{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2445/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2445","id":"gutenberg_2445","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2445","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: French Literature","Category: History - British","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism","Great Britain -- Civilization -- 18th century","Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 18th century","Great Britain -- Religion","Harvard Classics","Imaginary letters","Philosophy, Modern -- 18th century","United Kingdom"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1894 Cassell & Co. edition by David Price, email\nccx074@coventry.ac.uk\n\n\n\n\n\nLETTERS ON ENGLAND\nby Voltaire\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nFrancois Marie Arouet, who called himself Voltaire, was the son of\nFrancois Arouet of Poitou, who lived in Paris, had given up his office of\nnotary two years before the birth of this his third son, and obtained\nsome years afterwards a treasurer's office in the Chambre des Comptes.\nVoltaire was born in the year 1694.  He lived until within ten or eleven\nyears of the outbreak of the Great French Revolution, and was a chief\nleader in the movement of thought that preceded the Revolution.  Though\nhe lived to his eighty-fourth year, Voltaire was born with a weak body.\nHis brother Armand, eight years his senior, became a Jansenist.  Voltaire\nwhen ten years old was placed with the Jesuits in the College Louis-le-\nGrand.  There he was taught during seven years, and his genius was\nencouraged in its bent for literature; skill in speaking and in writing\nbeing especially fostered in the system of education which the Jesuits\nhad planned to produce capable men who by voice and pen could give a\nreason for the faith they held.  Verses written for an invalid soldier at\nthe age of eleven won for young Voltaire the friendship of Ninon\nl'Enclos, who encouraged him to go on writing verses.  She died soon\nafterwards, and remembered him with a legacy of two thousand livres for\npurchase of books.  He wrote in his lively school-days a tragedy that\nafterwards he burnt.  At the age of seventeen he left the College Louis-\nle-Grand, where he said afterwards that he had been taught nothing but\nLatin and the Stupidities.  He was then sent to the law schools, and saw\nlife in Paris as a gay young poet who, with all his brilliant liveliness,\nhad an aptitude for looking on the tragic side of things, and one of\nwhose first poems was an \"Ode on the Misfortunes of Life.\"  His mother\ndied when he was twenty.  Voltaire's father thought him a fool for his\nversifying, and attached him as secretary to the Marquis of Chateauneuf;\nwhen he went as ambassador to the Hague.  In December, 1713, he was\ndismissed for his irregularities.  In Paris his unsteadiness and his\naddiction to literature caused his father to rejoice in getting him\nhoused in a country chateau with M. de Caumartin.  M. de Caumartin's\nfather talked with such enthusiasm of Henri IV. and Sully that Voltaire\nplanned the writing of what became his _Henriade_, and his \"History of\nthe Age of Louis XIV.,\" who died on the 1st of September, 1715.\n\nUnder the regency that followed, Voltaire got into trouble again and\nagain through the sharpness of his pen, and at last, accused of verse\nthat satirised the Regent, he was locked up--on the 17th of May, 1717--in\nthe Bastille.  There he wrote the first two books of his _Henriade_, and\nfinished a play on OEdipus, which he had begun at the age of eighteen.  He\ndid not obtain full liberty until the 12th of April, 1718, and it was at\nthis time--with a clearly formed design to associate the name he took\nwith work of high attempt in literature--that Francois Marie Arouet, aged\ntwenty-four, first called himself Voltaire.\n\nVoltaire's _OEdipe_ was played with success in November, 1718.  A few\nmonths later he was again banished from Paris, and finished the\n_Henriade_ in his retirement, as well as another play, _Artemise_, that\nwas acted in February, 1720.  Other plays followed.  In December, 1721,\nVoltaire visited Lord Bolingbroke, who was then an exile from England, at\nthe Chateau of La Source.  There was now constant literary activity.  From\nJuly to October, 1722, Voltaire visited Holland with Madame de\nRupelmonde.  After a serious attack of small-pox in November, 1723,\nVoltaire was active as a poet about the Court.  He was then in receipt of\na pension of two thousand livres from the king, and had inherited more\nthan twice as much by the death of his father in January, 1722.  But in\nDecember, 1725, a quarrel, fastened upon him by the Chevalier de Rohan,\nwho had him waylaid and beaten, caused him to send a challenge.  For this\nhe was arrested and lodged once more, in April, 1726, in the Bastille.\nThere he was detained a month; and his first act when he was released was\nto ask for a passport to England.\n\nVoltaire left France, reached London in August, 1726, went as guest to\nthe house of a rich merchant at Wandsworth, and remained three years in\nthis country, from the age of thirty-two to the age of thirty-five.  He\nwas here when George I. died, and George II. became king.  He published\nhere his _Henriade_.  He wrote here his \"History of Charles XII.\"  He\nread \"Gulliver's Travels\" as a new book, and might have been present at\nthe first night of _The Beggar's Opera_.  He was here whet Sir Isaac\nNewton died.\n\nIn 1731 he published at Rouen the _Lettres sur les Anglais_, which\nappeared in England in 1733 in the volume from which they are here\nreprinted.\n\nH.M.\n\n\n\n\nLETTERS ON ENGLAND\n\n\nLETTER I.--ON THE QUAKERS\n\n\nI was of opinion that the doctrine and history of so extraordinary a\npeople were worthy the attention of the curious.  To acquaint myself with\nthem I made a visit to one of the most eminent Quakers in England, who,\nafter having traded thirty years, had the wisdom to prescribe limits to\nhis fortune and to his desires, and was settled in a little solitude not\nfar from London.  Being come into it, I perceived a small but regularly\nbuilt house, vastly neat, but without the least pomp of furniture.  The\nQuaker who owned it was a hale, ruddy-complexioned old man, who had never\nbeen afflicted with sickness because he had always been insensible to\npassions, and a perfect stranger to intemperance.  I never in my life saw\na more noble or a more engaging aspect than his.  He was dressed like\nthose of his persuasion, in a plain coat without pleats in the sides, or\nbuttons on the pockets and sleeves; and had on a beaver, the brims of\nwhich were horizontal like those of our clergy.  He did not uncover\nhimself when I appeared, and advanced towards me without once stooping\nhis body; but there appeared more politeness in the open, humane air of\nhis countenance, than in the custom of drawing one leg behind the other,\nand taking that from the head which is made to cover it.  \"Friend,\" says\nhe to me, \"I perceive thou art a stranger, but if I can do anything for\nthee, only tell me.\"  \"Sir,\" said I to him, bending forwards and\nadvancing, as is usual with us, one leg towards him, \"I flatter myself\nthat my just curiosity will not give you the least offence, and that\nyou'll do me the honour to inform me of the particulars of your\nreligion.\"  \"The people of thy country,\" replied the Quaker, \"are too\nfull of their bows and compliments, but I never yet met with one of them\nwho had so much curiosity as thyself.  Come in, and let us first dine\ntogether.\"  I still continued to make some very unseasonable ceremonies,\nit not being easy to disengage one's self at once from habits we have\nbeen long used to; and after taking part in a frugal meal, which began\nand ended with a prayer to God, I began to question my courteous host.  I\nopened with that which good Catholics have more than once made to\nHuguenots.  \"My dear sir,\" said I, \"were you ever baptised?\"  \"I never\nwas,\" replied the Quaker, \"nor any of my brethren.\"  \"Zounds!\" say I to\nhim, \"you are not Christians, then.\"  \"Friend,\" replies the old man in a\nsoft tone of voice, \"swear not; we are Christians, and endeavour to be\ngood Christians, but we are not of opinion that the sprinkling water on a\nchild's head makes him a Christian.\"  \"Heavens!\" say I, shocked at his\nimpiety, \"you have then forgot that Christ was baptised by St. John.\"\n\"Friend,\" replies the mild Quaker once again, \"swear not; Christ indeed\nwas baptised by John, but He himself never baptised anyone.  We are the\ndisciples of Christ, not of John.\"  I pitied very much the sincerity of\nmy worthy Quaker, and was absolutely for forcing him to get himself\nchristened.  \"Were that all,\" replied he very gravely, \"we would submit\ncheerfully to baptism, purely in compliance with thy weakness, for we\ndon't condemn any person who uses it; but then we think that those who\nprofess a religion of so holy, so spiritual a nature as that of Christ,\nought to abstain to the utmost of their power from the Jewish\nceremonies.\"  \"O unaccountable!\" say I: \"what! baptism a Jewish\nceremony?\"  \"Yes, my friend,\" says he, \"so truly Jewish, that a great\nmany Jews use the baptism of John to this day.  Look into ancient\nauthors, and thou wilt find that John only revived this practice; and\nthat it had been used by the Hebrews, long before his time, in like\nmanner as the Mahometans imitated the Ishmaelites in their pilgrimages to\nMecca.  Jesus indeed submitted to the baptism of John, as He had suffered\nHimself to be circumcised; but circumcision and the washing with water\nought to be abolished by the baptism of Christ, that baptism of the\nSpirit, that ablution of the soul, which is the salvation of mankind.\nThus the forerunner said, 'I indeed baptise you with water unto\nrepentance; but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I\nam not worthy to bear: he shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with\nfire.'  Likewise Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, writes as\nfollows to the Corinthians, 'Christ sent me not to baptise, but to preach\nthe Gospel;' and indeed Paul never baptised but two persons with water,\nand that very much against his inclinations.  He circumcised his disciple\nTimothy, and the other disciples likewise circumcised all who were\nwilling to submit to that carnal ordinance.  But art thou circumcised?\"\nadded he.  \"I have not the honour to be so,\" say I.  \"Well, friend,\"\ncontinues the Quaker, \"thou art a Christian without being circumcised,\nand I am one without being baptised.\"  Thus did this pious man make a\nwrong but very specious application of four or five texts of Scripture\nwhich seemed to favour the tenets of his sect; but at the same time\nforgot very sincerely an hundred texts which made directly against them.\nI had more sense than to contest with him, since there is no possibility\nof convincing an enthusiast.  A man should never pretend to inform a\nlover of his mistress's faults, no more than one who is at law, of the\nbadness of his cause; nor attempt to win over a fanatic by strength of\nreasoning.  Accordingly I waived the subject.\n\n\"Well,\" said I to him, \"what sort of a communion have you?\"  \"We have\nnone like that thou hintest at among us,\" replied he.  \"How! no\ncommunion?\" said I.  \"Only that spiritual one,\" replied he, \"of hearts.\"\nHe then began again to throw out his texts of Scripture; and preached a\nmost eloquent sermon against that ordinance.  He harangued in a tone as\nthough he had been inspired, to prove that the sacraments were merely of\nhuman invention, and that the word \"sacrament\" was not once mentioned in\nthe Gospel.  \"Excuse,\" said he, \"my ignorance, for I have not employed a\nhundredth part of the arguments which might be brought to prove the truth\nof our religion, but these thou thyself mayest peruse in the Exposition\nof our Faith written by Robert Barclay.  It is one of the best pieces\nthat ever was penned by man; and as our adversaries confess it to be of\ndangerous tendency, the arguments in it must necessarily be very\nconvincing.\"  I promised to peruse this piece, and my Quaker imagined he\nhad already made a convert of me.  He afterwards gave me an account in\nfew words of some singularities which make this sect the contempt of\nothers.  \"Confess,\" said he, \"that it was very difficult for thee to\nrefrain from laughter, when I answered all thy civilities without\nuncovering my head, and at the same time said 'thee' and 'thou' to thee.\nHowever, thou appearest to me too well read not to know that in Christ's\ntime no nation was so ridiculous as to put the plural number for the\nsingular.  Augustus Caesar himself was spoken to in such phrases as\nthese: 'I love thee,' 'I beseech thee,' 'I thank thee;' but he did not\nallow any person to call him 'Domine,' sir.  It was not till many ages\nafter that men would have the word 'you,' as though they were double,\ninstead of 'thou' employed in speaking to them; and usurped the\nflattering titles of lordship, of eminence, and of holiness, which mere\nworms bestow on other worms by assuring them that they are with a most\nprofound respect, and an infamous falsehood, their most obedient humble\nservants.  It is to secure ourselves more strongly from such a shameless\ntraffic of lies and flattery, that we 'thee' and 'thou' a king with the\nsame freedom as we do a beggar, and salute no person; we owing nothing to\nmankind but charity, and to the laws respect and obedience.\n\n\"Our apparel is also somewhat different from that of others, and this\npurely, that it may be a perpetual warning to us not to imitate them.\nOthers wear the badges and marks of their several dignities, and we those\nof Christian humility.  We fly from all assemblies of pleasure, from\ndiversions of every kind, and from places where gaming is practised; and\nindeed our case would be very deplorable, should we fill with such\nlevities as those I have mentioned the heart which ought to be the\nhabitation of God.  We never swear, not even in a court of justice, being\nof opinion that the most holy name of God ought not to be prostituted in\nthe miserable contests betwixt man and man.  When we are obliged to\nappear before a magistrate upon other people's account (for law-suits are\nunknown among the Friends), we give evidence to the truth by sealing it\nwith our yea or nay; and the judges believe us on our bare affirmation,\nwhilst so many other Christians forswear themselves on the holy Gospels.\nWe never war or fight in any case; but it is not that we are afraid, for\nso far from shuddering at the thoughts of death, we on the contrary bless\nthe moment which unites us with the Being of Beings; but the reason of\nour not using the outward sword is, that we are neither wolves, tigers,\nnor mastiffs, but men and Christians.  Our God, who has commanded us to\nlove our enemies, and to suffer without repining, would certainly not\npermit us to cross the seas, merely because murderers clothed in scarlet,\nand wearing caps two foot high, enlist citizens by a noise made with two\nlittle sticks on an ass's skin extended.  And when, after a victory is\ngained, the whole city of London is illuminated; when the sky is in a\nblaze with fireworks, and a noise is heard in the air, of thanksgivings,\nof bells, of organs, and of the cannon, we groan in silence, and are\ndeeply affected with sadness of spirit and brokenness of heart, for the\nsad havoc which is the occasion of those public rejoicings.\"\n\n\n\nLETTER II.--ON THE QUAKERS\n\n\nSuch was the substance of the conversation I had with this very singular\nperson; but I was greatly surprised to see him come the Sunday following\nand take me with him to the Quakers' meeting.  There are several of these\nin London, but that which he carried me to stands near the famous pillar\ncalled The Monument.  The brethren were already assembled at my entering\nit with my guide.  There might be about four hundred men and three\nhundred women in the meeting.  The women hid their faces behind their\nfans, and the men were covered with their broad-brimmed hats.  All were\nseated, and the silence was universal.  I passed through them, but did\nnot perceive so much as one lift up his eyes to look at me.  This silence\nlasted a quarter of an hour, when at last one of them rose up, took off\nhis hat, and, after making a variety of wry faces and groaning in a most\nlamentable manner, he, partly from his nose and partly from his mouth,\nthrew out a strange, confused jumble of words (borrowed, as he imagined,\nfrom the Gospel) which neither himself nor any of his hearers understood.\nWhen this distorter had ended his beautiful soliloquy, and that the\nstupid, but greatly edified, congregation were separated, I asked my\nfriend how it was possible for the judicious part of their assembly to\nsuffer such a babbling?  \"We are obliged,\" says he, \"to suffer it,\nbecause no one knows when a man rises up to hold forth whether he will be\nmoved by the Spirit or by folly.  In this doubt and uncertainty we listen\npatiently to everyone; we even allow our women to hold forth.  Two or\nthree of these are often inspired at one and the same time, and it is\nthen that a most charming noise is heard in the Lord's house.\"  \"You\nhave, then, no priests?\" say I to him.  \"No, no, friend,\" replies the\nQuaker, \"to our great happiness.\"  Then opening one of the Friends'\nbooks, as he called it, he read the following words in an emphatic\ntone:--\"'God forbid we should presume to ordain anyone to receive the\nHoly Spirit on the Lord's Day to the prejudice of the rest of the\nbrethren.'  Thanks to the Almighty, we are the only people upon earth\nthat have no priests.  Wouldst thou deprive us of so happy a distinction?\nWhy should we abandon our babe to mercenary nurses, when we ourselves\nhave milk enough for it?  These mercenary creatures would soon domineer\nin our houses and destroy both the mother and the babe.  God has said,\n'Freely you have received, freely give.'  Shall we, after these words,\ncheapen, as it were, the Gospel, sell the Holy Ghost, and make of an\nassembly of Christians a mere shop of traders?  We don't pay a set of men\nclothed in black to assist our poor, to bury our dead, or to preach to\nthe brethren.  These offices are all of too tender a nature for us ever\nto entrust them to others.\"  \"But how is it possible for you,\" said I,\nwith some warmth, \"to know whether your discourse is really inspired by\nthe Almighty?\"  \"Whosoever,\" says he, \"shall implore Christ to enlighten\nhim, and shall publish the Gospel truths he may feel inwardly, such an\none may be assured that he is inspired by the Lord.\"  He then poured\nforth a numberless multitude of Scripture texts which proved, as he\nimagined, that there is no such thing as Christianity without an\nimmediate revelation, and added these remarkable words: \"When thou movest\none of thy limbs, is it moved by thy own power?  Certainly not; for this\nlimb is often sensible to involuntary motions.  Consequently he who\ncreated thy body gives motion to this earthly tabernacle.  And are the\nseveral ideas of which thy soul receives the impression formed by\nthyself?  Much less are they, since these pour in upon thy mind whether\nthou wilt or no; consequently thou receivest thy ideas from Him who\ncreated thy soul.  But as He leaves thy affections at full liberty, He\ngives thy mind such ideas as thy affections may deserve; if thou livest\nin God, thou actest, thou thinkest in God.  After this thou needest only\nbut open thine eyes to that light which enlightens all mankind, and it is\nthen thou wilt perceive the truth, and make others perceive it.\"  \"Why,\nthis,\" said I, \"is Malebranche's doctrine to a tittle.\"  \"I am acquainted\nwith thy Malebranche,\" said he; \"he had something of the Friend in him,\nbut was not enough so.\"  These are the most considerable particulars I\nlearnt concerning the doctrine of the Quakers.  In my next letter I shall\nacquaint you with their history, which you will find more singular than\ntheir opinions.\n\n\n\nLETTER III.--ON THE QUAKERS\n\n\nYou have already heard that the Quakers date from Christ, who, according\nto them, was the first Quaker.  Religion, say these, was corrupted a\nlittle after His death, and remained in that state of corruption about\nsixteen hundred years.  But there were always a few Quakers concealed in\nthe world, who carefully preserved the sacred fire, which was\nextinguished in all but themselves, until at last this light spread\nitself in England in 1642.\n\nIt was at the time when Great Britain was torn to pieces by the intestine\nwars which three or four sects had raised in the name of God, that one\nGeorge Fox, born in Leicestershire, and son to a silk-weaver, took it\ninto his head to preach, and, as he pretended, with all the requisites of\na true apostle--that is, without being able either to read or write.  He\nwas about twenty-five years of age, irreproachable in his life and\nconduct, and a holy madman.  He was equipped in leather from head to\nfoot, and travelled from one village to another, exclaiming against war\nand the clergy.  Had his invectives been levelled against the soldiery\nonly he would have been safe enough, but he inveighed against\necclesiastics.  Fox was seized at Derby, and being carried before a\njustice of peace, he did not once offer to pull off his leathern hat,\nupon which an officer gave him a great box of the ear, and cried to him,\n\"Don't you know you are to appear uncovered before his worship?\"  Fox\npresented his other cheek to the officer, and begged him to give him\nanother box for God's sake.  The justice would have had him sworn before\nhe asked him any questions.  \"Know, friend,\" says Fox to him, \"that I\nnever swear.\"  The justice, observing he \"thee'd\" and \"thou'd\" him, sent\nhim to the House of Correction, in Derby, with orders that he should be\nwhipped there.  Fox praised the Lord all the way he went to the House of\nCorrection, where the justice's order was executed with the utmost\nseverity.  The men who whipped this enthusiast were greatly surprised to\nhear him beseech them to give him a few more lashes for the good of his\nsoul.  There was no need of entreating these people; the lashes were\nrepeated, for which Fox thanked them very cordially, and began to preach.\nAt first the spectators fell a-laughing, but they afterwards listened to\nhim; and as enthusiasm is an epidemical distemper, many were persuaded,\nand those who scourged him became his first disciples.  Being set at\nliberty, he ran up and down the country with a dozen proselytes at his\nheels, still declaiming against the clergy, and was whipped from time to\ntime.  Being one day set in the pillory, he harangued the crowd in so\nstrong and moving a manner, that fifty of the auditors became his\nconverts, and he won the rest so much in his favour that, his head being\nfreed tumultuously from the hole where it was fastened, the populace went\nand searched for the Church of England clergyman who had been chiefly\ninstrumental in bringing him to this punishment, and set him on the same\npillory where Fox had stood.\n\nFox was bold enough to convert some of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers, who\nthereupon quitted the service and refused to take the oaths.  Oliver,\nhaving as great a contempt for a sect which would not allow its members\nto fight, as Sixtus Quintus had for another sect, _Dove non si chiamava_,\nbegan to persecute these new converts.  The prisons were crowded with\nthem, but persecution seldom has any other effect than to increase the\nnumber of proselytes.  These came, therefore, from their confinement more\nstrongly confirmed in the principles they had imbibed, and followed by\ntheir gaolers, whom they had brought over to their belief.  But the\ncircumstances which contributed chiefly to the spreading of this sect\nwere as follows:--Fox thought himself inspired, and consequently was of\nopinion that he must speak in a manner different from the rest of\nmankind.  He thereupon began to writhe his body, to screw up his face, to\nhold in his breath, and to exhale it in a forcible manner, insomuch that\nthe priestess of the Pythian god at Delphos could not have acted her part\nto better advantage.  Inspiration soon became so habitual to him that he\ncould scarce deliver himself in any other manner.  This was the first\ngift he communicated to his disciples.  These aped very sincerely their\nmaster's several grimaces, and shook in every limb the instant the fit of\ninspiration came upon them, whence they were called Quakers.  The vulgar\nattempted to mimic them; they trembled, they spake through the nose, they\nquaked and fancied themselves inspired by the Holy Ghost.  The only thing\nnow wanting was a few miracles, and accordingly they wrought some.\n\nFox, this modern patriarch, spoke thus to a justice of peace before a\nlarge assembly of people: \"Friend, take care what thou dost; God will\nsoon punish thee for persecuting His saints.\"  This magistrate, being one\nwho besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of an\napoplexy two days after, the moment he had signed a _mittimus_ for\nimprisoning some Quakers.  The sudden death with which this justice was\nseized was not ascribed to his intemperance, but was universally looked\nupon as the effect of the holy man's predictions; so that this accident\nmade more converts to Quakerism than a thousand sermons and as many\nshaking fits could have done.  Oliver, finding them increase daily, was\ndesirous of bringing them over to his party, and for that purpose\nattempted to bribe them by money.  However, they were incorruptible,\nwhich made him one day declare that this religion was the only one he had\never met with that had resisted the charms of gold.\n\nThe Quakers were several times persecuted under Charles II.; not upon a\nreligious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for \"theeing\" and\n\"thouing\" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by\nthe laws.\n\nAt last Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the King, in\n1675, his \"Apology for the Quakers,\" a work as well drawn up as the\nsubject could possibly admit.  The dedication to Charles II. is not\nfilled with mean, flattering encomiums, but abounds with bold touches in\nfavour of truth and with the wisest counsels.  \"Thou hast tasted,\" says\nhe to the King at the close of his epistle dedicatory, \"of prosperity and\nadversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country; to\nbe overruled as well as to rule and sit upon the throne; and, being\noppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the Oppressor is both to\nGod and man.  If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost\nnot turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget Him who remembered\nthee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow lust and vanity,\nsurely great will be thy condemnation.\n\n\"Against which snare, as well as the temptation of those that may or do\nfeed thee and prompt thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent\nremedy will be, to apply thyself to that light of Christ which shineth in\nthy conscience, which neither can nor will flatter thee nor suffer thee\nto be at ease in thy sins, but doth and will deal plainly and faithfully\nwith thee, as those that are followers thereof have plainly done.--Thy\nfaithful friend and subject, Robert Barclay.\"\n\nA more surprising circumstance is, that this epistle, written by a\nprivate man of no figure, was so happy in its effects, as to put a stop\nto the persecution.\n\n\n\nLETTER IV.--ON THE QUAKERS\n\n\nAbout this time arose the illustrious William Penn, who established the\npower of the Quakers in America, and would have made them appear\nvenerable in the eyes of the Europeans, were it possible for mankind to\nrespect virtue when revealed in a ridiculous light.  He was the only son\nof Vice-Admiral Penn, favourite of the Duke of York, afterwards King\nJames II.\n\nWilliam Penn, at twenty years of age, happening to meet with a Quaker in\nCork, whom he had known at Oxford, this man made a proselyte of him; and\nWilliam being a sprightly youth, and naturally eloquent, having a winning\naspect, and a very engaging carriage, he soon gained over some of his\nintimates.  He carried matters so far, that he formed by insensible\ndegrees a society of young Quakers, who met at his house; so that he was\nat the head of a sect when a little above twenty.\n\nBeing returned, after his leaving Cork, to the Vice-Admiral his father,\ninstead of falling upon his knees to ask his blessing, he went up to him\nwith his hat on, and said, \"Friend, I am very glad to see thee in good\nhealth.\"  The Vice-Admiral imagined his son to be crazy, but soon finding\nhe was turned Quaker, he employed all the methods that prudence could\nsuggest to engage him to behave and act like other people.  The youth\nmade no other answer to his father, than by exhorting him to turn Quaker\nalso.  At last his father confined himself to this single request, viz.,\n\"that he should wait upon the King and the Duke of York with his hat\nunder his arm, and should not 'thee' and 'thou' them.\"  William answered,\n\"that he could not do these things, for conscience' sake,\" which\nexasperated his father to such a degree, that he turned him out of doors.\nYoung Pen gave God thanks for permitting him to suffer so early in His\ncause, after which he went into the city, where he held forth, and made a\ngreat number of converts.\n\nThe Church of England clergy found their congregations dwindle away\ndaily; and Penn being young, handsome, and of a graceful stature, the\ncourt as well as the city ladies flocked very devoutly to his meeting.\nThe patriarch, George Fox, hearing of his great reputation, came to\nLondon (though the journey was very long) purely to see and converse with\nhim.  Both resolved to go upon missions into foreign countries, and\naccordingly they embarked for Holland, after having left labourers\nsufficient to take care of the London vineyard.\n\nTheir labours were crowned with success in Amsterdam, but a circumstance\nwhich reflected the greatest honour on them, and at the same time put\ntheir humility to the greatest trial, was the reception they met with\nfrom Elizabeth, the Princess Palatine, aunt to George I. of Great\nBritain, a lady conspicuous for her genius and knowledge, and to whom\nDescartes had dedicated his Philosophical Romance.\n\nShe was then retired to the Hague, where she received these Friends, for\nso the Quakers were at that time called in Holland.  This princess had\nseveral conferences with them in her palace, and she at last entertained\nso favourable an opinion of Quakerism, that they confessed she was not\nfar from the kingdom of heaven.  The Friends sowed likewise the good seed\nin Germany, but reaped very little fruit; for the mode of \"theeing\" and\n\"thouing\" was not approved of in a country where a man is perpetually\nobliged to employ the titles of \"highness\" and \"excellency.\"  William\nPenn returned soon to England upon hearing of his father's sickness, in\norder to see him before he died.  The Vice-Admiral was reconciled to his\nson, and though of a different persuasion, embraced him tenderly.  William\nmade a fruitless exhortation to his father not to receive the sacrament,\nbut to die a Quaker, and the good old man entreated his son William to\nwear buttons on his sleeves, and a crape hatband in his beaver, but all\nto no purpose.\n\nWilliam Penn inherited very large possessions, part of which consisted in\nCrown debts due to the Vice-Admiral for sums he had advanced for the sea\nservice.  No moneys were at that time more insecure than those owing from\nthe king.  Penn was obliged to go more than once, and \"thee\" and \"thou\"\nKing Charles and his Ministers, in order to recover the debt; and at\nlast, instead of specie, the Government invested him with the right and\nsovereignty of a province of America, to the south of Maryland.  Thus was\na Quaker raised to sovereign power.  Penn set sail for his new dominions\nwith two ships freighted with Quakers, who followed his fortune.  The\ncountry was then called Pennsylvania from William Penn, who there founded\nPhiladelphia, now the most flourishing city in that country.  The first\nstep he took was to enter into an alliance with his American neighbours,\nand this is the only treaty between those people and the Christians that\nwas not ratified by an oath, and was never infringed.  The new sovereign\nwas at the same time the legislator of Pennsylvania, and enacted very\nwise and prudent laws, none of which have ever been changed since his\ntime.  The first is, to injure no person upon a religious account, and to\nconsider as brethren all those who believe in one God.\n\nHe had no sooner settled his government, but several American merchants\ncame and peopled this colony.  The natives of the country, instead of\nflying into the woods, cultivated by insensible degrees a friendship with\nthe peaceable Quakers.  They loved these foreigners as much as they\ndetested the other Christians who had conquered and laid waste America.\nIn a little time a great number of these savages (falsely so called),\ncharmed with the mild and gentle disposition of their neighbours, came in\ncrowds to William Penn, and besought him to admit them into the number of\nhis vassals.  It was very rare and uncommon for a sovereign to be\n\"thee'd\" and \"thou'd\" by the meanest of his subjects, who never took\ntheir hats off when they came into his presence; and as singular for a\nGovernment to be without one priest in it, and for a people to be without\narms, either offensive or defensive; for a body of citizens to be\nabsolutely undistinguished but by the public employments, and for\nneighbours not to entertain the least jealousy one against the other.\n\nWilliam Penn might glory in having brought down upon earth the so much\nboasted golden age, which in all probability never existed but in\nPennsylvania.  He returned to England to settle some affairs relating to\nhis new dominions.  After the death of King Charles II., King James, who\nhad loved the father, indulged the same affection to the son, and no\nlonger considered him as an obscure sectary, but as a very great man.  The\nking's politics on this occasion agreed with his inclinations.  He was\ndesirous of pleasing the Quakers by annulling the laws made against\nNonconformists, in order to have an opportunity, by this universal\ntoleration, of establishing the Romish religion.  All the sectarists in\nEngland saw the snare that was laid for them, but did not give into it;\nthey never failing to unite when the Romish religion, their common enemy,\nis to be opposed.  But Penn did not think himself bound in any manner to\nrenounce his principles, merely to favour Protestants to whom he was\nodious, in opposition to a king who loved him.  He had established a\nuniversal toleration with regard to conscience in America, and would not\nhave it thought that he intended to destroy it in Europe, for which\nreason he adhered so inviolably to King James, that a report prevailed\nuniversally of his being a Jesuit.  This calumny affected him very\nstrongly, and he was obliged to justify himself in print.  However, the\nunfortunate King James II., in whom, as in most princes of the Stuart\nfamily, grandeur and weakness were equally blended, and who, like them,\nas much overdid some things as he was short in others, lost his kingdom\nin a manner that is hardly to be accounted for.\n\nAll the English sectarists accepted from William III, and his Parliament\nthe toleration and indulgence which they had refused when offered by King\nJames.  It was then the Quakers began to enjoy, by virtue of the laws,\nthe several privileges they possess at this time.  Penn having at last\nseen Quakerism firmly established in his native country, went back to\nPennsylvania.  His own people and the Americans received him with tears\nof joy, as though he had been a father who was returned to visit his\nchildren.  All the laws had been religiously observed in his absence, a\ncircumstance in which no legislator had ever been happy but himself.\nAfter having resided some years in Pennsylvania he left it, but with\ngreat reluctance, in order to return to England, there to solicit some\nmatters in favour of the commerce of Pennsylvania.  But he never saw it\nagain, he dying in Ruscombe, in Berkshire, in 1718.\n\nI am not able to guess what fate Quakerism may have in America, but I\nperceive it dwindles away daily in England.  In all countries where\nliberty of conscience is allowed, the established religion will at last\nswallow up all the rest.  Quakers are disqualified from being members of\nParliament; nor can they enjoy any post or preferment, because an oath\nmust always be taken on these occasions, and they never swear.  They are\ntherefore reduced to the necessity of subsisting upon traffic.  Their\nchildren, whom the industry of their parents has enriched, are desirous\nof enjoying honours, of wearing buttons and ruffles; and quite ashamed of\nbeing called Quakers they become converts to the Church of England,\nmerely to be in the fashion.\n\n\n\nLETTER V.--ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND\n\n\nEngland is properly the country of sectarists.  _Multae sunt mansiones in\ndomo patris mei_ (in my Father's house are many mansions).  An\nEnglishman, as one to whom liberty is natural, may go to heaven his own\nway.\n\nNevertheless, though every one is permitted to serve God in whatever mode\nor fashion he thinks proper, yet their true religion, that in which a man\nmakes his fortune, is the sect of Episcopalians or Churchmen, called the\nChurch of England, or simply the Church, by way of eminence.  No person\ncan possess an employment either in England or Ireland unless he be\nranked among the faithful, that is, professes himself a member of the\nChurch of England.  This reason (which carries mathematical evidence with\nit) has converted such numbers of Dissenters of all persuasions, that not\na twentieth part of the nation is out of the pale of the Established\nChurch.  The English clergy have retained a great number of the Romish\nceremonies, and especially that of receiving, with a most scrupulous\nattention, their tithes.  They also have the pious ambition to aim at\nsuperiority.\n\nMoreover, they inspire very religiously their flock with a holy zeal\nagainst Dissenters of all denominations.  This zeal was pretty violent\nunder the Tories in the four last years of Queen Anne; but was productive\nof no greater mischief than the breaking the windows of some\nmeeting-houses and the demolishing of a few of them.  For religious rage\nceased in England with the civil wars, and was no more under Queen Anne\nthan the hollow noise of a sea whose billows still heaved, though so long\nafter the storm when the Whigs and Tories laid waste their native\ncountry, in the same manner as the Guelphs and Ghibelins formerly did\ntheirs.  It was absolutely necessary for both parties to call in religion\non this occasion; the Tories declared for Episcopacy, and the Whigs, as\nsome imagined, were for abolishing it; however, after these had got the\nupper hand, they contented themselves with only abridging it.\n\nAt the time when the Earl of Oxford and the Lord Bolingbroke used to\ndrink healths to the Tories, the Church of England considered those\nnoblemen as the defenders of its holy privileges.  The lower House of\nConvocation (a kind of House of Commons) composed wholly of the clergy,\nwas in some credit at that time; at least the members of it had the\nliberty to meet, to dispute on ecclesiastical matters, to sentence\nimpious books from time to time to the flames, that is, books written\nagainst themselves.  The Ministry which is now composed of Whigs does not\nso much as allow those gentlemen to assemble, so that they are at this\ntime reduced (in the obscurity of their respective parishes) to the\nmelancholy occupation of praying for the prosperity of the Government\nwhose tranquillity they would willingly disturb.  With regard to the\nbishops, who are twenty-six in all, they still have seats in the House of\nLords in spite of the Whigs, because the ancient abuse of considering\nthem as barons subsists to this day.  There is a clause, however, in the\noath which the Government requires from these gentlemen, that puts their\nChristian patience to a very great trial, viz., that they shall be of the\nChurch of England as by law established.  There are few bishops, deans,\nor other dignitaries, but imagine they are so _jure divino_; it is\nconsequently a great mortification to them to be obliged to confess that\nthey owe their dignity to a pitiful law enacted by a set of profane\nlaymen.  A learned monk (Father Courayer) wrote a book lately to prove\nthe validity and succession of English ordinations.  This book was forbid\nin France, but do you believe that the English Ministry were pleased with\nit?  Far from it.  Those wicked Whigs don't care a straw whether the\nepiscopal succession among them hath been interrupted or not, or whether\nBishop Parker was consecrated (as it is pretended) in a tavern or a\nchurch; for these Whigs are much better pleased that the Bishops should\nderive their authority from the Parliament than from the Apostles.  The\nLord Bolingbroke observed that this notion of divine right would only\nmake so many tyrants in lawn sleeves, but that the laws made so many\ncitizens.\n\nWith regard to the morals of the English clergy, they are more regular\nthan those of France, and for this reason.  All the clergy (a very few\nexcepted) are educated in the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, far\nfrom the depravity and corruption which reign in the capital.  They are\nnot called to dignities till very late, at a time of life when men are\nsensible of no other passion but avarice, that is, when their ambition\ncraves a supply.  Employments are here bestowed both in the Church and\nthe army, as a reward for long services; and we never see youngsters made\nbishops or colonels immediately upon their laying aside the academical\ngown; and besides most of the clergy are married.  The stiff and awkward\nair contracted by them at the University, and the little familiarity the\nmen of this country have with the ladies, commonly oblige a bishop to\nconfine himself to, and rest contented with, his own.  Clergymen\nsometimes take a glass at the tavern, custom giving them a sanction on\nthis occasion; and if they fuddle themselves it is in a very serious\nmanner, and without giving the least scandal.\n\nThat fable-mixed kind of mortal (not to be defined), who is neither of\nthe clergy nor of the laity; in a word, the thing called _Abbe_ in\nFrance; is a species quite unknown in England.  All the clergy here are\nvery much upon the reserve, and most of them pedants.  When these are\ntold that in France young fellows famous for their dissoluteness, and\nraised to the highest dignities of the Church by female intrigues,\naddress the fair publicly in an amorous way, amuse themselves in writing\ntender love songs, entertain their friends very splendidly every night at\ntheir own houses, and after the banquet is ended withdraw to invoke the\nassistance of the Holy Ghost, and call themselves boldly the successors\nof the Apostles, they bless God for their being Protestants.  But these\nare shameless heretics, who deserve to be blown hence through the flames\nto old Nick, as Rabelais says, and for this reason I do not trouble\nmyself about them.\n\n\n\nLETTER VI.--ON THE PRESBYTERIANS\n\n\nThe Church of England is confined almost to the kingdom whence it\nreceived its name, and to Ireland, for Presbyterianism is the established\nreligion in Scotland.  This Presbyterianism is directly the same with\nCalvinism, as it was established in France, and is now professed at\nGeneva.  As the priests of this sect receive but very inconsiderable\nstipends from their churches, and consequently cannot emulate the\nsplendid luxury of bishops, they exclaim very naturally against honours\nwhich they can never attain to.  Figure to yourself the haughty Diogenes\ntrampling under foot the pride of Plato.  The Scotch Presbyterians are\nnot very unlike that proud though tattered reasoner.  Diogenes did not\nuse Alexander half so impertinently as these treated King Charles II.;\nfor when they took up arms in his cause in opposition to Oliver, who had\ndeceived them, they forced that poor monarch to undergo the hearing of\nthree or four sermons every day, would not suffer him to play, reduced\nhim to a state of penitence and mortification, so that Charles soon grew\nsick of these pedants, and accordingly eloped from them with as much joy\nas a youth does from school.\n\nA Church of England minister appears as another Cato in presence of a\njuvenile, sprightly French graduate, who bawls for a whole morning\ntogether in the divinity schools, and hums a song in chorus with ladies\nin the evening; but this Cato is a very spark when before a Scotch\nPresbyterian.  The latter affects a serious gait, puts on a sour look,\nwears a vastly broad-brimmed hat and a long cloak over a very short coat,\npreaches through the nose, and gives the name of the whore of Babylon to\nall churches where the ministers are so fortunate as to enjoy an annual\nrevenue of five or six thousand pounds, and where the people are weak\nenough to suffer this, and to give them the titles of my lord, your\nlordship, or your eminence.\n\nThese gentlemen, who have also some churches in England, introduced there\nthe mode of grave and severe exhortations.  To them is owing the\nsanctification of Sunday in the three kingdoms.  People are there\nforbidden to work or take any recreation on that day, in which the\nseverity is twice as great as that of the Romish Church.  No operas,\nplays, or concerts are allowed in London on Sundays, and even cards are\nso expressly forbidden that none but persons of quality, and those we\ncall the genteel, play on that day; the rest of the nation go either to\nchurch, to the tavern, or to see their mistresses.\n\nThough the Episcopal and Presbyterian sects are the two prevailing ones\nin Great Britain, yet all others are very welcome to come and settle in\nit, and live very sociably together, though most of their preachers hate\none another almost as cordially as a Jansenist damns a Jesuit.\n\nTake a view of the Royal Exchange in London, a place more venerable than\nmany courts of justice, where the representatives of all nations meet for\nthe benefit of mankind.  There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian\ntransact together, as though they all professed the same religion, and\ngive the name of infidel to none but bankrupts.  There the Presbyterian\nconfides in the Anabaptist, and the Churchman depends on the Quaker's\nword.\n\nIf one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very\npossibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut\none another's throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live\nhappy and in peace.\n\n\n\nLETTER VII.--ON THE SOCINIANS, OR ARIANS, OR ANTITRINITARIANS\n\n\nThere is a little sect here composed of clergymen, and of a few very\nlearned persons among the laity, who, though they do not call themselves\nArians or Socinians, do yet dissent entirely from St. Athanasius with\nregard to their notions of the Trinity, and declare very frankly that the\nFather is greater than the Son.\n\nDo you remember what is related of a certain orthodox bishop, who, in\norder to convince an emperor of the reality of consubstantiation, put his\nhand under the chin of the monarch's son, and took him by the nose in\npresence of his sacred majesty?  The emperor was going to order his\nattendants to throw the bishop out of the window, when the good old man\ngave him this handsome and convincing reason: \"Since your majesty,\" says\nhe, \"is angry when your son has not due respect shown him, what\npunishment do you think will God the Father inflict on those who refuse\nHis Son Jesus the titles due to Him?\"  The persons I just now mentioned\ndeclare that the holy bishop took a very wrong step, that his argument\nwas inconclusive, and that the emperor should have answered him thus:\n\"Know that there are two ways by which men may be wanting in respect to\nme--first, in not doing honour sufficient to my son; and, secondly, in\npaying him the same honour as to me.\"\n\nBe this as it will, the principles of Arius begin to revive, not only in\nEngland, but in Holland and Poland.  The celebrated Sir Isaac Newton\nhonoured this opinion so far as to countenance it.  This philosopher\nthought that the Unitarians argued more mathematically than we do.  But\nthe most sanguine stickler for Arianism is the illustrious Dr. Clark.\nThis man is rigidly virtuous, and of a mild disposition, is more fond of\nhis tenets than desirous of propagating them, and absorbed so entirely in\nproblems and calculations that he is a mere reasoning machine.\n\nIt is he who wrote a book which is much esteemed and little understood,\non the existence of God, and another, more intelligible, but pretty much\ncontemned, on the truth of the Christian religion.\n\nHe never engaged in scholastic disputes, which our friend calls venerable\ntrifles.  He only published a work containing all the testimonies of the\nprimitive ages for and against the Unitarians, and leaves to the reader\nthe counting of the voices and the liberty of forming a judgment.  This\nbook won the doctor a great number of partisans, and lost him the See of\nCanterbury; but, in my humble opinion, he was out in his calculation, and\nhad better have been Primate of all England than merely an Arian parson.\n\nYou see that opinions are subject to revolutions as well as empires.\nArianism, after having triumphed during three centuries, and been forgot\ntwelve, rises at last out of its own ashes; but it has chosen a very\nimproper season to make its appearance in, the present age being quite\ncloyed with disputes and sects.  The members of this sect are, besides,\ntoo few to be indulged the liberty of holding public assemblies, which,\nhowever, they will, doubtless, be permitted to do in case they spread\nconsiderably.  But people are now so very cold with respect to all things\nof this kind, that there is little probability any new religion, or old\none, that may be revived, will meet with favour.  Is it not whimsical\nenough that Luther, Calvin, and Zuinglius, all of them wretched authors,\nshould have founded sects which are now spread over a great part of\nEurope, that Mahomet, though so ignorant, should have given a religion to\nAsia and Africa, and that Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Clark, Mr. Locke, Mr. Le\nClerc, etc., the greatest philosophers, as well as the ablest writers of\ntheir ages, should scarcely have been able to raise a little flock, which\neven decreases daily.\n\nThis it is to be born at a proper period of time.  Were Cardinal de Retz\nto return again into the world, neither his eloquence nor his intrigues\nwould draw together ten women in Paris.\n\nWere Oliver Cromwell, he who beheaded his sovereign, and seized upon the\nkingly dignity, to rise from the dead, he would be a wealthy City trader,\nand no more.\n\n\n\nLETTER VIII.--ON THE PARLIAMENT\n\n\nThe members of the English Parliament are fond of comparing themselves to\nthe old Romans.\n\nNot long since Mr. Shippen opened a speech in the House of Commons with\nthese words, \"The majesty of the people of England would be wounded.\"  The\nsingularity of the expression occasioned a loud laugh; but this\ngentleman, so far from being disconcerted, repeated the same words with a\nresolute tone of voice, and the laugh ceased.  In my opinion, the majesty\nof the people of England has nothing in common with that of the people of\nRome, much less is there any affinity between their Governments.  There\nis in London a senate, some of the members whereof are accused (doubtless\nvery unjustly) of selling their voices on certain occasions, as was done\nin Rome; this is the only resemblance.  Besides, the two nations appear\nto me quite opposite in character, with regard both to good and evil.  The\nRomans never knew the dreadful folly of religious wars, an abomination\nreserved for devout preachers of patience and humility.  Marius and\nSylla, Caesar and Pompey, Anthony and Augustus, did not draw their swords\nand set the world in a blaze merely to determine whether the flamen\nshould wear his shirt over his robe, or his robe over his shirt, or\nwhether the sacred chickens should eat and drink, or eat only, in order\nto take the augury.  The English have hanged one another by law, and cut\none another to pieces in pitched battles, for quarrels of as trifling a\nnature.  The sects of the Episcopalians and Presbyterians quite\ndistracted these very serious heads for a time.  But I fancy they will\nhardly ever be so silly again, they seeming to be grown wiser at their\nown expense; and I do not perceive the least inclination in them to\nmurder one another merely about syllogisms, as some zealots among them\nonce did.\n\nBut here follows a more essential difference between Rome and England,\nwhich gives the advantage entirely to the latter--viz., that the civil\nwars of Rome ended in slavery, and those of the English in liberty.  The\nEnglish are the only people upon earth who have been able to prescribe\nlimits to the power of kings by resisting them; and who, by a series of\nstruggles, have at last established that wise Government where the Prince\nis all-powerful to do good, and, at the same time, is restrained from\ncommitting evil; where the nobles are great without insolence, though\nthere are no vassals; and where the people share in the Government\nwithout confusion.\n\nThe House of Lords and that of the Commons divide the legislative power\nunder the king, but the Romans had no such balance.  The patricians and\nplebeians in Rome were perpetually at variance, and there was no\nintermediate power to reconcile them.  The Roman senate, who were so\nunjustly, so criminally proud as not to suffer the plebeians to share\nwith them in anything, could find no other artifice to keep the latter\nout of the administration than by employing them in foreign wars.  They\nconsidered the plebeians as a wild beast, whom it behoved them to let\nloose upon their neighbours, for fear they should devour their masters.\nThus the greatest defect in the Government of the Romans raised them to\nbe conquerors.  By being unhappy at home, they triumphed over and\npossessed themselves of the world, till at last their divisions sunk them\nto slavery.\n\nThe Government of England will never rise to so exalted a pitch of glory,\nnor will its end be so fatal.  The English are not fired with the\nsplendid folly of making conquests, but would only prevent their\nneighbours from conquering.  They are not only jealous of their own\nliberty, but even of that of other nations.  The English were exasperated\nagainst Louis XIV. for no other reason but because he was ambitious, and\ndeclared war against him merely out of levity, not from any interested\nmotives.\n\nThe English have doubtless purchased their liberties at a very high\nprice, and waded through seas of blood to drown the idol of arbitrary\npower.  Other nations have been involved in as great calamities, and have\nshed as much blood; but then the blood they spilt in defence of their\nliberties only enslaved them the more.\n\nThat which rises to a revolution in England is no more than a sedition in\nother countries.  A city in Spain, in Barbary, or in Turkey, takes up\narms in defence of its privileges, when immediately it is stormed by\nmercenary troops, it is punished by executioners, and the rest of the\nnation kiss the chains they are loaded with.  The French are of opinion\nthat the government of this island is more tempestuous than the sea which\nsurrounds it, which indeed is true; but then it is never so but when the\nking raises the storm--when he attempts to seize the ship of which he is\nonly the chief pilot.  The civil wars of France lasted longer, were more\ncruel, and productive of greater evils than those of England; but none of\nthese civil wars had a wise and prudent liberty for their object.\n\nIn the detestable reigns of Charles IX. and Henry III. the whole affair\nwas only whether the people should be slaves to the Guises.  With regard\nto the last war of Paris, it deserves only to be hooted at.  Methinks I\nsee a crowd of schoolboys rising up in arms against their master, and\nafterwards whipped for it.  Cardinal de Retz, who was witty and brave\n(but to no purpose), rebellious without a cause, factious without design,\nand head of a defenceless party, caballed for caballing sake, and seemed\nto foment the civil war merely out of diversion.  The Parliament did not\nknow what he intended, nor what he did not intend.  He levied troops by\nAct of Parliament, and the next moment cashiered them.  He threatened, he\nbegged pardon; he set a price upon Cardinal Mazarin's head, and\nafterwards congratulated him in a public manner.  Our civil wars under\nCharles VI. were bloody and cruel, those of the League execrable, and\nthat of the Frondeurs ridiculous.\n\nThat for which the French chiefly reproach the English nation is the\nmurder of King Charles I., whom his subjects treated exactly as he would\nhave treated them had his reign been prosperous.  After all, consider on\none side Charles I., defeated in a pitched battle, imprisoned, tried,\nsentenced to die in Westminster Hall, and then beheaded.  And on the\nother, the Emperor Henry VII., poisoned by his chaplain at his receiving\nthe Sacrament; Henry III. stabbed by a monk; thirty assassinations\nprojected against Henry IV., several of them put in execution, and the\nlast bereaving that great monarch of his life.  Weigh, I say, all these\nwicked attempts, and then judge.\n\n\n\nLETTER IX.--ON THE GOVERNMENT\n\n\nThat mixture in the English Government, that harmony between King, Lords,\nand commons, did not always subsist.  England was enslaved for a long\nseries of years by the Romans, the Saxons, the Danes, and the French\nsuccessively.  William the Conqueror particularly, ruled them with a rod\nof iron.  He disposed as absolutely of the lives and fortunes of his\nconquered subjects as an eastern monarch; and forbade, upon pain of\ndeath, the English either fire or candle in their houses after eight\no'clock; whether was this to prevent their nocturnal meetings, or only to\ntry, by an odd and whimsical prohibition, how far it was possible for one\nman to extend his power over his fellow-creatures.  It is true, indeed,\nthat the English had Parliaments before and after William the Conqueror,\nand they boast of them, as though these assemblies then called\nParliaments, composed of ecclesiastical tyrants and of plunderers\nentitled barons, had been the guardians of the public liberty and\nhappiness.\n\nThe barbarians who came from the shores of the Baltic, and settled in the\nrest of Europe, brought with them the form of government called States or\nParliaments, about which so much noise is made, and which are so little\nunderstood.  Kings, indeed, were not absolute in those days; but then the\npeople were more wretched upon that very account, and more completely\nenslaved.  The chiefs of these savages, who had laid waste France, Italy,\nSpain, and England, made themselves monarchs.  Their generals divided\namong themselves the several countries they had conquered, whence sprung\nthose margraves, those peers, those barons, those petty tyrants, who\noften contested with their sovereigns for the spoils of whole nations.\nThese were birds of prey fighting with an eagle for doves whose blood the\nvictorious was to suck.  Every nation, instead of being governed by one\nmaster, was trampled upon by a hundred tyrants.  The priests soon played\na part among them.  Before this it had been the fate of the Gauls, the\nGermans, and the Britons, to be always governed by their Druids and the\nchiefs of their villages, an ancient kind of barons, not so tyrannical as\ntheir successors.  These Druids pretended to be mediators between God and\nman.  They enacted laws, they fulminated their excommunications, and\nsentenced to death.  The bishops succeeded, by insensible degrees, to\ntheir temporal authority in the Goth and Vandal government.  The popes\nset themselves at their head, and armed with their briefs, their bulls,\nand reinforced by monks, they made even kings tremble, deposed and\nassassinated them at pleasure, and employed every artifice to draw into\ntheir own purses moneys from all parts of Europe.  The weak Ina, one of\nthe tyrants of the Saxon Heptarchy in England, was the first monarch who\nsubmitted, in his pilgrimage to Rome, to pay St. Peter's penny\n(equivalent very near to a French crown) for every house in his\ndominions.  The whole island soon followed his example; England became\ninsensibly one of the Pope's provinces, and the Holy Father used to send\nfrom time to time his legates thither to levy exorbitant taxes.  At last\nKing John delivered up by a public instrument the kingdom of England to\nthe Pope, who had excommunicated him; but the barons, not finding their\naccount in this resignation, dethroned the wretched King John and seated\nLouis, father to St. Louis, King of France, in his place.  However, they\nwere soon weary of their new monarch, and accordingly obliged him to\nreturn to France.\n\nWhilst that the barons, the bishops, and the popes, all laid waste\nEngland, where all were for ruling the most numerous, the most useful,\neven the most virtuous, and consequently the most venerable part of\nmankind, consisting of those who study the laws and the sciences, of\ntraders, of artificers, in a word, of all who were not tyrants--that is,\nthose who are called the people: these, I say, were by them looked upon\nas so many animals beneath the dignity of the human species.  The Commons\nin those ages were far from sharing in the government, they being\nvillains or peasants, whose labour, whose blood, were the property of\ntheir masters who entitled themselves the nobility.  The major part of\nmen in Europe were at that time what they are to this day in several\nparts of the world--they were villains or bondsmen of lords--that is, a\nkind of cattle bought and sold with the land.  Many ages passed away\nbefore justice could be done to human nature--before mankind were\nconscious that it was abominable for many to sow, and but few reap.  And\nwas not France very happy, when the power and authority of those petty\nrobbers was abolished by the lawful authority of kings and of the people?\n\nHappily, in the violent shocks which the divisions between kings and the\nnobles gave to empires, the chains of nations were more or less heavy.\nLiberty in England sprang from the quarrels of tyrants.  The barons\nforced King John and King Henry III. to grant the famous Magna Charta,\nthe chief design of which was indeed to make kings dependent on the\nLords; but then the rest of the nation were a little favoured in it, in\norder that they might join on proper occasions with their pretended\nmasters.  This great Charter, which is considered as the sacred origin of\nthe English liberties, shows in itself how little liberty was known.\n\nThe title alone proves that the king thought he had a just right to be\nabsolute; and that the barons, and even the clergy, forced him to give up\nthe pretended right, for no other reason but because they were the most\npowerful.\n\nMagna Charta begins in this style: \"We grant, of our own free will, the\nfollowing privileges to the archbishops, bishops, priors, and barons of\nour kingdom,\" etc.\n\nThe House of Commons is not once mentioned in the articles of this\nCharter--a proof that it did not yet exist, or that it existed without\npower.  Mention is therein made, by name, of the freemen of England--a\nmelancholy proof that some were not so.  It appears, by Article XXXII.,\nthat these pretended freemen owed service to their lords.  Such a liberty\nas this was not many removes from slavery.\n\nBy Article XXI., the king ordains that his officers shall not\nhenceforward seize upon, unless they pay for them, the horses and carts\nof freemen.  The people considered this ordinance as a real liberty,\nthough it was a greater tyranny.  Henry VII., that happy usurper and\ngreat politician, who pretended to love the barons, though he in reality\nhated and feared them, got their lands alienated.  By this means the\nvillains, afterwards acquiring riches by their industry, purchased the\nestates and country seats of the illustrious peers who had ruined\nthemselves by their folly and extravagance, and all the lands got by\ninsensible degrees into other hands.\n\nThe power of the House of Commons increased every day.  The families of\nthe ancient peers were at last extinct; and as peers only are properly\nnoble in England, there would be no such thing in strictness of law as\nnobility in that island, had not the kings created new barons from time\nto time, and preserved the body of peers, once a terror to them, to\noppose them to the Commons, since become so formidable.\n\nAll these new peers who compose the Higher House receive nothing but\ntheir titles from the king, and very few of them have estates in those\nplaces whence they take their titles.  One shall be Duke of D-, though he\nhas not a foot of land in Dorsetshire; and another is Earl of a village,\nthough he scarce knows where it is situated.  The peers have power, but\nit is only in the Parliament House.\n\nThere is no such thing here as _haute_, _moyenne_, and _basse\njustice_--that is, a power to judge in all matters civil and criminal;\nnor a right or privilege of hunting in the grounds of a citizen, who at\nthe same time is not permitted to fire a gun in his own field.\n\nNo one is exempted in this country from paying certain taxes because he\nis a nobleman or a priest.  All duties and taxes are settled by the House\nof Commons, whose power is greater than that of the Peers, though\ninferior to it in dignity.  The spiritual as well as temporal Lords have\nthe liberty to reject a Money Bill brought in by the Commons; but they\nare not allowed to alter anything in it, and must either pass or throw it\nout without restriction.  When the Bill has passed the Lords and is\nsigned by the king, then the whole nation pays, every man in proportion\nto his revenue or estate, not according to his title, which would be\nabsurd.  There is no such thing as an arbitrary subsidy or poll-tax, but\na real tax on the lands, of all which an estimate was made in the reign\nof the famous King William III.\n\nThe land-tax continues still upon the same foot, though the revenue of\nthe lands is increased.  Thus no one is tyrannised over, and every one is\neasy.  The feet of the peasants are not bruised by wooden shoes; they eat\nwhite bread, are well clothed, and are not afraid of increasing their\nstock of cattle, nor of tiling their houses, from any apprehension that\ntheir taxes will be raised the year following.  The annual income of the\nestates of a great many commoners in England amounts to two hundred\nthousand livres, and yet these do not think it beneath them to plough the\nlands which enrich them, and on which they enjoy their liberty.\n\n\n\nLETTER X.--ON TRADE\n\n\nAs trade enriched the citizens in England, so it contributed to their\nfreedom, and this freedom on the other side extended their commerce,\nwhence arose the grandeur of the State.  Trade raised by insensible\ndegrees the naval power, which gives the English a superiority over the\nseas, and they now are masters of very near two hundred ships of war.\nPosterity will very probably be surprised to hear that an island whose\nonly produce is a little lead, tin, fuller's-earth, and coarse wool,\nshould become so powerful by its commerce, as to be able to send, in\n1723, three fleets at the same time to three different and far distanced\nparts of the globe.  One before Gibraltar, conquered and still possessed\nby the English; a second to Portobello, to dispossess the King of Spain\nof the treasures of the West Indies; and a third into the Baltic, to\nprevent the Northern Powers from coming to an engagement.\n\nAt the time when Louis XIV. made all Italy tremble, and that his armies,\nwhich had already possessed themselves of Savoy and Piedmont, were upon\nthe point of taking Turin; Prince Eugene was obliged to march from the\nmiddle of Germany in order to succour Savoy.  Having no money, without\nwhich cities cannot be either taken or defended, he addressed himself to\nsome English merchants.  These, at an hour and half's warning, lent him\nfive millions, whereby he was enabled to deliver Turin, and to beat the\nFrench; after which he wrote the following short letter to the persons\nwho had disbursed him the above-mentioned sums: \"Gentlemen, I have\nreceived your money, and flatter myself that I have laid it out to your\nsatisfaction.\"  Such a circumstance as this raises a just pride in an\nEnglish merchant, and makes him presume (not without some reason) to\ncompare himself to a Roman citizen; and, indeed, a peer's brother does\nnot think traffic beneath him.  When the Lord Townshend was Minister of\nState, a brother of his was content to be a City merchant; and at the\ntime that the Earl of Oxford governed Great Britain, a younger brother\nwas no more than a factor in Aleppo, where he chose to live, and where he\ndied.  This custom, which begins, however, to be laid aside, appears\nmonstrous to Germans, vainly puffed up with their extraction.  These\nthink it morally impossible that the son of an English peer should be no\nmore than a rich and powerful citizen, for all are princes in Germany.\nThere have been thirty highnesses of the same name, all whose patrimony\nconsisted only in their escutcheons and their pride.\n\nIn France the title of marquis is given gratis to any one who will accept\nof it; and whosoever arrives at Paris from the midst of the most remote\nprovinces with money in his purse, and a name terminating in _ac_ or\n_ille_, may strut about, and cry, \"Such a man as I!  A man of my rank and\nfigure!\" and may look down upon a trader with sovereign contempt; whilst\nthe trader on the other side, by thus often hearing his profession\ntreated so disdainfully, is fool enough to blush at it.  However, I need\nnot say which is most useful to a nation; a lord, powdered in the tip of\nthe mode, who knows exactly at what o'clock the king rises and goes to\nbed, and who gives himself airs of grandeur and state, at the same time\nthat he is acting the slave in the ante-chamber of a prime minister; or a\nmerchant, who enriches his country, despatches orders from his counting-\nhouse to Surat and Grand Cairo, and contributes to the well-being of the\nworld.\n\n\n\nLETTER XI.--ON INOCULATION\n\n\nIt is inadvertently affirmed in the Christian countries of Europe that\nthe English are fools and madmen.  Fools, because they give their\nchildren the small-pox to prevent their catching it; and madmen, because\nthey wantonly communicate a certain and dreadful distemper to their\nchildren, merely to prevent an uncertain evil.  The English, on the other\nside, call the rest of the Europeans cowardly and unnatural.  Cowardly,\nbecause they are afraid of putting their children to a little pain;\nunnatural, because they expose them to die one time or other of the small-\npox.  But that the reader may be able to judge whether the English or\nthose who differ from them in opinion are in the right, here follows the\nhistory of the famed inoculation, which is mentioned with so much dread\nin France.\n\nThe Circassian women have, from time immemorial, communicated the small-\npox to their children when not above six months old by making an incision\nin the arm, and by putting into this incision a pustule, taken carefully\nfrom the body of another child.  This pustule produces the same effect in\nthe arm it is laid in as yeast in a piece of dough; it ferments, and\ndiffuses through the whole mass of blood the qualities with which it is\nimpregnated.  The pustules of the child in whom the artificial small-pox\nhas been thus inoculated are employed to communicate the same distemper\nto others.  There is an almost perpetual circulation of it in Circassia;\nand when unhappily the small-pox has quite left the country, the\ninhabitants of it are in as great trouble and perplexity as other nations\nwhen their harvest has fallen short.\n\nThe circumstance that introduced a custom in Circassia, which appears so\nsingular to others, is nevertheless a cause common to all nations, I mean\nmaternal tenderness and interest.\n\nThe Circassians are poor, and their daughters are beautiful, and indeed,\nit is in them they chiefly trade.  They furnish with beauties the\nseraglios of the Turkish Sultan, of the Persian Sophy, and of all those\nwho are wealthy enough to purchase and maintain such precious\nmerchandise.  These maidens are very honourably and virtuously instructed\nto fondle and caress men; are taught dances of a very polite and\neffeminate kind; and how to heighten by the most voluptuous artifices the\npleasures of their disdainful masters for whom they are designed.  These\nunhappy creatures repeat their lesson to their mothers, in the same\nmanner as little girls among us repeat their catechism without\nunderstanding one word they say.\n\nNow it often happened that, after a father and mother had taken the\nutmost care of the education of their children, they were frustrated of\nall their hopes in an instant.  The small-pox getting into the family,\none daughter died of it, another lost an eye, a third had a great nose at\nher recovery, and the unhappy parents were completely ruined.  Even,\nfrequently, when the small-pox became epidemical, trade was suspended for\nseveral years, which thinned very considerably the seraglios of Persia\nand Turkey.\n\nA trading nation is always watchful over its own interests, and grasps at\nevery discovery that may be of advantage to its commerce.  The\nCircassians observed that scarce one person in a thousand was ever\nattacked by a small-pox of a violent kind.  That some, indeed, had this\ndistemper very favourably three or four times, but never twice so as to\nprove fatal; in a word, that no one ever had it in a violent degree twice\nin his life.  They observed farther, that when the small-pox is of the\nmilder sort, and the pustules have only a tender, delicate skin to break\nthrough, they never leave the least scar in the face.  From these natural\nobservations they concluded, that in case an infant of six months or a\nyear old should have a milder sort of small-pox, he would not die of it,\nwould not be marked, nor be ever afflicted with it again.\n\nIn order, therefore, to preserve the life and beauty of their children,\nthe only thing remaining was to give them the small-pox in their infant\nyears.  This they did by inoculating in the body of a child a pustule\ntaken from the most regular and at the same time the most favourable sort\nof small-pox that could be procured.\n\nThe experiment could not possibly fail.  The Turks, who are people of\ngood sense, soon adopted this custom, insomuch that at this time there is\nnot a bassa in Constantinople but communicates the small-pox to his\nchildren of both sexes immediately upon their being weaned.\n\nSome pretend that the Circassians borrowed this custom anciently from the\nArabians; but we shall leave the clearing up of this point of history to\nsome learned Benedictine, who will not fail to compile a great many\nfolios on this subject, with the several proofs or authorities.  All I\nhave to say upon it is that, in the beginning of the reign of King George\nI., the Lady Wortley Montague, a woman of as fine a genius, and endued\nwith as great a strength of mind, as any of her sex in the British\nKingdoms, being with her husband, who was ambassador at the Porte, made\nno scruple to communicate the small-pox to an infant of which she was\ndelivered in Constantinople.  The chaplain represented to his lady, but\nto no purpose, that this was an unchristian operation, and therefore that\nit could succeed with none but infidels.  However, it had the most happy\neffect upon the son of the Lady Wortley Montague, who, at her return to\nEngland, communicated the experiment to the Princess of Wales, now Queen\nof England.  It must be confessed that this princess, abstracted from her\ncrown and titles, was born to encourage the whole circle of arts, and to\ndo good to mankind.  She appears as an amiable philosopher on the throne,\nhaving never let slip one opportunity of improving the great talents she\nreceived from Nature, nor of exerting her beneficence.  It is she who,\nbeing informed that a daughter of Milton was living, but in miserable\ncircumstances, immediately sent her a considerable present.  It is she\nwho protects the learned Father Courayer.  It is she who condescended to\nattempt a reconciliation between Dr. Clark and Mr. Leibnitz.  The moment\nthis princess heard of inoculation, she caused an experiment of it to be\nmade on four criminals sentenced to die, and by that means preserved\ntheir lives doubly; for she not only saved them from the gallows, but by\nmeans of this artificial small-pox prevented their ever having that\ndistemper in a natural way, with which they would very probably have been\nattacked one time or other, and might have died of in a more advanced\nage.\n\nThe princess being assured of the usefulness of this operation, caused\nher own children to be inoculated.  A great part of the kingdom followed\nher example, and since that time ten thousand children, at least, of\npersons of condition owe in this manner their lives to her Majesty and to\nthe Lady Wortley Montague; and as many of the fair sex are obliged to\nthem for their beauty.\n\nUpon a general calculation, threescore persons in every hundred have the\nsmall-pox.  Of these threescore, twenty die of it in the most favourable\nseason of life, and as many more wear the disagreeable remains of it in\ntheir faces so long as they live.  Thus, a fifth part of mankind either\ndie or are disfigured by this distemper.  But it does not prove fatal to\nso much as one among those who are inoculated in Turkey or in England,\nunless the patient be infirm, or would have died had not the experiment\nbeen made upon him.  Besides, no one is disfigured, no one has the small-\npox a second time, if the inoculation was perfect.  It is therefore\ncertain, that had the lady of some French ambassador brought this secret\nfrom Constantinople to Paris, the nation would have been for ever obliged\nto her.  Then the Duke de Villequier, father to the Duke d'Aumont, who\nenjoys the most vigorous constitution, and is the healthiest man in\nFrance, would not have been cut off in the flower of his age.\n\nThe Prince of Soubise, happy in the finest flush of health, would not\nhave been snatched away at five-and-twenty, nor the Dauphin, grandfather\nto Louis XV., have been laid in his grave in his fiftieth year.  Twenty\nthousand persons whom the small-pox swept away at Paris in 1723 would\nhave been alive at this time.  But are not the French fond of life, and\nis beauty so inconsiderable an advantage as to be disregarded by the\nladies?  It must be confessed that we are an odd kind of people.  Perhaps\nour nation will imitate ten years hence this practice of the English, if\nthe clergy and the physicians will but give them leave to do it; or\npossibly our countrymen may introduce inoculation three months hence in\nFrance out of mere whim, in case the English should discontinue it\nthrough fickleness.\n\nI am informed that the Chinese have practised inoculation these hundred\nyears, a circumstance that argues very much in its favour, since they are\nthought to be the wisest and best governed people in the world.  The\nChinese, indeed, do not communicate this distemper by inoculation, but at\nthe nose, in the same manner as we take snuff.  This is a more agreeable\nway, but then it produces the like effects; and proves at the same time\nthat had inoculation been practised in France it would have saved the\nlives of thousands.\n\n\n\nLETTER XII.--ON THE LORD BACON\n\n\nNot long since the trite and frivolous question following was debated in\na very polite and learned company, viz., Who was the greatest man, Caesar,\nAlexander, Tamerlane, Cromwell, &c.?\n\nSomebody answered that Sir Isaac Newton excelled them all.  The\ngentleman's assertion was very just; for if true greatness consists in\nhaving received from heaven a mighty genius, and in having employed it to\nenlighten our own mind and that of others, a man like Sir Isaac Newton,\nwhose equal is hardly found in a thousand years, is the truly great man.\nAnd those politicians and conquerors (and all ages produce some) were\ngenerally so many illustrious wicked men.  That man claims our respect\nwho commands over the minds of the rest of the world by the force of\ntruth, not those who enslave their fellow-creatures: he who is acquainted\nwith the universe, not they who deface it.\n\nSince, therefore, you desire me to give you an account of the famous\npersonages whom England has given birth to, I shall begin with Lord\nBacon, Mr. Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, &c.  Afterwards the warriors and\nMinisters of State shall come in their order.\n\nI must begin with the celebrated Viscount Verulam, known in Europe by the\nname of Bacon, which was that of his family.  His father had been Lord\nKeeper, and himself was a great many years Lord Chancellor under King\nJames I.  Nevertheless, amidst the intrigues of a Court, and the affairs\nof his exalted employment, which alone were enough to engross his whole\ntime, he yet found so much leisure for study as to make himself a great\nphilosopher, a good historian, and an elegant writer; and a still more\nsurprising circumstance is that he lived in an age in which the art of\nwriting justly and elegantly was little known, much less true philosophy.\nLord Bacon, as is the fate of man, was more esteemed after his death than\nin his lifetime.  His enemies were in the British Court, and his admirers\nwere foreigners.\n\nWhen the Marquis d'Effiat attended in England upon the Princess Henrietta\nMaria, daughter to Henry IV., whom King Charles I. had married, that\nMinister went and visited the Lord Bacon, who, being at that time sick in\nhis bed, received him with the curtains shut close.  \"You resemble the\nangels,\" says the Marquis to him; \"we hear those beings spoken of\nperpetually, and we believe them superior to men, but are never allowed\nthe consolation to see them.\"\n\nYou know that this great man was accused of a crime very unbecoming a\nphilosopher: I mean bribery and extortion.  You know that he was\nsentenced by the House of Lords to pay a fine of about four hundred\nthousand French livres, to lose his peerage and his dignity of\nChancellor; but in the present age the English revere his memory to such\na degree, that they will scarce allow him to have been guilty.  In case\nyou should ask what are my thoughts on this head, I shall answer you in\nthe words which I heard the Lord Bolingbroke use on another occasion.\nSeveral gentlemen were speaking, in his company, of the avarice with\nwhich the late Duke of Marlborough had been charged, some examples\nwhereof being given, the Lord Bolingbroke was appealed to (who, having\nbeen in the opposite party, might perhaps, without the imputation of\nindecency, have been allowed to clear up that matter): \"He was so great a\nman,\" replied his lordship, \"that I have forgot his vices.\"\n\nI shall therefore confine myself to those things which so justly gained\nLord Bacon the esteem of all Europe.\n\nThe most singular and the best of all his pieces is that which, at this\ntime, is the most useless and the least read, I mean his _Novum\nScientiarum Organum_.  This is the scaffold with which the new philosophy\nwas raised; and when the edifice was built, part of it at least, the\nscaffold was no longer of service.\n\nThe Lord Bacon was not yet acquainted with Nature, but then he knew, and\npointed out, the several paths that lead to it.  He had despised in his\nyounger years the thing called philosophy in the Universities, and did\nall that lay in his power to prevent those societies of men instituted to\nimprove human reason from depraving it by their quiddities, their horrors\nof the vacuum, their substantial forms, and all those impertinent terms\nwhich not only ignorance had rendered venerable, but which had been made\nsacred by their being ridiculously blended with religion.\n\nHe is the father of experimental philosophy.  It must, indeed, be\nconfessed that very surprising secrets had been found out before his\ntime--the sea-compass, printing, engraving on copper plates,\noil-painting, looking-glasses; the art of restoring, in some measure, old\nmen to their sight by spectacles; gunpowder, &c., had been discovered.  A\nnew world had been fought for, found, and conquered.  Would not one\nsuppose that these sublime discoveries had been made by the greatest\nphilosophers, and in ages much more enlightened than the present?  But it\nwas far otherwise; all these great changes happened in the most stupid\nand barbarous times.  Chance only gave birth to most of those inventions;\nand it is very probable that what is called chance contributed very much\nto the discovery of America; at least, it has been always thought that\nChristopher Columbus undertook his voyage merely on the relation of a\ncaptain of a ship which a storm had driven as far westward as the\nCaribbean Islands.  Be this as it will, men had sailed round the world,\nand could destroy cities by an artificial thunder more dreadful than the\nreal one; but, then, they were not acquainted with the circulation of the\nblood, the weight of the air, the laws of motion, light, the number of\nour planets, &c.  And a man who maintained a thesis on Aristotle's\n\"Categories,\" on the universals _a parte rei_, or such-like nonsense, was\nlooked upon as a prodigy.\n\nThe most astonishing, the most useful inventions, are not those which\nreflect the greatest honour on the human mind.  It is to a mechanical\ninstinct, which is found in many men, and not to true philosophy, that\nmost arts owe their origin.\n\nThe discovery of fire, the art of making bread, of melting and preparing\nmetals, of building houses, and the invention of the shuttle, are\ninfinitely more beneficial to mankind than printing or the sea-compass:\nand yet these arts were invented by uncultivated, savage men.\n\nWhat a prodigious use the Greeks and Romans made afterwards of mechanics!\nNevertheless, they believed that there were crystal heavens, that the\nstars were small lamps which sometimes fell into the sea, and one of\ntheir greatest philosophers, after long researches, found that the stars\nwere so many flints which had been detached from the earth.\n\nIn a word, no one before the Lord Bacon was acquainted with experimental\nphilosophy, nor with the several physical experiments which have been\nmade since his time.  Scarce one of them but is hinted at in his work,\nand he himself had made several.  He made a kind of pneumatic engine, by\nwhich he guessed the elasticity of the air.  He approached, on all sides\nas it were, to the discovery of its weight, and had very near attained\nit, but some time after Torricelli seized upon this truth.  In a little\ntime experimental philosophy began to be cultivated on a sudden in most\nparts of Europe.  It was a hidden treasure which the Lord Bacon had some\nnotion of, and which all the philosophers, encouraged by his promises,\nendeavoured to dig up.\n\nBut that which surprised me most was to read in his work, in express\nterms, the new attraction, the invention of which is ascribed to Sir\nIsaac Newton.\n\nWe must search, says Lord Bacon, whether there may not be a kind of\nmagnetic power which operates between the earth and heavy bodies, between\nthe moon and the ocean, between the planets, &c.  In another place he\nsays either heavy bodies must be carried towards the centre of the earth,\nor must be reciprocally attracted by it; and in the latter case it is\nevident that the nearer bodies, in their falling, draw towards the earth,\nthe stronger they will attract one another.  We must, says he, make an\nexperiment to see whether the same clock will go faster on the top of a\nmountain or at the bottom of a mine; whether the strength of the weights\ndecreases on the mountain and increases in the mine.  It is probable that\nthe earth has a true attractive power.\n\nThis forerunner in philosophy was also an elegant writer, an historian,\nand a wit.\n\nHis moral essays are greatly esteemed, but they were drawn up in the view\nof instructing rather than of pleasing; and, as they are not a satire\nupon mankind, like Rochefoucauld's \"Maxims,\" nor written upon a sceptical\nplan, like Montaigne's \"Essays,\" they are not so much read as those two\ningenious authors.\n\nHis History of Henry VII. was looked upon as a masterpiece, but how is it\npossible that some persons can presume to compare so little a work with\nthe history of our illustrious Thuanus?\n\nSpeaking about the famous impostor Perkin, son to a converted Jew, who\nassumed boldly the name and title of Richard IV., King of England, at the\ninstigation of the Duchess of Burgundy, and who disputed the crown with\nHenry VII., the Lord Bacon writes as follows:--\n\n\"At this time the King began again to be haunted with sprites, by the\nmagic and curious arts of the Lady Margaret, who raised up the ghost of\nRichard, Duke of York, second son to King Edward IV., to walk and vex the\nKing.\n\n\"After such time as she (Margaret of Burgundy) thought he (Perkin\nWarbeck) was perfect in his lesson, she began to cast with herself from\nwhat coast this blazing star should first appear, and at what time it\nmust be upon the horizon of Ireland; for there had the like meteor strong\ninfluence before.\"\n\nMethinks our sagacious Thuanus does not give in to such fustian, which\nformerly was looked upon as sublime, but in this age is justly called\nnonsense.\n\n\n\nLETTER XIII.--ON MR. LOCKE\n\n\nPerhaps no man ever had a more judicious or more methodical genius, or\nwas a more acute logician than Mr. Locke, and yet he was not deeply\nskilled in the mathematics.  This great man could never subject himself\nto the tedious fatigue of calculations, nor to the dry pursuit of\nmathematical truths, which do not at first present any sensible objects\nto the mind; and no one has given better proofs than he, that it is\npossible for a man to have a geometrical head without the assistance of\ngeometry.  Before his time, several great philosophers had declared, in\nthe most positive terms, what the soul of man is; but as these absolutely\nknew nothing about it, they might very well be allowed to differ entirely\nin opinion from one another.\n\nIn Greece, the infant seat of arts and of errors, and where the grandeur\nas well as folly of the human mind went such prodigious lengths, the\npeople used to reason about the soul in the very same manner as we do.\n\nThe divine Anaxagoras, in whose honour an altar was erected for his\nhaving taught mankind that the sun was greater than Peloponnesus, that\nsnow was black, and that the heavens were of stone, affirmed that the\nsoul was an aerial spirit, but at the same time immortal.  Diogenes (not\nhe who was a cynical philosopher after having coined base money) declared\nthat the soul was a portion of the substance of God: an idea which we\nmust confess was very sublime.  Epicurus maintained that it was composed\nof parts in the same manner as the body.\n\nAristotle, who has been explained a thousand ways, because he is\nunintelligible, was of opinion, according to some of his disciples, that\nthe understanding in all men is one and the same substance.\n\nThe divine Plato, master of the divine Aristotle,--and the divine\nSocrates, master of the divine Plato--used to say that the soul was\ncorporeal and eternal.  No doubt but the demon of Socrates had instructed\nhim in the nature of it.  Some people, indeed, pretend that a man who\nboasted his being attended by a familiar genius must infallibly be either\na knave or a madman, but this kind of people are seldom satisfied with\nanything but reason.\n\nWith regard to the Fathers of the Church, several in the primitive ages\nbelieved that the soul was human, and the angels and God corporeal.  Men\nnaturally improve upon every system.  St. Bernard, as Father Mabillon\nconfesses, taught that the soul after death does not see God in the\ncelestial regions, but converses with Christ's human nature only.\nHowever, he was not believed this time on his bare word; the adventure of\nthe crusade having a little sunk the credit of his oracles.  Afterwards a\nthousand schoolmen arose, such as the Irrefragable Doctor, the Subtile\nDoctor, the Angelic Doctor, the Seraphic Doctor, and the Cherubic Doctor,\nwho were all sure that they had a very clear and distinct idea of the\nsoul, and yet wrote in such a manner, that one would conclude they were\nresolved no one should understand a word in their writings.  Our\nDescartes, born to discover the errors of antiquity, and at the same time\nto substitute his own, and hurried away by that systematic spirit which\nthrows a cloud over the minds of the greatest men, thought he had\ndemonstrated that the soul is the same thing as thought, in the same\nmanner as matter, in his opinion, is the same as extension.  He asserted,\nthat man thinks eternally, and that the soul, at its coming into the\nbody, is informed with the whole series of metaphysical notions: knowing\nGod, infinite space, possessing all abstract ideas--in a word, completely\nendued with the most sublime lights, which it unhappily forgets at its\nissuing from the womb.\n\nFather Malebranche, in his sublime illusions, not only admitted innate\nideas, but did not doubt of our living wholly in God, and that God is, as\nit were, our soul.\n\nSuch a multitude of reasoners having written the romance of the soul, a\nsage at last arose, who gave, with an air of the greatest modesty, the\nhistory of it.  Mr. Locke has displayed the human soul in the same manner\nas an excellent anatomist explains the springs of the human body.  He\neverywhere takes the light of physics for his guide.  He sometimes\npresumes to speak affirmatively, but then he presumes also to doubt.\nInstead of concluding at once what we know not, he examines gradually\nwhat we would know.  He takes an infant at the instant of his birth; he\ntraces, step by step, the progress of his understanding; examines what\nthings he has in common with beasts, and what he possesses above them.\nAbove all, he consults himself: the being conscious that he himself\nthinks.\n\n\"I shall leave,\" says he, \"to those who know more of this matter than\nmyself, the examining whether the soul exists before or after the\norganisation of our bodies.  But I confess that it is my lot to be\nanimated with one of those heavy souls which do not think always; and I\nam even so unhappy as not to conceive that it is more necessary the soul\nshould think perpetually than that bodies should be for ever in motion.\"\n\nWith regard to myself, I shall boast that I have the honour to be as\nstupid in this particular as Mr. Locke.  No one shall ever make me\nbelieve that I think always: and I am as little inclined as he could be\nto fancy that some weeks after I was conceived I was a very learned soul;\nknowing at that time a thousand things which I forgot at my birth; and\npossessing when in the womb (though to no manner of purpose) knowledge\nwhich I lost the instant I had occasion for it; and which I have never\nsince been able to recover perfectly.\n\nMr. Locke, after having destroyed innate ideas; after having fully\nrenounced the vanity of believing that we think always; after having laid\ndown, from the most solid principles, that ideas enter the mind through\nthe senses; having examined our simple and complex ideas; having traced\nthe human mind through its several operations; having shown that all the\nlanguages in the world are imperfect, and the great abuse that is made of\nwords every moment, he at last comes to consider the extent or rather the\nnarrow limits of human knowledge.  It was in this chapter he presumed to\nadvance, but very modestly, the following words: \"We shall, perhaps,\nnever be capable of knowing whether a being, purely material, thinks or\nnot.\"  This sage assertion was, by more divines than one, looked upon as\na scandalous declaration that the soul is material and mortal.  Some\nEnglishmen, devout after their way, sounded an alarm.  The superstitious\nare the same in society as cowards in an army; they themselves are seized\nwith a panic fear, and communicate it to others.  It was loudly exclaimed\nthat Mr. Locke intended to destroy religion; nevertheless, religion had\nnothing to do in the affair, it being a question purely philosophical,\naltogether independent of faith and revelation.  Mr. Locke's opponents\nneeded but to examine, calmly and impartially, whether the declaring that\nmatter can think, implies a contradiction; and whether God is able to\ncommunicate thought to matter.  But divines are too apt to begin their\ndeclarations with saying that God is offended when people differ from\nthem in opinion; in which they too much resemble the bad poets, who used\nto declare publicly that Boileau spake irreverently of Louis XIV.,\nbecause he ridiculed their stupid productions.  Bishop Stillingfleet got\nthe reputation of a calm and unprejudiced divine because he did not\nexpressly make use of injurious terms in his dispute with Mr. Locke.  That\ndivine entered the lists against him, but was defeated; for he argued as\na schoolman, and Locke as a philosopher, who was perfectly acquainted\nwith the strong as well as the weak side of the human mind, and who\nfought with weapons whose temper he knew.  If I might presume to give my\nopinion on so delicate a subject after Mr. Locke, I would say, that men\nhave long disputed on the nature and the immortality of the soul.  With\nregard to its immortality, it is impossible to give a demonstration of\nit, since its nature is still the subject of controversy; which, however,\nmust be thoroughly understood before a person can be able to determine\nwhether it be immortal or not.  Human reason is so little able, merely by\nits own strength, to demonstrate the immortality of the soul, that it was\nabsolutely necessary religion should reveal it to us.  It is of advantage\nto society in general, that mankind should believe the soul to be\nimmortal; faith commands us to do this; nothing more is required, and the\nmatter is cleared up at once.  But it is otherwise with respect to its\nnature; it is of little importance to religion, which only requires the\nsoul to be virtuous, whatever substance it may be made of.  It is a clock\nwhich is given us to regulate, but the artist has not told us of what\nmaterials the spring of this chock is composed.\n\nI am a body, and, I think, that's all I know of the matter.  Shall I\nascribe to an unknown cause, what I can so easily impute to the only\nsecond cause I am acquainted with?  Here all the school philosophers\ninterrupt me with their arguments, and declare that there is only\nextension and solidity in bodies, and that there they can have nothing\nbut motion and figure.  Now motion, figure, extension and solidity cannot\nform a thought, and consequently the soul cannot be matter.  All this so\noften repeated mighty series of reasoning, amounts to no more than this:\nI am absolutely ignorant what matter is; I guess, but imperfectly, some\nproperties of it; now I absolutely cannot tell whether these properties\nmay be joined to thought.  As I therefore know nothing, I maintain\npositively that matter cannot think.  In this manner do the schools\nreason.\n\nMr. Locke addressed these gentlemen in the candid, sincere manner\nfollowing: At least confess yourselves to be as ignorant as I.  Neither\nyour imaginations nor mine are able to comprehend in what manner a body\nis susceptible of ideas; and do you conceive better in what manner a\nsubstance, of what kind soever, is susceptible of them?  As you cannot\ncomprehend either matter or spirit, why will you presume to assert\nanything?\n\nThe superstitious man comes afterwards and declares, that all those must\nbe burnt for the good of their souls, who so much as suspect that it is\npossible for the body to think without any foreign assistance.  But what\nwould these people say should they themselves be proved irreligious?  And\nindeed, what man can presume to assert, without being guilty at the same\ntime of the greatest impiety, that it is impossible for the Creator to\nform matter with thought and sensation?  Consider only, I beg you, what a\ndilemma you bring yourselves into, you who confine in this manner the\npower of the Creator.  Beasts have the same organs, the same sensations,\nthe same perceptions as we; they have memory, and combine certain ideas.\nIn case it was not in the power of God to animate matter, and inform it\nwith sensation, the consequence would be, either that beasts are mere\nmachines, or that they have a spiritual soul.\n\nMethinks it is clearly evident that beasts cannot be mere machines, which\nI prove thus.  God has given to them the very same organs of sensation as\nto us: if therefore they have no sensation, God has created a useless\nthing; now according to your own confession God does nothing in vain; He\ntherefore did not create so many organs of sensation, merely for them to\nbe uninformed with this faculty; consequently beasts are not mere\nmachines.  Beasts, according to your assertion, cannot be animated with a\nspiritual soul; you will, therefore, in spite of yourself, be reduced to\nthis only assertion, viz., that God has endued the organs of beasts, who\nare mere matter, with the faculties of sensation and perception, which\nyou call instinct in them.  But why may not God, if He pleases,\ncommunicate to our more delicate organs, that faculty of feeling,\nperceiving, and thinking, which we call human reason?  To whatever side\nyou turn, you are forced to acknowledge your own ignorance, and the\nboundless power of the Creator.  Exclaim therefore no more against the\nsage, the modest philosophy of Mr. Locke, which so far from interfering\nwith religion, would be of use to demonstrate the truth of it, in case\nreligion wanted any such support.  For what philosophy can be of a more\nreligious nature than that, which affirming nothing but what it conceives\nclearly, and conscious of its own weakness, declares that we must always\nhave recourse to God in our examining of the first principles?\n\nBesides, we must not be apprehensive that any philosophical opinion will\never prejudice the religion of a country.  Though our demonstrations\nclash directly with our mysteries, that is nothing to the purpose, for\nthe latter are not less revered upon that account by our Christian\nphilosophers, who know very well that the objects of reason and those of\nfaith are of a very different nature.  Philosophers will never form a\nreligious sect, the reason of which is, their writings are not calculated\nfor the vulgar, and they themselves are free from enthusiasm.  If we\ndivide mankind into twenty parts, it will be found that nineteen of these\nconsist of persons employed in manual labour, who will never know that\nsuch a man as Mr. Locke existed.  In the remaining twentieth part how few\nare readers?  And among such as are so, twenty amuse themselves with\nromances to one who studies philosophy.  The thinking part of mankind is\nconfined to a very small number, and these will never disturb the peace\nand tranquillity of the world.\n\nNeither Montaigne, Locke, Bayle, Spinoza, Hobbes, the Lord Shaftesbury,\nCollins, nor Toland lighted up the firebrand of discord in their\ncountries; this has generally been the work of divines, who being at\nfirst puffed up with the ambition of becoming chiefs of a sect, soon grew\nvery desirous of being at the head of a party.  But what do I say?  All\nthe works of the modern philosophers put together will never make so much\nnoise as even the dispute which arose among the Franciscans, merely about\nthe fashion of their sleeves and of their cowls.\n\n\n\nLETTER XIV.--ON DESCARTES AND SIR ISAAC NEWTON\n\n\nA Frenchman who arrives in London, will find philosophy, like everything\nelse, very much changed there.  He had left the world a plenum, and he\nnow finds it a vacuum.  At Paris the universe is seen composed of\nvortices of subtile matter; but nothing like it is seen in London.  In\nFrance, it is the pressure of the moon that causes the tides; but in\nEngland it is the sea that gravitates towards the moon; so that when you\nthink that the moon should make it flood with us, those gentlemen fancy\nit should be ebb, which very unluckily cannot be proved.  For to be able\nto do this, it is necessary the moon and the tides should have been\ninquired into at the very instant of the creation.\n\nYou will observe farther, that the sun, which in France is said to have\nnothing to do in the affair, comes in here for very near a quarter of its\nassistance.  According to your Cartesians, everything is performed by an\nimpulsion, of which we have very little notion; and according to Sir\nIsaac Newton, it is by an attraction, the cause of which is as much\nunknown to us.  At Paris you imagine that the earth is shaped like a\nmelon, or of an oblique figure; at London it has an oblate one.  A\nCartesian declares that light exists in the air; but a Newtonian asserts\nthat it comes from the sun in six minutes and a half.  The several\noperations of your chemistry are performed by acids, alkalies and subtile\nmatter; but attraction prevails even in chemistry among the English.\n\nThe very essence of things is totally changed.  You neither are agreed\nupon the definition of the soul, nor on that of matter.  Descartes, as I\nobserved in my last, maintains that the soul is the same thing with\nthought, and Mr. Locke has given a pretty good proof of the contrary.\n\nDescartes asserts farther, that extension alone constitutes matter, but\nSir Isaac adds solidity to it.\n\nHow furiously contradictory are these opinions!\n\n   \"Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites.\"\n\n   VIRGIL, Eclog. III.\n\n   \"'Tis not for us to end such great disputes.\"\n\nThis famous Newton, this destroyer of the Cartesian system, died in\nMarch, anno 1727.  His countrymen honoured him in his lifetime, and\ninterred him as though he had been a king who had made his people happy.\n\nThe English read with the highest satisfaction, and translated into their\ntongue, the Elogium of Sir Isaac Newton, which M. de Fontenelle spoke in\nthe Academy of Sciences.  M. de Fontenelle presides as judge over\nphilosophers; and the English expected his decision, as a solemn\ndeclaration of the superiority of the English philosophy over that of the\nFrench.  But when it was found that this gentleman had compared Descartes\nto Sir Isaac, the whole Royal Society in London rose up in arms.  So far\nfrom acquiescing with M. Fontenelle's judgment, they criticised his\ndiscourse.  And even several (who, however, were not the ablest\nphilosophers in that body) were offended at the comparison; and for no\nother reason but because Descartes was a Frenchman.\n\nIt must be confessed that these two great men differed very much in\nconduct, in fortune, and in philosophy.\n\nNature had indulged Descartes with a shining and strong imagination,\nwhence he became a very singular person both in private life and in his\nmanner of reasoning.  This imagination could not conceal itself even in\nhis philosophical works, which are everywhere adorned with very shining,\ningenious metaphors and figures.  Nature had almost made him a poet; and\nindeed he wrote a piece of poetry for the entertainment of Christina,\nQueen of Sweden, which however was suppressed in honour to his memory.\n\nHe embraced a military life for some time, and afterwards becoming a\ncomplete philosopher, he did not think the passion of love derogatory to\nhis character.  He had by his mistress a daughter called Froncine, who\ndied young, and was very much regretted by him.  Thus he experienced\nevery passion incident to mankind.\n\nHe was a long time of opinion that it would be necessary for him to fly\nfrom the society of his fellow creatures, and especially from his native\ncountry, in order to enjoy the happiness of cultivating his philosophical\nstudies in full liberty.\n\nDescartes was very right, for his contemporaries were not knowing enough\nto improve and enlighten his understanding, and were capable of little\nelse than of giving him uneasiness.\n\nHe left France purely to go in search of truth, which was then persecuted\nby the wretched philosophy of the schools.  However, he found that reason\nwas as much disguised and depraved in the universities of Holland, into\nwhich he withdrew, as in his own country.  For at the time that the\nFrench condemned the only propositions of his philosophy which were true,\nhe was persecuted by the pretended philosophers of Holland, who\nunderstood him no better; and who, having a nearer view of his glory,\nhated his person the more, so that he was obliged to leave Utrecht.\nDescartes was injuriously accused of being an atheist, the last refuge of\nreligious scandal: and he who had employed all the sagacity and\npenetration of his genius, in searching for new proofs of the existence\nof a God, was suspected to believe there was no such Being.\n\nSuch a persecution from all sides, must necessarily suppose a most\nexalted merit as well as a very distinguished reputation, and indeed he\npossessed both.  Reason at that time darted a ray upon the world through\nthe gloom of the schools, and the prejudices of popular superstition.  At\nlast his name spread so universally, that the French were desirous of\nbringing him back into his native country by rewards, and accordingly\noffered him an annual pension of a thousand crowns.  Upon these hopes\nDescartes returned to France; paid the fees of his patent, which was sold\nat that time, but no pension was settled upon him.  Thus disappointed, he\nreturned to his solitude in North Holland, where he again pursued the\nstudy of philosophy, whilst the great Galileo, at fourscore years of age,\nwas groaning in the prisons of the Inquisition, only for having\ndemonstrated the earth's motion.\n\nAt last Descartes was snatched from the world in the flower of his age at\nStockholm.  His death was owing to a bad regimen, and he expired in the\nmidst of some literati who were his enemies, and under the hands of a\nphysician to whom he was odious.\n\nThe progress of Sir Isaac Newton's life was quite different.  He lived\nhappy, and very much honoured in his native country, to the age of\nfourscore and five years.\n\nIt was his peculiar felicity, not only to be born in a country of\nliberty, but in an age when all scholastic impertinences were banished\nfrom the world.  Reason alone was cultivated, and mankind could only be\nhis pupil, not his enemy.\n\nOne very singular difference in the lives of these two great men is, that\nSir Isaac, during the long course of years he enjoyed, was never sensible\nto any passion, was not subject to the common frailties of mankind, nor\never had any commerce with women--a circumstance which was assured me by\nthe physician and surgeon who attended him in his last moments.\n\nWe may admire Sir Isaac Newton on this occasion, but then we must not\ncensure Descartes.\n\nThe opinion that generally prevails in England with regard to these new\nphilosophers is, that the latter was a dreamer, and the former a sage.\n\nVery few people in England read Descartes, whose works indeed are now\nuseless.  On the other side, but a small number peruse those of Sir\nIsaac, because to do this the student must be deeply skilled in the\nmathematics, otherwise those works will be unintelligible to him.  But\nnotwithstanding this, these great men are the subject of everyone's\ndiscourse.  Sir Isaac Newton is allowed every advantage, whilst Descartes\nis not indulged a single one.  According to some, it is to the former\nthat we owe the discovery of a vacuum, that the air is a heavy body, and\nthe invention of telescopes.  In a word, Sir Isaac Newton is here as the\nHercules of fabulous story, to whom the ignorant ascribed all the feats\nof ancient heroes.\n\nIn a critique that was made in London on Mr. de Fontenelle's discourse,\nthe writer presumed to assert that Descartes was not a great\ngeometrician.  Those who make such a declaration may justly be reproached\nwith flying in their master's face.  Descartes extended the limits of\ngeometry as far beyond the place where he found them, as Sir Isaac did\nafter him.  The former first taught the method of expressing curves by\nequations.  This geometry which, thanks to him for it, is now grown\ncommon, was so abstruse in his time, that not so much as one professor\nwould undertake to explain it; and Schotten in Holland, and Format in\nFrance, were the only men who understood it.\n\nHe applied this geometrical and inventive genius to dioptrics, which,\nwhen treated of by him, became a new art.  And if he was mistaken in some\nthings, the reason of that is, a man who discovers a new tract of land\ncannot at once know all the properties of the soil.  Those who come after\nhim, and make these lands fruitful, are at least obliged to him for the\ndiscovery.  I will not deny but that there are innumerable errors in the\nrest of Descartes' works.\n\nGeometry was a guide he himself had in some measure fashioned, which\nwould have conducted him safely through the several paths of natural\nphilosophy.  Nevertheless, he at last abandoned this guide, and gave\nentirely into the humour of forming hypotheses; and then philosophy was\nno more than an ingenious romance, fit only to amuse the ignorant.  He\nwas mistaken in the nature of the soul, in the proofs of the existence of\na God, in matter, in the laws of motion, and in the nature of light.  He\nadmitted innate ideas, he invented new elements, he created a world; he\nmade man according to his own fancy; and it is justly said, that the man\nof Descartes is, in fact, that of Descartes only, very different from the\nreal one.\n\nHe pushed his metaphysical errors so far, as to declare that two and two\nmake four for no other reason but because God would have it so.  However,\nit will not be making him too great a compliment if we affirm that he was\nvaluable even in his mistakes.  He deceived himself; but then it was at\nleast in a methodical way.  He destroyed all the absurd chimeras with\nwhich youth had been infatuated for two thousand years.  He taught his\ncontemporaries how to reason, and enabled them to employ his own weapons\nagainst himself.  If Descartes did not pay in good money, he however did\ngreat service in crying down that of a base alloy.\n\nI indeed believe that very few will presume to compare his philosophy in\nany respect with that of Sir Isaac Newton.  The former is an essay, the\nlatter a masterpiece.  But then the man who first brought us to the path\nof truth, was perhaps as great a genius as he who afterwards conducted us\nthrough it.\n\nDescartes gave sight to the blind.  These saw the errors of antiquity and\nof the sciences.  The path he struck out is since become boundless.\nRohault's little work was, during some years, a complete system of\nphysics; but now all the Transactions of the several academies in Europe\nput together do not form so much as the beginning of a system.  In\nfathoming this abyss no bottom has been found.  We are now to examine\nwhat discoveries Sir Isaac Newton has made in it.\n\n\n\nLETTER XV.--ON ATTRACTION\n\n\nThe discoveries which gained Sir Isaac Newton so universal a reputation,\nrelate to the system of the world, to light, to geometrical infinities;\nand, lastly, to chronology, with which he used to amuse himself after the\nfatigue of his severer studies.\n\nI will now acquaint you (without prolixity if possible) with the few\nthings I have been able to comprehend of all these sublime ideas.  With\nregard to the system of our world, disputes were a long time maintained,\non the cause that turns the planets, and keeps them in their orbits: and\non those causes which make all bodies here below descend towards the\nsurface of the earth.\n\nThe system of Descartes, explained and improved since his time, seemed to\ngive a plausible reason for all those phenomena; and this reason seemed\nmore just, as it is simple and intelligible to all capacities.  But in\nphilosophy, a student ought to doubt of the things he fancies he\nunderstands too easily, as much as of those he does not understand.\n\nGravity, the falling of accelerated bodies on the earth, the revolution\nof the planets in their orbits, their rotations round their axis, all\nthis is mere motion.  Now motion cannot perhaps be conceived any\notherwise than by impulsion; therefore all those bodies must be impelled.\nBut by what are they impelled?  All space is full, it therefore is filled\nwith a very subtile matter, since this is imperceptible to us; this\nmatter goes from west to east, since all the planets are carried from\nwest to east.  Thus from hypothesis to hypothesis, from one appearance to\nanother, philosophers have imagined a vast whirlpool of subtile matter,\nin which the planets are carried round the sun: they also have created\nanother particular vortex which floats in the great one, and which turns\ndaily round the planets.  When all this is done, it is pretended that\ngravity depends on this diurnal motion; for, say these, the velocity of\nthe subtile matter that turns round our little vortex, must be seventeen\ntimes more rapid than that of the earth; or, in case its velocity is\nseventeen times greater than that of the earth, its centrifugal force\nmust be vastly greater, and consequently impel all bodies towards the\nearth.  This is the cause of gravity, according to the Cartesian system.\nBut the theorist, before he calculated the centrifugal force and velocity\nof the subtile matter, should first have been certain that it existed.\n\nSir Isaac Newton, seems to have destroyed all these great and little\nvortices, both that which carries the planets round the sun, as well as\nthe other which supposes every planet to turn on its own axis.\n\nFirst, with regard to the pretended little vortex of the earth, it is\ndemonstrated that it must lose its motion by insensible degrees; it is\ndemonstrated, that if the earth swims in a fluid, its density must be\nequal to that of the earth; and in case its density be the same, all the\nbodies we endeavour to move must meet with an insuperable resistance.\n\nWith regard to the great vortices, they are still more chimerical, and it\nis impossible to make them agree with Kepler's law, the truth of which\nhas been demonstrated.  Sir Isaac shows, that the revolution of the fluid\nin which Jupiter is supposed to be carried, is not the same with regard\nto the revolution of the fluid of the earth, as the revolution of Jupiter\nwith respect to that of the earth.  He proves, that as the planets make\ntheir revolutions in ellipses, and consequently being at a much greater\ndistance one from the other in their Aphelia, and a little nearer in\ntheir Perihelia; the earth's velocity, for instance, ought to be greater\nwhen it is nearer Venus and Mars, because the fluid that carries it\nalong, being then more pressed, ought to have a greater motion; and yet\nit is even then that the earth's motion is slower.\n\nHe proves that there is no such thing as a celestial matter which goes\nfrom west to east since the comets traverse those spaces, sometimes from\neast to west, and at other times from north to south.\n\nIn fine, the better to resolve, if possible, every difficulty, he proves,\nand even by experiments, that it is impossible there should be a plenum;\nand brings back the vacuum, which Aristotle and Descartes had banished\nfrom the world.\n\nHaving by these and several other arguments destroyed the Cartesian\nvortices, he despaired of ever being able to discover whether there is a\nsecret principle in nature which, at the same time, is the cause of the\nmotion of all celestial bodies, and that of gravity on the earth.  But\nbeing retired in 1666, upon account of the Plague, to a solitude near\nCambridge; as he was walking one day in his garden, and saw some fruits\nfall from a tree, he fell into a profound meditation on that gravity, the\ncause of which had so long been sought, but in vain, by all the\nphilosophers, whilst the vulgar think there is nothing mysterious in it.\nHe said to himself; that from what height soever in our hemisphere, those\nbodies might descend, their fall would certainly be in the progression\ndiscovered by Galileo; and the spaces they run through would be as the\nsquare of the times.  Why may not this power which causes heavy bodies to\ndescend, and is the same without any sensible diminution at the remotest\ndistance from the centre of the earth, or on the summits of the highest\nmountains, why, said Sir Isaac, may not this power extend as high as the\nmoon?  And in case its influence reaches so far, is it not very probable\nthat this power retains it in its orbit, and determines its motion?  But\nin case the moon obeys this principle (whatever it be) may we not\nconclude very naturally that the rest of the planets are equally subject\nto it?  In case this power exists (which besides is proved) it must\nincrease in an inverse ratio of the squares of the distances.  All,\ntherefore, that remains is, to examine how far a heavy body, which should\nfall upon the earth from a moderate height, would go; and how far in the\nsame time, a body which should fall from the orbit of the moon, would\ndescend.  To find this, nothing is wanted but the measure of the earth,\nand the distance of the moon from it.\n\nThus Sir Isaac Newton reasoned.  But at that time the English had but a\nvery imperfect measure of our globe, and depended on the uncertain\nsupposition of mariners, who computed a degree to contain but sixty\nEnglish miles, whereas it consists in reality of near seventy.  As this\nfalse computation did not agree with the conclusions which Sir Isaac\nintended to draw from them, he laid aside this pursuit.  A half-learned\nphilosopher, remarkable only for his vanity, would have made the measure\nof the earth agree, anyhow, with his system.  Sir Isaac, however, chose\nrather to quit the researches he was then engaged in.  But after Mr.\nPicard had measured the earth exactly, by tracing that meridian which\nredounds so much to the honour of the French, Sir Isaac Newton resumed\nhis former reflections, and found his account in Mr. Picard's\ncalculation.\n\nA circumstance which has always appeared wonderful to me, is that such\nsublime discoveries should have been made by the sole assistance of a\nquadrant and a little arithmetic.\n\nThe circumference of the earth is 123,249,600 feet.  This, among other\nthings, is necessary to prove the system of attraction.\n\nThe instant we know the earth's circumference, and the distance of the\nmoon, we know that of the moon's orbit, and the diameter of this orbit.\nThe moon performs its revolution in that orbit in twenty-seven days,\nseven hours, forty-three minutes.  It is demonstrated, that the moon in\nits mean motion makes an hundred and fourscore and seven thousand nine\nhundred and sixty feet (of Paris) in a minute.  It is likewise\ndemonstrated, by a known theorem, that the central force which should\nmake a body fall from the height of the moon, would make its velocity no\nmore than fifteen Paris feet in a minute of time.  Now, if the law by\nwhich bodies gravitate and attract one another in an inverse ratio to the\nsquares of the distances be true, if the same power acts according to\nthat law throughout all nature, it is evident that as the earth is sixty\nsemi-diameters distant from the moon, a heavy body must necessarily fall\n(on the earth) fifteen feet in the first second, and fifty-four thousand\nfeet in the first minute.\n\nNow a heavy body falls, in reality, fifteen feet in the first second, and\ngoes in the first minute fifty-four thousand feet, which number is the\nsquare of sixty multiplied by fifteen.  Bodies, therefore, gravitate in\nan inverse ratio of the squares of the distances; consequently, what\ncauses gravity on earth, and keeps the moon in its orbit, is one and the\nsame power; it being demonstrated that the moon gravitates on the earth,\nwhich is the centre of its particular motion, it is demonstrated that the\nearth and the moon gravitate on the sun which is the centre of their\nannual motion.\n\nThe rest of the planets must be subject to this general law; and if this\nlaw exists, these planets must follow the laws which Kepler discovered.\nAll these laws, all these relations are indeed observed by the planets\nwith the utmost exactness; therefore, the power of attraction causes all\nthe planets to gravitate towards the sun, in like manner as the moon\ngravitates towards our globe.\n\nFinally, as in all bodies re-action is equal to action, it is certain\nthat the earth gravitates also towards the moon; and that the sun\ngravitates towards both.  That every one of the satellites of Saturn\ngravitates towards the other four, and the other four towards it; all\nfive towards Saturn, and Saturn towards all.  That it is the same with\nregard to Jupiter; and that all these globes are attracted by the sun,\nwhich is reciprocally attracted by them.\n\nThis power of gravitation acts proportionably to the quantity of matter\nin bodies, a truth which Sir Isaac has demonstrated by experiments.  This\nnew discovery has been of use to show that the sun (the centre of the\nplanetary system) attracts them all in a direct ratio of their quantity\nof matter combined with their nearness.  From hence Sir Isaac, rising by\ndegrees to discoveries which seemed not to be formed for the human mind,\nis bold enough to compute the quantity of matter contained in the sun and\nin every planet; and in this manner shows, from the simple laws of\nmechanics, that every celestial globe ought necessarily to be where it is\nplaced.\n\nHis bare principle of the laws of gravitation accounts for all the\napparent inequalities in the course of the celestial globes.  The\nvariations of the moon are a necessary consequence of those laws.\nMoreover, the reason is evidently seen why the nodes of the moon perform\ntheir revolutions in nineteen years, and those of the earth in about\ntwenty-six thousand.  The several appearances observed in the tides are\nalso a very simple effect of this attraction.  The proximity of the moon,\nwhen at the full, and when it is new, and its distance in the quadratures\nor quarters, combined with the action of the sun, exhibit a sensible\nreason why the ocean swells and sinks.\n\nAfter having shown by his sublime theory the course and inequalities of\nthe planets, he subjects comets to the same law.  The orbit of these\nfires (unknown for so great a series of years), which was the terror of\nmankind and the rock against which philosophy split, placed by Aristotle\nbelow the moon, and sent back by Descartes above the sphere of Saturn, is\nat last placed in its proper seat by Sir Isaac Newton.\n\nHe proves that comets are solid bodies which move in the sphere of the\nsun's activity, and that they describe an ellipsis so very eccentric, and\nso near to parabolas, that certain comets must take up above five hundred\nyears in their revolution.\n\nThe learned Dr. Halley is of opinion that the comet seen in 1680 is the\nsame which appeared in Julius Caesar's time.  This shows more than any\nother that comets are hard, opaque bodies; for it descended so near to\nthe sun, as to come within a sixth part of the diameter of this planet\nfrom it, and consequently might have contracted a degree of heat two\nthousand times stronger than that of red-hot iron; and would have been\nsoon dispersed in vapour, had it not been a firm, dense body.  The\nguessing the course of comets began then to be very much in vogue.  The\ncelebrated Bernoulli concluded by his system that the famous comet of\n1680 would appear again the 17th of May, 1719.  Not a single astronomer\nin Europe went to bed that night.  However, they needed not to have broke\ntheir rest, for the famous comet never appeared.  There is at least more\ncunning, if not more certainty, in fixing its return to so remote a\ndistance as five hundred and seventy-five years.  As to Mr. Whiston, he\naffirmed very seriously that in the time of the Deluge a comet overflowed\nthe terrestrial globe.  And he was so unreasonable as to wonder that\npeople laughed at him for making such an assertion.  The ancients were\nalmost in the same way of thinking with Mr. Whiston, and fancied that\ncomets were always the forerunners of some great calamity which was to\nbefall mankind.  Sir Isaac Newton, on the contrary, suspected that they\nare very beneficent, and that vapours exhale from them merely to nourish\nand vivify the planets, which imbibe in their course the several\nparticles the sun has detached from the comets, an opinion which, at\nleast, is more probable than the former.  But this is not all.  If this\npower of gravitation or attraction acts on all the celestial globes, it\nacts undoubtedly on the several parts of these globes.  For in case\nbodies attract one another in proportion to the quantity of matter\ncontained in them, it can only be in proportion to the quantity of their\nparts; and if this power is found in the whole, it is undoubtedly in the\nhalf; in the quarters in the eighth part, and so on in _infinitum_.\n\nThis is attraction, the great spring by which all Nature is moved.  Sir\nIsaac Newton, after having demonstrated the existence of this principle,\nplainly foresaw that its very name would offend; and, therefore, this\nphilosopher, in more places than one of his books, gives the reader some\ncaution about it.  He bids him beware of confounding this name with what\nthe ancients called occult qualities, but to be satisfied with knowing\nthat there is in all bodies a central force, which acts to the utmost\nlimits of the universe, according to the invariable laws of mechanics.\n\nIt is surprising, after the solemn protestations Sir Isaac made, that\nsuch eminent men as Mr. Sorin and Mr. de Fontenelle should have imputed\nto this great philosopher the verbal and chimerical way of reasoning of\nthe Aristotelians; Mr. Sorin in the Memoirs of the Academy of 1709, and\nMr. de Fontenelle in the very eulogium of Sir Isaac Newton.\n\nMost of the French (the learned and others) have repeated this reproach.\nThese are for ever crying out, \"Why did he not employ the word\n_impulsion_, which is so well understood, rather than that of\n_attraction_, which is unintelligible?\"\n\nSir Isaac might have answered these critics thus:--\"First, you have as\nimperfect an idea of the word impulsion as of that of attraction; and in\ncase you cannot conceive how one body tends towards the centre of another\nbody, neither can you conceive by what power one body can impel another.\n\n\"Secondly, I could not admit of impulsion; for to do this I must have\nknown that a celestial matter was the agent.  But so far from knowing\nthat there is any such matter, I have proved it to be merely imaginary.\n\n\"Thirdly, I use the word attraction for no other reason but to express an\neffect which I discovered in Nature--a certain and indisputable effect of\nan unknown principle--a quality inherent in matter, the cause of which\npersons of greater abilities than I can pretend to may, if they can, find\nout.\"\n\n\"What have you, then, taught us?\" will these people say further; \"and to\nwhat purpose are so many calculations to tell us what you yourself do not\ncomprehend?\"\n\n\"I have taught you,\" may Sir Isaac rejoin, \"that all bodies gravitate\ntowards one another in proportion to their quantity of matter; that these\ncentral forces alone keep the planets and comets in their orbits, and\ncause them to move in the proportion before set down.  I demonstrate to\nyou that it is impossible there should be any other cause which keeps the\nplanets in their orbits than that general phenomenon of gravity.  For\nheavy bodies fall on the earth according to the proportion demonstrated\nof central forces; and the planets finishing their course according to\nthese same proportions, in case there were another power that acted upon\nall those bodies, it would either increase their velocity or change their\ndirection.  Now, not one of those bodies ever has a single degree of\nmotion or velocity, or has any direction but what is demonstrated to be\nthe effect of the central forces.  Consequently it is impossible there\nshould be any other principle.\"\n\nGive me leave once more to introduce Sir Isaac speaking.  Shall he not be\nallowed to say? \"My case and that of the ancients is very different.\nThese saw, for instance, water ascend in pumps, and said, 'The water\nrises because it abhors a vacuum.'  But with regard to myself; I am in\nthe case of a man who should have first observed that water ascends in\npumps, but should leave others to explain the cause of this effect.  The\nanatomist, who first declared that the motion of the arm is owing to the\ncontraction of the muscles, taught mankind an indisputable truth.  But\nare they less obliged to him because he did not know the reason why the\nmuscles contract?  The cause of the elasticity of the air is unknown, but\nhe who first discovered this spring performed a very signal service to\nnatural philosophy.  The spring that I discovered was more hidden and\nmore universal, and for that very reason mankind ought to thank me the\nmore.  I have discovered a new property of matter--one of the secrets of\nthe Creator--and have calculated and discovered the effects of it.  After\nthis, shall people quarrel with me about the name I give it?\"\n\nVortices may be called an occult quality, because their existence was\nnever proved.  Attraction, on the contrary, is a real thing, because its\neffects are demonstrated, and the proportions of it are calculated.  The\ncause of this cause is among the _Arcana_ of the Almighty.\n\n   \"Precedes huc, et non amplius.\"\n\n(Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.)\n\n\n\nLETTER XVI.--ON SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S OPTICS\n\n\nThe philosophers of the last age found out a new universe; and a\ncircumstance which made its discovery more difficult was that no one had\nso much as suspected its existence.  The most sage and judicious were of\nopinion that it was a frantic rashness to dare so much as to imagine that\nit was possible to guess the laws by which the celestial bodies move and\nthe manner how light acts.  Galileo, by his astronomical discoveries,\nKepler, by his calculation, Descartes (at least, in his dioptrics), and\nSir Isaac Newton, in all his works, severally saw the mechanism of the\nsprings of the world.  The geometricians have subjected infinity to the\nlaws of calculation.  The circulation of the blood in animals, and of the\nsap in vegetables, have changed the face of Nature with regard to us.  A\nnew kind of existence has been given to bodies in the air-pump.  By the\nassistance of telescopes bodies have been brought nearer to one another.\nFinally, the several discoveries which Sir Isaac Newton has made on light\nare equal to the boldest things which the curiosity of man could expect\nafter so many philosophical novelties.\n\nTill Antonio de Dominis the rainbow was considered as an inexplicable\nmiracle.  This philosopher guessed that it was a necessary effect of the\nsun and rain.  Descartes gained immortal fame by his mathematical\nexplication of this so natural a phenomenon.  He calculated the\nreflections and refractions of light in drops of rain.  And his sagacity\non this occasion was at that time looked upon as next to divine.\n\nBut what would he have said had it been proved to him that he was\nmistaken in the nature of light; that he had not the least reason to\nmaintain that it is a globular body?  That it is false to assert that\nthis matter, spreading itself through the whole, waits only to be\nprojected forward by the sun, in order to be put in action, in like\nmanner as a long staff acts at one end when pushed forward by the other.\nThat light is certainly darted by the sun; in fine, that light is\ntransmitted from the sun to the earth in about seven minutes, though a\ncannonball, which were not to lose any of its velocity, could not go that\ndistance in less than twenty-five years.  How great would have been his\nastonishment had he been told that light does not reflect directly by\nimpinging against the solid parts of bodies, that bodies are not\ntransparent when they have large pores, and that a man should arise who\nwould demonstrate all these paradoxes, and anatomise a single ray of\nlight with more dexterity than the ablest artist dissects a human body.\nThis man is come.  Sir Isaac Newton has demonstrated to the eye, by the\nbare assistance of the prism, that light is a composition of coloured\nrays, which, being united, form white colour.  A single ray is by him\ndivided into seven, which all fall upon a piece of linen, or a sheet of\nwhite paper, in their order, one above the other, and at unequal\ndistances.  The first is red, the second orange, the third yellow, the\nfourth green, the fifth blue, the sixth indigo, the seventh a\nviolet-purple.  Each of these rays, transmitted afterwards by a hundred\nother prisms, will never change the colour it bears; in like manner, as\ngold, when completely purged from its dross, will never change afterwards\nin the crucible.  As a superabundant proof that each of these elementary\nrays has inherently in itself that which forms its colour to the eye,\ntake a small piece of yellow wood, for instance, and set it in the ray of\na red colour; this wood will instantly be tinged red.  But set it in the\nray of a green colour, it assumes a green colour, and so of all the rest.\n\nFrom what cause, therefore, do colours arise in Nature?  It is nothing\nbut the disposition of bodies to reflect the rays of a certain order and\nto absorb all the rest.\n\nWhat, then, is this secret disposition?  Sir Isaac Newton demonstrates\nthat it is nothing more than the density of the small constituent\nparticles of which a body is composed.  And how is this reflection\nperformed?  It was supposed to arise from the rebounding of the rays, in\nthe same manner as a ball on the surface of a solid body.  But this is a\nmistake, for Sir Isaac taught the astonished philosophers that bodies are\nopaque for no other reason but because their pores are large, that light\nreflects on our eyes from the very bosom of those pores, that the smaller\nthe pores of a body are the more such a body is transparent.  Thus paper,\nwhich reflects the light when dry, transmits it when oiled, because the\noil, by filling its pores, makes them much smaller.\n\nIt is there that examining the vast porosity of bodies, every particle\nhaving its pores, and every particle of those particles having its own,\nhe shows we are not certain that there is a cubic inch of solid matter in\nthe universe, so far are we from conceiving what matter is.  Having thus\ndivided, as it were, light into its elements, and carried the sagacity of\nhis discoveries so far as to prove the method of distinguishing compound\ncolours from such as are primitive, he shows that these elementary rays,\nseparated by the prism, are ranged in their order for no other reason but\nbecause they are refracted in that very order; and it is this property\n(unknown till he discovered it) of breaking or splitting in this\nproportion; it is this unequal refraction of rays, this power of\nrefracting the red less than the orange colour, &c., which he calls the\ndifferent refrangibility.  The most reflexible rays are the most\nrefrangible, and from hence he evinces that the same power is the cause\nboth of the reflection and refraction of light.\n\nBut all these wonders are merely but the opening of his discoveries.  He\nfound out the secret to see the vibrations or fits of light which come\nand go incessantly, and which either transmit light or reflect it,\naccording to the density of the parts they meet with.  He has presumed to\ncalculate the density of the particles of air necessary between two\nglasses, the one flat, the other convex on one side, set one upon the\nother, in order to operate such a transmission or reflection, or to form\nsuch and such a colour.\n\nFrom all these combinations he discovers the proportion in which light\nacts on bodies and bodies act on light.\n\nHe saw light so perfectly, that he has determined to what degree of\nperfection the art of increasing it, and of assisting our eyes by\ntelescopes, can be carried.\n\nDescartes, from a noble confidence that was very excusable, considering\nhow strongly he was fired at the first discoveries he made in an art\nwhich he almost first found out; Descartes, I say, hoped to discover in\nthe stars, by the assistance of telescopes, objects as small as those we\ndiscern upon the earth.\n\nBut Sir Isaac has shown that dioptric telescopes cannot be brought to a\ngreater perfection, because of that refraction, and of that very\nrefrangibility, which at the same time that they bring objects nearer to\nus, scatter too much the elementary rays.  He has calculated in these\nglasses the proportion of the scattering of the red and of the blue rays;\nand proceeding so far as to demonstrate things which were not supposed\neven to exist, he examines the inequalities which arise from the shape or\nfigure of the glass, and that which arises from the refrangibility.  He\nfinds that the object glass of the telescope being convex on one side and\nflat on the other, in case the flat side be turned towards the object,\nthe error which arises from the construction and position of the glass is\nabove five thousand times less than the error which arises from the\nrefrangibility; and, therefore, that the shape or figure of the glasses\nis not the cause why telescopes cannot be carried to a greater\nperfection, but arises wholly from the nature of light.\n\nFor this reason he invented a telescope, which discovers objects by\nreflection, and not by refraction.  Telescopes of this new kind are very\nhard to make, and their use is not easy; but, according to the English, a\nreflective telescope of but five feet has the same effect as another of a\nhundred feet in length.\n\n\n\nLETTER XVII.--ON INFINITES IN GEOMETRY, AND SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S CHRONOLOGY\n\n\nThe labyrinth and abyss of infinity is also a new course Sir Isaac Newton\nhas gone through, and we are obliged to him for the clue, by whose\nassistance we are enabled to trace its various windings.\n\nDescartes got the start of him also in this astonishing invention.  He\nadvanced with mighty steps in his geometry, and was arrived at the very\nborders of infinity, but went no farther.  Dr. Wallis, about the middle\nof the last century, was the first who reduced a fraction by a perpetual\ndivision to an infinite series.\n\nThe Lord Brouncker employed this series to square the hyperbola.\n\nMercator published a demonstration of this quadrature; much about which\ntime Sir Isaac Newton, being then twenty-three years of age, had invented\na general method, to perform on all geometrical curves what had just\nbefore been tried on the hyperbola.\n\nIt is to this method of subjecting everywhere infinity to algebraical\ncalculations, that the name is given of differential calculations or of\nfluxions and integral calculation.  It is the art of numbering and\nmeasuring exactly a thing whose existence cannot be conceived.\n\nAnd, indeed, would you not imagine that a man laughed at you who should\ndeclare that there are lines infinitely great which form an angle\ninfinitely little?\n\nThat a right line, which is a right line so long as it is finite, by\nchanging infinitely little its direction, becomes an infinite curve; and\nthat a curve may become infinitely less than another curve?\n\nThat there are infinite squares, infinite cubes, and infinites of\ninfinites, all greater than one another, and the last but one of which is\nnothing in comparison of the last?\n\nAll these things, which at first appear to be the utmost excess of\nfrenzy, are in reality an effort of the subtlety and extent of the human\nmind, and the art of finding truths which till then had been unknown.\n\nThis so bold edifice is even founded on simple ideas.  The business is to\nmeasure the diagonal of a square, to give the area of a curve, to find\nthe square root of a number, which has none in common arithmetic.  After\nall, the imagination ought not to be startled any more at so many orders\nof infinites than at the so well-known proposition, viz., that curve\nlines may always be made to pass between a circle and a tangent; or at\nthat other, namely, that matter is divisible in _infinitum_.  These two\ntruths have been demonstrated many years, and are no less\nincomprehensible than the things we have been speaking of.\n\nFor many years the invention of this famous calculation was denied to Sir\nIsaac Newton.  In Germany Mr. Leibnitz was considered as the inventor of\nthe differences or moments, called fluxions, and Mr. Bernouilli claimed\nthe integral calculus.  However, Sir Isaac is now thought to have first\nmade the discovery, and the other two have the glory of having once made\nthe world doubt whether it was to be ascribed to him or them.  Thus some\ncontested with Dr. Harvey the invention of the circulation of the blood,\nas others disputed with Mr. Perrault that of the circulation of the sap.\n\nHartsocher and Leuwenhoek disputed with each other the honour of having\nfirst seen the _vermiculi_ of which mankind are formed.  This Hartsocher\nalso contested with Huygens the invention of a new method of calculating\nthe distance of a fixed star.  It is not yet known to what philosopher we\nowe the invention of the cycloid.\n\nBe this as it will, it is by the help of this geometry of infinites that\nSir Isaac Newton attained to the most sublime discoveries.  I am now to\nspeak of another work, which, though more adapted to the capacity of the\nhuman mind, does nevertheless display some marks of that creative genius\nwith which Sir Isaac Newton was informed in all his researches.  The work\nI mean is a chronology of a new kind, for what province soever he\nundertook he was sure to change the ideas and opinions received by the\nrest of men.\n\nAccustomed to unravel and disentangle chaos, he was resolved to convey at\nleast some light into that of the fables of antiquity which are blended\nand confounded with history, and fix an uncertain chronology.  It is true\nthat there is no family, city, or nation, but endeavours to remove its\noriginal as far backward as possible.  Besides, the first historians were\nthe most negligent in setting down the eras: books were infinitely less\ncommon than they are at this time, and, consequently, authors being not\nso obnoxious to censure, they therefore imposed upon the world with\ngreater impunity; and, as it is evident that these have related a great\nnumber of fictitious particulars, it is probable enough that they also\ngave us several false eras.\n\nIt appeared in general to Sir Isaac that the world was five hundred years\nyounger than chronologers declare it to be.  He grounds his opinion on\nthe ordinary course of Nature, and on the observations which astronomers\nhave made.\n\nBy the course of Nature we here understand the time that every generation\nof men lives upon the earth.  The Egyptians first employed this vague and\nuncertain method of calculating when they began to write the beginning of\ntheir history.  These computed three hundred and forty-one generations\nfrom Menes to Sethon; and, having no fixed era, they supposed three\ngenerations to consist of a hundred years.  In this manner they computed\neleven thousand three hundred and forty years from Menes's reign to that\nof Sethon.\n\nThe Greeks before they counted by Olympiads followed the method of the\nEgyptians, and even gave a little more extent to generations, making each\nto consist of forty years.\n\nNow, here, both the Egyptians and the Greeks made an erroneous\ncomputation.  It is true, indeed, that, according to the usual course of\nNature, three generations last about a hundred and twenty years; but\nthree reigns are far from taking up so many.  It is very evident that\nmankind in general live longer than kings are found to reign, so that an\nauthor who should write a history in which there were no dates fixed, and\nshould know that nine kings had reigned over a nation; such an historian\nwould commit a great error should he allow three hundred years to these\nnine monarchs.  Every generation takes about thirty-six years; every\nreign is, one with the other, about twenty.  Thirty kings of England have\nswayed the sceptre from William the Conqueror to George I., the years of\nwhose reigns added together amount to six hundred and forty-eight years;\nwhich, being divided equally among the thirty kings, give to every one a\nreign of twenty-one years and a half very near.  Sixty-three kings of\nFrance have sat upon the throne; these have, one with another, reigned\nabout twenty years each.  This is the usual course of Nature.  The\nancients, therefore, were mistaken when they supposed the durations in\ngeneral of reigns to equal that of generations.  They, therefore, allowed\ntoo great a number of years, and consequently some years must be\nsubtracted from their computation.\n\nAstronomical observations seem to have lent a still greater assistance to\nour philosopher.  He appears to us stronger when he fights upon his own\nground.\n\nYou know that the earth, besides its annual motion which carries it round\nthe sun from west to east in the space of a year, has also a singular\nrevolution which was quite unknown till within these late years.  Its\npoles have a very slow retrograde motion from east to west, whence it\nhappens that their position every day does not correspond exactly with\nthe same point of the heavens.  This difference, which is so insensible\nin a year, becomes pretty considerable in time; and in threescore and\ntwelve years the difference is found to be of one degree, that is to say,\nthe three hundred and sixtieth part of the circumference of the whole\nheaven.  Thus after seventy-two years the colure of the vernal equinox\nwhich passed through a fixed star, corresponds with another fixed star.\nHence it is that the sun, instead of being in that part of the heavens in\nwhich the Ram was situated in the time of Hipparchus, is found to\ncorrespond with that part of the heavens in which the Bull was situated;\nand the Twins are placed where the Bull then stood.  All the signs have\nchanged their situation, and yet we still retain the same manner of\nspeaking as the ancients did.  In this age we say that the sun is in the\nRam in the spring, from the same principle of condescension that we say\nthat the sun turns round.\n\nHipparchus was the first among the Greeks who observed some change in the\nconstellations with regard to the equinoxes, or rather who learnt it from\nthe Egyptians.  Philosophers ascribed this motion to the stars; for in\nthose ages people were far from imagining such a revolution in the earth,\nwhich was supposed to be immovable in every respect.  They therefore\ncreated a heaven in which they fixed the several stars, and gave this\nheaven a particular motion by which it was carried towards the east,\nwhilst that all the stars seemed to perform their diurnal revolution from\neast to west.  To this error they added a second of much greater\nconsequence, by imagining that the pretended heaven of the fixed stars\nadvanced one degree eastward every hundred years.  In this manner they\nwere no less mistaken in their astronomical calculation than in their\nsystem of natural philosophy.  As for instance, an astronomer in that age\nwould have said that the vernal equinox was in the time of such and such\nan observation, in such a sign, and in such a star.  It has advanced two\ndegrees of each since the time that observation was made to the present.\nNow two degrees are equivalent to two hundred years; consequently the\nastronomer who made that observation lived just so many years before me.\nIt is certain that an astronomer who had argued in this manner would have\nmistook just fifty-four years; hence it is that the ancients, who were\ndoubly deceived, made their great year of the world, that is, the\nrevolution of the whole heavens, to consist of thirty-six thousand years.\nBut the moderns are sensible that this imaginary revolution of the heaven\nof the stars is nothing else than the revolution of the poles of the\nearth, which is performed in twenty-five thousand nine hundred years.  It\nmay be proper to observe transiently in this place, that Sir Isaac, by\ndetermining the figure of the earth, has very happily explained the cause\nof this revolution.\n\nAll this being laid down, the only thing remaining to settle chronology\nis to see through what star the colure of the equinoxes passes, and where\nit intersects at this time the ecliptic in the spring; and to discover\nwhether some ancient writer does not tell us in what point the ecliptic\nwas intersected in his time, by the same colure of the equinoxes.\n\nClemens Alexandrinus informs us, that Chiron, who went with the\nArgonauts, observed the constellations at the time of that famous\nexpedition, and fixed the vernal equinox to the middle of the Ram; the\nautumnal equinox to the middle of Libra; our summer solstice to the\nmiddle of Cancer, and our winter solstice to the middle of Capricorn.\n\nA long time after the expedition of the Argonauts, and a year before the\nPeloponnesian war, Methon observed that the point of the summer solstice\npassed through the eighth degree of Cancer.\n\nNow every sign of the zodiac contains thirty degrees.  In Chiron's time,\nthe solstice was arrived at the middle of the sign, that is to say to the\nfifteenth degree.  A year before the Peloponnesian war it was at the\neighth, and therefore it had retarded seven degrees.  A degree is\nequivalent to seventy-two years; consequently, from the beginning of the\nPeloponnesian war to the expedition of the Argonauts, there is no more\nthan an interval of seven times seventy-two years, which make five\nhundred and four years, and not seven hundred years as the Greeks\ncomputed.  Thus in comparing the position of the heavens at this time\nwith their position in that age, we find that the expedition of the\nArgonauts ought to be placed about nine hundred years before Christ, and\nnot about fourteen hundred; and consequently that the world is not so old\nby five hundred years as it was generally supposed to be.  By this\ncalculation all the eras are drawn nearer, and the several events are\nfound to have happened later than is computed.  I do not know whether\nthis ingenious system will be favourably received; and whether these\nnotions will prevail so far with the learned, as to prompt them to reform\nthe chronology of the world.  Perhaps these gentlemen would think it too\ngreat a condescension to allow one and the same man the glory of having\nimproved natural philosophy, geometry, and history.  This would be a kind\nof universal monarchy, with which the principle of self-love that is in\nman will scarce suffer him to indulge his fellow-creature; and, indeed,\nat the same time that some very great philosophers attacked Sir Isaac\nNewton's attractive principle, others fell upon his chronological system.\nTime that should discover to which of these the victory is due, may\nperhaps only leave the dispute still more undetermined.\n\n\n\nLETTER XVIII.--ON TRAGEDY\n\n\nThe English as well as the Spaniards were possessed of theatres at a time\nwhen the French had no more than moving, itinerant stages.  Shakspeare,\nwho was considered as the Corneille of the first-mentioned nation, was\npretty nearly contemporary with Lopez de Vega, and he created, as it\nwere, the English theatre.  Shakspeare boasted a strong fruitful genius.\nHe was natural and sublime, but had not so much as a single spark of good\ntaste, or knew one rule of the drama.  I will now hazard a random, but,\nat the same time, true reflection, which is, that the great merit of this\ndramatic poet has been the ruin of the English stage.  There are such\nbeautiful, such noble, such dreadful scenes in this writer's monstrous\nfarces, to which the name of tragedy is given, that they have always been\nexhibited with great success.  Time, which alone gives reputation to\nwriters, at last makes their very faults venerable.  Most of the\nwhimsical gigantic images of this poet, have, through length of time (it\nbeing a hundred and fifty years since they were first drawn) acquired a\nright of passing for sublime.  Most of the modern dramatic writers have\ncopied him; but the touches and descriptions which are applauded in\nShakspeare, are hissed at in these writers; and you will easily believe\nthat the veneration in which this author is held, increases in proportion\nto the contempt which is shown to the moderns.  Dramatic writers don't\nconsider that they should not imitate him; and the ill-success of\nShakspeare's imitators produces no other effect, than to make him be\nconsidered as inimitable.  You remember that in the tragedy of _Othello,\nMoor of Venice_, a most tender piece, a man strangles his wife on the\nstage, and that the poor woman, whilst she is strangling, cries aloud\nthat she dies very unjustly.  You know that in _Hamlet, Prince of\nDenmark_, two grave-diggers make a grave, and are all the time drinking,\nsinging ballads, and making humorous reflections (natural indeed enough\nto persons of their profession) on the several skulls they throw up with\ntheir spades; but a circumstance which will surprise you is, that this\nridiculous incident has been imitated.  In the reign of King Charles II.,\nwhich was that of politeness, and the Golden Age of the liberal arts;\nOtway, in his _Venice Preserved_, introduces Antonio the senator, and\nNaki, his courtesan, in the midst of the horrors of the Marquis of\nBedemar's conspiracy.  Antonio, the superannuated senator plays, in his\nmistress's presence, all the apish tricks of a lewd, impotent debauchee,\nwho is quite frantic and out of his senses.  He mimics a bull and a dog,\nand bites his mistress's legs, who kicks and whips him.  However, the\nplayers have struck these buffooneries (which indeed were calculated\nmerely for the dregs of the people) out of Otway's tragedy; but they have\nstill left in Shakspeare's _Julius Caesar_ the jokes of the Roman\nshoemakers and cobblers, who are introduced in the same scene with Brutus\nand Cassius.  You will undoubtedly complain, that those who have hitherto\ndiscoursed with you on the English stage, and especially on the\ncelebrated Shakspeare, have taken notice only of his errors; and that no\none has translated any of those strong, those forcible passages which\natone for all his faults.  But to this I will answer, that nothing is\neasier than to exhibit in prose all the silly impertinences which a poet\nmay have thrown out; but that it is a very difficult task to translate\nhis fine verses.  All your junior academical sophs, who set up for\ncensors of the eminent writers, compile whole volumes; but methinks two\npages which display some of the beauties of great geniuses, are of\ninfinitely more value than all the idle rhapsodies of those commentators;\nand I will join in opinion with all persons of good taste in declaring,\nthat greater advantage may be reaped from a dozen verses of Homer of\nVirgil, than from all the critiques put together which have been made on\nthose two great poets.\n\nI have ventured to translate some passages of the most celebrated English\npoets, and shall now give you one from Shakspeare.  Pardon the blemishes\nof the translation for the sake of the original; and remember always that\nwhen you see a version, you see merely a faint print of a beautiful\npicture.  I have made choice of part of the celebrated soliloquy in\n_Hamlet_, which you may remember is as follows:--\n\n   \"To be, or not to be? that is the question!\n   Whether 't is nobler in the mind to suffer\n   The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,\n   Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,\n   And by opposing, end them?  To die! to sleep!\n   No more! and by a sleep to say we end\n   The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks\n   That flesh is heir to!  'Tis a consummation\n   Devoutly to be wished.  To die! to sleep!\n   To sleep; perchance to dream!  O, there's the rub;\n   For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come\n   When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,\n   Must give us pause.  There's the respect\n   That makes calamity of so long life:\n   For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,\n   The oppressor's wrong, the poor man's contumely,\n   The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,\n   The insolence of office, and the spurns\n   That patient merit of the unworthy takes,\n   When he himself might his quietus make\n   With a bare bodkin.  Who would fardels bear\n   To groan and sweat under a weary life,\n   But that the dread of something after death,\n   The undiscovered country, from whose bourn\n   No traveller returns, puzzles the will,\n   And makes us rather bear those ills we have,\n   Than fly to others that we know not of?\n   Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;\n   And thus the native hue of resolution\n   Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought:\n   And enterprises of great weight and moment\n   With this regard their currents turn awry,\n   And lose the name of action--\"\n\nMy version of it runs thus:--\n\n   \"Demeure, il faut choisir et passer a l'instant\n   De la vie, a la mort, ou de l'etre au neant.\n   Dieux cruels, s'il en est, eclairez mon courage.\n   Faut-il vieillir courbe sous la main qui m'outrage,\n   Supporter, ou finir mon malheur et mon sort?\n   Qui suis je?  Qui m'arrete! et qu'est-ce que la mort?\n   C'est la fin de nos maux, c'est mon unique asile\n   Apres de longs transports, c'est un sommeil tranquile.\n   On s'endort, et tout meurt, mais un affreux reveil\n   Doit succeder peut etre aux douceurs du sommeil!\n   On nous menace, on dit que cette courte vie,\n   De tourmens eternels est aussi-tot suivie.\n   O mort! moment fatal! affreuse eternite!\n   Tout coeur a ton seul nom se glace epouvante.\n   Eh! qui pourroit sans toi supporter cette vie,\n   De nos pretres menteurs benir l'hypocrisie:\n   D'une indigne maitresse encenser les erreurs,\n   Ramper sous un ministre, adorer ses hauteurs;\n   Et montrer les langueurs de son ame abattue,\n   A des amis ingrats qui detournent la vue?\n   La mort seroit trop douce en ces extremitez,\n   Mais le scrupule parle, et nous crie, arretez;\n   Il defend a nos mains cet heureux homicide\n   Et d'un heros guerrier, fait un Chretien timide,\" &c.\n\nDo not imagine that I have translated Shakspeare in a servile manner.  Woe\nto the writer who gives a literal version; who by rendering every word of\nhis original, by that very means enervates the sense, and extinguishes\nall the fire of it.  It is on such an occasion one may justly affirm,\nthat the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens.\n\nHere follows another passage copied from a celebrated tragic writer among\nthe English.  It is Dryden, a poet in the reign of Charles II.--a writer\nwhose genius was too exuberant, and not accompanied with judgment enough.\nHad he written only a tenth part of the works he left behind him, his\ncharacter would have been conspicuous in every part; but his great fault\nis his having endeavoured to be universal.\n\nThe passage in question is as follows:--\n\n   \"When I consider life, 't is all a cheat,\n   Yet fooled by hope, men favour the deceit;\n   Trust on and think, to-morrow will repay;\n   To-morrow's falser than the former day;\n   Lies more; and whilst it says we shall be blest\n   With some new joy, cuts off what we possessed;\n   Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,\n   Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain,\n   And from the dregs of life think to receive\n   What the first sprightly running could not give.\n   I'm tired with waiting for this chymic gold,\n   Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.\"\n\nI shall now give you my translation:--\n\n   \"De desseins en regrets et d'erreurs en desirs\n   Les mortals insenses promenent leur folie.\n   Dans des malheurs presents, dans l'espoir des plaisirs\n   Nous ne vivons jamais, nous attendons la vie.\n   Demain, demain, dit-on, va combler tous nos voeux.\n   Demain vient, et nous laisse encore plus malheureux.\n   Quelle est l'erreur, helas! du soin qui nous devore,\n   Nul de nous ne voudroit recommencer son cours.\n   De nos premiers momens nous maudissons l'aurore,\n   Et de la nuit qui vient nous attendons encore,\n   Ce qu'ont en vain promis les plus beaux de nos jours,\" &c.\n\nIt is in these detached passages that the English have hitherto excelled.\nTheir dramatic pieces, most of which are barbarous and without decorum,\norder, or verisimilitude, dart such resplendent flashes through this\ngleam, as amaze and astonish.  The style is too much inflated, too\nunnatural, too closely copied from the Hebrew writers, who abound so much\nwith the Asiatic fustian.  But then it must be also confessed that the\nstilts of the figurative style, on which the English tongue is lifted up,\nraises the genius at the same time very far aloft, though with an\nirregular pace.  The first English writer who composed a regular tragedy,\nand infused a spirit of elegance through every part of it, was the\nillustrious Mr. Addison.  His \"Cato\" is a masterpiece, both with regard\nto the diction and to the beauty and harmony of the numbers.  The\ncharacter of Cato is, in my opinion, vastly superior to that of Cornelia\nin the \"Pompey\" of Corneille, for Cato is great without anything like\nfustian, and Cornelia, who besides is not a necessary character, tends\nsometimes to bombast.  Mr. Addison's Cato appears to me the greatest\ncharacter that was ever brought upon any stage, but then the rest of them\ndo not correspond to the dignity of it, and this dramatic piece, so\nexcellently well writ, is disfigured by a dull love plot, which spreads a\ncertain languor over the whole, that quite murders it.\n\nThe custom of introducing love at random and at any rate in the drama\npassed from Paris to London about 1660, with our ribbons and our\nperruques.  The ladies who adorn the theatrical circle there, in like\nmanner as in this city, will suffer love only to be the theme of every\nconversation.  The judicious Mr. Addison had the effeminate complaisance\nto soften the severity of his dramatic character, so as to adapt it to\nthe manners of the age, and, from an endeavour to please, quite ruined a\nmasterpiece in its kind.  Since his time the drama is become more\nregular, the audience more difficult to be pleased, and writers more\ncorrect and less bold.  I have seen some new pieces that were written\nwith great regularity, but which, at the same time, were very flat and\ninsipid.  One would think that the English had been hitherto formed to\nproduce irregular beauties only.  The shining monsters of Shakspeare give\ninfinite more delight than the judicious images of the moderns.  Hitherto\nthe poetical genius of the English resembles a tufted tree planted by the\nhand of Nature, that throws out a thousand branches at random, and\nspreads unequally, but with great vigour.  It dies if you attempt to\nforce its nature, and to lop and dress it in the same manner as the trees\nof the Garden of Marli.\n\n\n\nLETTER XIX.--ON COMEDY\n\n\nI am surprised that the judicious and ingenious Mr. de Muralt, who has\npublished some letters on the English and French nations, should have\nconfined himself; in treating of comedy, merely to censure Shadwell the\ncomic writer.  This author was had in pretty great contempt in Mr. de\nMuralt's time, and was not the poet of the polite part of the nation.  His\ndramatic pieces, which pleased some time in acting, were despised by all\npersons of taste, and might be compared to many plays which I have seen\nin France, that drew crowds to the playhouse, at the same time that they\nwere intolerable to read; and of which it might be said, that the whole\ncity of Paris exploded them, and yet all flocked to see them represented\non the stage.  Methinks Mr. de Muralt should have mentioned an excellent\ncomic writer (living when he was in England), I mean Mr. Wycherley, who\nwas a long time known publicly to be happy in the good graces of the most\ncelebrated mistress of King Charles II.  This gentleman, who passed his\nlife among persons of the highest distinction, was perfectly well\nacquainted with their lives and their follies, and painted them with the\nstrongest pencil, and in the truest colours.  He has drawn a misanthrope\nor man-hater, in imitation of that of Moliere.  All Wycherley's strokes\nare stronger and bolder than those of our misanthrope, but then they are\nless delicate, and the rules of decorum are not so well observed in this\nplay.  The English writer has corrected the only defect that is in\nMoliere's comedy, the thinness of the plot, which also is so disposed\nthat the characters in it do not enough raise our concern.  The English\ncomedy affects us, and the contrivance of the plot is very ingenious, but\nat the same time it is too bold for the French manners.  The fable is\nthis:--A captain of a man-of-war, who is very brave, open-hearted, and\ninflamed with a spirit of contempt for all mankind, has a prudent,\nsincere friend, whom he yet is suspicious of; and a mistress that loves\nhim with the utmost excess of passion.  The captain so far from returning\nher love, will not even condescend to look upon her, but confides\nentirely in a false friend, who is the most worthless wretch living.  At\nthe same time he has given his heart to a creature, who is the greatest\ncoquette and the most perfidious of her sex, and he is so credulous as to\nbe confident she is a Penelope, and his false friend a Cato.  He embarks\non board his ship in order to go and fight the Dutch, having left all his\nmoney, his jewels, and everything he had in the world to this virtuous\ncreature, whom at the same time he recommends to the care of his supposed\nfaithful friend.  Nevertheless the real man of honour, whom he suspects\nso unaccountably, goes on board the ship with him, and the mistress, on\nwhom he would not bestow so much as one glance, disguises herself in the\nhabit of a page, and is with him the whole voyage, without his once\nknowing that she is of a sex different from that she attempts to pass\nfor, which, by the way, is not over natural.\n\nThe captain having blown up his own ship in an engagement, returns to\nEngland abandoned and undone, accompanied by his page and his friend,\nwithout knowing the friendship of the one or the tender passion of the\nother.  Immediately he goes to the jewel among women, who he expected had\npreserved her fidelity to him and the treasure he had left in her hands.\nHe meets with her indeed, but married to the honest knave in whom he had\nreposed so much confidence, and finds she had acted as treacherously with\nregard to the casket he had entrusted her with.  The captain can scarce\nthink it possible that a woman of virtue and honour can act so vile a\npart; but to convince him still more of the reality of it, this very\nworthy lady falls in love with the little page, and will force him to her\nembraces.  But as it is requisite justice should be done, and that in a\ndramatic piece virtue ought to be rewarded and vice punished, it is at\nlast found that the captain takes his page's place, and lies with his\nfaithless mistress, cuckolds his treacherous friend, thrusts his sword\nthrough his body, recovers his casket, and marries his page.  You will\nobserve that this play is also larded with a petulant, litigious old\nwoman (a relation of the captain), who is the most comical character that\nwas ever brought upon the stage.\n\nWycherley has also copied from Moliere another play, of as singular and\nbold a cast, which is a kind of _Ecole des Femmes_, or, _School for\nMarried Women_.\n\nThe principal character in this comedy is one Homer, a sly fortune\nhunter, and the terror of all the City husbands.  This fellow, in order\nto play a surer game, causes a report to be spread, that in his last\nillness, the surgeons had found it necessary to have him made a eunuch.\nUpon his appearing in this noble character, all the husbands in town\nflock to him with their wives, and now poor Homer is only puzzled about\nhis choice.  However, he gives the preference particularly to a little\nfemale peasant, a very harmless, innocent creature, who enjoys a fine\nflush of health, and cuckolds her husband with a simplicity that has\ninfinitely more merit than the witty malice of the most experienced\nladies.  This play cannot indeed be called the school of good morals, but\nit is certainly the school of wit and true humour.\n\nSir John Vanbrugh has written several comedies, which are more humorous\nthan those of Mr. Wycherley, but not so ingenious.  Sir John was a man of\npleasure, and likewise a poet and an architect.  The general opinion is,\nthat he is as sprightly in his writings as he is heavy in his buildings.\nIt is he who raised the famous Castle of Blenheim, a ponderous and\nlasting monument of our unfortunate Battle of Hochstet.  Were the\napartments but as spacious as the walls are thick, this castle would be\ncommodious enough.  Some wag, in an epitaph he made on Sir John Vanbrugh,\nhas these lines:--\n\n   \"Earth lie light on him, for he\n   Laid many a heavy load on thee.\"\n\nSir John having taken a tour into France before the glorious war that\nbroke out in 1701, was thrown into the Bastille, and detained there for\nsome time, without being ever able to discover the motive which had\nprompted our ministry to indulge him with this mark of their distinction.\nHe wrote a comedy during his confinement; and a circumstance which\nappears to me very extraordinary is, that we don't meet with so much as a\nsingle satirical stroke against the country in which he had been so\ninjuriously treated.\n\nThe late Mr. Congreve raised the glory of comedy to a greater height than\nany English writer before or since his time.  He wrote only a few plays,\nbut they are all excellent in their kind.  The laws of the drama are\nstrictly observed in them; they abound with characters all which are\nshadowed with the utmost delicacy, and we don't meet with so much as one\nlow or coarse jest.  The language is everywhere that of men of honour,\nbut their actions are those of knaves--a proof that he was perfectly well\nacquainted with human nature, and frequented what we call polite company.\nHe was infirm and come to the verge of life when I knew him.  Mr.\nCongreve had one defect, which was his entertaining too mean an idea of\nhis first profession (that of a writer), though it was to this he owed\nhis fame and fortune.  He spoke of his works as of trifles that were\nbeneath him; and hinted to me, in our first conversation, that I should\nvisit him upon no other footing than that of a gentleman who led a life\nof plainness and simplicity.  I answered, that had he been so unfortunate\nas to be a mere gentleman, I should never have come to see him; and I was\nvery much disgusted at so unseasonable a piece of vanity.\n\nMr. Congreve's comedies are the most witty and regular, those of Sir John\nVanbrugh most gay and humorous, and those of Mr. Wycherley have the\ngreatest force and spirit.  It may be proper to observe that these fine\ngeniuses never spoke disadvantageously of Moliere; and that none but the\ncontemptible writers among the English have endeavoured to lessen the\ncharacter of that great comic poet.  Such Italian musicians as despise\nLully are themselves persons of no character or ability; but a Buononcini\nesteems that great artist, and does justice to his merit.\n\nThe English have some other good comic writers living, such as Sir\nRichard Steele and Mr. Cibber, who is an excellent player, and also Poet\nLaureate--a title which, how ridiculous soever it may be thought, is yet\nworth a thousand crowns a year (besides some considerable privileges) to\nthe person who enjoys it.  Our illustrious Corneille had not so much.\n\nTo conclude.  Don't desire me to descend to particulars with regard to\nthese English comedies, which I am so fond of applauding; nor to give you\na single smart saying or humorous stroke from Wycherley or Congreve.  We\ndon't laugh in rending a translation.  If you have a mind to understand\nthe English comedy, the only way to do this will be for you to go to\nEngland, to spend three years in London, to make yourself master of the\nEnglish tongue, and to frequent the playhouse every night.  I receive but\nlittle pleasure from the perusal of Aristophanes and Plautus, and for\nthis reason, because I am neither a Greek nor a Roman.  The delicacy of\nthe humour, the allusion, the _a propos_--all these are lost to a\nforeigner.\n\nBut it is different with respect to tragedy, this treating only of\nexalted passions and heroical follies, which the antiquated errors of\nfable or history have made sacred.  OEdipus, Electra, and such-like\ncharacters, may with as much propriety be treated of by the Spaniards,\nthe English, or us, as by the Greeks.  But true comedy is the speaking\npicture of the follies and ridiculous foibles of a nation; so that he\nonly is able to judge of the painting who is perfectly acquainted with\nthe people it represents.\n\n\n\nLETTER XX.--ON SUCH OF THE NOBILITY AS CULTIVATE THE BELLES LETTRES\n\n\nThere once was a time in France when the polite arts were cultivated by\npersons of the highest rank in the state.  The courtiers particularly\nwere conversant in them, although indolence, a taste for trifles, and a\npassion for intrigue, were the divinities of the country.  The Court\nmethinks at this time seems to have given into a taste quite opposite to\nthat of polite literature, but perhaps the mode of thinking may be\nrevived in a little time.  The French are of so flexible a disposition,\nmay be moulded into such a variety of shapes, that the monarch needs but\ncommand and he is immediately obeyed.  The English generally think, and\nlearning is had in greater honour among them than in our country--an\nadvantage that results naturally from the form of their government.  There\nare about eight hundred persons in England who have a right to speak in\npublic, and to support the interest of the kingdom; and near five or six\nthousand may in their turns aspire to the same honour.  The whole nation\nset themselves up as judges over these, and every man has the liberty of\npublishing his thoughts with regard to public affairs, which shows that\nall the people in general are indispensably obliged to cultivate their\nunderstandings.  In England the governments of Greece and Rome are the\nsubject of every conversation, so that every man is under a necessity of\nperusing such authors as treat of them, how disagreeable soever it may be\nto him; and this study leads naturally to that of polite literature.\nMankind in general speak well in their respective professions.  What is\nthe reason why our magistrates, our lawyers, our physicians, and a great\nnumber of the clergy, are abler scholars, have a finer taste, and more\nwit, than persons of all other professions?  The reason is, because their\ncondition of life requires a cultivated and enlightened mind, in the same\nmanner as a merchant is obliged to be acquainted with his traffic.  Not\nlong since an English nobleman, who was very young, came to see me at\nParis on his return from Italy.  He had written a poetical description of\nthat country, which, for delicacy and politeness, may vie with anything\nwe meet with in the Earl of Rochester, or in our Chaulieu, our Sarrasin,\nor Chapelle.  The translation I have given of it is so inexpressive of\nthe strength and delicate humour of the original, that I am obliged\nseriously to ask pardon of the author and of all who understand English.\nHowever, as this is the only method I have to make his lordship's verses\nknown, I shall here present you with them in our tongue:--\n\n   \"Qu'ay je donc vu dans l'Italie?\n   Orgueil, astuce, et pauvrete,\n   Grands complimens, peu de bonte\n   Et beaucoup de ceremonie.\n\n   \"L'extravagante comedie\n   Que souvent l'Inquisition\n   Vent qu'on nomme religion\n   Mais qu'ici nous nommons folie.\n\n   \"La Nature en vain bienfaisante\n   Vent enricher ses lieux charmans,\n   Des pretres la main desolante\n   Etouffe ses plus beaux presens.\n\n   \"Les monsignors, soy disant Grands,\n   Seuls dans leurs palais magnifiques\n   Y sont d'illustres faineants,\n   Sans argent, et sans domestiques.\n\n   \"Pour les petits, sans liberte,\n   Martyrs du joug qui les domine,\n   Ils ont fait voeu de pauvrete,\n   Priant Dieu par oisivete\n   Et toujours jeunant par famine.\n\n   \"Ces beaux lieux du Pape benis\n   Semblent habitez par les diables;\n   Et les habitans miserables\n   Sont damnes dans le Paradis.\"\n\n\n\nLETTER XXI.--ON THE EARL OF ROCHESTER AND MR. WALLER\n\n\nThe Earl of Rochester's name is universally known.  Mr. de St. Evremont\nhas made very frequent mention of him, but then he has represented this\nfamous nobleman in no other light than as the man of pleasure, as one who\nwas the idol of the fair; but, with regard to myself, I would willingly\ndescribe in him the man of genius, the great poet.  Among other pieces\nwhich display the shining imagination, his lordship only could boast he\nwrote some satires on the same subjects as those our celebrated Boileau\nmade choice of.  I do not know any better method of improving the taste\nthan to compare the productions of such great geniuses as have exercised\ntheir talent on the same subject.  Boileau declaims as follows against\nhuman reason in his \"Satire on Man:\"\n\n   \"Cependant a le voir plein de vapeurs legeres,\n   Soi-meme se bercer de ses propres chimeres,\n   Lui seul de la nature est la baze et l'appui,\n   Et le dixieme ciel ne tourne que pour lui.\n   De tous les animaux il est ici le maitre;\n   Qui pourroit le nier, poursuis tu?  Moi peut-etre.\n   Ce maitre pretendu qui leur donne des loix,\n   Ce roi des animaux, combien a-t'il de rois?\"\n\n   \"Yet, pleased with idle whimsies of his brain,\n   And puffed with pride, this haughty thing would fain\n   Be think himself the only stay and prop\n   That holds the mighty frame of Nature up.\n   The skies and stars his properties must seem,\n   * * *\n   Of all the creatures he's the lord, he cries.\n   * * *\n   And who is there, say you, that dares deny\n   So owned a truth?  That may be, sir, do I.\n   * * *\n   This boasted monarch of the world who awes\n   The creatures here, and with his nod gives laws\n   This self-named king, who thus pretends to be\n   The lord of all, how many lords has he?\"\n\n   OLDHAM, _a little altered_.\n\nThe Lord Rochester expresses himself, in his \"Satire against Man,\" in\npretty near the following manner.  But I must first desire you always to\nremember that the versions I give you from the English poets are written\nwith freedom and latitude, and that the restraint of our versification,\nand the delicacies of the French tongue, will not allow a translator to\nconvey into it the licentious impetuosity and fire of the English\nnumbers:--\n\n   \"Cet esprit que je hais, cet esprit plein d'erreur,\n   Ce n'est pas ma raison, c'est la tienne, docteur.\n   C'est la raison frivole, inquiete, orgueilleuse\n   Des sages animaux, rivale dedaigneuse,\n   Qui croit entr'eux et l'Ange, occuper le milieu,\n   Et pense etre ici bas l'image de son Dieu.\n   Vil atome imparfait, qui croit, doute, dispute\n   Rampe, s'eleve, tombe, et nie encore sa chute,\n   Qui nous dit je suis libre, en nous montrant ses fers,\n   Et dont l'oeil trouble et faux, croit percer l'univers.\n   Allez, reverends fous, bienheureux fanatiques,\n   Compilez bien l'amas de vos riens scholastiques,\n   Peres de visions, et d'enigmes sacres,\n   Auteurs du labirinthe, ou vous vous egarez.\n   Allez obscurement eclaircir vos misteres,\n   Et courez dans l'ecole adorer vos chimeres.\n   Il est d'autres erreurs, il est de ces devots\n   Condamne par eux memes a l'ennui du repos.\n   Ce mystique encloitre, fier de son indolence\n   Tranquille, au sein de Dieu.  Que peut il faire?  Il pense.\n   Non, tu ne penses point, miserable, tu dors:\n   Inutile a la terre, et mis au rang des morts.\n   Ton esprit enerve croupit dans la molesse.\n   Reveille toi, sois homme, et sors de ton ivresse.\n   L'homme est ne pour agir, et tu pretens penser?\"  &c.\n\nThe original runs thus:--\n\n   \"Hold mighty man, I cry all this we know,\n   And 'tis this very reason I despise,\n   This supernatural gift that makes a mite\n   Think he's the image of the Infinite;\n   Comparing his short life, void of all rest,\n   To the eternal and the ever blest.\n   This busy, puzzling stirrer up of doubt,\n   That frames deep mysteries, then finds them out,\n   Filling, with frantic crowds of thinking fools,\n   Those reverend bedlams, colleges, and schools;\n   Borne on whose wings each heavy sot can pierce\n   The limits of the boundless universe.\n   So charming ointments make an old witch fly,\n   And bear a crippled carcase through the sky.\n   'Tis this exalted power, whose business lies\n   In nonsense and impossibilities.\n   This made a whimsical philosopher\n   Before the spacious world his tub prefer;\n   And we have modern cloistered coxcombs, who\n   Retire to think, 'cause they have naught to do.\n   But thoughts are given for action's government,\n   Where action ceases, thought's impertinent.\"\n\nWhether these ideas are true or false, it is certain they are expressed\nwith an energy and fire which form the poet.  I shall be very far from\nattempting to examine philosophically into these verses, to lay down the\npencil, and take up the rule and compass on this occasion; my only design\nin this letter being to display the genius of the English poets, and\ntherefore I shall continue in the same view.\n\nThe celebrated Mr. Waller has been very much talked of in France, and Mr.\nDe la Fontaine, St. Evremont, and Bayle have written his eulogium, but\nstill his name only is known.  He had much the same reputation in London\nas Voiture had in Paris, and in my opinion deserved it better.  Voiture\nwas born in an age that was just emerging from barbarity; an age that was\nstill rude and ignorant, the people of which aimed at wit, though they\nhad not the least pretensions to it, and sought for points and conceits\ninstead of sentiments.  Bristol stones are more easily found than\ndiamonds.  Voiture, born with an easy and frivolous, genius, was the\nfirst who shone in this aurora of French literature.  Had he come into\nthe world after those great geniuses who spread such a glory over the age\nof Louis XIV., he would either have been unknown, would have been\ndespised, or would have corrected his style.  Boileau applauded him, but\nit was in his first satires, at a time when the taste of that great poet\nwas not yet formed.  He was young, and in an age when persons form a\njudgment of men from their reputation, and not from their writings.\nBesides, Boileau was very partial both in his encomiums and his censures.\nHe applauded Segrais, whose works nobody reads; he abused Quinault, whose\npoetical pieces every one has got by heart; and is wholly silent upon La\nFontaine.  Waller, though a better poet than Voiture, was not yet a\nfinished poet.  The graces breathe in such of Waller's works as are writ\nin a tender strain; but then they are languid through negligence, and\noften disfigured with false thoughts.  The English had not in his time\nattained the art of correct writing.  But his serious compositions\nexhibit a strength and vigour which could not have been expected from the\nsoftness and effeminacy of his other pieces.  He wrote an elegy on Oliver\nCromwell, which, with all its faults, is nevertheless looked upon as a\nmasterpiece.  To understand this copy of verses you are to know that the\nday Oliver died was remarkable for a great storm.  His poem begins in\nthis manner:--\n\n   \"Il n'est plus, s'en est fait, soumettons nous au sort,\n   Le ciel a signale ce jour par des tempetes,\n   Et la voix des tonnerres eclatant sur nos tetes\n   Vient d'annoncer sa mort.\n\n   \"Par ses derniers soupirs il ebranle cet ile;\n   Cet ile que son bras fit trembler tant de fois,\n   Quand dans le cours de ses exploits,\n   Il brisoit la tete des Rois,\n   Et soumettoit un peuple a son joug seul docile.\n\n   \"Mer tu t'en es trouble; O mer tes flots emus\n   Semblent dire en grondant aux plus lointains rivages\n   Que l'effroi de la terre et ton maitre n'est plus.\n\n   \"Tel au ciel autrefois s'envola Romulus,\n   Tel il quitta la Terre, au milieu des orages,\n   Tel d'un peuple guerrier il recut les homages;\n   Obei dans sa vie, sa mort adore,\n   Son palais fut un Temple,\" &c.\n\n* * * * *\n\n   \"We must resign! heaven his great soul does claim\n   In storms as loud as his immortal fame;\n   His dying groans, his last breath shakes our isle,\n   And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile:\n   About his palace their broad roots are tost\n   Into the air; so Romulus was lost!\n   New Rome in such a tempest missed her king,\n   And from obeying fell to worshipping.\n   On OEta's top thus Hercules lay dead,\n   With ruined oaks and pines about him spread.\n   Nature herself took notice of his death,\n   And, sighing, swelled the sea with such a breath,\n   That to remotest shores the billows rolled,\n   Th' approaching fate of his great ruler told.\"\n\n   WALLER.\n\nIt was this elogium that gave occasion to the reply (taken notice of in\nBayle's Dictionary), which Waller made to King Charles II.  This king, to\nwhom Waller had a little before (as is usual with bards and monarchs)\npresented a copy of verses embroidered with praises, reproached the poet\nfor not writing with so much energy and fire as when he had applauded the\nUsurper (meaning Oliver).  \"Sir,\" replied Waller to the king, \"we poets\nsucceed better in fiction than in truth.\"  This answer was not so sincere\nas that which a Dutch ambassador made, who, when the same monarch\ncomplained that his masters paid less regard to him than they had done to\nCromwell.  \"Ah, sir!\" says the Ambassador, \"Oliver was quite another\nman--\"  It is not my intent to give a commentary on Waller's character,\nnor on that of any other person; for I consider men after their death in\nno other light than as they were writers, and wholly disregard everything\nelse.  I shall only observe that Waller, though born in a court, and to\nan estate of five or six thousand pounds sterling a year, was never so\nproud or so indolent as to lay aside the happy talent which Nature had\nindulged him.  The Earls of Dorset and Roscommon, the two Dukes of\nBuckingham, the Lord Halifax, and so many other noblemen, did not think\nthe reputation they obtained of very great poets and illustrious writers,\nany way derogatory to their quality.  They are more glorious for their\nworks than for their titles.  These cultivated the polite arts with as\nmuch assiduity as though they had been their whole dependence.\n\nThey also have made learning appear venerable in the eyes of the vulgar,\nwho have need to be led in all things by the great; and who,\nnevertheless, fashion their manners less after those of the nobility (in\nEngland I mean) than in any other country in the world.\n\n\n\nLETTER XXII.--ON MR. POPE AND SOME OTHER FAMOUS POETS\n\n\nI intended to treat of Mr. Prior, one of the most amiable English poets,\nwhom you saw Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary at Paris in 1712.  I\nalso designed to have given you some idea of the Lord Roscommon's and the\nLord Dorset's muse; but I find that to do this I should be obliged to\nwrite a large volume, and that, after much pains and trouble, you would\nhave but an imperfect idea of all those works.  Poetry is a kind of music\nin which a man should have some knowledge before he pretends to judge of\nit.  When I give you a translation of some passages from those foreign\npoets, I only prick down, and that imperfectly, their music; but then I\ncannot express the taste of their harmony.\n\nThere is one English poem especially which I should despair of ever\nmaking you understand, the title whereof is \"Hudibras.\"  The subject of\nit is the Civil War in the time of the grand rebellion, and the\nprinciples and practice of the Puritans are therein ridiculed.  It is Don\nQuixote, it is our \"Satire Menippee\" blended together.  I never found so\nmuch wit in one single book as in that, which at the same time is the\nmost difficult to be translated.  Who would believe that a work which\npaints in such lively and natural colours the several foibles and follies\nof mankind, and where we meet with more sentiments than words, should\nbaffle the endeavours of the ablest translator?  But the reason of this\nis, almost every part of it alludes to particular incidents.  The clergy\nare there made the principal object of ridicule, which is understood but\nby few among the laity.  To explain this a commentary would be requisite,\nand humour when explained is no longer humour.  Whoever sets up for a\ncommentator of smart sayings and repartees is himself a blockhead.  This\nis the reason why the works of the ingenious Dean Swift, who has been\ncalled the English Rabelais, will never be well understood in France.\nThis gentleman has the honour (in common with Rabelais) of being a\npriest, and, like him, laughs at everything; but, in my humble opinion,\nthe title of the English Rabelais which is given the dean is highly\nderogatory to his genius.  The former has interspersed his unaccountably-\nfantastic and unintelligible book with the most gay strokes of humour;\nbut which, at the same time, has a greater proportion of impertinence.  He\nhas been vastly lavish of erudition, of smut, and insipid raillery.  An\nagreeable tale of two pages is purchased at the expense of whole volumes\nof nonsense.  There are but few persons, and those of a grotesque taste,\nwho pretend to understand and to esteem this work; for, as to the rest of\nthe nation, they laugh at the pleasant and diverting touches which are\nfound in Rabelais and despise his book.  He is looked upon as the prince\nof buffoons.  The readers are vexed to think that a man who was master of\nso much wit should have made so wretched a use of it; he is an\nintoxicated philosopher who never wrote but when he was in liquor.\n\nDean Swift is Rabelais in his senses, and frequenting the politest\ncompany.  The former, indeed, is not so gay as the latter, but then he\npossesses all the delicacy, the justness, the choice, the good taste, in\nall which particulars our giggling rural Vicar Rabelais is wanting.  The\npoetical numbers of Dean Swift are of a singular and almost inimitable\ntaste; true humour, whether in prose or verse, seems to be his peculiar\ntalent; but whoever is desirous of understanding him perfectly must visit\nthe island in which he was born.\n\nIt will be much easier for you to form an idea of Mr. Pope's works.  He\nis, in my opinion, the most elegant, the most correct poet; and, at the\nsame time, the most harmonious (a circumstance which redounds very much\nto the honour of this muse) that England ever gave birth to.  He has\nmellowed the harsh sounds of the English trumpet to the soft accents of\nthe flute.  His compositions may be easily translated, because they are\nvastly clear and perspicuous; besides, most of his subjects are general,\nand relative to all nations.\n\nHis \"Essay on Criticism\" will soon be known in France by the translation\nwhich l'Abbe de Resnel has made of it.\n\nHere is an extract from his poem entitled the \"Rape of the Lock,\" which I\njust now translated with the latitude I usually take on these occasions;\nfor, once again, nothing can be more ridiculous than to translate a poet\nliterally:--\n\n   \"Umbriel, a l'instant, vieil gnome rechigne,\n   Va d'une aile pesante et d'un air renfrogne\n   Chercher en murmurant la caverne profonde,\n   Ou loin des doux raions que repand l'oeil du monde\n   La Deesse aux Vapeurs a choisi son sejour,\n   Les Tristes Aquilons y sifflent a l'entour,\n   Et le souffle mal sain de leur aride haleine\n   Y porte aux environs la fievre et la migraine.\n   Sur un riche sofa derriere un paravent\n   Loin des flambeaux, du bruit, des parleurs et du vent,\n   La quinteuse deesse incessamment repose,\n   Le coeur gros de chagrin, sans en savoir la cause.\n   N'aiant pense jamais, l'esprit toujours trouble,\n   L'oeil charge, le teint pale, et l'hypocondre enfle.\n   La medisante Envie, est assise aupres d'elle,\n   Vieil spectre feminin, decrepite pucelle,\n   Avec un air devot dechirant son prochain,\n   Et chansonnant les Gens l'Evangile a la main.\n   Sur un lit plein de fleurs negligemment panchee\n   Une jeune beaute non loin d'elle est couchee,\n   C'est l'Affectation qui grassaie en parlant,\n   Ecoute sans entendre, et lorgne en regardant.\n   Qui rougit sans pudeur, et rit de tout sans joie,\n   De cent maux differens pretend qu'elle est la proie;\n   Et pleine de sante sous le rouge et le fard,\n   Se plaint avec molesse, et se pame avec art.\"\n\n   \"Umbriel, a dusky, melancholy sprite\n   As ever sullied the fair face of light,\n   Down to the central earth, his proper scene,\n   Repairs to search the gloomy cave of Spleen.\n   Swift on his sooty pinions flits the gnome,\n   And in a vapour reached the dismal dome.\n   No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows,\n   The dreaded east is all the wind that blows.\n   Here, in a grotto, sheltered close from air,\n   And screened in shades from day's detested glare,\n   She sighs for ever on her pensive bed,\n   Pain at her side, and Megrim at her head,\n   Two handmaids wait the throne.  Alike in place,\n   But differing far in figure and in face,\n   Here stood Ill-nature, like an ancient maid,\n   Her wrinkled form in black and white arrayed;\n   With store of prayers for mornings, nights, and noons,\n   Her hand is filled; her bosom with lampoons.\n   There Affectation, with a sickly mien,\n   Shows in her cheek the roses of eighteen,\n   Practised to lisp, and hang the head aside,\n   Faints into airs, and languishes with pride;\n   On the rich quilt sinks with becoming woe,\n   Wrapt in a gown, for sickness and for show.\"\n\nThis extract, in the original (not in the faint translation I have given\nyou of it), may be compared to the description of _la Molesse_ (softness\nor effeminacy), in Boileau's \"Lutrin.\"\n\nMethinks I now have given you specimens enough from the English poets.  I\nhave made some transient mention of their philosophers, but as for good\nhistorians among them, I don't know of any; and, indeed, a Frenchman was\nforced to write their history.  Possibly the English genius, which is\neither languid or impetuous, has not yet acquired that unaffected\neloquence, that plain but majestic air which history requires.  Possibly\ntoo, the spirit of party which exhibits objects in a dim and confused\nlight may have sunk the credit of their historians.  One half of the\nnation is always at variance with the other half.  I have met with people\nwho assured me that the Duke of Marlborough was a coward, and that Mr.\nPope was a fool; just as some Jesuits in France declare Pascal to have\nbeen a man of little or no genius, and some Jansenists affirm Father\nBourdaloue to have been a mere babbler.  The Jacobites consider Mary\nQueen of Scots as a pious heroine, but those of an opposite party look\nupon her as a prostitute, an adulteress, a murderer.  Thus the English\nhave memorials of the several reigns, but no such thing as a history.\nThere is, indeed, now living, one Mr. Gordon (the public are obliged to\nhim for a translation of Tacitus), who is very capable of writing the\nhistory of his own country, but Rapin de Thoyras got the start of him.  To\nconclude, in my opinion the English have not such good historians as the\nFrench have no such thing as a real tragedy, have several delightful\ncomedies, some wonderful passages in certain of their poems, and boast of\nphilosophers that are worthy of instructing mankind.  The English have\nreaped very great benefit from the writers of our nation, and therefore\nwe ought (since they have not scrupled to be in our debt) to borrow from\nthem.  Both the English and we came after the Italians, who have been our\ninstructors in all the arts, and whom we have surpassed in some.  I\ncannot determine which of the three nations ought to be honoured with the\npalm; but happy the writer who could display their various merits.\n\n\n\nLETTER XXIII.--ON THE REGARD THAT OUGHT TO BE SHOWN TO MEN OF LETTERS\n\n\nNeither the English nor any other people have foundations established in\nfavour of the polite arts like those in France.  There are Universities\nin most countries, but it is in France only that we meet with so\nbeneficial an encouragement for astronomy and all parts of the\nmathematics, for physic, for researches into antiquity, for painting,\nsculpture, and architecture.  Louis XIV. has immortalised his name by\nthese several foundations, and this immortality did not cost him two\nhundred thousand livres a year.\n\nI must confess that one of the things I very much wonder at is, that as\nthe Parliament of Great Britain have promised a reward of 20,000 pounds\nsterling to any person who may discover the longitude, they should never\nhave once thought to imitate Louis XIV. in his munificence with regard to\nthe arts and sciences.\n\nMerit, indeed, meets in England with rewards of another kind, which\nredound more to the honour of the nation.  The English have so great a\nveneration for exalted talents, that a man of merit in their country is\nalways sure of making his fortune.  Mr. Addison in France would have been\nelected a member of one of the academies, and, by the credit of some\nwomen, might have obtained a yearly pension of twelve hundred livres, or\nelse might have been imprisoned in the Bastile, upon pretence that\ncertain strokes in his tragedy of _Cato_ had been discovered which\nglanced at the porter of some man in power.  Mr. Addison was raised to\nthe post of Secretary of State in England.  Sir Isaac Newton was made\nMaster of the Royal Mint.  Mr. Congreve had a considerable employment.\nMr. Prior was Plenipotentiary.  Dr. Swift is Dean of St. Patrick in\nDublin, and is more revered in Ireland than the Primate himself.  The\nreligion which Mr. Pope professes excludes him, indeed, from preferments\nof every kind, but then it did not prevent his gaining two hundred\nthousand livres by his excellent translation of Homer.  I myself saw a\nlong time in France the author of _Rhadamistus_ ready to perish for\nhunger.  And the son of one of the greatest men our country ever gave\nbirth to, and who was beginning to run the noble career which his father\nhad set him, would have been reduced to the extremes of misery had he not\nbeen patronised by Monsieur Fagon.\n\nBut the circumstance which mostly encourages the arts in England is the\ngreat veneration which is paid them.  The picture of the Prime Minister\nhangs over the chimney of his own closet, but I have seen that of Mr.\nPope in twenty noblemen's houses.  Sir Isaac Newton was revered in his\nlifetime, and had a due respect paid to him after his death; the greatest\nmen in the nation disputing who should have the honour of holding up his\npall.  Go into Westminster Abbey, and you will find that what raises the\nadmiration of the spectator is not the mausoleums of the English kings,\nbut the monuments which the gratitude of the nation has erected to\nperpetuate the memory of those illustrious men who contributed to its\nglory.  We view their statues in that abbey in the same manner as those\nof Sophocles, Plato, and other immortal personages were viewed in Athens;\nand I am persuaded that the bare sight of those glorious monuments has\nfired more than one breast, and been the occasion of their becoming great\nmen.\n\nThe English have even been reproached with paying too extravagant honours\nto mere merit, and censured for interring the celebrated actress Mrs.\nOldfield in Westminster Abbey, with almost the same pomp as Sir Isaac\nNewton.  Some pretend that the English had paid her these great funeral\nhonours, purposely to make us more strongly sensible of the barbarity and\ninjustice which they object to us, for having buried Mademoiselle Le\nCouvreur ignominiously in the fields.\n\nBut be assured from me, that the English were prompted by no other\nprinciple in burying Mrs. Oldfield in Westminster Abbey than their good\nsense.  They are far from being so ridiculous as to brand with infamy an\nart which has immortalised a Euripides and a Sophocles; or to exclude\nfrom the body of their citizens a set of people whose business is to set\noff with the utmost grace of speech and action those pieces which the\nnation is proud of.\n\nUnder the reign of Charles I. and in the beginning of the civil wars\nraised by a number of rigid fanatics, who at last were the victims to it;\na great many pieces were published against theatrical and other shows,\nwhich were attacked with the greater virulence because that monarch and\nhis queen, daughter to Henry I. of France, were passionately fond of\nthem.\n\nOne Mr. Prynne, a man of most furiously scrupulous principles, who would\nhave thought himself damned had he worn a cassock instead of a short\ncloak, and have been glad to see one-half of mankind cut the other to\npieces for the glory of God, and the _Propaganda Fide_; took it into his\nhead to write a most wretched satire against some pretty good comedies,\nwhich were exhibited very innocently every night before their majesties.\nHe quoted the authority of the Rabbis, and some passages from St.\nBonaventure, to prove that the OEdipus of Sophocles was the work of the\nevil spirit; that Terence was excommunicated _ipso facto_; and added,\nthat doubtless Brutus, who was a very severe Jansenist, assassinated\nJulius Caesar for no other reason but because he, who was Pontifex\nMaximus, presumed to write a tragedy the subject of which was OEdipus.\nLastly, he declared that all who frequented the theatre were\nexcommunicated, as they thereby renounced their baptism.  This was\ncasting the highest insult on the king and all the royal family; and as\nthe English loved their prince at that time, they could not bear to hear\na writer talk of excommunicating him, though they themselves afterwards\ncut his head off.  Prynne was summoned to appear before the Star Chamber;\nhis wonderful book, from which Father Le Brun stole his, was sentenced to\nbe burnt by the common hangman, and himself to lose his ears.  His trial\nis now extant.\n\nThe Italians are far from attempting to cast a blemish on the opera, or\nto excommunicate Signor Senesino or Signora Cuzzoni.  With regard to\nmyself, I could presume to wish that the magistrates would suppress I\nknow not what contemptible pieces written against the stage.  For when\nthe English and Italians hear that we brand with the greatest mark of\ninfamy an art in which we excel; that we excommunicate persons who\nreceive salaries from the king; that we condemn as impious a spectacle\nexhibited in convents and monasteries; that we dishonour sports in which\nLouis XIV. and Louis XV., performed as actors; that we give the title of\nthe devil's works to pieces which are received by magistrates of the most\nsevere character, and represented before a virtuous queen; when, I say,\nforeigners are told of this insolent conduct, this contempt for the royal\nauthority, and this Gothic rusticity which some presume to call Christian\nseverity, what an idea must they entertain of our nation?  And how will\nit be possible for them to conceive, either that our laws give a sanction\nto an art which is declared infamous, or that some persons dare to stamp\nwith infamy an art which receives a sanction from the laws, is rewarded\nby kings, cultivated and encouraged by the greatest men, and admired by\nwhole nations?  And that Father Le Brun's impertinent libel against the\nstage is seen in a bookseller's shop, standing the very next to the\nimmortal labours of Racine, of Corneille, of Moliere, &c.\n\n\n\nLETTER XXIV.--ON THE ROYAL SOCIETY AND OTHER ACADEMIES\n\n\nThe English had an Academy of Sciences many years before us, but then it\nis not under such prudent regulations as ours, the only reason of which\nvery possibly is, because it was founded before the Academy of Paris; for\nhad it been founded after, it would very probably have adopted some of\nthe sage laws of the former and improved upon others.\n\nTwo things, and those the most essential to man, are wanting in the Royal\nSociety of London, I mean rewards and laws.  A seat in the Academy at\nParis is a small but secure fortune to a geometrician or a chemist; but\nthis is so far from being the case at London, that the several members of\nthe Royal Society are at a continual, though indeed small expense.  Any\nman in England who declares himself a lover of the mathematics and\nnatural philosophy, and expresses an inclination to be a member of the\nRoyal Society, is immediately elected into it.  But in France it is not\nenough that a man who aspires to the honour of being a member of the\nAcademy, and of receiving the royal stipend, has a love for the sciences;\nhe must at the same time be deeply skilled in them; and is obliged to\ndispute the seat with competitors who are so much the more formidable as\nthey are fired by a principle of glory, by interest, by the difficulty\nitself; and by that inflexibility of mind which is generally found in\nthose who devote themselves to that pertinacious study, the mathematics.\n\nThe Academy of Sciences is prudently confined to the study of Nature,\nand, indeed, this is a field spacious enough for fifty or threescore\npersons to range in.  That of London mixes indiscriminately literature\nwith physics; but methinks the founding an academy merely for the polite\narts is more judicious, as it prevents confusion, and the joining, in\nsome measure, of heterogeneals, such as a dissertation on the\nhead-dresses of the Roman ladies with a hundred or more new curves.\n\nAs there is very little order and regularity in the Royal Society, and\nnot the least encouragement; and that the Academy of Paris is on a quite\ndifferent foot, it is no wonder that our transactions are drawn up in a\nmore just and beautiful manner than those of the English.  Soldiers who\nare under a regular discipline, and besides well paid, must necessarily\nat last perform more glorious achievements than others who are mere\nvolunteers.  It must indeed be confessed that the Royal Society boast\ntheir Newton, but then he did not owe his knowledge and discoveries to\nthat body; so far from it, that the latter were intelligible to very few\nof his fellow members.  A genius like that of Sir Isaac belonged to all\nthe academies in the world, because all had a thousand things to learn of\nhim.\n\nThe celebrated Dean Swift formed a design, in the latter end of the late\nQueen's reign, to found an academy for the English tongue upon the model\nof that of the French.  This project was promoted by the late Earl of\nOxford, Lord High Treasurer, and much more by the Lord Bolingbroke,\nSecretary of State, who had the happy talent of speaking without\npremeditation in the Parliament House with as much purity as Dean Swift\nwrote in his closet, and who would have been the ornament and protector\nof that academy.  Those only would have been chosen members of it whose\nworks will last as long as the English tongue, such as Dean Swift, Mr.\nPrior, whom we saw here invested with a public character, and whose fame\nin England is equal to that of La Fontaine in France; Mr. Pope, the\nEnglish Boileau, Mr. Congreve, who may be called their Moliere, and\nseveral other eminent persons whose names I have forgot; all these would\nhave raised the glory of that body to a great height even in its infancy.\nBut Queen Anne being snatched suddenly from the world, the Whigs were\nresolved to ruin the protectors of the intended academy, a circumstance\nthat was of the most fatal consequence to polite literature.  The members\nof this academy would have had a very great advantage over those who\nfirst formed that of the French, for Swift, Prior, Congreve, Dryden,\nPope, Addison, &c. had fixed the English tongue by their writings;\nwhereas Chapelain, Colletet, Cassaigne, Faret, Perrin, Cotin, our first\nacademicians, were a disgrace to their country; and so much ridicule is\nnow attached to their very names, that if an author of some genius in\nthis age had the misfortune to be called Chapelain or Cotin, he would be\nunder a necessity of changing his name.\n\nOne circumstance, to which the English Academy should especially have\nattended, is to have prescribed to themselves occupations of a quite\ndifferent kind from those with which our academicians amuse themselves.  A\nwit of this country asked me for the memoirs of the French Academy.  I\nanswered, they have no memoirs, but have printed threescore or fourscore\nvolumes in quarto of compliments.  The gentleman perused one or two of\nthem, but without being able to understand the style in which they were\nwritten, though he understood all our good authors perfectly.  \"All,\"\nsays he, \"I see in these elegant discourses is, that the member elect\nhaving assured the audience that his predecessor was a great man, that\nCardinal Richelieu was a very great man, that the Chancellor Seguier was\na pretty great man, that Louis XIV. was a more than great man, the\ndirector answers in the very same strain, and adds, that the member elect\nmay also be a sort of great man, and that himself, in quality of\ndirector, must also have some share in this greatness.\"\n\nThe cause why all these academical discourses have unhappily done so\nlittle honour to this body is evident enough.  _Vitium est temporis\npotius quam hominis_ (the fault is owing to the age rather than to\nparticular persons).  It grew up insensibly into a custom for every\nacademician to repeat these elogiums at his reception; it was laid down\nas a kind of law that the public should be indulged from time to time the\nsullen satisfaction of yawning over these productions.  If the reason\nshould afterwards be sought, why the greatest geniuses who have been\nincorporated into that body have sometimes made the worst speeches, I\nanswer, that it is wholly owing to a strong propension, the gentlemen in\nquestion had to shine, and to display a thread-bare, worn-out subject in\na new and uncommon light.  The necessity of saying something, the\nperplexity of having nothing to say, and a desire of being witty, are\nthree circumstances which alone are capable of making even the greatest\nwriter ridiculous.  These gentlemen, not being able to strike out any new\nthoughts, hunted after a new play of words, and delivered themselves\nwithout thinking at all: in like manner as people who should seem to chew\nwith great eagerness, and make as though they were eating, at the same\ntime that they were just starved.\n\nIt is a law in the French Academy, to publish all those discourses by\nwhich only they are known, but they should rather make a law never to\nprint any of them.\n\nBut the Academy of the _Belles Lettres_ have a more prudent and more\nuseful object, which is, to present the public with a collection of\ntransactions that abound with curious researches and critiques.  These\ntransactions are already esteemed by foreigners; and it were only to be\nwished that some subjects in them had been more thoroughly examined, and\nthat others had not been treated at all.  As, for instance, we should\nhave been very well satisfied, had they omitted I know not what\ndissertation on the prerogative of the right hand over the left; and some\nothers, which, though not published under so ridiculous a title, are yet\nwritten on subjects that are almost as frivolous and silly.\n\nThe Academy of Sciences, in such of their researches as are of a more\ndifficult kind and a more sensible use, embrace the knowledge of nature\nand the improvements of the arts.  We may presume that such profound,\nsuch uninterrupted pursuits as these, such exact calculations, such\nrefined discoveries, such extensive and exalted views, will, at last,\nproduce something that may prove of advantage to the universe.  Hitherto,\nas we have observed together, the most useful discoveries have been made\nin the most barbarous times.  One would conclude that the business of the\nmost enlightened ages and the most learned bodies, is, to argue and\ndebate on things which were invented by ignorant people.  We know exactly\nthe angle which the sail of a ship is to make with the keel in order to\nits sailing better; and yet Columbus discovered America without having\nthe least idea of the property of this angle: however, I am far from\ninferring from hence that we are to confine ourselves merely to a blind\npractice, but happy it were, would naturalists and geometricians unite,\nas much as possible, the practice with the theory.\n\nStrange, but so it is, that those things which reflect the greatest\nhonour on the human mind are frequently of the least benefit to it!  A\nman who understands the four fundamental rules of arithmetic, aided by a\nlittle good sense, shall amass prodigious wealth in trade, shall become a\nSir Peter Delme, a Sir Richard Hopkins, a Sir Gilbert Heathcote, whilst a\npoor algebraist spends his whole life in searching for astonishing\nproperties and relations in numbers, which at the same time are of no\nmanner of use, and will not acquaint him with the nature of exchanges.\nThis is very nearly the case with most of the arts: there is a certain\npoint beyond which all researches serve to no other purpose than merely\nto delight an inquisitive mind.  Those ingenious and useless truths may\nbe compared to stars which, by being placed at too great a distance,\ncannot afford us the least light.\n\nWith regard to the French Academy, how great a service would they do to\nliterature, to the language, and the nation, if, instead of publishing a\nset of compliments annually, they would give us new editions of the\nvaluable works written in the age of Louis XIV., purged from the several\nerrors of diction which are crept into them.  There are many of these\nerrors in Corneille and Moliere, but those in La Fontaine are very\nnumerous.  Such as could not be corrected might at least be pointed out.\nBy this means, as all the Europeans read those works, they would teach\nthem our language in its utmost purity--which, by that means, would be\nfixed to a lasting standard; and valuable French books being then printed\nat the King's expense, would prove one of the most glorious monuments the\nnation could boast.  I have been told that Boileau formerly made this\nproposal, and that it has since been revived by a gentleman eminent for\nhis genius, his fine sense, and just taste for criticism; but this\nthought has met with the fate of many other useful projects, of being\napplauded and neglected.","title":"Letters on England","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":37795}