Review of Frédéric; i.e. Frederic, a Novel
author: Elizabeth Moody
source date: 1801

Elizabeth Moody Art. XI. Frédéric; i.e. Frederic, a Novel. By J. F., Author of La Dot de Suzette. 12mo. 3 Vols. Paris.—London, De Boffe. [This book review originally appeared in the Monthly Review , second series, Vol. 34, Foreign Appendix, 1801, pp. 531-532. A brief notice of the later English translation appears in The Monthly Review , vol. 50, no. 2, June 1806, p. 221. Benjamin Nangle identifies Elizabeth Moody as the author of this review from an editor's marked copy of The Monthly Review . See Nangle, The Montly Review, Second Series, 1790-1815: Indexes of Contributors and Articles , Clarendon Press, 1955. Zachary Parker and Mary A. Waters edited this essay for The Criticism Archive.]

This little work presents us with an amusing narrative, interspersed with sprightly anecdotes, acute observations, and interesting events. The hero of the story is a Foundling; whose parents, more humane than the sentimental Rousseau, did not send him to an hospital and abandon him for ever, but cherished him, and provided for his happiness by an unremitting superintendance. He commences his juvenile career, however, under the tuition of a philosophical pedagogue whose system is founded on that of Rousseau; and poor Frederic (like Emilius) is therefore first condemned to suffer a variety of experimental caprices for the benefit of his mind, and is at last sent to an obscure mechanic to learn a handy-craft employment for the benefit of his body. The Curé de Mareil, the gentleman in question, is well described; and, though seemingly a fancy sketch, he is a living picture:

The Curé de Mareil, without being contradictory, never agreed with any person in opinion; and, as he seldom remained many days in the same way of thinking, it might be said that in this respect he treated others as he served himself. His elocution was easy, graceful, and animated by discussion; and his mind seemed to derive a vigour from it, which abandoned him when he was given up to his own reflections. As he had the mania of reducing every thing into system; as there is no system that has not its vulnerable side; and as the weakness of his character did not permit him to maintain that which he no longer believed, nor to believe any thing long; he was opinionated without being obstinate, deducing false inferences without ceasing to reason justly, well informed without having one idea in connection with another, and always possessing the power of persuading others, without the faculty of convincing himself.

From the whimsical school of this systematic professor, Frederic is conveyed to Paris, to be placed in some situation of employment:—but it seems as if he were destined to be persecuted by philosophers, as St. Anthony was by demons, for he is no sooner emancipated from one than he falls into the hands of another.—Mons. de Vignoral, in whose house he was placed as a sort of clerk, was originally a poor gentleman; who would have been sent to the plough, had not a great prelate treated him with an education. By means of this bounty, he made a progress in learning by which he acquired distinguished reputation: but, having paid his court to placemen without obtain-

ing any eligible situation, —nothing better being offered to him than a commission in the army, to which his personal courage was not adequate, —he presumed for better success on the courage of his mind, and decided on the profession of Philosophy.

Under this gentleman, Frederic’s employment was to transcribe manuscripts,—a wearisome business for a handsome young man; and he must inevitably have died of ennui, if Mons. de Vignoral had not had a philosophe coquette for his wife, the principles of whose system were better adapted to the taste and disposition of a gay young Frenchman. Madame de V.’s philosophy consisted in obeying nature, and following her instincts in a school rather more prejudicial to the pupil’s morals than either of the preceding; and from which he did not escape uncontaminated. He had, however, still more danger to encounter from his protectress, Madame de Sponasi, an atheistical philosopher, with whom he was taken to live on quitting the situation which he held under Mons. de Vignoral. Frederic is very properly cautioned by his friend Philip, before he enters on the task of conciliating this lady’s esteem, de ne parler jamais de la Divinité.—Our hero at length shakes off his philosophers; and, after having passed through a variety of rugged and intricate paths, having met with many perplexing adventures, and having committed as many disgraceful immoralities, he reaches the harbour of virtue: where we have the pleasure of leaving him, repenting of illicit amours, and fixing vagrant affections in the bosom of chastity. Adèle, the goddess who reclaims him, is a charming creature: but the features of her character have too philosophical a complexion, and are not natural to a very young woman.—The other portraits are skillfully drawn, and we could with pleasure enlarge on many of them: but our limits are bounded, and our pens must not play truant.

Though this author introduces his readers to the vicious characters and practices of the Crebillon school, he exhibits them in a more chaste and delicate manner; and the denouement of Madame de Sponasi’s intrigue, as related by the good Philip, is a sketch which manifests considerable talents. If the style of the work be not in the first class of elegance, it is rarely so reprehensible as not to atone by its wit and sprightliness: but the writer himself acknowledges, with apparent indifference, that he has committed ‘some rather aukward faults.’