these two writers, fo fimilar in various refpects, differed in others. Both of them, replenished with judgement, knowledge, and good fenfe, conftantly difplay a fuperiority to prejudices, as well philofophical as Interary; both attack them with that modeft timidity under which the wife man will always fhield kimfelf when combating received opinions; a timidity which their enemies termed hypocritical gentlenefs, because hatred gives to prudence the name of cunning, and to art that of falsehood. Both of them have carried too far their decided, though apparently moderate, revolt from the gods and laws of Parnaffus; but La Motte's free opinions feem more closely connected with his perfonal intereft in fupporting them; and Fontenelle's, with the general interest he took in the progrefs of reafon in all departments. In the writings of both are to be found that method which is fo fatiffactory to correct minds, and that artful ingenuity which gives fo much delight to delicate judges; but this laft quality in La Motte is more developed; in Fontenelle it leaves more to be gueffed by the reader. La Motte, without ever faying too much, forgets nothing that his fubject offers, dexterously makes ufe of the whole, and feems to fear that he fhould lofe fome of his advantages by too fubtle a concealment of his meaning: Fontenelle, without ever being obfcure, except to those who do not deferve that an author should

time the pleafure of refervation, and that of hoping to be thoroughly underftood by readers worthy of underftanding him. Both, too little' fenfible of the charms of poetry and the magic of verfification, have fometimes become poets by the force of ability; but La Motte fomewhat more frequently than Fontenelle, though he has often the double defect of weaknefs and harfhnefs, while Fontenelle has only that of weakness: but the latter is almost always lifeless in his verses; whereas La Motte fometimes infufes foul and interest into his. Both were crowned with distinction at the lyric theatre; but Fontenelle was unfortunate on the French theatre, because he was abfolutely deftitute of that. fenfibility which is indifpenfable to a tragic poet, and of which nature had bestowed fome fparks on La Motte.

Fontenelle and La Motte have both written in profe with great clearness, elegance, and even fimplicity; but La Motte with a more natural, Fontenelle with a more ftudied fimplicity; for this quality may be ftudied, and then it becomes manner, and ceafes to be a model. What renders Fontenelle a mannerift in his fimplicity is, that in order to prefent refined, or even grand ideas, under a more fimple form, he fometimes falls into the dangerous path of familiarity, which contrafts with and trenches upon the delicacy or grandeur of the thought; an incongruity the more fenfible, as he feems to affect it: whereas the familiarity of la Motte (for he, too, fometimes defcends to it) is more fober and meatured, more fuited to its fubject, and on a level with the things treated of, X 3 Fontenelle

Fontenelle was fuperior in extent of knowledge, with which he has had the art to adorn his writings, and which renders his philofophy the more worthy of being recollect ed and quoted; but la Motte has made his reader fenfible that, in order to be equal in wealth and value to his friend, he only wanted, as Fontenelle himself faid, " eyes and ftudy." Both received from nature a flexibility of talent which fitted them for various kinds of writing; but they had the imprudence, or fecret vanity, to try their powers in too many. Thus they weakened their reputation by attempting to extend it too far; but Fontenelle has folidly established his glory by his immortal" Hiftory of the Academy of Sciences," and efpecially by thofe interefting eulogies, full of refined and profound fenfe, which infpire the nobleft emulation in rifing genius, and will tranfmit to pofterity the name of the author with that of the celebrated fociety whofe worthy organ he was, and of the great men whole equal he rendered himfelf in becoming their panegyrift.

To conclude the parallel of thefe two celebrated men, it will not be ufelefs, after having displayed them in their works or in the fociety of those of their own clafs, to paint them as they were in common fociety, and especially amid thofe two claffes of it which demand the greateft caution in order to avoid giving offence the fometimes formidable clafs of the great, and the always troublefome clafs of fools, fo copicufly diffufed among all the others. Foutencile and la Motte, always refered, confequently always dignified, with the great, always on their guard before them, without

fhewing it, never difplaying more wit than was neceffary to please them, without fhocking their felfconfequence, fave themfelves," according to Montagne's expreffion, from undergoing effectual tyranny from them, by their care in not making them undergo talking tyranny." Sometimes, however, in thiş fociety, as in their ftyle, they gave way to a kind of familiarity; but with this difference, that la Motte's familiarity was more respectful and referved; Fontenelle's more easy and free, yet always fo circumfpect as not to tempt any one to abuse it. Their conduct with fools was ftill more studied and cautious, as they too well knew that this kind of men, internally and deeply jealous of the fplendor of thofe talents by which they are humiliated, never pardon perfons of fuperior understanding, but in proportion to the indulgence they experience from them, and the care taken to conceal this indolgence. Fontenelle and la Motte, when in companies not made for them, never gave way to abfence or difdain; they allowed the freeft fcope to folly of every kind, without fuffering it to fear a check, or even to fufpect that it was observed. But Fontenelle, never forward to talk, even among his equals, was contented with liftening to those who were not worthy to hear him, and only ftudied to fhew them a femblance of approbation, which might prevent them from taking his filence for contempt or wearinefs; la Motte, more complaifant, or even more philofophical, recollecting the Spanish proverb, " that there is no fool from whom a wile man may not learn fomething," took pains to difcover, in perfons the most void of parts, the favourable fide, çitber

for