Festival

.—holiday,—a day set apart for the commemoration or any honourable or prosperous event. The Greeks and Romans celebrated their triumphs by Olympic games, that trained their youth to martial exercises, andwhich have been so beautifully described by their poets and historians.

The French Republic displays all the sublimity of sentiment, all the richness of imagination, and ardour of patriotism, in those civiv festivals which the Convention decrees, in honor of any splendid victory, or important advantage, which the arms of Liberty atchieve [sic] over the forces of Treachery and Despotism. magnificent processions, no longer sullied by the ignoble badges of superstition and fanaticism, but embellished with all the insignia of peace, freedom, and equality, animating citizens with an invincible hatred of tyrants, and a sacred love for the divine cause in which they are engaged. Painting, musick, sculpture, all the arts, elegantly and honuorably brought forth for the common service of mankind. A spectacle combining the happiest assemblage of simplicity and grandeur, which it is impossible for a generous soul to contemplate without glowing with the immortal spirit of justice and philanthropy.

The English observe their festivals in a different manner. Of late, God knows, they have had few triumphs to celebrate; but they have still their public days of rejoicing;—a Prince of Wales, or Duke of York’s birth-day! when oxen are roasted intire; and, as if the people were not already sufficiently stupified, they aer to be further lethargized by dint of Beef and Porter, of Gluttony and Drunknenness. Then they are taught to shout, “God save the King,” and to believe all human virtue and morality contained in that senseless sound. The only Genius which displays itself in these our English festivals, is the Genius of Confusion, the whole sysetm of right and wrong confounded, order perverted, vice and folly exalted to the skies, virtue and talents sunk in the dust;—a profligate blockhead, whose sole merit probably hangs on a royal escutcheon, held up as a Pagod of adoration, while a man like Gerrald, with transcendant abilities, andmost amiable modesty, is tamely beheld, in violation of all English law, of every principle of justice, languishing in Newgate, hourly expecting to be seized and dragged to the vessel that is to convey his poor infirm, emaciated body to Botany Bay.

The best illustration of tehse different entertainments, is displayed in the civic festivals, as arranged by David, and exhibited in the Champs de Mars at Paris, an account of which may be seen in Jordan’s Political State of Europe, and in the splendid feasts given in honor of a royal Prince or Duke’s birth-day, at Brighton and other places; an account of which may be seen in most of our periodical journals for the three months of August, 1791–92. From the contrast, Britons may, in some degree, be enabled to form an estimate of the virtues and genius peculir to each nation. To know the difference between a

British Royalist, & a French Republican

god save the king. vive la republique.

Amen.