The Enquirer

We mentioned, in speaking of the conductor of the sentiments, that we were strangers to the history of his past life.--An intimate friend of Mr. Girardin, on whose veracity and accuracy we can rely, informs us, that he received his education in one of the principal cities of France; where he had for his private tutor the director of a monastery of females (in which one of his aunts lived), and attended, at the same time, the public lectures delivered at the college of that city.

His juvenile studies were attended with no inconsiderable success, and he more than once was proclaimed victor in the literary combats in which the students of that college were exercised, at the expiration of each year. Those combats were brilliant, and the victorious wreath highly honourable.

Mr. Girardin's object was the bar. He applied to the study of the law, at first in a university, and afterwards in Paris under an eminent practitioner. The revolution commenced, and progressed rapidly. The parliamentary courts were suppressed, and many old and distinguished lawyers remained without employment; of course, the profession now offered but little encouragement.

During his residence in Paris, Mr. Girardin had cultivated literature, and, especially, as a recreation from his more serious studies, poetry. He had published some fugitive pieces, and even ventured on a tragedy. This, and other circumstances, procured him the esteem and friendship of the literati, in particular, of Mons. B. De St. Pierre, whom he has said he shall ever recollect with enthusiastic gratitude.--M. D'Ormesson, then at the head of the king's library, offered to him a situation in the department conducted by the Abbe Barthelemi, the celebrated author of the "Travels of Anacharsis." Mr. Girardin was sure of that situation, and fondly cherished the idea of a literary existence when Mr. D'Ormesson fell a victim to political persecution. Carra, his successor, offered the same situation to Mr. G. but his principles did not permit him to accept it from one of his friend's bitterest enemies.--He retired to the city where he had formerly lived, still cultivating science and literature, and waiting for happier times.

A friend to rational liberty, but an enemy to licentiousness and disorganization, the terrors of the Robespierrean reign could not awe him into silence--he spoke, he wrote--and the dagger of assassination was pointed to his breast. In the navy, he found a refuge, though a dearly-purchased one. He long was screened from the guillotine by these means, and narrowly escaped destruction from the thunder of the British in a well known action: He afterwards sought an asylum on these hospitable shores; where he has found what he most values, liberty well understood, a protecting and wise government.

He has been in this country employed in the laborious and useful profession of instructor of youth, a career which he has pursued with some success, and with unremitted zeal.--An existence thus agitated, has not permitted him to attain eminence in scientific pursuits, but he has the courage to undertake, and the energy to execute, any scheme which may redound to his own honour, and to the benefit of the world.