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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

of few princes have been less understood, and more heinously misrepresented.He has been represented by his panegyrists as the patron of arts, as the restorerof science, as the possessor of a noble and exalted mind, as alive to every senti-ment of glory, and attention to the welfare of his people. Those, on the con-trary, who have spoken least favourably of him, have painted his character inthe most frightful colours. They have pourtrayed him as the ambitious self-willed potentate, extravagantly grasping at universal empire, considering hispersonal aggrandizement as the highest, if not the only gratification he himselfcould receive, or his subjects ought to attend to, and thinking that the lives, theproperties of the latter were, without the smallest restriction, committed byprovidence to his keeping, for the purpose of being applied in whatever mannerhis wisdom or inclination should think proper.

The bias of friendship or personal attachment, the prejudice derived from ani-mosity, and the less rancorous spirit of dislike, or interested disapprobation, warpthe mind alike from the true and direct course which reason should point out. Ifthe conduct of Louis burst forth into a myriad of public extravagancies withrespect to his own people, if, in regard to nations which surrounded him, hebetrayed an imperious intention of narrowing their consequence, or even de-stroying it entirely, these frailties, the existence of which no person certainlycan deny, are more attributable to the bigotted prejudices of his education,and the various insults which in his puny weak state he received from his neigh-bours the Dutch, than to any natural baseness of mind, or vindictive spirit,which some persons have most strenuously attempted to attach to his character.As a prince, though prodigal of the lives of his subjects, which, through theimproper insinuations of his tutor, the cardinal Mazarine, he was taught toconsider as in his absolute and unrestrainable disposal, he was studiously atten-tive to what he considered as conducive to their welfare and renown. As theencourager of arts, he certainly stood unrivalled in the age he lived ; as a friend,few have ever proved themselves possessed of more sincerity.

On the reverse of the medal, indeed, we may find ambition and lust of power,not content with the simple act of avenging the wrongs of an injured country,soaring beyond all those limits which national justice, and the unwritten code ofpublic equity, appears to have prescribed as the conduct of princes; he may befound too vainly grasping at a phantom, which the temporary success of afew military campaigns led him to the very indiscreet and extravagant pur-suit