figure, carriage, action, discourse, de-opposite; for if an artist, whatever branch he may cultivate, only expresses frightful things, and softens them not by agreeable contrasts, he will repel. Grace, in painting and sculpture, con pends on its attractive merit. A beautiful woman will have no grace, if her mouth be shut without a smile, and if her eyes display no sweetness. The serious is not always graceful, because un-sists in softness of outline and harmonious attractive, and approaching too near to the severe, which repels. A well-made man, whose carriage is timid or constrained, gait precipitate or heavy, and gestures awkward, has no gracefulness, because he has nothing gentle or attractive in his exterior. The voice of an orator which wants lity or softness, is without grace. expression; and painting, next to sculpture, has grace in the unison of parts, and of figures which animate one another, and which become agreeable by their attributes and their expression. Graces of diction, whether in eloquence or poetry, depend on choice of words and flexibi-harmony of phrases, and still more upon delicacy of ideas and smiling descriptions. The abuse of grace is affectation, as the abuse of the sublime is absurdity; all perfection is nearly a fault. It is the same in all the arts. Proportion and beauty may not be graceful. It cannot be said that the pyramids of Egypt are graceful; it cannot be said that the colossus of Rhodes is as much so as the Venus of Gnidos. All that is merely strong and vigorous exhibits not the charm of grace. It would show but small acquaintance with Michael Angelo and Caravaggio to attribute to them the grace of Albano. The sixth book of the Æneid is sublime; the fourth has more grace. Some of the gallant odes of Horace breathe gracefulness, as some of his epistles cultivate reason. It seems, in general, that the little and pretty of all kinds are more susceptible of grace than the large. A funeral oration, a tragedy, or a sermon, are badly praised, if they are only honoured with the epithet of graceful. It is not good for any kind of work to be opposed to grace, for its opposite is rudeness, barbarity, and dryness. The Hercules of Farnese should not have the gracefulness of the Apollo of Belvidere and of Antinous, but it is neither rude nor clumsy. The burning of Troy, in Virgil, is not described with the graces of an elegy of Tibullus, it pleases by stronger beauties. A work, then, may be deprived of grace, without being in the least disagreeable. The terrible, or horrible, in description, is not to be graceful, neither should it solely affect its To have grace applies equally to persons and things. This dress, this work, or that woman, is graceful. What is called a good grace, applies to manner alone. She presents herself with good grace. He has done that which was expected of him with a good grace. To possess the graces :-This woman has grace in her carriage, in all that she says and does. To obtain grace is, by metaphor, to obtain pardon, as to grant grace is to grant pardon. We make grace of one thing by taking away all the rest. The commissioners took all his effects and made him a gift (a grace) of his money. To grant graces, to diffuse graces, is the finest privilege of the sovereignty; it is to do good by something more than justice. To have one's good graces, is usually said in relation to a superior: to have a lady's good graces, is to be her favourite lover. To be in grace, is said of a courtier who has been in disgrace: we should not allow our happiness to depend on the one, or our misery on the other. Graces, in Greek, are charities;' a term which signifies amiable, The graces, divinities of antiquity, are one of the most beautiful allegories of the Greek mythology. As this mythology always varied according either to the ima 'gination of the poets, who were its theo logians, or to the customs of the people, the number, names, and attributes of the graces often change; but it was at last agreed to fix them to the number of three, Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosyne, that is to say, sparkling, blooming, mirthful. They were always near Venus. No veil should cover their charms. They preside over favours, concord, rejoicings, love, and even eloquence; they were the sensible emblem of all that can render life agreeable. They were painted dancing and holding hands; and every one who entered their temples was crowned with flowers. Those who have condemned the fabulous mythology, should at least acknowledge the merit of these lively fictions, which announce truths intimately connected with the felicity of mankind. GRACE (OF). SECTION I. posed at liberty not to eat; or "neces sary," that is, unavoidable, being nothing more than the chain of eternal decrees and events. We shall take care not to enter into the long and appalling details, subtleties, and sophisms, with which these questions are embarrassed. The object of this dictionary is not to be the vain echo of vain disputes. St. Thomas calls grace a substantial form, and the Jesuit Bouhours names it a je ne sais quoi; this is perhaps the best definition which has ever been given of it. If the theologians had wanted a subject on which to ridicule Providence, they need not have taken any other than that which they have chosen. On one side, the Thomists assure us that man, in receiving efficacious grace, is not free in the compound sense, but that he is free in the divided sense; on the other, the Molinists invent the medium doctrine of God and congruity, &c., and imagine exciting, preventing, concomitant, and cooperating grace. THIS term, which signifies favour or privilege, is employed in this sense by theologians. They call grace a particular operation of God on mankind, to render Let us quit these bad, but seriouslythem just and happy. Some have ad- constructed jokes of the theologians; let mitted universal grace, that which God us leave their books, and each consult his gives to all men, though mankind, accord- common sense; when he will see that all ing to them, with the exception of a very these reasoners have sagaciously deceived small number, will be delivered to eternal themselves, because they have reasoned flames: others admit grace towards upon a principle evidently false. They Christians of their communion only; and { have supposed that God acts upon partilastly, others only for the elect of thatcular views; now an eternal God, withcommunion. out general, immutable, and eternal laws, is an imaginary being, a phantom, a god of fable. It is evident that a general grace, which leaves the universe in vice, error, and eternal misery, is not a grace, a favour, Why, in all religions, on which men or privilege, but a contradiction in terms. pique themselves on reasoning, have theParticular grace, according to theolo-ologians been forced to admit this grace gians, is either in the first place "sufficing," which if resisted, suffices not resembling a pardon given by a king to a criminal, who is nevertheless delivered over to the punishment; or "efficacious," when it is not resisted, although it may be resisted; in this case, they just resemble famished guests to whom are presented delicious viands, of which they will surely eat, though, in general, they may be sup which they do not comprehend? It is, that they would have salvation confined to their own sect, and further, they would have this salvation divided among those who are the most submissive to themselves. These particular theologians, or chiefs of parties, divide among themselves. The Mussulman doctors entertain similar opinions and similar disputes, because they have the same interest to actuate them; but the universal theologian, that ‹ is to say, the true philosopher, sees that it is contradictory for nature to act on particular or single views; that it is rididulous to imagine God occupying himself in forcing one man in Europe to obey him, while he leaves all the Asiatics untractable; to suppose him wrestling with another man who sometimes submits, and sometimes disarms him, and presenting to another a help, which is nevertheless useless. Such grace, considered in a true point of view, is an absurdity. The prodigious mass of books composed on this subject, is often an exercise of intellect, but always the shame of reason. SECTION II. pretended that general providence does not immediately interfere with the affairs of particular individuals; that it governs all by universal laws; that Thersites and Achilles were equal before it, and that neither Chalcas nor Talthybius ever had versatile or congruous graces. According to these philosophers, the dog-grass and the oak, the mite and the elephant, man, the elements and stars, obey invariable laws, which God, as immutable, has established from all eternity. SECTION III. If any one came from the bottom of hell, to say to us on the part of the devil, -Gentlemen, I must inform you, that our sovereign lord has taken all mankind for his share, except a small number of people who live near the Vatican, and its dependencies;—we should all pray of this deputy to inscribe us on the list of the privileged; we should ask him, what we must do to obtain this grace. All nature, all that exists, is the grace of God; he bestows on all animals the grace of form and nourishment. The grace of growing seventy feet high is granted to the fir, and refused to the reed. He gives to man the grace of thinking, speaking, and knowing him; he grants me the grace of not understanding a word If he were to answer, You cannot merit of all that Tournelli, Molina, and Soto, it, my master has made the list from the &c., have written on the subject of grace. beginning of time; he has only listened to The first who has spoken of efficacious his own pleasure, he is continually occuand gratuitous grace is, without contra- { pied in making an infinity of pots-dediction, Homer. This may be astonish-chambre, and some dozen gold vases; it ing to a bachelor of theology, who knows you are pots-de-chambre, so much the no author but St. Augustin; but, if he worse for you. read the third book of the Iliad, he will see that Paris says to his brother Hector: "If the gods have given you valour, and me beauty, do not reproach me with the presents of the beautiful Venus; no gift of the gods is despicable-it does not de-vereignly good being! pend upon man to obtain them." Nothing is more positive than this passage. If we further remark that Jupiter, according to his pleasure, gave the victory, sometimes to the Greeks, and at others to the Trojans, we shall see a new proof that all was done by grace from on high. Sarpedon and, afterwards, Patroclus are barbarians, to whom by turns grace has been wanting. There have been philosophers who were not of the opinion of Homer. They have At these fine words we should use our pitchforks, to send the ambassador back to his master. This is, however, what we have dared to impute to God-to the eternal and so Man has been always reproached with having made God in his own image, Homer has been condemned for having transported all the vices and follies of earth into heaven. Plato, who has thus justly reproached him, has not hesitated to call him a blasphemer; while we, a hundred times more thoughtless, hardy, and blaspheming than this Greek, who did not understand conventional language, devoutly accuse God of a thing of which we have never accused the worst of men. It is said that the king of Morocco, trious and infallible theologians, no one Muley Ismael, had five hundred children. } has more respect for your divine decisions What would you say, if a marabout of than myself; but if Paulus Emilius, Mount Atlas related to you that the wise Scipio, Cato, Cicero, Cæsar, Titus, Traand good Muley Ismael, dining with his jan, or Marcus Aurelius, revisited that family, at the close of the repast, spoke Rome to which they formerly did such thus?credit, you must confess that they would be a little astonished at your decisions on grace. What would they say if they heard speak of healthful grace according to St. Thomas, and medicinal grace according to Cajetan; of exterior and interior grace, of free, sanctifying, co-operating, actual, habitual, and efficacious grace, which is sometimes inefficacious; of the sufficing which sometimes does not suffice, of the versatile and congruous :—would they really comprehend it more than you and I? I am Muley Ismael, who have begotten you for my glory, for I am very glorious. I love you very tenderly, I shelter you as a hen covers her chickens; I have decreed that one of my youngest children shall have the kingdom of Tafilet, and that another shall possess Morocco; and for my other dear children, to the number of four hundred and ninety-eight, I order that one half shall be tortured, and the other burnt, for I am the Lord Muley Ismael. You would assuredly take the marabout for the greatest fool that Africa ever produced; but if three or four thousand marabouts, well entertained at your expense, were to repeat to you the same story, what would you do? would you not be tempted to make them fast upon bread and water until they recovered their senses? What need would these poor people have of your instructions? I fancy I hear them say : No Reverend fathers, you are terrible genii; we foolishly thought that the eternal being never conducted himself by particular laws like vile human beings, but by general laws, eternal like himself. You will allege that my indignation is one among us ever imagined that God reasonable enough against the supra-lap-was like a senseless master, who gives an sarians, who believe that the King of estate to one slave and refuses food to Morocco only begot these five hundred another; who orders one with a broken children for his glory; and that he had arm to knead a loaf, and a cripple to be always the intention to torture and burn his courier. them, except two, who were destined to reign. All is grace on the part of God; he has given to the globe we inhabit the grace But I am wrong, you say, against the of form; to the trees, the grace of making infra-lapsarians, who avow that it was not them grow; to animals, that of feeding the first intention of Muley Ismael to them; but will you say, because one wolf cause his children to perish; but that, finds in his road a lamb for his supper, having foreseen that they would be of no while another is dying with hunger, that use, he thought he should be acting as a God had given the first wolf a particular good father in getting rid of them by tor-grace? Is it a preventive grace to cause ture and fire. one oak to grow in preference to another, Ah, supralapsarians, infralapsarians, in which sap is wanting? If throughout free-gracians, sufficers, efficacians, janse-nature all being is submitted to general laws, how can a single species of animals avoid conforming to them? nists, and molinists-become men, and no longer trouble the earth with such absurd and abominable fooleries. Why should the absolute master of all be more occupied in directing the interior of a single man than in conducting the Holy consultors of modern Rome, illus-remainder of entire nature. By what SECTION IV. caprice would he change something in the heart of a Courlander or a Biscayan, while he changes nothing in the general laws which he has imposed upon all the stars. and refuses it to this; that such as had not grace yesterday shall have it to-morrow;-repeat not this folly. God has made the universe, and creates not new winds to remove a few straws in one corner of the universe. Theologians are like the combatants in Homer, who believed that the gods were sometimes armed for and sometimes against them. Was not Homer considered a poet, he would be deemed a blasphemer. It is Marcus Aurelius that speaks, and not I; for God, who inspires you, has given me grace to believe all that you say, all that you have said, and all that you will say. What a pity to suppose that he is continually making, defacing, and renewing our sentiments! And what audacity in us to believe ourselves excepted from all beings! And further, is it not only for those who confess that these changes are imagined? A Savoyard, a Bergamask, on Monday, will have the grace to have a mass said for twelve sous; on Tuesday he will go to the tavern and have no grace; on Wednesday he will have a co-operating grace, which will conduct him to confession, but he will not have the efficacious grace of perfect contrition; GRAVE, in its moral meaning, always on Thursday there will be a sufficing grace corresponds with its physical one; it exwhich will not suffice, as has been already presses something of weight: thus, we said. God will labour in the head of thissay-a person, an author, or a maxim of Bergamask-sometimes strongly, some-weight, for a grave person, author, or times weakly, while the rest of the earth will no way concern him! He will not deign to meddle with the interior of the Indians and Chinese! If you possess a grain of reason, reverend fathers, do you not find this system prodigiously ridiculous? Poor miserable man! behold this oak which rears its head to the clouds, and this reed which bends at its feet; you do not say that efficacious grace has been given to the oak, and with-held from the reed. Raise your eyes to heaven; see the eternal Demiourgos creating millions of worlds, which gravitate towards one another by general and eternal laws. See the same light reflected from the sun to Saturn, and from Saturn to us; and in this grant of so many stars, urged onward in their rapid course; in this general obedience of all nature, dare to believe, if you can, that God is occupied in giving a versatile grace to Sister Theresa, or a concomitant one to Sister Agnes. GRAVE-GRAVITY. maxim. The grave is to the serious what Tum pietate gravem ac meritis si forte virum quem Dryden. A decorous air should be always preserved, but a grave air is becoming only Atom, to which another footish atom in the function of some high and importhas said, that the Eternal has particular ant office, as for example, in council. laws for some atoms of thy neighbour-When gravity consists, as is frequently hood; that he gives his grace to that one the case, only in the exterior carriage, |